so I acquired a copy of the prison notebooks (translated by mayo pete's dad, including a nice little note in the dedication to him - how sweet!) and it's unlike anything I've ever read before. it's evident that Gramsci feared censorship because he hides the topic of discussion behind more innocuous subjects or refers obliquely to the core of the matter through seemingly irrelevant examples. like I'm reading a note about "types of periodicals" and between the lines there's a whole ass description of hegemony, how it's constructed and enforced, etc, hiding here.

to make matters worse, these are very much his notes. they're not organized for consumption and they do not fill in the gaps when he quickly references people or events to motivate a point.

so:

1. is there a good, annotated reading guide written by actual leftists? Buttigieg does not provide anything close. like it might help to group readings by topics initially and then circle back to pick up the reinforcing and hidden points in the future.
2. would anyone be interested in a reading group to go through the notebooks?

despite these hardships, the book is surprisingly readable with the caveat that you must be actively reading between the lines or so much of this seems inconsequential. like I'm going to have to go back and reread some stuff I thought was utterly useless about a certain pedophile priest because who the fuck knows what the actual point of those sections was.

oh also, the linguistic notes are hella interesting. who knew cretin comes from christian, and villain from a word that roughly means country bumpkin.