Author: Biblioklept

Jim Gauer’s Novel Explosives (Book acquired, 30 Nov. 2020)

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Oof she’s a big boy. Jim Gauer’s 2016 novel Novel Explosives showed up at Biblioklept World Headquarters on Sunday (a rare day for acquisitions). The novel has been praised by folks like Michael Silverblatt, Steven Moore, and Matt Bucher, and has been compared to the work of Pynchon, Bolaño, and Gaddis. It’s also pretty damn long. Anyway, Novel Explosives is being reprinted by indie Zerogram; their blurb:

IT’S THE WEEK AFTER EASTER, APRIL 13-20, AN OTHERWISE ORDINARY WEEK IN 2009… LATE in the week, a man wakes up in Guanajuato, Mexico, with his knowledge intact, but with no sense of who he is, or how he came to Guanajuato. EARLY in the week, a venture capital investor sits at his desk in Santa Monica, California, attempting to complete his business memoirs, but troubled by the fact that a recent deal appears to be some sort of money-laundering scheme. IN THE MIDDLE of the week, two gunmen for the Juárez Drug Cartel arrive at a small motel in El Paso, assigned to retrieve a suitcase full of currency, and eliminate the man who brought it to El Paso. THUS BEGINS the three-stranded narrative of Novel Explosives, a search for identity that travels through the worlds of venture capital finance, high-tech money-laundering methods, and the Juárez drug wars, a joyride of a novel with only one catch: the deeper into the book you go, the more dangerous it gets.

Jonah and the Whale — Arpad Illes

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Jonah and the Whale, 1967 by Arpad Illes (1908–1980)

Shipmates, this book, containing only four chapters—four yarns—is one of the smallest strands in the mighty cable of the Scriptures. Yet what depths of the soul does Jonah’s deep sealine sound! what a pregnant lesson to us is this prophet! What a noble thing is that canticle in the fish’s belly! How billow-like and boisterously grand! We feel the floods surging over us; we sound with him to the kelpy bottom of the waters; sea-weed and all the slime of the sea is about us! But what is this lesson that the book of Jonah teaches? Shipmates, it is a two-stranded lesson; a lesson to us all as sinful men, and a lesson to me as a pilot of the living God. As sinful men, it is a lesson to us all, because it is a story of the sin, hard-heartedness, suddenly awakened fears, the swift punishment, repentance, prayers, and finally the deliverance and joy of Jonah. As with all sinners among men, the sin of this son of Amittai was in his wilful disobedience of the command of God—never mind now what that command was, or how conveyed—which he found a hard command. But all the things that God would have us do are hard for us to do—remember that—and hence, he oftener commands us than endeavors to persuade. And if we obey God, we must disobey ourselves; and it is in this disobeying ourselves, wherein the hardness of obeying God consists.

From “The Sermon,” Ch. 9 of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick.

Fish Stall (Detail) — Frans Snyders

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Fish Stall (Detail), c. 1620  by Frans Snyders (1579–1657)

Now in these dread latter days of the old violent beloved U.S.A. (Walker Percy)

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Now in these dread latter days of the old violent beloved U.S.A. and of the Christ-forgetting Christ-haunted death-dealing Western world I came to myself in a grove of young pines and the question came to me: has it happened at last?

Two more hours should tell the story. One way or the other. Either I am right and a catastrophe will occur, or it won’t and I’m crazy. In either case the outlook is not so good.

Here I sit, in any case, against a young pine, broken out in hives and waiting for the end of the world. Safe here for the moment though, flanks protected by a rise of ground on the left and an approach ramp on the right. The carbine lies across my lap.

Just below the cloverleaf, in the ruined motel, the three girls are waiting for me.

Undoubtedly something is about to happen.

Or is it that something has stopped happening?

Is it that God has at last removed his blessing from the U.S.A. and what we feel now is just the clank of the old historical machinery, the sudden jerking ahead of the roller-coaster cars as the chain catches hold and carries us back into history with its ordinary catastrophes, carries us out and up toward the brink from that felicitous and privileged siding where even unbelievers admitted that if it was not God who blessed the U.S.A., then at least some great good luck had befallen us, and that now the blessing or the luck is over, the machinery clanks, the chain catches hold, and the cars jerk forward?

 

These are the opening paragraphs of Walker Percy’s 1971 dystopian speculative fiction novel Love in the Ruins. 

December — Alex Colville

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December, 1979 by Alex Colville (1920-2013)

Angela Carter’s Heroes & Villains (Book acquired 30 Nov. 2020)

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I went to the bookstore today to take one last shot at finding a copy of Walker Percy’s 1971 novel Love in the Ruins (preferably a first-edition hardback…why not signed, while I’m dreaming? In pristine condition? Or an interesting beat up mass market paperback? I would’ve settled for an ugly tasteful prestige trade paperback at this point). No luck, but I just checked out a digital copy from my library.

I came across this lovely 1972 Pocket Books mass market paperback copy of Angela Carter’s 1969 novel Heroes and Villains. I’m pretty sure the hornyassed so-seventies cover is by Gene Szafran, but no illustrator is credited. The back cover illustration is some psychedelic horniness too:

I know I’ve ranted on here about the trend towards tasteful book covers over the past few decades. I appreciate simple, handsome covers, to be clear—hey, look at this copy of Mark Spilka’s 1963 study Dickens and Kafka—

—I mean appreciate simple, handsome covers, to be clear—but there’s a sameness in contemporary design that is a bit wearying—I see so many new books that look like every other new book. I suppose though that the same could be said about the two examples above, each specimens of their time. Perhaps a few decades from now I’ll reflect fondly on the bold, oh-so Instagrammable cover for the first edition of Marlon James’s novel Black Leopard, Red Wolf. (jacket design by Helen Yentus; jack illustration by Pablo Gerardo Camacho):

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Moby-Dick (The Dead Don’t Die)

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From The Dead Don’t Die, 2019. Dir. Jim Jarmusch; cinematography by Frederick Elmes.

Distribution of days by name in Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick

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SUNDAY

There are seven Sundays in Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick (Ch. 3 (four instances), Ch. 7, Ch. 85, and Ch. 112).

MONDAY

There are two Mondays in Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick (Ch. 2 and Ch. 13).

TUESDAY

There are no Tuesdays in Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick.

WEDNESDAY

There are no Wednesdays in Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick.

THURSDAY

There are no Thursdays in Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick.

FRIDAY

There are no Fridays in Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick.

SATURDAY

There are five Saturdays in Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick (Ch. 2, Ch. 3 (two), Ch. 65, and Ch. 67).

 

And Then We Saw the Daughter of the Minotaur — Leonora Carrington

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And Then We Saw the Daughter of the Minotaur, 1953 by Leonora Carrington (1917–2011)

AnnumMMXX Phase III — John Jacobsmeyer 

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AnnumMMXX Phase III, 2020 by John Jacobsmeyer (b. 1964)

 

The First Thanksgiving — Warrington Colescott

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w1siziisijixndkzmijdlfsiccisimnvbnzlcnqilcitcmvzaxplidiwmdb4mjawmfx1mdazzsjdxq The First Thanksgiving, 1973 by Warrington Colescott (1921 – 2018) Screenshot 2018-11-19 at 3.38.36 PMScreenshot 2018-11-19 at 3.38.55 PMScreenshot 2018-11-19 at 3.39.56 PMScreenshot 2018-11-19 at 3.38.08 PM
A grave and dark-clad company!” quoth Goodman Brown. In truth, they were such. Among them, quivering to-and-fro, between gloom and splendor, appeared faces that would be seen, next day, at the council-board of the province, and others which, Sabbath after Sabbath, looked devoutly heavenward, and benignantly over the crowded pews, from the holiest pulpits in the land. Some affirm, that the lady of the governor was there. At least, there were high dames well known to her, and wives of honored husbands, and widows, a great multitude, and ancient maidens, all of excellent repute, and fair young girls, who trembled lest their mothers should espy them. Either the sudden gleams of light, flashing over the obscure field, bedazzled Goodman Brown, or he recognized a score of the church-members of Salem village, famous for their especial sanctity. Good old Deacon Gookin had arrived, and waited at the skirts of that venerable saint, his reverend pastor. But, irreverently consorting with these grave, reputable, and pious people, these elders of the church, these chaste dames and dewy virgins, there were men of dissolute lives and women of spotted fame, wretches given over to all mean and filthy vice, and suspected even of horrid crimes. It was strange to see, that the good shrank not from the wicked, nor were the sinners abashed by the saints. Scattered, also, among their pale-faced enemies, were the Indian priests, or powows, who had often scared their native forest with more hideous incantations than any known to English witchcraft.
–From “Young Goodman Brown,” Nathaniel Hawthorne (1835)

Then there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal | Moby-Dick

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Yes, we became very wakeful; so much so that our recumbent position began to grow wearisome, and by little and little we found ourselves sitting up; the clothes well tucked around us, leaning against the head-board with our four knees drawn up close together, and our two noses bending over them, as if our kneepans were warming-pans. We felt very nice and snug, the more so since it was so chilly out of doors; indeed out of bed-clothes too, seeing that there was no fire in the room. The more so, I say, because truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. But if, like Queequeg and me in the bed, the tip of your nose or the crown of your head be slightly chilled, why then, indeed, in the general consciousness you feel most delightfully and unmistakably warm. For this reason a sleeping apartment should never be furnished with a fire, which is one of the luxurious discomforts of the rich. For the height of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blanket between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air. Then there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal.

From Chapter 11 of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick.

“Thanksgiving,” an excerpt from Dmitry Samarov’s cab memoir Hack

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I’m on way to a traditional Thanksgiving meal of pot-stickers and spicy pan-fried pork at Lao Sze Chuan when flags me down. A young guy in a tracksuit and expensive basketball shoes. He says his car broke down, which typically a scam. But it’s Thanksgiving, so I give him the benefit of the doubt and he directs to an address on the South Side.

He tells me about going to an event with Chicago Bulls players, proudly showing the autographs he collected. He is excited like a kid would be, which makes me think the broken-down car might actually exist. He asks if I’d had my Thanksgiving meal.

When we pull up to his house, he tells me his mother will have the $25 for the cab. He has me honk a few times then goes into the yard and hollers up the second-floor window. Eventually a dark form appears and a negotiation begins. I can only make out what my passenger is saying. He pleads and promises to pay it all back. It goes on for close to fifteen minutes. Then the figure in the window tosses a crumpled bill out past the overgrown shrubbery of the yard. He comes up to the driver’s side, sheepishly offering a twenty-dollar bill. “It’s all sh has.”

He says his name is Dwayne and shakes my hand when I accept it.

From Dmitry Samarov’s illustrated cab memoir All Hack.

“Thanksgiving” — Kenneth Koch

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“Thanksgiving”

by

Kenneth Koch

What’s sweeter than at the end of a summer’s day
To suddenly drift away
From the green match-wrappers in an opened pocketbook
And be part of the boards in a tavern?

A tavern made of new wood.
There’s an orange-red sun in the sky
And a redskin is hunting for you underneath ladders of timber.
I will buy this tavern. Will you buy this tavern? I do.

In the Indian camp there’s an awful dismay.
Do they know us as we know they
Know us or will know us, I mean a—
I mean a hostile force, the month of May.

How whitely the springtime is blossoming,
Ugh! all around us!
It is the brilliant Indian time of year
When the sweetest Indians mate with the sweetest others.

But I fear the white men, I fear
The rent apple blossom and discarded feathers
And the scalp lying secretly on the ground
Like an unoffending nose!

But we’ve destroyed all that. With shocking guns.
Peter Stuyvesant, Johnny Appleseed, Aaron Copeland.
We’ve destroyed all that. Come,
Do you believe right was on either side?

How would you like to be living in an Indian America,
With feathers dressing every head? We’d eat buffalo hump
For Thanksgiving dinner. Everyone is in a tribe.
A girl from the Bep Tribe can’t marry a brave from the Bap tribe. Is that democracy?
And then those dreary evenings around the campfires
Listening to the Chief! If there were a New York
It would be a city of tents, and what do you suppose
Our art and poetry would be like? For the community! the tribe!
No beautiful modern abstract pictures, no mad incomprehensible
Free lovable poems! And our moral sense! tribal.
If you would like to be living in an Indian America
Why not subscribe to the newspaper, Indian America?

In Wisconsin, Ben, I stand, I walk up and down and try to decide.

Is this country getting any better or has it gotten?
If the Indian New York is bad, what about our white New York?
Dirty, unwholesome, the filthy appendage to a vast ammunition works, I hate it!
Disgusting rectangular garbage dump sending its fumes up to suffocate the sky—
Foo, what fumes! and the scaly white complexion of her citizens.
There’s hell in every firm handshake, and stifled rage in every look.
If you do find somewhere to lie down, it’s a dirty inspected corner,
And there are newspapers and forums and the stinking breath of Broadway
To investigate what it feels like to be a source of stench
And nothing else. And if one does go away,
It is always here, waiting, for one to come back. And one does come back,
As one does come back to the bathroom, and to a fine suffering.

Where else would I find such ardent and grateful spirits
Inspired and wasted and using and used by this horrible city,
New York, New York? Can the Pilgrims’ Thanksgiving dinner really compare to it?
And the Puritans? And the single-minded ankle-divided Indians?
No, nothing can compare to it! So it’s here we speak from the heart
And it’s rotting so fast that what we say
Fades like the last of a summer’s day.
Rot which makes us as prolific as the sun on white unfastened clouds.

“First Thanksgiving” — Sharon Olds

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“First Thanksgiving”

by

Sharon Olds

When she comes back, from college, I will see
the skin of her upper arms, cool,
matte, glossy. She will hug me, my old
soupy chest against her breasts,
I will smell her hair! She will sleep in this apartment,
her sleep like an untamed, good object,
like a soul in a body. She came into my life the
second great arrival, after him, fresh
from the other world—which lay, from within him,
within me. Those nights, I fed her to sleep,
week after week, the moon rising,
and setting, and waxing—whirling, over the months,
in a slow blur, around our planet.
Now she doesn’t need love like that, she has
had it. She will walk in glowing, we will talk,
and then, when she’s fast asleep, I’ll exult
to have her in that room again,
behind that door! As a child, I caught
bees, by the wings, and held them, some seconds,
looked into their wild faces,
listened to them sing, then tossed them back
into the air—I remember the moment the
arc of my toss swerved, and they entered
the corrected curve of their departure.

Moritz — Gerhard Richter

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Moritz, 2000 by  Gerhard Richter (b. 1932)

Orca — Angela Gram

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Orca, 2020 by Angela Gram (b. 1985)