Roberto Bolaño died at the young age of 50 in 2003, just as his work was beginning to gain a wider audience and broader critical acclaim. It wasn’t until after his death that his work was published in English. Just a few months after Bolaño died, New Directions published By Night in Chile in translation by Chris Andrews.… Continue reading More Bolaño: A review of Roberto Bolaño’s novel The Spirit of Science Fiction
My expectations for The Spirit of Science Fiction, Roberto Bolaño’s latest the posthumous novel are somewhat measured, but I’m excited to read it nonetheless. It’s new in English translation by Natasha Wimmer, who of course translated Bolaño’s other big novels, including 2666 and The Savage Detectives. My intuition is that The Spirit of Science Fiction will read like a dress… Continue reading Roberto Bolaño/Joy Williams (Books acquired, 8 Feb. 2019)
I have just now finished George Eliot’s novel Silas Marner, which I enjoyed. The novel is set in England at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and its plot goes something like this: As a young man, Silas Marner, a weaver, is a member of a nonconformist church with Calvinist tendencies. Falsely accused of theft, he… Continue reading Blog about George Eliot’s Silas Marner, a novel of not knowing
I recently rewatched Blade Runner 2049 (dir. Denis Villeneuve, 2017) on a large television screen via a streaming service, breaking the viewing of this nearly three-hour long film into two nights. I wrote a lengthy review of Blade Runner 2049 when it came out last year. The review ran over 3,000 words. I won’t repost all of them here,… Continue reading 19 annotations on an old review of Blade Runner 2049 (Summer Film Log)
Roberto Bolaño’s novel The Spirit of Science Fiction will be published in English translation next year. The translation is by Natasha Wimmer (who translated 2666 and The Savage Detectives, among other Bolaño works). Bolaño began The Spirit of Science Fiction in 1984 but apparently never finished it. The novel was first published in 2016 by the Spanish publishing house Alfaguara. Based on the… Continue reading Roberto Bolaño’s novel The Spirit of Science Fiction will debut in English translation in 2019
In Yoko Ogawa’s new collection Revenge, eleven stories of fascinating morbidity intertwine at oblique angles. Tale extends into tale: characters, settings, and images float intertextually from chapter to chapter, layering and reticulating themes of death, crime, consumption, and creation. (And revenge, of course. Let’s not forget revenge). Not quite a story cycle or a novel-in-tales, Revenge’s sum… Continue reading Yoko Ogawa’s Revenge is an elegant collection of creepy intertextual tales
A few weeks ago I finished The Story of the Lost Child, the last of Elena Ferrante’s so-called Neapolitan Novels, and now perhaps have enough distance to comment on them briefly. The novels have been much-hyped, which initially put me off (nearly as much as their awful kitschy covers), but the same friend who urged me to… Continue reading Dissolving boundaries | Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels
I CHOSE ROTTEN GIN The story of a disillusioned Communist, who had not the courage to go against the party. . . . so ostentatiously aimed at writing a masterpiece that, in a less ambitious work, one would be happy to call promising, for such readers as he may be fortunate enough to have . . . —Glandvil Hix OI CHITTERING… Continue reading I CHOSE ROTTEN GIN and other forthcoming titles from J R Corp (William Gaddis)
“Masculine Literature” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (from Our Androcentric Culutre; or, The Man Made World) When we are offered a “woman’s” paper, page, or column, we find it filled with matter supposed to appeal to women as a sex or class; the writer mainly dwelling upon the Kaiser’s four K’s—Kuchen, Kinder, Kirche, Kleider. They iterate and… Continue reading “Masculine Literature” — Charlotte Perkins Gilman
So of course I’ve been eating up Roberto Bolaño’s Fiction: An Expanding Universe, a new critical study by Bolaño’s translator Chris Andrews. I’ve read the introduction and the first three chapters so far, and the study, far from being dry and academic, compels me to dig deeper. The book really starts with the second chapter, with Andrews simply… Continue reading Roberto Bolaño’s Fiction (Book Acquired, 07.24.2014)
“Over an Absinthe Bottle” by W.C. Morrow Arthur Kimberlin, a young man of very high spirit, found himself a total stranger in San Francisco one rainy evening, at a time when his heart was breaking; for his hunger was of that most poignant kind in which physical suffering is forced to the highest point… Continue reading “Over an Absinthe Bottle” — W.C. Morrow
Seriously: What horror is this? Via frequent commenter Will C., a nightmare image (he linked it, and rightly so, to some other horror).
PREVIOUSLY: Introductions + stories 1956-1959 Stories of 1960 Stories of 1961 Stories of 1962 “The Subliminal Man,” Black Friday, and Consumerism IN THIS RIFF: “The Reptile Enclosure” (1963) “A Question of Re-Entry” (1963) “The Time Tombs” (1963) “Now Wakes the Sea” (1963) “The Venus Hunters” (1963) “End-Game” (1963) “Minus One” (1963) “The Sudden Afternoon” (1963) “The Screen Game” (1963) “Time of Passage” (1964) “Prisoner of… Continue reading The Complete Short Stories of J.G. Ballard (Sixth Riff: 1963-1964)
In Yoko Ogawa’s new collection Revenge, eleven stories of fascinating morbidity intertwine at oblique angles. Tale extends into tale: characters, settings, and images float intertextually from chapter to chapter, layering and reticulating themes of death, crime, consumption, and creation. (And revenge, of course. Let’s not forget revenge). Not quite a story cycle or a novel-in-tales, Revenge’s sum… Continue reading Yoko Ogawa’s Revenge Is an Elegant Collection of Creepy Intertextual Tales
“The Offshore Pirate” by F. Scott Fitzgerald I This unlikely story begins on a sea that was a blue dream, as colorful as blue-silk stockings, and beneath a sky as blue as the irises of children’s eyes. From the western half of the sky the sun was shying little golden disks at the sea—if you… Continue reading “The Offshore Pirate” — F. Scott Fitzgerald
“Letter of Advice and Apology to a Young Burglar” — Hilaire Belloc My dear Ormond, Nothing was further from my thoughts. I had imagined you knew me well enough—and, for the matter of that, all your mother’s family—to judge me better. Believe me, no conception of blaming your profession entered my mind for a… Continue reading “Letter of Advice and Apology to a Young Burglar” — Hilaire Belloc
I didn’t really read that many new books—by which I mean books published in 2012—this year. The highlight of the new books I did read was Chris Ware’s Building Stories, the moving story of the lives of several people (and a bee!) who live in the titular building (and other places. And other buildings. Look,… Continue reading A Riff on What I Read (And Didn’t Read) in 2012
Biblioklept 