October 2010
36 posts
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Hold On To the Sun
I just read Hold On To the Sun by Michal Govrin. Govrin is an amazingly intellectual writer whose writing is translated, in the case of Hold On To the Sun, from Hebrew, to French, to English. As a reader, you’d think this might be confusing, or would somehow diminish the power of her words. But Govrin’s diction in English is impeccable and if not as pure as her writing in Hebrew...
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“But I’ve already ridden past these very bushes. I was so happy then. She...”
– Michal Govrin, Hold on to the Sun
Reddit- Novel Guessing Game! →
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“The tulips are too excitable, it is winter here.
Look how white everything is,...”
– Sylvia Plath, Tulips
My very favorite Plath poem.
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“You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a...”
– Sylvia Plath, Daddy
In honor of Sylvia Plath’s birthday, here is one my favorite poems she wrote. Sylvia’s been one of biggest influences in my taste in literature, poetry, and writing. I think she is sorely under-rated.
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The Issa Valley
I was so happy when I saw a copy of Czeslaw Milosz’s The Issa Valley on a street vendor’s table, I bought it immediately. The cover said Milosz won the Nobel Prize for literature, something I hadn’t known. I’d read some of his poetry in college and only recently did I find out he’d written fiction.
I was shocked by how transporting this book was. Something about...
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“Autumnal smells, the origin of which, the blendings of which lay beyond this or...”
– Czeswal Milosz, The Issa Valley
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The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
I finished The Book of Laughter and Forgetting a week ago. I have so much I want to say about it, and I was finding it hard to articulate how much I loved this book, and all the things I thought about.
After reading this book Kundera is now on my list of favorite writers. His writing is self-aware in a way I’ve rarely read before. He is self-aware, but he is artful rather than arrogant...
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Janet Maslin reviews The Finkler Question →
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Atmostpheric Disturbances
Over the weekend I finished reading Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen. Galchen was named a “20 writers under 40” person by The New Yorker. The cover was absolutely beautiful. The aesthetics in general were really great in this book, the inserts, type, everything.
Galchen writes well, if a bit disjointedly. Throughout this novel, which requires a sort of suspension of...
“The woman bit from her popsicle. A chunklet fell to the ground; the oversized...”
– Rivka Galchen, Atmospheric Disturbances
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National Book Awards! →
Now that the Man Booker is over…
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Coverspy →
Coverspy is my new favorite website; I easily became addicted. I had my own mini coverspy moment today on the train, as a guy walked past me and smiled at the book I was reading (Rivka Galchen’s Atmospheric Disturbances) and as I looked at what HE was reading, Witold Gombrowicz’s Pornografia I smiled! I’m thinking of starting a G train book club…
How some people are writing novels, longwindedly. →
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Howard Jacobson's 'Finkler Question' wins the Man... →
When the winner was announced this afternoon the Bloomsbury production team gave a cheer. Well, not really a cheer but we were really excited. I’m really happy for Finkler Question, but I already own C!!!
“One of my favorite customer families came by with their new baby, who is a week...”
– — Bookavore (via housingworksbookstore)
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“There is an incompatibility between literary creation and political activity.”
– Mario Vargas Llosa (via libraryland)
Congratulations, Mario Vargas Llosa on your Nobel prize! Can anyone recommend one of his books for me to get started on?
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“Came the yellow days of winter, filled with boredom. The rust-colored earth was...”
– Bruno Schulz, Birds.
If you ever wanted to read a writer who is universally respected by every iconic European writer, yet generally unknown in the United States, pick up any book by Bruno Schulz. He is incredibly under-rated. His writing was cut short and some of his work was destroyed by the...
why and how would and did someone steal Jonathan... →
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The Corrections
Did I just read the best novel of the early 2000s? It won a bunch of awards. It was very well-received, and Jonathan Franzen was deemed to be a great American Novelist, and accolades were heaped. But why am I unsure about how I feel about the book I just read, The Corrections?
I admit that I read The Corrections out of some strange idea that I should read The Corrections. Back in 2001 when it...