A short fable, immaculately designed and packaged, with illustrations from legend Harry Horse. It's not particularly compelling until the oversized duA short fable, immaculately designed and packaged, with illustrations from legend Harry Horse. It's not particularly compelling until the oversized duck Fup turns up, and at 100 short pages, it reads like a whimsical McSweeney's story.
However, in the interest of full disclosure I should explain I am a heartless swine, and magical ducks and grandpas do not break my heart, no matter who dies at the end. And "Jim Dodge" is what I called bunking off Physical Ed lessons in school. Fact....more
A crisp, fluent, fluid, exhilarating tale of a working mother’s descent into alcoholism. Owens’s prose is simple, unshowy, her characters addictively A crisp, fluent, fluid, exhilarating tale of a working mother’s descent into alcoholism. Owens’s prose is simple, unshowy, her characters addictively vile and unhinged. She opts not to write in dialect, or give a sense of place, though the world here is probably 1960s Glasgow. The story strikes a note of heartbreak from the first offhand man and wife quarrel, and sustains this with black humour, erudite dialogue and brusque scene-leaping.
Read Agnes Ownes now! Feast your eyes on this sensationally clever prose! ...more
And again, forgoing the chance to spend a week souping through Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle, I chose this 90-page quickie, written not by NabokovAnd again, forgoing the chance to spend a week souping through Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle, I chose this 90-page quickie, written not by Nabokov but by Naboko, as the cover confirms, a dazzling novella (filed in my shelves under novels, I find sub-shelving a tedious business) involving a nameless narrator who shoots himself and hovers around the story waiting for the penny to drop.
Naboko's prose is at its rippling glorious peak in the suicide scenes: never has a writer scalped the human mind with such savage laser-vision, and although attentive readers will guess the twist after the bullet is shot (I did, look ma, I'm clever!), there's no earthly reason for bypassing this suspenseful short, unless you're still souping through Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle, in which case, The Eye sees you, he is waiting....more
I'm not one of your starry-eyed prose-droolers who appreciates beautiful writing on its own terms. I need formal innovation or structural complexity oI'm not one of your starry-eyed prose-droolers who appreciates beautiful writing on its own terms. I need formal innovation or structural complexity or dazzling dialogue or knee-snapping humour to keep me amused amid the lexical contortionism. This makes Calvino an infuriating bedfellow: his Oulipo-era prose is constructed with tight mathematical rigidity, yet what comes through in this work is the shiny artifice of his prose, the sparkly poetics of the Cosmicomics. Not good.
Well . . . I don't know whether it's exhaustion from reading the dizzingly obsessive The Mezzanine, but this reflective novel didn't move me particularly. Hats off to the rigorous structure, though, and that final chapter: beautiful. (I'm not averse to a little beauty on its own terms)....more
I read this exhilarating novella in a two-hour burst, knees bumped with bliss, hands clasped in delight, eyes lacquered to the page.
This is Nabokov's I read this exhilarating novella in a two-hour burst, knees bumped with bliss, hands clasped in delight, eyes lacquered to the page.
This is Nabokov's penultimate novel, before the "doddery" (so says Martin Amis) Look at the Harelquins, and not including his unfinished posthumous one, The Original of Laura. This is part of his trilogy of "nympholepsy novels" (so says Amis again), and shows the cartwheeling prose gymnastics of the last great Russian writer at their finest.
A charming story evoking The Stranger, with more whimsy and less existential meat.A charming story evoking The Stranger, with more whimsy and less existential meat....more
An early étude on the impossibility of writing Grand American Narratives, Williams’s first published prose work is a thorny experiment where various vAn early étude on the impossibility of writing Grand American Narratives, Williams’s first published prose work is a thorny experiment where various voices, stories, histories, and styles intermix in a muddled manner, with frequently illuminating sentences lurking within the playful bippety-bop. The influence on Sorrentino’s prose is notable, especially in the polyphonic and parodic novels Mulligan Stew and Gold Fools....more
Flann's return to novels since The Third Policeman was no-noed. I've often wondered how many publishers turned down the manuscript: I get the impressiFlann's return to novels since The Third Policeman was no-noed. I've often wondered how many publishers turned down the manuscript: I get the impression if he'd had a thicker skin and shopped it around the country or abroad, we'd have a fatter body of work.
Well. Never mind. The Hard Life: An Exegesis of Squalor is dedicated to Graham Greene, responsible for At Swim-Two-Birds being printed (and, to an extent, Third Policeman being passed over). This novella is a humorous piece involving a scheming brother, a cleric, and the Pope.
It is so slight, it's easy to see O'Brien clawing his confidence back. The Dalkey Archive, his last book, was a masterpiece, so once again, we were cheated of greater works from this timeless satirist.
A rapturous reread. Sorrentino ended his remarkable career as one of the finest/funniest (and underrated) innovative writers in existence with a triloA rapturous reread. Sorrentino ended his remarkable career as one of the finest/funniest (and underrated) innovative writers in existence with a trilogy of elegiac novels—Little Casino, A Strange Commonplace, and this posthumous wonder. Like the other two, TAoHI comprises a series of short vignettes taking an unsentimental and sympathetic peer into the sad, wretched leftovers of our empty, despairing lives, and is the bleakest of the three, lacking some of the turns into comic bitterness of the other two, and showcases Sorrentino’s tender spite at its most achingly tender, and achingly spiteful. It is hard to believe that a writer capable of such wrenching sadness was also a writer of the most hilarious and ribald comic novels (Mulligan Stew, Crystal Vision). Sorrentino was a writer of unlimited skill and talent, capable of working in multifarious fictional modes, inventing endless novel strategies for creating fresh structures and forms, and one of the finest proponents of the Joycean list. As I said in 2010: Forget the other bitches. Gilbert is immortal....more
A dark, snarky triumph. This novel bristles with a brutal energy, a violent sexual malice. These vignettes are more overtly carnal in content than in A dark, snarky triumph. This novel bristles with a brutal energy, a violent sexual malice. These vignettes are more overtly carnal in content than in Sorrentino's other "fragment" novels, and each entry is stark and bleak.
This was the last work Sorrentino saw published in his lifetime, and it acts as a lighter coda to The Abyss of Human Illusion, which isn't saying much, as these stories are painful, moving and sad in their desperation.
Lunar Follies is Sorrentino’s last comic extravagance: an unhinged, snarling, list-saturated send-up of the pretentions and wrongheadednesses of poseuLunar Follies is Sorrentino’s last comic extravagance: an unhinged, snarling, list-saturated send-up of the pretentions and wrongheadednesses of poseurs in the art world in a series of titlunar vignettes. At times outrageous, at times inscrutable, at times wielding the obscure reference like a violent weapon, this novel is perhaps the strangest in the Gilbert oeuvre, with a splendid selection of lists, most snark-ridden and crank-cranked, and parodies of an art world that at times borders on the entirely imaginary. A pleasure to read late-period Sorro cutting loose and flexing his formidable humour muscle amid the more melancholic tone of his other novels of the period. Enriched appreciation on a second read. ...more
A slim sci-fi novel(la) about a "ray of life" birthing mutant cockerels, snakes, and ostriches which run amok in 1920s Moscow. Biting satirical larks A slim sci-fi novel(la) about a "ray of life" birthing mutant cockerels, snakes, and ostriches which run amok in 1920s Moscow. Biting satirical larks from Russia's best-ever satirist.
N.B. This story is included in "Diaboliad" (Vintage Classics) with other short stories. You might want to save money and get that collection....more
On a second reading, this still ranks as “minor” Sorrentino, and lacks the prose beboppery of earlier works, or the steely sentimental wonder of laterOn a second reading, this still ranks as “minor” Sorrentino, and lacks the prose beboppery of earlier works, or the steely sentimental wonder of later ones. The vignettes are entertaining, opaque, skimmable, involving, and brilliant in equal measure....more
This is Gilbert’s least ingenious novel—a straight-up thriller and entertainment that keeps one’s bum amused for two hours, if it doesn’t exactly tickThis is Gilbert’s least ingenious novel—a straight-up thriller and entertainment that keeps one’s bum amused for two hours, if it doesn’t exactly tickle the cerebrum—takes place in Saint-Malo, where the protagonist Guy Lantern, bored by the “insipid beauties of the picturesque,” finds a welcome detour in a forged painting adventure with a glamorous femme fatale and a Proust-quoting gangster. Those fluent in French will have a head-start on the monoglot readers, as pivotal information about the plot is smuggled into untranslated French dialogue, although the events unfurl and build to a strong climax for the baffled unitongues. The star here is the elegance of Adair’s unwinding sentences, his delightful first-person narrators and their sublime descriptions (usually of the more trivial stuff). His dialogue is as usual amusing and literary. Shame the plot is made-for-TV fodder. (Albeit with more cinematic nods). A delightfully upmarket thriller....more
My self-appointed biographer Graham Golden approached me last night, casually “warning” me that his biography had found a publisher (Nonentity Books),My self-appointed biographer Graham Golden approached me last night, casually “warning” me that his biography had found a publisher (Nonentity Books), and that collusion was “within my best interests.” I ignored his impertinent message and sat down at my Toshiba to type the forty-eight words you have read (as of the word “read”), and the following confession.
As a reviewer, I have encased my fair share of skeletons, and it is Golden’s intention to expose my moments of weakness to reduce my standing in the GR ratings by at least two or three career-flattening places. I would like to recount them here, and ask my mullions of followers to look beyond these and focus on the work I have produced since then. When I left university in 2008, I became friends with a group of neo-nazi book reviewers, whose purpose was to promote Mein Kampf on popular reviewing sites. I created over a hundred accounts, and wrote numerous reviews in praise of Hitler’s incoherent rant, signing off each review with an all-caps promotion of neo-nazi activities the world over, usually HEIL HITLER AND PRAISE THE FATHERS WHEREVER THEY LAND. I was paid over one hundred pounds per review, so saw no harm in spreading idiotic propaganda if my identity remained a secret. I was then approached by pro-Bush reviewers, and to my eternal shame, I wrote five-star reviews of Republican books such as Gorgeous George: Intimate Portraits, a collection of photographs of Dubya holding his chin and appearing as pensive as his simian melon would permit, and Damned if I Do, a 900-page moral treatise defending each of Dubya’s moral transgressions, using a waffling logic drawing on quotes from Machiavelli, Rand, and Al Capp. It was only when I encountered the reviews of Manny Rayner did I realise the error of my ways, and abandoned my fascist activities. Since then, I have penned no propagandist reviews and devoted myself to the promotion of exemplary world literature using the extremely digestible capsule format.
When Golden’s biography is released, I hope you will be strong enough to ignore his exaggerations and see beyond his desperate intentions (to increase his own ratings and garner 1000 more likes on his Oliver Twist review)....more
A swift and entertaining novelisation of Gray’s 1975 radio/stage satire. The relationship between Ludmilla and McGrotty is unconvincing but the biliouA swift and entertaining novelisation of Gray’s 1975 radio/stage satire. The relationship between Ludmilla and McGrotty is unconvincing but the bilious swipe at the Tory government is spot-on.
Dated, perhaps, but still an entertaining (and quick) read for the Gray devotee. ...more
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