Sunday, November 24, 2024
Saturday, November 23, 2024
Friday, November 22, 2024
Claire-Louise Bennett
Pond is not a collection about which I can claim to have been aware: but after having read a review, I was convinced to pick it up. And I'm glad that I did: Claire-Louise Bennett's stories are not only funny, not only poignant, they announce a novel literary style, one that's self-conscious without being paralyzed by that heightened sense of awareness. This is a collection with a voice all its own.
Part of what I enjoyed so much about Pond is its self-deprecating tone: the main character is gifted, but wayward, intelligent without drive. The result are scenarios which are comical, where the nameless character confronts the limits of her ambition, knowing that more is possible, but unable to navigate that potential.
There are laughable sections about sexuality, gender relations, social expectations -- even about food and real estate. Taken together, there's almost an absurd quality to the stories: and yet, they are not silly; they are profound, and lonely, and sometimes sad.
Not all of this collection reaches the same height: some stories are stronger or more comprehensible than others. But several, including those focused on the local environment -- on the nearby 'pond' -- succeed in transforming the banal into something more than that: into a complex mixture of details, of characters, of comedy, and of loss.
What Pond is about I couldn't really say: but as a collection of stories loosely tracing modern themes of alienation, ambition, and ambivalence, it succeeds in a significant way.
Thursday, November 21, 2024
Wednesday, November 20, 2024
Tuesday, November 19, 2024
Monday, November 18, 2024
Sunday, November 17, 2024
Saturday, November 16, 2024
Jon Fosse
I'll be the first to admit that I'd not heard of Jon Fosse until he was awarded the Nobel Prize. Of course, I was curious, and so I recently read Aliss at the Fire.
Praise for the novella -- which has been positioned as an entry point into Fosse's larger oeuvre -- focuses on its fragmentation: the degree to which time itself becomes a malleable thing. Fosse abandons traditional grammar in favor of another sort of fragmentation: one in which sentences run indefinitely as time is presented a force without beginning or end. And then, of course, there's the complexity of Fosse's narration, which transitions from one character to another, often in the middle of a phrase or thought.
Who am I to critique this approach? Fosse has won the Nobel after all.
But I must say, I found the novella to be, well, to be sort of gimmicky: the shift in perspective, or narrative tone, or time is awakening at first, but becomes predictable by the end. And more: Fosse seems to bend the concept of time, but without building three dimensional characters. For me, there were elements of Stein and Faulkner here; and yet, I felt that both American authors explored these themes with greater effect: the layered quality to Faulkner's novels, in particular, far exceeds Aliss at the Fire.
I agree that there is an emotional impact to Fosse's novella, and that he is able, in very few pages, to develop a competing sense of poignancy and pain. But for me, I was never quite convinced by the style: it seemed unnecessary or strained -- like a trick that would have better served as the basis for a thought experiment than for a published work of fiction.
Friday, November 15, 2024
Thursday, November 14, 2024
Wednesday, November 13, 2024
Sad …
Theodore Olson, RIP - The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator | USA News and Politics
i am sure I met Ted and soent very afternoon chatting with him.
Tuesday, November 12, 2024
Monday, November 11, 2024
Rachel Cusk
I've now finished the third of Rachel Cusk's "Faye" novels, Transit. And let me say at the start: this novel, like the others in the trilogy, is excellent: I mean absolutely excellent. (I read the novels out of order.)
Part of what I liked so much about Transit -- and Outline and Kudos -- is that it occupies a rare literary space: it auto-fiction without the narcissism. It is a book about questions: about how we pose them, and what we expect to hear or receive in response.
If Cusk is the main character in this experiment, that seems secondary: because her role in the novel is primarily to listen, and to endow conversations -- as I've written on the blog before -- with a universal quality. That is magic of Cusk: her ability to transcend the banal, to mold it into something great, with a lesson to impart.
What Transit is about exactly is not the point: you might say it is a novel about transitions, about spaces, about homes, about London, about loss. And all of these themes are indeed addressed. But they're explored less by way of character, and more by way of memory, discussion, and reconnection.
In Transit -- more than in Outline or Kudos -- Cusk orients her reader: she is in London; this is her builder; his name is X; he is this way or that. But now having read a few of Cusk's novel, I know that these details are less important than what the builder recounts to Cusk and how she structures those remembrances. This is a novel in which each section, each chapter, represents the transformation of the ordinary into something weighty, something transcendent.
It had been a while since a trilogy like this caught my attention, but these three novels are exceptional: they demand thought and reflection, and a new way -- it is no exaggeration -- of processing literature.
Blogging note …
I am awaiting the arrival a nurse and may be taken to the hospital. So I may not be posting today.
Sunday, November 10, 2024
Saturday, November 09, 2024
Friday, November 08, 2024
Thursday, November 07, 2024
Wednesday, November 06, 2024
Tuesday, November 05, 2024
For what it’s worth …
… everyone I spoke with today, wherher black or white, thought that Trump is going to win. they seemed quite sanguine about it. Well, we shall see.
'They're Targeting Voters Under the Guise of a News Org': Inside a Soros-Funded 'Fake News' Network's $9 Million Digital Ad Blitz
'They're Targeting Voters Under the Guise of a News Org': Inside a Soros-Funded 'Fake News' Network's $9 Million Digital Ad Blitz
They ought to deport Soros. The only thing he has done since coming here is try to undeermine our demoocracy. Throw the bum outl
Monday, November 04, 2024
Saturday, November 02, 2024
Thursday, October 31, 2024
A poem
Living With An Ogre
My man's like living with an ogre I think:
“Let's get romantic. I'll just make
A candle out of some of my ear-wax.”
It's laughable, that's just my take.
I sit on the couch like a Chinese princess.
He lumbers in, dick and beer in hand.
He grabs me and throws me over his shoulder
Yeah, well he's an ogreish kind of man.
It's November, our pear tree has tiny little pears
Its twisted branches are otherwise bare.
It's like our love, there's nothing left
But love's fruit hanging in the air.
Jennifer Knox
Wednesday, October 30, 2024
A poem …
Living With An Ogre
My man's like living with an ogre I think:
“Let's get romantic. I'll just make
A candle out of some of my ear-wax.”
It's laughable, that's just my take.
I sit on the couch like a Chinese princess.
He lumbers in, dick and beer in hand.
He grabs me and throws me over his shoulder
Yeah, well he's an ogreish kind of man.
It's November, our pear tree has tiny little pears
Its twisted branches are otherwise bare.
It's like our love, there's nothing left
But love's fruit hanging in the air.
What will it be, my sweet daddy ogre?
You don't love my poems, you're glad when they're over.
Tuesday, October 29, 2024
Monday, October 28, 2024
Verse on the range …
… Cowboy poetry: Using form: Doc Mehl, ‘Poems Used To Rhyme’ (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Sunday, October 27, 2024
Saturday, October 26, 2024
Friday, October 25, 2024
Wednesday, October 23, 2024
Tuesday, October 22, 2024
Monday, October 21, 2024
Remembering …
… https://youtube.com/watch?v=Xny7G9YrrBU&si=72YZ_VrK1v0oa-bK
Mitzi Gaynor at her best.
George and Weedon Grossmith
When it comes to The Diary of a Nobody, all I can say is: if it's good enough for Evelyn Waugh -- and evidently it was -- then it's good enough for me. This novel by the Grossmith brothers, George and Weedon, is everything a playful book should be: mischievous, comical, enlightening. But more than that: Diary of a Nobody is very well conceived: it's perfectly written, with a rhythmic style very much of its time. No surprise that Three Men in a Boat, another work of similar scope and ambition, was published within a year of Nobody.
What I enjoyed most about Nobody -- beside is humor and wit -- was the question it seems to pose just before the surface: which is whether the Victorian fashion for published diaries had to be limited to those of social elites. Here is an upper middle class family -- with the habits and preferences to suit. And yet, in the predictability of their daily routine, in the formulaic nature of their aspirations, there is an epic quality. The Grossmith brothers have done two things very well: first, they have endowed middle class life with humor and levity, without demeaning that life; and second, they have positioned middle class tropes and hopes as items worthy of publication.
Diary of a Nobody is, of course, just that: but that seems to be exactly the point. This nobody -- this Mr Pooter -- is endlessly interesting and comical and human. Which is the moral, perhaps: humanity can be comical and serious at the same time. Embracing these in equal measures results in the sort of illumination you might otherwise expect from a 'somebody.'
Saturday, October 19, 2024
Friday, October 18, 2024
Thursday, October 17, 2024
The political scene …
… Run, Writer, Run! - The American Conservative. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I never met Vidal or Mailer, but I got to know Bill Buckley pretty well. A remarkably nice man.
Tuesday, October 15, 2024
A poem …
I love you, dying man under a train,
Your pretty, pretty face bored with ennui.
I won't think: “Can I save you from this dream?”
My love is like a moth flying near flame.
I love you bug that always goes upside-down.
I will keep righting you and righting you.
You are like my pretty, pretty beau.
Who thinks of his demise at slightest let down.
He has died, but maybe he was right.
Maybe things should be perfect beyond belief:
Gorge on ambrosia and filet mignon,
While climaxing wonderfully all day and night.
Yes, everything should be perfect beyond belief.
Or maybe not being bothered easily is key.
Monday, October 14, 2024
Someone besides me born on this date …
… someone fae more imortant than I.
Short bio of president long on leadership skillsPlus ça change …
Today I officially reached the age of 83. Yes, it’s my birthday. I feel the same as I did yesterday, which may not be great, but isn’t all that bad either. Since you inherit your longevity from your mother and mine made it to the cusp of 90,:I may be around for a bit. But I’ll leave all that to God.
Sunday, October 13, 2024
Saturday, October 12, 2024
RIP …
Gratitude, sorrow, suffering and mercy: R.I.P. Greg Hillis | America Magazine, (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Friday, October 11, 2024
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes …
… Germans decry influence of English as ‘idiot’s apostrophe’ gets official
approval. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.’
Thursday, October 10, 2024
Anniversary …
… Bobby Short at 100: A Swinging Steward of the American Songbook - WSJ. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
He was truly great.
Wednesday, October 09, 2024
Rachel Cusk
I've written about Rachel Cusk before on the blog, but having recently finished another of her novels -- Kudos -- I wanted to offer some additional commentary.
Cusk seems to have been located within the contemporary genre of auto-fiction: that space carved out, most notably, by Knausgaard. And to a certain extent, that is right: the thin line between character and self is certainly blurred.
But I think Cusk has developed her own literary space, too: her narrative style -- which has a primary character recount the story of another, more tangential figure -- is very effective. Often, her way of constructing this sort of narration reads like a novel by Sebald: the central character speaks to the reader about a story involving a second character, whose story is invoked by way of memory, or by way of Cusk's signature "he said" or "she said" construction, which regularly appears in the midst of an extended sentence.
Like Knausgaard, Cusk takes as her content the banal or the expected, but she has a way of universalizing it: of turning it into something existential, or transnational, or profound. Cusk does this in the most unassuming fashion: she recounts a dialogue between one character and another -- and then, before long, the discussion has assumed a quiet gravity, a sense in which what's being discussed between the characters is actually an exchange between the reader and the ideas being invoked.
What Kudos is about seems beside the point: it is a novel comprised of a series of discussions, which reveal a range of characters, who are themselves ephemeral. This is a novel about ideas, and the ways we, as people -- as characters -- interact with them. There are not many books like this one, and I heartedly recommend it -- as a fresh angle into what literature can be.
Sounds like Lionel at her best …
… Lionel Shriver and the Resistance to Satire. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Blogging note …
I am currently in a rehab facility. This involves going to gym and other activities relating to my getting well. Friends and family come to visit from time time. I will blog when I can.
Place your bets …
… Here are the bookies’ odds for the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Tuesday, October 08, 2024
Monday, October 07, 2024
Sunday, October 06, 2024
Saturday, October 05, 2024
Friday, October 04, 2024
Thursday, October 03, 2024
I don’t get this …
… Garth Brooks Sued By Former Makeup Artist Who Claims He Raped Her In Hotel Room.
If someone does this sort of thing to you, why wait. Why not call the police. It’s a crime
Wednesday, October 02, 2024
Tuesday, October 01, 2024
Monday, September 30, 2024
Sunday, September 29, 2024
Saturday, September 28, 2024
Friday, September 27, 2024
Thursday, September 26, 2024
Wednesday, September 25, 2024
Tuesday, September 24, 2024
Saturday, September 21, 2024
Friday, September 20, 2024
Thursday, September 19, 2024
Wednesday, September 18, 2024
Monday, September 16, 2024
Sunday, September 15, 2024
Just so you know …
I happen to be in the hospital. My legs sort of gave out yesterday and the aide who cleans my apartment called the ER people. Seems there were some serious issues. But I appear to be on the mend.
Friday, September 13, 2024
Karl Ove Knausgaard
I've written before on the blog about Karl Ove Knausgaard -- in particular about his seasonal quartet, which, taken together, amounts to an excellent read. I've also written about his essays on Edvard Munch, which have lots of interesting things to say about that tormented painter. Recently, I've made my way through another of Knausgaard's works of non-fiction, In The Land of the Cyclops, a collection of essays focused on philosophy, literature, and art.
I should say at the start that, for me, Cyclops doesn't hold a candle to the seasonal quarter: I recognize, of course, that they are different in terms of tone, structure, and objective, but there was something about Cyclops which felt less convincing: as if this were just one man's sense for a book or painting. And it is. But in other essays or reflections by Knausgaard, that sense, that observation, assumes an oddly universal quality: and while Knausgaard may be writing about an apple, say, or a trip through Norway, the effect is one of transcendence: as if that journey, that piece of fruit, were the center of the universe. This experience was often missing from Cyclops.
That said, there are essays here which are to be celebrated, including those on Cindy Sherman and Gustave Flaubert. Another, on the Norwegian novelist, Knut Hamsun, features a number of unexpected and illuminated insights. Don't get me wrong, there were moments of revelation in some of these essays, and I walked away with a greater understanding, say, for Sherman than when I started the book. But I was expecting something more: perhaps more intimate, perhaps more lasting. Still, I'll continue to read Knausgaard because I think his approach to writing and to the contemporary moment is something worthy of exploration.
Wednesday, September 11, 2024
Monday, September 09, 2024
Something to think on …
The great tragedy of atheists is that they walk through this world and have no one to thank.
— Leo Tolstoy, born on this date in 1828
Sunday, September 08, 2024
Blogging note …
I took a fall today and had use the emergency device on my wrist to have them get me off the floor. They also gave me pretty good checkup, which proved ver encouraging. Anyway, I won’t b blogging much today,
Saturday, September 07, 2024
Friday, September 06, 2024
On Henry James
This is too good -- from the LRB:
"Imagine a typical Jamesian plot (or imbroglio as he preferred to call it, ‘plot’ being a ‘nefarious name’): an innocent American comes to Europe and is befriended by a Europeanised American and an older European woman (almost certainly a contessa or a princess, but titles are optional). The innocent American falls half or three-quarters in love with the contessa, and/or a shade homoerotically with the Europeanised American, or with the relationship between the two. Much conversation follows, and much ‘flirtation’ as we might be tempted to call it, in which the American is ‘seduced’ (culturally) by his hosts and maybe wants to be ‘seduced’ (physically) by the ambient culture. (Are you noticing all these adverbs and inverted commas, by the way?) Then the American sees the contessa with the Europeanised American arm in arm in the park or, perhaps, in the Soane Museum, when they have said they will be elsewhere. And at this point the climax of the Jamesian imbroglio occurs, a point of recognition at which a more vulgar author might have the Innocent American exclaim: ‘OMG. They’re fucking?’ At that moment the ‘centre’ does not hold, realising as it does that what it had admiringly thought to be the case is, ‘really’, not the case at all. James talks of the ‘original grossness of readers’. But there is an ‘original grossness’ at the heart of most of his exquisite fables: there is a thing going on, and probably a dirty thing, that the people in the fiction won’t or can’t see because their window is smeary or they are looking in the wrong direction."
Something to think on …
You cannot imagine at all how much you interest God; He is interested in you as if there were no one else on earth.
— julian Green, born on this date in 1900p
Thursday, September 05, 2024
A poem …
Your Octopussy
With eight arms I could love you better.
You could call me your Octopussy.
With eight arms things would go swimmingly.
And how intriguing, if we would boogie.
If I was a blow-fish I could do it better.
Of any sex-fish I could do it best.
With ocean beings it's much more juicy
In fact, in fiction, and in jest.
With a fish tail you could catch me better.
Reel me in hook, line, and sinker.
Could you love me transmogrified?
We all do change, with a flop, and a whimper.
Never a dull moment when your out to sea.
For now, be happy with your Octapussy.
by Jennifer Knox
Love,
Wednesday, September 04, 2024
Something to think on …
One must live as if it would be forever, and as if one might die each moment. Always both at once.,
— Mary Renault, born on this date in 1995
Tuesday, September 03, 2024
Monday, September 02, 2024
Sunday, September 01, 2024
Something ro think on …
The single fact of existing is already a true happiness.
— Blaise Cenrars, born on this date in 1887
Saturday, August 31, 2024
Monday, August 26, 2024
Sunday, August 25, 2024
Something to think on …
One big vice in a man is apt to keep out a great many smaller ones.
— Bret Harte, born on this date 1836
Saturday, August 24, 2024
Something to think on …
To give and then not feel that one has given is the very best of all ways of giving.
— Max Beerbohm, borh on this date in 1872
Friday, August 23, 2024
Something to think on …
The finder of his theme will be at no loss for words.
— J. V. Cunningham, born on this date in 1911
Thursday, August 22, 2024
Wednesday, August 21, 2024
Tuesday, August 20, 2024
Something to think on …
Yes, there's one thing I do want. I want to be aware of the minutes and the seconds, and to make each one count.
Jacqueline Susann, born in this date in 1918
Monday, August 19, 2024
Sunday, August 18, 2024
Something to think on …
There is a famous Russian cartoon in which a hippopotamus, in the bush, points out a zebra to another hippopotamus: 'You see,' he says, 'now that’s formalism.
— Alain Robbe-Grillet, born on this date in 1922
Saturday, August 17, 2024
Something to think on …
The progress of any writer is marked by those moments when he manages to outwit his own inner police system.
— Ted Hughes, born on this date in 1930