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
Sunday, October 27, 2024
Saturday, October 26, 2024
Friday, October 25, 2024
Thursday, October 24, 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
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.)
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