Day Today

Good reading throughout the week, by authors who I'd read at most once previously:

16-20Jan: What is the What by Dave Eggers. I suspect that what is invented are only the more plausible bits, to keep structure intact. That Valentino Achak Deng was kept intact is the more remarkable.
21Jan: Today I read Today I Wrote Nothing, by Daniil Kharms (ed/trans Matvel Yankelevich), prompted by RW. The closest thing to Soviet surrealism, though with a Gombrowiczian inflection; where some narratives parodize, he parodies narrative. I regret lacking the background in Russian verse to appreciate the poetic invention properly.
22Jan: Of Illustrious Men, by Jean Rouaud (trans Barbara Wright), continuation of the lyrical melancholy of Fields of Glory.
23-24Jan: Written Lives, by Javier Marías (trans Margaret Jull Costa), brief, askew looks at well-known authors, which he was prompted to compile following thumbnail bios of extremely obscure authors in his anthology Unique Tales, which still awaits translation, as do I.
25Jan: Bloodchild, by Octavia Butler, prompted by SEK (dipping my toes in before taking on Xenogenesis).