Beginning of October reads
So, I hit the hundred book mark for 2014 early this year, late last month, and what I've been reading since was largely gleaned from indiepresses at the Brooklyn Book Festival, picked up largely on spec, which makes for some unevenness but more than compensated by its rewards. About halfway through, as is October (meanwhile, Archipelago Books hit the hundred book mark, published over its ten year existence, and I'll be celebrating both booklandmarks with them tomorrow night at the gala) ...
Stig Dagerman, Sleet: selected stories (Stephen Hartman) [Godine]: the child struggles to maintain innocence, defenseless against older children, just so-so; I keep trying but I'm still just not taking to Scandinavian Lit ...
Mina Loy, Insel [Melville House]: something to put side by side with Breton's Nadja (with some of the same flaws), and an inquisition of Surrealism, and more prose-by-poet (yet another hook for me) but a bit disappointing, but I'll be following up.
Gonçalo M. Tavares, Jerusalem (Anna Kushner) [Dalkey]: confluence of the marginal ... I wondered to what extent it played off early Lobo Antunes' psychologizing; I liked it better than [MAO]
James Kelman, if it is your life: stories [Other]: varied, some misses but when he hits he hits hard.
Frankétienne, Ready to Burst (Kaiama L. Glover) [Archipelago]: Spiralist story expertly translated [MAO] [John Taylor {whose translations of French poetry I must pick up}]
Peter Weiss, Leavetaking (Christopher Levenson) [Melville House]: semiautobiographical bildungsroman, concise without sacrificing range; I'm still hoping that the rest of The Aesthetics of Resistance will be englished. [MAO]
Eliot Weinberger, An Elemental Thing [NDP {thx4 the tote!}]: mythic essay(s) from all over the map ... I'm reading his Paz translations, this seemed to fit, but so too "The Vortex" after Frankétienne (neither of which make mention of Nabokov's ascendant spiral).
Stig Dagerman, Sleet: selected stories (Stephen Hartman) [Godine]: the child struggles to maintain innocence, defenseless against older children, just so-so; I keep trying but I'm still just not taking to Scandinavian Lit ...
Mina Loy, Insel [Melville House]: something to put side by side with Breton's Nadja (with some of the same flaws), and an inquisition of Surrealism, and more prose-by-poet (yet another hook for me) but a bit disappointing, but I'll be following up.
Gonçalo M. Tavares, Jerusalem (Anna Kushner) [Dalkey]: confluence of the marginal ... I wondered to what extent it played off early Lobo Antunes' psychologizing; I liked it better than [MAO]
James Kelman, if it is your life: stories [Other]: varied, some misses but when he hits he hits hard.
Frankétienne, Ready to Burst (Kaiama L. Glover) [Archipelago]: Spiralist story expertly translated [MAO] [John Taylor {whose translations of French poetry I must pick up}]
Peter Weiss, Leavetaking (Christopher Levenson) [Melville House]: semiautobiographical bildungsroman, concise without sacrificing range; I'm still hoping that the rest of The Aesthetics of Resistance will be englished. [MAO]
Eliot Weinberger, An Elemental Thing [NDP {thx4 the tote!}]: mythic essay(s) from all over the map ... I'm reading his Paz translations, this seemed to fit, but so too "The Vortex" after Frankétienne (neither of which make mention of Nabokov's ascendant spiral).
posted by nnyhav | 22:38
2 Comments:
Re: the Dagerman volume
Did you only read one or two stories from this collection? Your description can only apply plausibly to 10% of the material in this volume, and then only very superficially.
I seem to have stirred up a Scandinavian troll. The Dagerman selection may not be representative, but thematically centers on loss of innocence and attendant alienation, a game for children of all ages.
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