Conversational Reading

Bissell/Vollmann
The writing on this can get pretty annoying at times, but there are some interesting findings in Tom Bissell's profile of... »
Now We Know Why He Writes the Long Sentences
Fantastic interview here with Ottilie Mulzet, translator of Seiobo There Below and AnimalInside. One of the great things we... »
Yes, Virginia, My Struggle Is a Bestseller
Tim Parks at the NYR Blog has got beef with people claiming My Struggle is a bestseller: One could be forgiven, then, for... »
Paris by Marcos Giralt Torrente
A reminder to read this remarkably good first novel. Reviewed at Tony's Reading List.... »
Singular Pleasures
I owned this book for quite a while before I noticed this, Um wow pic.twitter.com/PJYXeq9Uvm— Scott Esposito... »
Roberto Bolaño’s Fiction: An Expanding Universe
So translator Chris Andrews wrote a book on Bolaño: Roberto Bolaño's Fiction: An Expanding Universe. I'm pretty excited for... »
Chejfec, Aira in Asymptote
New issue of Asymptote, with some intriguing pieces by Cesar Aira and Sergio Chejfec. In Aira's piece, the Argentine pays... »
Oil on Water
David Auerbach makes an intriguing case for the novel Oil on Water by the Nigerian writer Helon Habila. What transported... »
Last Stories and Other Stories
The New York Times and I agree, Vollmann's latest book is not very good. I feel like, recently, Vollmann's been a lot better... »
25 Novels on Failure
A cool list by Janice Lee at Entropy mag. Might the novel, as a form, signal a sort of failure inherent in its own... »

Miguel (St. Orberose): Isn't Amis partially forgotten already?
P.T. Smith: I think the "English today" part is pretty essential to what
Miguel (St. Orberose): What a crock of shit! You'd think after reading this that
P.T. Smith: "English today is the global language of commerce and trade,
Jeff Bursey: Scott, hi. Thanks for this appraisal of Parks' daft essay, a
Gilly: I was bewildered by Parks' article and could only conclude h
Lance Edmonds: Maybe the strangest part of his argument is holding Simenon

Fall Read: The Tunnel by William H. Gass

A group read of the book that either "engenders awe and despair" or "[goads] the reader with obscenity and bigotry," or both. Info here. Buy the book here and support this site.

Summer Read: A Naked Singularity by Sergio De La Pava

Fans of Gaddis, Pynchon, DeLillo: A group read of the book that went from Xlibris to the University of Chicago Press. Info here. Buy the book here and support this site.

Life A User's Manual by Georges Perec

Starting March 2011, read the greatest novel from an experimental master. Info here. Buy the book here and support this site.

Fall Read: The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt

A group read of one of the '00s most-lauded postmodern novels. Info here. Buy the book here and support this site.

The Summer of Genji

Two great online lit magazines team up to read a mammoth court drama, the world's first novel.

Your Face This Spring

A 3-month read of Javier Marias' mammoth book Your Face Tomorrow

Nostalgia June 15, 2014
Few habits are as prone to affliction, or as vulnerable to an ordeal, as the bent of a peddler’s consciousness. Placeless, the peddler completes an untold number of transactions; there are ideas to conduct (through language, which can transact a mind) and feelings to certify (through tasks, repeated interminably). […]
Why Literary Periods Mattered by Ted Underwood June 15, 2014
There are some writers who are, and likely always will be, inextricably linked to the “period” with which their work is associated, and in many cases helped to define. Surely Wordsworth and Keats will always be “Romantic” poets, while Faulkner and Woolf will remain modernists, as the term “modern” has been fully appropriated to describe the historical era be […]
Trans-Atlantyk by Witold Gombrowicz June 15, 2014
August 1939. You sail to Buenos Aires on the Chombry as a cultural ambassador of Poland. Why say no to a little holiday on the government’s tab? Soon after arriving you sense that something isn’t right. You emerge from a welcome reception and your ears are “filled with newspaper cries: ‘Polonia, Polonia,’ most irksome indeed.” Before you’ve even had a chance […]
Accepting the Disaster by Joshua Mehigan June 15, 2014
The first collections of most young poets, even the better ones, carry with them a hint of bravado. Flush with recognition, vindicated by the encouraging attentions of at least one editor and three blurbists, the poet strikes a triumphant pose and high-fives the Muse: “We did it, baby.” When Joshua Mehigan published his impressive first collection, The Optim […]
The Histories of Herodotus, translated by Tom Holland June 15, 2014
Two of the greatest of Tom Holland's predecessors in translating Herodotus are Victorian scholar George Rawlinson and Aubrey de Selincourt; the former translated Herodotus in 1860, making an enormous hit (despite the fact that its detractors often referred to it as “dull and prolix"), while the latter's 1954 Herodotus was another enormous hit, […]
Bullfight by Yasushi Inoue June 15, 2014
The premise of Yasushi Inoue's debut novella Bullfight, celebrated in Japan as a classic of postwar literature, is unassuming enough: an evening newspaper sponsors a tournament of the regional sport of bull-sumo. As practical and financial issues arise, the paper's young editor-in-chief, Tsugami, soon realizes he has taken on more than he can handl […]
Sworn Virgin by Elvira Dones June 15, 2014
Sworn Virgin was made to be translated. Elvira Dones wrote this book not in her native language of Albanian but in Italian—a necessarily fraught and complicated decision. In an Italian-language interview with Pierre Lepori, Dones speaks about her choice of language: “Sworn Virgin was born in Italian . . . I’ve lived using Italian for nineteen years, it has s […]
On the Letters of David Markson June 15, 2014
Knowing these narrators and how their lives paralleled David’s own, it’s difficult to deny his being a recluse. I certainly held that image of him, and nursed it, secretly cherishing it because it meant I was one of the few people with whom he corresponded, and with whom he would occasionally meet. Arranging our first meetings in person was something of a ni […]
Storm Still by Peter Handke June 15, 2014
Storm Still (Immer Noch Sturm) does not necessarily represent new terrain for Handke. Originally published by Suhrkamp Verlag in 2010 and now available for English-language readers thanks to Martin Chalmers’ fluent translation, the play chronicles the dissolution of the Svinec family, a family of Carinthian Slovenes—a quasi-fictionalized version of Handke’s […]
Red or Dead by David Peace June 15, 2014
David Peace's novel Red or Dead is about British football, but it partakes in the traits of Homer's epic. This is a novel about the place of myth and heroes in modern society, about how the cyclical rhythms of athletic seasons reflect the cyclical patterns of life. It is a book about honor and fate, and one which bridges the profound, dreamlike ter […]

First (?) Pale King Review

Bookforum tells me that PW’s review of The Pale King is the first. The lede is decidedly dour: . . . continue reading, and add your comments

I registered two nice appearances yesterday in those big-time NYC periodicals. First off, The New Yorker’s Book Bench ran a very nice post on the simply beautiful covers for Melville House’s new Heinrich Boll titles. And, as you can see, right at the top of the item is the cover for The Clown, with my name, wee but quite legible . . . . . . continue reading, and add your comments

James O. Incandeza’s Films To be Screened

So a bunch of artists put together an exhibition of some films they made inspired by James O. Incandeza’s oeuvre, as described in a footnote to Infinite Jest. They’re calling it “A Failed Entertainment.” Here for instance is a still from The Medusa vs. the Odalisque by Jessica Segall: . . . continue reading, and add your comments

More Thoughts on The Pale King

I readily admit, I’m a Pale King skeptic. In fact, I’m pretty skeptical about all posthumous, incomplete texts. In most cases, if an author didn’t finish it, I’m not really interested in reading it (with obvious exceptions; e.g., Kafka). At The Howling Fantods, a great DFW site in general, Nick Maniatis has an alternative view that’s worth a look. Here’s the start: . . . continue reading, and add your comments

Is This What The Pale King Should Have Looked Like?

Earlier this week, I mentioned that The New Yorker has published a work by David Foster Wallace entitled Backbone, an excerpt from The Pale King. Now there is an extremely interesting Google Doc that purports to offer “Changes between the transcription of David Foster Wallace reading ‘A fragment of a longer thing’ (Dec. 2000) and The New Yorker’s publication of that story as ‘Backbone’ (Feb. 28, 2011).” . . . continue reading, and add your comments

Pale King Excerpt in The New Yorker

In case that rock you’ve been living under is a little heavy . . . & if you want, you can pre-order the book here.

VIDEO: New BBC David Foster Wallace Documentary

45 minute DFW documentary from the BBC. Need I say more?

Surely you have 45 minutes . . . . . . continue reading, and add your comments

On Wallace’s Philosophy Thesis

Levi Asher isn’t too hot on DFW’s “new” “book,” Fate Time and Language: . . . continue reading, and add your comments

Understanding DFW’s Thesis

Everybody who has a grasp of formal logic, raise your hand. Okay, unless I’ve vastly underestimated my popularity among the philosophy grad students, that should not be to many of you. But if you are to make an honest attempt to read DFW’s thesis, Fate, Time, and Language, then you’ll probably want to have some understanding of this stuff. . . . continue reading, and add your comments

The Introduction to David Foster Wallace’s Thesis

In case you’ve forgotten (and let’s face it, unless you’re an enormous fanboy, you probably have), David Foster Wallace’s college thesis goes on sale in December from Columbia University Press under the title Fate, Time, and Language: An Essay on Free Will. CUP is now offering an excerpt from James Ryerson’s introduction to the book: . . . continue reading, and add your comments

The Whole Equation by David Thomson

Film criticism as prophesy: a unified field theory of cinema, an attempt to explain how film and America fused to create a new form of consciousness geared to the realities of the 20th century. Thomson's massive, inspired, unwieldy, poetic, and compelling account of how moving pictures became the dominant form of mass communication in our world, and how it created all of us, a creature we might now call homo cinematis.

Capital in the 21st Century by Thomas Piketty

Part economics book, part revisionist history of capitalism. A new story of the 20th century. An essential book for understanding our world and where it is headed, and a powerful broadside against income inequality. I compare it to Don DeLillo's Underworld right here, and I do think this is a book that cultural critics and literature-lovers can benefit greatly from.

Varieties of Exile by Mavis Gallant

Mavis Gallant was one of the great prose stylists of the 20th century. Full stop. Her understanding of narrative structure was also highly original. This book is edited by Russel Banks and collects much of her very best work. Read it, be amazed, see the world anew.

Seiobo There Below by Laszlo Krasz-
nahorkai

I have never enjoyed Laszlo Krasznahorkai's prose more than in Seiobo There Below. Here he is at his clearest, his most taut, his most imaginative, and his deepest. One of the world's great contemporary writers at the apogee of his art, and a truly important novel of ideas about spirituality, art, and just what is our purpose here on Earth.

Blinding by Mircea Cartarescu

The first volume of an epic trilogy by one of Eastern Europe's most renowned writers. Pychonesque, baroque, mad, the prose here must be read to be believed. Some of Cartarescu's images will never leave my mind. Read the interview with the author in The Quarterly Conversation.

The End of Love by Marcos Giralt Torrente

The arrival of a major talent into English. As I write in the San Francisco Chroncile, thee four long stories "chart the lifelong effects of courtship, the months and years in which it turns from desire to heartbreak to nostalgia. Brilliantly translated by the gifted Katherine Silver, Torrente's remarkably precise sentences are as tightly wound as violin strings, his brutal stories coiled like pythons."

The Box Man by Kobo Abe

The most bizarre Abe novel I've yet read, which is indeed saying something. About a subclass of Japanese men who go around wearing boxes from the waist up (and then use them as domiciles in the evening), the book is also an experiment in perspective shifts, a highly unstable, metafictional first-person narrative, and an exploration of voyeurism, consumerism, and aberrant sexuality.

Head in Flames by Lance Olsen

Charting the path to three gunshots--the one that killed filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, the one that disabled his Islamic extremist assassin, Mohammed Bouyeri, and the one that led to Vincent Van Gogh’s one hundred years earlier--Olsen tells three separate stories that resonate with one another on numerous levels: the logic of extremism, the role of the dissident in Dutch society, the limits of tolerance, the purpose of the artist, the feeling of the most important five minutes of your life. Read my interview with the author.

The End of Oulipo?

Lady Chatterley’s Brother

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