Conversational Reading

Even More Walser
Two more of the Berlin Stories are available online, and Susan Bernofksy is interviewed. RIBBLE: Are there translation... »
Problems with Reviews Today
I'm not too bothered about the backscratching, logrolling, etc that goes on in reviewing. If people are skeptical enough when... »
On Joining Oulipo by Accident
From Harry Mathews' excellent, engaging Paris Review interview. Is that when you found out about the Oulipo? MATHEWS... »
Letter Killers Club by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky
My review of The Letter Killers Club by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky runs today in The National. Krzhizhanovsky falls under the... »
Lifespan of a Fact
Harper's serializes a little of John D'Agata's latest book, Lifespan of a Fact. Though I had some serious reservations about... »
Your Day of Gaddis
A ton of Gaddis links right here on the eve of the republication of The Recognitions and JR by the Dalkey Archive. They... »
Patience (After Sebald) Trailer
Because I'm very curious about this film ... »
Reliably Bad Roiphe
The always cranky (and just as often on-target) Steve Donoghue takes apart the word salad that is Katie Roiphe's latest attempt... »
Cronenberg on Genre
From his interview with the Los Angeles Review of Books. The difference between approaching themes in art and in genre... »
The Omission of Desire
From Charles Baxter's review of The Angel Esmeralda: This omission of any markers of the narrator’s desire is one of the... »

In Red by Magdalena Tulli December 5, 2011
In Red is Tulli's most conventional novel—which is not to say it could finally be described as a conventional work of fiction. Still, to the extent it does offer individuated characters, some degree of plot "movement," and a strongly delineated setting, readers hesitant to commit to one of the novels that seems formidably experimental might fi […]
Show Up, Look Good by Mark Wisniewski December 5, 2011
Early in Show Up, Look Good, Mark Wisniewski’s second novel, newly single Michelle meets up with an old friend, Barb, from the Midwest. Michelle has already been portrayed as a woman who attracts all variations of awkwardness and bad luck: she’s awakened to find her ex, Thom, “having his way, well, with a marital aid,” agreed to bathe an old woman as part of […]
An Ermine in Czernopol by Gregor von Rezzori December 5, 2011
Gregor von Rezzori’s fictitious city Czernopol exists at the edge of civilization, on the border of memory and invention, lying “somewhere in the godforsaken southeastern part of Europe.” In reality it is Czernowitz, in the region known as the Bukovina, ceded by the Ottoman Empire to the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1775, then after World War I part of Romania […]
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami December 4, 2011
The publication of 1Q84, Haruki Murakami’s biggest, most ambitious novel to date, seems to have brought his career full-circle. This is not simply because the book has widely been posited as Murakami’s Brothers Karamazov—that is, an attempt to write a meganovel summing up his life’s writing—but even more because of the trajectory Murakami has taken as a writ […]
Ordinary Sun by Matthew Henriksen December 4, 2011
Ordinary Sun at times feels like listening to confession in a parallel universe, a world with all the guts displayed on the outside, and the underworld on top. Make no mistake though: there is no otherworld. Henriksen’s world is this world. Who doesn’t recognize her own kind in lines like these, from “Corolla in the Midden”: “I do not dream. I just watch / f […]
Selected Poems by Jaan Kaplinski December 4, 2011
Though sometimes referred to as a Modernist, Kaplinski’s poetry often has the feel of a classical, and older, poetics. The poems have a gravitas; they do not mock, toy, or play with the reader. They invite the reader to eavesdrop on the thoughts, remembrances, and philosophy of a person as they flicker and flow. This contemplative, philosophic strain is pres […]
Joseph Brodsky: A Literary Life by Lev Loseff December 4, 2011
A martyr is not necessarily a saint, in any case, and those who knew him didn’t turn to him for saintliness. He was spellbinding, an electrical jolt for the psyche. An encounter with him, as a colleague or as a mentor, could be life-changing and endlessly rewarding. Warts and all, the real man carries far more interest than the photoshopped one Loseff gives […]
From Fiona and Ferdinand by Josef Haslinger December 4, 2011
On the day of Bachmaier’s funeral there were two messages from my mother waiting for me on the answering machine. In the first one she asked me to call her back, in the second she said that the village was in an uproar: I was to come at once. Calls from my mother were rare. […]
Self-Portrait of an Other by Cees Nooteboom and Max Neumann December 4, 2011
As hard as you look at it, Max Neumann’s paintings don’t reveal much about his method, but two recent English-language publications imply that he must enjoy collaborating with luminaries of world literature. AnimalInside, reviewed in The Quarterly Conversation's issue 25 by Christiane Craig, brought Neumann together with László Krasznahorkai, the presti […]
Learning to Pray in the Age of Technique by Gonçalo M. Tavares December 4, 2011
Someone once noted that it’s easy to have virtue when facing adversity but the real test of character comes when one is given power. To test this aphorism, one need look no further than Gonçalo M. Tavares’ novel Learning to Pray in the Age of Technique for evidence of how power corrupts and attracts the corrupt. Tavares is a prolific writer from Portugal who […]

YFTS: The Perils of Dancing

So a few more comments about last week’s section, pp. 122 – 201. I’d like to draw everyone’s attention to page 194, which I think contains a rather pivotal moment. . . . continue reading, and add your comments

YFTS: And Now We Venture Into the Ladies' Room, and Into the Mind of a Vengeful God

I’m sure everyone was very tickled by the restroom scene–I know I was. In a very broad sort of way, this scene made the book feel very real to me in a way that all the talk of the Spanish Civil War, 9/11, Bill Clinton (yes, he was in there), government surveillance, James Bond, and all that other “real world” stuff just didn’t. The restroom felt so prosaic: if Marias was going to take Deza into a public restroom there’s nowhere he wouldn’t take him. It just opened the book’s world up for me in a way it hadn’t been previously. . . . continue reading, and add your comments

YFTS: What About the Bosses?

Daniel Hartley has a highly worthwhile post on vol 1 of Your Face Tomorrow. Therein he brings up an excellent point that, I must admit, I had ignored until he mentioned it . . . . . . continue reading, and add your comments

Fingerprinting Everyone

It was at this time that they first brought in an official identity card, against our tradition and our preference. . . . But people weren’t used to carrying such a document and kept losing it, and were was such generalised hostility to it that, around 1951 or 1952, the card in question was suppressed. . . . According to Tupra, there is talk in government circles of imposing something similar, along with other inquisitorial measures, these mediocrities who rule over us in such a totalitarian spirit and who have more or less been given carte blanche to do so by the Twin Towers massacre. I hope they don’t get their way. . . . It’s insulting, an out-and-out mockery, what these pusillanimous, authoritarian fools want to do and impose on us in the name of security, that prehistoric pretext. . . . continue reading, and add your comments

YFTS: Favors, and The Return of the Socks (!)

For those of you who remain with me, we are now just beginning “Dance,” the first section of volume 2 of Javier Marias’ long book (schedule here). As was probably not a surprise to most people, we discover that the young woman following Deza into his apartment at the end of vol. 1 was in fact Perez Nuix, who has an intriguing request to make of him.

I was struck here at how Marias sets up this request

. . . continue reading, and add your comments

YFTS: Some Thoughts After Finishing the First Volume of Your Face Tomorrow

One starts Your Face Tomorrow filled with foreboding. How else to read the opening segment, a section that lets us know that everything we will read in this book has all been said and done, that it has all already happened to our protagonist, one Jacobo Deza (or Jacques, or Jaime, or . . . like Deza, so many characters in this book have multiple names). Moreover, the book begins with Deza telling us that, knowing what he knows now, he rues the act of opening one’s mouth. And then, were that not enough, the opening section ends . . . continue reading, and add your comments

YFTS: Magaret Jull Costa Responds

Here are the responses to the questions posed earlier this week to Margaret Jull Costa:

Neil: One of the many pleasures of reading the novel was how there seemed to be a constant translation taking place in Deza’s head between English and Spanish and back to English. How did translating a character who already is constantly translating and playing with both languages affect your work on the novel? Did it add another layer to your translation? How was it different translating this than other books that may not have been as concerned with the differences and respective peculiarities . . . continue reading, and add your comments

YFTS: Margaret Jull Costa Interview

MJC: The long sentence that is so characteristic of Javier’s style first occurs in The Man of Feeling. The sentences and the novels have grown longer and longer since then, mainly, I suspect, because his novels have moved away from plot (although there always is a plot) towards the dissection of ideas, feelings, words, motivations. His sentences have the shape of a thought, full of buts and perhapses and then agains. The style in Your Face Tomorrow is the latest stage in that development–less plot and more thought. . . . continue reading, and add your comments

YFTS: I am Myself My Own Fever and Pain, and Dogs Have 18 Toes

Before we get started on this week’s discussion, a few housekeeping items.

First off, remember that on Monday we’ll be joined by Margaret Jull Costa, translator of Your Face Tomorrow. She’s graciously agreed to answer questions in the comments, so think up some good questions over the weekend and be ready with them on Monday. This week we read pp. 234 – 316, and next week we’re going to be finishing Vol 1. Congrats to everyone who has made it this far! I hope everyone is enjoying the book. I am. Remember, you can see the full schedule continue reading, and add your comments

YFTS: Margaret Jull Costa Now Joining Us

Legendary translator Margaret Jull Costa, who of course translated Your Face Tomorrow, as well as books by Jose Saramago, Fernando Pessoa, Eça de Queiroz, Bernardo Atxaga, and a ton more, has graciously agreed to join in on our discussion next week. Here’s how it’s going to work: I’ll have her answer a few questions about the book and the translation of it, and then everyone can pose some questions to her in the comments. So please make sure to drop by next week and get her insight on these books.

I also wanted to pull a few comments that . . . continue reading, and add your comments

The Names by Don DeLillo (1982)

DeLillo's major work before White Noise is probably his most underrated novel. Its all right here--the politics of paranoia, terrorism, the unnamable--set in an evocative, timeless Greece.

The Box Man by Kobo Abe (1973, English 1974)

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 (2009)

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.

Agaat by Marlene van Niekerk (2006, English 2010)

Creatively structured, well-executed epic novel of rural South Africa from 1950 - 2000. Takes on a lot and lives up to it magnificently. Highly recommended.

The Weather Fifteen Years Ago by Wolf Haas (2006, English 2009)

A book that's an interview about the book you're supposedly holding in your hands. Creative, potent, and full of life. Just what metafiction should be. Read my post on it.

Lady Chatterley’s Brother

Translate This Book!

Spring 2011 Group Read

Book Lists

You Say

Popular Posts

Shop though these links = Support this site

Interviews from Conversational Reading

Group Reads

Reader Picks

Recommended Books

Archives

Categories