Conversational Reading

Since 2004. The blog of the critic, writer, and editor, Scott Esposito

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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... »
Patience (After Sebald)
It gets a rather tiny and inconsequential review in The Guardian.... »
Impressions of Africa
Nice to see this piece on Raymond Roussel over at the Poetry Foundation (and Chad's enthusiastic response to it). Both... »
Infinity Nets
LA Review of Books on Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama: Discussions of Yayoi Kusama must inevitably... »

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 […]