When I wrote about Borges last week, I mentioned I was often bowled over by him. “The Library of Babel” is for me another example of why. Borges returns to many of his usual themes: books and literature, infinity, words and their meaning, the universe and its comprehensibility (or lack thereof), numbers and mathematics. [...]
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Christopher Tietjens, with his brilliant mind, predicted long before the war that America would come out on top soon enough, and that that’s where the money would be. After he’s done soldiering, he goes into the antique furniture business, fixing up old pieces and selling them for a bundle to rich Americans. This is [...] It had been obvious to her for a long time that God would one day step in and intervene for the protection of Christopher. After all Christopher was a good man—a rather sickeningly good man. It is, in the end, she reluctantly admitted, the function of God and the invisible powers to see that [...] Writing about Robert Louis Stevenson the other day, Amateur Reader described the way he would build to scenes and compared it to Ford Madox Ford’s technique in Parade’s End. Parade’s End is full of this, but the scene that came to mind immediately was the first one of the third volume, A Man Could [...] Kathryn Davis’s novel The Thin Place is what I would categorize as Gardening: English Village, transplanted to New England. That is to say, it’s the story of a whole town and all its inhabitants, jumping from person to person over the course of a few summer weeks. One twist on the traditional idea is [...] After finishing Parade’s End on Friday (just in time, so I didn’t have to bring that massive book with me on my trip), I feel ridiculously freed to read short books again. So I proceeded to read one nice shortish contemporary novel in 24 hours, which is more like it. Love that feeling of [...] I have read a lot of brilliant posts about 2666 over the past 15 weeks, but like Maria Bustillos, I have only felt quieter and quieter as I went through it. She ends her last post on the Bolaño group blog thanking the author for “the ice cream, which is absolutely first-class ice cream, [...] The marathon is at an end, and a final thanks to the lovely host of The Brothers Karamazov readalong, Dolce Bellezza. Formally, the novel offered me little. I will refer you to Amateur Reader for a taste of why rather than moan. As a novel of ideas, it didn’t offer much more. If Zosima’s [...] The fact that April is over has me reeling. Of course, it does not help that I am behind in two of my three big April reads! I finished 2666 at the beach yesterday and yes, for those who are wondering, I did love it. Like it a lot. Love it. I keep going [...] |
My Personal Canon (ongoing project) |
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