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down among the old- for-America tall buildings that changed the streets of other cities, circulate elevated trains overhead, shrieking and drumming, lit by explosions of sparks that harm no one The title of Slow Trains Overhead, a collection of poems and stories by Reginald Gibbons, comes from a different passage in that poem, “Adams [...] “The Cosmorama” and “The Salamander” are the longest and most substantial of the stories in The Salamander and other Gothic tales, translated (and possibly edited) by Neil Cornwell. Both are excellent examples of the Romantic tale and very much in the style of Hoffmann; “The Golden Pot” and “The Sandman” both come to mind [...] Some of Odoevksy’s stories are less in the Gothic or Romantic mold and more in the Gogolian framework of the grotesque as seen in the Russian countryside. “The Tale of a Dead Body, Belonging to No One Knows Whom” is a nice swipe at the bureaucracy with a bit of a ghost story thrown [...] The stories in The Salamander and other Gothic tales by Vladimir Odoevsky are full of familiar Romantic themes: rational young nineteenth-century men ready to explain anything with science; disarmingly innocent maidens; alchemy; folklore and superstition; enchantment and intoxication; rivers, stones, the sun, the moon; ghosts; strange dreams. One thing that appeares to be a [...] The basis of Lydia Millet’s short story collection Love in Infant Monkeys struck me as soon as I heard it: celebrities plus animals. A strange thing to connect stories; a strange thing to read stories about, it seems. The opening one, “Sexing the Pheasant,” is about Madonna going out shooting with her then-husband Guy [...] I don’t know if it’s just because I first read them both because of the Canongate Myths series, but for whatever reason, there is a close association in my mind between Jeanette Winterson and Ali Smith. They do seem to blurb each other’s books, and I feel like they have a bit in common [...] Check out my review of The Withdrawal Method, a collection of short stories by Canadian writer Pasha Malla. Don’t Look Now is a collection of Daphne du Maurier short stories selected by Patrick McGrath. The selection is excellent; the nine stories all share an atmosphere that holds them together just the right amount. Most of the stories are on the longer side, which is something that doesn’t usually appeal to me (the [...] “The Yellow Wallpaper” is generally considered an important work in American feminist literature, describing the treatment of a woman in late 19th century America suffering postpartum depression. That treatment is known as the rest cure; the patient must simply do nothing all day. Of course, when the treatment for a mental illness would itself [...] Natasha and Other Stories is a collection of short stories about Mark Berman, a Russian Jewish child who immigrates with his family to Toronto at the age of six, around 1980. The stories provide an episodic looks at Mark’s life from childhood, very soon after arriving in Canada, through his twenties. Bezmozgis’ style has [...] |
My Personal Canon (ongoing project) |
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