I've been slowly inching my way though Ernaux's books. I like photography and I figured this was a good 5th book of Ernaux's to read. I bought the FitI've been slowly inching my way though Ernaux's books. I like photography and I figured this was a good 5th book of Ernaux's to read. I bought the Fitzcarraldo Edition, noticed that it had a male, French co-writer (a guess since his name was Marc and Ernaux is also French), and started reading. Quickly I discovered it WAS both about photography and NOT about photography. The book is a back and forth book, small essays written by both Annie Ernaux and Marc Marie. In each essay they describe the photographs they started taking of the room where they recently had sex; clothes on the floor, bed rumpled, etc. So, directly it is a book about sex between Annie and Marc, but filtered and given distance, by actually being a set of essays where each describes a photo they took (in 1993) of the "rooms where it happened". Kinda brilliant. Distance is created by both the photos (not photos of the act, just of the clothes and shoes, etc., thrown around and off during the act), pushed even further by being descriptions of the photos (not descriptions of the sex). Finally, filtered through this is Ernaux's cancer treatments she is going through. This love affair begins as Ernaux is going through chemotherapy and thus is gets a bit deeper still. It becomes not a book of photos (although the photos are included*) or a book of an affair (although the affair is central), but a book about life, love, death, illness, and memory and perspective. I'm glad I went in blind. And honestly, I wish I first experienced this book without the photos or the text. Audiobook might be the way to experience this. Another level of distillation, another mirror to reflect though. ...more
On whole, not Borges' best, but these later Borges stories are still amazing and hold up well. These are stories that belong to a mature and confidentOn whole, not Borges' best, but these later Borges stories are still amazing and hold up well. These are stories that belong to a mature and confident writer who still has a lot left to say. I don't want to suggest that some of these stories didn't knock my socks off. A few left me a bit unsettled. What appears to be a still pool of mature stories holds a library of swamp monsters....more
"Dying Is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well." - Sylvia Plath, Lady Lazarus
This novel hit me in all the right places. It was beauti"Dying Is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well." - Sylvia Plath, Lady Lazarus
This novel hit me in all the right places. It was beautifully written. Careful and taut in its pacing. Character development was fascinating and the architecture/art, life/death, male/female, internal/external, parent/child, sibling/sibling dualities all seemed to work. Plus I really dug the Félix Vallotton painting used on the cover. Took a risk on this one, but it paid off. After my last several novels, I do need to escape the suicide motif for just a bit....more
A novel of postwar Japan. The protagonist is part of an aristocratic Japanese family that has found itself in poverty. The novel feels very different A novel of postwar Japan. The protagonist is part of an aristocratic Japanese family that has found itself in poverty. The novel feels very different than a similar era Yukio Mishima. While both authors died by their own hands, both men represented different ends of literary Japan from the 1930s to the post-War Japan. Incredibly sad and a little bit pathetic, it feels like a beaten man (or woman) who refuses to leave the abuser. It feels hopeless....more
Sometimes a collection of short stories (and essays) focused around Noah and the Flood, ships, Deathwatch beetles (Xestobium rufovillosum), shipwrecksSometimes a collection of short stories (and essays) focused around Noah and the Flood, ships, Deathwatch beetles (Xestobium rufovillosum), shipwrecks, people lost at sea, etc. lands nearly perfectly. Absolutely this is subjective, but of course everything is subjective. But Barnes had me from the first story to the last. I was reading bits to my wife, promising myself to go visit a painting at the Louvre, and just enjoying this book. Highly recommend. Feels sppropriate to this age where we seem to be regressing back into the past, into the seas; crawling backwards and losing our limbs. ...more
In Genesis god Gives Adam the job of naming the animals. He gave the rest of the task to Mr Palomar. I loved almost everything about this little beautIn Genesis god Gives Adam the job of naming the animals. He gave the rest of the task to Mr Palomar. I loved almost everything about this little beauty. I loved how it was structured. I loved the poetry of the prose. I loved how the bow on the whole thing was cinched tight at the very end. It was beautiful and simple as a star, a flower, or a wave. Like Borges, it is hard to walk away from one of Calvino's book out of the same door you approached. You finished a Borges or Calvino novel and the world you emerge back into has changed and shifted. There are more colors, another perspective, and your brain has just been folded into a new shape. This novel doesn't get as much attention as Invisible Cities, If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, or the The Baron in the Trees, but it definitely belongs on the same shelf. ...more
I wanted to like this more. It just never grabbed me. I thought it was clever in its retelling of the Barry Lyndon story. I really wished I liked it mI wanted to like this more. It just never grabbed me. I thought it was clever in its retelling of the Barry Lyndon story. I really wished I liked it more. I'm not sure if the style just didn't work for me, or the passive narrator whose rise and fall are accidents of fate than something he actively participated in. Again, it was an interesting premise, but one that didn't pull me along very quickly. I would put the book down several times while reading, frustrated by the narrator, and unable to care more for his circumstances than he seemed to....more
Fosse's first novel since winning the Nobel. The first in a three-part series. Interesting to see where the thread on all of this leads. Yes. InterestFosse's first novel since winning the Nobel. The first in a three-part series. Interesting to see where the thread on all of this leads. Yes. Interested. Fosse's ability to tell a simple story with all the complexities of the inner world, the indecision, the second-guessing, is amazing for its penetration. It reminds me, in a literary sense, of those ecological surveys (line transects) done in universities where they will explore all life along one foot, one meter of string: describing every insect, plant, and fungi that comes into contact with the thread. Fosse does this with thoughts, with people, with towns and relationships. ...more
Describing the subject (the author's affair for a few months with a married East European) is way easier than describing the type of book it is. MemoiDescribing the subject (the author's affair for a few months with a married East European) is way easier than describing the type of book it is. Memoir? Nonfiction? Novella? Honestly, it is impossible and Ernaux recognizes this to write about passion (or any other emotion) with the brutality, urgency, depth, etc., it requirs without drifting between genres. The mind is not a map. It has no grids. It is fire. It's a spark. It is energy. It is all time and not time. Anyway, a lovely piece....more
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