borges, marques, frankie, keret, zelazny, magical unicorns
If we're all just sparks of light behind someone else's eyes, appearing only when they are drunk, or sad, or squint their eyes just so, does this mean I don't have to get a job again?
I cannot tell a lie. I read some books in July.
Gabriel Garcia Marques
The Autumn of the Patriarch
is a wonderful, gloriously beautiful book, from the first line absoloutly stunning in it's choice of words, phrases, points of view. It is about a nameless despotic ruler of a nameless Carribean nation, and it is wonderful. For what it is, it is very close to perfect.
The first line is this: "Over the weekend the vultures got into the presidential palace by pecking through the screens on the balcony windows and the flapping of their wings stirred up the stagnant time inside, and at dawn on Monday the city awoke out of its lethargy of centuries with the warm, soft breeze of a great man dead and rotting grandeur."
Etgar Keret
The Bus Driver Who Wanted To Be God & Other Stories
Etgar Keret is one of the pioneers of what is called Lean hebrew literature, and he is wonderful, writing short-short absurd stories that are about everything and absoloutly nothing. The translations here (Most of the stories here i've read in the original, though some I had not) are really quite good, somehow managing to keep the poignant Israeliness of the original. Four stars!
Mike Carey & Sony Tiew
My Faith In Frankie
is the cutest little graphic novel in the history of the cutest little graphic novels. Gosh, you guys! I read it, and it was great and funny and sweet, and then I, I swear to god, picked it five minutes and read it again. And then again the next week. It is just adorable. It is about Frankie, who is a chick, and her God, who is a God! It is really really great.
Milorad Pavic
Dictionary Of The Khazars: A lexicon novel
Crazy, strange, and perhaps not precisely pulling it off, Dictionary Of The Khazars is a fictional lexicon novel (Precisely as advertised; Composed of long, meandering encyclopediac entries) about the lost-to-history nation of the Khazars back in the 10th century. Plot wise, it is more about the 17th century attempts to research the nation of the Khazars. Theme wise, it is about myths and dreams and different intepertations of the same events. I think one of it's main points may be that the difference of interpertations doesn't actually matter, as long as the interpertations are pleasing to the various ears. As it may be, it feels like a experiment that never really succeeds. Maybe it's the translation from the original Serbo-Croatian.
I'll note that Amazon only has the Female version of the book; that which I read was the male. As I understand it, there are only 15 lines difference them, which change the interpertation of a crucial scene therein. Your choice! Anyways, it is certainly crazy interesting.
Yehuda Amichai
Open Closed Open: Poems
Somebody should really have me arrested for reading Yehuda Amichai, one of the greatest poets of the Hebrew language, in translation. In my defense, it wasn't my book, and it was there. But to other matters; Open Closed Open is a masterpiece. Truly so. At times I am prone to hyperbolia, but Open Closed Open deserves it. It is, truly, beautiful. If you can find it, get it.
Cormac McCarthy
The Road
Gorgous. Terribly gorgous. The Road is about a man and a boy, who may or not be his son. They walk a world ruined by a unspecified (and thus, inclusive) holocaust, and attempt to survive. The style is sparse, terrifyingly human, astounding. What I mean is that this is a good book, and you should read it.
M. John Harrison
Light
See here - second half.
Jorge Borges (Translated by Andrew Hurley
Collected Fictions
Behemothian collection of every piece of fiction ever written by Jorge Luis Borges, towering demigod of, hrm - as I hestiate to say 'magical realism' - oneiric short-short fiction. Every piece. I was thinking like a Borges short story, of course dreaming like a Borges short story, for a week afterward. Masterful. Very, very long. But i'll say this! After reading this, you can talk about Borges with certaintude.
Victor Pelevin
Oman Ra
Mph. Instantly forgotten satire of Soviet Russia, the space program, propoganda, etc, therein. Now that I think, quite chilling, perhaps I forgot it to save my dreams. Features a terrifying Comissar, and a lovely denounement.
Kierron Gillen & Jamie McKelvie
Phonogram: Rue Brittania
Wonderful little graphic novel about Britpop which you have to do some research on to really understand if you are not British and, say, 30 to 35? 25-35? Something like. Fuck that. It is about magic in the form of music. Done.
Salman Rushdie
The Enchantress Of Florence
I do not remember Salman Rushdie writing so well. Yes, Enchantress isn't a Great Novel With A Beautiful & V. Meaningful Point, but goshdarn it, it isn't trying to be. It's wonderful, astoundingly well-written entertainment. It reads like an easy masterpiece, every word precisely in place. It may be, craftmanship-wise, the best book i've read this year.
L.E. Moddesitt, Jr
Gravity Dreams
Pretty meaningless science-fiction that is about a dude, who is infected with nanites, and then lives in nanite-society, doing things and coming to terms with other things. Look, I needed some light reading after all of the above. So sue me twice.
Frederick Pohl
Gateway
Christ, i'm so glad I found Gateway in the used bookstore. Awesome. It is about a goddamn dude who goes on spaceship rides and becomes rich. That is classy, and this is a classy classic science-fiction book, which I enjoyed. I hope you have no problems with it, because if so it is your problems.
Roger Zelazny
Unicorn Variations
I will not lie; I am wet for Roger Zelazny. He is just so good at what he does, and what he does is goshdarn nice. This is a collection of short stories! In the main one, I make no joke, George R.R. Martin plays chess with a magical unicorn for the future of the human race.
I swear to god.
THAT IS ALL BOOKS OK STOP
bothering
me
jesus christ
I cannot tell a lie. I read some books in July.
Gabriel Garcia Marques
The Autumn of the Patriarch
is a wonderful, gloriously beautiful book, from the first line absoloutly stunning in it's choice of words, phrases, points of view. It is about a nameless despotic ruler of a nameless Carribean nation, and it is wonderful. For what it is, it is very close to perfect.
The first line is this: "Over the weekend the vultures got into the presidential palace by pecking through the screens on the balcony windows and the flapping of their wings stirred up the stagnant time inside, and at dawn on Monday the city awoke out of its lethargy of centuries with the warm, soft breeze of a great man dead and rotting grandeur."
Etgar Keret
The Bus Driver Who Wanted To Be God & Other Stories
Etgar Keret is one of the pioneers of what is called Lean hebrew literature, and he is wonderful, writing short-short absurd stories that are about everything and absoloutly nothing. The translations here (Most of the stories here i've read in the original, though some I had not) are really quite good, somehow managing to keep the poignant Israeliness of the original. Four stars!
Mike Carey & Sony Tiew
My Faith In Frankie
is the cutest little graphic novel in the history of the cutest little graphic novels. Gosh, you guys! I read it, and it was great and funny and sweet, and then I, I swear to god, picked it five minutes and read it again. And then again the next week. It is just adorable. It is about Frankie, who is a chick, and her God, who is a God! It is really really great.
Milorad Pavic
Dictionary Of The Khazars: A lexicon novel
Crazy, strange, and perhaps not precisely pulling it off, Dictionary Of The Khazars is a fictional lexicon novel (Precisely as advertised; Composed of long, meandering encyclopediac entries) about the lost-to-history nation of the Khazars back in the 10th century. Plot wise, it is more about the 17th century attempts to research the nation of the Khazars. Theme wise, it is about myths and dreams and different intepertations of the same events. I think one of it's main points may be that the difference of interpertations doesn't actually matter, as long as the interpertations are pleasing to the various ears. As it may be, it feels like a experiment that never really succeeds. Maybe it's the translation from the original Serbo-Croatian.
I'll note that Amazon only has the Female version of the book; that which I read was the male. As I understand it, there are only 15 lines difference them, which change the interpertation of a crucial scene therein. Your choice! Anyways, it is certainly crazy interesting.
Yehuda Amichai
Open Closed Open: Poems
Somebody should really have me arrested for reading Yehuda Amichai, one of the greatest poets of the Hebrew language, in translation. In my defense, it wasn't my book, and it was there. But to other matters; Open Closed Open is a masterpiece. Truly so. At times I am prone to hyperbolia, but Open Closed Open deserves it. It is, truly, beautiful. If you can find it, get it.
Cormac McCarthy
The Road
Gorgous. Terribly gorgous. The Road is about a man and a boy, who may or not be his son. They walk a world ruined by a unspecified (and thus, inclusive) holocaust, and attempt to survive. The style is sparse, terrifyingly human, astounding. What I mean is that this is a good book, and you should read it.
M. John Harrison
Light
See here - second half.
Jorge Borges (Translated by Andrew Hurley
Collected Fictions
Behemothian collection of every piece of fiction ever written by Jorge Luis Borges, towering demigod of, hrm - as I hestiate to say 'magical realism' - oneiric short-short fiction. Every piece. I was thinking like a Borges short story, of course dreaming like a Borges short story, for a week afterward. Masterful. Very, very long. But i'll say this! After reading this, you can talk about Borges with certaintude.
Victor Pelevin
Oman Ra
Mph. Instantly forgotten satire of Soviet Russia, the space program, propoganda, etc, therein. Now that I think, quite chilling, perhaps I forgot it to save my dreams. Features a terrifying Comissar, and a lovely denounement.
Kierron Gillen & Jamie McKelvie
Phonogram: Rue Brittania
Wonderful little graphic novel about Britpop which you have to do some research on to really understand if you are not British and, say, 30 to 35? 25-35? Something like. Fuck that. It is about magic in the form of music. Done.
Salman Rushdie
The Enchantress Of Florence
I do not remember Salman Rushdie writing so well. Yes, Enchantress isn't a Great Novel With A Beautiful & V. Meaningful Point, but goshdarn it, it isn't trying to be. It's wonderful, astoundingly well-written entertainment. It reads like an easy masterpiece, every word precisely in place. It may be, craftmanship-wise, the best book i've read this year.
L.E. Moddesitt, Jr
Gravity Dreams
Pretty meaningless science-fiction that is about a dude, who is infected with nanites, and then lives in nanite-society, doing things and coming to terms with other things. Look, I needed some light reading after all of the above. So sue me twice.
Frederick Pohl
Gateway
Christ, i'm so glad I found Gateway in the used bookstore. Awesome. It is about a goddamn dude who goes on spaceship rides and becomes rich. That is classy, and this is a classy classic science-fiction book, which I enjoyed. I hope you have no problems with it, because if so it is your problems.
Roger Zelazny
Unicorn Variations
I will not lie; I am wet for Roger Zelazny. He is just so good at what he does, and what he does is goshdarn nice. This is a collection of short stories! In the main one, I make no joke, George R.R. Martin plays chess with a magical unicorn for the future of the human race.
I swear to god.
THAT IS ALL BOOKS OK STOP
bothering
me
jesus christ