Reviews
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Review of Penguin Island by Anatole France
A surprisingly lackluster fantastical satire from Anatole France, the Nobel winner who brought us dozens of French classics. Of the books of his which I’ve read, this might be the weakest in my opinion. Whereas Thais’s prose sparkled like Flaubert’s, the writing here is safer. There are moments of great…
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Review of Cowboy Graves: Three Novellas by Roberto Bolaño
Bolaño releases another posthumous book from beyond the grave. More Bolaño is welcome in this day and age, but each time it happens I recall that 2666 was his crowning achievement. How many more manuscripts did he leave in the desk drawers? This book, along with the Spirit of Science…
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Review of Insatiability by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz
A challenging, vengeful, manic, weird, gloriously random, obscure panegyric. A dystopian, war-like, anti-war novel. The Polish Gravity’s Rainbow, rendered less comprehensible via translation. There is still a lot to gain, absorb and relish about this book, even if every other sentence goes in one ear and out the other. The…
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Review of Tales by H.P. Lovecraft
I read this volume long ago. I have since replaced it with a more comprehensive collection of Lovecraft’s works. This seems like a cash-grab by Library of America, rather than a proper treatment of this writer’s stories. You can find a cheaper, larger complete tales edition by Chartwell classics. It’s…
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Review of Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them by Francine Prose
This was required reading for one of my Creative Writing classes in college. While I was reading I kept thinking I’d rather be reading short stories. Francine Prose is right about one thing, you learn the most from reading the classics, or the masters. Her list of suggested reading in…
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Review of A Most Ambiguous Sunday and Other Stories by Young-moon Jung
I’ve often read story collections of authors before their novels, but in the case of Young-moon, I believe this is less accessible than his longer works, and is the 4th thing of his I’ve read. The best way I can think to characterize his style is: abstract, pseudo-omniscient, first-person Impressionism.…
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Review of The Arrest by Jonathan Lethem
After Lethem’s recent novel The Feral Detective, I didn’t know what to expect. This is an unconventional post-apocalyptic novel. Contrary to the blurb, I would not call it dystopian. Apart from the metafictional antics of its screenwriter main character, it comes alive with humorous anachronisms, some subtle social commentary, stock…
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Review of The Girl I Left Behind by Shūsaku Endō
This was a devastating novel. Not only was the female character a good character, but the way she is portrayed did not seem as unrealistic as it might have played out in a film or more conventional novel. The way Endo described the novel in his Afterward as a youthful…
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Review of Sabbath’s Theater by Philip Roth
Should Roth’s novels be lumped together with other transgressive works such as Vollmann’s Royal Family or anything by the Marquise de Sade? Most often they are not. Frequently, they are labeled as masterpieces, or literary fiction of the award-winning variety. Whereas, Vollmann’s far superior novel abovementioned is regarded by some…
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Review of Life by Keith Richards
The main reason I rented this audiobook biography of Keith Richards was because Johnny Depp performs it. I only wish he would have performed more of it. I did not expect literary greatness, but what I got was informative. I would call it overly detailed for a biography, but I…
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Review of Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie
I’m surprised that Viking listed this as a children’s literature. There’s nothing risque in it of course, and it is structured a little like Alice in Wonderland, but I think it will appeal to both children and adults with its playful style and malleable language. There are a lot of…
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Review of The Pale King by David Foster Wallace
No matter how unfinished this may be, it is nonetheless a book DFW spent years on. How much vaster, greater, or more polished it might have become had he seen it to completion is inestimable. But as it stands, it is impressive in a number of ways. At bottom a…
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Review of Interlibrary Loan by Gene Wolfe
Sequel to Wolfe’s bizarre The Borrowed Man. Both orchestrated typical sleights of hand on my psyche. It is possible to get immersed in the surface-level narrative of a man who gets checked out from the library which is his institution of residence as a re-cloned mystery writer. Adventure ensures. But…
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Review of The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
It is very unlikely that anyone would be able to articulate as well as Henry James himself did his intentions and method of writing The Portrait of a Lady in his New York Edition Preface, which was included in my Penguin edition. For this reason I recommend the edition over…
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Review of Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami
Beginning a series of reviews I will do for Murakami, though I’m arriving late to the party, what with the plethora of reviews out there. I’ve been a fan since high school and through college. His short stories have a very different feel than his novels in my opinion. With…
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Review of The Gray Prince by Jack Vance
The Gray Prince is not advanced Vance, but it fulfills many of the checklist items one comes to expect from the GM of fantasy: weird creatures, oddball characters, absurd names, made-up vocabulary, un-subtle satire, hilarious high jinx, and luscious alien scenery. One of the most inventive pulp writers around, Vance’s…
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Review of The Lucky Star by William T. Vollmann
Another Vollmann mega-tome. Having read Royal Family and Butterfly Stories, I am not sure this volume adds too much to the prostitution-focused body of work. He covers a lot of the same ground, albeit from a different angle. I’ve reviewed the other 2 works above at length so won’t reiterate…
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Review of The Great Hunt (The Wheel of Time, #2) by Robert Jordan
Book 2 of the WoT focuses more on characters than plot, compared to the first, and still suffers from #1 New York Times Bestseller prose syndrome, plot conveniences, and a steep learning curve. Nonetheless, it is a closer look at Jordan’s insanely detailed universe, with in-depth character explorations, classic tropes…
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Review of Collected Stories by Roald Dahl,
Dahl’s adult stories are not as famous as his children’s books. Taken as a whole, The Collected Stories is as impressive as Saki’s Complete Works if you ask me. Many of these stories, for me, were the antidote to reality. His characters, their perpetually gleaming eyes, their moist lips, constantly…
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Review of Three by Ann Quin
Composed of alternating styles in the form of a diary, recordings, jottings, and near stream of consciousness, Three will likely be very different from anything you have read before. Starting with Joshua Cohen’s idiosyncratic introduction, in which he outlines the major conflicts, the love triangle, and overviews the appeal of…
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Review of The Belly of Paris (Les Rougon-Macquart, #3) by Émile Zola
The Belly of Pairs represents a splendid artistic development in the French novel. Combining the down and out urchin tales of Hugo and Sue, with Zola’s own brand of reportage. It is easy to forget how teeming the streets are throughout history. Especially in Paris at this time. Legions of…
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Review of Death’s End (Remembrance of Earth’s Past #3) by Liu Cixin
1500 pages of successively more impressive sci-fi action. The final volume of the trilogy is more sweeping and panoramic than the other two. This is one alternate future I never would have anticipated. And thankfully, Cixin Liu does not offer us a trite, Hollywood ending. The ending kept me up…
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Review of Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Cloud Atlas is a composed of a multitude of voices, some of which sound like nails on a chalkboard. The excessive use of portmanteau words weaves a tapestry of anachronistic neologisms and inconsistencies. What separates this novel from ordinary science fiction or magical realism or literary fiction, is the balancing…
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Review of The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe
I don’t feel qualified to give a comprehensive review of this book. It is only the 2nd book of Gene Wolfe’s I’ve read, and the first I’ve come close to understanding. I think this must be a better book to begin with though, than his Book of the New Sun…
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Review of Life for Sale by Yukio Mishima
Was Mishima embarrassed by this decidedly quirky, goofy little book? Worlds away from his other fiction, this posthumous novel reads like a mystery thriller, with a light-hearted tone, dark themes, and represents a gray-area exploration of the human psyche. Is the main character dissatisfied, or simply mad? Are the oddballs…
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Review of The Enchanter by Vladimir Nabokov
Nabokov is unapproachable, never ordinary. He is a master and is fundamentally enjoyable to read. This short short novel is elegant in the extreme. Nab describes the desire to write Lolita as a throb plaguing him much of his life. It produces a corollary in this work. An offshoot, the…
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Review of An Angel of Sodom by David Vardeman
Primarily through comedy, Vardeman’s experimental stories run the gamut of human emotion, from hilarity to harrowing heartbreak. From page one he offers an unflinching and unflattering view of the human animal’s foolish and various ways of tackling life. It is with a unique literary mastery of his chosen arguments that…
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Review of The Mad Patagonian by Javier Pedro Zabala
A flagship shelf-stopper from the stellar River Boat Books. Is this book for you? At over half a million words, it’s likely to keep you busy for a while. Luckily, the beginning is rhythmic and fast-paced. The layered complexities and dense historical detail comes later, once you get to know…
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Review of Night of the Long Goodbyes by Erik Martiny
Readers’ artistic interpretation of this book may vary. More so than in many other novels I’ve read at least. On this canvas, the colors are iterations and variations of the same hue. It is patterned expressionism, containing analogues for strange human and psychological dream creatures. The symbolism is associated with…
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Review of SHIKASTA Re: Colonised Planet 5.Canopus In Argos : Archives by Doris Lessing
The full title is Canopus in Argos: Archives Re: Colonized Planet 5: Shikasta: Personal, Psychological, Historical Documents Relating to Visit by JOHOR (George Sherban): Emissary Grade 9: 87th of the Period of the Last Days. To begin, we receive a Preface from the Nobel-winning author. It contains a brief defense…
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Review of The Manifold Destiny of Eddie Vegas by Rick Harsch
If this book had been published in 1960, we would all know about it by now. “Manifold Destiny” would be a catch-phrase justification for our monstropolis steamroller of a country. Combining an astonishing range of styles, a magisterial voice, operatic reverence, elegant tone variance, and predominantly satirical, cynical, jaded, darkly…
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Review of The Unknown Masterpiece by Honoré de Balzac
Easily the best entry point into Balzac’s impressive oeuvre, these two short novellas display the key features of this literary master’s ability. The first feature is astounding, complex description, and the second is dramatic, intelligent dialogue. The latter is worthy of a grandiose stage play and the former is often…
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Review of The Wrong Side of Paris by Honoré de Balzac
This lesser-known, final finished Balzac novel comprises 2 halves and is the concluding segment of the Parisian Life chapter of the Human Comedy. There are 3 translations into English with alternate titles, this one being the most recent. As in most of the author’s work, there is a display of…
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Review of Séraphita [And Louis Lambert & The Exiles] by Honoré de Balzac
Rarely have I seen such wise arguments, such logical rhetoric, such splendid lyricism, such sincerity – even within the pages of Balzac Seraphita–seraphitus is one of the author’s personal favorites, or so he said, and it is clear he had a fascination with the hermaphrodite figure in history. Apply this…
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Review of The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
The flawless audiobook presentation, read by none other than Bryan Cranston (of Malcolm in the Middle fame) was riveting. This is good storytelling, and a lesson on how to use repetition. It sheds light on nuanced emotions amid the chaos of wartime. I‘ve always disliked war stories in general. They’re…
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Review of Book of Numbers by Joshua Cohen
A masterpiece. Relentlessly clever. The demented techno wordplay will ripple into the future, endlessly perplexing jaundiced, crusty historians of so-called traditional literature as it astounds and speaks to every savvy and savage child of our screen-dependent age. A big book of inside jokes, which, in DFW-fashion, elicits a gut-reaction on…
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Review of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
“To Kill a Mocking Bird” is a masterpiece for a reason: it blends Americana perfectly with a story of growing up and facing monsters. It captures many important modes of thought, and uses representative experiences to tell a concise, elegant tale. The writing is languid in tone and pacing, perfectly…
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Review of The Magus by John Fowles
The Magus began on the level of an Aldous Huxley novel, a book with engrossing prose, an intriguing setting, and some sprinkles of philosophy. It had the atmosphere of Lawrence Durrell, and described parts of Greece well. I would call it immersive. But I soon realized the narrator rubbed me…
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Review of Neuromancer (Sprawl, #1) by William Gibson
There is much to enjoy about Neuromancer, and as we all know, its influence reaches far in film and literature. But there was a lot about it that rubbed me the wrong way. Its patina gloss shimmers at first, but soon sours, like sleek leather jumpsuits blurred by a g-force…
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Review of The Humbling by Philip Roth
Upon rereading, I found this book more engrossing than before. Upgraded rating from 3 to 4. Why? I liked the strong emotional core. There is usually an influx of emotion and logic in Roth’s books. In this one, the emotional fragility of characters is pronounced. The fragility of strained relationships…
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Review of The Eye of the World (The Wheel of Time, #1) by Robert Jordan
Book 1 of 14, read before the Prequel. First published novel of the Wheel of Time Series.The series totals out at 11,898 pages and over 4 million words. Many might be intimidated by its length. But consider that the Harry Potter series is over 1 million words, and I know…
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Review of The Unabridged Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe
When choosing which single volume of Poe’s to keep in my collection I settled on this one. I decided against the Library of America edition of the tales due to conspicuous absences in the Table of Contents. This one has all of my favorite poems, stories and a few essays.…
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Review of In the Heart of the Heart of the Country and Other Stories by William H. Gass
I think I am going to like this Gass, I thought, and here I am, at the end of it, hovering between four and five stars, as I so often do, but settling for that generous bedizening – the whole roster of stellar units. Linked only by nefariously complex sentences,…
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Review of The Body Artist by Don DeLillo
A sensual, hyper-real Delillian song. Donnie’s poetic prose lilts in sustained focus through ghostly sibilance, sinusoidally evocative and throb-inducing. A brief encounter and a drawn-out epiphany. An instant under a microscope reveals such texture as the merely human eye cannot perceive. The hero of this novel is the author. Its…
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Review of The Dreamed Part (Trilogía las partes #2) by Rodrigo Fresán
Fresan’s second part is a dream incarnate. It contains a plenitude of poetry, mixed similes, mingled metaphors, quirks, smarm, charms, verve, meandering melancholia, free-form, dare-I-say dreamlike anomalies, pop-quoting, trans-textual, atemporal, hallucino-generic, and anti-modern coagulations of language. It quivers; it writhes. What with all the billowing prose exudations, the quavering, stuttering…
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Review of The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter
My first reading of Angela Carter. I can see why she is popular and well-regarded. This book is about as good as retellings of fairy tales could be. Through rabid exorcisms of imagery mesmerizing moments are born from her disturbing imagination. The dense sentences cluster like a nest of snakes,…
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Review of Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami,
What is one to make of Murakami’s short stories? His translator has stated that his reputation was made by his stories in Japan – apart from his super-successful novels. A brief survey of his total story output reveals that he is not interested in traditional story forms. Though many of…
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Review of Lake of Urine by Guillermo Stitch
This original work begins as a comedy of sophisticated, staged moments, which appear to be ill-planned mishaps misfiring with intriguing results. It is a distinct and satisfying form of entertainment. Stitch’s novel, however, turns out, by and by, to be much more. Simple concepts are infused with elaborate invention, complex…
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Review of A Harlot High and Low by Honoré de Balzac
There is a singular “textual pleasure” in reading Balzac, once you’ve acquired the taste. It’s decadent. In this unofficial sequel to Lost Illusions, Balzac exercises his capacity to depict psychological tortures. Though I have not read the first novel in this sequence, the four parts of Harlot High and Low…
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Review of Laura Warholic; or, The Sexual Intellectual by Alexander Theroux
Rollicking Lowra Roarholic is a book in which a massive quantity of wisdom may be gleaned between the lines, through oblique interpretations of satirical storytelling. The author employs a wide range of styles, some of which I’ll describe. Ultimately, it is a harrowing, difficult, exasperating, and tremendously meaningful book. A…
L. S. Popovich 