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there is a hindu story of an elephant…
there is a hindu story of an elephant – restless, inquisitive, always straying… in india, elephants are sometimes taken through the narrow, fruit and vegetable stall-lined streets. the elephant with...
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andrea higgins’ painting “dorian”
completed (see entry 28 march) in time for a thematic exhibition at the gallery called “summer reading.” this diptych is a “portrait” of dorian gray based on oscar wilde’s novel “the picture of...
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more reading…
“vocabularies of metaphor” will include a series of readings of short stories by their authors. the series is curated by my friend pam feinsilber and will include yiyun li (september 10th), daniel...
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the hakawati by rabih alameddine
“reality never meets our wants, and adjusting both is why we tell stories.” i LOVE this book. pam suggested i read it when i was talking to her about curating “more stories” and it influenced the...
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rabih alameddine, “i, the divine”
i loved hakawati, so ordered alamaddine’s earlier (2001) novel, “i, the divine,” subtitled “a novel in first chapters.” i was dubious. a gimmick, i thought. each chapter is a different...
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“the sacred book of the werewolf” by victor pelevin
this is a very weird book. i’d been hearing pelevin (russian, b. 1962) called one of the most important “post soviet” voices for a while. then i read a (not very well-written) review in the new...
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yiyun li
i wasn’t writing any stories when i was a child. i mean i did like to make up stories… but when i was young i was interested only in myself — as young people would sometimes be. i don’t think i...
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“the confessions of lady nijo,”
written sometime after 1307 by a 50-year-old woman of aristocratic birth who served at the japanese imperial court and was, from the age of 14, a mistress of the retired emperor gofukakusa, is a...
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josé saramago, “death with interruptions”
i’m going on a limb and saying that josé saramago is the best living writer of fiction. no work of literature written in the last 50 years is more powerful, insightful and disturbing than...
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“indian summer”
by alex von tunzelmann is a fantastic read. in the beginning, there were two nations. one was a vast, mighty and magnificent empire, brilliantly organized and culturally unified, which dominated a...
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“to read without joy is stupid”
ever heard of john williams’ novel “stoner”? find it. read it. published in 1965, it’s the story of william stoner, the son of poor, mid-western farmers (“at thirty his father looked fifty;...
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AUGUSTUS by john williams
john williams (1922-1994) is my favorite american author. in 1960 he published a western, butcher’s crossing, which predated cormac mccarthy’s blood meridian by 25 years and is hands down better...
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sometimes a great notion
i’ve committed myself to writing a post about the 50 best novels published in the last 50 years… so i’m scrambling to read everything that’s a contender. luckily (for this purpose), i spend a lot of...
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moth smoke by mohsin hamid
i loved this book. the first novel of a pakistani author (who studied writing at princeton under the tutelage of toni morrison and joyce carol oates) is set in lahore during pakistan’s 1998 nuclear...
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the tea lords by hella s. haasse
the plainness of haasse’s storytelling might lull you into thinking this is a simple narrative and these simple characters. that would be a misconception. she describes the life of rudolf kerkhoven,...
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part of the reason i’ve not been a regular blogger lately
is that a year ago i committed to compiling a list of the 50 best novels written in the last 50 years. of course, i hadn’t read everything written since 1963, so i’ve been filling in my gaps by...
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50 best novels from the last 50 years
i’m 50, have been reading nearly all those years and am commemorating my relationship to books by compiling a list of the 50 best novels published in my lifetime. i’m a fiction reader. i buy into tim...
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we’re installing an exhibition called JAY DEFEO / ALTER EGO
here’s a bit about my curatorial vision for the show: When i began considering an exhibition of pairs of related works by Jay DeFeo – twins, if you will – I thought of Joseph Conrad’s story The...
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electioneering
my friend david breskin is posting a poem-a-day in this season of insanity. election-season sense about nonsense. check it out at: 7-eleven poemsFiled under: books / literature, poetry, politics
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from sylvia plath…
Mirror I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions. Whatever I see I swallow immediately Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike. I am not cruel, only truthful- The eye of the little god,...
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