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Posts tagged with “reading”

03:12 PM | 0 Comments | Tags: reading

<p>Very good story. Like other Japanese authors I've read, the prose is very direct and matter-of-fact. Which is even more interesting given it's a story of four women cutting up a body of a man they murdered. It's not a traditional crime mystery in the sense that we already know whodunit...we're just interested to know if they get away with it, and if we want them to. </p><p>The main character Masako is very likeable, despite her darkness. Truly, all the characters are likeable, detestable, pitiable, and enviable, all in different ways.</p><p>It's also well paced. My only complain is I tend to feel Japanese authors could drop 1 out of every 3 sentences and still get everything across beautifully. But perhaps that's part of the charm of the way it builds in suspense. Everything is very clear, both details of setting and the individual motivations. Emotions are facts just as the color of bricks. Both are very realistic. As the cover states, it is indeed a "literary" crime thriller.  </p>

02:16 PM | 0 Comments | Tags: reading

Zoetrope All-Story Vol. 12, #2 Gorgeous design as usual, this time by Mark Mothersbaugh. Here's a breakdown of the stories: The Invisibles, by Marissa Perry: Good storyteller. This one, and the one in Tin House, are both about kids coming of age and stealing things - but it moves very fluidly and feels quite honest. Rumors About Me, by Yasutaka Tsutsui: I feel a tonal similarity (syntax, surreality) with Murakami. Farcical take on news and celebrity. And it's a great farce which throws you right into it. The Alternate, by Sara Krasikov: Pretty nice. Good sets of lines around an odd meeting of two people. Eastern Europe vs America. A Small Haunting, by Shaena Lambert: I though this was incredibly boring. Another story about a woman with a family and a monthly menstrual cycle. Nothing new here, nothing clever, the writing good but not memorable, fucking boring. Sorry Shaena. And I'm a bit disappointed in Zoetrope for having it here considering every other literary journal in the country is already filled with these kinds of stories. You can do better guys. Vacation '58, by John Hughes: This original short that became the Chevy Chase classic actually has a more entertaining forward about its conception than the story itself. Hughes' descriptions of being an editor and writer, and about the idea of suburban family psychosis is rather riveting. The story itself is ok. More cute than funny in its absurdity, but maybe I'm biased because I can't help but think of the movie. It reads very simply, almost like a children's story. It does still remain poignant as a look at suburbinites, even now.

09:20 AM | 0 Comments | Tags: lit-journals, reading

<p>The Sun, issue 392</p> As usual, boo to the fiction, but kudos to the interviews (and photo essays). Specifics: <b>What They Taught Me</b>, by Ethan Hubbard: Very nice international character sketches. <b>Ponchatoula</b>, by Louis E. Bourgeois: Very similar to another issue's story. No-armed man with direct (almost too direct) Holden Caufield-esque narrator. Nice suspenseful end. <b>Table for Six Billion Please</b>, by David Kupfer: Great interview with Judy Wicks, despite David not being a very good interviewer. Very clear perspective on sustainable local communities which elevates well above hippydom.

09:08 AM | 0 Comments | Tags: reading, lit-journals

<p>Eric Myers lent me this one to check out. His comment was that it contains the most vile prose he's ever read. I think that's close to spot-on. It is a grotesque, vicious, putridly poetic self-conscious and masochistic play-by-play of wealthy debauchery. In a well-meaning way (for a while), if that's even possible. (spoiler ahead) Also features a great twist with a character that is built up as one you love so much that you never see it coming. And it's a vicious one.</p><p>It also has great use of language, colorful and inventive, playful (very playful), and yes even sparkling as the back cover hesitates to add, even while often being over the reader's head with colloquialism and jargon, kinda like Clockwork Orange, which is definitely part of the author's point. Good show.</p><p>On a thematic level, it's also a very nice social commentary on art, sex, generationalism, youth, etc, all the good stuff...basically the end of the world, and what's after. Some old and some new thrown in. There's a particularly great scene of the characters watching a "prude" porn, where they're surprised to find themselves hooting and hollering (at least some) over the prudishness of the visuals and characters, as if they're watching a porn from the 1950s with a girl having to actually unlock a bra. The fact that this is what gets them going after having seen and done and tried the limits of voyeuristic depravity and become, well, bored, is just hilarious and another nice note on contrast and what's sexy and what happens when you've reached the limit of something but still need to go further. Great scene. </p><p>Oh, and the closing line is one of my favorites. Its just okay until you read it in context of the character, in which case, it sparkles, oh yes, it sparkles. "His green eyes flashed into the dawn like wild, dying suns."</p><p> </p>

08:47 AM | 0 Comments | Tags: reading

This has been on my shelf for a while, and though I've read a few other collections by Calvino (some comprising my favorites), I have never apparently read these. I admittedly couldn't get into the first story, but the second two are great: <b>Smog</b>: A man settling into a city with a sense of unsettlement, preoccupied by dirt, comparing people and observing their equilibrium with themselves and the hypocrisies they support. He observes. He finds an apartment, gets a job, has an affair, makes acquaintances, and eats meals. He finds the place things become clean for the city. Highlight quote: "Would the saints change their lives, if they knew heaven didn't exist?" <b>Argentine Ant</b>: Similar to smog in settling into a new place by finding an equilibrium...well, not an equilibrium, but a counterbalance of hope among the paranoid factors. The factors in this story were much more real and external though: watching neighbors deal with the ants in different ways. Through them you get a sense of these people's society. A common trope used here to perfection.

07:50 AM | 0 Comments | Tags: reading

Just finished the first issue of my Tin House subscription (V9 #3)...and props to these guys! This is the first literary journal I've read whose stories were all enjoyable. That's saying a lot. The content was generally still modern day and naturalistic, but they were all fun and they took some risks. I think some of my stories could find a home here. Maybe even Elbina. Highlights below. <b>Allan Gurganus' Fetch</b>: Clever, "distant" narration. <b>Alice Fulton's A Shadow Table</b>: Usual relationship subject, but enjoyable and with natural execution. <b>Ehud Havazelet's Bill and Arlene</b>: For Raymond Carver. <b>Adam Johnson's Hurricane Anonymous</b>: Good characters, description, a good story well told about a UPS driver post-Katrina. <b>Helen Schulman's Parent's Night</b>: Short infidelity. <b>Keith Lee Morris's Dart League King</b>: Misanthrope. Dark tale, well done. <b>Marisa Perry's Trespassing (new voice)</b>: Nice girls tale, a la Cherry by Mary Carr. <b>Paul Feldman's Specialists (new voice)</b>: Futuristic, but only in the details. Otherwise, an ok story. Not much, but I like the futuristic setting, and it's good to see that in a journal. Good essays and interviews with Frank Bidart (poet, friend of Robert Lowell whoever the hell that is), Leonard Micheals, Elizabeth Hardwick, and MFK Fisher.

10:01 AM | 0 Comments | Tags: reading, lit-journals