I'm startled by the many middling reviews here; but then, I'm also not. The purview here is small鈥攁 deep dive into one poet's life as she recalls it oI'm startled by the many middling reviews here; but then, I'm also not. The purview here is small鈥攁 deep dive into one poet's life as she recalls it over the course of a single day鈥�& it's admittedly insular in its hyper-articulated obsessions over the minutiae of the artistic life, but for me the cracks that slowly surface across the genteel surfaces of Mrs. Hilary Stevens' life felt cavernous & vast in meaning. There's a clear-eyed grappling with the contradictions & complexities that inevitably occur across the span of a full, long, adventurous life that I found so admirable. In the end I was, I admit, very moved.
Often struck me as a more accessible take on many of the same topics/themes of the great novelists of memory (Woolf, Proust, etc), which means it's being compared to some of the all-time greats. Its achievements are certainly (much) smaller, but to dismiss it for not scaling the greatest literary heights is to deprive oneself of so many minor pleasures鈥�& everyday epiphanies.
"'They,' who said, 'How wonderful it must be to be a writer,' as if writing were a game of solitaire and one did not have to fight like a tiger for a moment's peace and quiet! Not to mention the struggle itself, the daunting of the doddering old servant, the persistent will necessary to get down to it when one had finally clawed one's way through to a piece of time."...more
To call the story thin is an understatement, & I found myself frequently bored by it. So why did I ultimately end up positive overall? Because of the To call the story thin is an understatement, & I found myself frequently bored by it. So why did I ultimately end up positive overall? Because of the razor-sharp insights every few pages that would give me a lil gay gasp in startled, often horrified recognition. But also with pleasure as well, in that somebody was finally stating outright what is often left unsaid鈥攁bout long-term relationships, gay bar conversations & social dynamics, casual sex, insecurity, gay shame, gay cruelty, etc, etc鈥攚ith a harsh but also wry, even loving way.
What occurred to me going back to write down all my favorite quotes, however, is that everything I found most memorable felt like it was straight out of one of O'Connell's personal essays, either collected in I'm Special: And Other Lies We Tell Ourselves or at waaaaay back in the day, both which were touchstones in the early formation of my own gay social self. Which is all to say that that's where I think O'Connell's true strengths as a writer lie; his gift is his singular voice, not in (auto)fiction, which mostly feels indistinguishable from what passes today as gay literature.
I will say this made a great gay book club selection, however鈥攊t sparked some of our best conversations yet.
[Also please allow me to be nerdy for a moment: I have to say it's so strange to me how the cover crops out the third figure from . After reading the novel it seems so obvious the triangulated gaze would have been much more thematically fitting to the text itself!]
"Please, somebody help us. No one tells you that, in long-term relationships, you will never love someone more and want to fuck them less. It's like, what's designed to keep you in love and your heart full is also the thing that will keep your penis deflated."...more
Certainly not one of the most memorable Christie yarn I've read, but always a soothing pleasure to return to her specific brand of midcentury small toCertainly not one of the most memorable Christie yarn I've read, but always a soothing pleasure to return to her specific brand of midcentury small town mayhem. ...more
A novel I admired more than enjoyed reading, though a rich book club discussion only deepened my respect for the many risks it takes. Though certain sA novel I admired more than enjoyed reading, though a rich book club discussion only deepened my respect for the many risks it takes. Though certain stretches can make for challenging reading (there were stretches that made me question my reading comprehension skills!), this operates in a distancing narrative mode I respond positively to; I found it intriguing how the narrator/main character manages to insist on remaining such an enigmatic cipher from the first page to the last.
Though it's not just Mamush, the anti-protagonist, that always remain an enigma to us鈥攁ll of the characters are. There's a really interesting way that Mengestu carefully guards an essential privacy for all his characters, & it made me think of the ways that we are readers tend to insist on full access to literary characters' thoughts & interior lives, to be able to "solve the riddles" of their psyches through the reading process. This insistence on demystifying is especially the case with so-called "immigrant narratives," a form clearly being re-thought through here. But Mengestu seems to be insisting here that literary characters, as much as humans, have鈥攁nd deserve鈥攕ome essential unknowability, & thus extended autonomy.
I'm certain this would reward repeat readings, even if I'm not certain if I liked this enough to want to ever undertake it again. We shall see.
"'Tefou. You've vanished,' she would tell him, even if he had sat in our kitchen the night before talking to him for hours. Tefou, which could mean gone, or absent, or as she used it, missing in some way that had nothing to do with whether one was physically present in the here and now. You could be missing while standing next to someone, while living in the same house as them..."...more
Kelly's abstractions are something I have never responded too, so discovering his private sketch practice鈥攊ntimate, sensitive, keenly aware of male beKelly's abstractions are something I have never responded too, so discovering his private sketch practice鈥攊ntimate, sensitive, keenly aware of male beauty鈥攈ave been nothing less than a revelation.
The essays included here are also of extremely high caliber, with the always-insightful Richard Meyer's "Drawing Near: Ellsworth Kelly's Private Portraits" the highlight for me & my particular interests....more
Not a mystery narrative but a narrative of mysteries. Little ones, delicate interlocking chains of riddles where it's unclear if there are, in fact, eNot a mystery narrative but a narrative of mysteries. Little ones, delicate interlocking chains of riddles where it's unclear if there are, in fact, even solutions at all. I found myself so hypnotized鈥攑erplexed, seduced鈥攂y my first read of this austere little novella that I felt compelled to return to it much quicker than is typical for me.
And I found revisiting does little to untangle these mysteries, it remains just as impassively recondite the second time around. If anything, it becomes even more strange. Just as much as her approach to narrative, Jaeggy's prose style is the source of this; often described as "icy" (it is), somehow her elegant detachment also manages to signal an underlying sensuousness too鈥攁lmost etching it in relief.
Jaeggy seems to be scratching the same itch Duras once did for my younger self. I feel like I could just start right from the beginning and reread this once again. And probably again after that too.
"...and if I kissed M猫re pr茅f猫te's hand every evening, without ever once protesting, it was because, quite apart from the rules, I took pleasure in it. The pleasure that comes from obedience. Order and submission, you can never know what fruits they will bear in adulthood. You might become a criminal or, by attrition, a normal conventional person."...more
Djuna Barnes + Marlene Dietrich? Nella Larsen + Greta Garbo?? Faulkner's youthful cinephilia? Max Oph眉ls? I've rarely come across a book that feels plDjuna Barnes + Marlene Dietrich? Nella Larsen + Greta Garbo?? Faulkner's youthful cinephilia? Max Oph眉ls? I've rarely come across a book that feels plucked quite so directly, almost uncomfortably, from some dream or fantasy of mine!
While I do wish I could recommend this unreservedly, I'll say right out it is highly theoretical academic scholarship that a general reader might well find quite inaccessible for long stretches. But if you're into that鈥�& I can be鈥攊t's a deeply researched, imaginatively conceived, & at times breathlessly expansive consideration of unexpected connections that can be drawn between modernist experimental writing & writers with the most glamorous stars of classic Hollywood. Whether comparing an "erotics of unattachment" in Nightwood & von Sternberg's Morocco or expanding on a peripheral biographical note that Larsen went & watched Cukor's Camille over & over in a time of crises & its possible subsequent influence on Quicksand, I was constantly dazzled by Dabashi's insights, & in turn found it deeply generative to my own thinking.
A tour-de-force, & a pleasure.
"Understanding what happened to plot in modernism thus involves understanding what happened to it in the cinema... Losing the Plot shows that while these writers were withdrawing from plot as the unwanted inheritance of the 19th century novel, they were also seeing legacies of it in the commercial narrative cinema鈥攖hrough which plot returns to the novel in a deeply ambivalent form."...more
I took this up during a stretch when I needed an "exciting yarn" (as the New Yorker blurb on my edition puts it) to hold my attention, & out of a curiI took this up during a stretch when I needed an "exciting yarn" (as the New Yorker blurb on my edition puts it) to hold my attention, & out of a curiosity regarding what made this such a sensation in the 1930's, prompting it to be published in the format that became known as the mass market paperback.
It's not at all the novel I was expecting鈥攚hich ended up interesting me more than the story itself. From my cultural awareness of the term "Shangri-La" I figured this would be an adventure tale, which I suppose it is in its outline, but not really in execution. Essentially it's a series of endless conversations situated in a series of increasingly exotic backdrops. Hilton does give these debates, which sometimes stretch to entire chapters, a momentum that make them feel more exciting than the content itself would seem to provide which is a credit to his talent as a writer. But honestly I just became utterly fascinated that such a heady, philosophically-driven novel found such a widespread readership & enduring place in the cultural imagination. I have such a hard time imagining something equivalent occurring in our present era!
I've never seen Capra's famous film adaptation, but looking forward to catching up with it now.
Conway gave a shrug. "Perhaps the exhaustion of passion is the beginning of wisdom, if you care to alter the proverb."
"That also, my son, is the doctrine of Shangri-La."
I hold no real desire to write fiction, so why do I occasionally take up guides about how to write it? Because I've found that an awareness of the tecI hold no real desire to write fiction, so why do I occasionally take up guides about how to write it? Because I've found that an awareness of the techniques fiction writers use makes me a better reader, & that much of the advice often can be easily applied to non-fiction writing as well (Livesey's use of Woolf to demonstrate the importance of "figuring out, as Woolf did in her letters, essays, & reviews, what our beliefs are & how we can embody them" in our writing was a real light bulb moment for my own writing projects).
In addition these essays are just as much sensitive literary analysis as it is writing advice per se; Livesey writes as perceptively on Woolf, Austen, James, Shakespeare & other authors as I've ever encountered鈥�& much more accessibly than most. And as Livesey herself models here, writing that manages to convey a sense of the writer's own love of reading & language is the richest, & ultimately best type of writing.
"Readers need to demand beauty and truth, but they do not get to demand that novelists take care of them, or makes things easy."...more
As an introduction to Howe's work this volume was perhaps not the best place to start; the new poems appear first & I was struggling to connect with tAs an introduction to Howe's work this volume was perhaps not the best place to start; the new poems appear first & I was struggling to connect with them, & nearly set the entire book aside. But things began snapping into place once I reached the earlier work & I'm glad I hadn't been permanently detoured.
This isn't generally my preferred style of poetry鈥擨 do prefer flashier wielding of language, I fully admit鈥攂ut I found many moments here made me suddenly catch my breath in recognition or epiphany. "On Men, Their Bodies," a literal catalogue of cocks, is one of the most delightful things I've encountered on the page in a good while.
My days and nights pour through me like complaints / and become a story I forgot to tell ("Prayer")...more
Loading...
