can white boys have swag? the answer is: kind of, maybe, not really, no.
ben lerner can write (this isn’t saying much; he’s a poet; i expect him to becan white boys have swag? the answer is: kind of, maybe, not really, no.
ben lerner can write (this isn’t saying much; he’s a poet; i expect him to be attendant to the sentence as an individual unit), but he writes ‘annoying� so convincingly that his book began to annoy me. excellent depiction of self-obsessed wants-to-be-a-writer-but-doesn’t-read poseur male poet who thinks every woman should immediately want to fuck him or something has gone critically wrong with him/her/the world. reviewers suspect this to be another book in the tradition of “poet pivots to fiction with a fiction debut that is actually just a thinly veiled autobiography.� i don’t know how true that is of lerner.
regardless, this was a fascinatingly scathing take on politics + poetry, veers into roberto bolaño territory (at least aesthetically), but ultimately a book i found too minute and meandering in construction. i didn’t ever really truly fear for the narrator or find that he was forced to confront himself or his interpersonal dynamics beyond the surface-level. the ending especially i thought was a letdown.
not much story here at all. just a downward narcissism spiral intercut with cig breaks and esoteric drug-fueled inner monologues.
favorite character: spain/the spanish language. least favorite character: everyone else....more
i love cristina rivera garza's prose and in a perfect world, this book would have been an ideal fit for me—i'd just recently finished amparo dávila's i love cristina rivera garza's prose and in a perfect world, this book would have been an ideal fit for me—i'd just recently finished amparo dávila's collection the houseguest so the late mexican writer's subject matter was fresh in my mind when i embarked on this. having said that.....i need to get better at reading weird, speculative, genre-defying work, especially the latin american strain. sometimes this book lost me but i appreciated the kooky concept and i feel like latin american writers in particular have this keen ability to cut through preconceived notions of novels/literature to create something you would never see an anglophone writer stand behind. this is that. amparo dávila, a real writer who represented a period of femicide/suffering emblematic of postcolonial mexican patriarchy, is a character in this slim book. i just love that. i didn't love the entire book, but that alone got me....more
the format of this was a double-edged sword—refreshingly unique and a bit of a hurdle for plot/continuity. nonetheless, i was charmed by the book's quthe format of this was a double-edged sword—refreshingly unique and a bit of a hurdle for plot/continuity. nonetheless, i was charmed by the book's quirks, including the micro vignettes and the sometimes silly, sometimes serious interrogation of motherhood. i usually hate he-cheated-and-we-reconciled narratives, but there was a lot going on in the background to buoy the relationship dynamic at the center of this. a bittersweet one-sitting read....more
LOVED the beginning of this. interest waned as i waded further into the stories. respect to liliana colanzi for covering so much ground though—this isLOVED the beginning of this. interest waned as i waded further into the stories. respect to liliana colanzi for covering so much ground though—this is truly an eclectic collection of stories. ...more
this collections reads like the outtakes and unwanted short stories from berlin's oeuvre, not good or interesting enough to make the cut in a manual fthis collections reads like the outtakes and unwanted short stories from berlin's oeuvre, not good or interesting enough to make the cut in a manual for cleaning women. very much a bore by comparison. i think i enjoyed the first story—the rest i have little to no memory of....more
i appreciate that we're finally starting to see deadbeat lesbians enter the literary canon in a beautiful way. also i think there's a refusal in commei appreciate that we're finally starting to see deadbeat lesbians enter the literary canon in a beautiful way. also i think there's a refusal in commercial literature to depict sexual desire between women as anything but purifying/soft/liberating/empowered—which is not to say sexual desire between women cannot be those things. but sometimes you want to read a book about women objectifying each other.....trying to eat each other whole......being unhealthily horny....this is that.
having said that, i enjoyed the concept of this more than i did the execution. at first, i was vibing to the vignette-style literary ruminations (sans dialogue), but i think about halfway in, the overwhelming amount of similes + metaphors and time skips started grating. this felt more atmosphere- and prose-focused than character-driven, and unless the prose is raven leilani levels of engaging, i tend to tire pretty quickly of the lack of conversation/scene work.
there were undoubtedly pretty moments in this, and i think the frame + ending were amazingly unique, but personal taste has brought my rating down to a 3/5....more
� "first love": i was with this one for the first 2 pages while we set things up, then i realized the story was about seeing humanity in nazis because� "first love": i was with this one for the first 2 pages while we set things up, then i realized the story was about seeing humanity in nazis because the war is over and they're 'just some guys' now, humbled by hard manual labor. i have to laugh. like specifically at all the scene work of wealthy people spitting on our main character for trying to fuck an aryan viking who was most certainly committing mass atrocities under hitler BITCH AM I SUPPOSED TO SHED A TEAR? he can die❤️
� "look for my obituary": i enjoyed the atmosphere in this a lot. it's hard for me to buy into insta-love though, even when it's literary in nature, so the concept of a married man falling deeply in love with a girl on the run within moments of meeting her........girl you are not in love. you are just a man without self-control who hates his wife because she's the woman you chose. the writing here was much better than in "first love," however, specifically the stakes + pacing and the web of lies.
2.5/5. elena garro can write, i'm sure leagues beyond her infinitely more famous husband, the translation was great, but this was a questionable introduction to her. roberto bolaño, i need to know what you thought of this woman. ...more
works best when read as a nonfiction companion to a manual for cleaning women, largely because so much of welcome home is by nature incomplete + scattworks best when read as a nonfiction companion to a manual for cleaning women, largely because so much of welcome home is by nature incomplete + scattered. lucia berlin didn't get to finish her snapshots of the places she'd lived before dying, and the letters hand-picked for this will be confusing to read without critical familial/work contexts.
i enjoyed this because i'm thinking a lot about place in my writing right now, and because it felt like a glimpse behind the curtains—you can see that a lot of the best work lucia produced came from a time in her life that was omitted from this book (after she divorced her final husband, lost loved ones to addiction, began to battle addiction herself, and started raising her four sons alone, which necessitated a working life she hadn't yet been forced to experience as a writer rubbing elbows with poets, musicians, and artists buoyed by comfortable amounts of wealth). it was really fun trying to trace what real life events/people inspired certain stories. you get to briefly hear about, for example, lucia winding up in a jail in mexico and fighting the crooked arresting officers, and then you get to think about how that moment in her life became the short story "let me see you smile."
by no means a comprehensive nonfiction look at her life, this understandably leaves a lot to be desired, but if you take it for what it is, it's a fascinating journey!...more
an uneventful series of short stories. doesn’t take many risks in terms of style, form, or content, though it’s definitely a cohesive collection offeran uneventful series of short stories. doesn’t take many risks in terms of style, form, or content, though it’s definitely a cohesive collection offering slice-of-life-like glimpses of familial dysfunction, death, immigration, lineage/cultural inheritances, etc. i just feel very “meh� about it.
wasn’t impressed by the scope of the stories or the prose itself—this is one of the more lackluster submissions into the “iowa writer’s workshop� genre of sculpted domestic litfic. 2.9/5....more
shoutout to don delillo. when i'm in the mood for what some call his "bloated" prose (prone to atmospheric detours during which he flexes his never-enshoutout to don delillo. when i'm in the mood for what some call his "bloated" prose (prone to atmospheric detours during which he flexes his never-ending array of overly muscular verbs/adjectives to show us how untalented and poorly read we are), his work HITS.
when i'm not in the mood for his prose, i have to fight to stay awake. reading white noise, you begin to pick up on the hallmarks of delillo's work: a skepticism of technology, an incessant need to grapple with theories of knowledge (how do we know what anything is? what drives our most quotidian desires? why does language language?), and a love for enigmatic men with 'foreign' (read: european, namely german) names and/or aesthetic leanings. he loves a man fascinated by western european names, cultures, and languages. he loves writing intentionally clunky, peculiar dialogue that devolves into repeated words or phrases until those words become meaningless sounds, or cult-like chants. (an interesting reading might trace american propaganda vs agitprop across his work.)
delillo is a man well aware of his creative affinities.
if you're someone interested in the craft of language, syntax, and sound, i think he's a great writer to dive into. but if abstractions in form and world-building bore you, i would not suggest this collection.
oddly, i found the titular short story to be one of the worst. delillo's depiction of nuns and young 'street rat'-adjacent children is laughably bad. his writing is really and truly just too well-muscled and self-absorbed to sell me a story like that. 2.7/5. white noise continues to beat out all his other work....more
i always feel like i'm not at the right age to fully absorb and enjoy louise glück's work, because there's a tranquil maturity to her command of langui always feel like i'm not at the right age to fully absorb and enjoy louise glück's work, because there's a tranquil maturity to her command of language that i don't think i'm able to fully appreciate. i go into poetry expecting to enjoy compression of time, movement, and syntax in a way that puzzles me, and with her work, the slowness, the tunneling down, the magnification, the narrative structures....they aren't what i expect to encounter in a well-loved collection. but then when i pause and return to glück when i'm in a fiction/narrative mood, the work really moves me in new and strange ways.
all this to say, i need to expose myself to greater amounts of narrative poetry! and so many moments in this were really breathtakingly beautiful (i can't help but think about how much i'd love a glück short story collection). 3.4/5.
The sun was shining. The dogs / were sleeping at her feet where time was also sleeping, / calm and unmoving as in all photographs.
so much energy in this collection!!! not everything connected or cohered for me (this is wonderfully experimental in a lot of ways), but i loved “thosso much energy in this collection!!! not everything connected or cohered for me (this is wonderfully experimental in a lot of ways), but i loved “those two� ♥️♥️‼️...more
this was just okay....felt too disjointed to really sink into and the subject matter never connected for me (which is strange, because i love place-bathis was just okay....felt too disjointed to really sink into and the subject matter never connected for me (which is strange, because i love place-based writing!)...more
the girls that get it get it and i fear i am not one of those girls. what i will say about bolaño is that he's a true visionary and represents for me the girls that get it get it and i fear i am not one of those girls. what i will say about bolaño is that he's a true visionary and represents for me the best parts of latin american literature—particularly latin american literature in translation. he's unflinching and contentious, he takes risks in both content and form, he's not afraid to make enemies by bringing real writers and political figures + events into his work, his language is sprawling but ultimately accessible, and he has a polyvocal understanding of the novel that i think most anglophone writers (and readers) will find it difficult to navigate or even conceptualize, because we've grown up in such an individualistic culture + language.
that said, much of this was boring, it needed more gay sex, the garcía sections were laughably self-indulgent (part one reads a bit like self-insert Y/N fanfiction written by a 17-year-old boy, very authentically cringey, and maybe that's the point given garcía's existence is up for debate; his chosen one know-it-all role as a character would actually make this a very humorous writing choice), and the way bolaño writes women leaves a lot to be desired.
the ending of the savage detectives was extremely mid—you can barely call it a roadtrip interlude. there's very little sense of stakes during the third section, especially because we'd just gone through 40 odd newspaper-esque snapshots from other characters. now we're supposed to find our way back into caring about the original literary troupe, told through the eyes of a character we haven't seen or heard from in 300 or so odd pages. ultimately, the fate of a certain character pissed me off (iykyk) and confirmed my own feelings about the no stakes pacing.
this is a very "go forth and find meaning, then make literature while smoking and fucking and treading unfamiliar ground" male-coded novel, so i see why litfic bros regard it as their bible.
if you're a writer looking to tackle huge casts, bolaño is an excellent master to learn from on a craft level. if not, this may be a slog. never let it be said, however, that this man wasn't having the time of his life while writing—you can tell this project was a blast for him, full of heart and soul, and probably contains tons of (clandestine and not-so-clandestine) nods to his early life/experiences as a writer....more
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