What are you currently reading?

[Andy]

Two writers deserving much more attention than they get are Thomas E. Kennedy and Gordon Weaver. I'm currently reading a terrific novella by Weaver called The Interpreter from the collection "A World Quite Round" told from the point of view of a Chinese communist POW camp interpreter during the Korean War. It's a very curious mixture of comedy and political terror.

I mention Kennedy because Weaver was his mentor as a budding writer and his talent is also very underappreciated as evidenced by such books as his short story collection "Cast Upon the Day" and the novel "Kerrigan's Copenhagen". The former is even still in print!

[Andy]

Getting toward the end of the novel "Greene's Summer" which is Part III of Thomas E. Kennedy's Copenhagen Quartet. It's, like all of Kennedy's fiction, totally engrossing with deep insights and powerful writing. Sometimes there is a soap opera-ish quality to his story lines with all the tragedy and angst in the characters' lives but he's always able to avoid the shallowness of that genre.

[Andy]

I'm very thoroughly enjoying Yuriy Tarnawsky's novel "Three Blondes and Death". It's frequently very funny in a dry, deadpan fashion as if it's not trying to be.

There' no story, just a lot of disconnected scenes involving the same central characters in what are often their own dream sequences. Even the "real" narratives have a fantastical, hallucinatory quality. The language is deliberately very minimalistically simple (almost 1st grade reader style) which only adds to the amusingness of the whole thing.

[Andy]

Now into part IV (Death) of the Tarnawsky and I'm going to up my rating to 5 stars from 4 because this book just tickles my fancy so much. Seems like the darker the subject matter gets, the droller the writing gets. This final section is even reminding me a lot of Thomas Bernhard's comic mode, not to mention Kalfka, whose presence is all throughout.

[Andy]

I'm not sure Gordon Lish qualifies as a neglected writer but since so much of his fame seems to rest in his having been Raymond Carver's editor that his own novels and stories tend to get overlooked, I'll include him here. Especially since I'm currently reading his novel "Dear Mr. Capote" and having a blast with it.

As with the other Lish novel I read previously (Peru), I'm struck by the virtuosity of what he does. His ability to so totally get into the voices of his twisted protagonists while at the same time exposing the absurdity of what they're saying with very dark, even sick, ironic humor. With this book we're in the mind of a serial murderer who's writing a letter to convince Truman Capote to turn his life story into a "bestseller" to secure the financial future of his young son; and it's some very disturbingly funny stuff, albeit not for the squeamish.

[Andy]

Getting toward the end of Yuriy Tarnawsky's "Like Blood in Water" and am liking it a lot. His sentence structure is less minimalistic (more "normal") here than in "Three Blondes and Death" but the fantastical, hallucinatory quality is still there. Certain parts are pure Surrealism. Very fun read.

[Andy]

Now halfway through Lish's "Zimzum" and am amazed! What a wild, fun, fantastic rant it is. The blurb says his most compelling novel and I believe it!

[Andy]

Nearing the end of Lish's "Arcade" and am again having fun with his bubbling inventiveness, this time in a somewhat mellower vein without the edginess of murder, insanity and obsessive sex (though sex is definitely still featured). It's the metafictional element here that's much more the emphasis, the author frequently addressing the reader about the process of the writing along with a host of other topics. The narrator this time is Lish himself thus giving the whole thing the quality of fictional memoir but with the same topsy-turvy zaniness of his other books.

[Andy]

Really enjoying a novel by a fairly young writer who was new to me: "In the Blind" by Eugene Marten. The writing is spare, understated somewhat minimalist with frequent wry and idiosyncratic turns of phrase and ways of looking at things. The story concerns a man dealing with the consequences of a very serious mistake in his past. The book is a bit slow to get going but gradually draws you in to where you really care about the protagonist and what he's going through. Recommended!

[Andy]

Just finished a story collection by Joe Ashby Porter called "Touch Wood" which has taken me a while to formulate an opinion about. One thing is obvious though: this guy can can construct extremely interesting sentences. This and a quicksilver quirkiness of plotting and imagery lead to a lively freshness which was very nice. A very keen and subtle intelligence is on display here. My two favorites were "An Errand" and the title story.

[Andy]

Am in the later stages of reading Yuriy Tarnawsky's first published (1978) story collection, "Meningitis", and am once again thoroughly enjoying the method and the madness. I'm also lamenting that there appears to be nothing further of his prose work available in English.

[Andy]

Aaron Kunin's "The Mandarin" seems to me to be a kind of "Anti-Novel" for the early 21st Century as Robbe-Grillet's books were for the 1950's and early 60's. Not that there is much in common stylistically between the two, but more in the way both depend for their effect on defeating expectations of standard novelistic strategies. And that effect, with Kunin, is becoming quite engaging as I progress through the early chapters owing to his fondness for verbal high-jinx and experimental playfullness.

[Andy]

To continue with Kunin's "The Mandarin", now having finished it, I really liked it and debated giving it a five star rating. Hopefully there will be more equally creative and interesting prose works to come from this author.

[Andy]

Now into a novel by Joe Ashby Porter called "The Near Future" and am again struck, as in his short stories, by the quirky beauty of his sentences. I keep being reminded of the highly stylized fiction of another favorite of mine: Henry Green.

Here's a link to an in depth article discussing the various features making Porter's writing so distinctive:

http://www.goldenhandcuffsreview.com/...

[Andy]

I'd been eagerly anticipating reading Dag Solstad's "Novel 11, Book 18" (not just because of that amazingly droll title) and now that I've gotten a little way into it I'm only surprised at how readable and engaging it is. I'd expected something more avant-garde and language driven and it turns out to be more character and plot driven. The writing is very dry/deadpan revealing an extraordinarily penetrating psychological insight delivered with an accompanying undertow of dark irony.

So far, I'm having trouble putting it down.

[Andy]

Finished the Solstad which was excellent; it's very much in the mode of Kafka and a very solid four stars.

Just now starting "Senselessness" by Horacio Castellanos Moya which interested me mostly because the author was quoted as having been very influenced by Thomas Bernhard's novels at the time of writing this one. And right off the bat, the kinship with the Austrian is quite apparent.

[Andy]

Finished Moya's "Senselessness" and very much enjoyed it.

Now into Agota Kristof's "The Notebook" and am quite intrigued by the use of 1st person plural as the narrative voice (twin boys). The only other story I've read before employing this device was Gert Hofmann's "Our Conquest" which is a truly masterful novel also from the children's point of view. Anyway, "The Notebook" has me excited after 39 pages.

[Andy]

Am now into the 2nd novel ("The Proof") of Agota Kristof's trilogy having finished "The Notebook". Her writing is very spare, one might say elemental as opposed to simple and I'm enjoying the effortlessness of the way it reads. The story is completely engaging and the central characters, fascinating, and I'm going through this book much faster than usual.

[Andy]

Finished "The Proof" and am still really enjoying the good old fashioned page turning drama in these books; drama of the familiar "angst and tragedy at the hands of faceless Communist apparatchiks" Eastern European variety.

[Andy]

Now into the final novel of Kristof's trilogy: "The Third Lie", and am even more impressed with what she does here in undermining the fictive premises governing the events of the first two novels thereby forcing the reader to grapple with a classic post-modern issue: narrative reliability. Really interesting writing here.

[Andy]

Finished the Kristof trilogy. Great book. Five stars.

[Andy]

Reading Robert Lopez's "Part of the World" and enjoying it's focus on the distinctively different voice of it's narrator. Michael Martone made a comparison with Stephen Dixon's style and there are indeed some superficial similarities but the narrative voices they employ are very different.

[Andy]

Nearing the end of Lopez's "Part of the World". Very droll, very flat affect and very musical in its rhythms and subtly varying repetitions. It's always great to come across a young writer who's talent is so much to one's personal taste that one vows to read, thenceforth, whatever of his makes it into print. Robert Lopez is definitely in that catagory for me.

P.S. His "Kamby Bolongo Mean River" is due out in September.

[Andy]

Finished a novel by the Swede Torgny Lindgren called "Hash" and liked it for its breezyness and fun meta-fictional qualities after the denser, darker books I had been reading lately. Will look for more Lindgren in English translation.

Now, just starting "The Seducer" by the Norwegian Jan Kjærstad which comes highly recommended and is the first part of a trilogy.

[Andy]

201 pages into Kjærstad's "The Seducer" and the consistently inflated and unsubtle manner of the writing is a real drawback for me. So far it's at least entertaining enough to keep me reading even though artistically disappointing.

Review posted upon completing the book:

After all the very positive reviews, I was surprised by Kjaerstad's ridiculously inflated and unsubtle writing. This is the kind of language which keeps me away from pop fiction bestsellers. The intermittent attempts at witticsm invariably fell flat and I only finished the book because I found myself learning a lot about what I don't like about this kind of writing.

The reason the book is so big is because of Kjaerstad's complete lack of restraint: every point hammered at over and over throughout in never anything other than the most grandiloquent (and usually quite infantile) hyperbole. His gushing manner comes across very much like a writer enthralled by his own voice.

But nothing in the book is as laughably beyond the pale as Kjaerstad's extremely juvenile and simplistic portrayal of his characters' sexual escapades. These scenes, as they appear one after the other, through the story, become utterly predictable in their hackneyed repetitions of the powerful, sexy woman (always on the verge of future celebrity) reeling in the irresistible protagonist for a night of mad screwing, only to immediately and permanently disappear from the narrative without explanation. Everything about these scenes, in particular, reeks of the most stereotyped pubescent boy's view of sexuality and it greatly surprises me the lack of comment about this aspect of the book, especially from women.

I definitely won't be reading parts II and III of this trilogy.

[Andy]

Now into a collection of stories by David Galef called "Laugh Track". After the first 5 of the 15 in the book I'm liking it quite a lot. Clevely ironic and subtle writing along with very interesting characters and a slightly enigmatic quality to it all. No "clunker" yet.

Upon finishing:

Gave this three stars rather than four because three or four of the fifteen stories were just OK. A couple, toward the end, though, were extremely good.

[Andy]

Reading Éric Chevillard's "The Crab Nebula" and am smiling a lot, even laughed out loud once. Highly whimsical and ironically amusing flights of fancy; a bit reminiscent of Raymond Queneau.

[Andy]

The Chevillard was a delight and I'll be reading more of his writing (ordered "On the Ceiling"). Next up, "Tranquility" by the Hungarian Attila Bartis.

[Andy]

Bartis' "Tranquility" is one of those novels employing rather dense, elliptical prose which requires a certain effort, sometimes going over a sentence again before you get it, but which I'm finding really rewards the effort. So far, it's at least a 4 star book.

[Andy]

Whoah! These Hungarians write some pretty heavy shit! Agota Kristof's trilogy and now this ("Tranquility").

Bartis illustrates, in graphic detail, the damage done to not only those who directly suffered under the political tyranny of Communist Hungary, but to the psyches of their offspring in a portrayal of several very twisted relationships with prose that beautifully erupts across the page with the feel of impassioned improvisation.

[Andy]

Now reading Robert Kelly's "A Transparent Tree: Fictions". The second piece in the book "A Winter's Tale" is particularly interesting consisting of fragments of several seemingly unrelated narratives presented collage fashion and employing at times a quite abstract poetic language.

Kelly's 1967 novel "The Scorpions" arrived in the mail today and looks quite interesting too.

[Andy]

Reading Christoph Meckel's story collection "The Figure on the Boundary Line" which includes a selection of etchings by the author. The stories are pure absurdist surrealism and are hilariously clever and inventive. I'm liking this tremendously!

[Andy]

Finished the Meckel collection and noted how the later stories in the book were much less comic and much darker and some quite somber. The title story, "The Figure on the Boundary Line" was the standout with strong echoes of Kafka and Walser.

Still reading Kelly's stories and quite of few of them are very good, "The Guest" for example is quite brilliant; a story of the demonic possession of a young lady told from the point of view of the demon.

[Andy]

Getting towards the end of Dominique Fabre's "The Waitress Was New". A very engaging first person narrative of the quotidian doings in a suburban Paris cafe. Simple, matter of fact sentences with an undercurrent of subtle perceptiveness and wit. Very much like watching a good French film.

[Andy]

Now reading Torgny Lindgren's novel "Sweetness" and am again struck by the sheer masterfull control of his materials with this writer. And that quality I seem to always be looking for in fiction: subtlety, is much in evidence here along with fascinating characters and plot.

[Andy]

Lindgren's "Sweetness" was excellent. His style comes across much like a fable and his focus is quite narrow as in a short story. Some of the scenes involve graphic description of some quite revolting disgustingness not suitable for reading around meal times. I've ordered his novel "Light" so have that to look forward to.

Now well into Unai Elorriaga's novel "Plants Don't Drink Coffee" and am really liking this one too. Like "Tranquility" and "The Waitress Was New", this is another Archipelago Books publication. What a great house for translated literature!

[Andy]

Finished the Elorriaga and enjoyed its charming playfullness and whimsicality along with its non-linear narrative strategies. The point of view is mostly that of a small child and the only real problem I had with the writing was the very repetitive manner this child has in the way he describes events in those sections where the story is told in the first person.

Now just starting Robert Kelly's early (1967) novel "The Scorpions".

[Andy]

Finished "The Scorpions" and was a bit disappointed. It wasn't as fascinating as I had expected. Kelly's erudition doesn't overcome the mundane elements of the plot and characters (though the hero is quite interesting).

Now into Dag Solstad's "Shyness and Dignity" and right away, am grabbed by the wonderful run-on sentences ala Bernhard, and by the Kafkaesque existential absurdity.

[Andy]

Sosltad's "Shyness and Dignity" confirms his position as my favorite Norwegian writer (though I have a hunch a book of short stories by Kjell Askildsen I have on order might give him a run for his money) with his tremendous depth of psychological penetration. He tends to reveal the incredibly layered complexity of thought and emotion to be found in the psyches of apparently ordinary people. Henry James comes to mind as another writer able to get to such rarefied levels of psycholgical insight.

Now into and having a blast with my second Eric Chevillard novel, "On the Ceiling: Au Plafond". His work might be aptly described as "extreme whimsy" laced with satire.

[Andy]

The Chevillard was terrific. Can't wait for more translations of his most recent books!

Now reading short fiction by Robert Kelly (Doctor of Silence) and by the Norwegian Kjell Askildsen (A Sudden Liberating Thought).

[Andy]

The Kelly stories in "Doctor of Silence" are intriguing for their intense strangeness and form a nice contrast to the Askildsen stories (A Sudden Liberating Thought) which are powerful and sensitive portrayals of ordinary people dealing with lifes emotional upheavals. The Askildsen, especially, is a very engrossing read.

[Andy]

Nearing the end of the Polish writer Magdalena Tulli's novel "Flaw" (another Archipelago Books translation) and have been extremely impressed. It's very post-modern with its Pirandello-esque "characters in search of a story" type ideas handled with great sophistication and wit. I just love this kind of thing! Another example of the current richness of Eastern European fiction writing.

[Andy]

Read and liked Toussaint's "Monsieur". Will be reading his "Making Love" (a much more recent novel) coming up.

More than half way through Henrik Tikkanen's somewhat fictionalized memoir (part I) "A Winter's Day" and, like the Toussaint, finding it to be fairly light, easy to read and entertaining.

[Andy]

Am finally reading Perec's "Life: A User's Manual", a book I've been meaning to read for years but at 704 pages, it seemed a bit daunting. Now, just 49 pages in, I'm starting to get to like it.

[Andy]

The Perec is quite fascinating as an intricate artifact of the fictive imagination with its web of interwoven narratives and character portraits. It amazes by its sheer technical bravura. A largely intellectual as opposed to dramatic or emotional enjoyment to be had here (at least so far--207pgs.).

[Andy]

Finished Perec's "Life..." and gave it four stars. I am amazed by it as a feat of literary virtuosity but the everpresent lists and inventories become tiresome at times. Very definitely worth reading however. Now on to short stories by Don Skiles: "Miss America".

[Andy]

Finished the Skiles short stories, Miss America, and several of them were terrific. Too bad there's only one other out of print book of fiction by this author extant (and that only 37 pgs. long). I hear he's got a novel in manuscript called Football he's trying to get published.

Now starting Torgny Lindgren's Light which gets the best reviews of all of his books. Hope it lives up to the hype.

[Andy]

I found Lindgren's Light to be very good but not quite as delightfully engaging as the two previous of his novels I'd read, Sweetness and Hash. Would give it 3.5 stars if I could.

Now starting Kamby Bolongo Mean River, the eagerly awaited follow up to Robert Lopez's Part of the World.

[Andy]

Re. Kamby Bolongo Mean River by Robert Lopez:

I really liked this one and the ejoyment becomes cumulative as you go along and progressively more information is revealed by the very disturbed and unreliable narrator.

I liked it a bit less than Lopez's first book, Part of the World, however because the earlier work seems more original while the newer one shows maybe too much indebtedness to Gordon Lish.

Can't wait to see what Lopez comes up with next time around.

[Andy]

I've finally gotten around to trying the short stories of Donald Barthelme (Overnight to Many Distant Cities), and I'm really loving the humor and wit combined with some fascinatingly fractured narrative. Great stuff!

Also reading shorts by the Argentinian Enrique Anderson-Imbert, Woven on the Loom of Time, which is, so far, a bit too stylistically similar to E.A. Poe for my taste.