L.S. Popovich's Blog, page 18
September 2, 2022
New Artwork In Gallery
Head Over to the “Concept” and “Fine Art” Galley for a few new pieces.
August 29, 2022
Review of Trafik by Rikki Ducornet
Quirky even for Ducornet. Suffused with her characteristic charm, wit, sensuality and signature linguistic exuberance. A vivid dreamscape of “tonguefeels.” A melancholic deepening of post-atomic exotic, nebulous human-wannabes on the edge of the pendulous nostalgia-fueled singularity of an entire dissolving civilization. Memories, avatars, simulations, showerhead massages, spacey antics: both delicious and miraculous. Post-apocalyptic Consumerism, alive […]
August 22, 2022
Review of Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin
A short, atmospheric novella relating the enigmatic beauty of an unremarkable life. A quiet, heartfelt rendering of human beings intertwined in the awkward embrace of modern life in an out of the way place. I really enjoyed the setting. A well-structured short work, but less striking than a more-developed novel would’ve been. It was a […]
August 15, 2022
August 11, 2022
Review of The Breast by Philip Roth
A plot worthy of Woody Allen initially turned me off, but I’m reevaluating my impression toward Roth, and this was short enough to read in one sitting. Pristine prose stylings are why I read this author. Not always polished to a high gleam, not Nabokov, but well-rhythmed, easy to read, often intelligent in scope and […]
August 8, 2022
Review of Heaven by Mieko Kawakami
I am cautiously optimistic regarding Mieko Kawakami’s literary future. She is a rising star of popular Japanese fiction, but I see her writing style suffering from common traits plaguing the English translations we are getting within the past several years. It is a kind of commercial dumbing down of the prose. Contemporary Japanese books are […]
August 4, 2022
Review of The Green Child by Herbert Read
This bizarre novel was broken into three disparate parts, and by ‘broken,’ I mean ruined. For part one, he might merit 5/5 stars, for part 2, 2/5, and part 3, 4/5. The longest middle section is a droll account of the main character’s life story, his toppling of a dictator, conspiring with revolutionaries, his imprisonment, […]
August 1, 2022
Review of To Hold Up the Sky by Liu Cixin
The short stories in this volume cover many topics, including concerns and ideas that also appear in The Three-Body Trilogy, but they are used in different settings. Super-string computers, hollow earth, the value of poetry, total perfect vision of time and space achieved by simulating the original Big Bang and then tracing the trajectory, gods […]
July 28, 2022
Review of The Sleep of the Righteous by Wolfgang Hilbig
My third Hilbig novel in quick succession. Whereas his others were solid blocks of interior narration, this one perfectly captures an elegiac wonderment characteristic of childhood’s hurtle through strata of growth, confusion, and sadness.The author summons reality with abundance through the distorted mirror of his character’s psyche. He is a master at conjuring the fear […]
