L.S. Popovich's Blog, page 8

Review of Self-Portraits by Osamu Dazai

Can you turn a terrible life into high art?  Dazai’s life was astoundingly reprehensible. Attempting three love suicides, succeeding at one, and attempting at least 3 other suicides. Combined with addiction, mental illness, alcoholism, infidelity, multiple marriages and illegitimate children, supporting prostitutes, engaging in public violence and insults, following illegal Communism in a war-torn developing […]

Review of Memoirs and Misinformation by Jim Carrey

The average star rating of this book is under 3 stars. I’m one of the few who enjoyed it and couldn’t put it down. It can only be compared to the works of Mark Leyner and Antkind by Charlie Kaufman (who plays a role in the book). If it had been written by Mark Leyner, […]

Review of Early Light by Osamu Dazai

Three stories from the best era of Japanese fiction in my opinion. These three longer stories, “Early Light,” “One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji,” and “Villon’s Wife” are a good introduction to Dazai. Two of them are contained in the new volume entitled “Self-Portraits.” His stories are often called autobiographical. Most of his first person […]

Review of Cult X by Fuminori Nakamura

Fact-checking errors in this book: The lecturer claims trillions of humans have died since the beginning of time. It’s actually around 117 billion.The lecturer claims your body’s matter is 100% replaced through natural processes every year. It’s actually 5-7 years.The lecturer says there are tens of millions of neurons in the brain. It’s actually 100 […]

Review of The Book of Love by Kelly Link

This book is brutally unfocused, so many characters thinking, saying and doing things which are unrelated to previously done, said and thought things. Pseudo-explanations for post-magical situations seemingly added after the fact. A lot of talk about magic but not a lot of magic happening.Characters are quirky in the extreme. Awkward teen moments. Lots of […]

Review of Fake Ass Lawyers by Justin Isis

A unique reading experience. This book appears hand-made, printed on lush paper and bound in a Japanese style. The unusual subject matter inside might defraud some reader’s expectations. But it contains a wonderfully captivating satirical short novel detailing the frightful encounters of derelict and raucous imitation lawyers, roving between night clubs and clandestine meetings with […]

Review of The Big Meat by Carlton Mellick III

A fever dream. A journey into a superorganism. Mellick delivers another disturbing post-apocalyptic scenario with fantastic imagery and survival tale constraints. The sheepish main character joins a crew in charge of excavating the remains of a kaiju. It might remind you of Kaiju No. 8. But unlike the manga, this is focused on the detrimental […]

Review of Bio Melt by Carlton Mellick III

I can still remember all 50+ CM3 books I’ve read, which is more than I can say about Orhan Pamuk or other more critically acclaimed slingers of words.  I prefer to remember the books I read, instead of letting them fade into a pleasant blur of impressive but barely perceptible subtext. What constitutes literariness, anyway? […]

Review of Goblins on the Other Side by by Carlton Mellick III

A memorable read. CM3 seems fond of depicting twisted afterlife scenarios, as in his Boy with a Chainsaw Heart and Ugly Heaven. He may be another atheist borrowing heavily from Christian imagery, but he has a unique imagination which is always striking, managing to revitalize tired tropes with elegant imagery and superb storytelling. This is […]

Review of Brooklyn Crime Novel by Jonathan Lethem

Harping on race and gentrification on about every page, employing a sledgehammer when a lighter touch would’ve been appreciated.  The old-fashioned style is quaintly meta, with a grossly omniscient narrator who seems fond of gangsta slang. As in some of his other novels, the male protagonist is blasé about indiscreet homosexual encounters, while simultaneously projecting […]