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'Tell' by Jonathan Buckley - The Life of an Inexcusably Rich Man as Told by his Gardener
‘Tell’ by Jonathan Buckley (2024) – 169 pages
I much liked and am impressed by the style of ‘Tell’. If ‘Tell’ had been written in the usual third person narrative style, there would probably have been a lot of dry exposition in order to tell the life of this rich man Curtis Doyle. By having his gardener relate it all in a conversational style, ‘Tell’ is a fun read.
“Different rules apply. And…
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'The Names' by Don DeLillo - A Middle Eastern Cult and the CIA
‘The Names’ by Don DeLillo (1982) – 339 pages
You may ask why I read this decidedly old novel. Having read the three novels ‘White Noise’, ‘Libra’, and ‘Mao II’, I consider Don DeLillo one of the finest, if not the finest, writers in recent US history. I have a copy of ‘Underworld’ which I intend to read when I have time and space to read an 827-page novel.
Geoff Dyer wrote an article in…
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'You Dreamed of Empires' by Alvaro Enrigue - Cortés and Moctezuma Meet in 1519
‘You Dreamed of Empires’ by Alvaro Enrigue (2022) – 219 pages Translated from the Spanish by Natasha Wimmer
‘Sudden Death’ was a highly successful tour de force of a novel by Alvaro Enrigue, and now Alvaro Enrigue returns once again to the 16th century with ‘You Dreamed of Empires’.
This time we are in Tenoxtitlan which was the name for the Aztec ruling courts in what is now…
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'Clear' by Carys Davies - Minimalism is Alive and Well
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‘Clear’ by Carys Davies (2024) – 185 pages
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'James' by Percival Everett - A New Take on 'Huckleberry Finn'
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‘James’ by Percival Everett (2024) – 303 pages
‘Huckleberry Finn’ and ‘Tom Sawyer’ by Mark Twain were two of the first non-picture books that I read. I’m quite sure these were the two books that, for good or bad, spurred my…
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'Hard by a Great Forest' by Leo Vardiashvili - Going back to Tbilisi, Georgia
‘Hard by a Great Forest’ by Leo Vardiashvili (2024) – 338 pages
Here is a lively and humorous novel that takes place in a remote war-torn region in the Caucasus Mountains of far eastern Europe, in the country of Georgia.
Saba was only 8 years old when he and his brother Sandro and his father Irakli left Tbilisi, Georgia because of the war there in 1992. In their rush to leave the war-torn…
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'The Doll's Alphabet' by Camilla Grudova - Flaky and Surreal Stories
‘The Doll’s Alphabet’, stories by Camilla Grudova (2017) – 162 pages
I read and was quite impressed by ‘Children of Paradise’ by Camilla Grudova, so I decided to read her earlier story collection ‘The Doll’s Alphabet’. Several critics praised ‘The Doll’s Alphabet’ very highly. However I did have my doubts due to the following line which was in a Guardian review by Nicholas Lezard which also…
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'The Physics of Sorrow' by Georgi Gospodinov - The Saddest Place in the World?
‘The Physics of Sorrow’ by Georgi Gospodinov (2011) 281 pages Translated from the Bulgarian by Angela Rodel
Bulgarian writer Georgi Gospodinov wrote this novel ‘The Physics of Sorrow’ in response to an article he read in The Economist in 2010 which called Bulgaria the saddest place in the world. Even the fall of Communism apparently didn’t improve the spirit of the country as the…
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'Secondhand Time' by Svetlana Alexievich - Perestroika and Beyond - Part Two
‘Secondhand Time’ by Svetlana Alexievich (2012) – 470 pages Translated from the Russian by Bela Shayevich
In the early 1990s, the Gorbachev years, there was great hope in Russia for “Perestroika”, the restructuring of the economic and political system of the country. Russian leaders talked of bringing in capitalism, but there was no foundation for capitalism in the Russian way of…
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'Secondhand Time' by Svetlana Alexievich - An Oral History of the Last of the Soviets and of the “New” Russia - Part One
‘Secondhand Time’ by Svetlana Alexievich (2012) – 470 pages Translated from the Russian by Bela Shayevich
In the early 1990s, Russia and even the rest of the world had high hopes for Russian democracy and a new Russian economic system, but lacking the proper laws, rules and regulations it has since devolved down to another harsh dictatorship and a klepto-capitalism where a few…
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'The Factory' by Hiroko Oyamada - Working for a Massive Japanese Company
‘The Factory’ by Hiroko Oyamada (2013) – 116 pages Translated from the Japanese by David Boyd
‘The Factory’ takes place in a extremely large company in Japan known simply as The Factory. We follow three new employees as they are hired and start to work at The Factory.
The following will give you some idea of how large The Factory is.
“The Factory really has it all, doesn’t…
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'Vengeance is Mine' by Marie NDiaye - A Mother's Terrible Act
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‘Vengeance is Mine’ by Marie NDiaye (2021) – 226 pages Translated from the French by Jordan Stump
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There are two plot lines to the French novel ‘Vengeance is Mine’.
One plot line is the aftermath of a horrendous act: a mother, Marlyne Principaux, admits that she has murdered her three little children, Jason, John, and Julia. Jason is 6 years old, John is 4 years old, and Julia…
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'Martyr!' by Kaveh Akbar - An American-Iranian Novel
‘Martyr!’ by Kaveh Akbar (2024) – 323 pages
First note that there is no “translated by” reference on the title page of this novel. ‘Martyrs’ is written in good old English, lively American English. A love of English infuses ‘Martyr!’
“You’re the most American kid I know. You taught Shane how to play Madden, how to torrent Marvel movies. You buy fucking vinyl records. We’re having this…
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Children of Paradise' by Camilla Grudova - A Job at the Paradise Movie Theater
‘Children of Paradise’ by Camilla Grudova (2022) – 196 pages
The Paradise is an old movie theater built around the time of the outbreak of the First World War. The young woman Holly is new to this unnamed town, and when she sees a sign at the Paradise on its big dusty doors saying “We’re Hiring” she decides to apply for the job. She has to clean up the spilled popcorn and all the other…
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'So Late in the Day' by Claire Keegan - Stories of Women and Men
‘So Late in the Day’ by Claire Keegan (2023) – 118 pages
Note that the subtitle of this collection of three stories is “Stories of Women and Men”, not “Stories of Men and Women”. In each of these stories, the woman is the main protagonist and the man plays a peripheral though critical part. “Critical” is the operative word here.
“That was the problem with women falling out of love; the…
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'This Plague of Souls' by Mike McCormack - Terror in Ireland
‘This Plague of Souls’ by Mike McCormack (2023) – 177 pages
Can one blame a writer for the key information he intentionally leaves out?
In ‘This Plague of Souls’ paints a picture of a man who has just been released from prison who returns to his small farm in western Ireland to find that his wife and son are not there. He cannot reach them by cell phone either, so he takes up living on…
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'Why Don't You Love Me?' by Paul B. Rainey - A Graphic Portrait of an Unhappy Couple Who are Terrible Parents
‘Why Don’t You Love Me?’, a graphic novel, by Paul B. Rainey (2023) – 214 pages
Here is a graphic novel that depicts a miserable marriage and the resultant bad parenting in horrific detail. We have married couple Mark Hopkins and his wife Claire and their two children Charley and Sally.
Claire spends much of her days in bed, is depressed, and drinks too much. Mark, after spending months…
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