Denis Johnson’s “Train Dreams” and keeping/catching up
This novella got a lot of acclaim and critical attention when it came out, but I was just starting my undergrad work at that point and wasn’t really doing…
Chandler’s “The Big Sleep”: Noir and Homophobia and Slapping Hysterical Women, Oh My…
Ah, the other major detective noir. After reading “The Maltese Falcon,” I rather quickly set my sights on reading Chandler’s pulpy-not-pulp Magnum Opus. I had fun. It’s not my normal…
Powell’s City of Books
As part of my recent wanderings, I made the pilgrimage that every book nerd seems to do at least once: I went to the Deschutes taproom and drank a bunch…
Charles Burns’ “Black Hole”: Pretty Pictures of Disturbing Shit
Another wonderful comic book, published originally in 12 issues and collected together as a graphic novel in 2005. Like David Mazzucchelli (the man behind “Asterios Polyp”) Burns is both the…
Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men”
Steinbeck's prose has never been -for me, at least- so strong a thing as to recommend his writing to me in and of itself. Fortunately, the man is a compelling…
Update
Regular postings are resumed. I’ve just gotten back from spending the better part of the month gallivanting about the Western United States on and in various modes of overland transportation,…
On Reading and Taking Breaks
I’m currently reading David Foster Wallace’s comically weighty novel “Infinite Jest’. Since the only thing more sanctimonious than a 25-year-old white guy reading Infinite Jest is a 25-year-old white guy…
Dave Eggers’s “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” and another incarnation of my cynical misanthropy
I didn’t like this book. I found it irritating, twee, and everything wrong with the post-Wallace obsession over authenticity. I became irritated multiple times while reading it. This does not…
“Naked Lunch”: In Defense of the Irredeemably Obscene and the Blatantly Pornographic
My friend told me that he read this book when he was 20, on the recommendation of a buddy who described it as his favorite book of all time. “I…
“Rabbit Redux”, Or, John Updike is The Man (and you are free to interpret my use of the phrase “The Man” however you like)
John Updike gets a lot of shit. Some of that is very deserved. His preoccupation with white male middle-class identity rubs many people the wrong way. The perspective in much…