Cormac McCarthy, The Road
The Road by Cormac McCarthy My rating: 4 of 5 stars The Road, like many other novels in the broad speculative tradition from ancient utopias to modern science fiction, designs … Continue reading
Vladimir Nabokov, The Enchanter
The Enchanter by Vladimir Nabokov My rating: 3 of 5 stars VN’s first pass at the Lolita subject matter, The Enchanter was written in 1939—making it one of the author’s … Continue reading
Gish Jen, The Girl at the Baggage Claim: Explaining the East-West Culture Gap
The Girl at the Baggage Claim: Explaining the East-West Culture Gap by Gish Jen My rating: 3 of 5 stars One time, teaching a course on the graphic novel, I … Continue reading
Juan Rulfo, Pedro Páramo
Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo My rating: 5 of 5 stars It sometimes seems as if great novels—where “great” implies success at the historico-political task of summing an epoch or … Continue reading
Angela Nagle, Kill All Normies: Online Culture Wars from 4chan and Tumblr to Trump and the Alt-Right
Kill All Normies: Online Culture Wars from 4chan and Tumblr to Trump and the Alt-Right by Angela Nagle My rating: 3 of 5 stars Kill All Normies is like three … Continue reading
Grant Morrison, Doom Patrol
The Doom Patrol Omnibus by Grant Morrison My rating: 3 of 5 stars In my review of Boris Groys’s In the Flow, I somehow failed to note the thesis in … Continue reading
William Faulkner, Sanctuary
Sanctuary by William Faulkner My rating: 5 of 5 stars As everyone knows, Faulkner claimed he wrote this brutal 1931 novel as a potboiler. Superficially, this is plausible: a lurid … Continue reading
Boris Groys, In the Flow
In the Flow by Boris Groys My rating: 4 of 5 stars For a long time, God was our anchor: the gaze of the deity secured our place in the … Continue reading
Announcing Portraits and Ashes
As you might have guessed from yesterday’s defense of self-published literary fiction, I have independently published a novel, Portraits and Ashes. For a brief description, here is the back cover copy: … Continue reading
