The Hole by José Revueltas My rating: 3 of 5 stars The Hole was written in Mexico City's Lecumberri Penitentiary in 1969 and published the same year; a classic of Latin American literature, one that Valeria Luiselli claims on the back cover has informed the works of Bolaño and Aira, the novella appears for the … Continue reading José Revueltas, The Hole
Tag: twentieth-century literature
Kindred by Octavia E. Butler My rating: 5 of 5 stars This 1979 classic novel of time travel and slavery could not be published today. Imagine it, imagine Octavia Butler temporally jumped to the present and trying to put out Kindred in the current media climate. Assume, because it's so good, that the novel even finds … Continue reading Octavia E. Butler, Kindred
The Berlin Stories: The Last of Mr. Norris & Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood My rating: 4 of 5 stars The Berlin Stories collects Christopher Isherwood's two novels of the 1930s set in Weimar Germany, The Last of Mr. Norris (1935), published in England under the superior title Mr. Norris Changes Trains, and the … Continue reading Christopher Isherwood, The Berlin Stories
Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin My rating: 4 of 5 stars Let's get the literary-historical info and honorifics out of the way first: Berlin Alexanderplatz is one of the monuments of the modernist novel, often compared to Joyce's Ulysses ("quite wrongly and needlessly," says the present translator, about which more later) for its linguistic and … Continue reading Alfred Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz
Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann My rating: 5 of 5 stars Far out to sea the water's as blue as the petals of the loveliest cornflower, and as clear as the purest glass; but it's very deep, deeper than any anchor can reach. Many church steeples would have to be piled up one above the … Continue reading Thomas Mann, Doctor Faustus
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut My rating: 2 of 5 stars But was I wrong, in "In Praise of Semicolons," to be so severe in my judgment of Kurt Vonnegut, to castigate him for infantilism? I decided to find out by reading what is regarded as the author's masterpiece, Slaughterhouse-Five (1969). Slaughterhouse-Five is Vonnegut's sixth novel, and includes … Continue reading Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
Akira, Vol. 1 by Katsuhiro Otomo My rating: 3 of 5 stars The 1980s—the latest, the last golden age. The length and breadth of our politics, our pop culture, even our high culture, was laid down in that decade. Everyone now is either trying to overthrow it or recapture it or some incoherent combination of … Continue reading Katsuhiro Otomo, Akira
Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life by Theodor W. Adorno My rating: 5 of 5 stars It helps to know that this 1951 book, an unclassifiable philosophical masterpiece consisting of 153 divisions ranging in length from the aphorism to the brief essay, was written largely in the light of Southern California. Adorno was a … Continue reading Theodor Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life
[This post combines my Goodreads reviews of both volumes of Alack Sinner, The Age of Innocence and The Age of Disenchantment.] Alack Sinner: The Age of Innocence by Carlos Sampayo and José Muñoz My rating: 4 of 5 stars The Age of Innocence is the first of two American omnibus collections of the noir graphic novels … Continue reading José Muñoz and Carlos Sampayo, Alack Sinner
Brüsel by François Schuiten and Benoît Peeters My rating: 3 of 5 stars This is my third visit to Franco-Belgian creators Schuiten and Peeters's Cités obscures. The series of graphic novels is currently difficult or impossible to read completely in English, as it has passed between several different publishers, leaving many of the volumes out of … Continue reading François Schuiten and Benoît Peeters, Brüsel
