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Saturday, July 31st, 2010
I'm eating up Super Sad True Love Story.... A couple of reactions to it, but first a brief passage that I think illustrates what a great rush reading this book is. (i.e. if you don't like this, don't bother with the book, and vice versa.)
My äppärät pinged.
CrisisNet: DOLLAR LOSES OVER 3% IN LONDON TRADING TO FINISH AT HISTORIC LOW OF 1€ = $8.64 IN ADVANCE OF CHINESE CENTRAL BANKER ARRIVAL U.S.; LIBOR RATE FALLS 57 BASIS POINTS; DOLLAR LOWER BY 2.3% AGAINST YUAN AT 1¥* = $4.90
I really needed to figure out what this LIBOR thing was and why it was falling by fifty-seven basis points. But, honestly, how little I cared about all these difficult economic details! How desperately I wanted to forsake these facts, to open a smelly book or to go down on a pretty young girl instead. Why couldn't I have been born to a better world?
I can honestly see how I could go either way about this -- it could seem self-indulgent and silly; but instead I'm feeling for Lenny, caring about his histrionic soliloquies. Rayyan Al-Shawaf at The Millions complains that Shteyngart's broad satire produces one-dimensional, artificial characters -- but to be honest that's sort of what I'm expecting from Shteyngart based on Absurdistan and The Russian Debutante's Handbook -- it's a feature, not a bug.
Possibly of interest in this connection, I'm seeing some points of connection between this book and A Visit From the Goon Squad -- a hugely different book, and one comparatively much more concerned with drawing characters than with biting social satire. It's possible I'm making this up -- but there seems to be a common theme between the two of them. In both books authentic communication is dying, its place being taken over by superficial, thoughtlessly immediate texting.
 * (No explanation at this point in the text, why ¥ is being used as a symbol for Yuan instead of å…ƒ. Perhaps just sloppy copy-editing...)
posted evening of July 31st, 2010: Respond
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Tuesday, July 20th, 2010
Driving to pick up his son, Bennie alternated between the Sleepers and the Dead Kennedys, San Francisco bands he'd grown up with. He listened for muddiness, the sense of musicians playing actual instruments in an actual room. Nowadays that quality (if it existed at all) was usually an effect of analogue signaling rather than bona fide tape -- everything was an effect in the bloodless constructions Bennie and his peers were churning out.
I finally picked up Jennifer Egan's new book today -- am finding the first few chapters pleasant and stimulating without them exactly grabbing me the way The Keep and Look at Me did. Definitely interesting enough to keep me reading.
 ...And, by the end of Chapter 4 I realize I am completely hooked in. A glorious, hypnotic read.
posted evening of July 20th, 2010: Respond
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Thursday, May 15th, 2008
At Edge of the American West, there is a fun thread about anticipating new books by your favorite authors. There was no criterion really specified for how to choose the authors you list; here is what I used: an author all or most of whose back catalog I have read*, and if I read about a new book of whose being published, I would run out to the bookstore and buy a copy. Most books I've bought in my life have been used; buying just-published books is a pretty new experience. I think this is a complete list of the books that I've bought on the day of their publication: Mason & Dixon, The Keep, Against the Day, Other Colors. (And come to think of it, I've pre-ordered a couple of books from Amazon or similar, so received them at the time of their publication. So probably should add to the list Monk's Music, and Autobiographies of Orhan Pamuk which I await anxiously, and the two volumes so far of Moomin comics.)
 *Except Saramago, I've only read two of his books.
posted afternoon of May 15th, 2008: Respond
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Friday, April 20th, 2007
I'm reading Jennifer Egan's first novel, The Invisible Circus, now, and liking it a lot. I really admired the scene in which Faith told her sister she had been at an invisible circus, and Phoebe was put out about not being invited along -- it sounded real when it could easily have been precious and forced. I recently read most of Zadie Smith's latest novel On Beauty and found it enjoyable, but didn't really think it stood up to The Autograph Man and White Teeth.
posted evening of April 20th, 2007: Respond
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Tuesday, August 22nd, 2006
In New York Magazine this week, Jennifer Egan mentions 5 books she has found useful. Nice -- I have not read two of them, and have only read a smattering of poetry from a third. I am excited about going to see her read tomorrow evening. Update: What a great, great reading -- Chapter 5 was a good selection. She said hi to me! I'm all flustered now.
posted evening of August 22nd, 2006: Respond
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Tuesday, August 15th, 2006
A note about Look at Me -- I really want Charlotte's and her brother-in-law's mutual antipathy to be explained -- it is so deep and intense, right now it is just sort of hovering over the story without contributing anything.
posted afternoon of August 15th, 2006: Respond
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I am reading Look at Me [SPOILERS FOLLOW] voraciously. Constantly adjusting my perspective as I read it, at times I am perched above the story looking down into it and thinking about its structure, frequently I am drawn down into the guts of it -- when Charlotte made her plan to get Anthony to start drinking again, I reacted with a wave of visceral disapproval; but when Charlotte made her suicide attempt I was only very marginally with her, thinking more about what would happen in the story around this event.
posted morning of August 15th, 2006: Respond
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Monday, August 14th, 2006
This morning I started Look at Me by Jennifer Egan, author of The Keep. I'm happy to say it is living up to my expectations so far -- beautiful prose and character development with occasional surprising insights.
posted evening of August 14th, 2006: Respond
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Sunday, August 6th, 2006
On Wednesday the 23rd at 8, Jennifer Egan will be reading from The Keep at Rocky Sullivan's, 28th and Lexington. If you're interested in meeting up there, drop me a line.
posted morning of August 6th, 2006: Respond
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Thursday, August third, 2006
So Bookslut (in the person of Maureen McClarnon) thinks The Keep would be a better book without the final chapter. And I can sort of see where Ms. McClarnon is coming from -- the end of Chapter 15 would make an excellent book ending. And 16 takes the book off in a new direction. But, well, I like the new direction. I've been wanting throughout the first 15 chapters to learn more about Holly. I'm glad 16 is in there. On the train this evening I took a look back at Chapter 1 and was shocked all over again, at what a beautiful piece of writing this is. The structure of the whole book is contained in the first chapter, in amazingly compact miniature. Ray's first intrusion into the narrative -- wow! Also -- I looked through the book and realized that there really is not a lot of space devoted to Ray's story; it stands out in an exaggerated way, in my memory of the book.
posted evening of August third, 2006: Respond
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