Showing posts with label Book World. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Book World. Show all posts
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
12 great under-recognized novels
Mr. Samler's Planet Saul Bellow
If On a Winter's Night a Traveler Italo Calvino
Geek Love Katherine Dunn
Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro
The Trial Franz Kafka
Blind Date Jerzy Kosinski
The Book of Laughter Milan Kundera
and Forgetting
Love in the Time of Cholera Gabriel Marquez
Kafka on the Shore Haruki Murakami
Laughter in the Dark Vladamir Nabokov
The Violent Bear it Away Flannery O'Connor
The Secret History Donna Tartt
Monday, May 25, 2009
Artist and artist
Author Ames and illustrator Haspiel discuss the fine points of graphic novel collaboration.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
On Being Blue
Author: William Gass
A Nonpareil Book published in 1991 by David R. Godine, Publisher
Copyright 1976 by William Gass
First published by Godine in 1976
First paragraph excerpted by permission of the publisher
“Blue pencils, blue noses, blue movies, laws, blue legs and stockings, the language of birds, bees and flowers as sung by longshoremen, that lead-like look the skin has when affected by cold, contusion, sickness, fear; the rotten rum or gin they call blue ruin and the blue devils of its delirium; Russian cats and oysters, a withheld or imprisoned breath, the blue they say that diamonds have, deep holes in the ocean and the blazers which English athletes earn that gentlemen may wear; afflictions of the spirit—dumps, mopes, Mondays—all that’s dismal—lowdown gloomy music, Nova Scotians, cyanosis, hair rinse, bluing, bleach; the rare blue dahlia like that blue moon shrewd things happen only once in, or the call for trumps in whist (but who remembers whist or what the death of unplayed games is like?), and correspondingly the flag, Blue Peter, which is our signal for getting under way; a swift pitch, Confederate money, the shaded slopes of clouds and mountains, and so the constantly increasing absentness of Heaven (ins Blaue hinein, the Germans say), consequently the color of everything that’s empty: blue bottles, bank accounts, and compliments, for instance, or, when the sky’s turned turtle, the blue-green bleat of ocean (both the same), and, when in Hell, its neatly landscaped rows of concrete huts and gas-blue flames; social registers, examination booklets, blue bloods, balls, and bonnets, beards, coats, collars, chips, and cheese. . . the pedantic, indecent and censorious. . . watered twilight, sour sea: through a scrambling of accidents, blue has become their color, just as it’s stood for fidelity. Blue laws took their hue from the paper they were printed on. Blue noses were named for a potato. E. Haldeman-Julius’ little library, where I first read Ellen Key’s Evolution of Love, vainly hoping for a cock stand, had such covers. In the same series, which sold for a dime in those days, were the love letters of that Portuguese nun, Mariana Alcoforado, an overwrought and burdensome lady, certainly, whose existence I callously forgot until I read of her again in Rilke.”
With prose and poetry scaling the heights in deep meditation, William Gass brings meaning and shades of meaning that light a low fire under indigo, cobalt and aquamarine; around every aspect beneath and above the sky.
A Nonpareil Book published in 1991 by David R. Godine, Publisher
Copyright 1976 by William Gass
First published by Godine in 1976
First paragraph excerpted by permission of the publisher
“Blue pencils, blue noses, blue movies, laws, blue legs and stockings, the language of birds, bees and flowers as sung by longshoremen, that lead-like look the skin has when affected by cold, contusion, sickness, fear; the rotten rum or gin they call blue ruin and the blue devils of its delirium; Russian cats and oysters, a withheld or imprisoned breath, the blue they say that diamonds have, deep holes in the ocean and the blazers which English athletes earn that gentlemen may wear; afflictions of the spirit—dumps, mopes, Mondays—all that’s dismal—lowdown gloomy music, Nova Scotians, cyanosis, hair rinse, bluing, bleach; the rare blue dahlia like that blue moon shrewd things happen only once in, or the call for trumps in whist (but who remembers whist or what the death of unplayed games is like?), and correspondingly the flag, Blue Peter, which is our signal for getting under way; a swift pitch, Confederate money, the shaded slopes of clouds and mountains, and so the constantly increasing absentness of Heaven (ins Blaue hinein, the Germans say), consequently the color of everything that’s empty: blue bottles, bank accounts, and compliments, for instance, or, when the sky’s turned turtle, the blue-green bleat of ocean (both the same), and, when in Hell, its neatly landscaped rows of concrete huts and gas-blue flames; social registers, examination booklets, blue bloods, balls, and bonnets, beards, coats, collars, chips, and cheese. . . the pedantic, indecent and censorious. . . watered twilight, sour sea: through a scrambling of accidents, blue has become their color, just as it’s stood for fidelity. Blue laws took their hue from the paper they were printed on. Blue noses were named for a potato. E. Haldeman-Julius’ little library, where I first read Ellen Key’s Evolution of Love, vainly hoping for a cock stand, had such covers. In the same series, which sold for a dime in those days, were the love letters of that Portuguese nun, Mariana Alcoforado, an overwrought and burdensome lady, certainly, whose existence I callously forgot until I read of her again in Rilke.”
With prose and poetry scaling the heights in deep meditation, William Gass brings meaning and shades of meaning that light a low fire under indigo, cobalt and aquamarine; around every aspect beneath and above the sky.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
A sublime story rendered in high art prose that will forever impact perceptions of love and friendship
Art students at a private boarding school in the countryside of England struggle to overcome a dark aspect of their lives. Kazuo Ishiguro (Remains of the Day) delves deep to reveal these extraordinary students' desire for normalcy while facing an ominous future with courage. A rare novel that shows, rather than explains, the gift of intimacy and the eventuality of letting go.
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