NYT Book Review
This week's book review has lots of interesting articles. There is a review of The Savage Detectives by James Wood, latest novel by the Chilean writer Roberto Bolano to be translated into English, plus new books by Elfriede Jelinek (reviewer doesn't like it) and Israeli novelist Aharon Appelfied. There are also other books from foreign languages which I haven't heard of.
The Savage Detectives has got lots of good review coverage in the last month. See these long essays in The New Yorker and Bookforum for example. I have read his short novel By Night in Chile (a short post here) and look forward to reading his other books.
5 comments:
Bolaño's overrated in my opinion. I really don't understand this sudden applause. I had the opportunity of meeting him in Chile, very bilious person! And extremely hurting to other writers that were not on his list! He is in demand now, and fashionable, but there are other writer that should be getting attention while alive (e.g. Diamela Eltit). Still it was very sad that his publishers refused to published 2666 in three parts, as he needed the money for his family.
Oh Wow, you have met him!
Didn't he win a lot of prizes in the Spanish speaking world too? And i actually liked By Night in Chile quite a lot, those long sentences and the way he manages to inhabit a consistent "voice." thomas bernhard did the similar thing much better but it is still quite good.
long sentences, Alok, I agree with you, enjoy high levels of "sticky factor" (almost like a glue), more than a "feeling of immediacy", they builp up high levels of "intrigue", interestingly, which is further accentuated by the reader's pricked/pinched interest....all of us die to find out what happened at the last mile and we run along with the line, though tiresome,we pant n puff ....it's like a tiny race that readers have to keep pace with...that's sheer a beauty!
Thomas Berhard is a ruthless killer, in just one sentence he digs up the whole earth (context, I mean), drags u down, pulls u down,bury you under the miasmic effect of the story, u are left breathless at the end of the process..this happened to me when I was reading the "VOICE IMITATOR"
at the end of every story, I was left fumbling n scrambling my way up, and that old man walked away with a lilting whistle song on his lips...:)))))))
yes I am a big fan of long and complicated sentences.
Kind of delayed, but still, yes, he won the prestigious 'Romulo Gallegos' award, he had a vertiginous career, his last 10 years, and now he is being translated massively. Susan Sontag recognized his work pretty early. Some weeks ago The New Yorker had a big article about him. Cheers!
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