A Study in Narratology Eugenides, Jeffrey. (2002). Middlesex. New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux. This Pulitzer Prize winner is actually two novels in one, which accounts for its 530 pages. Either story might have made a good novel. Concatenating them suggests, … Continue reading
An Imperfect Exercise Rachman, Tom. (2010). The Imperfectionists. New York: Random House/Dial. This New York Times “Notable Book” has an interesting marketing angle. Its cover and first few inside pages contain hyperbolic praise from newspaper book reviewers, while the book itself … Continue reading
Sex Without Feeling Hawkes, John (1974). Death, Sleep, & the Traveler. New York: New Directions. I ran across several references to Hawkes’ novels as “literary mysteries,” and I’m interested in that, so I took a look at two of his short … Continue reading
A Gentle Crime Novel Abu-jaber, Diane. (2007). Origin. New York: W.W. Norton This novel is in the rarified category of “literary” crime novel, which means the characters are well-developed and the writing is above average (that’s the literary part) AND, it … Continue reading
Wink, Wink; Nudge, Nudge Nabokov, Vladimir (1989) Despair. New York: Vintage. Nabokov wrote this little doppelganger mystery in the 1930’s then revised it in English in the 1960’s. The first two thirds are very slow going, as the pompous, self-aware, first-person … Continue reading
Meaning in Each Grain of Sand Abe, Kobo. (1960-1962/1991). Woman in the Dunes. New York: Vintage. This novel is considered by many to be Abe’s best, and a prime example of mid-century Japanese fiction. It’s difficult to determine exactly when it was … Continue reading
A Moving Allegory Coetzee, John. M. (1999/2008). Disgrace. New York: Penguin, 220 pages. Written shortly after the end of apartheid in South Africa, the story tells of a professor who has sex with a student, and when the affair becomes public, … Continue reading
Can Ramblings Make a Novel? Markson, David (1988). Wittgenstein’s Mistress. Champaign, Ill.: Dalkey Archive Press. This 250-page book is presented as the almost-stream-of-consciousness of a middle-aged woman who is the last living animal on earth. Unlike Joyce’s Ulysses, it is … Continue reading
Action-Thriller With Literary Chops McCarthy, Cormac. (2005). No Country for Old Men. New York: Vintage. An aging sheriff in 1980’s Texas despairs over the violent crime drugs trafficking has brought to his county, making it into a landscape he hardly … Continue reading
Reflection of a Fatal Flaw Ishiguro, Kazuo (1988). The Remains of the Day. New York: Random/Vintage. 245 pp. In 1956, an English butler reflects back on his life of service to a grand aristocrat in a grand mansion, Darlington Hall, during … Continue reading