lost my job and am struggling with a sense of guilt about writing book reviews instead of looking for jobs (have applied to ~150 jobs) but have still been spending time reading. here are some book reviews:
varamo by cesar aira: a small silly book about a hapless, neurotic bureaucrat stumbling through a bunch of satirical situations about south american history/politics. some of the gags were funny but overall it felt kinda whatever by the end, all the separate little scenes merging/connecting into the greater narrative in a sort of clever way i don't vibe with much. lots of emphasis on a sort of absurd idea taken to a logical extreme as a source of humor, e.g. lots of discussion of a car racing thing that involves trying to drive 35mph as consistently as possible the whole distance, but some of the stupider jokes were appealing, e.g. the extended scene of the guy trying to taxidermy a fish to make it play an instrument but realizing too late that fish don't have arms. would also probably be better (in terms of the satire/humor) if i cared/knew more about south american history. wouldn't recommend relative to his other books that i've read but overall seems fine.
the driftless area by tom drury: pretty solid drury (my 4th book by him) but with an unexpected supernatural/ghost story bent that i felt was, initially, distracting, but then later kind of fine. i think he shines when he writes about small town bullshit, weird little stories that contribute to a town's "lore," which is present and consistent here, but it feels like he or someone else felt that wasn't sufficient anymore so he needed to add a ghost or whatever. enjoyed the awkwardness of him making teenagers in 2005 talk about the decemberists. felt like the short 'action sequence' toward the end was confusingly written and executed, which distracted from the importance/flow of the scene, and which made me feel like it's probably really hard, or possibly pointless, to write action sequences like that. overall pretty short, felt mixed about the relatively simple ending. would enjoy reading a ~3,000 page my struggle-style series by him with no real plot.
fuccboi by sean thor conroe (little, brown): a relatively engaging autofictional novel recounting ~two years in the life of a guy trying to become a writer. enjoyed the emphasis on him engaging with literature (including a cute conversation with his mom about haruki murakami) and the overall theme of him learning (to be a better person) from selfless others - family, girlfriends, strangers, writers, etc. there's also the subplot about his confusing and stupid romantic relationships, which is frustrating in that while full of surface-level self-critique, never really gets examined clearly, in that he remains relatively coy and obfuscatory about what happens between him and these women in a guarded way; i specifically disliked the way he'd describe having sex as "being let in," which felt gross and weird and inauthentic. there's also the subplot about his crazy skin condition, which i thought was compelling and interesting and lead to the most exciting descriptions in the book - the scenes of his skin wetly sloughing off his plastic bag-taped-up feet, etc, have stayed with me. but also lead to some inconsistencies in the text which i think come from his self-described extensive editorial process, wherein he'll spend a long time talking about being more or less bedridden due to his skin problem, but then randomly he'll start aggressively playing basketball - i would wonder why his fucked up foot skin was no longer a problem during this section, for example. as such it could have been edited better, especially by the end, where some of the sequences are more like nonsequiturs and were unexpectedly presented out of temporal sequence. also disliked the sequencing/editing in that some passages required lengthy recapitulations or flashback-type scenes to communicate the point of what happens during the scenes, which added to my overall bored confusion about what happened when and with whom. also didn't like the refusal to use any names, especially for women, which resulted in any scene with 2+ people to be chaotically written with stuff like [i'm making this up] "ex-roomie bae's sister stepped up to ex-roomie bae and ex-roomie D. to talk about ex-roomie bae's hairdresser's ex-bae" kinda bullshit, which harmed the flow of the writing, which is ironic and frustrating in that a) the book is supposed to be about the good flow and b) the book is about how the book will have good flow. felt like the 'lowkey redpilled' angle that motivates the character in various scenes was underdeveloped and (i hate using this cliche) 'told and not shown', sort of hamfistedly inserted, i felt, to create tension in some scenes but otherwise rarely revisited. overall the book felt like sort of a frankenstein's monster of aimless indie lit-style musings/work life narrative (which i liked, and considered immersive and interesting) and big press-style politically/culturally-motivated action narrative (which felt overly self-satisfied and 'clever' relative to the rest of the narrative). this leads to a strange artificiality - for example, he's supposed to be a dumb meathead (he doesn't really know what a clitoris is, at one point, somehow), yet won't just straight up refer to sex as sex, hiding it behind weird euphemisms. it's like his story and character were forced through a committee to create a caricature of an entirely invented person, this coy oaf who loves joe rogan but hates colonialism, who wants to get into fights with men but just wants to snuggle and kiss with ladies. this aside, overall, i liked it. i imagine the giancarlo version, or even the pre-giancarlo version, would have been a more engaging book, or more aligned with my preferences. i also feel obligated to mention that i don't consider it a rip off of sam pink - i've read (and enjoyed) a lot of sam pink ripoffs and this is far from the most egregious example of one. and i felt like the weird invented singular slang wasn't too distracting, and resulted in some good funny moments, e.g. the off-cited 'railing a banana' and stuff like that, which unlike some of his affectations feels like something people say ironically but with good-natured intentions, e.g. today i asked my wife if she wanted "a hit of this gouda" which feels like normal millennial irony, or something. imagined now digressing deeply into a 6k word essay about ben folds.
the wolves of eternity by karl ove knausgaard: the 2nd book in a seemingly 5-part series about a biblical-style event occurring which results in people no longer dying and the boundaries between life and the afterlife dissipating. however, this book is mostly set prior to the events of the first book and focuses on a much smaller cast of characters, primarily just two, and is anchored by long, my struggle-style narratives based on daily minutiae. very much enjoyed the first major section, following a sort of aimless, unemployed 19 year old guy in 1986 who does a lot of cooking, playing soccer, and trying to hang out with his little brother/people in town. i like the meandering emphasis on scenery, food (e.g. getting mashed potatoes and a hot dog from the local chippie and looking at the mountains), place/culture. it's very un-plot-driven but also snappy, not ploddingly paced, which feels unique and like i'm being 'respected' as a reader. i liked but was overall less interested in the similarly-lengthed section following the russian woman character, which is more cerebral/philosophical in topic and style, focusing on her experiences in grad school and ruminations on biology, evolution, etc., but really enjoyed the extended passage about her time on a small island near finland. the book and story overall, like classic knausgaard, revolves languidly around the concept of death, but in i felt interesting and grounded ways. also found the underlying emphasis on interpersonal perception, subconscious/active judgement, boredom, and minor details of daily public interactions interesting, enlightening, and challenging. every character feels very real, normal, and unique, and i enjoyed what felt like difficult-to-execute moments of, for example, a sort of dumb character musing on some complex idea vs. a sort of smart character doing the same, with their distinct approaches and thought patterns. hard to articulate and probably obvious to other people, but i enjoyed inhabiting these characters more than most of the previous book's characters. felt mixed about the extended in-text essay in the middle, but enjoyed not knowing whether it was about a real person/topic or one invented for the book, and enjoyed the discussion giving some kind of alternative context to the larger narrative arc of the series. overall enjoyed the book in spite of some of the imbalance in structure (two very long passages and maybe 6 much shorter, relatively disconnected passages, some of which could have been left out with more or less no consequence), but also would have enjoyed just all 780 pages being about the 19 year old guy fucking around and not doing much.
heaven by mieko kawakami (europa editions): read and mostly enjoyed breasts and eggs by her this year. a relatively stylistically plain novel about two young teenagers in japan who were cruelly bullied but develop a friendship via passing notes. the overall story is a little slow and there were some passages i considered remarkably bad writing, surprisingly. grew to dislike it as i noticed it conforming to the same structure and pacing as her other book(s), with conversations consisting of people monologuing to one another, a character doing something weird/unexpected during the emotional denouement, and the constant references to the sky/scenery to augment/break up emotional/dramatic passages. enjoyed some small and narratively unexpected passages, including the character arc of the mother and a scene where the protagonist randomly jerks off and cums so much it won't fit in his hand. felt frustrated by some scene-level logical inconsistencies, such as a character describing how things look even though he can't see them, usually paired with cliches. enjoyed the first half more than the second. unsure i would recommend.
will we all still see each other afterward by tyler dempsey (anxiety press): traded some back patio books for this, having enjoyed an excerpt we published on back patio press this year. the story is brief and details the aftermath of a breakup and a short-lived fling. large sections of the book consist of (flirty) text message dialogue, including QR codes to spotify playlists. the style, format, and emphasis on accurate facial/body movement and spoken accents feels very sam pink influenced, replete with triple-spaced one-line paragraphs and refrains, e.g. "good for bidness". the scope (relationship drama, work drudgery, and medical problems) reminded me of fuccboi, and the inclusion of long text messages, graphic sex scenes, and coworker relationships reminded me of something gross. also includes what feels like another alt lit callback of including nonsequitor tweet-like lines, e.g. (i'm making this up) "an app that does everything for you while you lie in bed", which reminds me of guillaume morissette's new tab. would have enjoyed the book more if it were longer, with more development of the setting, park ranger/daycare jobs, secondary characters, and the dental surgery subplot, because i found all of these things relatively unique and interesting, but were used more as light set dressing for a couple key dramatic moments; overall found the book compelling but a little rushed-seeming. unrelated to the text, i felt frustrated by the size and formatting of the book - very small font with very wide outside margins and smallish inside margins - which made it kind of unpleasant to read. also features dempsey's consistent use of commas instead of dashes or ellipses to mark pauses in dialogue, which can take some getting used to, but when you're used to it, it reflects well on his ability to recreate natural speech.
the enigma of arrival by v. s. naipul: friend recommended me this
because karl ove wrote about it in one of the struggles and he liked
it. read maybe the first third-half then put it down. ok enough daily
minutia stuff but felt like the beginning especially was poorly edited
with repetitive phrasing/sequences, like maybe he had poorly stitched
together separately-published-but-pverlapping passages. also slightly
turned off by the pretentiousness (comparing himself to shakespeare,
kind of, a few times) and emphasis on judging people over examining them
uncritically. i liked the setting and
time period, where the countryside quickly transforms from a more
wild/historic area to a developed and fenced-off area. didn't finish.
dog symphony by sam munson (new directions): picked up randomly at the library because it's on new directions, but weirdly not in translation (didn't realize they did any original english works). read the first ~20 pages but became disinterested. the measured, continental style felt needlessly artificial and the exciting mean/shittalky moments were too few to really save it. felt overall like fan fiction by someone who likes new direction works in translation. harsh but true! briefly googled this book/author to help justify being mean and discovered that this book has more goodreads ratings, but fewer reviews, than my story collection. didn't finish.
chapbooks
six-legged spider by coleman bomar (gob pile press): short collection of haiku, generally about the cultural/masculine friction of being gay in the south. felt most excited by the more blunt pieces (like one line just being "dead dead dead dead dead") and less excited about the more 'poetic' pieces, but overall enjoyed it and would recommend. felt cool and different without being pretentious.
parade by hiromi kawakami (soft skull): checked this out from the library alongside another book by mieko kawakami, because the two were next to each other on the shelf and i briefly thought they were the same author. i remember this coming out but not knowing at the time that it's really small, like 6"x4" (postcard sized) and maybe 80 pages, with very little text per page - the text is maybe 3k words total and features a lot of cute little (unrelated?) full-page drawings. a short story within shorter story, wherein the narrator describes a time at school when most kids had creatures from japanese folklore follow them around, maybe as a sort of allegory for puberty, or something. the story is in the context of the narrator and a sensei of some kind having lunch and dozing - enjoyed the strange, kind of rude dynamic between the two. the afterword notes it's sort of like a deleted scene or bonus riff on the characters from a novel of hers i haven't read, so i imagine its short length and lack of narrative arc is due to this. strange to frame it as a standalone novel. glad i checked it out from the library instead of buying it new; snarkily classifying it as a chapbook here on my blog.
14 poems by tao lin: purchased from someone in the UK via instagram. focused on reverie/references to specific moments without context and 'big ideas' from reading and idle thought. feel like every poem contains at least 3 relatively profound and interesting observations/statements, found myself quoting various lines out loud to my wife. i like this era of tao lin poems and would enjoy reading a lot more.
minor league all american dance club by ben saff (toho publishing): tweeted about wanting to trade books with people and ben replied, sending me this. consists of short poems with varied topics and styles. was hoping there would be more of a throughline about alligators living in the human world and doing cool stuff, based on the cover and the first poem - there are maybe only 4 of these poems but they are my favorite, including one about alligators playing baseball with a human skull. would enjoy a book or chapbook exploring just this kind of imagery more. felt less compelled by the other poems with a more florid tone, but enjoyed some of the imagery, e.g. a guy in a suit made of suction cups.
i can't see it now by alex youngman (alien buddha): tweeted about wanting to trade books with people and alex replied, sending me this and the second sex in exchange for some back patio books. i read and enjoyed alex's previous chapbook about bugs; this is a more serious/less irreverent collection of what i would call earnest, transcendental poetry. emphasis on quiet reveries and moments in/about nature - trees, rivers, birds, etc. enjoyed both the emphasis on nature writing as well as, stylistically, the brief moments of casual, informal phrasing, e.g. "that bird was so loud", in contrast to the more intentional, formal descriptions and phrasing. tex's blurb mentions thoreau, which i felt was fitting
