The Old Man and the Bench – Urs Allemann
It’s not spoiling anything to say that the old man’s twaddle does eventually stop.
Embedded in his encounters with himself amid piles of corpses is an ambitious attempt to breach the sublime with the flood of language in this novel.
In a sea of linguistic uncertainty, the locus of meaning, that original word, is more often than not established solely through force.
Travel Notes (From here — to there) – Stanley Crawford
The logic here is Kafka’s, one emphasizing powerlessness, comedy, and terror. And like Kafka’s, it’s a logic Crawford often locates in the formal structures of speech, the way language can seem to contain crucial information even when it’s actually just bunches of barks and wind.