We witness a character endeavoring to recreate the past in the vast country of the present, knowing all along that it is futile. But why should futility be discouraging?
Three Strong Women – Marie NDiaye
NDiaye’s women are not strong due to their ability to overcome their trials or by doing something extraordinary.
Most of the stories in WE’RE FLYING depict more quotidian anxieties than a crisis of faith.
The Investigation – Philippe Claudel
Why, after almost 100 years, would a novel that so obviously duplicates the most familiar features of the Kafkaesque, that so obviously wants to be Kafkaesque, also still want to be regarded as somehow original and daring?
The Life of an Unknown Man – Andreï Makine
If Makine has built a romantic aura around his own persona, with his character Shutov he mocks that romanticism.
My First Suicide – Jerzy Pilch
It’s hard not to feel drawn into a unity with Pilch’s protagonist, even if you’ve never felt compelled to imagine unbuttoning Anna Karenina’s corset.
Prehistoric Times – Eric Chevillard
What is fifty thousand years, really, in the context of the universe?
Prehistoric Times – Eric Chevillard
The vernacular is ostentatious in the best way possible, and the occasional geeky archeologist terminology is believable coming from the mouth of the narrator, who can be imagined as a sort of David Schwimmer character during his Friends-era popularity.
Dublinesque – Enrique Vila-Matas
See there!, cries the reader, The author! Peeking out from his natural habitat!
A Breath of Life – Clarice Lispector
Reading A Breath of Life, we feel Time (or God, or Lispector herself) passing.