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.
Bad personality, bad prose, and sexism aside, the narrator’s anxieties about how to novelize history are legitimate.
CONFUSION will resonate with anyone who has felt the tension between desire and knowledge that sits at the heart of pedagogical relationships.
With the Animals – Noëlle Revaz
Revaz makes it possible to feel a certain empathy for Paul, a pity for how small he has made his world and how tightly he needs to control it.
Most haunting of all is the prospect of losing one’s perceptive abilities.
Almost Never is like a comedy of manners cut with a pulpy erotic novel, a social satire impelled by a dripping lecherousness. Most of all, it’s a fantastic, exciting book.
Reticence – Jean-Philippe Toussaint
Toussaint’s novels are filled with darkness and light, both of which are consumed, inevitably, by a gray fog.
Suddenly, a Knock on the Door – Etgar Keret
After all, what is fantasy if not a wish for something new, something else, for some “knock on the door”?