Category: the-art-of-narrative
- Man of PrincipleBilly Phelan’s Greatest Game a novel by William Kennedy. Penguin Books. 282 pp. $14.00 ***** To get the suspense over with immediately, since it’s the first incident in the novel: Billy’s greatest game was when he bowled 299 in a match against a man named Scotty Streck. They were competing for the best three game total, ...Read more
- Charmingly DespicableLegs a novel by William Kennedy. Penguin. 317 pp. $17.00. ***** William Kennedy burst onto the literary scene in 1983 with the novel Ironweed, his fourth. My memory is that he’d had trouble finding a publisher because his earlier novels hadn’t sold. In an act of desperation he got in touch with Saul Bellow, whom he’d ...Read more
- The Way We’re All CrazyThe Dog of the South a novel by Charles Portis. From Charles Portis: Collected Works. Library of America pp. 261-461. $45.00 ****1/2 I see The Dog of the South as a real step forward in the work of Charles Portis. His first novel, Norwood, gave an indication of where he was heading. Then he wrote a ...Read more
- Famously ObscureTrue Grit a novel by Charles Portis. From Charles Portis: Collected Works. Library of America. pp. 111-261. $45.00. ***** One of the most wonderful things about True Grit is the voice of its narrator, whom we take to be the fourteen-old-girl who is going through this adventure, but who is actually much older, “a woman with ...Read more
- Cherchez la FemmeUnder the Glacier a novel by Haldor Laxness. With an introduction by Susan Sontag (thank God). Vintage. 240 pp. $17.00 ***1/2 I have to admit that Susan Sontag made more sense of this novel than I did. I actually finished the book with no idea what the hell was going on. Fortunately I had the Sontag introduction, ...Read more
- The Whiteness of the WhaleMelville: His World and Work by Andrew Delbanco. Vintage. 415 pp. $18.00. ***** I’m tempted by the first line of The Good Soldier, “This is the saddest story I have ever heard.” I don’t suppose that’s literally true, but it’s plenty sad. I’m reminded of a moment in James Atlas’ biography of Delmore Schwartz, when Schwartz ...Read more
- Everything Slightly OffNorwood from Charles Portis: Collected Works Library of America. pp. 1-110. $45.00 (unless you get a bargain, as I did) ***** I will now take on the impossible task of saying what is great—or at least addictive—about a Charles Portis novel. Probably the least of his books is the most famous (and most conventional), True Grit. ...Read more
- Blind AmbitionUp With the Sun a novel by Thomas Mallon. Knopf. 337 pp. $28.00. ***** It’s a horrible thing to say, but I like Dick Kallman better when he’s dead. That’s partly because author Thomas Mallon has chosen to tell Kallman’s story from dual viewpoints, one in the first person, told by Dick’s occasional piano-accompanist Matt Liannetto; the ...Read more
- Brilliant Young ManThe Dream Life of Balso Snell and Miss Lonelyhearts from Nathaniel West: Novels and Other Writings. pp. 1-126. Library of America. $40.00. **** Reading the early work of Nathanael West brings to mind David Somerville, a friend I haven’t thought about for fifty years. He lived in the room beside mine in my freshman dorm at ...Read more
- One of a KindNovelist as a Vocation by Haruki Murakami. Knopf. 224 pp. $22.99. *** Haruki Murakami is a novelist of indescribable genius. I mean that literally: I’ve read five of his novels, including the famous 1Q84, and can’t say what any of them was about (I don’t even know how to verbalize that title). His novels are like ...Read more
- Gently Down the StreamMaya a novel by C.W. Huntington, Jr. Wisdom Publications. 315 pp. $16.95. ***** As far as I know, C.W. Huntington—who died in 2020 at the age of 71—published only three books, The Emptiness of Emptiness (1995), a translation of and commentary on Candrakīrti’s Madhyamakāvatāra; this novel, Maya, in 2015; and What I Don’t Know About Death, which ...Read more
- Human ConsciousnessMrs. Dalloway a novel by Virginia Woolf and The Hours a novel by Michael Cunningham. A Combined Edition. Picador. 417 pp. (more or less). $20.00. ***** I haven’t read much Virginia Woolf and don’t have any particular excuse. She was all the rage in the seventies and eighties, when her diaries and letters were coming out. ...Read more
- Just Do ItThe Idiot a novel by Elif Batuman. A Penguin Book. 423 pp. $17.00. ***1/2 Holy God, as a friend used to say, am I glad I went to college when I did. It was a difficult moment in this country’s history, the Vietnam war raging, a decent grade point average the only thing between me and ...Read more
- Love in the Time of ParanoiaFellow Travelers a novel by Thomas Mallon. Vintage Books. 354 pp. $16.00. ***** Thomas Mallon is a historical novelist of much renown; Henry and Clara—his breakthrough book—told the story of the couple who occupied the booth with Lincoln on the night he was shot. I’ve always thought it took colossal nerve to write such a book. ...Read more
- Movin’ on UpThe Intuitionist a novel by Colson Whitehead. Anchor Books. 255 pp. $16.00. ***1/2 It’s tough being a moron. When I finished Harlem Shuffle, the third Colson Whitehead novel I’d read, I was so excited about his work that I wanted more, so I decided to go back to his first novel, which won a number of ...Read more
- It’s All Freddie’s FaultHarlem Shuffle a novel by Colson Whitehead. Anchor Books. 318 pp. $17.00. ***** Colson Whitehead, it seems, can do anything as a writer. The Underground Railroad—which first brought the writer to my attention—was a wild fantasy about life under slavery and about the African American experience. It won the National Book Award and was made into ...Read more
- Far Out, ManTripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book from Maxine Hong Kingston Library of America. Viet Thanh Nguyen, editor. pp 479-864. **** This novel, published in 1989, is the quintessential Sixties novel (and seems to be the only novel that Maxine Hong Kingston has published, though she was a famous writer by the time it came out, having published ...Read more
- Inventing the BookThe Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston. From Kingston Library of America. Viet Thanh Nguyen, editor. pp. 1-180. ***** China Men by Maxine Hong Kingston. From Kingston. Library of America. Viet Thanh Nguyen, editor. pp. 181-477. ***** I’ve heard this said about other writers but was never sure what it meant: Maxine Hong Kingston writes as if ...Read more
- All VoiceTrain Whistle Guitar from Albert Murray: Collected Novels & Poems Library of America pp. 1-141. The Spyglass Tree from Albert Murray: Collected Novels & Poems Library of America pp. 141-309. Good Morning Blues: The Autobiography of Count Basie as told to Albert Murray. Random House. 399 pp. I haven’t posted in some time for a variety of reasons: ...Read more
- Devastating But ImportantThe Nickel Boys a novel by Colson Whitehead. Doubleday. 213 pp. $24.95 ***** I got this book as a gift many months ago, and it has sat on my shelf ever since. The problem wasn’t anything about Colson Whitehead; I loved The Underground Railroad and actually heard him read from it in Durham. He’s a person ...Read more
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Where Memory ResidesGoing StraightNoisy NeighborsLoosely Is the WordThis Lane Is Your Lane, That Lane Is My Lane
View Other Essays by Topic
aging (132)American literature (231)art (123)Buddhism (174)Christianity (133)creative process (266)death and dying (144)meditation (128)movies (171)music (46)race (113)religion (199)sex (194)spirituality (177)the art of narrative (271)Uncategorized (21)world literature (23)