In his own words
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The Narrow Road to the Deep North
Review: Surrounded by a thick foliage of cedars, your house stands, pregnant with autumn. A wonderful, unique little volume. Part travel diary, part poetry, it describes the wanderings of a 17th century Japanese poet named Matsuo Basho. The main narrative is prose and breaks into haiku or linked verse when appropriate. Not a flaw there…
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Vanity Fair
Review: Too long. Way too fucking long.1 Some good prose, but comic opera characters with no basis in reality. Made it 70% of the way through then skipped every two chapters. Missed nothing. Jos Sedley dies at the end. Nobody cares. Published in serial form in 19 monthly installments. No wonder it is so long:…
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The Troll Garden
Review: A glorious selection of seven short stories. Capturing the sense of silence and emptiness on the Great Plains, like you are there. “A Wagner Matinee” is amazing and also very tragic. In the true sense of that word. “The Inconceivable Silence of the Plains” Last trains and slow sunsets, snow and frozen fields. First…
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The Makioka Sisters
Review: This was excellent. Elegantly crafted prose and a strong central narrative. A fascinating look at middle class life in Japan during the late 1930s. Four sisters with one foot in the past and one in the modern westernized world. This was a great read, but far too long and the ending was rushed and…
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The Iceman Cometh
Review: Wow. Totally not what I was expecting. Really, I had no idea what to expect. But I figured with the -eth suffix it would have been more old-timey, like Ibsen maybe, or Sheridan. A bunch of no-hope drunks in a dead end, last resort tavern in the years just prior to WWI. I could…
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The Qur’an
Review: Without a doubt the most disturbing book I have ever read. Slavery, amputation, torture, whippings, subjugation of women, glorification of war and conquest. If these are of interest this is the book for you! I didn’t like Islam before, now I don’t like it by an order of magnitude more. I’m trying to think…
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Schubert’s Winter Journey: Anatomy of an Obsession
Review: An excellent exposition of Schubert’s legendary 24 song cycle: Winterreise (A Winter’s Journey). Written by a singer who has performed the song cycle over 100 times, we get a unique behind-the-scenes look at the most challenging and renowned of all the lieder cycles performed today. The poetry by Müller is explained and interpreted wonderfully,…
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The True Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales
Review: This was really good. Very different from conventional western short fiction, but very well written and enjoyable to read. The true story of Ah-Q is superb, and it made me lol in parts. Some are tough to read, people starving and dying and it’s always snowing. No wonder Hsun liked Russian literature so much.…
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Light in August
Review: Clearly a classic work of American literature. Wonderful imagery and work painting. You can feel the oppressive heat and hear the insects. “Too many notes” the annecdotal comment of the King to Mozart on hearing his compositions. In this case – too many words. It goes around and weaves back and then goes out…
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Ficciones
Review: A collection of very well written and very unusual short stories. Like any collection or anthology, you take the best and get through the rest. Fortunately most of these are of the former variety. Some of the faux-literary-criticism ones were over my head, or just not my thing. Thought provoking and often very surprising.…