Very busy, among other things, trying to catch up on some movie watching before I leave town on vacation. I've put myself back on the movie a day schedule (after slipping down to watching less than a movie a week for the last couple months). Sometimes it seems like, the less movies you watch, the more powerfully they can move you, or maybe I've just been watching some great movies. Lots more I'm looking forward to watching too all of a sudden - a lot I've been putting off that it feels great to finally be making / finding the time for. Big influence from a conversation with a friend to help get me motivated, plus Paul Schrader's canon article in the new Film Comment (maybe not so much the article, but his list of sixty essential films at the end - check it out). 1:38 PM >>> 0 comments

With Borges by Alberto Manguel is a wonderful, but extremely short (not even seventy pages) new book/essay. For several years in the mid 60s, after Jorge Luis Borges went blind, the young bookstore clerk, Alberto Manguel, would visit his apartment, read for him, and sometimes even write down the words of stories or poems Borges composed and apparently memorized while alone. This book collects Manguel's memories of those visits and the time spent with Borges - visiting other writers for dinner etc - and also some of his thoughts about the importance and wonderfulness of the great Argentinean author's works. Not surprisingly for Manguel (who often writes on literature), what comes across most strongly is their mutual love for books, lovingly describing the books in the house and the authors they talked about. It's a delightful, insightful book, full of Manguel's precise, satisfying, perfect prose and his love of literature and love of Borges. One can't help but wishing that the book was much, much longer. 2:47 PM >>> 0 comments

Donald Goines is one of those weird writers who had a very short life, gunned down in the street at only thirty-six (in 1974), but who still managed to leave behind a rather largish body of work. In fact, according to wikipedia, he wrote sixteen books in just five years. Never Die Alone is the first of his books I've read and I liked it a lot - in spite of or because of its many flaws. I guess the prose makes up for its occasional clunky moments with a weird directness, a cutting sharpness, and a fast pace that drags you into this fucked up revenge tale. It's a dark, but brief saga - that has a lot in common with the blaxploitation films of its era as well as the gangster rap that was to emerge a decade or two or so later. This kind of unblinking attitude, that can also be found in the best films of the so called film-noir genre.

The story is very diagrammatic, broken down into several concurrently running threads, but interestingly also split backwards into a frank diary written by one of the lead characters, of his time spent in LA building his fortune dealing coke and heroin, which is read by another of the major characters. So there's the story of one gangster's return to New York, ready to settle old scores, the story of the bigger gangster who he owes money to, the story of the guys who go to collect that money, the story of one of the big-time gangsters underlings who wants revenge, for past wrongs to his mother, on the the guy who has returned to New York, and finally, also the story of the poor writer looking for work who stumbles on all this. All that and the book isn't even a hundred and eighty pages long - so you know the thing really moves. I did think it was a little weirdly interesting, that in a book written by a black man, all the black characters are caught in an amoral, revenge obsessed world (or worse), and that the only good, moral, non-racist character - is the book's only white man. A little strange, but it's a strange book - caught in a web of extremely lurid violence. Actually, I'd put this right up there with the most violent of books I've ever read, so definitely not a book for those with a weak stomach! 10:10 AM >>> 0 comments

Rendez-vous by Christine Angot is the first of her books I've read, and now I can well understand why so many people hate her books, but I can also, sort of, understand why so many people seem to love what she's doing here as well. From what I've read/heard, Rendez-vous is certainly the most divisive book to have come out in France this year. My feelings probably fall somewhere in the middle (of course). The confessional, autobiographical style, when one doesn't have anything particularly interesting or original to confess to - is a difficult way to capture a reader's attention. On the other hand, a precise, frightfully honest look right into a person's soul is usually going to hold some interest. The book circles around Angot's thoughts as she creates space between her and an ex (who she lived with for five years), as she is drawn to and then away from an older lover, "perverted," rich banker who seems to become obsessed with her, and as she is drawn towards an actor, who doesn't seem to have too much interest in her, but who she becomes obsessed with. The book mostly reads like a long session on her psychoanalyst's couch - as she goes over and over the events - and that narrow focus over so many pages does get a bit tiresome at times (like a friend who won't shut about about themselves). Also her repetitive style can bog a reader down, even as you're admiring her ability to capture the way one's thoughts can circle around the same damn topics endlessly to almost no purpose except frustration. It's true, if you took out all the repeats scattered throughout the book, it would be half as thin. That might be a good thing, or you might lose a little of the magic of the prose, of the flow of obsessive thoughts, like taking the repeats out a a piece of classical music. For me it would be wrong to call the book a classic, but I guess despite Angot's annoying aspects, I did find it an interesting (enlightening?) read - but I do have a high tolerance for this kind of shit. I may give another one of her earlier books a try. I may not. 9:50 AM >>> 0 comments

The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells is another one of those books that it seems like I must have read as a child, but that I can’t remember having ever read. Perhaps it’s a part of my childhood that I’ve blocked out, or perhaps I simply never read it - which just sounds crazy. Supposedly I was a kid who read a lot, but looking back now, sometimes I wonder what the fuck I was reading, because whenever I think of a classic book everybody has read when they were a kid, it seems like I haven’t read it. I guess I just wish (books this great make me wish) I had spent my younger years reading better books than I must have been spending my time reading. Of course, I was already pretty familiar with the story (from various movies or?), but what surprised me about actually reading The Island of Doctor Moreau was how sad and moving it was. Sure at times it was a little clunky, but the ideas about what it means to be human, god etc, and then just the pure (occasional) power of the prose, the chase and the fear made terrifically compelling passages. But then in so few pages, to just watch this whole crazy world basically fall apart seemed weirdly heartbreaking. One bit from the end I did especially love is when Prendick writes, “I have withdrawn myself from the confusion of cities and multitudes, and spend my days surrounded by wise books[...].” I can relate. Or I can dream. 7:49 PM >>> 0 comments

One of the better books I’ve read recently is Asleep in the Sun by Adolfo Bioy Casares. Strangely, the back cover copy on this edition from NYRB Classics actually gets a major element of the plot of the novel wrong - did they not read the book? Originally published in 1973, it’s a plenty weird book anyway. It’s deliberately written to keep the reader off balance (in fact, it’s a book better read without reading the back cover copy in the first place, though the cover image should give you a good idea of it’s weirdness). One could imagine, this is the sort of book a Kafka might have written, if he ever wrote a book about married life. From the beginning, the story inside the story begins - in fact the book is actually a “letter” written by a man who has been locked up (we don’t know where) to a friend as a plea for help and to explain his situation. Actually it opens with his third attempt at writing the letter. I won’t say much, but the story flows out of the relationship between a watch repairman, who may or may not be insane, and his wife, who also may or may not be insane, and her family, as well as their housekeeper and some of the guys who hang around the neighborhood. Reading the book, one is never quite sure where one stands. Is it a domestic comedy? A mystery novel? Science fiction? A long dream? This off-balance, but at the same time natural feeling keeps one reading on. The book’s last lines (not a exactly a spoiler) are especially wonderful, and sum up the feeling of the book perfectly, “The whole matter seemed, apart from confusing, threatening. So, I decided to forget about it for awhile.” 10:12 AM >>> 0 comments

Because Haruki Murakami’s new book, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman collects twenty-four short stories written from the very beginning of his career until just last year, stories he wrote between his many novels, the book offers few surprises, but luckily plenty of satisfaction. Yes - considering these stories were written over a twenty-five year (or so) period they are startlingly consistent in tone and theme. We get all Murakami’s usual suspects - mysterious women, lonely quiet men who love their old jazz records and whiskey, some wells and underground passageways, doorways, ears, identity problems, the occasional talking monkey, sad early deaths and unexplainable coincidences. So if you like to hang out in the world Murakami has created, as I do, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, offers plenty more of it. Of course, there are a handful of stories that don’t seem quite up to par, usually the ones written in the third person. One wonders at the need to print everything - including a couple of stories that ended up being incorporated into his full length novels. Generally Murakimi seems to work best (for me) in the first person - when he narratives soak in a weird semi-autobiographical calmness. Which is thankfully the voice he writes in most often throughout this collection. In conclusion, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, is just more of the same, but here is a case where more of the same is exactly what was wanted. 2:33 PM >>> 0 comments

Mr. Palomar by Italo Calvino. I don’t know much about Calvino’s life, but to me, Mr. Palomar reads like autobiographical style musings and I dig it. There isn’t a “story” as such to this short book. Instead it contains wonderings of a mostly philosophical nature and / or observations of a minute and precise, well thought over territory, that in my mind has some resemblance to Nicholson Baker, when he is being particularly meticulous, but (thankfully) without Baker’s wimpy edge.

Originally published in 1983 (two years before Calvino passed away at only sixty-one), the book is broken into three sections, Mr. Palomar’s Vacation, Mr. Palomar in the City and The Silences of Mr. Palomar. Each of those three sections is broken into three more sections, and each of those sections are further broken down into three more sections. Obviously a very well planned out book, but it never feels overly programmatic. Mr. Palomar’s observations about the world and about himself are interesting, poetic and occasionally twisty and deep enough to get lost in, even when paying close attention. The prose is delightful, particular when describing the ocean in the early sections of the book and migrating birds in the middle. There are hundreds of great, quotable lines - here’s a typical one, “Mr. Palomar does not underestimate the advantages that the condition of being alive can have over that of being dead [...].” With only 126 pages, it’s a very quick read, but it feels like it’s exactly the right length. Anyhow, after suffering through Tom Jones early this week, I feel like I need to / deserve to read some short books. 11:03 PM >>> 0 comments

I really enjoyed Alberto Manguel's brief, exquisite, A Reading Diary: A Passionate Reader's Reflections on a Year of Books. The "diary" covers twelve months (split between 2002-2003). Each month Manguel re-reads an old favorite and writes about the thoughts and connections the book brings into his life, his travels, his home, his past, current events (9/11, the Iraq War), the future. Some of the books I'd read, and of course, some I'd hadn't. The diary is fragmentary, but always interesting - Manguel reads carefully, wisely, and writes about books excitingly and insightfully. What's tough about books like this, is that it makes me want to read even that much more. The endless library is frightfully appealing. Some of the books discussed include, The Wind in the Willows, The Island Of Dr. Moreau, Don Quixote, Kim, The Tartar Steppe, The Sign of Four, and The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas. Highest recommendation.

Thankfully a three day weekend has arrived, so hopefully I'll be able to enjoy lots more nice reading too. 12:52 PM >>> 0 comments