Philip Roth’s Indignation (2008): First Extended Review

Indignation, a story of sexual survelliance in God-fearing America, revisits the same war and the same fear. Fear, in fact, underlies the actions of nearly every character.

I Love You (italics mine)

Prayers sold on eBay auctions; a musical set after the Yellow Pages; anti-depressant, aromatic high-tech textiles; Max Endorphin’s levitations; trouble in Disneyland; the revenge gone wrong of a rich family against the nanny that is on the verge of publishing embarrassing facts about her employers and more, are all found in the last book of Woody Allen, Mere Anarchy.

A collection of humorous 18 short-stories, Mere Anarchy, the first of its kind published by Woody Allen in the last 25 years was received with mixed reviews.

The book raises language difficulties even when it does use plain English. The twist of phrase and the use of terms that require a dictionary are accompanied by a great number of Yiddishisms, Frenchisms and German language insertions. Some others languages as well.

The absurd and the humor it engages don’t always cook for an easy digestion, but personally I am quite fond of the genre. Read more

Returning To Earth

‘Jibanananda’ is a Tagorean name; its meaning, ‘the joy of life’, recalls, for me, the lines from a famous song in the Gitanjali, in which Tagore’s defiant Nietzschean mood is contained, as it almost always is, by decorum and serenity: ‘Jagate ananda jagne/ Amaar nimantrana’ —

The grandest family in publishing

Jeremy Lewis reviews The Seven Lives of John Murray by Humphrey Carpenter

Funny bones, Communist jokes

“How do you deal with mice in the Kremlin?” “Put up a sign saying ‘collective farm’. Then half the mice will starve and the others will run away.”

Szentkuthy Miklós profile | Mansarda review …

At hlo József J. Fekete profiles ‘the Proteus of Hungarian literature’, Szentkuthy Miklós (1908–1988), in Outprousting Proust

The Rat Killer – Alexander Terekhov

Svetloyar is an untractive town with no history, build under Stalin’s regime.

More, it appears of being infested with rats. When the town sees in the near future the chance of being included in the “Golden Ring” famous tourist route, it will stop at nothing to grab it. The circumstances induced are at times ridiculous and sad, but also highly humorous.

Svetloyar will undergo absurd preparations for the event, going as far as inventing an archeological site, displacing the population and using actors instead, as well as hiring, for an enormous sum of money, two rat killers from Moscow to clear a specific building where rats are falling from the ceiling.

The novel can be difficult to follow when it changes time, space an rhythm all of a sudden. On the other hand, some pieces of dialogue are savory enough to recharge your attention.

The political aspect, the very obvious parallel between the human society and the rat’s society are at the center of The Rat Killer, but what really draws attention is the comic of situation generated by a micro-society put under stress.

What others are saying: New Russian Writing.

Love in a cold climate

It's an intriguing image. In silvery monochrome which blurs slightly towards its edges, the two men sit side by side on chairs turned back-to-front, with their golden retriever seated between them. We know a little about this...

Scribner, Fall 2008

Coming in September 2008 Fine Just the Way It Is by Annie Proulx. This short-story collection was pushed back from the summer. Coming in October 2008 A Most Wanted Man by John Le Carré. He's back with Scribner after a short foray to Little Brown.

The Most Anticipated Books of the Rest of 2008

There are many, many intriguing books on the docket for the next six months, but these are some of the most notable.

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