Jason Diamond I’ve been slogging through Ulysses, and people keep asking me what I think, but it’s really hard to formulate an opinion on a book like it without finishing. I think I may have mention that I was forced to read the book when I was about fifteen, and frankly, I fucking hated it. I was more interested in getting girls to inevitably turn down my advances to make out, less with James Joyce.
Indexing: Eugene Lim, Ulysses, Rudy Wurlitzer, LCD Soundsystem, and More
Tobias Carroll Was there a theme for my reading this week? Possibly. I’ve just finished Eugene Lim’s Fog & Car, which examines the now-separate lives of a newly divorced couple over the course of a few years, as each settles into a new routine. Except that the novel is much stranger that that description makes it sound: initially, the parallel narratives are told in sharply contrasting styles (terse, occasionally fractured lines for Mr. Fog; a more evenhanded prose for Ms. […]
Indexing: Jacques Derrida vs. Judd Apatow, Shya Scanlon, Cupcakes, the Completist’s Guide to the Tournament of Books, and More!
Nick Curley Blessed is he with too much to read, but I get a megaton bomb dropped on my head and much catching up to do. On Monday I received from a truly good egg a shipment of David Foster Wallaceness covering most of what I didn’t have on hand at the cribs: paperbacks of Brief Interviews with Hideous Men and his essay collection A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, and the hardcover version of his famed Kenyon […]
Indexing: Norman Lock, Anne Carson, Don Delillo, and so much more!
Tobias Carroll In preparation for next week’s reading at the Brooklyn Winery, I decided to delve into Norman Lock’s Grim Tales. It’s a short collection of short, sometimes dreamlike stories, most of which have the simplicity and sting of folk tales and parables. What makes Grim Tales stand out, however, is its concentration: over the course of the book, the thematic focus of the tales shifts, narrowing in on specific avenues of frustration, betrayal, despair, and depression. In the end, the […]
Indexing: Blake Butler in New York, John Barth, Tina Fey, and More!
above: Julian Schnabel, “Dennis Hopper” (1991). Tobias Carroll It’s been a week of surreal literature around these parts. It began with Bruce Chatwin’s In Patagonia, which — although nonfiction — knits together myths, echoed stories, cryptozoology, the vagueness of borders, and the limitations of memory into a travelogue that (I daresay) echoes Werner Herzog’s notion of “ecstatic truth.” After that came both volumes of Adam Novy’s The Avian Gospels, for a review to appear on Word Riot. (Mr. Diamond spoke […]
Indexing: Bruce Chatwin, Trading Fiction for Politics, Stephen-Paul Martin,
Each week, Vol. 1 editors band together as one to discuss their week among literature and the written word. This is the place to hear about all the best that they’ve thumbed through, bookmarked, lauded, and consumed in the last seven days. This is where “praise” hits the blogosphere bong and becomes “high praise”. This, dear reader, is Indexing. Tobias Carroll I made my way to Los Angeles last week for the Experience Music Project’s Pop Conference, this year held […]
Indexing: Remnick in Israel, Vladimir Sorokin, Patrick Ness, Bookforum, Dave Hickey, and More
Each week, Vol. 1 editors band together as one to discuss their week among literature and the written word. This is the place to hear about all the best that they’ve thumbed through, bookmarked, lauded, and consumed in the last seven days. This is where “praise” hits the blogosphere bong and becomes “high praise”. This, dear reader, is Indexing. Jason Diamond David Remnick (above) went to Israel and wrote about Haaretz for The New Yorker. I thought this was a […]