Spring – 5/5 Stars Summer – 4/5 Stars The first two volumes of Karl Ove Knausgard’s Årstidsencyklopedien Cycle (which translates to something like Seasonal Encyclopedia) function more or less as the title suggests. A few years ago, after completing what is likely his masterwork My Struggle, a six-volume series of novels based on an interpretative view of his life (and I have to say having read the first three, that while they do focus on a lot of minutia, they are much more structures, focused, and […]
The world is material. We are always in a certain place. Now I am here
I liked this one a lot. I know, I know….Karl Ove Knausgard has my number, and I am not sure there’s anything he could write that I wouldn’t enjoy. The difference here, especially from Min Kamp books (which I have currently read the first three) is that this is a list of ruminative thoughts on everyday objects and concepts, bookended by letters to a daughter not yet born. There’s an added component knowing that Knausgard and his wife have divorced recently. Also, this one is different […]
Min Kamp, min kamp, my lovely lady romp
I guess to get it out of the way: I did struggle with deciding to read this book at first because of the title. I am not squeamish of the title in terms of it being a little close to Hitler’s book, because the author is being a little tongue in cheek about the whole thing. It was more so that I was worried that there would a kind of self-important grandiosity about the whole thing. And there is a little, but it’s embedded in […]
Again, I could not begin to connect these. Except I got a new kitten and as I was sequestered with her keeping the dog out, these are some of the things I read.
North Station: 4/5 Stars This is an interesting collection of longish short fiction by the Korean writer Bae Suah. It’s a recent translation (actually maybe brand new) from the University of Rochester imprint “Open Letter” and I received a subscription to their press as a gift from my old colleagues. This book presents a really interesting set of questions for me. I have read a few different books by Korean authors, but not many at all. In fact, I think it would be true that […]