“Here, in other words, is a long-range backstory—a device that, in…recent times, has grown from an option to a fetish…In all narratives, there is a beauty to the merely given, as the narrator does us the honor of trusting that we will take it for granted. Conversely, there is something offensive in the implication that we might resent that pact, and, like plaintive children, demand to have everything explained.”
---Anthony Lane (in this week’s New Yorker)
Monday, May 11, 2009
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Read, etc.
Never finished: Bandits, Elmore Leonard
If I take a book on vacation and don’t finish it during the trip, I’m never gonna finish it. Don’t know why. Sorry, Elmore.
Read: Lush Life, Richard Price
I hadn’t read Price in decades. This was great. No heroes, no villains, apt title.
Bought: the first six Richard Stark reissues from University of Chicago Press
--but only five shipped. Where’s The Jugger? Don’t make me ask again.
Reading: Casino Moon, Peter Blauner
You know how I always complain about writers changing-up between first- and third-person in the course of a book, and how much I hate it? Blauner does that here, but -- this is crucial -- he’s good enough to get away with it. Better than good enough. Recommended.
If I take a book on vacation and don’t finish it during the trip, I’m never gonna finish it. Don’t know why. Sorry, Elmore.
Read: Lush Life, Richard Price
I hadn’t read Price in decades. This was great. No heroes, no villains, apt title.
Bought: the first six Richard Stark reissues from University of Chicago Press
--but only five shipped. Where’s The Jugger? Don’t make me ask again.
Reading: Casino Moon, Peter Blauner
You know how I always complain about writers changing-up between first- and third-person in the course of a book, and how much I hate it? Blauner does that here, but -- this is crucial -- he’s good enough to get away with it. Better than good enough. Recommended.
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