forty-two: july 2005

7.17.2005 sunday
 Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy Phase the first and so on. Tess is doing her very best; the rest need to rethink themselves. Hypocrites need to go to Brazil and come back desperate. The quickest way to leave 19th-century English society mores: inhabit your own small soul.
-Stevie
 7.16.2005 saturday
 Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham Characters are the same but story changes. Ending each of three narratives with remorse – as a reader a reader has just gotten involved, feels like a novel but not. The carryover is not exactly continuation. It is hard, good, beautiful to finish.
-Jen
 7.15.2005 friday
 The History of Love by Nicole Krauss A comedy of errors? Manners? A tale of mistaken identity of the most resonant variety. Texts within texts within our own need, some of us, to straighten out who wrote what and really lived. And yet equally true: everywoman is named Alma.
-Jen
 7.14.2005 thursday
 Red Paper Flower by Suzanne Frischkorn The spooks of domesticity, the ghosts in the machine of matrimonial bliss. My favorite poems are near the end where the language starts disrupting itself. “He made his own arrows/ on the diningroom table.” “As if her thighs were large bass/ slicing.”
-Jen
 7.13.2005 wednesday
 Aficio 1022/1027 Operating Instructions: Copy Reference. Author unknown. One section after another addressing the issue: how to scan words into a usable format, written with slightest variation. Perhaps you use this program, this network, perhaps that, a dozen times over, asking again, how have you taught your computer to read?
-Matt
 7.12.2005 tuesday
 Vineland by Thomas Pynchon A second world, three-fourths of a centimeter from this one. Possible entrances include skewed parables, telephone taps, temporary skyward highways. Your atlas: useless. Who serves whom serves whom? Is the upper limit human or bodiless? Government and history: either everything or irrelevant.
-Stevie
 7.11.2005 monday
 Christina and Charles by Austin English Crayon, poetry. Space is very cold and black. Christina whose heart is a room; door shut, unlocked. Charles is always here & elsewhere. How second-hand stories become jazz: Sentences--> Musical notes--> Codes that float in the room, tangible enough to touch.
-Stevie
 7.10.2005 sunday
 Stranger than Fiction by Chuck Palahniuk Not stranger than fiction, it is more sad than life. In that regard, on the same wave length as Chuck's isolationist works. His confessions and revelations lack the comfort and distance of autobiography. The essays and interviews are raw, uncomfortable and consistent.
-Conan
 7.9.2005 saturday
 Karoo by Steve Tesich How much revision is possible? Reworking the words and images of others has convinced Saul Karoo that he can make changes to his own life. Fortified by commercial success, Saul is stymied by his inability to change and control life and state.
-Conan
 7.8.2005 friday
 The Watchers out of Time by H.P. Lovecraft Billed as Lovecraft, it's really short stories by August Derleth. He uses Howard Phillips' words and world. Geographically near Arkham, the stories are about ancestral inheritance, tangible goods and consequences. Rather than incomprehensible alien other, Derleth pits the narrator against binary evil.
-Conan
 7.7.2005 thursday
 Pattern Recognition by William Gibson Neuromancer's crafter reminds us of the ubiquity of marketing. The protagonist , neither a consumer or creator, seeks the source of fragmented video clips. Filled with technology and conspiracy theory, she tries to discern if the clips are Art or Product Placement.
-Conan
 7.6.2005 wednesday
 The Ballad of the Sad Cafe: The Novels and Stories of Carson McCullers “The Ballad” is first and my favorite in this collection, also creates a shadow or edge across which to read every other unrequited, complication, false start. “For some reason” Miss Amelia switches between overalls and her red dress, can’t find her pockets.
-Jen
 7.5.2005 tuesday
 Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro Coming of Age story with a “twist,” told and unfolded in pretty predictable fashion, but gripping all the same. Why? The threat of “completion” doesn’t necessarily make the story more intense, but justifies natural crisis. The places truly make a land scape.
-Jen
 7.4.2005 monday
 Anthropology and a Hundred Other Stories by Dan Rhodes 101 stories, most not much longer than this review, about girlfriends. They leave, die, obsess, become objects of obsession, form support groups, are beautiful, plain, criminal, dull, and usually unfaithful. Never transcends its conceit, but funny and terribly sad all the same.
-Tim
 7.3.2005 sunday
 Robbing The Bees: A Biography of Honey by Holley Bishop Unexceptional prose, intriguing information. Two highlights: 1) how to make a martini with honey and gin, 2) to protect the honey, when a small animal gets stuck in a hive bees will sting it til it dies before encasing it in wax.
-Jen
 7.2.2005 saturday
 Being and Time by Martin Heidegger, Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson Makes everything else you've ever read look self-evident. Loopy, brilliant, multilingual, obscure, redundant, boring as hell, occasionally wrongheaded and ultimately convincing, Heidegger's mission seems as much to make the reader rethink every commonly used word as to define the nature of being.
-Tim
 7.1.2005 friday
 The Accidental by Ali Smith Smith really is getting stronger with every novel; here she takes a B-movie premise (the mysterious, unknown seductress), a limiting style (third person limited) and fashions something wholly new. Laugh-out loud funny, immediately engaging - the sort of novel you've been waiting for.
-Tim






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