Auster, Diderot, Queneau
I’m a man of habit and schedule. The more I plan and schedule things like comics or blog posts, the more I get them done. So, I’m going to try something new here at the blog. In an effort to keep posting and to keep up with what I’m reading, I’m going to post weekly round-ups of my week’s reading — be it books, comics, articles, website, whatever — with brief comments on each. I hope this will be of some interest to my readers. I’m going to post the round-up on Thursday night/Friday morning. I plan on keeping my longer reviews or posts for Monday, which, with my 2 pages of Things Change a week (Sunday and Wednesday in case you aren’t reading my comic (and if not, why not?)), should nicely round out the week.
My first attempt is a little long on books as it covers the past two weeks (I wanted to start last week and didn’t get to it), but probably short on articles/sites as I’m still working out my workflow for this.
-Travels in the Scriptorium by Paul Auster (Holt, 2007): I’m a big fan of Paul Auster. I’ve read almost all of his novels, some more than once. I hope this latest novel is not a sign of things to come, for it is one of (probably the) worst of Auster’s books. It comes it at a brief page count and has large type, and that is the only reason I managed to finish it (it took me the entirety of my train commute one day, there and back). Pulling in a number of characters from his previous works, Auster makes a Beckettian tale about a old man in a room. That he is the writer of the characters (an Auster stand in?) is obvious and banal. Worse than his novel narrated by a dog (previous holder of the “Worst Auster Novel Ever” award).
-Jacques the Fatalist and His Master by Denis Diderot (1796) (Oxford Classics translation by David Coward): I’ve read this book three times now. I love it. Diderot’s novel takes a cue from Tristam Shandy in its endlessly digressive narrative about Jacques, a man-servant who believes in determinism, and his Master as they travel and talk. The metafictional aspects of the narrative are a clear precursor to 20th century postmodern fiction. Plus, it’s a really funny book.
-Candide by Voltaire (1759) (Penguin Classics translation by John Butt): Following up on the Diderot, Candide was a disappointment. The two works share some similarities, in particular their use of philosophical systems (Diderot to explain, Voltaire to satirize), but this one falls into a more conventional (for the times) narrative format: a fairly straightforward succession of adventures. Too much of a theme novel and not enough else.
-Atlas #3 by Dylan Horrocks (Drawn & Quarterly): Sometimes the failure of serializing longer works is that the slow unwinding of a narrative doesn’t always work in small chunks, especially when they are spread out over months or years. I didn’t feel that this issue, with its two stories, really advanced anything. A few series I was reading, I’ve stopped getting to wait for the collections, and I may have to add Atlas to the list.
-Love and Rockets Vol.2 #18 by Los Bros Hernandez (Fantagraphics): A series where I don’t wait for the collections even though I only read half the issue (Jaime’s half). In this issue, Jaime focuses on Ray and Vivian as we see their ongoing relationship and a little more about her life. One of the great parts of these stories is the way Jaime follows the side characters.
-Mome Winter 2007 (Fantagraphics): My last issues of this anthology. It’s great that they are serializing Trondheim’s Desoeuvre, but I’ve read it already. As for the rest of the issue, eh.
-The Pharaohs of Egypt by Ruppert and Mulot (Words Without Borders): A short comic by two European comic artists. This is not only a funny comic it has a great clean line and makes great use of what Neil Cohn would call a polymorphic panel (that is the same entity repeated at different points in an action).
-The Ecstasy of Influence by Jonathan Lethem (Harpers Magazine Feb 2007): An amazing essay by Lethem on plagiarism, appropriation, copyright, and culture. Highly recommended.
-The Nietzsche Family Circus: A randomly selected Family Circus panel accompanied by a randomly selected Nietzsche quote. It is surprisingly easy to create a connection between the words and image.
-Children of Clay by Raymond Queneau (1938) (Sun & Moon Classics translation by Madeline Velguth): Rereading Queneau is always a joy for me. He is one author I never tiring of reading. I could make a long list of the traits that make Queneau so wonderful, but let me restrict myself to a few: humor, wordplay, inventiveness with narrative structure, the mixture of the banal and the sublime, the philosophic and the everyday. Queneau’s novels are often difficult to summarize, and this one is no exception. Mostly it follows the members of a wealthy family and a few hangers-on through the years between the wars. It also incorporates Queneau’s encyclopedia of “literary lunatics”, for which he could not find a publisher. Instead, he wrote this novel to incorporate his work into the text (one of the protagonists writes the encyclopedia). The long excerpts from and about the “literary lunatics” are for me the downside of this long novel.
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About this entry
- Published:
- 02.15.07 / 8pm
- Category:
- Comics, Literature, This Weeks Reading
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