Impossible structures

I bought two novels by Ismail Kadare from Barnes & Noble over the weekend, they were impulse purchases, as most of my purchases tend to be, bought along with the current Saint Anne’s Review that’s got a story by the lady who moderates my workshop—but I am now thinking of returning them, not because I [...]

“The Death of the Author”

I hesitated some time, not knowing whether to open these memoirs at the beginning or at the end, i. e., whether to start with my birth or with my death. Granted, the usual practice is to begin with one’s birth, but two considerations led me to adopt a different method: the first is that, properly [...]

“Inaesthetic stains”

. . . No one could ever accuse death of having left behind in the world some forgotten old man of no particular merit and for no apparent reason merely for him to grow ever older. We all know that, however long old people may last, their hour will always come. Not a day passes [...]

A writer’s first sentence

The thesis behind Natural Novel, the debut novel by Bulgarian writer Georgi Gospodinov:
My immodest desire is to mold a novel of beginnings, a novel that keeps starting, promising something, reaching page 17 and then starting again. The idea or nucleus of this kind of novel can be found in classical philosophy, and mostly in the [...]

Bumbling around in the heat

Yesterday
Wrote early in morning at new writing space. ** Found out I’ll be attending a show of The Colbert Report in August, woo! ** Went to dance class after work, sweated like a mofo to Kelly Clarkson (ungh), but at least the lady who usually jazzes it up to nth degree in front row wasn’t there to [...]

Newly acquired first sentences

Sartorialist, I hope I look as good as this lady if you and I ever run into each other in the street.
*
Meanwhile, I’ve added new fiction openers to my Shelf from books that I bought or pilfered from work in the last month: Mariama Bâ, Thomas Bernhard, Roberto Bolaño, Péter Esterházy, Gabriel Josipovici, Georges Perec, Laura Restrepo, and [...]

“Home”

Thoughts on a Quiet Night
by Li Pai
Before my bed the light is so bright
it looks like a layer of frost
lifting my head I gaze at the moon
lying back down I think of home
—from Poems of the Masters: China’s Classic Anthology
of T’ang and Sung Dynasty Verse, translated by Red Pine
Li Pai (701–762), aka Li Po, was born [...]

“A belated beautifying”

 

I react to capricious accidents of light and shadow with a feeling of joy and warmth, and, perhaps even more, with a vague sense of joy yet to come, a feeling inseparable from what I call, for want of a better expression, a belated beautifying. For example, the late afternoon of a long day of [...]

“Winter ends”

In Reply
by the Ancient Recluse
Somehow I ended up beneath pines
sleeping in comfort on boulders
there aren’t any calendars in the mountains
winter ends but who counts the years
—from Poems of the Masters: China’s Classic Anthology
of T’ang and Sung Dynasty Verse, translated by Red Pine
Nothing is known of the author of this poem, other than that he lived in [...]

“An interesting kind of madness”

QUESTION: How did you ever dream up Pierre Menard, the author of the Quixote?
BORGES: I had undergone an operation, and I didn’t know whether I could go on writing. Then I said to myself, if I attempt a short critical essay and fail, then I’ll know there’s no hope left for me. If I’d attempted [...]

“There is too much noise in your poems,” said Franz Kafka

I have to turn in something for my writing group tomorrow, and I’ve been poring over Gustav Janouch’s Conversations with Kafka for inspiration; three possible stories have arisen. Whether Janouch’s memoir is true or not doesn’t matter to me at this point; in fact, the debate is part of the fun. I am certainly not reading it [...]

It was all just a dream . . .

A few years ago J and I watched three films* in the space of about a week, each of which ended eerily on the following note: It was all just a dream. I had objected to the transparency of two of these films, and felt pacified by the third for its pulling back from that direction at the last minute. And [...]

My Shelf keeps growing

Well, actually my shelf hasn’t been growing for the last fifteen years, but at least I can add a little bit to my Shelf here. So, on to first sentences by François Cheng, Vladimir Makanin, Javier Marías, and Flann O’Brien, as well as more from Pierre Michon.
Have a warm, eventful weekend.

New sentences; writers’ desks; and how to read a book

First sentences from Witold Gombrowicz and Margeurite Yourcenar have been added to my Shelf, as well as a couple of pieces from Franz Kafka’s and Robert Walser’s collections of short prose writings.
My desk at home has been moved to another corner of the room and tidied up. The pile of books to the left are [...]

Take the Bait

I had started David Albahari’s Bait sometime last summer and finally finished it yesterday afternoon on the subway. As I had about five more stops to go, what else could I do but start reading from the beginning of the story again? It’s only a slim 117 pages, but I kept putting it down because the [...]