Monthly Archives: November 2010

November 2010 Reads

Goodness, but November was an incredibly awesome month, re reading [sad, that I have to specify, haha]. I liked most of what I read this month — and I feel so accomplished that I got to blog, in one way or another, about the books I read. [Especially considering that I was all lazy and […]

On The Pleasure of the Text, an “erotics of reading” by Roland Barthes, translated by Richard Miller

Text of pleasure: the text that contents, fills, grants euphoria; the text that comes from culture and does not break with it, is linked to a comfortable practice of reading. Text of bliss: the text that imposes a state of loss, the text that discomforts (perhaps to the point of a certain boredom), unsettles the […]

Emma Bovary and Me

Deep in her soul, however, she was waiting for something to happen. Like a sailor in distress, she would gaze out over the solitude of her life with desperate eyes, seeking some white sail in the mists of the far-off horizon. She did not know what this chance event would be, what wind would drive […]

On How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer

I feel like I’ve been waiting for this book to find me for the longest time. I first heard of How to Breathe Underwater, the short story collection of Julie Orringer, when a reader of this blog mentioned it: Since I liked short stories so much, what did I think of Orringer’s, as I’d presumably […]

“I never thought this labyrinth would be a pleasant thing to return to.” — My own quest for answers within House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, and some remaining questions

That up there are some of my notes on House of Leaves, the novel-creature by Mark Z. Danielewski. I skipped Little Red Moley with this one, and used Giant Fat Red Moley Journal — and even then I used at least five different kinds of Post-its, haha. I could not scribble on the margins of […]

“A goddamn spatial rape.” — An examination of the uncanny and the house on Ash Lane Tree in House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielweski

[More rambling and squealing over House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. The first two posts: initial impressions and encounters with the book, then the style and structure of the book. Methinks this post will be the penultimate. If you have not read the book, or wish to read the book without my inanity in […]