A little bit of housekeeping

The usual excuses: Work’s been crazy, what free time I can smuggle in would rather be spent on reading books that are more affective than usual, this blog is moldering and the laziest part of me does enjoy its virtual stasis.

I think, also, that having a Goodreads account—and updating it regularly, even to the point of annoying the handful of contacts I have there—is a consolation. You’re welcome to back my illusion that I remain hopeful of being a dutiful book blogger—add me if ye wish. Beware, however, that I have a tendency to add one book to my “Currently Reading” list, only to mark it under “Should Be Reading” three days later, then eventually pitch it into the hellhole that is “To Read.” See y’all!

elsewhere || “A Failed Conceit: How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely,” at POC-Metakritiko

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Abandoned / Skimmed, Fiction - Novel, Metakritiko, Steve Hely

My review of Steve Hely’s debut novel How I Became a Famous Novelist, is up on The Philippine Online Chronicles, so go clicky, if you are so inclined. Be warned, though: Sasha is not a happy goat when it comes to this book. The review begins:

The narcissistic aspect of a debut novelist having his debut novel revolve around a debut novel is a debatable one; and narcissism itself could be over-intellectualizing what might just be lazy writing. At best, such books would be earnest, occasionally sentimental, reflections on the writing process. Mix it up a little and anchor the narrative with humor; in satire, theoretically, such books could be amusingly self-deprecating, self-aware in the very attempt. Attempt an amalgam of those aspects, and the risks are great, but the pay-off more so.

Fail, and it could be disastrous.

And I thought–violently felt–that this book failed. Oh well. A lot of people liked it. I thought I would. But, ya know. I didn’t. A friend of mine asked me if I was personally offended whenever a book didn’t meet my expectations. Well, yes, that. With Hely’s novel, well, I just really wish I’d bought something else. This was expensive, okay? I bought it months ago, while I was running amok in a bookstore, and that yellow just hypnotized me. Boo.

elsewhere || “Almost the Whole Story: The Secret Lives of People in Love by Simon Van Booy,” at POC-Metakritiko

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Fiction - Short Stories, Metakritiko, Simon Van Booy

My review of Simon Van Booy’s lovely short story collection, The Secret Lives of People in Love, is up on The Philippine Online Chronicles. [For the record, Mr. Van Booy, I would've killed for that title.] A snippet from the review:

Though the nineteen short stories revolve around love and its many forms, it is “secret” that is the operative word. Defining events in the characters’ lives are mentioned, hinted at, but rarely revealed, almost never elaborated on, although those secrets reverberate throughout the characters’ lives – death, divorces, accidents, disappearances, even origins. It takes guts, especially when common thought bids a writer to ease the reader into the story, to get on the reader’s good side by offering him glimpses of lives. In this collection, Van Booy has taken Anne Sexton’s words to heart – “Tell almost the whole story” – and has elevated it.

Let me give you a spoiler of the review: I loved this book, to itty bits and pieces. There’s just something so unabashedly earnest about the entire thing. And yes, forgive me, heartbreaking. How does one react to lines like, My wife is deaf. Once she asked me if snow made a sound when it fell and I lied. We have been married twelve years today, and I am leaving her, which hits you at the beginning of a story? Or something like, I want to feel it somehow happened like that because things happen for a reason. I want to believe this more than anything because if it were just an accident, then God must have died before he could finish the world. Oh, my heart. [Also, Simon Van Booy is cute.]

Aherm. If you’re partial to reviews that tell you the reviewer liked the book, without the reviewer having to resort to phrases like “itty bits and pieces,” and calling the author — for shame! — cute, then I suggest y’all head on over there. Please and thank you!

And many many thanks to Erica of HarperPerennial!

elsewhere || Review of Asleep in the Sun, by Adolfo Bioy Casares, at POC-Metakritiko

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Fiction - Novel, Metakritiko, Adolfo Bioy Casares, NYRB Classics, The NYRB Classics Project

My review of NYRB Classics’ Asleep in the Sun, novel of Adolfo Bioy Casares, is up on The Philippine Online Chronicles. Casares’ slim novel is only my second NYRB read, and it sort of fell on my lap on BookSale spelunking — I think I hurt the guy beside me reaching for this book. Here’s a snippet:

Doppelgängers, body doubles, body snatchers. They’re icing on the cake. It’s Lucio’s perceptions that make the theme-tackling honest. While his wife stayed in the asylum, her jealous and man-hungry sister, Adriana María, moves into the house with her son. What ensues is a rather bewildering seduction — mostly because Lucio is so immune to it due to his absolute love for Diana. But then, but then: One night, missing his wife so much, he comes home, and thinks he sees Diana. But it is only Adriana María — the sisters look so much alike, it’s almost only a difference in hair color, a difference nullified by nighttime. And Lucio thinks this through, so shaken he is by this slight against Diana — how could he mistake anyone for her? Is she just her hair, or even less, the wave of her hair on her shoudlers, and the shape of her body and the way she sits?

I enjoyed the book; it didn’t knock my socks off, but I was very satisfied. It was good, a little surreal, unexpectedly sensitive. And funny, yes. What flaws I found had little to do with the story itself — my biggest gripe was the jacket copy, which threatened to leech all possible enjoyment from the experience. [I elaborate on this over at the review]. It’s a good teaser for Casares’ work — I’m dying to read his The Invention of Morel. Though I doubt that that book will fall onto my lap as easily as this one did. Oh well.

elsewhere || “Lydia Davis Breaks It Down” at POC-Metakritiko

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Excerpts, Fiction - Short Stories, Lydia Davis, Metakritiko, Short Story Month 2010

My kind-of review of Break It Down, short story collection of Lydia Davis [included in The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis], is up on Metakritiko at The Philippine Online Chronicles: “Lydia Davis Breaks It Down.” Well. That’s all, really. I mean, click, if you’re so inclined.

I like this collection, though with reservations. And I eventually learned to temper that [which nears ambivalence at times] by reading the collection piece by piece, that is, taking my sweet time with it. That ought to be common sense, but y’all know me by now. So. I leave you with a quote from Miss Davis:

I guess you get to a point where you look at that pain as if it were there in front of you three feet away lying in a box, an open box, in a window somewhere. It’s hard and cold, like a bar of metal. You just look at it there and say, All right, I’ll take it, I’ll buy it. That’s what it is. Because you know all about it even when you go into this thing. You know the pain is part of the whole thing. And it isn’t that you can say afterwards the pleasure was greater than the pain and that’s why you would do it again. That has nothing to do with it. You can’t measure it, because the pain comes after and lasts longer. So the question really is, Why doesn’t that pain make you say, I won’t do it again? When the pain is so bad that you have to say that, but you don’t.

To quote that silly ol’ Young Werther: “Oh, what a creature is Man, that he may bewail himself!” Go figure.

In other news, I’ve got the rest of her collected stories waiting for me. [Not to mention her new translation of Madame Bovary.] A treat, really. But in sips. Sort of like how the devout pick a Psalm for the day and dwell on it until sundown.

elsewhere || “The Missteps of Lorrie Moore, Literary Hero” at POC-Metakritiko

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Fiction - Novel, Lorrie Moore, Metakritiko

My review of A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore is up on the Metakritiko section of The Philippine Online Chronicles. It’s part of an [bleep]-word essay called “The Missteps of Lorrie Moore, Literary Hero,” and has been divided in two because we want to be considerate of the TL;DR crowd. Aherm. So. The first part’s a backgrounder on my literary relationship with La Lorrie. Excerpt follows:

[E]very moment of bewilderment, to this die-hard fan, is akin to seeing one’s beloved aunt getting drunk in a seedy bar, insisting on dancing topless at countertops. That, or seeing aforementioned beloved aunt throwing away her tunics and Jesus sandals to live a relatively torpid existence at some lakeside. Either way, the missteps in A Gate at the Stairs—and there are many, despite my resolve to try not to take notice of them—hurt. They hurt a lot.

And then the second part is actually the (more-or-less) full review of the novel. A note, though: Since the essay’s more analytical than anything, there’s a widdle spoiler at the bottom. So there. A snippet:

That’s how Moore reveals: Patch by patch, section by section. Fragments of the human condition is revealed, but not without some smears and smudges. The haphazardness isn’t even conscious—This is what Tassie is, this is how things are revealed to Tassie. The authorial power is muted. The form of novel takes a backseat toTassie’s story. In A Gate at the Stairs, Tassie Keltjin is in control.

Take a look-see, if y’all are so inclined. Also, some of the reviews are going to be sent that-a-way. Once I get off my lazy ass & actually start writing them. But I’m too busy reading. Hee.