http://www.eugenelim.com eugene lim's reading diary Thu, 19 Jun 2008 20:54:43 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en a fearless work of intense integration, a continuous curve over infinite sums of personal and national history, the poem felt to me written with the urgency of the refugee in flight -- but sculpted methodically, like a life-sentenced prisoner painstakingly making his case. "the science of fiction" (p. 107). what does it ... http://www.eugenelim.com/2008/06/19/mad-science-in-imperial-city-by-shanxing-wang/ here's how handke describes the leavetaking from his father of a young man about to go off on a long tramp for the summer: With sagging knees, dangling arms, and gout-gnarled fingers, which at that moment impersonated furious clenched fists, the frail, aging man, much smaller than I, stood by ... http://www.eugenelim.com/2008/06/12/repetition-by-peter-handke/ his plots have a comic-book-ness to them -- if those comic books are the darkest and wildest of early era vertigo's or have the zaniness of first comics' AMERICAN FLAGG and BADGER... plots filled with the boyish wish fulfillment of sex and romantic alienation and isolating intelligence, all suffused with ... http://www.eugenelim.com/2008/05/29/zeroville-by-steve-erickson/ heeded a thankfully persistent whisper of walser walser walser and fell hard. i'd heard the gossipy parts: how kafka dug him, how he lived his final years in a madhouse, how he died on a long walk in the snow, how he wrote in a pencilled hand so small that ... http://www.eugenelim.com/2008/05/06/jakob-von-gunten-by-robert-walser/ stumbled onto this Stephen-Paul Martin interview where he makes this opposition: experimental fiction as legitimate alternative network to the corporate publishing world... or experimental fiction as a minor league system for that corporate publishing world: from: http://www.longhousepoetry.com/kirpalgordon2006.html SPM: I think the main claim to significance that avant practices can legitimately ... http://www.eugenelim.com/2008/04/25/avant-practices-can-legitimately-constitute-an-alternative-network/ for family, went to san francisco over the weekend--very happy to see the used book stores in the mission still there. ten years since i last saw them: abandoned planet, dog eared, phoenix, modern times. i buy almost everything online now, so few used bookstores left in NYC (adam's unnameable ... http://www.eugenelim.com/2008/04/22/the-possibility-of-music-by-stephen-paul-martins/ very cool book i stumbled onto in a bookstore (is that stumbling a fading pastime?)... at a slim but just-right ninety-two pages, it's got the heft of something three times as big... this sounds like a power tool review all of a sudden... if the title throws you off with its ... http://www.eugenelim.com/2008/04/02/walserian-waltzes-by-gad-hollander/ more than any of his others, PLAYERS pushes dialogue to meaninglessness, an experiment in how far afield our hip and close-quartered patois can go, how completely empty of sense. a combination of zen cases, wiseguy assholisms, and andy kaufman-rejected punchlines, delillo tirelessly (but we may tire) explores the idea of ... http://www.eugenelim.com/2008/03/30/players-by-don-delillo/ About the Crime of the Century! The Lindbergh Baby kidnapping! Aren't you interested in the Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping?!? extremely beautiful and attentive writing in this short story collection (billed as "a novel in stories") sometimes stilted due to the iconic nature of its subject, written around the kidnapping and murder of ... http://www.eugenelim.com/2008/03/30/correction-of-drift-a-novel-in-stories-by-pamela-ryder/ didn't finish it. but it did make me think a bit about johnson and the life of an experimental novelist... and, like pound sd to williams: "you don't have to finish everything--don't tell people i said so." skimmed though. and did check the index and read all the entries where beckett ... http://www.eugenelim.com/2008/03/30/like-a-fiery-elephant-the-story-of-bs-johnson-by-jonathan-coe/