Six Questions for Margaret Carson [Again, We Rule]
Over at Conversational Reading, Scott Esposito has posted a six-question interview with Margaret Carson, translator of Sergio Chejfec’s My Two Worlds, which has been gathering a ton of praise. (Coincidentally, I finished reading his next Open Letter book—The Planets—while at MLA and can assure his fans that ...
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Bolano's Sarcasm is Worth Some Thousands of Sales
Over at Conversational Reading, Scott put together a reading list based on Between Parentheses, Roberto Bolano’s essay collection, due out next month from New Directions. It’s an interesting list that includes Witold Gombrowicz, Horacio Castellanos Moya, Mario Vargas Llosa, Rodrigo Rey Rosa, Ernesto Cardenal, ...
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Oulipians Have More Fun [Life A User's Manual: Part 3]
Back when the Life A User’s Manual Big Read first started,1 I referenced this huge chart of constraints that served as Perec’s guide in constructing this novel.2 At the time, the only constraint I mentioned was the “Knight’s Move,” which determines the chapter order of the novel. But as you can ...
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Cons and Quests; Things and Violence [Life A User's Manual: Part 2]
A few weeks back, I posted about the first section of Life A User’s Manual (TRANSLATED BY DAVID BELLOS), which is the Spring Big Read over at Scott Esposito’s Conversational Reading blog. As mentioned, I love Life, haven’t read it in years, and had every intention of keeping up with this reading group and ...
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Life A User's Manual and LOST and Pynchon [Perec Reading Group: Week 1]
As mentioned a couple of times already, Conversational Reading is currently hosting a Group Read of Life A User’s Manual. This project officially kicked off yesterday with the first Part (up to page 89), and since I’m actually on schedule with this (although with nothing else), I thought I’d participate by ...
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I'm All in in a Very Big Way
One of my all-time favorite books is Georges Perec’s Life: A User’s Manual, and for months years, I’ve been meaning to reread it. Well, starting sometime soon, Conversational Reading will be hosting a Big Read of Perec’s classic novel. No real info up there yet, but as soon as the schedule is ...
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Schedule for "Your Face Tomorrow"
Again with me and the last minute postings, but if you’re planning on participating in Conversational Reading’s YFT Reading Group, here’s the official schedule: VOLUME 1 –1: Fever– Week 1, March 21-27: pp. 3 – 95 (Section ends at: “But before getting back to the Tupras . . .”) Week 2, ...
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