John Updike (1932-2009)
I think I read the Rabbit books at too young an age to ever fully appreciate John Updike’s work. But once I started working at Dalkey, the thing I did appreciate was his amazing literary taste. Over and again we would be reprinting a somewhat obscure author, like Robert Pinget, and in searching for reviews and quotes ...
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Platonov Story
This week’s New Yorker has a short story by Andrei Platonov, author of the fantastically bleak The Foundation Pit. In the gloom of nature, a man with a hunting rifle was walking through sparse forest. The hunter’s face was a little pockmarked, but he was handsome and, for the time being, still young. At this time ...
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Bolano in the New Yorker
Roberto Bolano’s short story The Insufferable Gaucho is in this week’s New Yorker. And available online. It’s translated by Chris Andrews, and putting this fact together with the title leads me to believe that it’s from Nazi Literature in the Americas, which is forthcoming from New ...
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The New Yorker, Bringing the International Fiction
Now if they’d only get rid of the lame cartoons, I’d really like the New Yorker. Anyway, on top of the Kunkel review of Robert Walser, this week’s New Yorker includes some pieces from the OBERIU-founding, grand-absurdist Daniil Kharms. Any Kharms books, stories, excerpts you can get your hands on are ...
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Another Review of Walser
This week’s New Yorker contains a substantial, informed review by Benjamin Kunkel of Robert Walser’s The Assistant. It’s a very interesting piece, from someone who obviously knows a lot about Walser’s life and writing. Great to see this book getting such good attention, especially in a place like the ...
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