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This novel is couched in a mood of reminiscence and reverie that makes it feel like Proust writing a crime novel. It's also comparable to Javier Marias, with an Englishman's more clipped diction substituted for Marias' lavish, dilatory prose. Of course it's also an entry in the crime genre, with...

I know of Pale Fire and Life: A User's Manual. Do you know of any other examples?

In some ways, Triton (as this novel was titled on its initial publication, in 1976) is as much about science fiction as it is about social and political models. The infodump or exposition is a vital part of the SF genre; it helps ground us in the imagined world of the story at hand and to...

'Bliss is ephemeral; true for anyone or anything. The oceans have been decimated several times in the last billion years. Sterile waters in a clay bowl. Life returned unbidden on each occasion. The world slumbers, twitches and transforms. From the jelly, lizards crawled around the fetid swamps...

This article claims they should: The Hindu : Literary Review : Recognising each other I find it all somewhat questionable or at least over-emphasised.

Since we have fairly diverse music tastes, and the best way to sample new music is to listen to it, I though a thread where we share links to youtube videos of songs or artists we are listening to would be a good idea. I recently saw this pianist play in Bangalore. Very impressive. YouTube -...

This is an extremely cheeky political satire that purports to look at the events leading up the death of General Zia, the man who ruled Pakistan from 1977 to 1988, and a great target for satire in any case - he always struck me as what it would like if Groucho Marx were to do a sketch about a...

I offer a very brief impression, in the hopes of opening the discussion: Sebald rambles along on a walking tour and riffles through history and literature to find patterns in the broken remnants of the past. His sympathies are with the dispossessed, the marginalised, the quixotic, his...

'Although the sun had sunk behind the houses, the sky was still luminous and the blue of the wall had deepened. She rubbed her fingers along it: the wash was fresh and a little of the powdery stuff came off. And she remembered how once she had reached out to touch the face of a clown because it...

Kitchen-sink magical realism? Could be. A bit of Borges, a hint of Marguez, a twist of Calvino, perhaps a dash of Burroughs' cut-ups and lots of emo screamification about how miserable it is to be ditched by some chick. There's a lot to enjoy and marvel at in this book, but much of it is like...

Onitsha by JMG Le Clezio. Very beautifuly written and with a haunting, powerful story to tell about the devastation wrought in Africa by succesive waves of colonialism (imperial and then corporate). It's seen through the eyes of a young European boy who goes to live in the town of Onitsha in...

In the year 2020, the Mexican president decides to defy USA with a couple of defiant policy declarations. In retaliation, Mexico's communications networks, provided by contractors who are fronts for US government departments, are suspended. In the ensuing confusion, Mexico's top politicians and...

***00 Dickens looms large over Rohinton Mistry's Family Matters. The melodramatic plot twists, the plethora of impossibly picturesque secondary characters, the constant teetering on the brink of sentimentality. Mistry is great at tugging at the heartstrings, and there are times when he goes a...

Where is the titular snow country of Kawabata's 1948 novel (original title: Yukiguni)? Is it the snowy western region of Japan, a haven for vacationing men on the lookout for hot springs and compliant geishas, or is it a cold, perhaps numb place somewhere within the characters in the novel...

I've just finished reading Austerlitz. It's the first book I've read by Sebald. I cameby Sebald via mentions in interviews of Javier Marias, who admires his novels. It's interesting to note the similarities in their styles. They both specialise in lengthy, elaborate sentences seemingly...

Written On The Body by Jeanette Winterson, whose books I'm slowly working my way through. More plot than some of her other books, but a somewhat melodramatic plot and chock full of reminiscences about ex-lovers all of whom are impossibly weird and caricature-like. Absolutely lapidary prose. It...

I'm reposting this as a separate thread in case anyone else wants to discuss this book at some point: Nip The Buds, Shoot The Kids by Kenzaburo Oe. Set in the second world war, this novel follows the fortunes of a group of teenaged reformatory school boys, evacuated from the city and dragged...

Re: Akutagawa Ryūnosuke: Rashōmon and Seventeen Other Stories The more absurd and satirical strands of the Rashōmon collection find further expression in Kappa, a story about a patient in a mental asylum (reflecting another recurring theme in his work, it would seem) who claims to have visited...