Modern Library Revue
February 21, 2013
Modern Library Revue: #28 Tender is the Night 7
by Lydia Kiesling
I used to feel that the novel output of Fitzgerald was like the literary version of the Myers Briggs test: whichever one a person favored was some fundamental indicator of his or her personality.
October 12, 2012
Modern Library Revue: #90 Midnight’s Children 1
by Lydia Kiesling
When you go somewhere new, without the funds to elevate you to the echelon of luxury that is its own country, inevitably there comes a moment when you look around and realize that you have no idea what the fuck is going on. In these moments my Indian book club of one succored me, gave context to the long days of new sights and sounds.
April 20, 2012
Modern Library Revue: #36 All the King’s Men 10
by Lydia Kiesling
This novel is written so beautifully, so stylishly, and feels so American — with all the muddled greatness and shittiness that descriptor implies — that my decrepit patriotism pricked up its ears like it sometimes does when I read a stunning novel about America, in fine American English.
January 23, 2012
Modern Library Revue: #33 Sister Carrie 8
by Lydia Kiesling
In a state of temporal foreignness, it is not always easy to read the signs of the previous century.
October 7, 2011
Modern Library Revue: #76 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie 6
by Lydia Kiesling
It is a dark and lovely poem, written by the possessor of a sinister wit.
September 16, 2011
Modern Library Revue: #25 A Passage to India 4
by Lydia Kiesling
This gets to the heart of both my admiration and my anxieties about this novel. How can we write across culture, or think across culture, even, in a way that is fair? The cowardly answer is that we can’t.