Reviews
June 22, 2011
The Three Worlds of Jesse Ball’s The Curfew 3
by Janet Potter
Much of Ball’s writing takes place in worlds that are slightly off, where the rules of society have been changed, and both the characters in these worlds and we, the readers, aren’t entirely clear what the new rules are. I’ve never felt oriented in one of Ball’s novels, but I’m quite sure I’m not meant to.
June 20, 2011
Nom de Plume: Literary History and the Curatorial Principle 19
by Lydia Kiesling
I see it as a book for these times and no other. Our particular moment is all about managing data rather than producing it; a theme is assigned, the material assiduously curated.
June 16, 2011
On the Desire to Be Well-Read: A Review of The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction 20
by Timothy Aubry
The advice of many aesthetes turns the reader’s capacity for pleasure into just another test of his cultural status—and the effect of this kind of sly pressure is to make it more difficult to distinguish what we enjoy from what we think we ought to enjoy.
June 13, 2011
Tropical Storm: Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder 1
by Kevin Charles Redmon
Patchett has written a Brazilian adventure tale, headed “down a river into the beating heart of nowhere,” the throttle on the boat—and on the novel—open full.
June 2, 2011
Kissing the Hems of Ghosts: Vanessa Veselka’s Zazen 5
by Daniel Mollet
Veselka gives her characters plenty of rope, and while some end up hanging themselves, others use it to climb upward instead.
May 31, 2011
Mind Control: David Eagleman’s Incognito 6
by Tim Requarth
What we call the conscious mind, Eagleman argues, is far from center stage, and the more we try to find out who—or what—is actually in control of our brain, the more we find out there is, as Gertrude Stein said, “no there there.”
