Reviews
November 18, 2009
A Crazy Trolley to Nowhere and Back Again: Gert Jonke’s The System of Vienna 3
by John Madera
The System of Vienna is musical, innovative, and difficult, not in a dusty academic way, but as a delightful puzzle, as a well-constructed argument, as a challenging game of chess.
November 18, 2009
Deficits and Gifts: Anne Finger’s Call Me Ahab 2
by Amy Halloran
Finger delivers stories told from the vantage of Hellen Keller, Captain Ahab, Vincent Van Gogh, and characters, real or fictional, casting or recasting them as disability icons.
October 30, 2009
Sergei Dovlatov, Funny Families, and That Tall Brown Fence 7
by Sonya Chung
The New Yorker published nine of Dovlatov’s stories between 1981 and 1989. Why is he so little known or read in the West today?
October 27, 2009
Diamond Dust: Roberto Bolaño’s The Skating Rink 2
by Erik Maza
In The Skating Rink, Bolaño is more interested in pushing the boundaries of genre fiction than solving the crime.
October 26, 2009
Returning to Ilium: Unlatching the Vonnegut Vault 2
by Andrew Saikali
Two-and-a-half years after Vonnegut’s death, Look at the Birdie offers an opportunity to be in the presence of his wit – whether a friendly wink or some darker satire.
October 19, 2009
Reading about Pictures: Michael Kimmelman’s Portraits 1
by Samantha Peale
Any detail one might seek – a name, a face, a room, a shadow, an era, a feeling or the mere hint of one – exists in paint and it’s all available, for pleasure and plunder.
