The Review of Uncontemporary Fiction

That is the heart of the story, but in his playful and distinctively experimental style, Pynchon for much of the book throws the heart of his story deep into the background.Continue Reading

Although references to Catholicism are replete with typical Sparkian bite…the maintenance of personal faith endures through all the narrative detritus that’d throw a lesser novel off its axis.Continue Reading

“The world may be broken now, but it was once whole, or could have been. To me, the real tragedy of human beings as a species is that we are capable of imagining perfection, though we don’t always strive toward it”Continue Reading

But Giono was not simply a romantic for the sylvan days of yore. His fictions are permeated with a land whose primary characteristic is its sheer, often murky sensuousnessContinue Reading

A remarkable list of 130(1) writers who all are worthy of The Nobel Prize in Literature.Continue Reading

With a particular sharpness and wit—to that of Saunders, but without the quirkiness and underbelly of Mr. Rogers-level compassion—Homes portrays the strangeness of normal contemporary America.Continue Reading

I had no idea who Guyotat was, but the image of a shaved muscular presence devouring everything in its path made me feel heroic. In my solitude that’s the kind of monk I’ll be, I thought, bald and slaying demons.Continue Reading

But, while appreciating the style and tactics and sheer artistry of AA, I still can’t help, when watching an Avant-Garde film, or reading something abstract or surreal, or looking at an abstract painting, I can’t help but ask myself, “What the hell does it mean?”Continue Reading

Another mostly mild winter of herky-jerky temperatures encapsulated New York in January, but Peter Handke—whose literary star has been in eclipse since his 1990’s political statements on Bosnia and Serbia—aided my quest to return to something stern, reminding me of old times and harder winters and the limitless innocence of childhood and its golden days.Continue Reading

Infinite Jest is a novel that is also a compilation of David Foster Wallace’s knowledge of cinematic technique and critique. Like any proper cinematic auteur, Wallace has learned the rules of cinematic storytelling and then abuses them to unsettle the reader (or viewer) and situate them outside the realm of expectation and comfort.Continue Reading