The World as a Work of Art

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

Michael Dirda of the Washington Post reviews Vivant Denon’s No Tomorrow.

Gourmet Rhapsody by Muriel Barbery

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

Gourmet Rhapsody by Muriel Barbery

Recommended.

Buy Buy

The Elementary Particles by Michel Houellebecq

Monday, July 27th, 2009

The Elementary Particles by Michel Houellebecq

Recommended.

Buy Buy

Platform by Michel Houellebecq

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

Platform by Michel Houellebecq

Recommended with reservations.

Buy Buy

Gleefully Pornographic Violence

Friday, March 27th, 2009

In the New York Times, Jennifer Schuessler examines the furor surrounding Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones.

The Widow by Georges Simenon

Monday, January 19th, 2009

The Widow by Georges Simenon

Recommended.

Buy Buy

The Waitress Was New by Dominique Fabre

Thursday, January 8th, 2009

The Waitress Was New by Dominique Fabre

Not recommended.

Buy Buy

Art and Revolution

Sunday, January 4th, 2009

The Complete Review critiques Victor Serge’s Unforgiving Years.

Guardians of Language

Monday, December 8th, 2008

Yesterday J. M. G. Le Clézio delivered his Nobel lecture.

The Literary World Turned to France

Friday, November 14th, 2008

In the Guardian, Richard Lea reports the winners of France’s Goncourt and Renaudot prizes.

International Literary Superstars

Monday, October 27th, 2008

A roundup at New York Magazine considers The Sacred Book of the Werewolf, To Siberia, Chicago, Sea of Poppies, and The Prospector.

Masterful and Ambitious

Tuesday, October 21st, 2008

Salon has James Hannaham’s review of Nancy Huston’s Fault Lines.

Sol, an arrogant boy from California, is convinced he is some sort of messiah. Huston draws him with biting specificity and detail, in the process nailing the dark side of American narcissism and child worship. She has a fast-paced style, as breathless as Philip Roth’s, deceptively light though deeply engaged in current events. Sol’s parents have childproofed the house by covering the electrical sockets and putting soft corners on all the furniture, but as soon as Sol is alone, he enthusiastically seeks out images of pornography and torture on the Internet. Huston spares us neither the outrageous vulgarity of the hypocritical environment in which Sol’s parents raise him nor its appalling effect on his personality.

For the Casually Curious

Monday, October 13th, 2008

More aspects of Rimbaud are known than can be assimilated: his vastly various, influential and innovative poetry itself; his expressive letters; his scornful and unhesitating permanent abandonment of poetry at the age of 20; the anecdotes of his contemporaries showing him as a drunken, filthy, amoral homosexualteenager who becomes a reserved, hard-working, responsible and respectable (if misanthropic and disgust-ridden) adult merchant and explorer.

The New York Times has Richard Hell’s review of Edmund White’s Rimbaud: The Double Life of a Rebel.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

Friday, October 10th, 2008

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

Recommended with reservations.

2008 Nobel Prize in Literature

Thursday, October 9th, 2008

The Swedish Academy has awarded Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio the Nobel prize in literature for 2008.

Self in Everyday Life

Saturday, September 13th, 2008

Michael Dirda of the Washington Post reviews Muriel Barbery’s The Elegance of the Hedgehog.

. . .halfway through [the novel], the lives of Paloma and Madame Michel are unexpectedly transformed. A Japanese gentleman named Kakuro Ozu buys a vacant apartment. Though clearly rich, he is also immensely courteous and shrewd, and immediately perceives that neither the little girl nor the concierge is just what she seems. Before long, Monsieur Ozu is gently contriving some little tests to discover more about their secret lives. And this leads to developments that range from the comic to the touching to the heartbreaking.

Gloomy Autumn

Tuesday, August 12th, 2008

At the Guardian Alison Flood writes of the somber tone of this year’s rentrée.

We Always Treat Women Too Well by Raymond Queneau

Thursday, August 7th, 2008

We Always Treat Women Too Well by Raymond Queneau

Recommended with reservations.

Time Regained by Marcel Proust

Sunday, July 13th, 2008

Time Regained by Marcel Proust

Recommended.

The Captive and The Fugitive by Marcel Proust

Tuesday, April 29th, 2008

The Captive and The Fugitive by Marcel Proust

Recommended.

Sodom and Gomorrah by Marcel Proust

Sunday, March 23rd, 2008

[Cover]

Recommended with reservations.

Mother’s Son

Thursday, March 20th, 2008

The plausible minimalist view of Proust’s Jewishness is that, attenuated as it was, it predisposed him to perceive more sharply than he might otherwise have done the hypocrisy and the hidden wellsprings of hostility toward Jews that were exposed in the fierce debates over Captain Dreyfus’s alleged treason.

In The New Republic (linked by way of Powell’s Books because the original article is only for subscribers), Robert Alter reviews Evelyne Bloch-Dano’s Madame Proust.

Nouveau Roman

Thursday, March 6th, 2008

English fiction in the wake of Robbe-Grillet has become a deliberately old-fashioned activity, like archery or churning your own butter.

At Salon, Stephen Marche writes of the passing of Alain Robbe-Grillet.

Three French Novels

Wednesday, February 27th, 2008

Alexis Soloski at the Village Voice reviews English translations of Dominique Fabre’s The Waitress Was New, Quebecois author Sylvain Trudel’s Mercury Under My Tongue, and Philippe Grimbert’s Memory.

The Guermantes Way by Marcel Proust

Thursday, February 14th, 2008

[Cover]

Recommended with reservations.

Within a Budding Grove by Marcel Proust

Friday, December 14th, 2007

[Cover]

Recommended.

Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust

Thursday, December 6th, 2007

[Cover]

Recommended.

The Death of French Culture

Wednesday, November 28th, 2007

At Time, Don Morrison examines France’s diminished cultural profile.

The Theory of Clouds by Stephane Audeguy

Sunday, November 4th, 2007

[Cover]

Not recommended.

Taunt You a Second Time

Friday, March 2nd, 2007

Why do the French have to be so damned right about so many things? An exceptionally unappealing article on the Oxford English Dictionary appears in the Financial Times.