Mister Pip

There are those people for each of us, acknowledged or not, whose influence runs so deeply and purely that we strive to become a bit of whom they are. That’s a bad sentence, but it’s late and I’m having trouble hammering out thoughts on this novel without getting too close to an emotional precipice that [...]

Read Full Post »

Barren Fields

Oh, what disappointment! London Fields had me eagerly in its command until about two hundred pages in. Then, Amis’ brilliance scorched me and left me wanting a story. This is not to say that London Fields does not contain a story. It holds several, but stingily, it seems, and they aren’t allowed to progress due [...]

Read Full Post »

London Fields, walking towards

Only one hundred or so pages into this and I’m wondering how I ever managed without Martin Amis. His sentences contain so much coiled energy that I’m rereading several passages immediately after completing them, just to relish the wordcraft. Earlier in the year, I attempted Lolita, but was underwhelmed by the narrative tricksiness and overwhelmed [...]

Read Full Post »

Immigrant Song

Yesterday I met someone interesting, a person who came to this country many years ago, fleeing, with her family, the Yugoslavia of Josip Tito. We chatted. I mostly listened. At one point, I asked if she had ever read My Ántonia by Willa Cather. Her eyes lit and our conversation took off with a connection [...]

Read Full Post »

Meanwhile, back in Siberia

     I’ve turned a corner within The People’s Act of Love and am finding it immensely enjoyable and full of sly humor.  Mutz is most intriguing, the Jewish, Czech army lieutenant who is in love with the beautiful Anna Petrovna and who is possibly freezing to death as he pursues a criminal who may be lurking in the village woods to [...]

Read Full Post »