Translation | Raging Biblio-holism

Wind/Pinball: Two Novels

March 6, 2017 by Drew

The Short Version: Two short novels of a young man in Tokyo, just before and just after college. He and his friend the Rat drink at J’s Bar, have variable luck with women, and ultimately try to figure out what to do with their lives – but that’s a taller order than they anticipated. The Review: It’s always intriguing, from an anthropological kind of standpoint, to discover a beloved author’s earliest work after you’ve already become familiar with their collected […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Books in Translation, Fiction, Haruki Murakami, Hear the Wind Sing, Literature, Pinball 1973, Reviews, Ted Goossen, The Rat, Translation, Trilogy of the Rat, Wind/Pinball

The Literary Conference

January 13, 2017 by Drew

The Short Version: After solving a centuries-old puzzle and recovering a lost pirate treasure, author/translator (and Mad Scientist) César Aira sets out to put in motion a plan to dominate the world. Things go awry. The Review: In some ways, this is the most digestible Aira novel I have read so far. In his embracing of B-movie aesthetics, which are (I now realize) delightfully well-suited to his “flight forward” style of just inventing and inventing and inventing, he’s created something […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, César Aira, Fiction, Horror, Katherine Silver, Literature, Literature in Translation, New Directions, review, Reviews, Surrealism, The Literary Conference, Translation

The Vegetarian

October 21, 2016 by Drew

The Short Version: After a woman renounces meat and begins a strange and bleak mental spiral, those near to her – her husband, her brother-in-law, and finally her sister – must try to come to terms with/understand a woman they thought they knew. The Review: There’s nothing strange about vegetarianism, superficially. In the last eighteen months, I’ve become far less of a meat eater than ever before in my life, thanks in large part to cooking with a vegetarian all the time […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: A Visit to October Country, Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Deborah Smith, Fiction, Fiction in Translation, Han Kang, Korea, Literature, Literature in Translation, review, Reviews, South Korea, The Tournament of Books 2017, The Vegetarian, Translation

Roundup, September 2016

September 30, 2016 by Drew

James Bond: Vargr by Warren Ellis and Jason Masters 4 out of 5 The Short Version: After a revenge mission in Helsinki, Bond returns to London and is handed a case from his fallen comrade’s workload. A new drug has hit English shores and his job is to break up the trafficking operation – but what should be a simple in and out job turns out to be anything but. The Review: The idea of Warren Ellis taking on James […]

Categories: Fiction, Roundup • Tags: 007, A Chooseable Path Adventure, Action, Choose Your Own Adventure, Classics, Family, Fiction, Graphic Novel, Hamlet, I'm Thinking of Ending Things, Iain Reed, Ian Fleming, James Bond, Jason Masters, Jens Peter Jacobsen, Literature, Niels Lyhne, Philosophy, Ramona Ausubel, Riverhead, Ryan North, Shakespeare, Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty, Spy, Thriller, Tiina Nunnally, To Be or Not to Be, Transhumanism, Translation, Vargr, Warren Ellis, William Shakespeare

The Subsidiary

August 3, 2016 by Drew

The Short Version: In a subsidiary office of a major Latin American corporation, the power has been shut off. A band of misfit employees remain, often terrorized by reality or their imaginations, and one sets out to document the experience using only the stamp set at his desk. The Review: The novel’s brevity belies its potency. This is the sort of book that you could read in under an hour, under a half hour in all likelihood. Each page is […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: Advance Review, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Fiction, Horror, Literature, Literature in Translation, Matías Celedón, Melville House, Reviews, Samuel Rutter, The Subsidiary, Translation

Multiple Choice

July 27, 2016 by Drew

The Short Version: Modeled on the Chilean Academic Aptitude Test, readers are instructed to take a multiple choice test covering reading comprehension, vocabulary, sentence structure, and more. The Review: I have the feeling that certain readers will find this book overly gimmicky or infuriating as hell. It is, of course, exactly what it sets out to be: a novel (or, well, a piece of literature) constructed in the form of a classic Scantron multiple choice aptitude test. There is no moment where the […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: Alejandro Zambra, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Exam, Experimental, Experimental Fiction, Fiction, Fiction in Translation, Literature, Literature in Translation, Megan McDowell, Multiple Choice, Multiple Choice Exam, Non-Fiction, Poetry, Reviews, Test, The Great Vacation of 2016, Translation

Conversations

July 22, 2016 by Drew

The Short Version: A man lays awake at night replaying a conversation he had with a friend earlier in the day, about a movie the two of them had seen and their wildly differing conceptions of it – all spinning off the sight of an incongruous Rolex on the wrist of a lowly goatherd… The Review: Have you ever been talking with a friend – a friend you respect and admire and have known for a while – when they […]

Categories: Fiction • Tags: Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, César Aira, Conversations, Fiction, Katherine Silver, Literature, Literature in Translation, New Directions, Philosophy, Reviews, TNBBC, Translation

A Planet for Rent

July 6, 2016 by Drew

The Short Version: When aliens finally do show up, it won’t be to induct us into their company – but rather to intervene on our behalf, because we can’t be trusted not to destroy ourselves and the world. So begins this collection of stories about a universe where Earth has become a protectorate of the galaxy and what it means to be an Earthling when Earth doesn’t mean that much anymore… The Review: The best science fiction is not the kind full […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature, Sci-Fi • Tags: A Planet for Rent, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Cuba, Cuban Sci-Fi, David Frye, Fiction, Literature, Literature in Translation, Restless Books, Reviews, Sci-Fi, Science Fiction, Short Stories, TNBBC, Translation, Yoss

Shantytown

May 16, 2016 by Drew

The Short Version: An immensely strong young man begins to help dwellers of an infamous shantytown in Buenos Aires with their carts and collections. But a crooked policeman believes it has something to do with the local drug cartel, he begins to follow the young man’s sister and her friend – all of this leading to a massive showdown into the shantytown known as the Carousel… The Review: In many ways, this was the most straightforward Aira I’ve yet read. There is […]

Categories: Crime, Fiction, Literature • Tags: Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Buenos Aires, César Aira, Chris Andrews, Crime, Fiction, Literature, Reviews, Shantytown, Translation

Raging Biblio-holism

The overwhelming urge to collect, consume, and consider books

Tag: Translation