Jamin Bogi started reading Days Between Stations by Steve Erickson
Grabbed this bc I found it on a list of books that give a David Lynch mood and...yep
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Sewer socialist in a muck-filled world. Reading, growing food, & music. Sort of retired, but I sell vinyl records to pay for bourbon—errrr, the car repairs and garden seeds.
Mastodon: zirk.us/@JaminBogi# Bandcamp: bandcamp.com/pghjaybee
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To research his thesis on contemporary agrarian life, anthropology student David Mazon moves from Paris …
Playful, rambling
4 stars
Content warning minor plot points
The bookend character reminds me of, well, me at a younger age (excited, idiotic, confident, clueless etc.) and it was a bit uncomfortable to read that! Lenard's ability to then move into a more distinguished omniscient narrator voice, then to the elevated banter of the banquet itself, etc., is impressive. Hints of many classic authors and styles. Fun to lose myself in for awhile but it has me wanting to reread his Zone more than anything else.
Jamin Bogi finished reading The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers' Guild by Mathias Énard
The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers' Guild by Mathias Énard, Frank Wynne
To research his thesis on contemporary agrarian life, anthropology student David Mazon moves from Paris to La Pierre-Saint-Christophe, a village …
Jamin Bogi started reading The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers' Guild by Mathias Énard
The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers' Guild by Mathias Énard, Frank Wynne
To research his thesis on contemporary agrarian life, anthropology student David Mazon moves from Paris to La Pierre-Saint-Christophe, a village …
Jamin Bogi reviewed A Heart So White by Javier Marías
A Heart So White by Javier Marías was first published in Spain in 1992 (original …
These hearts aren't white
4 stars
Accurate copy from the back cover: "Intrigue; the sins of the father; the fraudulent and the genuine; marriage and strange repetitions of violence[.]"
Frosty and creepy. Secrets are held back by pages of ruminations and philosophizing, making the secrets just sit there, aching to spill out into view. Quite an emotionless book—characters go about their (similar, repeated) actions almost like wound-up dolls...no, that's not quite right, but...there is a certain emphasis placed on obligations, relationships, duties etc. that seem to have trapped these people in a dreamy series of actions. And details, phrases, situations, etc., repeat themselves so that by the end, the novel feels like an exercise in oulipian deck-shuffling. Hints of Lynch, or The Ruined Map by Kōbō Abe, but not enough to take this book into completely surreal territory. Kudos for the sustained light dread. An ending that made me cold inside.
Jamin Bogi finished reading A Heart So White by Javier Marías
A Heart So White by Javier Marías
A Heart So White by Javier Marías was first published in Spain in 1992 (original title Corazón tan blanco.) Margaret …
Jamin Bogi started reading A Heart So White by Javier Marías
A Heart So White by Javier Marías was first published in Spain in 1992 (original …
Started reading for the Mastodon Reading Together book club. Find this effort at #JavierMariasTogether over there n'at if ya want.
Jamin Bogi rated War and War: 4 stars
War and War by László Krasznahorkai, George Szirtes
War & War, László Krasznahorkai’s second novel in English from New Directions, begins at a point of danger: on a …
Jamin Bogi finished reading War and War by László Krasznahorkai
War and War by László Krasznahorkai, George Szirtes
War & War, László Krasznahorkai’s second novel in English from New Directions, begins at a point of danger: on a …
Jamin Bogi started reading War and War by László Krasznahorkai
War & War, László Krasznahorkai’s second novel in English from New Directions, begins at a …
Hardly any sentence or paragraph breaks! An odd Hungarian on an intensely personal mission! Of the likely infinite number of boxes inside me that a book could check, those are two of them. Enjoying it so far.
Jamin Bogi reviewed The Golem by Gustav Meyrink
More please
4 stars
Not what I expected; much more interesting. Keeps expanding into new planes of plot, symbolism, etc. I got this bc it was an influence on one of my favorite novels, The Combinations by Louis Armand, and I definitely see a lot of ideas pulled from here. Will read more Meyrink soon.
Jamin Bogi finished reading The Golem by Gustav Meyrink
Jamin Bogi started reading The Golem by Gustav Meyrink
Started yesterday and will finish today. I thought it'd be a simple spooky season tale, but the strangeness multiplies quickly and take you into unknown (unknowable)? territory.
Jamin Bogi replied to Hyperlink Your BOOKS's status
@hyperlinkyourheart This blew my mind, over and over
Jamin Bogi reviewed Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco
History is more unbelievable than fiction
4 stars
Love Eco and most of his books. This one suffers a bit from using so much real historical information that it read a bit to me like a series of Wikipedia articles. The protagonist is horrible, but in this case, one that is pretty fun to read about. He LOVES good food. His fantasy of an all-night dining fest is a highlight. A casual mention of a certain French restaurant led me to learn about "pressed duck," and it's even more disgusting than it sounds.
If you enjoy the vocabularistic erudition of his other works, there's a bit less here. I hardly had to look up any words, while in his other novels I need to check on a few a page. Which I love to do! Still. This book was one of the highest-rated by my book club, which usually struggles to agree on a book's merit. A tonic …
Love Eco and most of his books. This one suffers a bit from using so much real historical information that it read a bit to me like a series of Wikipedia articles. The protagonist is horrible, but in this case, one that is pretty fun to read about. He LOVES good food. His fantasy of an all-night dining fest is a highlight. A casual mention of a certain French restaurant led me to learn about "pressed duck," and it's even more disgusting than it sounds.
If you enjoy the vocabularistic erudition of his other works, there's a bit less here. I hardly had to look up any words, while in his other novels I need to check on a few a page. Which I love to do! Still. This book was one of the highest-rated by my book club, which usually struggles to agree on a book's merit. A tonic for anyone who thinks the world is suddenly going to shit, because you'll see that it always was, and much more so. Read it!