Review 31 Reviews

Was It Ever Harder to Believe in Our World?

Sam Lipsyte, Hark

reviewed by Jon Doyle

‘Listen, before Hark,’ opens Sam Lipsyte’s latest novel, ‘was it ever harder to be human? Was it ever harder to believe in our world?’ Whether the question refers to the novel or its titular character, the answer appears to be a resounding no. Ravaged by exploitative capitalism and climate breakdown, Lipsyte’s world is our own as caught in funhouse mirrors, stretched and heightened into forms both hilarious and terrible. America is at war with Europe, fighting for control of... [read more]

A Deeper Vein of Truth

Fredric Jameson, Allegory and Ideology

reviewed by Stuart Walton

The allegorical tradition in literary history has been an inexhaustibly rich source of speculation through the ages, and over the past century in particular. This is owing, at least in part, to the indeterminate status of allegory itself. Is it a genre in its own right? Is it a technique? Is it a literary temperament inherited from the performing arts, such as antique theatre and the medieval play of lamentation (Trauerspiel) of which Walter Benjamin wrote, or even from theology? How do its... [read more]

Six ways to begin a review of The Large Door

Jonathan Gibbs, The Large Door

reviewed by Neil Griffiths

1. The Large Door started life as short story. The novel is better. I haven’t read the short story but The Large Door is better than most novels, and as novels are more often better than short stories (deeper, richer and more enriching) there is a high probability that this novel is better than the short story from which it is derived. Expanding short stories into novels is risky. There is a high probability of failure. Most novels that start out as short stories aren’t very good. Ian... [read more]

Among Mermaids and Sprites

Joanna Pocock, Surrender

reviewed by Baya Simons

Writing about uprooting one’s life and going off to live in the wild has a long-established history in America – take Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire and Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild. But as with many long-established literary traditions, these illustrious narratives have been characterised by the expression and validation of a male-centric discourse, often implicit in the rugged individualism pursued through tales of self-discovery. This is where... [read more]

Hiding in Plain Sight

Albert Rolls, Thomas Pynchon: Demon in the Text

reviewed by Daniel Green

It has always seemed to me that of the two most notorious literary recluses of the late 20th century, JD Salinger and Thomas Pynchon, it was Salinger whose whereabouts provoked the most interest. Perhaps this is because Salinger was more visible in the early part of his career, and his withdrawal thus seemed more puzzling, or perhaps it was just that Catcher in the Rye had been such an overwhelming success (fleeing from which may have been one motivating factor in his behaviour) that fans... [read more]

The Violence of the Family is Eternal

Jean-Baptiste Del Amo, trans. Frank Wynne, Animalia

reviewed by Stanley Portus

At her father’s funeral, a young girl watches on as the villagers discuss what to do about a toad that has made its way into the open grave overnight and has been swimming back and forward in the mud. As the toad sits on top of the lowered coffin, the crowd agree it is a bad omen and the man cannot be buried with it there. The toad, one protests, is the devil. It is decided that the young girl is the only person small enough and in a bad enough state, in her scraggy, unwashed clothes, to be... [read more]

Musical Chairs

Hugo Williams, Lines Off

reviewed by GE Stevens

There’s an element of musical chairs to Lines Off, HugoWilliams’ first collection since I Knew the Bride in 2014. Whilst the music plays, Williams remembers the ‘faded photo strips’ of his past with characteristic swagger and self-effacing humour. He takes us back to his school coming out ball, ‘We were drinking and driving, barely surviving’; he takes us to Paris to fall for Tara Browne who ‘went out into the night, / dancing your crazy doodle-step/on the pedals of your Lotus... [read more]

Looking at Life from the Inside

Clare Carlisle, Philosopher of the Heart: The Restless Life of Søren Kierkegaard

reviewed by Ruby Guyatt

‘Joy is the present tense, with the whole emphasis upon the present.’ Clare Carlisle may not quote these words, written by Søren Kierkegaard in 1848, but her lyrical biography of the Danish philosopher-poet nevertheless performs them. Unlike much writing about philosophy, Carlisle’s prose is imaginative and lucid; unlike most biographies, much of Philosopher of the Heart is written in the present tense, inviting the reader to accompany Kierkegaard as he walks Copenhagen’s cobbled... [read more]

A Curious Pleasure

Neil Griffiths, As a God Might Be

reviewed by Andre van Loon

As a God Might Be is a wonderful and weird novel that takes you further and deeper than many others – while yet leaving a sense of emotional frustration by its final, 599th page. To put my cards on the table immediately: I couldn’t stop reading the book, but also closed it repeatedly with a sense of impatience. It’s a curious thing to wolf down a novel that you also think dodges valuable questions – there is an undoubted skill in that. I cannot but recommend you read it for... [read more]

Inexpressible Wounds

Sinéad Gleeson, Constellations: Reflections from Life

reviewed by Liam Harrison

Sinéad Gleeson’s Constellations opens with a series of epigraphs. One of them is from Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts: ‘Empirically speaking, we are made of star stuff. Why aren’t we talking more about that?’ Constellations is in dialogue with an array of literary reference points, but particularly with Nelson’s argonaut analogy, which presents the body not as something static, but as a series of makings and un-makings. Gleeson explores this star stuff, the matter that makes us –... [read more]

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