Toronto-based writer Karen Solie, described by Michael Hofmann as ‘the one by whom the language lives’, has done it again. The Caiplie Caves is both an extraordinary and unsettling accomplishment. Solie begins by setting out a brief history of the caves and a description of the book’s protagonist of indecision, St Ethernan. Whilst the caves are still visited today, she tells us, records of St Ethernan are ‘often sketched only briefly, in passing’ so that his story ‘resists a final... [read more]
Even if the details of their adventures vary throughout the eight short stories comprising Nicole Flattery's debut collection, Show Them a Good Time, her protagonists bear a striking resemblance to one another. Not only are they (with one exception) relatively young women from small-town backgrounds – Flattery is 29 and from Kinnegad, Co Westmeath in Ireland – they also share a propensity to float through life like sticks thrown into a stream, barely resisting the things that happen to... [read more]
Donatella Della Ratta, Shooting a Revolution: Visual Media and Warfare in Syria
reviewed by Giovanni Vimercati
Unlike many accounts of what Western commentators referred to as the ‘Arab Springs’ and the creative insurgency that chronicled and simultaneously fuelled them, Shooting a Revolution: Visual Media and Warfare in Syria refrains from the acritical celebration of the alleged power of social media to undermine authoritarian regimes. Rather than simply a skeptical dismissal of the role grassroots media played in the Syrian uprising, Donatella Della Ratta has produced an in-depth study of its... [read more]
‘There is no democracy in any love relation: only mercy,’ wrote Gillian Rose in Love’s Work. There is no justice to be found; no rulebook with consequences for illicit behaviour. This is a terrifying truth even when relationships take place on a level playing field – you cannot sue a friend for betraying you – but when combined with structural inequalities of race, class and gender, it is deeply, unfathomably unfair. It is not fair, for example, that Asian men and black women receive... [read more]
‘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]
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]
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]
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]
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]
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]
