Tag: literature

Retreading Surrealism and Existentialism: 2 books I liked

MONSTERS AND MYTHS: SURREALISM & WAR IN THE 1930s AND 1940s: Come for the glorious gatefold reproducing Europe After The Rains II (detail below) in its entirety, stay for four essays diving deep into Surrealism as an interwar movement, one that drew on WWI trauma (some, like Ernst, were veterans) and gave dark omens of … Continue reading Retreading Surrealism and Existentialism: 2 books I liked →

Book Review: JOHANNES ANGELOS, by Mika Waltari (with spoilers)

[Read in Greek, so the few quotes are approximated] [Content warning: historical detail may resonate in manner disheartening to modern Greeks] Part of the reason this doesn't make 4 stars is just my own differing expectations. I came for the forbidden romance set against falling Constantinople, and halfway through I found myself in the middle … Continue reading Book Review: JOHANNES ANGELOS, by Mika Waltari (with spoilers) →

Great Writers might not be Good Writers (Mamatas v. King)

[Stephen King] s a great writer because he lets it all hang out. His hopes and sentiments, his awful bitterness, those wounds that never heal and those scars across his body and psyche which he cannot help but count and re-count more frequently than he counts his millions, his essential kindness (which informs the avuncular … Continue reading Great Writers might not be Good Writers (Mamatas v. King) →

I am Gnomon and I will now review myself (with spoilers)

Nick Harkaway sighs and scratches his stubble as he waits for the washing machine to finish, a round of wool on standby. Fatally, he's squatting impatiently next to the machine while it's juddering its utmost, and the shape of his cognition, still stretching into the late morning and clouded with pre-Brexit anxieties, cannot make room for … Continue reading I am Gnomon and I will now review myself (with spoilers) →

Translating (unfinished) Cavafy: From The Historia Arcana

[The otherwise model archive of cavafy.com doesn't offer English translations of his unfinished poems. Here's an attempt at a short macabre that shows a different side of the "sensational" Alexandrine. Original text can be found here.] Often the look of Justinian horror and disgust inspired in his attendants. Something they suspected they did not dare utter; … Continue reading Translating (unfinished) Cavafy: From The Historia Arcana →

Book Review: MOVE UNDER GROUND, by Nick Mamatas

Mamatas kick-started his career with this rollicking road-trip adventure mashing the Beats with the Cthulhu Mythos. Far from foreign bodies, as he shows, these two entities share dark links, both navigating existential voids and the lure of enlightenment on broadly individualist terms. Among the book's most confident chapters are in the beginning, where Jack is … Continue reading Book Review: MOVE UNDER GROUND, by Nick Mamatas →

Translating Thanasis Triaridis: prologue to the honey lemons

[the phrase honey lemons is a literal approximation of μελένια λεμόνια, which sounds like melénia lemónia, and if you think this phonetic wordplay jibes nicely with the clash between sweet honey and sour lemon, you should also appreciate it takes a real translator to carry it over into another language. If you are a real … Continue reading Translating Thanasis Triaridis: prologue to the honey lemons →

Translating Thanasis Triaridis: Background to their love

Included in “Ich Bebe”, first self-published electronically in 2007 without copyright ( http://www.triaridis.gr/ichbebe/ ) Every time he saw, still a teenager, on TV or in books those famous wonders of the world, Pyramids, Great Walls, Cathedrals reaching to the sky, he thought of killers holding swords and whips and slaves buried in various foundations unable … Continue reading Translating Thanasis Triaridis: Background to their love →