Monthly Archives: January 2022

I finished this a few weeks ago, and have been thinking about it off and on ever since. Like so many of Penelope Fitzgerald’s novels, it’s a book that seems deeply strange, and yet, the more I think about it, the harder I find to explain why. I was tempted to say that it hasContinueContinue reading “at freddie’s, Penelope Fitzgerald”

One of the (very) few contemporary novels that actually lives up to its hype. A reviewer on goodreads complained that it took too many liberties, and didn’t really do justice to the real Marie de France, and that seems like a fair critique, but fortunately, I don’t know that much about Marie De France, soContinueContinue reading “Matrix, Lauren Groff”

A few years into my first job, someone put a copy of Wendy Laura Belcher’s Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks into my hands. It was a revelation. The first few chapters are all about writing anxiety, and how to deal with it (by writing a little bit every day). I was thunderstruck toContinueContinue reading “On academic writing”

I spend probably too much time pondering the difference between personal essay and criticism and non-fiction and auto-theory, so there was something kind of pleasing about reading something that was so squarely in the category of personal essays. This is a person writing about her experiences. She writes about her father’s hospitalization in Greece asContinueContinue reading “Notes to Self, Emilie Pine”

I read Beauty Salon, translated by Kurt Hollander, for the first time in 2015, on the recommendation of a friend, and was riveted by it. I don’t re-read things often, but I decidedly wanted to revisit this, and so I was very excited to hear that Deep Vellum was releasing a new translation, done byContinueContinue reading “Beauty Salon, Mario Bellatin”

It seems appropriate to be starting with a movie review, given my recent realization that the old blog, which was intended to be a place for writing about books, ended up having lots of posts about movies. I didn’t really intend to watch the new Matrix movie, though I was slightly intrigued when I learnedContinueContinue reading “Matrix: Resurrection”