The Hysterical Realism Reading List
First Wave: Vladimir Nabokov—Lolita (1955), Pale Fire (1962), Speak, Memory (1936-66), Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle (1969) Thomas Pynchon—V. (1963) , Crying of Lot 49 (1966), Gravity’s Rainbow (1973), Mason & Dixon (1997), Against The Day (2006) William Gaddis—The Recognitions (1955), JR (1975), a Frolic of His Own (1994) John Barth—Fiction: the Sot-Weed Factor […]
Grappling With the World: Both Flesh and Not
Both Flesh and Not, the forthcoming essay collection by David Foster Wallace, arrives in strange times. It’s job seems to be to tidy up the Wallace canon, pulling together what might be the last unanthologized bits of Wallace’s nonfiction. However, the collection doesn’t carry the balance of Consider the Lobster or A Supposedly Fun Thing […]
Review: How to Build an Android: The True Story of Philip K. Dick’s Robotic Resurrection
Slapping this book over to read the backside blurbs, I was preemptively skeptical that David F. Dufty’s nonfiction chronicle on the conception, creation and odyssey of Philip K. Dick’s android likeness would appeal to Dick’s reader-base in theory, but find itself in a limbo where it would be heckled or embraced by anyone with enough […]
Review: The Instructions by Adam Levin
The Instructions, by Adam Levin (of Chicago novelist fame, not Adam Levine of Moron 5 fame), is the bibliophile’s book. But I’ll get to that later. First, business: On my way to work this morning, I noticed a woman on the train de-purse her e-reader. A fairly typical early-morning L ritual. Based on empirical evidence, it seems […]
ANOBIUM 