en-US Mon, 12 May 2025 18:16:16 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg ReadStatus9418144305 Mon, 12 May 2025 18:16:16 -0700 /review/show/7564432459 Peter wants to read Rhyme's Rooms: The Architecture of Poetry by Brad Leithauser
]]> Review1925065258 Mon, 12 May 2025 12:17:44 -0700 /review/show/1925065258 Peter gave 4 stars to Pond (Hardcover) by Claire-Louise Bennett
As far as experimental literature goes, this is a better example from the past ten years. I found that the epigraphs at the beginning offered more a clue into the intentions of this book than much found within the text. The narrator, an unnamed woman, doesn’t do much. She has difficulty distinguishing herself from her environment, and is far more interested in the way bricks stones lay in a wall than gainful employment. There is no plot, only observations about the little tasks of life strung like beads on a string with little discernment of how they are ordered.

Something I’ve been thinking about that distinguishes the books I love, books I can appreciate, and books I dislike is the way in which the writing allows you to enter the world of the text. The narrator’s perspective always remains tightly bound to the surface, with her focus jumping around a room rather than remaining still in it. This gives the writing artistic merit as it is, in my perspective, novel. Whether any of her ramblings have any meaning outside of this is somewhat less clear to me, and I didn’t find a lot of payoff. I didn’t find it especially profound, but it was enjoyable and seemed fashionable.

You may enjoy if you like: Diane Williams, Lydia Davis, Jeanne Dielman (except inverted), Ducks Newburyport (without the references) ]]> Review5213312268 Thu, 08 May 2025 12:38:41 -0700 /review/show/5213312268 Peter gave 2 stars to Greek Lessons (Hardcover) by Han Kang
This book worked out much better in the first half than the second. In the first half, most of the book takes place in and around a classroom, where an instructor teaches Ancient Greek. A lot of this book is oriented around sensory organs failing - blindness and deafness, and the nature of language. This was interesting to me. It also wasn’t clear to me at the time that all of the narration was only by two characters - many of the perspectives were so different that it felt like an entire classroom of students. However, in the second half the book becomes isolated from the world and is communicated through characters signed on hands. It gets too experimental and fragmented, and in my opinion, does not work. The poetic speech acts feels too sanguine. ]]> ReadStatus9395658309 Tue, 06 May 2025 17:04:29 -0700 /review/show/7548926224 Peter wants to read Inside the Flower Garland Sutra: Huayan Buddhism and the Modern World by Ben Connelly
]]> Review7548144873 Tue, 06 May 2025 11:23:27 -0700 /review/show/7548144873 Peter gave 5 stars to Solitary confinement: Poems (Hardcover) by Bob Ross
Found a copy of this at a used book store in Springfield. The book is gorgeous: a wood cover, and four blind etchings pressed into the pages. Three sections are original works by the author, and one is translations of Borges. Given the obscurity of the poet, the work is a labor of love, and it shines through.

The poems are masculine and rough-edged, touching on topics such as addiction, longing, and the space outside of cities. I was reminded of Jim Harrison, Frank Stanford, and Tom Waits. Published in 1977, the contents of these poems might settle uneasily for modern day readers in its depictions of women - there is objectification, but often the use of this says far more about the speaker in the poems rather than being chauvinistic. There are misguided complaints among men that they have no place in literature any longer, that it’s all “chick lit�. Obviously this is a facet of ignorance on their part, but I think that writing like this - poetry as an outlet - would be a constructive guide for channeling masculinity in a positive direction. And poetry is depicted as an outlet throughout all of these poems - something that can tenuously be shared (or often not), something done in the waiting hours while the dough starts to rise. I think Robert Bly wrote about the need for new forms of masculinity, although people have mixed receptions of his idea. I can’t speak for what he wrote, but there has been a loss of ownership over what it means to be a man, and work like this does not opt to deny it (for better or worse!) Personally, I enjoyed this book of poems, one unafraid to show its scars and wounds. I saw a comedic bit yesterday that described today’s masculinity as a paranoia of being known. That is not present in this work which is now nearly 50 years old. ]]> Review7092005855 Fri, 02 May 2025 10:35:07 -0700 /review/show/7092005855 Peter gave 5 stars to On the Calculation of Volume I (Paperback) by Solvej Balle
A bit repetitive� *laugh track*

Interested to see how the author expands on the idea in this book over the next six installments. It’s great though. Still no idea what the title is supposed to mean ]]> ReadStatus9372608110 Wed, 30 Apr 2025 20:54:56 -0700 /review/show/7532801383 Peter wants to read Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life by David D. Friedman
]]> ReadStatus9372604567 Wed, 30 Apr 2025 20:53:41 -0700 /review/show/7532798915 Peter wants to read Maps of the Mind: Charts and Concepts of the Mind and its Labyrinths by Charles Hampden-Turner
]]> ReadStatus9372602019 Wed, 30 Apr 2025 20:52:48 -0700 /review/show/7532797138 Peter wants to read Time for Life: The Surprising Ways Americans Use Their Time by John P. Robinson
]]> ReadStatus9372594190 Wed, 30 Apr 2025 20:50:03 -0700 /review/show/7532791762 Peter wants to read Housing by Lifestyle: The Component Method of Residential Design by James W. Wentling
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