Nic Kelman, Girls (Little, Brown, advanced reading copy)
A powerful middle-aged man pursues increasingly younger women. the loving descriptions of limbs and breasts and shiny hair are interspersed with passages from Homer and some psuedo-science. The fact that the dude is from the graduate program at Brown is obvious from the post-mod touches (breaking the narrative to address the reader, the constant confusion between first and second person, which is not at all effective in this case)... but an award-winner? I checked the Brown website, and while there is indeed a James Assatly (not Assataly as it says on the back cover ad), i can find no criteria for said award, nor do I find Kelman listed as a Brown Alumnus. I ain't calling to chieck, tho. It wouldn't surprise me that a bunch of horny old men gave an award to a book about a horny old man. and basically that's all this is. It's very racy for mainstream fiction, but really tame as porn. Turns out dick lit is as dull as chick lit!
recent books completed:
Jo Anne Beard, The Boys of My Youth (Back Bay Books, 1998) Memoir as short story. Well-written, wistful, sad and funny.
Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49. This is a re-read. Last time i read it i was in high school! it not only stands up, it gets better. References i didn't get when I was 17 are now hysterically funny to me. I wonder what it was about this book that entranced me so when I was 17?
A powerful middle-aged man pursues increasingly younger women. the loving descriptions of limbs and breasts and shiny hair are interspersed with passages from Homer and some psuedo-science. The fact that the dude is from the graduate program at Brown is obvious from the post-mod touches (breaking the narrative to address the reader, the constant confusion between first and second person, which is not at all effective in this case)... but an award-winner? I checked the Brown website, and while there is indeed a James Assatly (not Assataly as it says on the back cover ad), i can find no criteria for said award, nor do I find Kelman listed as a Brown Alumnus. I ain't calling to chieck, tho. It wouldn't surprise me that a bunch of horny old men gave an award to a book about a horny old man. and basically that's all this is. It's very racy for mainstream fiction, but really tame as porn. Turns out dick lit is as dull as chick lit!
recent books completed:
Jo Anne Beard, The Boys of My Youth (Back Bay Books, 1998) Memoir as short story. Well-written, wistful, sad and funny.
Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49. This is a re-read. Last time i read it i was in high school! it not only stands up, it gets better. References i didn't get when I was 17 are now hysterically funny to me. I wonder what it was about this book that entranced me so when I was 17?
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