My interview with Ansgar Allen has been published at Heavy Feather Review.
All posts in category books
interview with ansgar allen
Posted by sean on February 18, 2025
https://sd-stewart.com/2025/02/18/interview-with-ansgar-allen/
2024 in reading
While in general 2024 was hit-or-miss (with the unspeakable horror of November 5th as the most egregious example of a miss), I am pleased to report that it was at least a fine reading year. Looking back on previous end-of-year book posts, it seems that I was past due for a good year, and so I am grateful for this one. Although the jaded reader inside me still finds it less likely each year to discover new writers I’ve not previously read who bowl me over, this year yielded an iota of hope. I came across not just one, but two writers new to me who stimulated and challenged my reading mind, while also reinvigorating my interest in the novel as a form capable of further manipulation, however slight.
These two contemporary British writers, Thomas Kendall and Ansgar Allen, captured my attention in a way that I have sorely missed. As such, during 2024 I read both of Kendall’s novels and much of Allen’s fiction corpus to date. Although I connected on a more emotional level with Kendall’s debut novel The Autodidacts, which was my favorite book of 2024, it is his second novel, How I Killed the Universal Man, that is more exciting in terms of literary achievement, for it envisions a possible very near future for humanity with all the attendant ramifications therein, all laid out in a way that does not cater to reader comprehension. It feels prophetic in the most frightening (and depressing) ways.
Similarly, Ansgar Allen’s fiction does not waste time courting the reader. Over the past five years, Allen has been quietly yet fiercely challenging the status quo of literature with his disruptive approaches to the act of writing. His work is not easy to categorize, which I believe is his intent. I was so intrigued by Allen’s work that I reached out to him for an interview, which will be published in February 2025 at Heavy Feather Review. In the interview, we discuss his work, the acts of writing and reading, the future of ‘the book’, and how sound can affect writing, among other topics. I also reviewed Allen’s latest novel The Faces of Pluto, and that review will be published at HFR in January 2025. I will add a link to it in this post once it has been published.
Since I focused a good amount of my reading energy this year on reading multiple books by individual authors, some of the books in the list are grouped by author. As usual, unless indicated otherwise, the links are to my Goodreads reviews.
Authors new to me
Thomas Kendall
How I Killed the Universal Man
Ansgar Allen
The Faces of Pluto (link to HFR review to be added)
Jesse Ball
Ball is a writer who has been on my radar for a few years, and I am very glad to have finally read some of his work. The two novels that I list here were my favorites of the four that I read. However, I am sufficiently interested that I will likely read more of his work.
The Repeat Room (review written on the day after the 2024 U.S. election)
A Cure for Suicide (no review written)
Maryse Meijer
Meijer was yet another writer who I had heard good things about, but I hadn’t read anything by her before this year. On the basis of my response to her first short story collection (Heartbreaker), I ended up reading her second collection of stories (review) and her novel The Seventh Mansion (no review).
Drain Songs: Stories and a Novella by Grant Maierhofer
Maierhofer is another writer whose name I regularly see mentioned in various literary haunts, but I hadn’t gotten to his work (apparently this was the year for trying to catch up on my to-read list). I had mixed reactions to some of the stories in this collection, but a couple of them and the title novella were excellent. The ‘review’ is just some minimal notes.
The Stories of Breece D’J Pancake by Breece D’J Pancake
This book languished on my to-read list for a decade before I finally got to it this year. It is a fantastic collection, and I think D’J Pancake could probably have eclipsed Raymond Carver if he’d lived longer than his brief 26 years.
Depressive Realism: Interdisciplinary Perspectives by Colin Feltham
This is a nonfiction book published by an academic press, but the ebook can be found at the Internet Archive. Despite its origins in academia, I think it is accessible to general readers, and I found it replete with compelling arguments.
Undercurrents by Marie Darrieussecq
Sometimes vagueness in writing can be hauntingly beautiful.
The Spectacle at the Tower by Gert Hofmann
One of those special books that masterfully maintains a sense of dread throughout, which I’m always seeking and rarely finding. For comparison, Paul Bowles comes to mind.
Mockingbird by Walter Tevis
A very fine dystopian novel from 1980.
Erasure by Percival Everett
This is deeply effective satire and very much on point. I read the book before watching the film adaptation (American Fiction), which is also good but unsurprisingly not quite as nuanced.
A Month in the Country by J. L. Carr
Carr’s atmospheric novel had been on my to-read list for nearly 10 years. It was very good, but I didn’t write a review. It seems at first to be a relatively simple story, but as the pathos builds it grows more complex.
Previously read writers
James Purdy
I read Narrow Rooms as a follow-up to In a Shallow Grave, which was a highlight of last year, and in the review of which I boldly claimed I would now read everything Purdy wrote. However, having since been underwhelmed by two of his other novels—Mourners Below (review) and The Nephew (review)—I am now skeptical of the veracity of that claim.
Philip K. Dick
I feel certain that in my lifetime I will complete my reading of all of PKD’s published work, but I am in no hurry. These three were all very good additions to the list of those I’ve read to date.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Gary J. Shipley
Shipley is an acquired taste and not for the squeamish. But he is one of the few writers in whose use of explicit horror I can discern a purpose apart from purely shock value. For that reason, I will continue to read his work, despite not always having the stomach for it.
Other noteworthy books by previously read writers
Burning Your Boats: The Collected Short Stories by Angela Carter
The Complete Short Stories: Volume 2 by J.G. Ballard
Alice Knott by Blake Butler
Rusticles by Rebecca Gransden
Dark Property: An Affliction by Brian Evenson (no review)
Mice 1961 by Stacey Levine: I neglected to include this in my original post because I technically read it in 2023, though it wasn’t published until 2024. I would be remiss in not mentioning it, though, as it was among the most unique novels I’ve read in recent years. The arrival of a new book by Stacey Levine is no small thing, and the long wait for this one was worthwhile. A polyphonic novel entwining sisterhood with the uncertain paranoia of the early Cold War, Mice 1961 takes place in small-town Florida, primarily during the course of a rollicking community house party. Certain novels offer the reader with an immersive experience, where one truly feels as if they have entered the book as an observer. This is one of those rare novels.
A few other notes: This year I finally finished reading Infinite Jest, which I had been reading on and off for the past two years or so (I liked Don Gately and the addiction recovery storyline best, but overall I preferred The Pale King, despite its unfinished status); I also finished the Gormenghast trilogy; I read two more of Clarice Lispector’s novels (The Hour of the Star and The Besieged City) and continue to be boggled by the inscrutability of her fiction; and I read Michel Houellebecq for the first time after years of reading reviews of his novels (I chose Serotonin and had mixed feelings).
Posted by sean on December 20, 2024
https://sd-stewart.com/2024/12/20/2024-in-reading/
Adventures in Immediate Irreality by Max Blecher
Reread October 2024. Still fantastic. Still an all-time favorite. Original 2019 review below.
Much how Bruno Schulz’s masterpiece of 20th century literature The Street of Crocodiles defies adequate description, so too does this book by Max Blecher, affirmed by this edition’s two introductions, both of which rely heavily on extended quotations from the book itself to make their points, which in essence are that this is a particularly special book. Perhaps this is also one of those rare cases where the title of the work itself provides the most apropos description of what lies in wait for the reader. Blecher’s protagonist sees the world through the lens of illness, which can always alter reality, but he is also a sensitive and gifted young man struck by the ‘immediate irreality’ of everything around him. As in Schulz’s work, objects here take on monumental significance; the most innocuous things throb and seethe in unexpected ways.
All at once the surfaces of things surrounding me took to shimmering strangely or turning vaguely opaque like curtains, which when lit from behind go from opaque to transparent and give a room a sudden depth. But there was nothing to light these objects from behind, and they remained sealed by their density, which only rarely dissipated enough to let their true meaning shine through.
As Andrei Codrescu writes in his introduction, what thus flows from Blecher’s pen is not so much Surrealism as it is ‘hyperrealism’ (which I find even more interesting, though also much rarer). There are no flights of fancy beyond reality; there is instead total immersion in an over-exposed reality enhanced by the protagonist’s unique point of view. There is the discovery of places in the everyday world imbued with a special significance, offering refuge from the the heavy burden of sickness and the overwhelming weight of mere existence.
Above the room there were two garrets, one of which gave access to the roof via a small window. I often climbed through it and stood on top of of the house. The entire city spread out before me, amorphous and gray, and beyond it the fields, where miniature toylike trains crossed a fragile bridge. What I wanted most of all was to feel free of vertigo, as stable as if my feet were planted on the ground; I wanted to lead my ‘normal life’ on the roof, to move about in the fresh, bracing air of the heights without fear or awareness of the void. I felt that if I succeeded I would make my body lighter and more supple and, thus transformed, I would have turned into a kind of bird-man.
Blecher’s protagonist explores many such hidden places during his ‘adventures’, feeling drawn to them as inevitably as iron filings are pulled to a magnet. Not all of them offer succor; yet even the bleakest ones, those known as a ‘cursed space’, still beckon to him.
One of the spaces was in the town park in a small clearing at the end of a tree-lined path no one used anymore. The only gap in the dogrose and acacia bushes surrounding it opened onto a desolate piece of wasteland. There was no sadder or more forsaken place on earth. Silence lay heavy on the dusty leaves in the stagnant summer heat. From time to time the echoes of the bugles of a regiment filtered through long-drawn-out cries in the wilderness, heartbreakingly sad. Far off the air baked by the sun quivered vaporously like the transparent steam hovering over a boiling liquid.
It was a wild, isolated spot, as lonely as could be. The heat of the day felt more enervating there, the air i breathed more dense. The dusty bushes blazed yellow in the sun in an atmosphere of utter solitude. A bizarre feeling of futility hovered over the clearing, which existed ‘somewhere on earth’, a place where I myself would end up quite by chance on a summer afternoon with no rhyme or reason of its own, an afternoon that had lost its chaotic way in the heat of the sun amidst bushes fixed in space ‘somewhere on earth’. At that time I felt more deeply and painfully that I had nothing to do in this world, nothing to do but saunter through parks, through dusty clearings burnt by the sun, desolate and wild. But the saunter would turn into a heart-rending experience.
I could go on, transcribing more and more evocative passages from this brief yet incredibly dense work that so gracefully traces an ornate border encircling the ineffable. But I have sauntering of my own to do, so I will instead encourage you to read it for yourself if you have not already done so.
Posted by sean on October 20, 2024
https://sd-stewart.com/2024/10/20/adventures-in-immediate-irreality-by-max-blecher/
2023 in reading
This year was another fairly abysmal one for reading, certainly among my least fruitful since I began compiling end-of-year lists. It was very similar to last year, marked by nearly identical problems of concentration and a frustrating lack of the immersive quality that typically makes reading so alluring. Thankfully, there were a few exceptions, and I suppose I need to think more deeply about what made those books exceptional in hopes of locating more titles that share those qualities. So, without further ado, here is the list of standouts in chronological order of date read with links to whatever I managed to write about the book on Goodreads (which in a few cases is very little). As with last year’s list, I rated all of these books either 4 or 5 stars on Goodreads and tagged them with my ‘somewhere else’ tag, which denotes a book that has truly taken me somewhere else.
In a Shallow Grave by James Purdy
The Boat in the Evening by Tarjei Vesaas
The Physiognomy by Jeffrey Ford
Childhood/Youth/Dependency (The Copenhagen Trilogy, #1-3) by Tove Ditlevsen
The Plotinus by Rikki Ducornet
O the Chimneys: Selected Poems, Including the Verse Play, Eli by Nelly Sachs
Posted by sean on December 21, 2023
https://sd-stewart.com/2023/12/21/2023-in-reading/
2022 in reading
As I find myself at the end of the year thinking back on what I read in 2022, sadly only a few books spring immediately to mind. For some time now I have felt a growing distance between me—the reader—and the book in hand. I am still not sure why. I’ve been reading fewer books per year, which might suggest that I am reading slower and absorbing more. However, that has not proven to be the case. When comparing this reading year to last year, I see a similar pattern: a smattering of new discoveries bolstered by the works of long-time favorite writers. Reading these latter writers is always a bittersweet experience, as many of them are dead and I have either read all or most of their works by now. So it is with a somewhat heavy heart that I find myself reading the final few titles of writers such as Thomas Bernhard, of whom this year I closed out my reading of all his available prose translated into English. Although rereading books is a practice I rarely engage in, I find myself more drawn to the idea as I reflect on whether it would be more rewarding to rediscover and/or find new layers of appreciation in books I’ve already read than to continue casting about for new gems that I never seem able to unearth. It may soon be that I stop seeking the new altogether and retreat to my reading cave with a stack of favorites. But for now, here are my top reads for this year, in chronological order, with a few notes and links to my reviews. All books were either rated 4 or 5 stars on Goodreads and tagged with my ‘somewhere else’ tag, which denotes a book that has truly taken me somewhere else.
Swallowing Mercury by Wioletta Greg: I have a special fondness for Polish literature—I wouldn’t say I’ve read a lot of Polish writers, but all the ones I have read stand out in my mind, head and shoulders above many other writers. Unfortunately, Greg’s linked follow-up to this semi-autobiographical coming-of-age novel did not measure up to the poetic magic found in these pages.
The Orchid Stories by Kenward Elmslie: One of the strangest books I’ve ever read. I can’t say the experience was consistently enjoyable, per se, but it certainly was worthwhile.
The Death of Conrad Unger by Gary J. Shipley: As you can see, I didn’t actually write anything about this book, only pulled a few quotes that struck me. Discovering Shipley’s writing was a reading highlight this year, though as with the fiction of writers such as Maurice Blanchot, I sometimes find it hard to write about it. But Shipley’s unique style of philosophical horror fiction is an important strand of literature needling its way forward into the future of our doomed planet.
Terminal Park by Gary J. Shipley: Relevant reading for dark times.
Failure to Thrive by Meghan Lamb: Meghan Lamb continues to impress me and remains one of the most interesting younger American writers I’ve come across. So much of the contemporary American literary fiction landscape is dominated by craft-oriented writers whose fiction leaves me cold. Lamb is one of the few I’ve discovered who is clearly dedicated to her craft yet still writes compelling stories with real emotion woven into them.
Frances Johnson by Stacey Levine: I’d read Levine’s novel Dra– a few years ago and really enjoyed it but hadn’t gotten to any of her other books until this year. I liked this darkly whimsical tale of a woman approaching middle age so much that I also read Levine’s two story collections this year.
The Lighted Burrow by Max Blecher: Blecher’s novel Adventures in Immediate Irreality is a favorite of mine, and so I was thrilled to see that Sublunary Editions was publishing this one in English translation by the talented writer-translator Christina Tudor-Sideri. While not as irreal as Adventures, this is still a powerful book of autofiction drawn from Blecher’s time in sanatoriums across Europe.
Scarred Hearts by Max Blecher: Craving more Blecher after consuming The Lighted Burrow, I turned to his only other work of fiction, which offers a much more straightforward story than his other books. Still centered on illness and convalescence, this one is a little more distanced in the telling, in part due to the third-person viewpoint. All of Blecher’s work is essential in my view, though. I’ve only sampled his poetry but expect to delve into it at a deeper level soon.
The Edge of the Object by Daniel Williams: I’ve been reading and enjoying Daniel Williams’s writing (mostly) online for a long time so was happy to find that his debut novel was being published. The craftsmanship that went into the production of this book is as much on display as Williams’s deftness with the English language. Truly a one-of-a-kind book.
Beyond the Curve by Kōbō Abe: This is a ‘best of’ type collection of Abe’s short fiction and while not every story is a knockout, many of them are very good. I find Abe to be consistently interesting and his recurring themes of alienation, isolation, social ineptitude, anxiety, and paranoia always resonate with me.
New and Selected Stories by Cristina Rivera Garza: I read this one in a group discussion forum on Goodreads. Rivera Garza is always thought-provoking, though overall I think I prefer her novels to her short stories. The stories that held the most appeal for me in this collection were those that shared common thematic and stylistic ground with her two excellent novels The Iliac Crest and The Taiga Syndrome.
The Dark Bough by Henri Bosco: Bosco’s masterpiece Malicroix was a favorite of mine from 2020, and ever since then I’d been wringing my hands over whether to spring for a copy of this other novel of his. Malicroix had been a NYRB reissue, but this one was very old and out of print. Probably by most actual book collectors’ standards the prices for this online were not much to fret over, but I don’t buy a lot of books in general (diehard library user here), and rarely do I spend over US$20 for a book. However, after exhausting all efforts to find this through interlibrary loan I finally gave in and sprang for a used copy. Though the novel is not at the same level as Malicroix, it was still well worth the money spent. I hope that NYRB or another publisher decides to reissue this one, too.
Thomas Bernhard: 3 Days: Three days of Thomas Bernhard sitting on a park bench and talking about himself and other matters—what’s not to love? Pair this with Bernhard’s memoir Gathering Evidence and you will receive as comprehensive an image of Bernhard the person as he was willing to make public.
Prose by Thomas Bernhard: Bernhard is much more well-known for his novels than for his short stories, so I was a little wary approaching this one, but it ended up being very good and in a slightly different way than his novels, which was a pleasant surprise.
The Anniversary of Never by Joel Lane: Lane is a favorite ‘weird fiction’ writer of mine and this collection of his was recently reissued. His fictive milieu is not to be rivaled in its unique flavor: a dark gloomy West Midlands landscape peopled by lost souls struggling to connect.
Watchmen by Alan Moore: Yeah, I finally read it and it was good. Pretty much rendered any subsequent superhero comics irrelevant.
Three Novellas by Thomas Bernhard: Clearly I became gluttonous in my reading of Bernhard again, but it was worth it—his writing was a tangible flotation device to cling to when I felt like I was sinking.
Under the Sign of the Labyrinth by Christina Tudor-Sideri: This was the first of Tudor-Sideri’s two books that I read this year. She is a challenging writer to read—restless and relentlessly questioning in her prose, often retreating to ambiguity—but always rewarding.
Disembodied by Christina Tudor-Sideri: Tudor-Sideri’s first novel is a single paragraph of digressive and fragmented prose, delivered by a narrator in her final breath.
Chasm by Dorothea Tanning: The only novel by Surrealist artist and writer Dorothea Tanning. A rare single-day read for me that checked a lot of my personal reading boxes.
The Voice Imitator by Thomas Bernhard: I’d been avoiding this book for years because I couldn’t imagine Bernhard’s writing in such microscopic form, but I ended up really enjoying these early little fictions of his.
Private Property by Mary Ruefle: It had been quite a while since I’d read Mary Ruefle, but she’s always been a favorite of mine so I knew I’d get back to her sooner or later. This one is up there close to her best work in the form where I think she excels the most—short prose pieces that range from the poetic to the essayistic.
On the Mountain: Rescue Attempt, Nonsense by Thomas Bernhard: This was Bernhard’s earliest known prose work and the one he chose to have published last in his lifetime. It’s possible that only the most dedicated Bernhard readers would enjoy this, for it is very much an embryonic work for such a storied writer, but I found it to be fascinating and a fitting close to my reading of his prose works. (What now? Perhaps I will begin staging his plays as solo shows in my house…)
Play It as It Lays by Joan Didion: Finally got around to reading some Didion and it didn’t disappoint. This falls in line with other novels I’ve read from the same era by women writers such as Ann Quin, Renata Adler, and, to a lesser extent, Joy Williams. But Didion’s style is distilled to such a purity of focus that it perhaps encapsulates that particular zeitgeist of the late 1960s/early 1970s best of all.
The Shutter of Snow by Emily Holmes Coleman: This novel based on Coleman’s own experience in a psychiatric hospital delivers a pitch-perfect blend of horror, outrage, pathos, and absurdity. To be filed alongside Ann Quin’s The Unmapped Country, Anna Kavan’s Asylum Piece, and Leonora Carrington’s Down Below as another exemplar of literature exposing the cruelty, hypocrisy, and inhumanity inherent in the forced institutionalization of women, in particular.
Posted by sean on December 27, 2022
https://sd-stewart.com/2022/12/27/2022-in-reading/
publications update
A Set of Lines is now available through the Ingram distribution network, so basically from anywhere that sells books. However, it will likely only be on the physical shelves of bookstores where I sell it on consignment. Currently that includes Quimby’s in Chicago and Atomic Books in Baltimore. If you’d like to support your local bookshop you can either ask them to special order it or you can order the book from Bookshop.org, where independent bookstores receive the full profit from each sale. You can designate which store you’d like to benefit, or it will go into an earnings pool that is distributed equally among independent bookstores.
Hatred of Writing, Bunker Diaries, and Inner Harbor Field Reports have also been restocked at Quimby’s Bookstore and Atomic Books. There are order links at the bottom of both of those pages. These are the last copies, so when they sell out these titles will be out of print.
No new publications on the horizon at the moment, but maybe that will change soon. In the meantime, I’ll be continuing to collaborate on writing for Ghost Paper Archives.
Posted by sean on February 9, 2022
https://sd-stewart.com/2022/02/09/publications-update/
2021 in reading
Better late than never with this, I guess. 2021 was even more of a chronological smear than 2020. When I look back at everything that went down—both in my personal life and in the world at large—I can’t comprehend how all of it happened in a mere 365 days, especially when the last few years leading up to this one seem in retrospect to have been so (relatively) uneventful (uh…no, scratch that…and hindsight in general). At times I felt like I was living in a horrorscape this year—partly of my own making and partly sculpted by forces outside my control. The second half of the year was much worse than the first, and now that it’s over I feel depleted. Normally I’d bury my head in the sand and try to read my way through these brutal periods, but that wasn’t working this year. I ended up reading just barely over half of my total for 2020. At a certain point I gave up on writing reviews for the most part, as well—there was simply no time for writing. Unfortunately this lead to a further feeling of disconnection from what I had read.
In looking at what I did manage to read, unsurprisingly I see a lot of aimless casting about for distraction. I ricocheted from new-to-me writers (for example, trying to find my footing with Marie NDiaye; finally reading Stoner after first shelving it seven years ago [not worth the long wait]; diving headfirst into Blake Butler’s work with Scorch Atlas, the experience of which by contrast actually made the last couple of years seem festive) to unread titles by old favorites (Marguerite Duras, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Denton Welch, Joy Williams). In between—when pages of prose alone felt too weighty—I gorged on a passel of graphic novels (highlights: Chris Reynolds’ The New World: Comics from Mauretania, Charles Burns’ Last Look trilogy, and several books by Martin Vaughn-James).
A few other stand-outs:
Best book out of left field: Negative Space by B. R. Yeager
Best book I wish I’d read a long time ago: The Driver’s Seat by Muriel Spark (read in omnibus edition)
Best book to suit my mood at the time I read it: The Moment by Peter Holm Jensen
Best book that is also a great movie: Valerie and Her Week of Wonders by Vítězslav Nezval
The most important reading lesson I (re)learned this year is that I can’t ignore the need to read for comfort. This year was a reminder that reading is not always about expanding my thinking, broadening my view of the world, or whatever other pseudo-lofty b.s. qualities I might in my weaker moments ascribe to it. Sometimes I need to experience the pleasure of reading solely for its own sake—unfortunately my ability (and willingness) to do that has declined in recent years. When I look back over what I read in 2021, I realize that I took the most comfort in reading Joy Williams and Denton Welch—two very different writers, but both masters of their craft whose skill at fitting words together facilitates a transcendent experience for me. In general I want more of that.
Looking ahead to 2022…I have no concrete reading goals, but I think I will probably read less and hopefully enjoy more of the books I’m able to finish. Writing more reviews again would also be nice.
Happy New Year!
Posted by sean on January 4, 2022
https://sd-stewart.com/2022/01/04/2021-in-reading/
‘caught between writing and life’: peter holm jensen’s the moment
The first psithuristic wisp of autumn arrived this week. Early August and the heat retreated with a whimper in the presence of the death season’s harbinger. Odd to experience this with all the news of raging fires out west. It has been dry here, though, it has been that. Will we too one day be engulfed in flames? More likely floods.
I have been occupied with and preoccupied by disruptions and transitions in my quotidian existence. This has led to feeling disconnected from the written word, excepting my dealings with it for which I receive monetary compensation. However, I did finish reading a book—The Moment by Peter Holm Jensen. A subdued but riveting read, it was calling to me from a special box I’d packed of most-likely-to-be-read-next books. So I answered its call.
Per its publisher Splice, The Moment is a novel but it reads like a journal of its author. Is this an important consideration? Probably not, at least not to me. Frankly I long ago grew tired of the inevitable questions around the mingling of autobiography and fiction. I like works that resist being genrefied. Even the term autofiction seems absurd to me—as if any fiction exists that does not contain parts of its author. What exactly those parts are and what percentage of a book they represent should not matter when it comes to evaluating and appreciating the finished work.
These days I find it far easier to filter my reflections through others’ written words (or music) rather than document them using my own words. It actually feels like it has been this way for far too long. And this is a significant part of what resonated so deeply with me in Holm Jensen’s book: the struggle of living with the paradox of a simultaneous passion for and distrust of language, and in particular the written word.
As the narrator grapples with this paradox, he is also documenting a blurring of the intentional and unintentional experience of living in ‘the moment’—of finding over time that opening into greater awareness, from which more insight may flow. And because the transition to moment living is continuing to happen as the narrator is writing about it, there is a sense of gradual unfolding, with attendant periods of uncertainty and confusion. But what accumulates through the narrator’s journal is evidence that each moment is indeed unique, provided one is open to noticing it.
I was reminded of how all the books I’ve read by Buddhist teachers seem to repeat the same simple ideas over and over until it eventually becomes clear that what at first appear to be the simplest concepts are actually the most complex when it comes to putting them into practice. While Holm Jensen’s book is not overtly Buddhist in nature, it does touch on ideas and questions common to Buddhist practice. But it also entwines these with questions around the act of writing and its significance, leaving those questions—as they can only ever remain—unanswered.
The Moment is a book I think best read without much foreknowledge of its contents, which is why I’ve not delved into any of its narrative specifics here. However, I did write a brief review on Goodreads that offers just a skeletal overview. I hope you consider seeking out the book.
The moment lurks inside everyday time; always new, always the same. It waits to give you back your life, like an event long prepared without your knowledge, like an act of fate. It needs you: your ragged past, your timid present, your whirl of thoughts, your hoard of words. It waits for you to step into the light of day, where it can find you and let you come into your own.
—Peter Holm Jensen
Posted by sean on August 7, 2021
https://sd-stewart.com/2021/08/07/caught-between-writing-and-life-peter-holm-jensens-the-moment/
A Set of Lines review
The writer Rebecca Gransden posted an incisive review of A Set of Lines on Goodreads. Excerpt below:
There is a shorthand inherent in tackling dystopian themes, and Stewart moulds a knowing backdrop, using that shorthand to create a scaffolding which amplifies the atmosphere of benumbed melancholy. Throughout, there is an overwhelming sense of longing underneath the surface, a longing obfuscated and perhaps suppressed for so long, that its very function is being forgotten. The unconscious mind and its rebellion against passivity in the face of the denial of human wants and dignities is very present in this novel.
Posted by sean on February 14, 2021
https://sd-stewart.com/2021/02/14/a-set-of-lines-review/
2020 in books and music
The less said about this year the better (at the moment and in this space, at least).
My current total of books read for the year stands at 136 and I’m sure I’ll finish a few more before year’s end, though they probably won’t make this list, so I’m posting it earlier than usual. I will update later if this changes. As it turns out I read more books last year, but I suspect I spent more actual hours reading this year due to the circumstances. I think I read more longer books this year, which probably accounts for the difference. Once Goodreads provides my year-end stats I can compare number of pages read and see if this is the case (Update: turns out my suspicions were off the mark—so far I’ve read about 10,000 less pages this year than my total for last year. Definitely not going to make up that difference in the next couple of weeks).
Concentration was definitely a problem this year. As a result I found myself switching between books, starting and stopping books, and completely abandoning books more than usual. But reading remained my top leisure activity and provided a safe refuge from the chaos and negative energy in the world.
If you’re a Goodreads user you can view my entire list of books read here.
Top reads (in order within each genre by date read):
Note: in most cases links are to my Goodreads reviews, not all of which are actual reviews)
Novels/Novellas:
The Box Man / Kōbō Abe (review)
Wide Sargasso Sea / Jean Rhys (review)
The Atrocity Exhibition / J. G. Ballard (review)
The Doll / Lukas Tomin (review)
Dézafi / Frankétienne (review)
The Golden Cut / Merl Fluin (review)
The Diary of Mr. Pinke / Ewald Murrer (review)
Mount Analogue / René Daumal (review)
Rogomelec / Leonor Fini (review)
Mangled Hands / Johnny Stanton (review)
The Model / Robert Aickman (review)
The Narrator / Michael Cisco (review)
The Undying Present / Syd Staiti (review)
The Warren / Brian Evenson (review)
Yesterday / Ágota Kristóf (review)
Such Small Hands / The Bridges / Tarjei Vesaas (review)
Malicroix / Henri Bosco (review)
The Left Hand of Darkness / Ursula K. Le Guin
Short Stories:
All of Your Most Private Places / Meghan Lamb (review)
Secret Hours / Michael Cisco (review)
The Sleep of the Righteous / Wolfgang Hilbig (review)
Waystations of the Deep Night / Marcel Brion (review)
Unreasonable Hours / Julio Cortázar (review)
The Delicate Prey and Other Stories / Paul Bowles (review)
Morbid Tales / Quentin S. Crisp (review)
The Doll Maker and Other Tales of the Uncanny / Sarban (review)
The Sea-Rabbit; Or, the Artist of Life / Wendy Walker (review)
The Unsettled Dust / Robert Aickman (review)
The Earth Wire / Joel Lane (review)
Poetry:
Autumn Sonata: Selected Poems / Georg Trakl (review)
A Certain Plume / Henri Michaux (review)
Coma Crossing: Collected Poems / Roger Gilbert-Lecomte (review)
The Last Gold of Expired Stars: Complete Poems 1908–1914 / Georg Trakl (review)
Drama:
Complete Plays / Sarah Kane (review)
Cross-Genre:
The House of Illnesses / Unica Zürn (review)
Nights as Day, Days as Night / Michel Leiris (review)
The Star Opens Slowly / Casi Cline (review)
Desire for a Beginning Dread of One Single End / Edmond Jabès (review)
Wasteland / New Juche (review)
Literary Anthologies:
Man in the Black Coat: Russia’s Literature of the Absurd / Oberiuty (review)
Nonfiction:
The Trouble With Being Born / E. M. Cioran (review)
Mutations: The Many Strange Faces of Hardcore Punk / Sam McPheeters (review)
Comix:
The Portable Frank / Jim Woodring (review)
Nijigahara Holograph / Inio Asano
Gast / Carol Swain (review)
My Favorite Thing Is Monsters: Vol. 1 / Emil Ferris (review)
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MUSIC
I listened to a lot of mixes this year, as opposed to full albums, so I’m keeping the list short, tailored mostly to bands whose songs I keep replaying. I will note that not much has changed with my favorites over the past few years. Occasionally a new band gets added to the heavy rotation roster, but it’s often within an existing favored genre. Nearly everything Justin Broadrick touches continues to floor me. The drone doom and wider post-metal genres in general are popular zones, supplemented with frequent forays into ambient, post-punk, industrial, and retro trips to hardcore, punk, and 80s alternative rock. Much like with my reading tastes, a solidification seems to have occurred. I blame middle age.
The (very) abridged list of what got me through 2020, in no particular order (links in most cases direct to artist Bandcamp pages):
True Widow
Emma Ruth Rundle
Helms Alee
Thou
Jesu
Final
Transitional
Scorn
Nadja
Pelican
Seefeel
Dead Can Dance
Posted by sean on December 13, 2020
https://sd-stewart.com/2020/12/13/2020-in-books-and-music/
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