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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 / Andrés Barba (review)
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)

________________________________________________________________

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

2017 in books and music

Snow Bunting at North Point State Park, Maryland, USA. © 2016 S. D. Stewart

Following surgery to repair a pelvic fracture in January I was unable to put weight on my left leg for three months. One might think this would have resulted in a higher read count than usual for the year, but in fact my total fell short of my average over the past few years. Part of this was actually due to a concerted effort to slow down and read more leisurely. However, another reason was that once I was fully mobile I simply did not want to sit around reading, so I ended up reading much less in the second half of the year, though toward the end as bird migration tapered off and the weather grew colder my pace did pick up again.

Below is the list of books I assigned 5-star ratings on Goodreads in 2017. A number of books I rated 4 stars probably deserve a place here, too, but I had to draw the line somewhere. In the 4-star category I will mention the two Julien Gracq novels I read as being particularly noteworthy (The Castle of Argol and The Opposing Shore). Regrettably I believe both of these are out of print in English translation. However, I’m happy to report that NYRB has just reissued Gracq’s moodily atmospheric novel A Balcony in the Forest, so there’s hope now for future republication of his singular work in English.

In general this year was a good one for reissues of some of my favorite buried writers. Mid-20th century British avant-garde women writers fared especially well in 2017. Much of Leonora Carrington’s writing finally came back into print as part of the centennial celebration of her birth year, including short fiction collections in both U.S. and British editions, as well as her harrowing memoir Down Below and her children’s book The Milk of Dreams. A biography by Joanna Moorhead also appeared in the spring.

A 50th anniversary edition of Anna Kavan’s novel Ice came out from Penguin in the U.S. this fall. As the 50th anniverary of Kavan’s death approaches there has been a small surge of interest around her work. For example, the journal Women: A Cultural Review devotes its entire current issue to exploring various themes in Kavan’s work. Hopefully this new scholarship will help prompt Peter Owen to finally reprint Kavan’s mysterious novel Eagles’ Nest and the kaleidoscopic short fiction collection A Bright Green Field, both of which have inexplicably been languishing out of print for years. (For more on Anna Kavan visit the House of Sleep).

Finally, the brief but bright shooting star of Ann Quin’s literary career received a much-deserved coda when the subscription-based UK publisher And Other Stories released a collection of her unpublished stories and fragments, which includes the powerful (though incomplete) manuscript The Unmapped Country. This fragment had previously appeared in shorter form in the long out-of-print Beyond the Words anthology. (Note that non-subscribers will need to wait until mid-January 2018 for the official publication of this volume). While the publication of this book is a boon for Quin fans, it’s probably not the best place to start with her writing. In fact, her four published novels are all quite different, so it’s tough to suggest a starting point with Quin. On an initial recommendation, I began with Tripticks and actually did not care for it but still sensed there was something drawing me to Quin. I found that in Passages, which I consider to be her masterwork. Three comes in second place, followed by her debut, Berg. Thankfully, all of Quin’s novels remain in print courtesy of Dalkey Archive Press, bless their dedicated hearts.

I will just mention one other reissue of note, tangential to Ann Quin. In April, the micro press Verbivoracious Press (VP)* published the first volume of an omnibus edition of Alan Burns’ novels. Burns was part of a loosely connected band of British avant-garde writers in the 1960s that included Ann Quin, as well as B.S. Johnson, Eva Figes, Rayner Heppenstall, and others. His novel Europe After the Rain† draws interesting parallels to Kavan’s Ice and the relationship between the two novels is investigated in an article by Leigh Wilson in the previously mentioned issue of Women: A Cultural Review. In the past, VP, which specializes in reprinting ‘exploratory literature from Europe and beyond,’ also reissued a volume collecting two of Heppenstall’s novels (review), and many other experimental gems, including much of Christine Brooke-Rose‘s output.

*Unfortunately VP has closed its doors since this post appeared, so I have removed any relevant links.
†This novel was reprinted in 2019 by Calder.

2017 5-star books (in order read):

Being Upright: Zen Meditation and the Bodhisattva Precepts / Reb Anderson
The Passion of New Eve / Angela Carter (Review)
The Poor Mouth / Flann O’Brien (Review)
The Plains / Gerald Murnane (Review)
The Complete Stories of Leonora Carrington (Review)
When the Time Comes / Maurice Blanchot (Review)
Snow Part / Paul Celan (Review)
S.S. Proleterka / Fleur Jaeggy (Review)
The Way of Chuang Tzu / Thomas Merton (Review)
The Rings of Saturn / W. G. Sebald (Review)
Alejandra Pizarnik: A Profile / Alejandra Pizarnik (Review)
Old Rendering Plant / Wolfgang Hilbig (Review)

If you’re a Goodreads user, my full list of books read in 2017 can be found here.

2017 soundtrack:

Barn Owl (and solo work by Jon Porras and Evan Caminiti)
Belgrado
Drab Majesty
Emma Ruth Rundle
Gate
Goat
Grails
Grouper
ISIS
Keluar
Kodiak
Marriages
Nadja
Neurosis
Portion Control
Scorn
Tim Hecker
Yellow Swans
…and too much post-punk to list (mostly by way of this finding aid)

2 Comments

by sean on December 28, 2017 • Permalink

Posted in anna kavan, book reviews, books, drab majesty, gate, grails, grouper, julien gracq, keluar, leonora carrington, lists, michael morley, music, nadja, reading, tim hecker, yellow swans

Posted by sean on December 28, 2017

https://sd-stewart.com/2017/12/28/2017-in-books-and-music/

2016: my reading crisis year

This year I suffered a crisis of faith in reading fiction. It began early this summer and lasted for several months. At its deepest point I thought I might not ever read another novel. Its origins lay in a complex amalgamation of factors, including a long run of uninspiring reads, the completion of the final stages of a three-year writing project, and a profound deepening of my Zen Buddhist practice. The details of how these factors intersected are of a personal nature that I won’t explore here. Ultimately, however, I weathered this crisis and am pleased to report that I returned to fiction this autumn, albeit with a radically altered view of how I approach my reading and what I hope to extract from it. Perhaps I will write more about these changes in the future, but for now here are the highlights from my reading year, most of them from before the crisis hit. Most links are to my Goodreads reviews, but in cases where I didn’t write a review I’ve provided a publisher link when available.

I enjoyed spending more time with the British avant-gardists of the 1960s, including B.S. Johnson (Travelling People), Ann Quin (completing my reading of her slim output with Berg & Three), Alan Burns (Europe After the Rain & Dreamerika!), Rayner Heppenstall (The Greater Infortune / The Connecting Door), and those others included in the excellent anthology Beyond the Words.

The lost American Modernist Margery Latimer captured my attention, although after reading most of her published output, I found that We Are Incredible was the only work of hers to linger long with me.

Robert Coover’s The Origin of the Brunists was an expected winner in the spring. I look forward to moving on to the sequel The Brunist Day of Wrath, of which I’ve already read a tantalizing excerpt in Conjunctions (#60) a couple of years back.

At the end of the summer I confronted my crisis head-on and approached fiction again through the lens of some old favorites, namely Thomas Bernhard and Marguerite Duras. It was a bittersweet experience with Bernhard, as I was closing out his novels with his final opus, Extinction, and I had a mixed reaction, as I discuss in my review. With Duras, I discovered a new favorite of hers in Summer Rain, which regrettably appears to be out of print, though easy enough to find on the used market (or through interlibrary loan).

But it was Samuel Delany’s Dhalgren that truly immersed me in the wonders of fiction again. This one had been on my to-read list for several years, but its length led me to keep putting it off. I knew, though, that the frenetic pace of my reading had contributed to my crisis and I suspected that a long book might force me to slow down and allow proper digestion to take place. My hunch was correct, for Delany’s storytelling, while compelling and highly readable, demanded the downshift in pace that I so desperately needed to make. Review here.

Other favorites from the year:

Kassandra and the Wolf by Margarita Karapanou – defies description.

Tales of Galicia by Andrzej Stasiuk

The Weight of Things by Marianne Fritz – one of those books whose word count belies its depth. Plot materializes like a squid undulating in its own inky emissions.

The Quest for Christa T. by Christa Wolf – “The paths we really took are overlaid with paths we did not take. I can now hear words that we never spoke. Now I can see her as she was, Christa T., when no witnesses were present. Could it be possible? –The years that re-ascend are no longer the years they were. Light and shadow fall once more over our field of vision: but the field is ready. Should that not amaze us?” (p. 23)

My reading goal for 2017 is to maintain a more leisurely pace—no more gobbling down prose like a pig at the trough. I want to allow literature to seep into my consciousness and take root instead of finishing with restless haste before moving immediately onto the next book. I see more long books in my future, where there is space to lie down and rest awhile, where the last page doesn’t come too soon, leading me to veer off in yet another direction before first taking stock and reorienting myself.

4 Comments

by sean on December 22, 2016 • Permalink

Posted in books, lists, reading

Posted by sean on December 22, 2016

https://sd-stewart.com/2016/12/22/2016-my-reading-crisis-year/

favorite films watched in 2014

My film-watching habits are erratic to say the least, and there are often long periods where I don’t watch any films. I cannot claim to be a particularly informed or sophisticated viewer. I don’t see many films when they debut in the theater, relying instead on Netflix to manage my film viewing. If a film catches my eye in the media when it first appears, I add it to my queue for when it’s released on DVD. Other than that, I watch older films as they randomly come to my attention, through books, other people’s lists, interviews, etc. Often I watch films based on a particular actor or director. If I find someone I like, I’ll at least flirt with completism (a few examples are noted in the list below). But I don’t spend nearly as much time researching films to watch as I do researching books to read. As a result, I sometimes experience lackluster periods in my film viewing. This year, for example, was not particularly inspiring, and it was actually a little tough to come up with the arbitrary 10 I’ve included here, especially since I separated out the documentaries. Except as noted, I’ve included links to trailers, although in general I have some ambivalence toward trailers. The Bergman ones are notably bad, but they at least provide a taste of the films. I would’ve linked to the IMDB entries instead, but the ads on that site are oppressive. But enough apologies, here’s the list:

(Organized in descending order of film release date)

1. The Imitation Game (2014) – Benedict Cumberbatch – One of my favorite contemporary actors. This film was inspired by the book Alan Turing: The Enigma. I haven’t read the book, so can’t comment on how much the film departs from it. Seen in the theater.

2. The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) – Wes Anderson [director] – I place this one above both The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and The Darjeeling Unlimited, but still not at the level of his finest work.

3. Ida (2014) – Dark subject matter filmed in black and white, atmospheric, i.e. the sort of film I tend to automatically like. Seen in the theater.

4. I Used to Be Darker (2013) – Matt Porterfield [Baltimore filmmaker] – I’m not sure how much I’d like Porterfield’s films if they weren’t filmed in Baltimore. That said, I liked this one more than his first two, and the Baltimore setting seemed less important this time. It was also fun to recognize someone in the film whom I wasn’t expecting to see.

5. The Iceman (2013) – Michael Shannon – Another favorite actor. This film is much more violent than most that I watch, but I made an exception because of both Shannon and Winona Ryder.

6. Dirty Pretty Things (2002) – Audrey Tautou – I watched this because I like Tautou, but Chiwetel Ejiofor is equally good here, if not better. The trailer is awful, especially the voice-over, so I linked to the film’s website instead. I don’t recommend watching the trailer if you’re thinking of seeing the film, as it distorts the storyline. Also, the film’s title is incongruous with its content. I’m still puzzled by the title.

7. The Apostle (1997) – Robert Duvall – My film watching was especially sporadic during the 90s so I’m still catching up on the classics from that decade.

8. Persona (1966) – Ingmar Bergman – Still working my way through Bergman.

9. Winter Light (1963) – Ingmar Bergman – Ditto above. This is my second favorite of the Trilogy, the first being Through a Glass Darkly.

10. Last Year at Marienbad (1961) – Alain Robbe-Grillet [screenwriter] – Robbe-Grillet is known for his groundbreaking fictional work as part of the Nouveau Roman Movement. Some of his novels are favorites of mine and knowing he also wrote screenplays, I was curious about those. This is considered his masterpiece, and I found it to be deserving of that reputation.

Documentaries:

1. From One Second to the Next (2013) – Werner Herzog [director] – This link points to the full film. It’s only about 30 minutes long and is worth watching in its entirety, especially if you have ever used your mobile phone while driving. Herzog is a brilliant filmmaker whose other documentaries and feature films are also highly recommended.

2. Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction (2012) – Harry Dean Stanton – Another favorite actor. This documentary is less about Stanton as a person, and more about his skills as an actor. It’s a somber portrait of a man who has made a career out of acting natural in his many roles, yet without giving much of himself away. In this age of celebrity, few actors anymore are known to the public almost exclusively through their work. Stanton has managed to be one of those rare exceptions, though likely not without exerting significant effort in maintaining his privacy.

3. Last Days Here (2011) – An often painful-to-watch, yet redemptive portrait of Bobby Liebling, the singer of cult doom metal band Pentagram, who spent decades struggling with drug addiction, to the detriment of his music career.

belated lists for 2014

Happy New Year! Here are my belated lists of favorite books read and music listened to in 2014. Neither list is in any particular order. My reading slowed down in autumn when I took on Reiner Stach’s Kafka biographies. They ended up being my top favorites for the year, reminding me once again of my love for a good literary biography. As for music, it wasn’t a big year for new discoveries, but plenty of indulging in old favorites and a few newer passions from recent years. I tend to listen to music seasonally, so not all of these are in rotation year-round. I also plan to post a list of favorite films for the year, but that will take some extra time to compile as I don’t always make notes of what I watch.

Books

Completed reads: 72
Abandoned reads: 4

1. Kafka: The Decisive Years by Reiner Stach
2. Kafka: The Years of Insight by Reiner Stach
3. The Notebook, The Proof, The Third Lie: Three Novels by Agota Kristof
4. To Whom It May Concern by Raymond Federman
5. The Will to Sickness by Gerhard Roth
6. Kaddish for an Unborn Child by Imre Kertész
7. Yes by Thomas Bernhard
8. It Then by Danielle Collobert
9. Selected Poems of René Char by René Char
10. Life, End of by Christine Brooke-Rose
11. I Am Lazarus: Stories by Anna Kavan
12. Topology of a Phantom City by Alain Robbe-Grillet
13. Mauve Desert by Nicole Brossard
14. Song of the West: Selected Poems by Georg Trakl
15. A Schoolboy’s Diary and Other Stories by Robert Walser

Music

1. The Smiths
2. The Cure
3. Swans
4. Grails
5. Nadja
6. Jesu
7. Om
8. Lycia
9. Caudal
10. Boards of Canada
11. Gravenhurst (thanks, Dan; RIP Nick Talbot)
12. Nick Drake (mostly Pink Moon)
13. Skinny Puppy (mostly Remission, Bites, Rabies, & The Singles Collect)
14. Front Line Assembly (mostly The Initial Command & State of Mind)
15. Slowdive, with Low [live show with JFaunt ♥]
16. Helicon’s 29th Annual Winter Solstice Concert [live show]
17. Danny Paisley & The Southern Grass, with Chester River Runoff [live show]

2 Comments

by sean on January 7, 2015 • Permalink

Posted in books, lists, music, new year, reading

Posted by sean on January 7, 2015

https://sd-stewart.com/2015/01/07/belated-lists-for-2014/

variation on the list a la cpz

1. Baltimore orioles (the bird, not the team) on Falls Road and in my dream.
2. Scorching 60 miles (through the rain) to Gettysburg for the bluegrass fest.
3. Long solo rides in the county.
4. Snotty cyclists in the county who don’t wave: you are a nasty festering sore on the otherwise beautiful thing that is cycling.
5. Cyclists in the county who wave: you are awesome.
6. Hanging out with B&L: I love you.
7. More sightings of the noisy but elusive catbird.
8. Summer at my house.
9. Drivers who scream at me to use the bike trail while I’m riding on Falls Road: go to hell. It is my legal right to ride on the road, and I will ride there if I damn well please.
10. Drivers in general: go to hell. And take your blasted cars with you. Seriously, I’m at the end of my rope with you people.
11. Cookies from AR.
12. Patricia Piggleton.
13. Free vegan feast from the Hare Krishnas, even if they did try to convert me.
14. Bill Monroe.
15. Thomas Merton.
16. Dear friends in Colorado.
17. Commuting on my Nishiki.
18. Every Friday Dessert Club, despite its recent hiatus.
19. My legal counsel *heart*.
20. Living the life of Scorchy McScorcherson.