R.A. Littman

The Obscene Bird of Night by José Donoso

This book really opens up on a reread. I'm so glad I gave Obscene Bird a second chance. A truly unique and inspiring work of art

No, this was how I found out about her! Even more exciting knowing that she's a poet

All the posts I've been seeing are really making me look forward to The Wax Child being available here

Genuinely saddened to hear this

It was a bit like reading Bolaño. There's clearly something interesting there, but there's simply too much missing. I really don't understand why they're put on such a high pedestal

Satantango was disappointing. It wasn't bad, but Krasznahorkai just seems extremely overhyped. I don't know if I'll be reading any more of him

Can't believe Woody Allen is voting for a known sexual predator.

I wonder what this means for his new novel where he'll finally leave his comfort zone and explore *checks description* an age gap relationship

I have a seperate account for politics that I use when I feel like making bad mental health decisions, with this account being exclusively for writing/books. If a book person posts too much about politics, I just won't follow them.

Ever since Kirk, the two timelines have become indistinguishable

Krasznahorkai cowrote Damnation with Tarr. That would do it

I watched Weapons last night, and while it was better than Barbarian, it was still painfully mediocre. I genuinely don't understand the hype around Cregger

Finally getting around to Satantango. I can see why Bela Tarr works with Krasznahorkai—they have a very similar vibe. Satantango hits me similarly to Damnation

The Flanders Road by Claude Simon

Reading The Flanders Road by Claude Simon and fucking hell is this good. I will definitely be reading more of him. Haven't been this excited about an author in a while

I hate everything about this

I saw this post before the one that explained it and was very worried for a moment. Then I read the poem and became worried again!

Happy un-birthday!

Currently giving this book another shot and I'm enjoying it vastly more this time around.

It helps that I read and loved Hell Has No Limits. Developing a certain level of trust with an author makes it easier to give a larger, more ambitious novel space to do its thing

“Men go through life telling themselves a moment must come when they will show what they're made of. And the moment comes, and they do show. And they spend the rest of their days explaining that was neither the moment nor the true self.”
― Shirley Hazzard, The Transit of Venus

Increasingly convinced the main damage cell phones have done to creativity isn't decreased attention spans or what not but the elimination of productive boredom. Inspiration comes from the mind filling the void inside. Hard to make art when you're constantly silencing the silence with "content."

Also, fuck his birthday. He wrote a few good books, but he was a groomer scumbag. Why celebrate him as a person?

"Keep a little fire burning; however small, however hidden."

It's McCarthy's birthday, so I'm seeing this quote a lot again.

What better way to tell that someone hasn't actually read him? Aside from it never appearing in The Road, it uses a semicolon. You think McCarthy's gonna use a semicolon?

Immediately snagged this

2025 is apparently the year for disgraced comedians with a history of sexual assault and predation to publish their first novels.

You'll be shocked to learn that his publisher seems to focus on works of dog shit right wing contrarianism.

I wonder whose novel will be worse, his or Louis CK's

Damn me, but all things are queer, come to think of ’em.

YouTube video by Ali Saher Baghdad Night - Nasser Shamma

Forever making people listen to Baghdad Night

youtu.be/kw6Qbc3TaEU

I read it in a single sitting and afterwards swore I'd never read it again

You might not want to start with The Orchard Keeper. Suttree is by far his best book imo, and really the only one that I regularly reread

I'm always shocked when I read a draft of a novel after it's sat in a drawer for a few months and find that it's completely coherent and not awful

Hell Has No Limits by José Donoso

After the disappointment of The Obscene Bird of Night, Hell Has No Limits has redeemed Donoso for me. An excellent book, and an obvious influence on Hurricane Season.

I think I'm going to keep exploring Latin American lit. I've never enjoyed so many books in such a short span of time

I don't think there's anything wrong with reading multiple books at once! I usually have a few going at the same time, seperated by categories. So maybe one litfic, one non-fiction, and maybe also one genre thing depending on my mood

How many books are you reading at any given time? I feel like you always seem to be juggling quite a number!

Do you leave your drafts in the notebooks and organize by notebook?

I'm thinking I might draft the next novel by hand, but have so far only been doing it for short fiction. I've been using microperforated paper so that I can rip out the pages and then set them together