Steve Mitchelmore

“Without Certainty”: A Translation for Peter Handke’s 83rd Birthday December 6, 1942. Peter Handke is 83 years old today. One of the distinct pleasures of my life has been translating some of Handke’s work, including Voyage by Dugout, To Duration, A Journey t…

For Peter Handke's 83rd birthday. thegoaliesanxiety.wordpress.com/2025/12/06/w...

"Gabriel Josipovici at Eighty-Five"
www.pnreview.co.uk/archive/gabr...

The future of literary criticism Much of online activity related to literature involves posting quotations from novels, invariably without commentary and attributed to the b...

My partial response to Timothy Bewes' Free Indirect: The Novel in the Age of Postfiction. this-space.blogspot.com/2025/11/the-...

<i>On the Calculation of Volume 1</i> by Solvej Balle The premise of this multi-volume novel is simple: a modern-day French woman called Tara finds herself stuck inside the eighteenth day of a N...

Another review that doesn't realise the significance of that particular date. this-space.blogspot.com/2025/06/on-c...

A bit lumpy for soup, wouldn't you say?

In the post today, the third volume of the new translation, this one by Peter Bush. And for under a tenner from Blackwell's.

Cioran XV I cannot imagine a dinner party that would not be improved by violence.

"I cannot imagine a dinner party that would not be improved by violence."

For dinner party, read book club.
oldoldoldoldnew.substack.com/p/cioran-xv

The crisis of narration and the future of the novel, part two Byung-Chul Han says in The Crisis of Narration that modernity "is animated by a belief in progress" and its narratives "radiate an aura bec...

"The crisis for the novel in our time is that there is no crisis." this-space.blogspot.com/2025/11/the-...

"It's the lack of humor, the deadly seriousness of contemporary novelists like Olga Tokarczuk, Jon Fosse, and László Krasznahorkai, who seem to be the darlings of literary critics, that I find off-putting and even depressing."

Gabriel Josipovici : la vie labyrinthe et le fil de l’écriture Parution du «Cimetière à Barnes» dont le personnage principal est un traducteur non écrivain, «malgré son amour des mots et des rythmes de la langue». Un livre du romancier britannique qui interrog...

"Lightness and humor are qualities I hold in very high regard. The artists of the last century who most excite me—Stravinsky, Picasso, Klee, Eliot, Proust, Kafka—all possess them."
www.liberation.fr/culture/livr...

"Victory to Vietnamese" (sic) graffiti still visible on the line between Fratton and Portsmouth & Southsea stations.

Georges Perec Criticism: Celebrations In a House of Fiction - Gabriel Josipovici - eNotes.com In the following review, Josipovici favorably reviews Life: A User's Manual, but finds fault with the English translation by David Bellows.

This review says the novel is "translated and edited extremely carelessly". www.enotes.com/topics/georg...

There's always the Webpage Archive: archive.ph/9ncTY

European Graduate School Podcast

New podcast from the European Graduate School featuring interviews with Christopher Fynsk and Avital Ronell. shows.acast.com/egs-podcast/...

The Great Philosophers - Series 1: 1. Plato Myles Burnyeat looks at Plato, the first western philosopher whose written works have survived.

Anyone in the UK or who has access to iPlayer, Bryan Magee's series from the 80s The Great Philosophers is being repeated tonight on BBC4. www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

The crisis of narration and the future of the novel, part one My disappointment with the contemporary novel has been an occasional feature on this blog. Fourteen years ago I asked myself whether I had ...

On Byung-Chul Han's The Crisis of Narration.
this-space.blogspot.com/2025/09/the-...

Nearly 20 years ago Arcade books announced Richard Howard's translation of Cioran's Cahiers. There was even a cover. But it never appeared. Searching for news just now, I discovered this: dustyhope.com/bel/emil-cio...

Indeed. And the Scud Mountain Boys before them.

YouTube video by FrohleinU B. S. Johnson by Pernice Brothers

Also, how many songs are named after authors? Here's the Pernice Brothers glorious contribution. youtu.be/Bexd18r6ZSU?...

YouTube video by Daniel Walwin Fat Man on a Beach (1973) film by B.S. Johnson dir. Michael Bakewell

Relevant trivia: my friend Morris' first job in the film industry was on Fat Man on the Beach, though he's not listed on IMDB. www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j70...

Found this on a secondhand stall selling supermarket fiction.

(no title)

Lars Iyer has a new website now that Typepad is closing down. larsiyer.co.uk

Ceaseless Imaginative Striving: A Review of Gabriel Josipovici’s Partita / A Winter in Zürau By Jeff Bursey   “In those months Kafka came to understand that you cannot articulate or grasp final truths, only dramatize the burning need to do so and the impossibility of so doing…” —A Win…

Over a year since it was published and this is only the second review. Very welcome nonetheless.

bigother.com/2025/09/10/c...

Thanks – I saw it last night, and I can vouch for Jeff Bursey.

Reading, forgetting When John Updike read À la recherche du temps perdu  after having read Scott-Moncrieff's translation, he was surprised to find Proust less P...

How can we sleep? A post in response to reading @avecsesdoigts.bsky.social's
translation of volume 2 of In Search of Lost Time. this-space.blogspot.com/2025/09/read...

Looking at the suggestions for a replacement, I may never be able to listen once he's gone.

"In an in-between time in which nothing begins or ends, in which blank patience takes the place of activity, I picked two books from my shelves stubbornly remote from utility, lacking the intimacy of possession" this-space.blogspot.com/2025/08/read...

Rosalind Belben Reflects on the Foreplay of Wordplay - Electric Literature The author of “Dreaming of Dead People” discusses sexuality, double standards in art, and the vicissitudes of literary publishing

An interview with Rosalind Belben on the reissue of her 1979 novel Dreaming of Dead People. electricliterature.com/rosalind-bel...

Save our pioneering widening participation undergraduate degree in English Literature and Community Engagement at the University of Bristol 19 August 2025 Dear Evelyn Welch (Vice-Chancellor) cc Judith Squires (Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Provost), Tansy Jessop (Pro Vice-Chancellor for Education and Students) The School of Humanities has ...

Please help. Our department runs a groundbreaking part-time degree programme in English Literature and Community Engagement, known as ELCE, designed for mature students who didn't or couldn't do a degree at 18. The University of Bristol has decided to close it.
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...