Luis Panini

Ecstatic!

Worked all day. Went to a bookstore. Both titles were sold out. Drove to another. Found them a few minutes ago. Can’t read them now. Still happy to have them.

Pausing the Dostoevsky read through I started at the beginning of the year (I need a short break from his voice). Up next: the complete fiction of Albert Camus.

How does one engage with a writer whose body of work seems to represent the epitome of solipsistic creation? His purported novels are no more than countless vignettes conjoined in a universe of hopelessness, solitude, and total indifference. Award the Nobel Prize to Botho Strauß.

I could “attempt” at reading the text in Galician, but like you said, her use of language is not traditional (at least in many of the poems), so I stick with Spanish translations. She’s phenomenal.

She’s recorded in a tongue on the verge of collapse a litany of transposable voices and disjointed perspectives that reject Manichaean dualities, all to create the foundations of refurbished identities that can neither be named nor described. Award the Nobel Prize to Chus Pato.

In his exceedingly long poetic sequences –always epic in scale– polyphony can turn into a cacophony of everyday voices as he renders, in a most accessible way, a peculiar migrant experience while expanding the possibilities of the poem. Award the Nobel Prize to Π.O. (Pi O).

My goodness. You are too kind. I really appreciate your words. I’ve been off for a couple of weeks (dealing with a personal tragedy), but I’ll share a few (new) names as of tomorrow.

Thank you. I hope so too.

My favorite of hers (so far) is Flights. I haven’t read anything by her since 2019, but very curious about these 2. She’s solid. Maybe is not your kind of author and that’s ok. Happens to me with many that most people find extraordinary and I just feel like I missed something too.

Thank you, Karen. I didn’t know that about The Emposium. Sounds amazing. I’m not the biggest fan of Mann, but I still want to read his Doctor Faustus. Having said that, his Snow chapter in TMM is top notch.

Yesterday’s purchases… I had read everything by Olga Tokarczuk available in English translation before she got the big prize, but nothing that was translated after it, so I need to remedy that. And The Sea, the Sea has been on my radar for many years. It’ll be my first Murdoch.

Did I drive like a maniac to my local bookstore upon learning that Eimear McBride’s latest novel hit the shelves on this side of the Atlantic?
Is the night dark and full of terrors?🙄

Thank you. I really appreciate the support. I hope you’ll find some new names among this year’s selection. There will be very few and somewhat unknown outside their countries of origin.

His intellectually rigorous novels —mental abodes of a late Modernist that may produce in the reader a permanent feeling of vertigo—, masterfully explore the complexities of entropic realities, even through the consciousness of a disembodied entity. Award the Nobel Prize to Joseph McElroy.

Thank you, Elizabeth. 🙏

Thank you so much for your kind words. I’m at peace knowing that I did everything possible for her. Didn’t want to see her go, but she was about to enter a phase of suffering that I was not going to allow.

Thank you, Bryce. I appreciate your support. Jacinta’s sister passed away 3 years ago and not a day goes by in which I don’t think about her. I know I’m still grieving and I don’t see an end to it, but now is manageable.

I do, Rachel. Her sister passed away 3 years ago and I’m still not fully recovered. Think of her every day. Thank you. 🙏

Thank you, Kristy. 🙏

I’ve been thinking about that. Living without cats is not an option. Life is so much richer. So much love in it. And the idea of adopting more and giving them the life they deserve is so beautiful. I don’t think I’m quite ready yet, but have visited a few rescue shelters recently just to see them.

Thank you so much. 🙏

Thank you, Tim. 🙏

Exactly. I went through some rough stuff in the last couple of years. Jacinta’s presence was a balm. No matter how awful things got, she made me feel whole again.

Thank you kindly, Jacqui. 🙏

You’re so sweet, Kim. Thank you. The emptiness in the house is almost unbearable. So sorry you went through the same, but glad to know that you can relate because you know exactly what it means to spend a big chunk of our lives caring for these little bundles of pure love.

Thank you for your sweet words, Déborah.

Jacinta, the love of my life, left this world on Aug 1 at 2:59PM, shortly after turning 19 y.o. She passed away peacefully, in my arms (my request to the vet), while I whispered words of goodbye and gratitude, kissed her beautiful face, and rocked her gently, like the sweet baby she always was.

McElroy's language is a sort of liquid. His subordinate clauses, liberated from commas, constantly bleed into the main sentence. Highly ciphered, awe-inspiring, unequivocally dumbfounding novels you don’t need to fully decrypt to appreciate. Literary titans are almost extinct. Almost.

So have I!