October 14th, 2008 / 5:35 pm
Uncategorized

Memory Genre Sidenote

In relation to my rant on ‘memory loss trauma’ books that spoil the beef by wrapping it all together in kitsch and with a ribbon on top, if you want to see an example of a book that pulls off this kind of narrative in a way that feels authentic, new, and more valuable even than the sum of its parts, check out Robert Lopez’s PART OF THE WORLD, which is not only fun and entirely readable, but also does something new with language and sentence formation, which, if you aren’t paying attention to in writing, I’d say, you might as well be writing for the screen.

And for further reading, pretty much anything by Brian Evenson, especially in this case, THE OPEN CURTAIN, is so far beyond what the scope of the Galchen and McCarthy are going for, might as well just skip the training wheels and hit the big ride.

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12 Comments

  1. tao

      yes, i like ‘part of this world’

  2. tao

      yes, i like ‘part of this world’

  3. tao

      yes, i like ‘part of this world’

  4. tao

      ‘part of the world’

  5. tao

      ‘part of the world’

  6. tao

      ‘part of the world’

  7. Blake Butler

      ‘out of this part of the world’

  8. Blake Butler

      ‘out of this part of the world’

  9. Blake Butler

      ‘out of this part of the world’

  10. mike fallon

      I thought this was a great book and within its aloof and disconnected present there is an intertextual memory that loops (I probably missed a bunch) Beckett, Homer, Milton, Hemingway (ahem), and also the constant diversions to Chinese food that riff this cool novel.

      It’s mean week, so I’ll add that there are people in this world that I am going to

  11. mike fallon

      I thought this was a great book and within its aloof and disconnected present there is an intertextual memory that loops (I probably missed a bunch) Beckett, Homer, Milton, Hemingway (ahem), and also the constant diversions to Chinese food that riff this cool novel.

      It’s mean week, so I’ll add that there are people in this world that I am going to

  12. mike fallon

      I thought this was a great book and within its aloof and disconnected present there is an intertextual memory that loops (I probably missed a bunch) Beckett, Homer, Milton, Hemingway (ahem), and also the constant diversions to Chinese food that riff this cool novel.

      It’s mean week, so I’ll add that there are people in this world that I am going to