I don’t know why I’m surprised I didn’t enjoy this. I nearly always react poorly to post-modernism. But, I really *wanted* to enjoy it. Every time I’ve read Jane Eyre, I’ve thought Bertha Rochester, née Mason, got a really shit deal. I’ve also thought it was really suspect that we don’t actually get any evidence of her going mad prior to being locked in an attic for years and years. I mean, if I’d been locked in an attic for that long maybe I would start […]
A Collection of Entertaining Postmodern “Mystery” Novel(s).
I stumbled onto this book because I was chatting up an acquaintance and I mentioned I was into hard-boiled mysteries. He said, “Oh, you might like The New York Trilogy“. In retrospect, that’s like saying, “Oh, you like the show Friends? You might also like the movie Requiem for a Dream. It also has stuff about friends and family dynamics!” This is…different than what I had in mind. The only other way to talk about this book is to talk about talking about this book. […]
And when I get that feeling, I want textual healing
On page 147 of House of Leaves there’s a quote attributed to Sonny Beauregarde that reads: “Were it not for the fact that this is a supreme gothic tale, we’d have bought the whole think hook, line and sinker.” Which is really the only way I can think of to describe this book. House of Leaves has a complex narrative structure that makes it hard to describe what the plot is about, but here’s a rough attempt: after a lonely old man named Zampanò passes […]