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Dear Mourning Dove, How many stories can fit inside one story? Comparing the two versions of the tales collected in Coyote Stories (1933) and Tales of the…… Read more “Put a berry for a heart,”
Tag: Modern Classics
I turned her into a tree so that she would stop trembling
Dear Irmgard, Child of All Nations (2008, tr. Michael Hofmann. Original: Kind aller Länder, 1938) is all about voice. Not bitter nor cheerful, but something in-between. It…… Read more “I turned her into a tree so that she would stop trembling”
A flower silence, completely unfolded,
Dear Getrud, The two prose works collected in A Jewish Mother from Berlin: A Novel/ Susanna: A Novella (1997, tr. Brigitte M. Goldstein) read like disenchanted but…… Read more “A flower silence, completely unfolded,”
Would they really spend their lives watching the street from inside their portraits?
Dear Norah, People in the Room (2018, tr. Charlotte Whittle. Original: Personas en la sala, 1950) is a slow exercise in estrangement: when we least expect, we…… Read more “Would they really spend their lives watching the street from inside their portraits?”
Everything, by virtue of coming into existence, is doomed to pass
Dear Ricarda, The Last Summer (2016, tr. Jamie Bulloch. Original: Der letzte Sommer, 1910) feels like a treasure chest full of letters. As we read through them,…… Read more “Everything, by virtue of coming into existence, is doomed to pass”
It’s like a bridge leading you to the other side
Dear Ru Zhijuan, The Path through the Grassland (tr. Yu Fanqin. Original: 草原上的小路, 1979) begins and ends on a vast piece of uncultivated land, crossed by a…… Read more “It’s like a bridge leading you to the other side”
Her compelling mouth, the scent of lavender and cigarette smoke
Dear Dola, Set in Amsterdam on the eve of World War II, The Tree and the Vine (2020, tr. Kristen Gehrman. Original: De thuiswacht, 1954*) is narrated…… Read more “Her compelling mouth, the scent of lavender and cigarette smoke”
It isn’t a circle–it is simply a long line
Dear Lorraine, I love how inconclusive your portrait of a 1950’s working-class African American family is in A Raisin in the Sun (1959) – the way it…… Read more “It isn’t a circle–it is simply a long line”
What would you do if you broke bread and blood came out?
Dear Gayl, In Eva’s Man (1976), we follow Eva Medina Canada, a 43-year-old woman who has been convicted for murdering her lover, Davis Carter, by poisoning him with…… Read more “What would you do if you broke bread and blood came out?”
Something that was unassailable and inviolable
Dear Netty, The Seventh Cross (tr. Margo Bettauer Dembo, 2018. Original: Das siebte Kreuz, 1942) starts and ends at the same point – but, in the span…… Read more “Something that was unassailable and inviolable”
How can you lose something that’s growing within you, like a tree?
Dear Karin, Crisis (tr. Amanda Doxtater, 2020. Original: Kris, 1934) is a book that resists being defined, a book that resists solidifying into a unified form of…… Read more “How can you lose something that’s growing within you, like a tree?”
Not everyone is true enough to hear the truth,
Dear Karin, Reading Kallocain (2019, tr. David McDuff. Original: 1940) feels very much like taking a small dose of Kallocain: it grows on us, building from the…… Read more “Not everyone is true enough to hear the truth,”
Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board
Dear Zora, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) follows a woman’s emotional journey which reads almost like an odyssey – a series of incidents through which the…… Read more “Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board”
Some strange and fundamental innocence
Dear Gamel, One Way of Love – ways of love, one-way love, love’s way, way too much love, on one’s way to love. What am I to…… Read more “Some strange and fundamental innocence”
The salvage of memory
Dear Dorothy, Can one violate a memory by trying too hard to remain loyal to it? At the beginning of your novella Olivia (1949), you offer us…… Read more “The salvage of memory”
Appearances, she knew now, had a way sometimes of not fitting facts
Dear Nella, Passing (1929) is a book about being labelled, being defined by other people based on what they see (and on the prejudices they carry). It…… Read more “Appearances, she knew now, had a way sometimes of not fitting facts”
A confused consciousness of untouched treasures
Dear André, The Immoralist, tr. Dorothy Bussy (1930. Original: L’Immoraliste ,1902) is framed as your protagonist’s confession, as he tells the tale of his moral downfall to…… Read more “A confused consciousness of untouched treasures”
Like an image made of snow
Dear Edith, In The Age of Innocence (1920), you manage to do, on the level of writing, the same thing you set out to do on the…… Read more “Like an image made of snow”
