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Dear Amy, The Romance of a Shop (1888) is all about framing: depending on the way we turn our lens and the point where we choose to…… Read more “The fathomless ocean on which they had set out with such unknowing fearlessness”
Tag: Novel
We can be an army of two
Dear Isabel, Patience and Sarah (originally self-published in 1969 as A Place For Us) reads like going on a journey outside the closet while remaining firmly locked…… Read more “We can be an army of two”
A creature of strength and grace and beauty and softness
Dear Florence, Her Father’s Name (1876) features the best (and worst) of what a Victorian Sensational novel has to offer: an exotic location, murder, a cross-dressing heroine with…… Read more “A creature of strength and grace and beauty and softness”
There was no new order
Dear Natália, Controle (2019, ‘Control’, not translated yet) is a novel centred on an absence. Our protagonist, she’s lost control, and she’s clinging to the nearest passer-by:…… Read more “There was no new order”
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”
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?”
Was she the angel of longing, lost in the solitude of the night?
Dear Emília, Your novel A Rainha do Ignoto (1899, ‘Queen of Ignotus’) is like a chameleon: when we least expect, it changes colour. When a young bachelor,…… Read more “Was she the angel of longing, lost in the solitude of the night?”
Their movement through life is invisible
Dear Jokha, Celestial Bodies (2018, tr. Marilyn Booth. Original: Sayyidat al-Qamar, 2010) revolves around a family and their household members, in an Omani village, in the late 20th…… Read more “Their movement through life is invisible”
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”
Oh, stag of mine, darling stag, my one and only
Dear Ariana, Die, My Love (2017, tr. Sarah Moses & Carolina Orloff. Original: Matate, Amor, 2012) is all about voice: a short musical piece of sustained rage,…… Read more “Oh, stag of mine, darling stag, my one and only”
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”
No human being ever believed she was the right person in the right place
Dear Charlotte, A Struggle for Fame (1883) explores the way social judgements based on nationality, class, and gender give shape to one’s identity and one’s opportunities in…… Read more “No human being ever believed she was the right person in the right place”
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”
