The Review of Contemporary Fiction articles from June 2007

The Review of Contemporary Fiction archives from June 2007

Editor's note.
June 22, 2007... Over the years, the Review of Contemporary Fiction has from time to time published "special" issues of original fiction or criticism. There are several reasons that such issues come about. It can be that an unexpected opportunity presents...

Translator's introduction.(introduction to Alvaro Yanez Bianchi's works, he used the pen name Juan Emar)
June 22, 2007... Juan Emar was the literary pen name of Alvaro Yanez Bianchi (1893-1964). Yanez, the son of a wealthy Chilean senator and newspaper owner, became Juan Emar while writing an art column for his father's periodical. He took the name because of its...

The green bird.(FROM DIEZ)(Short story)
June 22, 2007... This is what we should call this sad story. We will return to its origin, if there is anything in this life that has an origin. This story began in 1847, when a group of French scholars arrived at the mouth of the Amazon on a schooner named...

The obedient dog.(FROM DIEZ)(Short story)
June 22, 2007... Desidiero Longotoma, Baldomero Lonquimay, and I are friends. This is not strange; we played together as children. Did we really play games? Desiderio Longotoma and I certainly played games. What Baldomero Lonquimay and I played... I'm not...

The unicorn.(FROM DIEZ)(Short story)
June 22, 2007... Desiderio Longotoma is the most absentminded man in this city. He felt obliged to place the following ad in all of the newspapers: Yesterday, between 4 and 5 in the afternoon, in the area enclosed by Los Perales Street to the north,...

Papusa.(FROM DIEZ)(Short story)
June 22, 2007... Belecebu's opal has been passed down to me through my ancestors. It was given to me many years ago; all of my predecessors were in their tombs and Belecebu had been dead for centuries. When my father reached out of his coffin, I slid my...

Pibesa.(FROM DIEZ)(Short story)
June 22, 2007... We did not plan to go to the mountains. It happened by chance. We were walking the street one evening, bored and silent. I was kicking a wrinkled ball of rose-colored paper. For some time I kept kicking it in front of me. Sometimes she kicked...

The hacienda La Cantera.(FROM DIEZ)(Short story)
June 22, 2007... I For information concerning the hacienda La Cantera contact real estate agent E. Buin; 10th floor, Bank of the Pacific, any time, any day. He is almost always there, except in the summer when he takes a fifteen day vacation. But all...

One year.(Diary entry)(Fictional work)
June 22, 2007... January 1st Today I awoke in a hurry. I did everything in a dizzying hurry: I bathed, dressed, ate breakfast, everything in a hurry. And quickly, I finished reading Don Quixote and I began The Divine Comedy. I attribute this urgency to...

Jacques Jouet. Une Mauvaise Maire.(Book review)
June 22, 2007... JACQUES JOUET. UNE MAUVAISE MAIRE. PARIS: POL, 2007. 125. PP. 12 EUROS. Jacques Jouet's new book is the latest addition to "The Novel Republic," an ambitious prose cycle currently numbering some fifteen volumes, in which he proposes to...

Olivier Rolin. Paper Tiger.(Book review)
June 22, 2007... OLIVIER ROLIN. PAPER TIGER. TRANS. WILLIAM CLOONAN. UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS, 2007. 203 PP. PAPER: $17.95. At the Bal des Tetes, where he finds his acquaintances aged almost beyond recognition, Proust's narrator takes decisive steps...

Arnost Lustig. Fire on Water: Porgess and the Abyss.(Book review)
June 22, 2007... ARNOST LUSTIG. FIRE ON WATER: PORGESS AND THE ABYSS. TRANS. ROMAN KOSTOVSKI (PORGESS) AND DEBORAH DURHAM-VICHR (THE ABYSS). NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2006. 248 PP. $16.95. After surviving three concentration camps, Arnost Lustig...

Ingeborg Bachmann. Last Living Words.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2007... INGEBORG BACHMANN. LAST LIVING WORDS. TRANS. LILIAN M. FRIEDBERG. GREEN INTEGER, 2005. PAPER: $14.95. "We are in Vienna, more than ten years after the war. 'After the war'--that is the measure of our time" With this, relayed by the...

Donald Breckenridge, ed. The Brooklyn Rail Fiction Anthology.(Book review)
June 22, 2007... DONALD BRECKENRIDGE, ED. THE BROOKLYN RAIL FICTION ANTHOLOGY. HANGING LOOSE PRESS, 2006. 420 PP. PAPER: $24.00. "I am tempted to say this is how love works, burying everyone in the same style" confesses the narrator in Diane Williams's...

Danielle Dutton. Attempts at a Life.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2007... DANIELLE DUTTON. ATTEMPTS AT A LIFE. TARPAULIN SKY PRESS, 2007. 78 PP. PAPER: $14.00. In one of the prose pieces in Danielle Dutton's first collection, the author uses a text from Celine reproduced on a collage given to her by a friend, a...

W. C. Bamberger, ed. Selected Letters: Guy Davenport and James Laughlin.(Book review)
June 22, 2007... W. C. BAMBERGER, ED. SELECTED LETTERS: GUY DAVENPORT AND JAMES LAUGHLIN. W. W. NORTON & CO., 2007. 262 PP. $29.95. This is the seventh volume of selected letters from the archive of James Laughlin, former editor of New Directions. Davenport...

Robert Elsie, ed. Balkan Beauty, Balkan Blood: Modern Albanian Short Stories.(Book review)
June 22, 2007... ROBERT ELSIE, ED. BALKAN BEAUTY, BALKAN BLOOD: MODERN ALBANIAN SHORT STORIES. TRANS. ROBERT ELSIE AND JOHN HODGSON. NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2006. 160 PP. $16.95. Albanian literature per se dates from the twentieth century, largely a...

Brian Evenson. The Open Curtain.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2007... BRIAN EVENSON. THE OPEN CURTAIN. COFFEE HOUSE PRESS, 2006. 218 PP. PAPER: $14.95. Deep into the first section of Brian Evenson's The Open Curtain the reader is immersed in what seems to be little more than finely wrought genre fiction of...

Ken Kalfus. A Disorder Peculiar to the Country.(Book review)
June 22, 2007... KEN KALFUS. A DISORDER PECULIAR TO THE COUNTRY. ECCO, 2006. 256 PR $24.95. Ken Kalfus' latest novel is built on a two-sided metaphor, each side carrying equal weight and casting a reciprocal shadow. On one side stands a prolonged and...

Raymond Federman. Return to Manure.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2007... RAYMOND FEDERMAN. RETURN TO MANURE. FC2, 2006. PAPER: $19.95. On his blog, Raymond Federman has posted a few pictures of his recent return to the French farm where he spent World War II as a boy working for a miserable and abusive old...

Laird Hunt. The Exquisite.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2007... LAIRD HUNT. THE EXQUISITE. COFFEE HOUSE PRESS, 2006. 256 PP. PAPER: $14.95. To the characters that populate Laird Hunt's aptly-titled The Exquisite, truth is beside the point--a problematic stance for a novel that is, essentially, a murder...

Denys Johnson-Davies, ed. The Anchor Book of Modern Arabic Fiction.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2007... DENYS JOHNSON-DAVIES, ED. THE ANCHOR BOOK OF MODERN ARABIC FICTION. ANCHOR-RANDOM HOUSE, 2006. 506 PP. PAPER: $15.95. A prolific translator who has done as much as anyone to bring modern Arabic literature to the attention of...

Fran Mason. Historical Dictionary of Postmodernist Literature and Theater.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2007... FRAN MASON. HISTORICAL DICTIONARY OF POSTMODERNIST LITERATURE AND THEATER. SCARECROW PRESS, 2007. 404 PP. $85.00. A historical dictionary of postmodernist literature and theater is certain to generate debate on numerous levels; what is...

Christina Milletti. The Religious & Other Fictions.(Book review)
June 22, 2007... CHRISTINA MILLETTI. THE RELIGIOUS & OTHER FICTIONS. CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2006. 191 PP. PAPER: $16.95. Every so often a collection comes along that shows just how wide lean short stories can open the largest of questions. The...

Goce Smilevski. Conversation with Spinoza: A Cobweb Novel.(Book review)
June 22, 2007... GOCE SMILEVSKI. CONVERSATION WITH SPINOZA: A COBWEB NOVEL. TRANS. FILIP KORZENSKI. NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2006. 136 PP. PAPER: $16.95. Like a cobweb, the structure of this novel is both concentric with the narrative circling around...

Joshua Furst. The Sabotage Cafe.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2007... JOSHUA FURST. THE SABOTAGE CAFE. KNOPF, 2007. 272 PP. $24.00. Julia, the narrator of this brutal novel, has lived through the punk insanities of the 1980s. She has attempted to forget her traumatic past, to forge a "normal" suburban life;...

Dominique Fitzpatrick-O'Dinn. Table of Forms.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2007... DOMINIQUE FITZPATRICK-O'DINN. TABLE OF FORMS. SPINELESS BOOKS, 2006. 113 PP. PAPER: $12.00. Upon seeing an exquisitely wrought statue of, say, a horse, most would see the horse, few would see the marble. So it is with sounds, crude if...

Aaron Petrovich. The Session.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2007... AARON PETROVICH. THE SESSION. HOTEL ST. GEORGE PRESS, 2006. 64 PP. PAPER: $10.95. "The reader sees the world through the detective's eyes" writes Paul Auster, "experiencing the proliferation of its details as if for the first time. He has...

Thalia Field. Ululu (Clown Shrapnel).(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2007... THALIA FIELD. ULULU (CLOWN SHRAPNEL). COFFEE HOUSE PRESS, 2007. 256 PP. PAPER: $25.00. When the Roundheads closed the English theaters in 1642, would-be playwrights were forced to pen closet dramas, deploying the full range of theatrical...

Brandon Stosuy, ed. Up Is Up, But So Is Down: New York's Downtown Literary Scene, 1974-1992.(Book review)
June 22, 2007... BRANDON STOSUY, ED. UP IS UP, BUT SO IS DOWN: NEW YORK'S DOWNTOWN LITERARY SCENE, 1974-1992. NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2006. 510 PP. PAPER: $29.95. Part anthology, part cultural history, and replete with the requisite...

Frances Washburn. Elsie's Business.(Book review)
June 22, 2007... FRANCES WASHBURN. ELSIE'S BUSINESS. UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS, 2006. 212 PP. PAPER: $17.95. Since Frances Washburn is professor of American Indian studies, the reader might expect her first novel, Elsie's Business, to deal with typical...