What to read next
Available at National Bookstores.
Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham, Php845. In HBO’s Girls, written and directed by Lena Dunham, Lena Dunham plays a character who is writing a book of personal essays. Here is the actual Lena Dunham’s book of personal essays (the names have been changed). If the characters are half as funny, aggressively imperfect, maddening and surprising as those in Girls, this should be fun.
The Melancholy of Resistance by Laszlo Krasznahorkai, Php899. Translated from the Hungarian by George Szirtes. According to the blurb, a surreal novel about a circus arriving in a small town with the stuffed corpse of the largest whale in the world. It sounds like the plot of a Bela Tarr movie we’d seen at a film festival—turns out it is the source. One of Tarr’s most famous movies, Satantango, is also adapted from a Krasznahorkai novel. And we have a strange fascination with authors whose names are hard to spell (Hungarians and Russians win).
The Garden of Departed Cats by Bilge Karasu, Php895. Translated from the Turkish by Aron Aji. Twelve strange fables. They had us at the title.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
October 4th, 2014 at 04:57
Laszlo Krasznahorkai, the second most difficult name to spell but only second to Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky (“The Letter Killers Club”).
Lena Dunham’s well-crafted essay, “Growing Up in Therapy,” which appears in The New Yorker, is probably a foretaste of the book collection: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/01/difficult-girl.
Thanks for the recommendations!
October 4th, 2014 at 23:37
Interesting titles: The Melancholy of Resistance and The Garden of Departed. Makabili nga.