Lapvona took hold of me immediately and would not let go. The narrative drives and compels.
The characters are richly developed, deeply flawed, wholly sympathetic. The world of the story is fully realized, even when things veer unnatural. And Moshfegh juggles and manipulates language like a magician. Moshfegh convinced me of the unbelievable, made the unpleasant delicious, made me want to read more and more.
“Lapvona flips all the conventions of familial and parental relations, putting hatred where love should be or a negotiation where grief should be . . . Through a mix of witchery, deception, murder, abuse, grand delusion, ludicrous conversations, and cringeworthy moments of bodily disgust, Moshfegh creates a world that you definitely don’t want to live in, but from which you can’t look away.” —The Atlantic
In a village in a medieval fiefdom buffeted by natural disasters, a motherless shepherd boy finds himself the unlikely pivot of a power struggle that puts all manner of…
Invitation to a Beheading is almost indescribable. It is Kafka-like in its dizzying circuitry.
The narrative teases and denies and misguides us readers exactly as it teases, denies, misguides the main character, poor Cincinnatus. Nabokov cajoles and navigates a tale that pinballs between outrageous absurdity, exquisitely excruciating stasis, and incremental revelation. And Nabokov’s command of nuanced language is superhuman.
Like Kafka's The Castle, Invitation to a Beheading embodies a vision of a bizarre and irrational world.
In an unnamed dream country, the young man Cincinnatus C. is condemned to death by beheading for "gnostical turpitude," an imaginary crime that defies definition. Cincinnatus spends his last days in an absurd jail, where he is visited by chimerical jailers, an executioner who masquerades as a fellow prisoner, and by his in-laws, who lug their furniture with them into his cell. When Cincinnatus is led out to be executed, he simply wills his executioners out of existence: they disappear, along with the…
Bemelman’s observant eye is unparalleled. His character observations are pure magic. His wit and comic timing, so fresh and lively, even all these years later.
If you’ve ever worked in food service, you’ll get this book deeply. If you’ve ever eaten in a restaurant or stayed in a hotel, this book will resonate with you. If you’re a human, and/or interact with humans, you’ll appreciate what Bemelmans does.
In this uproariously funny memoir, Ludwig Bemelmans uncovers the fabulous world of the Hotel Splendide, the luxury New York hotel where he worked as a waiter. With equal parts affection and barbed wit, he records the everyday chaos that reigns behind the smooth facades of the gilded dining room and banquet halls.
In hilarious detail, Bemelmans sketches the hierarchy of hotel life and its strange and fascinating inhabitants: from the ruthlessly authoritarian maitre d'hotel Monsieur Victor to the kindly waiter Mespoulets to Frizl the homesick busboy. Illustrated with his own charming line drawings, Bemelmans' tales of a bygone era of…
Motorcycles, Minotaurs, & Banjo, a mongrel for certain, is about a 21-day motorcycle ride, deep into Appalachia, with a banjo and an old Minotaur for companions, to pay homage at the graves of 5-string luminaries. This book is about 60 years, about my journey from high school dropout with an arrest record to Penn State professor with a bunch of books (and much other nonsense) in the world. It is a book about old-time music, and motorcycles both fast and slow, and ghosts, and writing. And largely about making a life about making creative work.
