I came to the book almost a year late, which is astonishing, as I am a great fan of Enriquez’s short fiction. The short stories in this collection met my expectations, combining gothic (or, shall we say, neo-gothic) elements with a vivid ramble through Buenos Aires, where the stories are based.
Enriquez is a master of the arts of the short story, and the hearts of human beings. These unsettling narratives of witchcraft, revenge, disappearances, and madness seem to be so far from our ordinary middle-class existence, and yet, they tell you more about our lives than the usual fiction of jam on bread.
'Beautiful, horrible... the most exciting discovery I've made in fiction for some time' Kazuo Ishiguro 'Smoky, carnal, dazzling' Lauren Groff
Welcome to Buenos Aires, a place of nightmares and twisted imaginings, where missing children come back from the dead and unearthed bones carry terrible curses.
Thrumming with murderous intentions, family betrayals and morbid desires, these stories shine a light on a violent city gripped by urban madness; giving voice to the lost, the oppressed and the forgotten. Lucid and darkly poetic, unsettling and otherworldly, these tales of revenge, witchcraft and fetishes are a masterpiece…
I owe this book to a recommendation by my friend, the French bi-lingual writer, Seb Doubinsky, and, boy, am I happy that I followed up on the recommendation!
This is what scholarly writing can be: engaged, lucid, relevant, highly readable, not afraid to say things out aloud, not the sort of jargon-filled, boring, needlessly footnoted tomes (which do not even dare to whisper) that academics mostly write.
Essentially, this book looks at the occult elements in the militantly rational traditions of Anarchism and illustrates the occult not as a lack but as a marginalized (defective or not) set of discourses. Among other things, even though it does not discuss it, this book enabled me to understand the fascination of Donald Trump’s supporters with his wild conspiracy theories.
In the nineteenth century anarchists were accused of conspiracy by governments afraid of revolution, but in the current century various 'conspiracy theories' suggest that anarchists are controlled by government itself. The Illuminati were a network of intellectuals who argued for self-government and against private property, yet the public is now often told that they were (and are) the very group that controls governments and defends private property around the world. Lagalisse intervenes in such misinformation. Studying anarchism as a historical object, Occult Features of Anarchism also shows how the development of leftist theory and practice within clandestine masculine public spheres…
This is not as good as the brilliant Less, for which Greer had won the Pulitzer, but it is nevertheless a riveting, bitter-sweet ramble through the aging, gay, mildly successful novelist Arthur Less’ affairs and absurdities, foibles, and fears.
Writing about the middle-aged heterosexual man and his loves and losses has never been an easy task: only a few writers, like the underrated Italo Svevo, have managed to carry it off. But writing about a middle-aged homosexual man’s loves and losses is probably even more difficult: after all, a sizeable chunk of readers are heterosexual.
Greer managed it so brilliantly in Less and convincingly in Less is Lost that even staid heterosexual readers like me were entertained, moved, and captivated. This is a funny novel about, as a reviewer put it, “the absurdity of the human condition and its wistful beauty.”
In the follow-up to the “bedazzling, bewitching, and be-wonderful” (New York Times) best-selling and Pulitzer Prize-winning Less: A Novel, the awkward and lovable Arthur Less returns in an unforgettable road trip across America.
“Go get lost somewhere, it always does you good.”
For Arthur Less, life is going surprisingly well: he is a moderately accomplished novelist in a steady relationship with his partner, Freddy Pelu. But nothing lasts: the death of an old lover and a sudden financial crisis has Less running away from his problems yet again as he accepts a series of literary gigs that send him on…
A novella and ten short stories, which are by turns poetic, chilling, and heartbreaking, ranging in style from understated realism to gothic terror. This is a book of stories located in India, ranging from the 1970s to contemporary times, and exploring precarious lives in an age with diminishing tolerance.
The titular short story “Namaste Trump” starts in a deceptive domestic setting, where a servant from the hinterlands is patronized and exploited by an upwardly mobile urban family. But as the nation celebrates Trump’s visit and copes with the pandemic, it ends up becoming a prophecy of endless haunting. This sets the agenda for a series of stories that delve into fracturing or broken lives in small-town India over the past fifty years.
