General Props to Tom Holt, and here in specific "Doughnut".

Tom Holt is someone I only discovered recently. I was looking for a writer to fill the void of smart funny writers that I had since Vonnegut died and I caught up with the Terry Pratchett series and Tom Robbins is not nearly prolific enough. Holt fits the bill, and he is woefully unknown in the states. He writes smart fiction that takes off from what we know of science and plays with it. It is like comedic science fiction, but I don’t know if that pigeon –holes him too much. Here he takes the idea of an analogue of the Large Hadron Collider blowing up and multiverse theory. Some bits are overdone – the main character has an invisible hand – but overall the effect is a fun ride of speculative fiction. I’ve only read his five most recent books, but I’m glad he has a big back catalogue. 

Flaubert's Parrot: Leave this From the Canon

When I was going to college, this was talked of as a relatively recent book. It was new when my professors were in the place I was, but it wasn’t good enough to make the syllabi. Barnes was just part of an overrepresented demographic when a new canon was being put together.

But does it deserve to be part of a new canon?  The blurbs on the cover hint at inclusion, drawing comparisons to some of my personal favorite writers, such as Joyce and Calvino. One specifically mentions “Pale Fire,” which is one of my favorite books in my mind even though I haven’t opened it in years. Personally, I didn’t like this book as much as I thought I would. I liked other Barnes, having read England, England and The History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters. I  don’t like it but  I can’t place my finger on why not. Do I not care about Braithwaite, his protagonist? Do I not care about Flaubert? Or do I not like Flaubert’s characters? I can only think of one – Emma Bovary. I didn’t like her, but not as much as I didn’t like Anna Karenina. I wanted that train to come so bad, but when Emma took up poison, I was at most indifferent. 

It can’t be the structure. I like the random pastiche stuff, and it is done well here. It’s just that the book lacked life of some sort. I just wasn’t there. I should have picked up a different Barnes off the shelf.

A World Unnamed: Dennis Johnson's "The Name of the World"

Spoiler alert: we never learn the name of the world.

More seriously, though, I want to like Dennis Johnson.  When I went to graduate school in the mid-aughts, the writers loved him because he put together beautiful sentences. And this was before he got his bonafides because he won a Pulitizer
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This is the third book of his I read, after Jesus’ Son and Nobody Move. Of the three, I think this is my least favorite. I say that because I think I am at a place in my life where if I am reading fiction, I want something more plotty. I guess I just want something to happen.  Not much happens here.

Plot rundown: Guy who has lost his wife and young daughter, and who was a history teacher who ended up working for a politician navigates a year in his life. This year sees the unexpected end of a teaching assignment and an unconsummated relationship with a graduate student. He eventually moves away from the setting, leaving in the night.

And, uh, that’s it. He does put together some beautiful sentences, but I wasn’t looking for some meditation on the human condition.