Uwe Johnson, Anniversaries
I have made it to volume ii. The Soviets have arrived in the 1945-ish part of the narrative, the USSR is about to crack down on Czechoslovakia in the 1968 part. With conceptually ambitious, very long novels I have developed the belief that being able to finish them is the thing: there's something remarkable about conceiving a large-scale project and pulling it off that impresses regardless of what you think about the underlying material. But the underlying material is very good.
Cervantes, Don Quixote
Also into part ii here. I remain largely unmoved by the material which only seems to be so much narrative business; it's much more like Boccaccio, with the action frequently veering off into long asides, than a straightforward story. But I did think of an analogy while reading today that might reframe this for me a bit: it's not unlike the Alhambra: the beauty or value is meant to be in the intricacy of the design and not in the traditional overall effect. I have about three weeks left with this one, so there's time to see. (It also occurs to me that while I have read a decent amount of Spanish-from-Spain literature from the 20th century on, my pre-1900 exposure may be only La Vida Es Sueño and maybe some other de la Barca or Lope de Vega, but the fact that I can't remember is not a great indicator.)
African-American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle and Song
I'm reading this one backwards for a couple of reasons: to avoid starting out with more traditional poetic forms, and also because the (20%?) poets I know already are towards the contemporary end. There's a lot to say about it substantively, but the thing striking me at the moment is how much rap distorts poetry for a good ten to twenty years: whether the attempt is to adopt it or run as far away from it as possible, there's a period where the work is maybe lesser across a wide number of poets. This gets resolved, largely, into an anecdotal or descriptive lyricism that hip hop does not attempt to touch, for various reasons--story-songs go out of fashion pretty quickly, as do most attempts to describe one emotion or feeling at greater length.
Ibsen, John Gabriel Borkman
The number of times I called this "Juan Gabriel Borkman" in my head, I swear.
Vaclav Havel, Open Letters
It seemed like it might be time to revisit "The Power of the Powerless". I do think an underrated issue with otherwise very good writing on political thought that is too closely connected to specific circumstances is that it can be difficult to tease out the message. There's a great Adam Michnik letter that has the best ending of any of that type of open letter I've ever read, but it comes at the end of so many details specific to Poland in one specific political moment that it's difficult to recommend.
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