Tag: books read 2012

“The Journey to the East” by Herman Hesse

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For those who noticed the quotation marks in the title, rather than italicization, yes, this is a novella, not a novel, though it is published in book form. The version of the “The Journey to the East” I read is the translation by Hilda Rosner, and this is a little book I picked up at The Strand in New York when I visited several years ago. Having a hankering for shorter books these days, I dove into it this afternoon. I discovered that it is a far different book from what I expected. It is advertised, in the back cover …

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The Gospel of Corax by Paul Park

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Before I begin to discuss this book, two disclosures: 1. I was a student of Paul Park’s at Clarion West 2006. Which I don’t believe skews my reaction, and is probably less significant than my second disclosure, which is that 2. I was force-fed Catholic dogma and doctrine from an early age, and extricating myself from the clutches of the Church was a hard battle for me. With the background I suggest in point number 2, you might wonder why I was interested in reading a book like Park’s, and I’ll be honest: if I hadn’t met Paul and been …

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Coltrane: The Story of a Sound by Ben Ratliff

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Ben Ratliff — a jazz critic for The New York Times, among other things — is like Trane in that he comes straight out with what he’s up to, though it might not be right away that you realize it. The title Coltrane: The Story of a Sound, if you look at it carefully, tells you what this book is really about, and it’s not just John Coltrane — it’s the story of the sound (or rather, the sounds) that burst into one’s mind when Trane’s name is mentioned: how Coltrane developed that sound from the beginning, how it evolved …

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Ezra Poundings – The Reboot

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This entry is part 1 of 57 in the series Blogging Pound's The Cantos

Years ago — seven years ago this fall — I started a study group, with whom I started working my way through Ezra Pound’s classic poem, The Cantos. When I say “classic poem” it probably makes you think of a single page of sparse text, which is understandable if you haven’t read the Cantos. So think more like a late James Joyce novel, but in poetical form. Think about a bunch of different languages, including not only various forms of English, but also old Occitan, French, Italian, Latin, Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphics, Chinese ideograms. Think references to obscure historical and literary …

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The Pangborn Defence by Norm Sibum

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Norm Sibum -- The Pangborn Defence

I first read Norm Sibum on the recommendation of a man I studied poetry with in graduate school, the notorious and controversial Montréal writer David Solway, who in turn provides the first blurb on the back of The Pangborn Defence. He writes: The fare Sibum provides covers the four spiritual food groups — humor, seriousness, discipline, humility — and is therefore wholesome and nutritive. Knowing David, these words could as easily have been either criticism or praise — or even both — though I think in this case it is the latter. What I’ve read of Sibum’s work in the …

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