Annals of Japery

Epitaphs for the Novel

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“Who would not sing for Lycidas?” asks Milton in his famous elegy. And who, indeed, would not sing for the Novel, which has once again been declared dead?
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Essays

The Press Novel: From Scoop to Amy Rowland’s The Transcriptionist

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“But do you think it’s a good way of training oneself — inventing imaginary news?” “None better.”
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Annals of Japery

The Worst Book Review Ever

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While professional duty compels me to deliver judgment on the work at hand, I cannot in good conscience reveal the title, author or any identifying details about its plot for fear that some perverse soul might be tempted to go out and buy it.
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Essays

Kafka on the Go: Rereading ‘The Metamorphosis’

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I had been casting about for the perfect title when I saw Susan Bernofsky’s new translation of The Metamorphosis at an airport bookstore, the beautiful cover submitting the title letters to the same transformative process as the book’s protagonist undergoes. This, I decided, would be my companion text as I semi-reclined on a plane, lay in bed, sat in a café, strolled upright in a park, and bellied up to a bar.
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Reviews

Transylvanians Gone Wild: On Miklós Bánffy’s Transylvanian Trilogy

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This might not be the thing one wants to hear before embarking on a 1,500 page quest, but the trilogy is marked by a narrative desultoriness that applies to both its human and political dramas. The novels are in a some ways about widespread distraction and inaction in the face of an impending catastrophe.
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Annals of Japery Notable Articles

There Are Two Kinds of Novelists…

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Owing to the vagaries of evolution and animal husbandry, there are lactose intolerant novelists (Dostoyevsky) and those blessed few for whom a latte does not ruin an afternoon (Marguerite Duras).
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Lists

“My First Buy”: Book Editors Discuss Their Earliest Acquisitions

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I wondered about the first professional decisions of newly minted editors — be they powerful tastemakers blissfully ignorant of P-and-L statements or recently promoted assistants. What drew them to the first proposal they tried to acquire? Did they look upon the decision as a momentous one? Do they even remember it now?
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Reviews

A Valentine’s Day Reading: Dan Rhodes’s Marry Me

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A hint of menace creeps in; the title seems less and less like a question or plea and more like an imperative to submit to Eros and the attendant havoc.
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Essays Reviews

The Immortal Gaviero: Alvaro Mutis’ Maqroll Adventures

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I can think of no better way to honor both the man and his singular hero possessed of an “incurable wanderlust” and a “vocation for defeat” than by quoting the latter’s bathroom graffiti, bits of wisdom written by the Gaviero in his seclusion.
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Essays

Biographers Cannot Be Choosers: On The Biographical Drive

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Novelists tend to be repulsed by and attracted to the literary biographer, who is both kindred spirit and antagonist, reviver and executioner, exalted Boswell, and the “lice of literature” (to quote Philip Roth from Exit Ghost).
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Essays

Eminent Hacks

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We take for granted the difficulty of ascending to the empyrean heights of genius, but descending into the “majesty of mud” poses its own challenges for those unpure hacks not blessed “with all the might of gravitation.” Or to put it in distinctly non-Augustan terms, hackin’ ain’t easy.
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Annals of Japery

A Will Shortz Murder Mystery Reviewed

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Stylistically, Shortz is perhaps over-fond of the pun, haphazardly abbreviates words, and is allergic to apostrophes, but no other living author can so seamlessly integrate crosswordese -- those rare words that pop up frequently in grids -- into a narrative.
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Reviews

Portrait of a Runner: On Mark Slouka’s Brewster

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It gives me great pleasure to picture the Apostle of Democracy doing quarter-mile repeats on the lawn of Monticello, perhaps in preparation for a match race with his Federalist challenger John Adams at the Founding Fathers Relays. But I digress.
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Lists

Popping the Question: A Survey of Literature’s Non-Traditional Marriage Proposals

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Some proposals are perhaps better forgotten. The following unromantic, bizarre, poorly delivered or conceived proposals elicit reactions less like Molly Bloom’s orgasmically affirmative “Yes I will yes I will yes!” and more like this underwhelmed response to a lackluster offer in David Stacton’s A Fox Inside: “You might at least pretend…that I’m a person. After all, I move and talk like one the best way I can.”
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Essays

Skylight Addicts and Private Wonderlands: On the Garret Novel

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The following garret novels introduce memorably reclusive protagonists, skylight addicts who, in their zealous guarding of their charmed rooms, stay true to the fortifying history of garrets.
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Annals of Japery

Détente by Index: On Earl Sprague’s Invitation to a Subheading

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How fitting that their notorious feud end via the healing powers of a well-constructed index, which Indexer’s Weekly proudly presents here in full.
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Essays

Peculiar Perambulation: On the Literature of Silly Walks

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Our literary ramble will not include docented tours through Thomas Hardy’s Wessex and Charles Dickens’s London; nor the strolls in Jane Austen novels during which much is usually decided. Our route will include those walks that are less picturesque, less momentous, less worthy of remembrance, those that in their sheer absurdity inspire derision rather than aesthetic revelation.
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Reviews

The Worst Beach Read: On Amy Sackville’s Orkney

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Richard compiles instead an “endless index” of his wife, which I’ve collected and will reproduce here lest anyone be looking for a new pet name for his or her significant other: little half-breed; daughter of the sea; shape-shifting goddess; barefoot urchin; frog princess; faery queen; nymph; northern girl; tricky capricious Ariel; clamped little clamshell; frond of pallid wrack; spined and spiky urchin; storm-witch; and little limpet.
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