Is Sergio de la Pava‘s A Naked Singularity the first great self-published novel of the new century? Aren’t you at least a little bit curious?
Triumph of the Vanity Press?
That Moment When
“I can still remember with complete clarity the way I felt when whatever it was came fluttering down into my hands that day 30 years ago on the grass behind the outfield fence at Jingu Stadium; and I recall just as clearly the warmth of the wounded pigeon I picked up in those same hands that spring afternoon a year later, near Sendagaya Elementary School. I always call up those sensations whenever I think about what it means to write a novel.” Haruki Murakami on “The Moment [He] Became a Novelist,” excerpted on Lit Hub from the new double edition of his first novels, Wind/Pinball.
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In Case You Didn’t Know
In The Globe and Mail, Nick Mount reviews How to Read Literature, a new book by Terry Eagleton that you can file next to Reading Like a Writer and How Fiction Works.
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Music for Thought
The moral conundrum that can be the white hip hop critic.
“They’d slice you open on their own time”
Recommended Reading: “The Cage of You” by Kerry Howley.
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“Let me allude, before the spell is broken, / to Pushkin”
Listen to Pnin author Vladimir Nabokov read “An Evening of Russian Poetry” in the style—nay, as “an impersonation, in iambic pentameter, with fancy rhymes”—of that book’s titular professor.
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My comment seems to have been deleted, I guess because I included a link to a page with my thoughts on the book? Anyway, I liked it very much, although my praise is not quite so unqualified as Scott’s was. My more detailed opinion is not hard to find.
In short, Yes, I’m interested! The moment I read that post on Monday I ordered the book from the publisher. All it really takes is for someone to compare a book to Evan Dara’s books and it ends up making its way to the front of my “to read” queue.
However, I don’t think that Scott said it’s the first great self-published novel of this century. He specifically mentions that Evan Dara’s “The Easy-Chain” is self-published.
Anyway, I can’t wait to read this book. I am so thankful to book blogs who constantly help me spend a more than healthy chunk of my paychecks on books!
I’m 200 pages into A Naked Singularity right now, and it is absolutely great–to me, it’s not quite on the level of Dara’s The Lost Scrapbook, but what is? Regardless, De La Pava’s book is excellent, and definitely worth reading for anyone who likes Wallace, Gaddis, Pynchon, Dellilo, etc. etc.