Eileen & Friends Read Books

  Reading by Aloy Polintan Hallucinating Foucault by Patricia Duncker (Vintage, 1998) Flash Book Review No. 249: "The Muse must never be domestic. And can never be possessed. The Muse is dangerous, elusive, unaccountable." The interplay of an author's obsession with the Muse and a reader's readiness to assume the role is what turned the austere, romantic novel that is Patricia Duncker's Hallucinating Foucault (1996, Vintage) into a complex dictum on psychology and art. There was the incarcerated novelist Paul Michel, known for "his moods, his sudden withdrawals, his potential violence," and his books that, with all their directness towards abstractions, seduced every reader to investigate more. And there was the staunch investigator, the unnamed Cambridge graduate student, who had discovered in the quite shocking ending of the story that all he had become in this circuity of desire, madness, and liberation was a "Red Cross Knight, sent out to find

  Reading by Eileen Tabios THE YEARS by Annie Ernaux (Gallimard Editions/Seven Stories Press, 2008) Since I'd not cared for the first book I'd read by Annie Ernaux ( SIMPLE PASSION ), I'm not just delighted but relieved to rave over the second book of hers that I've read: THE YEARS . It's a memoir that elevates the "we" from the "I" in a way no less than transcendent. It's also an exquisite and superb balance of desire and loss when the latter reflects the reality that to live is to lose. I'm going to share the back cover info because it nicely sums up my own opinion of this stellar work. Of particular interest to writers always looking (as, cough, I am) to disrupt genres from their norms.

Reading by Eileen Tabios AUTUMN by Karl One  Knausgaard (Penguin Random House, 2015) Karl Ove Knausgaard is one of the best writers of our time and in AUTUMN he turns goldenly gorgeous.  My take-away from this book—the most beautiful book I’ve read in a long while—is a paraphrase from the most memorable essay I’ve read on Van Gogh… that I’m moved to turn to a monostich: Lose your battle with technique to become Van Gogh which, in turn, gifts against the true story of today’s weather: Outside, quicksilver flashes of rain rebelling  against all gray days  

Reading by Eileen Tabios Ley Lines II by Mark Young (Sandy Press, 2023) My buddy Mark Young is one of those people who knows so much that he connects dots through pleasingly unorthodox leaps. As such, poetry is his logical genre. Btw, this is a book review, explicated by images below where the poems speak articulately enough for themselves:

Reading by Eileen Tabios   MARSHLANDS  by Andre Gide , Translated by Damion Searls (New York Review of Books, 2021)   I don’t often respond to books with affection. But I did so with Andre Gide’s  MARSHLANDS , a charming metafiction by the acknowledged inventor of modern metafiction and autofiction. Throughout my reading I kept laughing—and though I laughed at it, not with it, my laughter remained affectionate. Numerous gems are sprinkled throughout the book, like this timely reminder of why life is unbearable: “It could be different and it isn’t—and that is enough to make it unbearable.” It’s an enchanting novel. The writing is charismatic but with a nuance of how charisma is not one ofthe author’s goals. That said, it’s a paradox to say that I probably will not be moved to re-read it in the future. One gets it at one sitting. Perhaps I’m also suggesting that the book ideally should be read in one sitting.  A Preface for this NYRB edition was provided by Dubravka Ugresic… and I can’t

  Reading by Eileen Tabios BIBLIOLEPSY by Gina Apostol (Soho Press, 2022) I'd read the 1997 Philippine edition of Gina Apostol's BIBLIOLEPSY years ago--loved & love it enough to get the 2022 American version put out by SoHo Press. She said she didn't change the novel significantly from the first edition so I mostly focused on her new Introduction. I show an excerpt below which made me think about the opposite of what's being discussed: the *thought police* I see frequently on social media, who tell other strangers how said strangers should speak/behave. But no need to discuss that further and give them attention they don't warrant. Instead I highly recommend Gina's book--the first book I read by her and which made me pay attention to any book she'd write subsequently.

 Reading by Eileen Tabios All is Forgotten, Nothing is Lost by Lan Samantha Lang (Norton, 2010) There’s certainly nothing wrong with the writing in Lan Samantha Lang’s novel about poets & writers who meet in something like the Iowa Writers’ Workshop that the novelist directs. But I know I won’t read the book again—I don’t like reading about poets in limited worlds, especially when such limits their poetry. Poetry, among other things, can provide the excuse for fearless lucidity.