Pynchon's "Mason & Dixon' revisited

Into the wild, then and now: Setting boundaries, and pushing them

In Mason & Dixon, Thomas Pynchon emulates his protagonists by pushing new boundaries and venturing into unknown realms, both loony and profound, in the process risking not his life but his reputation and his worshipful constituency. It's a great novel; and I say this without having understood any more than, oh, 10 percent of it.

Bob Levin

Dec 31, 2012 · Articles · 7 minute read

A trio of new poetry translations

Nabokov meets his match

The great novelist Vladimir Nabokov was a poet too, as his latest collection reminds us. Two other late European poets, also blessed with recent translations, may be worth even more of your attention.

Andrew Mangravite

Dec 29, 2012 · Articles · 3 minute read

Verlaine and Trakl, complete at last

Second life for two Symbolists

Here is a pair of worthy possibilities for the poetry-lover in your life: A complete work by Verlaine and a first-time ever translation of Trakl's early poems and dramatic works into English.

Andrew Mangravite

Dec 22, 2012 · Articles · 2 minute read

Two French Symbolists in new translation

What's old is new again

Hats off to translator Brian Stableford and Black Coat Press for presenting American readers with a world of new 19th-Century French fiction not seen here since the 1920s.

Andrew Mangravite

Dec 10, 2012 · Articles · 3 minute read

Helga Weiss's Holocaust diary

A new generation confronts the Holocaust

As Holocaust survivors and perpetrators die off, will that most horrifying human experience fade from memory? As a child of Holocaust victims, I can attest that the opposite is true: What the traumatized survivors wish to forget, their children are even more determined to confront.

Martin Beck Matustik

Dec 04, 2012 · Articles · 4 minute read

"This Wild Joy': Bill Van Buskirk's poetry

Adam without Eden

Bill Van Buskirk's verse collection is a powerfully engaging book by a poet whose work depicts the hard pains and joys of living, and who deserves wider recognition. This Wild Joy That Thrills Outside the Law. Poems by Bill Van Buskirk. Infinity Publishing, 2010. 100 pages; $9.95. www.amazon.com.

Robert Zaller

Nov 25, 2012 · Articles · 5 minute read

China's Nobel laureate, reconsidered

The unbearable unreadability of a Nobel Prize-winning novel

The awarding of the Nobel Prize for Literature to Mo Yan has unleashed patriotic celebrations in China. Which leaves just one question: Has anyone actually read his novel?

Patrick D. Hazard

Nov 13, 2012 · Articles · 4 minute read

D'Annunzio's "Notturno,' rediscovered

The Italian patient

Yale University Press and Margellos World Republic of Letters Books have rescued yet another forgotten reputation. Gabriele D'Annunzio's Notturno, painstakingly written as he recovered from war wounds, is neither novel nor non-fiction memoir; instead, it's a prose poem.

Andrew Mangravite

Nov 09, 2012 · Articles · 3 minute read

My problem with Junot Diaz's 'Oscar Wao'

Power of the pen, or: This author could destroy my life's work

I've spent decades arguing that Americans must expand their literary horizons beyond our narrow shores. So I was pleased by the honors bestowed upon Oscar Wao, by the Dominican novelist Junot Diaz. Then I had the misfortune of actually reading this mindless book.

Patrick D. Hazard

Oct 30, 2012 · Articles · 5 minute read

Schwarzenegger's "Total Recall'

Buy my book or I'll kill you, or: The Terminator's promotional tour

Move over, Marcel Proust. The Terminator's memories are bigger, badder and surely more shameless than anything you conjured up by biting into a cookie.

Perry Block

Oct 13, 2012 · Articles · 2 minute read