Books I Read March 21st, 2021
I remain upright.
The Other Side by Alfred Kubin – A journey to a foreign land/the depths of the unconscious as understood by a German illustrator of the early 20th century. Weird and disturbing and vivid, if kind of listless.
Selected Poems by William Carlos Williams –
The thought returns: Why have I not
but for imagined beauty where there is none
or none available, long since
put myself deliberately in the way of death
Or, alternatively:
Just as the nature of briars
is to tear flesh,
I have proceeded
through them.
The Summer Book by Tove Jansson – An old woman spends the summers with her motherless granddaughter on an island in the gulf of Finland. I love, love, love Tove Jansson. Her descriptions of nature (which I usually can't really stand) are sublime, and her vignettes of family and childhood beautifully vivid, cruel and sweet. Such a delight.
Clinch by Martin Holmen – A sociopathic bisexual ex-boxer turned loan collector is drawn into a murder in pre-war Stockholm. Nasty! A well-executed example of the genre.