Little-Known Gems ...

Sara Wheeler's biography is called simply 'Cherry' and reads well.

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My gem is "The Slave" by Isaac Bashevis Singer - read it as a taster for his masterpieces "The Estate" and "The Manor". Singer won the Nobel Prize, so he's not exactly unrecognized, but I never hear any one raving about him. One of the best twentieth-century fiction writers, in my opinion.

The Middle Stories, by Sheila Heti
Blue, by George Elliot Clarke
The One With the News, by Sandra Sabatini
The Biographer's Tale, by A.S. Byatt
Humanism Betrayed, by Graham Good (non-fiction)
The Edna Webster Poems, by Richard Brautigan

Indeed! And he was a pretty sexy bear, too.

At any rate, someone not nearly enough read is David Jones, specifically his book In Parenthesis. It's sort of a high-modernist, consciousness-as-stream-from-sources-only-possibly-understood-deep-historically-through-the-lens-of-the-inimitable-moment account of war, nearly as allusive and far-reaching in places, and certainly as rich in language, as a Joyce or Eliot but much more stutteringly visceral. And, as warning or commendation: those two are the main reference points, here, too. It's dense, and whelming if not over-, easier read in brief sprints than in lumbering hauls. The textual play is omnipresent--it's much more honest as a prose poem than Baudrillard's were, presaging some of Federman's or Sukenick's play with _their_ ostensible prose, forever working the high-low in Pynchonian veins. In short, brilliant as hell. One of the best (and only) ironically-minded war novels--if this is a novel--that manages to not also dismiss the war or comfortably circumscribe it.

Excerpts here: http://www.cwru.edu/artsci/engl/VSALM/mod/dresch/djex.html

The in-print situation might be dismal; I don't know.

M.

The Ventriloquist's Tale by Pauline Melville - set in Guyana, this traces a native community through several generations as they're exposed to colonialists. Emphasis is placed on the life of the native community, from rituals to beliefs to folklore - the writing is beautiful.

Rumors of Peace by Ella Leffland - this one is a favorite for me - set in the California Bay Area, in the contrived town of Mendoza, it's a coming-of-age story of a young woman who is disarmingly honest, aggrivating, and disturbingly human. The plot traces her life during WWII, and shows her gradual understanding of war and of the world and her community.

Good Night, Mr. Tom by Michelle Magorian (a book for youth, but absolutely wonderful for all ages, I think) - set in rural England during the Blitz, this is the story of a young refugee from London who has been sent to the country for his own safety, where's he's lodged with a reserved older gentleman. The boy is withdrawn and terrified, the gentleman calm and gentle - and the slowly become friends and to venture forth into the world. Tear-jerking and wonderful.

Mind of the Raven: Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds by Bernd Heinrich - a journal of a naturalist's experiments and observations regarding raven communities and communications - amazing and fascinating.

The Keeping Days - another coming-of-age story, set in North-eastern America about the turn of the last century. It's a simple, disarming story that captures a moment in an idealized time.

The Lemon Jelly Cake - this was a big surprise for me - it's set in a rural Illinois community about the turn of the last century, and records the gossip and town happenings as observed and interpreted by a precocious young girl. Deals with ideas of adultery and lost dreams. Pretty amazing.

I've never heard of it before but I was drawn to it in the bookshop like a farm hand to a buxom country lass.

Anyone else read this?

Ok, you caught me. It's just Marquez. Who I don't like. Magical realism my arse.

I keep plugging this here. It's really wonderful. Witty as all get out, written in the style of a snobby aesthete, a send-up of The Divine Comedy, and historically important, as well, since it beat an obscenity rap here in the States around the same time Ulysses did.

It's a fictional autobiography by an 80-year old bachelor on Gurnsey
Island, looking back on his life. With a terrific ending.

Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart. A tale of ancient China that never was. "Number Ten Ox brings Master Li Kao back to his village of Ku-fu to find the cure for a mysterious sleeping plague that has struck the villagers' children." You can read this one and participate in next month's discussion over at BookBlog.