The Death of Ivan Ilyich & Other Stories
By Bob Blaisdell | 11.21.09
Translators are cooks trying to follow recipes to the letter, but by necessity they have to use the ingredients and equipment they’ve got at home. They make do and hope the approximations taste good. The American/Russian husband/wife team Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky are known for their translations of the Russian classics, and we should at least be grateful that their productions remind us to read or reread some of the best literature in the world. Learn Russian if you can (it’s taken me four years of hard labor to be lousy at it), or accept with gratitude what Pevear and Volokhonsky serve you. (more…)
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The Original of Laura
By Heller McAlpin | 11.18.09
When Vladimir Nabokov died in Switzerland in 1977, he left explicit instructions for his heirs to destroy the penciled index cards that made up his work to date on his unfinished 18th novel, The Original of Laura (Dying is Fun). Véra, his loyal wife and amanuensis, who died in 1991, couldn’t bring herself to do it. And, fortunately, after much debate, neither could their son, Dmitri. (more…)
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Under the Dome
By Erik Spanberg | 11.17.09
Running through Stephen King’s 1,100-page domesday novel – and you will run through it – one of your first thoughts will be: That didn’t feel like an 1,100-page novel. And, really, can there be a higher compliment for a novelist? (more…)
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Raven Summer
By Augusta Scattergood | 11.14.09
When boys dream of woodland adventures, hiding out where adults will never find them, they no doubt imagine exactly the kind of place where Liam Lynch and his friend Max found the Death Dealer. Although just an old, tarnished pruning knife uncovered as the two were “messing about, digging for treasure,” in Raven Summer, David Almond’s skillfully crafted young adult novel, it becomes a symbol of both the adventure and the danger that boyhood summer held. (more…)
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A Rumpole Christmas
By Yvonne Zipp | 11.13.09
When it comes to Christmas, Horace Rumpole is just about as brimming with good cheer as Ebenezer Scrooge, pre-haunting. “I have no rooted objection to Christmas Day, but I must say it’s an occasion when time tends to hang particularly heavy on the hands,” the barrister muses in a slim new collection, A Rumpole Christmas. “From the early morning alarm call of carols piping on Radio Four to the closing headlines and a restless, liverish sleep, the day can seem as long as a fraud on the Post Office tried before Mr. Injustice Graves.” (more…)
