Monthly Archives: May 2013

Karl Ove Knausgård’s “My Struggle: Book One”

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Brandon Cook

Much has been made of Karl Ove Knausgård’s autobiographical “My Struggle,” which made its English debut about a year ago, to clamorous positive reviews. There have been comparisons to Ibsen, suggestions of a Norwegian Proust, promotions using words like “harrowing” … Continue reading →

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“A Portrait of the Artist as a Young, Sexy Woman”: Rachel Kushner’s “The Flamethrowers”

Posted on May 16, 2013 by Brandon Cook

Let us consider, briefly, the world built by the mid 20th century philosophers of post-structuralism (better known today under the banner of ‘post-modernism’).  Modernism, with all its emphasis on the evils of imperialism and the disillusionment of ideology, was dead … Continue reading →

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Honoré de Balzac’s “Ursule Mirouët”

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Brandon Cook

This rather small novel, regarded by Balzac himself to be his masterpiece when it was published in 1841 as apart of his La Comédie humaine (specifically, one of the two novels that made up the canon’s Scènes de la vie … Continue reading →

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Julian Barnes’s “The Sense of an Ending”

Posted on May 6, 2013 by Brandon Cook

How trustworthy are we, really? Or so goes the prevalent theme in Julian Barnes’s Booker Prize winning novel (2011), “The Sense of an Ending,” which seems to declare itself more a novella than a novel. Compact (166 pages in big … Continue reading →

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