The Evan Dara Affinity

One Mutual Sheaf

“O let me teach you how to knit again/

This scattered corn into one mutual sheaf,/

These broken limbs again into one body;”

Emmett Stinson’s new book, Satirizing Modernism: Aesthetic Autonomy, Romanticism, and the Avant-Garde, comes out in June, and appears to be the first major critical work to wrestle with Evan Dara’s The Easy Chain, along with Thomas Love Peacock’s Nightmare Abbey, Wyndham Lewis’s The Apes of God, William Gaddis’s The Recognitions, and Gilbert Sorrentino’s Imaginative Qualities of ActualContinue reading “Satirizing Modernism”

Counterevidence

Earlier this year, I happened upon the audiobook of William Gaddis’s JR, a 37-hour tour de force narrated by Nick Sullivan which is essential listening for anyone seeking a deeper appreciation of this prescient radio tower of Babel. While I don’t absorb enough audiobooks to provide a trustworthy opinion, it’s clear why this title is so highlyContinue reading “Counterevidence”

Author/Editor

On copyedits and compromise, through the lens of Evan Dara’s The Easy Chain.

Preparing for The Easy Chain

Without knowing exactly where to start, I’ll begin at the beginning and wend my way through this marvelous and baffling book, which contains some of the best prose of this millennium, along with savage stretches that test and exasperate even the most faithful readers. Like its perorative predecessor The Lost Scrapbook, The Easy Chain reveals new facetsContinue reading “Preparing for The Easy Chain”

Against Readability?

Last week, Ben Roth published an essay on The Millions entitled “Against Readability,” which was provocative in a fairly predictable way. But as he drew lines between the praiseworthy (e.g. Tom McCarthy’s Remainder) and the forgettable (Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch), it pushed a button that prompted a version of this kneejerk comment: As someone whoContinue reading “Against Readability?”

El Cuaderno Perdido: An Interview with José Luis Amores

An interview with Jose Luis Amores, who translated Evan Dara’s first novel, The Lost Scrapbook.

The Easy Chain

I’m in the midst of a re-read of Dara’s The Easy Chain, which has been slowed by the furious underlining and marginalianizing that the story demands. There are threads that I plan to pursue in future posts (e.g. Has there been a better novel involving Chicago in the last 20 years? The parallels between the riseContinue reading “The Easy Chain”

Flee: A Playlist of Sorts

While I don’t visit Largehearted Boy’s site as often as I did a few years ago, I’m not ashamed to concede that one of the primary reasons I would publish a novel is so that I could cook up a submission to his long-running Book Notes series, where authors create and discuss a playlist that relates to theirContinue reading “Flee: A Playlist of Sorts”

Flann O’Brien and Secured Reputations

Last week, Mark O’Connell shared a quote attributed to Anthony Burgess about the Irish shapeshifter, Flann O’Brien, which O’Connell opined was the “greatest blurb of all time”: “If we don’t cherish the work of Flann O’Brien we are stupid fools who don’t deserve to have great men. Flann O’Brien is a very great man.” It calls to mind SteveContinue reading “Flann O’Brien and Secured Reputations”