"Sphinx" by Anne Garréta (Translated from the French by Emma Ramadan & Introduction by Daniel Levin Becker)

ISBN: 978-1-941920-09-1 Deep Vellum

"Sphinx" by Anne Garréta (Translated from the French by Emma Ramadan; Introduction by Daniel Levin Becker)   Deep Vellum

A really nice mood piece of writing here.  Anne Garréta gives the nighttime life of Paris and Manhattan a nice smokey touch, as this is a tale of lovers, one is a combination of professor and DJ, and the other lover is an American dancer in Paris.  What we don't know is the gender of either of the two.   Which must have been hell for the translator Emma Ramadan to do, since the French language has very strong genderistic touches to their language.   In all honesty, as I was reading, I was imagining that the lovers were women, and I'm not sure if it was just a stupid knowledge of knowing the author is female, or somehow the nature of the two main characters.   Garréta wrote this novel when she was 25, and she became a member of Oulipo five years after she wrote "Sphinx."   One can sense the playfulness of the language as well as the no gender specific of the two characters, but it's not as experimental as Georges Perec for instance.  The story reads as a doomed love story, a very smart and textured text, but one that conveys the loss of a presence.  

- Tosh Berman

"Pedigree: a Memoir" by Patrick Mordiano (translated by Mark Polizzotti)

ISBN: 9780300215335 Yale University Press

"Pedigree: a Memoir" by Patrick Modiano (Translated from the French to English by Mark Polizzotti) Yale University Press  ISBN: 9780300215335

A moody memoir of the young years of the Nobel Prize winner (for literature) Patrick Modiano.   I have not, at this date, read any of his fiction, but will do so.  I like his writing, and how he reflects on the relationship between him and his parents.  His mother was very distant and sort of demanding, and father was a border-line criminal.  Both parents lacked that parent skill, so Modiano floated between and beyond them. 

This brief book is hard to put down, and one can easily read it in a few hours.  It's concise in scope in that it addresses the years of his childhood up to the time when he wrote his first novel in his early 20s.   The narration floats down the stream, like memory at work.  His sense of place, specifically Paris in the 1950s is very clear.   The book is written dryly, but I sense a great deal of emotion from the author as he covers his life as it happened.  The writing is sparse, but loaded with meaning.  On top of that, since I'm Boris Vian's publisher in English, I'm delighted he gives some attention to the remarkable figure of the Saint Germain-des-prés scene.  It seems like he knew his widow, and she showed him a dance that Boris and her used to do together.   Great little book.

- Tosh Berman

"Submission" by Michel Houellebecq

ISBN: 978-0-374-27157-2 FSG

"Submission" by Michel Houellebecq (FSG)

A beautiful romp through France in the 21st century.   No, not really.   On the other hand, Michel Houellebecq's new novel "Submission" is a witty commentary on the issues of French/European culture, religious politics and of course the main subject of this novel, the great French author of the 19th century J-K. Huysmans.    The best part of the novel is when the main character who is a literary professor, discusses Huysmans.    

My favorite type of novel is one where the author writes about ideas, and "Submission" is very much about ideas.   Popular media would label this book as being Islamophobic, but I think Houellebecq is really criticizing the modern world, and not praising anyone.   In a way, he reminds me of Swift, in that he looks at culture from a distance, and pokes holes into it.  

 I admire Houellebecq as a craftsman writer.  He knows how to tell a tale, and is often funny.   I enjoy reading him, and I enjoy being in his company on the written page.   But beyond that, I think he is quite hollow.  There is something vapid about his presence.  Serge Gainsbourg had bite, but Houellebecq to me, is a distant ghost of such men of past generations.  Still, I enjoy the ride that he takes me through his writing.  And to be honest, I would rather that this book just focus on Huysmans.  Politics is bullshit. 

The beauty of reading a Houellebecq book is that you feel the lecturer at the Sorbonne is Houellebecq.  In fact, he's the biggest character in the whole book, of course.  It is like reading a Woody Allen short story, where you can hear and actually feel the Woody presence.  There is nothing wrong with that, in fact, it's great.  So readers of Houellebecq's work wants to experience the Houellebecq experience.  In many ways, he's a bigger presence in one's life.  He drinks, he smokes, he fucks.... what is there not to like about him?  On the other hand, like life itself, it's an illusion of sorts.  It really depends if one follows the illusion of the writer as a great thinker.   Houellebecq to me, is a great entertainer.  

- Tosh Berman

"Autoportrait" by Edouard Levé (Translated from the French to English by Lorin Stein)

ISBN 9781564787071 Dalkey Archive  

Without a thought in my head, I went to Stories Bookstore and Cafe in Echo Park, and decided to purchase a copy of Edouard Levé's "Autoportrait."   I have heard of this book through Dennis Cooper's blog, and reading about "Autoportrait" made me curious to go get the book itself.  After purchasing it, I went directly to the Echo Park Library, or Edendale Libray as it is officially known, to start reading the book.   I didn't leave the library till I finished the entire book. 

Once you start it, the writing of this short work of literature (not sure if it's officially fiction or memoir) is hard to stop reading.  Rarely have I ever read a book where I was compelled to read the whole thing in one sitting.  I'm glad that I did, because I think if one stops reading "Autoportrait," you would lose the rhythm of the language and sentences.   Basically "Autoportrait" is a collection of facts regarding the writer's life and thoughts.   There are sentences like "I get excited by the idea of reading the biography of an author I love, then when I actually do it I lose steam."   Which is perfectly factual in a sense, but I'm not sure if he really means all biographies he feels that way, or just some.  Perhaps the one's that are 'only' about his favorite writers.   The book is actually full of sentences that can be either meaningful and quite textural, or just the facts sir, in the style of Jack Webb's narration in the TV show "Dragnet."

For me as a reader, the textures and pacing of the language he uses is quite hypnotic.   As I mentioned it was hard for me to put down this book, not because I wanted to know what will happen in the end, but just where he is going with this style of writing and format.    The book is very similar to the writings of George Perec and Joe Brainard - two writers he mentions in passing in "Autoportrait."     Joe Brainard's "I Remember" is very subjective, because it is how he remembers a certain time in his life, yet Levé is working in the same format, but the results are different.   Perec likes to play literary games, and I think Levé was a fan of both writers (just what I read out of this book - by his style alone) that in many ways, reads like a tribute to Brainard and Perec.    "Autoportrait" doesn't have a lot of psychology, in fact, it is almost reading the surface of someone.  Yet, one picks up little clues here and there.  Towards the end of the book, he mentions a friend who before going out to play tennis he went back to the house to shoot himself.   Which describes a person who thought out his suicide, but then I started to think why did he make arrangements to play tennis with his wife.  There is a coldness in the text that is disconcerting.   I did know that Levé committed suicide, so perhaps he was thinking about the nature of taking one's life.  On the other hand, Levé seems to have a full-life before his end.  He traveled well, and it seems he loved and had relationships, so the mystery of why one would do something like that, is still a mystery in this book as well.  

When I read "I Remember" I get a full portrait of its author Joe Brainard.   I don't feel that way after reading "Autoportrait."   It is not a work of full exposure of a human being, but maybe just the facts of how one lives in their lives.    Brainard is like Proust, and Levé is a minimalist by design.   It is obvious he's a man who likes structures, or has a belief in the world of the system.   Yet, that specific structure doesn't tell much.  But then again, what is there to tell?  "Autoportrait" is a remarkable piece of literature, but it is also I think a good book about the art or the artlessness of 'good writing.   Those who write, should be for sure, read this book. 

Edouard Levé

 - Tosh Berman

"True Stories" by Sophie Calle

ISBN 9782330023416

Odd enough this is my first entrance into the world of Sophie Calle.  I have known of her work over many years, but never ever purchased or read her books.  Till now, and I love "True Stories."   Right now since I am working on a memoir project, I'm very much interested in how a subject matter looks at their life via writing.  What impresses me is Calle's seeing her life or even her desires as a conceptual art work.  So the visual element (one story and one image through out the book) is really strong, and also I love how she treats objects as fetishes or an entrance to a series of memories. Sometimes very Proust like, other times just kind of nasty sexy.   It's all good to me!

Georges Perec and the OULIPO "Winter Journeys" Atlas Press

Atlas Press, distributed by D.A.P. ISBN 9781900565646

There is nothing more fun than reading a literary work that is about books. Or the idea of books, and how it can lead to an adventure. The OULIPO group that was originally formed by Raymond Queneau is such a group that reads and writes book that becomes a game or even an quasi-science project. Georges Perec is considered the Shakespeare of the group, and therefore he leads the race with this specific book "Winter Journeys." Which, in return has caused a series of little books by writers in the OULIPO group that either continue or expand or just comments on Perec's original piece.


Perec writes of a writer named Hugo Vernier who wrote a book called "The Winter Journey" which book is before everyone else's great book. in fact his writing is the key book of avant-garde literature. Except no one has really seen it, but they have heard of it. Like a chain-letter, the various writers in Perec's world, continue the adventure of this book and what became of it or if even found.  So what we have here is really a book about literature and how powerful it is as an object, or a collection of ideas. Bibliophile galore!


For those who either tipped their toes in the OULIPO world or are full-time addicts to its games and fun, this is the book to get. Also, strange enough the key graphic aspect of the book is done by the guy who originally illustrated Raymond Roussel's great "Impression of Africa." You see everything links up. Not a paranoid conspiracy but fact!

"The Map and the Territory" by Michel Houellebecq

His best novel.  The themes are basically the same, but Michel Houellebecq tells the tale again with great energy and in a large tongue in cheek manner.  On one level it is about the rise of an artist who doesn't really want to participate in the art market.  He has nothing against it, but his character is not one where he follows the market place.  Yet he's extremely successful in what he does.  The other textual parts are Houellebecq's fascination with what people do on their 'free' time - the need to be a tourist in 21st Century life as well as the issue of aging, fame, and the beauty of maps.  in many ways, of all his novels, this is the most Situationist like.  Houellebecq is for sure not Guy Debord, but he shares his sense of love (disgust?) at looking at culture and what that means to an artist/writer as well

There are major plot turns that makes this narrative into a policer.  The twists in the plot makes this a really fun read.  "The Map and the Territory" is the best novel of the year and its January 3, 2012.


Old BBC interview in English


Iggy Pop and Michel Houellebecq


"Paris" by Michel Houellebecq and Bertrand Burgalat


Houellebecq pop singer 4:33