Michael L Sevy
@mlsevy
Composer, writer. Lives in Vermont. Link to published works:
8 years ago visiting my old east village neighborhood I came across a Hungarian bookstore, 10 Thousand Steps. I told them of all the Krasznahorkai I had read. They pressed on me 2 Péters: Esterházy and Nádás. Celestial Harmonies and Parallel Stories. Both Péters now gone(bookstore too).
Thoughts after too many Jeanne Dielman views: She didn’t use soap after handling raw veal. Pretty sure the potatoes were overcooked the 1st time. Shining her kid’s dirty shoes over kitchen table- Gross! Not a fan of the kid’s posture - stand straight! The boom mic!
Claude Mauriac on the French New Novel from The Dinner Party (1959) tr. Melody Lawrence The so-called ‘new fiction’ whose theories some of us are proclaiming, has nothing fictional about it, in the usual sense of the word. In this kind- 1/2
Help me solve a Robert Pinget mystery. I can’t find the title of a Pinget novel I read years ago. 1st page showed an illustration of a dinner table with 10 or 12 people. The book was all unattributed dialogue (like Gaddis’s J.R.). Difficult to tell who was speaking.
After posting the 23 Marguerite Duras books I’ve read people pointed out 2 I missed. Grateful that I now have 2 more opportunities to lose my mind in Duras’ obsessive passionate narratives.
Of course I love all my NYRB, New Directions, Archipelago, Picador books but here’s some great small press publishers everyone should also read
I’ve read 23 Marguerite Duras books over the years. Am I missing anything significant? I once saw a Duras cookbook in a bookstore but it didn’t seem relevant to her writing.
No matter the name I love all of Pessoa. That Zenith translation of The Book of Disquiet lives permanently on my nightstand.
“For surely even human beings will not flourish forever. I think it best to wait in patience for the Day of the Cats.” Sōseki Natsume - I Am a Cat
Books in the mail. Excited for Vol2 of Michel Leiris and any Hungarian novel translated by Ottilie Mulzet.
Nice to see my 1982 single still getting airplay on WFMU: wfmu.org/playlists/sh... I'm between Paid in Puke and Exploding Seagulls.
From the latest NYRB sale. Most looking forward to Cesare Pavese. I know his prose but not his poetry.
Hard to keep it to just 10 films but for the moment these are my choices.
Mathias Énard wrote this over 17 years ago when almost 1/2 of the current population of Gaza were not yet born. - “Zone” translated Charlotte Mandell
An inside account, anecdotal, but inspiring and informative. Richter's many descriptions of the elevation of 'chance' as in his Visionäre Porträts: painting in the twilight, his groping hand as it got darker and darker "the picture took shape before the inner rather than the outer eye."
“Nature is a deep imitator. And as man is the prince of organisms he is the master of adaptations. He is the artist of suggestions. He himself is his principal work of art, in the body, working in the flesh. What miracle! What triumph! Also, what a disaster! What tears are to be shed!” Saul Bellow
My beloved Oliver. Tall enough to steal blocks of cheese from the kitchen counter. It’s been over 6 years and I still choke up thinking of him.
My book group, an approximate democracy, has chosen these books for next year’s discussions