The First Wave Crested in Colorado

After 35 seconds of feedback and 76 seconds of further build up, Small Dog Frenzy pause briefly before launching into a musical cavalcade and do not rest for 47 minutes. There is no climax, no individual moment of flair, no catharsis. Every moment thereafter is singularly uncompromising.

Grace Is Everywhere

Conclave is a religious film.

I don’t mean that its subject matter is religion, but that its themes, narrative structure, and final denouement lend the film to a Christian reading. It’s not just about the election of a Pope, it’s about how men and women attempt to live out their faith.

Crossings (On Cormac McCarthy)

Harold Bloom once said that there were only four active great American novelists: Don DeLillo, Cormac McCarthy, Thomas Pynchon, and Philip Roth. That was in 2003, and it was an absurd thing to say even back then (I won’t dignify it with an elaborate rebuke). Twenty years later, Roth has died; Pynchon is retired, or close to it; DeLillo continues to publish, but with diminishing readership and acclaim; and, as of a couple weeks ago, Cormac McCarthy has died.

Dalgarno's Inferno

A review of Falling Hour by Geoffrey D. Morrison (Coach House Books, 2023)

On many of the Big Questions of literary theory, I’m a centrist, or worse, a waffler. I tend to see both sides, probably to the point of not giving either of them their due. Politically, I’m a socialist, and I do find Marxist literary criticism generative, but I don’t think Marxist literary criticism has anything near the last word on the subject. I even find myself at times sympathizing with their diametrical opposite, the New Critics. To square this circle I tend then to lean heavily on those who forged a path between the two, the Auerbachs, the Fryes, the Kazins, even the Trillings (Lord forgive me)—yes, the liberals, more or less.

The Oceanic and the Rifle Woman

I recently read two crime thrillers published by NYRB Classics: In a Lonely Place (1947) by Dorothy B. Hughes and Fatale (1977) by Jean-Patrick Manchette. Both were remarkably fun reads, and quite thought-provoking, especially in terms of their gender politics.

American Pastoral

 

Crowd control on the streets of Newark, 1967

“The Swede.” So begins Philip Roth’s Pulitzer-winning American Pastoral (1997), a novel of truly epic proportions about a very ordinary man. And its hero, a tragic hero on the scale of the Greeks, is Seymor “The Swede” Levov. “The Swede.” A declaration. He doesn’t need a verb to be a complete sentence. He simply asserts himself. Not even “Call me Ishmael.” Not “Call me the Swede,” or “We called him the Swede,” just: “The Swede.”

The White Nurse in Ian McEwan's Atonement

In 1977 the German sociologist Klaus Theweleit published Male Fantasies, Vol. 1: Women, Floods, Bodies, History, a study of the ephemera of the proto-fascist interwar German paramilitary, the Freikorps. He analyzes the letters, memoirs, propaganda, and prose of the Freikorps officers in order to understand fascism’s psychic logic, in particular the role of women in the unconscious of fascist men.

Thoughts on Lolita

 

I just re-read Lolita.

Nabokov’s most controversial novel is by far his most widely read, and, with the possible exception of Pnin, the best of his I’ve read so far. It’s a twisted love story, a travelog, a noir, a Western, a mystery; it’s the ramblings of a madman. And, not unimportantly, it’s a seemingly effortless frolic in the beauty of the English language (One would expect nothing less from Nabokov.)

Reading and Re-reading William Faulkner

Recently my friends and I organized a William Faulkner reading group. We read Absalom, Absalom! (1936) and then The Sound and the Fury (1929). While Sound was published first, Absalom takes place first chronologically, so we read that one first.

Stylistically, the two novels could hardly be more different. Absalom, written in third person, consists almost entirely of long, complex, lyrical sentences (one of them running some seven pages), a prose-poetic text in which Faulkner holds back nothing. He makes no attempt to create realistic dialogue; each character is simply a puppet for his show. Although some have leveled this as a criticism, I actually think it works perfectly fine. I have no commitment to strict realism. Sound, on the other hand, is mostly in first person, and only rarely does Faulkner wax lyrical here. Dialogue is simplified and stream-of-consciousness abounds.

Some Thoughts on Sally Rooney's Beautiful World, Where Are You

I never expected myself to describe a Sally Rooney novel as “sprawling,” but here I am, describing Sally Rooney’s latest novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You, as sprawling. Clocking in at 353 pages in the hardback edition I got from the library, Rooney’s latest is much longer, and much more ambitious, than her last two. Rooney obviously set her heights high on this one, and did she get there? I think she might have, but only partially.

The story of the novel centers around two women, Eileen and Alice, who have been friends since childhood, as they figure out how to live their lives at the close of their twenties. For both women this centers on romantic and sexual encounters, and here we’re given Rooney’s standard fare; we’ve seen this before in both Normal People and Conversations With Friends, and I’m not convinced she made any significant advances in this area with her latest. In a recent tweet, LitHub referred to Rooney as “the bard of millennial intimacy,” and they’re not exactly wrong, but it’s a bit played by this point.

The Marvel-ness of It All

Let’s talk about Wandavision.

The Peach is a Lie

Charlie Kaufman makes a movie that I wish I could have.

Avery's Top 100 Albums of the 2010s

I was 15 years old in 2010. To state the obvious, my music taste was not then what it is now. Over the years, I have shifted from my punk rock roots to hip-hop, then to indie rock and back again, then on to country and R&B. A “Best of the 2010s” list of this sort cannot but be a haphazard patchwork of proclivities past and present, a Frankenstein monster comprised of innumerable snapshots. As such, this list is ranked very loosely. My intention was to balance my current taste with albums that were important to me when they were released, which includes albums that I hold fond memories of but have not listened to in several years. If my RYM calculations are correct, I rated approximately 640 albums that were released this decade. I bring this up only to note that there are many albums that I very much enjoy but did not make the list.

Carter's Top 100 Albums of the 2010's

I first started engaging with music journalism right when the 00's were ending. Many "best of the 00's" lists being shared right as I started voraciously listening to and reading about music online. These lists were essentially "what I had just missed," but when they began I was 4. Ten years was a monumental amount of time to me, as it represented over half of my life up to that point. Albums such as Kid A were ancient, and it was hard to reconcile that they belonged to a period of time which was just ending. This amount of time felt immensely long.

Now as another decade ends, there are certain albums from 2010 that seem unfathomably long ago, but more often than not I can’t believe they are that old. The part of me that recalls the aughts ending doesn't at all align with the part that is reflecting on the teens ending now. Time flew by, and it's only now that I realize how short a decade really is.

But I remember all of it, one way or another. This will be the decade I especially remember, the one I "came of age" in, and the one I might turn on the radio to relive in 40 years. For this reason I think it is most worthwhile to reflect on it, not because of what it will say about my favorite albums, but for what they will say about me. I want to document how I experienced these years now, while they are fresh on my mind. My favorites will undoubtedly change. I will listen to things I missed out on. The next ten years will influence how I appreciated the last ten. This is ok, natural even. All that will be captured is a momentary position, with a velocity taking it elsewhere quickly.

“Best Of” Lists Are Opportunities for Publications to Assert Their Brand

All “best of” lists say as much about their authors as the content they praise. An individual’s curated list says what they like. An aggregate chart of a website’s ratings says who their userbase is. A publication’s list is an assertion of their brand. This is true of basically any content, but for now I will consider music, which I find has the strongest association with “best of” lists. Music gets in our heads and we don’t forget it, leading to increased reflection and the persistence of older songs in culture. People who grew up in the 70’s don’t primarily still watch 70’s movies; a lot of people who grew up in the 70’s still listen to classic rock radio.

What It Means to Be Human: A Review of Reds (1981)

“The most problematic sense of man's life is embodied in the history of twentieth-century Communism. It was through Communism that, in our time, one could grapple most fiercely with what it means to be a human being.” [1]

The Kids Are Back in "Somewhere City"

How one album brought me back to my beginnings, in music and to writing.

Oh no, not another blog post about Sun Kil Moon

A third in an ongoing series.

In The Particular Lies The Universal

On Sun Kil Moon, Mark Kozelek, and his recent songwriting.

Beat the Beatles, Volume 2: The Byrds

The Byrds

Avid readers of this blog (read: no one) might recall my having posted a picture of my then-recent purchase of a Byrds box set about a year and a half ago. I planned to review each album in the collection; this did not happen. However, I did listen to several of their albums, leading to a great affection for the Byrds.

The Byrds had a lot going against them, critically speaking, when they formed in 1964. They were overtly influenced by the Beatles - their oddly spelled name being a reference, as well as buying identical instruments to the ones the Beatles played - AND their first few singles were Dylan covers. How could such a band hope to be original? Somehow, the Byrds managed to do so, and it’s really quite astounding.