Bookreview

I’ve been eyeballing this at the bookstore for a while, now, and finally I picked it up. I like writing letters. I have a red Mead notebook that I take out sometimes to write letters like this, to get things out. It is a special kind of writing. Unvarnished and yet, when pure, truer than any high-polished thing. This edition is 221 pages and is a quick read, full of lovely little letters. I appreciate that the editors (R Smith and B Vesey) have by-and-large retained the spelling and grammar of the original authors. They give the letters a real sense of texture. There is a letter here that is so sentimental that the author writes a second line hoping that the reader doesn’t think his writing is faint on purpose, clarifying that he blotted the page too quickly, and so he thus writes, “All my love now and forever.” I adore that. It’s something I’d feel sensitive about, something I’d clarify. ...

Simon Critchley often references this work in his book, “Notes on Suicide.” Levé, on page 29, writes: The way in which you quit it rewrote the story of your life in a negative form. Those who knew you reread each of your acts in the light of your last. Henceforth, the shadow of this tall black tree hides the forest that was your life. When you are spoken of, it begins with recounting your death, before going back to explain it. Isn’t it peculiar how this final gesture inverts your biography? It is now impossible for this book to be read as anything other than a form of suicide note, which makes it voyeuristic. Levé ended his life ten days after submitting this manuscript. It is of course interesting that this happened, and, as Jan Steyn writes in his afterword, “demands” the work be interpreted through this lens. For me, the author’s actions are less compelling than a simpler fact: the book demands that we imagine ourselves as both Levé’s “you” and “I.” The character who ended their life, and the narrator who imagines and recalls the life ended. ...

I have had this book on my living room table for months. Originally, it was to by my book club’s January read, but scheduling and then supply issues pushed it out months and months. The whole time I eyed it warily for its weight and size. I’ve been in a mood of 200-300 page books, and I had no concept of what this would be about, only that it was surprisingly dense to lift. The last book I read from Archipelago Press was Sara Gallardo’s January which is a tiny thing. ...

Notes Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald Last read: 2025-04-20 Rating: 5 Form: Fiction Genre: Literary Fiction Times read: 2 Copies owned: 0 Fun score: 1.66

Notes p31 - My greatest terror was ending up alone. p35 - I avoided you, so that you couldn’t avoid me. p47 - …I decided never to be that vulnerable again, never to feel that panic again, never to depend on anyone else. p68 “Are you doing something bad?” I asked, scared. “No, my darling.” Her voice mellowed. “But even when you don’t do bad things, bad things can happen to you.” “Why?” She tried to look soft, but the lines on her forehead didn’t disappear altogether. “This is how it is.” p77 - You listened, really listened, gentle eyes taking me in without judgement, making me feel more heard than I knew I could be. p113 - (Slightly, but not really, a story spoiler) “Your mother died out of loneliness,” Granny would always repeat, claiming it was because she had never remarried after my father. But I think it was despair that killed her. Having done only things she didn’t believe in, she must have been dead inside for years before her body finally gave up too. p168 - “We’re just queuing for a possibility, queuing for something, maybe queuing for nothing.” p174 - It hurt to see you like that, to have nothing pass between us. — # Review ...

I read this book in graduate school in a course on Clinical Practice with Survivors of Political Trauma and Torture. It was probably the most interesting course I took, and if there were an alternate world where I practiced clinical social work, I’d love to work with this population. A few months ago a friend and I were talking about loss and I recommended Boss’s research. I re-read several of Boss’s papers around that time and ordered a physical copy of the book on Thriftbooks. It’s been sitting on my living room table since then, and I picked it up this morning to skim through. ...

Another short Ernaux text from Fitzcarlando (forever grateful to have been introduced to this press, these books are beautiful). This book is longer than I Will Write, but is in a way shallower. It is a collection of entries into a diary observing behavior of other people in public, writing down little episodes and encounters, sometimes reflecting on them. I love this. Some of them are funny, sad, moving. Most of them are mundane, and yet not boring or in need of editing out. They’re mundane because life is often mundane. ...

Review “This book is not a suicide note.” A fair opening line, as Critchley (SC) goes on to list several novels and essays published under titles containing the word “suicide” which are closely followed by the completed suicide of their authors. It is a cloud that follows this book, which is pure white with NOTES ON SUICIDE in large, blue text on the front cover. I felt self-conscious reading it on the metro this morning, and at work I put the book upside down on my desk, and at the park I held it in such a way as to obscure the title. Lest people think I’m planning to off myself (I am not, FYI). ...

This short text from Ernaux is a collection of her Nobel lecture, banquet speech, and then a short biography. At 43 pages it is so short that I read it in about 20 minutes (the type is quite large), and would strongly recommend it. She writes about the alienation from your home and people that happens when you move out of your homeland, your homeclass. Language changes, and yet it can snap you back. She discusses her writing style, how she developed it and the decisions made therein, particularly in her use of the of “I.” ...

Review I picked this up because Singular Adventures is cited in Philippe Besson’s Lie With me, which I adored. This collection of short stories has entries in it that I love and will re-read, but the first half is flat out bad. Some of the first part has the sort of over-the-top smut eroticism that I wrote in high school, fantasizing about the locker room, and yet it almost always punishes the reader for having fun by taking strange and dark turns. ...