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Alan Bray
Jan 20, 20224 min read
The Tell-Tale Heart
Kino sets off, leaving a note that the bar will be closed till further notice. He stays at a hotel, goes to the movies, hires a...
Alan Bray
Jan 13, 20225 min read
Snakes
When we last left Kino, he’d just had the encounter with the woman burned by cigarettes and was shown feeling ambivalently about her....
Alan Bray
Jan 6, 20225 min read
Let's Step Outside
Kino’s bar is a modest success. We learn more about “the man.” “My name is Kamita,” he said. It’s written with the characters for “god”...
Alan Bray
Dec 30, 20214 min read
Kino
This week, a new story, Kino, a long short story written by Haruki Murakami. An English version of Kino first appeared in The New Yorker...
Alan Bray
Dec 23, 20214 min read
Jolly Hunting
A friend recently wrote that he would be interested in my thinking about Steppenwolf in light of recent mass and/or school shootings, as...
Alan Bray
Dec 16, 20214 min read
Hot For Teacher
Last week, I said, “Although it masquerades as one, this (Steppenwolf) is not a realist novel that attempts to show “life as it really...
Alan Bray
Dec 9, 20214 min read
There Are No Coincidences
– Don Juan, in Carlos Castenada’s The Teachings of Don Juan No coincidence, no story - an ancient Chinese saying. Two mutually exclusive...
Alan Bray
Dec 2, 20215 min read
Magic Theater
Last week, we talked about how the first section of Steppenwolf—after the preface—describes Harry Haller’s painful existence. He is glum,...
Alan Bray
Nov 25, 20214 min read
Rage Against the Machine
Harry Haller’s purported journal begins with a description of his day—written in past tense, something we must return to later. He is, to...
Alan Bray
Nov 18, 20214 min read
Get Your Motor Running
This week, a new book, Hermann Hesse’s Steppenwolf, first published in 1927. I am using a Picador edition published in 1963 which...
Alan Bray
Nov 11, 20215 min read
Walkin' the Dog
An important idea is that reading a story changes the reader, that being with a story—and we should say, the implied author of the...
Alan Bray
Nov 4, 20213 min read
Time And The Hour Runs Through The Darkest Day
Last time, we were musing about what connects the sections in Casting Shadows, that there seems to be a pattern of the narrator...
Alan Bray
Oct 28, 20215 min read
Casting Shadows
This week, a new story, Jhumpa Lahiri’s Casting Shadows, a short story or novel excerpt, published in the February 15th 2021 issue of The...
Alan Bray
Oct 21, 20214 min read
Search For The Author - Implicated
This week, as we wrap up our reading of Three Horses, a little background on the concept of the implied author. (Whiny voice: Are you...
Alan Bray
Oct 14, 20214 min read
You Can Count On Me
The narration in Three Horses is written in first person. After all, the very first word is “I,” as in “I only read used books.” Is this...
Alan Bray
Oct 7, 20215 min read
Selim
Besides Laila, the other key character in Three Horses is Selim, a man whom the narrator befriends and helps, acts of kindness which have...
Alan Bray
Sep 30, 20214 min read
Ms. Sandman, Play Me A Tune
Usually, in this blog, I don’t want to merely describe the plots of the books I discuss in the manner of a book review. My purpose is to...
Alan Bray
Sep 23, 20215 min read
Steam Powered Love
As mentioned last week, Erri De Luca, the author of Three Horses, states he can only write about things he’s experienced, placing himself...
Alan Bray
Sep 16, 20214 min read
Three Horses
This week, a new novel, Erri De Luca’s 1999 book Three Horses, translated from Italian to English by Michael Moore in 2005. I first read...
Alan Bray
Sep 9, 20214 min read
I'm Hiding
The Sea is the story of a troubled man who, after great personal tragedy, returns obsessively to the site of an earlier tragedy and...