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On Netherland
In which The Gay Recluse recommends a book about loss. In Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland, we meet a narrator “Hans” — a Dutch expat originally from The Hague — who both at the beginning and the end of the...
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On Candle Stubs and the Infinite Sky Beyond
In which The Gay Recluse looks out windows. Eventually we reached an age when we could no longer think about the larger world except with terror; it was too complicated and cruel, and every time we...
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On The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
In which The Gay Recluse ponders Junot Diaz and the purpose of novels. Today we finished The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. For obv reasons – namely, the book won every award last...
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On The Part About the Critics (2666)
In which The Gay Recluse reads Roberto Bolaño in stages. In our experience, one test of a great novel is whether you find yourself altered as you ingest the text, so that your mental dialog seems to be...
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On The Part About Amalfitano (2666)
In which The Gay Recluse reads Roberto Bolaño in stages. As the title indicates, the second book of Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 is devoted to Amalfitano, a professor of philosophy (or maybe sometimes...
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On The Part About Fate (2666)
In which The Gay Recluse reads Roberto Bolaño in stages. In the third book of Roberto Bolaño’s epic 2666, we leave behind the maybe-psychotic descent into madness of Professor Amalfitano for a broader...
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On The Part About the Crimes (2666)
In which The Gay Recluse reads Roberto Bolaño in stages. In the fourth book of 2666, we are presented with something of an encyclopedia of the literally thousands of crimes (99 percent of them against...
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On The Part About Archimboldi (2666)
In which The Gay Recluse finishes reading Roberto Bolaño. Through the fourth part of 2666, Roberto Bolano’s epic treatment of many things, we were extremely forgiving of the many tangents and...
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On The George Washington Bridge Project: Crime of the Century
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with the George Washington Bridge. Today we sent out to our millions of followers on Twitter the following tweet: Q: What post-war (US) novel best...
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On the George Washington Bridge Project: Mind Games
In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with the George Washington Bridge. Today I finally read the New Yorker article about David Foster Wallace, which was by turns inspiring and...
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