Two of titles on her list:
Herzog by Saul BellowRead about the other four books on Desai's list.
The dark grapplings one associates with Russian authors transported to America, where they become hilarious viewed through the lens of college politics and batty girlfriends instead of peasant uprisings. And there’s the remarkable Bellow sentence.
The Makioka Sisters by Junichiro Tanizaki
Tanizaki’s slow patience and his ability to do melodrama without being melodramatic (whereas I can only do melodrama by being melodramatic) makes me very jealous. The Makioka Sisters also has one of the most memorable last lines in literature: “Yukiko’s diarrhea persisted through the 26th, and was a problem on the train to Tokyo.”
--Marshal Zeringue
Posts
