What I Read in May 2025 – “There’s the store that’s shaped like a duck,” Franca said.

First, my poor email subscribers missed some of the installments of my newsletter about Anthony Powell.  If this keeps happening I will have to think of something or even do something.  Here they are:

A skippable piece of throat-clearing about the roman fleuve.

What I think Powell is doing in A Dance to the Music of Time, the first four novels anyways.

How I think he does it.

After Finnegans Wake, I only wanted short books, or easy books, or even better both, so these are those.  For a while I thought this would last all summer.  It might.

FICTION

Everyman and Medieval Mystery Plays (15^th C.) – I am beginning preparations for my upcoming Not Shakespeare event.  Soon I will ask for advice about it.  That is Knowledge up in the post’s title, helping out Everyman, and supplying an epigram to the edition I read.

The Stronghold (1940), Dino Buzzati – The new translation of The Tartar Steppes, less odd and Kafkaesque than I expected.  More plausibly about military life.  Still, somewhat odd, somewhat Kafkaesque.

The Skin of Our Teeth (1942), Thornton Wilder – Wilder took up Finnegans Wake as a hobby for a couple of years, treating it a puzzle of some kind, like a crossword.  I thought I would revisit his amusing Adam-and-Eve satire that was directly inspired by – but is nothing like! – Joyce’s novel.

Johnny Tremain (1943), Esther Forbes – A kid’s novel about the beginnings of the American Revolution in Boston, one of the best-selling books in American history.  It has faded, understandably, but I was happy to find that it is a real novel, with solid characters and a sensible story that is not overtly educational, a genuine American descendant of Scott’s Waverley.  Still, mostly recommended to New Englanders planning to enjoy the upcoming Sesquicentennial events.

The Caucasian Chalk Circle (1948), Bertolt Brecht

Nine Stories (1953), J. D. Salinger

Mission of Gravity (1953), Hal Clement – A landmark of “hard” science fiction, where the author’s main concern is getting the math right, which does not sound so exciting, which is likely why I skipped this one long ago when I was reading more science fiction.  How wrong I was.  This book is a scream, a seafaring adventure novel with a crew of rubbery foot-long problem-solving caterpillars.  It also has an unusually satisfying ending.

Jane and Prudence (1953), Barbara Pym – I wanted to test my sense that Powell’s novels were the purest comedy of manners I had ever read.  This Pym novel is also quite pure.

At Lady Molly's (1957), Anthony Powell

Light Years (1975), James Salter – The quotation I put in the title is from p. 305 of the Vintage edition.  It’s a real building, the one shaped like a duck!

Turtle Diary (1975), Russell Hoban – Almost too much to my tastes, in humor, sentence-level surprises, sensibility, and even romance.  I almost distrust it.  Wonderful book.

The Women of Brewster Place (1982), Gloria Naylor – With these last three you can almost see me doing my second-favorite thing, browsing at the library.  I like to think reading the books is actually my favorite.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune (2020), Nghi Vo – I had this Chinese-flavored fantasy novel in my hands when the owner of The Briar Patch in Bangor, Maine, a few blocks from Stephen King’s house, told me it was “really good,” obliging me to buy it.  Some really good things about it: 1) it is a hundred pages long and tells a complete story, a rarity among fantasy novels today; 2) the magical more-or-less Chinese setting is although I am sure filled with it’s own clichés still fresh to me; 3) poking around online I found complaints about the weak world-building, which is just about the highest compliment a fantasy novel can receive today.  Despite the light magical touches it turns out to be more of a spy novel.

 

POETRY

Open House (1941) &

The Lost Son and Other Poems (1948) &

Words for the Wind (1958), Theodore Roethke – I’ve been wandering through Roethle’s Collected Poems alongside a curious selection from his notebooks.

Stranger at Coney Island and Other Poems (1948), Kenneth Fearing – Energetic.

Eternal Monday: New & Selected Poems (1971-96), György Petri – A fine, funny Hungarian poet, an accidental dissident, recommended to readers of Milosz and Herbert and so on.

Shoulder Season (2010), Ange Mlinko – And a Hungarian-American poet.  I should be getting to her new book soon, but the library had this one.

 

LITTLE ART BOOKS

Clavilux and Lumia Home Models (2025), Thomas Wilfred

Some Stones are Ancient Books (2025), Richard Sharpe Shaver –The last two of the conceptual art books from the set I started last month (website).  Both, all, of real interest if you like unusual things.  The Wilfred book has an introduction by Doug Skinner, longtime friend of the blog.

 

IN FRENCH & PORTUGUESE

Le parti pris des choses (The Part Taken by Things, 1940) &

Proêmes (1948), Francis Ponge – the first book is a semi-Surrealist masterpiece, a collection of prose poems on, mostly, things, objects, turned into language.  The second book is more miscellaneous.

Le petit homme d'Arkhangelsk (The Little Man from Archangelsk, 1957), Georges Simenon – A roman dur, so a crime-like event occurs.  A guy’s wife runs off, which does not bother him so much, but she takes the most valuable stamps from his collection, which does.  Police detectives will be involved at some point, but the novel is really about the psychology of the character.  It’s a sad book.

Cinco Voltas Na Bahia e Um Beijo para Caetano Veloso (Five Returns to Bahia and a Kiss for Caetano Veloso, 2019), Alexandra Lucas Coelho – Maybe the Portuguese crónica system, where writers make their livings writing ephemeral essays for magazines, has some disadvantages.  This is the third book I have read this year by a veteran journalist who has trouble distinguishing interesting from dull.  Bahia is highly interesting (well, Salvador, Coelho barely leaves Salvador); Caetano Veloso is extremely interesting.  The author’s trips to the beach and book tour are not.