Ivan Juritz
Taming Gould
Personae
By Sergio De La Pava
University of Chicago Press 216pp £12
Personae, Sergio De La Pava’s second novel, would make more sense as his first. Slim, anxious to amuse, awash with irony and knowing pastiche, it seems like the preppy precursor to A Naked Singularity, his debut. Where the latter, an expansive and frequently hilarious portrait of the New York criminal justice system, showed blithe and masterful disregard for literary predecessors, Personae frets in their shadow.
It follows Helen Tame, an acclaimed concert pianist turned homicide detective, whose inquiry into the death of 111-year-old writer, Antonio Arce, is derailed into literary criticism when she discovers a cache of his unpublished writings. Certain they contain the key to his death, she presents these largely baffling texts –
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Congratulations to @HanKangOfficial, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2024.
We've lifted the paywall on Joanna Kavenna's review of The White Book from November 2017.
Joanna Kavenna - Carte Blanche
Joanna Kavenna: Carte Blanche - The White Book by Han Kang (Translated by Deborah Smith)
literaryreview.co.uk
Few surveys of British art exist. Those that do have given disproportionate space to recent trends and neglected the 150 years between Hogarth and Turner.
@robinsimonbaj examines what launched British artists of this era into the European stratosphere.
Robin Simon - The Wright Stuff
Robin Simon: The Wright Stuff - The Invention of British Art by Bendor Grosvenor
literaryreview.co.uk