A Modest Construct

Tag: postmodernism

The Raw Shark Texts

This is not the first time I’ve read The Raw Shark Texts; in fact, it was only a conspicuously-short time ago that I read it for the first time. Having recommended it to a number of people, I revisited my review of it and was perturbed to find it less than stellar—more confused [...]

All the Sad Young Literary Men

Stuff White People Like is the latest satirical meme sweeping the internet (well, the white people, anyway). I say this in part because I hope to make the new book part of my 52-in-52 meme, but also because it ties ever-so-neatly into my review of Keith Gessen’s All the Sad Young Literary Men. [...]

Rant

I’m no stranger no Chuck Palahniuk, and perhaps that’s why in recent years my interest in his books has waned. It takes a special sort of talent to create books that are simultaneously far out in left field and maddeningly derivative.
I received Rant as a gift (signed, even!); to be honest, I’d been [...]

id est ‘a poem about hands’

a five-legged creature, violently still
upon a binding chord of minor keys,
befitting major locks,
has with its muted exhortations
cloven wax from wick and
rue from blight and
sea from salt.
a leaf of flesh, its tangled skein
scrying spring while lined with rime,
a piquant son of deciduity
—sunward turned and hot of mien—
exacerbates decline.
and so, [...]

The Raw Shark Texts

The Raw Shark Texts, when you think about it, seems right up my alley: full of word games, puns, a plot based to great degree on the mechanics of thought and language. In all honesty, I didn’t know any of that when I picked it up. My impression from reading the cover [...]

The Vagaries of Narrative

Aliena nobis, nostra plus aliis placent
– Publilius Syrus -
Green children perch on tiptoes to reach the crayon-wax sun, cicada-giggling to the squeak of fog-swing. The crayon is Helios Red, screaming the flesh from the mist; a dawnmoses parting the decrepit grey sea. The sun throws spears at the copper roof of the swaying birdhouse, which [...]