Rick Harsch > Recent Status Updates

On page 100 I began the chapter The Black House, for more anguish of Remo Erdosain and it nearly buried me. How much more can he take? How much more can I take?
to the end!

corona\samizdat continues the best run of publications to date, with Gary Amdahl's highly regarded Across My Big Brass Bed and Marc Nash (England's Canadian-style secret great author)'s The Death of the Author (in Triplicate). I am still recovering from publish Vardeman and Arlt and Roy and Conley--currently re-enjoying Arlt very slowly, savoring his genius.

corona\samizdat has just published the top two books of 2023: the full Roberto Arlt classic, The Seven Madmen The Flamethrowers, for the first time properly presented in English, a truly historic event; and David Vardeman's Suggestion Diabolique, four long stories and a short one, 442 pages of peak absurdist Vardeman. The third best book of 2023 has yet to be printed.

corona\samizdat is publishing the accurate and full Roberto Arlt novel The Seven Madmen/The Flamethrowers. With advice from two Colombian authors, several informative introductory pieces, and text presented as Arlt presented it, this will be the first full volume of this work in English. Look forward to a quality production, a cover that is not trite but original, and insightful commentary.
We are hurrying, but Arlt

The march continues

Anatomio del Abismo and Entre Lunas are not entered here and awaiting readers of Spanish.
corona\samizdat has also published a book of drawings that is guaranteed to lift your spirits, called Finnegan Slept Here, Piran Scratches.

Either Bursey is inventing books or reviewing people I can certainly identify with.

Dyxov and running.

www.coronasamizdat.com will reveal that I have yet to enter two novels in Spanish by Colombian 'modernists' and a book of hilarious drawings called Finnegan Slept Here, Piran Scratches. I'll see if I can manage by tomorrow sometime.
To see and hold those Colombian books is to beg for translations into English.

Giggled through ten more pages. I can attest that reaching page 300 is revelatory. The author told me a secret about his book before I read the last ten pages and it turns out the last ten pages revealed that secret.
It's the getting there. This bodes well for the last 55%.

Instead of giggling attenuate through A Bended Circuity I took up Bursey's crit from the beginning and found a rich, smart book about something that baffles me--the world of literary criticism. I doubt there are many who can match Bursey for his range and accessibe brilliance, but I am reminded why I am glad I write novels and not about them. Why the author of brilliant fiction bothers is beyond me...16 characters l

Finally spared a half hour to read what I really want to be reading (for personal reasons) and was delighted to note that I lost nothing in the interim and neither had the author.

coronasamizdat grows by three books this Thursday, two books in Spanish from
Colombia, and a book of drawings, featuring Joyce on the cover. A Hungarian's celebration of the extraordinary Istrian town of Piran.
Further we are re-stocking A žbended Circuity, which is about to run out.

I think I'm on pafw 45 or so.

Multiple conversations over the last two weeks mentioning bursey equal more than two pages read.

busy 2 weeks. but 10 pages of
ABC can be as fulfilling as two novels. Everything is imprinted on the mind and the hilarity builds at multiple levels.

The differences and similarities between mayhem and chaos.

Brilliant opening.

Okay, I haven't really read more, but a friend who just finished it said it is probably the best book of literary criticism he has ever read.

wherein we find once and for all whether it is truly problematic to beat a dead horse

If all goes well, tomorrow sometime I should be uploading at Rick Harsch youtube (booktube) the opening clip of the feature film corona\samizdat is supporting.

careful crossing borders, especially at night on horseback.

Yesterday coronasamizdat published Zachary Tanner's Some Features of Living Matter in the Neighborhood of the Sun, a sci fi novella that takes place in Louisiana bayous. It's a beautiful book that bears multiple readings.

Neither of the two other books here would put Mr. Bursey off his stride.

Following this narrative is accepting that you probably don't know as many words in your own language as Carlyle, but it's okay because Carlyle didn't know as many as Robert Stickley.

The author wrote that the book can be a challenging read, but I think that's not necessarily true. You just have to leave your preconceptions aside, which is really true whatever you read, whatever the fiction. When an author determines that a yellow house is of importance in a novel, you might get all stubborn about it and decide it's a lie, the house is red. Following this narrative accepts the house is yellow.

fins versus hooves

historical accuracy doesn't imply limits to imagination