Author: Andres Kabel

A tour de force of lyrical, extravagant prose, the slim novel “This is How You Lose the Time War” packs in more phantasmagoric action and time-travel magic than most hard sci-fi books of three times the length. Red, a time manipulating agent of a mechanistic future, and Blue, a similar agent for an organic future, tussle across time lines in a dizzyingly sketched multiverse, before commencing to exchange covert letters of challenge and then admiration and then more. The two authors, both feted under their single names, concede no ground to the reader, throwing us into a barely comprehensible brew of worlds and times and technologies. Not a sparkling word or phrase is wasted. I’m still reeling days after gasping through the time-twisting complexity of a double climax that had my jaw dropping. I’m reminded of the times of Samuel Delaney, the sheer joy in the weirdest of worlds drawn in poetry. Amongst the best science fiction I’ve read this year.

Over the course of his six-book My Struggle series (published in the original Norwegian in the early 2010s and eked out in English-translated form over a number of years), Karl Ove Knausgaard has varied his novelistic focus and his narrative structuring. Based on his own life, that is, “true” to an extent only he can answer, it applies a Proustian attention to the mundane and the interior that can be a trial to read but immensely rewards persistence. The final volume, “The End,” came out in August of last year and its 1,100-plus pages have proven to be formidable, but as I neared the end of the 3,600-page series, I was surprised to find myself lingering, soaking up the final elements of the seemingly undramatic story. I was gripped. In “The End,” Knausgaard intersperses minutely observed family activities (including a harrowing time with his burdened wife), drawn-out philosophical essays (including one on Hitler, of all topics), and his emerging stardom with the publication of the first few volumes. Stylistically seemingly simplistic, in fact the writing is dense with meaning and import, and the subtle structuring over different time periods, including always circling back to the topic of the first volume of the series concerning his father’s death, soaks into the reader’s psyche. Several times I put the book aside to sigh in glory or to weep. One of the most brilliant books of the past few years.

Can a superhero tale survive thirteen hours of telling? It’s taken me ages to work my way through the thirteen episodes of “Daredevil Season 3“, and my very language gives me away: no, this series did not compel me onwards, although it does contain some fine moments. Some time ago, I took a look at the first half of the season, judging the opening episode as slow but appreciating the core strengths of the show over the next five episodes. While those plusses – terrific fight scenes, good performances in support roles, atmospheric filming – mostly stayed strong over the final seven episodes, some essential elements left the show. Charlie Cox never convinced me as Daredevil Matt and much-vaunted Vincent D’Onofrio hammed the role of villain Fisk. Perhaps if they’d wound up the plot a bit, collapsing thirteen episodes into six, say, the season could have retained vigor, but not even the rousing climactic episode enlivened the eventual torpor. And the religious overlay sank the boat, in my opinion. All up, nice try but a barely passable almost-flop.

Roy Scranton spews lyricism like a soul-shattered dragon, whether in his war-tossed or apocalyptic nonfiction or his in his fiction. “I Heart Oklahoma” is his wildest outing yet and it’s a ride straight out of the playbook of the Beat poets, or at least my memory of that reading, so long ago. Our hero Suzie is a gifted, jaded wordsmith who signs on for a road trip though America’s bizarre heartlands, hired by dipshit-cum-crazy-cum-inspired video artist Jim, accompanied by cameraman Remy. Scranton’s machine-gun poetic vision of this road trip is highly engaging, like a feverish dream, yet in a blink the road trip dissolves into a reimagining and further reimagining of some mythical Bonnie-and-Clyde butchery from America’s past, Suzie’s storytelling spooling and respooling a chronicle of violence. If Scranton failed to write this on speed, he should have, because it’s a spellbinding blur. if in the end I failed to connect to either the story or the characters, the author’s vision of modern nightmare offered a compelling read.

Anna Quindlen’s effortless, stylish prose has graced fine novels, excellent journalism, and sharp commentary, and now she has turned her attention to a topic little written about, grandparenting. “Nanaville: Adventures in Grandparenting” is a slim but potent volume that riffs off her own experience with a little grandson. Grandparents, in her opinion, and I feel she’s right, need to take a back seat, provide support for a grandchild’s parents, and be there for the little one. Bursting with wit and minor key insight, “Nanaville” zeroes in on the incredible joy of having one more chance to bring a new soul into the wider world. Essential reading for the grandma and grandpa but also a sparkling example of the modern memoir.

Reading “The Plaza: The Secret Life of America’s Most Famous Hotel” is an absorbing, deft passage through an aspect of America’s 20th Century, from the hotel’s glitzy unveiling in 1907 through to its most recent bizarre ownerships. An additional layer of enjoyment arises if you ever stayed there, as I did in the early 1990s, for then all the references to the Oak Room, the Palm Court, the chandelier-capped lifts, and the sumptuous location on Fifth Avenue looking into Central Park are familiar. Julie Satow chronicles the high-style owners, the famous or infamous guests, and the fate of the hotel staff. Highlights include the 1964 pandemonium of a Beatles stay, Truman Capote’s gala party a couple of years later, the turbulent Trump ownership years from the late 1980s, and the almost phantasmagoric transformation into a condominium/hotel complex in the mid-2000s. Is there another global hotel with such a century-plus reputation for luxury and status, such frenetic longing in its history? I doubt it and this excellent book certainly seals its reputation.

How-to grammar books for writers, be they novelists or university students, come in many shades. Some are preparatory, some are exhaustive, and then there are the most essential guides, the ones that walk through the entire gamut of word usage with insight and wit. “Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style” is one of those and it’s the best one I’ve come across. Benjamin Dreyer, copy chief at Random House, knows his shit in the way powerful practitioners too, and he somehow manages to be both draconian and gracefully ambivalent, as the situation calls for. Peppered with funny but apt footnotes, DE, as I’m sure it shall be called, is a pleasure to read and a treasure trove of nuance. I can’t praise DE highly enough.