READ ALL ABOUT IT
Since 2012, I’ve been writing about books. And the act of reading. And the importance of story and narrative. But, mostly, the underlying theme of all I write is how taking a moment to stop and digest some longform text — instead of scrolling, instead of watching a video, instead of multitasking — can be one of the most grounding things we can do for ourselves. Here’s the one-stop online home for all this writing.
You can read more about me and my work by moseying over here. Want to peruse periodic “essay drops” — excerpts from my work-in-progress essay collection about Homesickness? Here ya go.
Salka Valka
For those who haven’t seen my Instagram stories in the past month: I have finished Salka Valka by the late Icelandic novelist Halldór Laxness, and it is Annie Proulx’s “favorite Halldór Laxness book” according to a back blurb on this new translation by Philip Roughton and published by Archipelago Books. I don’t think many people outside of certain literary circles even know who Halldór Laxness is (I was in this camp, for sure), so I got a chuckle about how the heck had Annie Proulx (Barkskins, Brokeback Mountain, etc.) read enough Halldór Laxness books so that she could say Salka Valka was her “favorite”??
Lost in Translation
Sometimes as I’m browsing in an Irish bookstore, or perhaps as I’m eyeing what other people on the DART are reading, I wonder if an “all-American” title, such as To Kill a Mockingbird, Go Tell It on the Mountain, or The Grapes of Wrath, translates well; do these books affect non-Americans the way they do Americans? It’s a one-half-simplistic, and one-half-sensible sentiment. Simplistic: Is the “American experience” really so incomprehensible? (No, because global media make sure it’s plastered over every continent.) Sensible: I’d argue that you can’t really feel intertwined with a particular culture if you haven’t spent a substantial bit of time there. (Eating at Letzte Bratwurst vor Amerika/“Last Hotdog until America” in Sagres, Portugal does not count toward familiarizing oneself with America.)
