Julian Rios

Kitaj: Pictures and Conversations is both a conversation with and a meditation on the work of the American-born painter R.B. Kitaj, who has lived more than half his life in London. Together novelist, Julian Rios, and painter, R.B. Kitaj, in an exuberant exchange of wordplay and allusion, look at the formative experiences that lie behind the extraordinary eclecticism of Kitaj's art. They consider the influence on his work of artists ancient and modern, his fascination with the grim underside of city life, and the huge inspiration he has found in literature and the cinema. They also explore his increasing awareness of his Jewish identity and the quest to comprehend through his painting the conflicts and troubles of his century.
Signed and annotated copy… (mais)

He could almost put him back in a cage. Iron cage in which he showed his golden age. There he learned to kneel, prostrate himself, lowdown Ez! his vanity on the ground, and to put himself on a level with the heavens.

This was an insomniac endeavor, a wakeful Wake where I could not slumber, only mumble and reread. The trick I read from others is to dash through once, revel in the rhythm and once finished -- go back and reread with the corresponding exegetical exercise: recto/verso, presto! I do hope to find normative sleep tonight, this was worth the earlier privation. Ríos unleashesa his usual nocturnal quest through London as a trio of literary comrades catch word that Ezra Pound has just died in Venice. What results is often maddening but a wonder to embrace. The pulse of Poundean puns persists, fortified by frequent googles, if not gurgles. I can say I gasped, if not grasped, the elusive essence on display: his play (Rios is not a dull boy).… (mais)

Her fervent lover from Playboylandia baptized Hugh in the holy land of Hibernia though never did he let her hibernate but had to fornicate when it was almost time for the bullfight.

This novel dazzles in places, see chapters L, M and Q, while simmering for most of the rest. Simple synopsis: a jilted lover wanders nocturnal London, and to steady his esteem after being dumped, recalls 26 past lovers -- all of which correspond to literary characters. An added erotic sense is simply bonus content, for those thus inclined.

No one need neither replicate nor resolve Ríos' riddles. Appreciation is afforded to all the early 20C heavyweights: Musil, Proust, Joyce, Nabokov and Faulkner. The effort does otherwise lack a certain rigor, the parodies are self-evident: anything further is the requirement of the reverent reader. My bullshit threashold is taking a weathering as of late.
… (mais)