It’s as if the contents of a diseased mind have spilled out into the real world.Īnd indeed, after witnessing unbelievably shocking scenes, it is hard to regain a grasp on real, ordinary life. No longer confined by inertia to his wretched little room, this protagonist is on the road-a bleak, inhuman, carnage scarred road-blindly journeying in search of meaning and identity. We meet a familiar angst-ridden Russian early in the pages of Jacov Lind’s novel Landscape in Concrete: Dostoevsky’s Underground man surfaces in the guise of Gauthier Bachmann to here tread the desolate earth of the Ardennes during WW ll.
Here’s the opening of his review of Lind’s creepyfunny WWII novel: (We’ve posted about a few of his interviews, including the one I did, this recent one with Ha Jin, and the hysterical one with John Metcalf. In his role as host of The Biblio File radio program he has interviewed many of the world’s most admired authors plus publishers, booksellers, editors, book collectors, librarians, conservators, illustrators, and others connected with the book. His articles and reviews have appeared in, among other places, The Washington Post, The (Manchester) Guardian, The Globe and Mail, Canadian Bookseller, BorderCrossings and Canadian Art magazines. Nigel Beale is a freelance writer/broadcaster who specializes in literary journalism. (And I’m still working on my review of Bolano’s The Skating Rink.)
Usually we don’t run reviews of our own books (which initially seemed like a good idea, but sort of doesn’t make sense, since Open Letter books are as interesting as a lot of the titles we do review, and we are trying to cover the world of international literature as broadly as possible), but hell, it’s The Year of Jakov Lind. The latest addition to our review section is a piece by Nigel Beale on Jakov Lind’s Landscape in Concrete.
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