Recent Reading

[Murony_Pyre]

Quote Originally Posted by gveranon

I read Octave Mirbeau's In the Sky a few weeks ago and intended to post here about it but couldn't figure out what I wanted to say. This novel was translated by Ann Sterzinger and recently published by Nine-Banded Books. I can't speak to the accuracy of the translation, but the English prose is always eloquent and compelling, with a slightly archaic feel, feverish and nearly hysterical at times. Despite the clarity of the prose, the novel is somewhat bewildering in ways that I am still thinking about. In her Translator's Note, Ann Sterzinger mentions plot incongruities and bizarre structure. (She also brings up Ligotti in her comments.) I was especially thrown off by a seeming switch of first-person narrator. Mirbeau is up to some things here that I can't quite divine. Anyway, J. P. Drapeau might find something in this to slake his awful thirst. Now I am wondering: Mirbeau, Drapeau...

Thanks. I didn't know about this and, like Bleak&Icy, ordered one.