by Antonio di Benedetto (1956)

2025 reads, 9/25:

“I’m afraid to draw up a tally of sins. I don’t want the past to be more powerful than the future.”

Zama is the first book of Antonio di Benedetto’s unofficial “trilogy of expectation.” This book is followed by The Silentiary (1964), then rounded out with The Suicides (1969), which is also the #nyrbbookclub pick for February 2025. I already got The Suicides in the mail (as we are now way past February) but wanted to take my time getting through this trilogy and really get to know di Benedetto.

I tried this as my “bedtime” Kindle book – but that wasn't a good idea. This is a work to be studied and fully entranced in, reminiscent of Jean-Paul Sartre's Nausea or literally anything by Clarice Lispector. Once I started reading this during the day, more alert and aware, I got much more into it.

Don Diego de Zama is the eponymous main character, whose thoughts we are with the entire novel. Over three preiods of his life (1790, 1794, and 1799), he is a servant under the Spanish occupation of Paraguay, as he moves from village to village, trying to find meaning and happiness in his everyday life. Zama is self-destructive, languid, detached, and disinterested in anything except for his yerba maté. He does not really care for others, and tries to advance his career without actually doing anything. To be honest, he is one of the most solipsistic characters I’ve ever come across.

“I thought through these actions but did not succeed in moving.”

Zama is also the king of misreading situations. In the first two parts, there would be many instances where something would happen, and then he will go on this internal tirade completely misreading everything and everyone in it. It gets a bit repetitive after a while, but is crucial to his character development, or lack thereof. In the final section, we actually see what happens when this lackadaisical attitude is put in front of characters who, in turn, could not care less about him.

One thing I've noticed that helps with reading these “stream of consciousness” novels (or any philosophical novel), is that it helps to read a little bit about the author. Sure, arguably the best way to get to know someone is to read their writing, and you might be able to convince me of that. But a little prereading can really go a long way in aligning yourself with the time period and circumstances in the author’s life that caused them to write this (both The Stranger and The Hour of the Star benefit heavily from reading a bit about Camus and Lispector, respectively). Di Benedetto is no different, and reading Esther Allen’s introduction about his life in Argentina, inspiration from Dostoevsky, and the state of Paraguay under Spanish rule, helped me ground myself in the work.

It’s a dense read, but a great introduction to the “trilogy of expectation” that I plan to continue. Zama’s expectations of the world around him are aggressively denied, but maybe there’s something to learn in his downfall. Ultimately, I am glad for the opportunity to be exposed to di Benedetto, an author I would have never found if it wasn’t for the #nyrb book club.

Something more is always expected. My thinking mind had this thought, but when I dispensed with thinking I fell into a brute inertia, as if my share in things were running out, and the world would be left unpopulated because I would no longer exist within it.

#readingyear2025 #nyrb

by Augusto Monterroso (1978)

2025 reads, 8/25:

HERE LIES EDUARDO TORRES, WHO, HIS WHOLE LIFE LONG, CAME, SAW, AND WAS PERPETUALLY DEFEATED AS MUCH BY THE ELEMENTS AS BY THE SHIPS OF THE ENEMY

Imagine writing you own epitaph, years before your death, and releasing it to the public for comment. This self-aggrandizing act is just one among many in Augusto Monterroso’s only novel, The Rest Is Silence. This book is the January selection of the 2025 New York Review Books book club, a Christmas gift from my mom. (Thanks mom!) Each month, NYRB will send me a newly published novel from their catalog, usually a recently-translated work, brought to new light (at least for me).

This novel takes the form of a festschrift (a new word I learned, from German, literally meaning “celebration writing” or “commemoration document”), a collection of documents, articles, works, and tributes honoring some respected person. The entirety of The Rest Is Silence is thus a festschrift of the fictional literary critic Eduardo Torres, whose epitaph is written above. The blurb mentions him as something of a “Don Quixote,” but after reading this I get whiffs of Dorain Gray and maybe, maybe Hunter S. Thompson. Though, this fawning over Torres really only takes place in the first part of the book. For example, see how his “friend” describes him:

Through the high and broad French windows bursts an agitated mass of sunbeams, five or six of which descend to nest lovingly on the high and somewhat grizzled head of our biographee. The diminutive particles of dust revolving through said light might suggest to an observer–recalling Epicurus–the plurality of worlds.

Absolute suck up.

I do wish I had read Don Quixote before this, though, because there seem to be many allusions to it. In Part II: Selections from the Work of Eduardo Torres, one such work is Torres’ fictional introduction to the novel, followed by a criticism of said introduction. This was an interesting pair of essays to read, but I would have gotten more out of it had I been more well-versed in Don Quixote (and the overall Mexican literary scene, as many references were made to philosophers and artists of the time).

That thanks to contemporary experience, it is recognized continent-wide that the best way of losing interest in the works of other authors consists of getting to know them personally.

The Rest Is Silence elevates the concept of “meta” to a new level. Memories are written and then rebuked in later chapters. There are connections made between the works, there are article clippings, poems, even some hilarious drawings (that further elucidate the utter brashness of Torres). And despite the conceited subject of this festschrift, there are some really great quotes and ideas here about artistry in general and what it means to be an artist. Honestly, I loved the format of this, almost like short stories that shared a common connection. While I’m sure there are plenty other books out there that use this format, I can confidently say this one pulled it off magnificently. Starting off strong for the 2025 NYRB Book Club!

When you have something to say, say it; when you don’t, say that was well. Never stop writing.

#readingyear2025 #nyrb #nyrbbookclub #latinamerica

by Ling Ma (2022)

2025 reads, 7/25:

“Were we processing trauma or were we simply re-experiencing it?”

I have decided, once again, to embark on a short story collection. I’m not sure why I keep coming back, the medium isn’t quite my favorite (the only short story collection I’ve really loved was Kurt Vonnegut’s Welcome to the Monkey House). Ling Ma’s collection Bliss Montage is highly regarded, so I decided to experience its eight short stories spanning different ideas written in a similar style. I actually must thank Jeff Rosenstock for this suggestion.

“‘Am I lacking in some way?’ I asked. ‘Are you?’ She wouldn’t stop, I thought, until she had totally consumed me. I’d end up in her digestive tract, as she metabolized my best qualities and discarded the rest.”

These stories are dreamlike, surreal, yet at the same time extremely grounded in situations that women, especially those in diaspora, can relate to. I’m impressed by Ma’s writing technique and how she manages to accomplish this. A commonality between these stories is that they have abrupt endings – not cliffhangers, just “cuts to black” – which was likely purposeful. It seems that Ma places a lot of weight on the reader to understand the meaning of each story, which I respect; almost every story is an allegory in some sense, some easy to pick up on, others not so much (maybe it’s just because I’m a white guy though). But it was enlightening to read a lot of these, and I got a lot out of them.

“He was always just standing there, not making and social gestures. How was he so special that he didn’t have to work to justify his existence? I’d wonder. I was constantly overcompensating back then.”

The first three stories (“Los Angeles”, “Oranges”, “G”) and second-to-last (“Peking Duck”) were my favorites, as they touched on themes such as domestic abuse, friendship, family and relationships. “Peking Duck” seems to be a meta-story for the entire collection, blurring the lines between reality and fiction. So check out Bliss Montage if these stories seem interesting to you. Of course, the catch-22 with short stories in general is that different stories appeal to different people – but you have to read the whole collection to get to know your favorites. I promise, you will see things differently once you do.

“English is just a play language to me, the words tethered to their meanings by the loosest, most tenuous connections. So it's easy to lie. I tell the truth in Chinese, I make up stories in English… It is the language in which I have nothing to lose, even if they don't believe a thing I say”

#readingyear2025 #shortstories #fantasy

by Stefan Zweig (1982)

2025 reads, 6/25:

“A hundred times I’ve taken postcards out of the mailbag, picture-postcards showing gray Norwegian fjords, the boulevards of Paris, the bay of Sorrento, the stone monoliths of New York, and haven’t I always put them down with a sigh?”

The Post-Office Girl is a horror story.

No, not in the sense of the supernatural, or serial killers, or monsters, or even pure evil. Here, author Stefan Zweig tells the tragedy of Christine, an impoverished postal worker who has been given the opportunity to stay with her rich aunt in a bourgeois hotel in the Swiss Alps. Her story is uneasy and unsettling, as we witness someone who has nothing be given everything – just to have it all taken away again.

Set in 1930s, the Great War having taken a toll on many (including Christine’s father and her friend Ferdinand), Zweig presents an unfiltered view into the realities of postwar Austria. The inflation, famine, and trauma seem to affect everyone, both rich and poor, but one group clearly has an easier time bouncing back.

“His own generation’s sour unwillingness to recognize the truth and its inability to adapt to the postwar era anger him, as does the younger generation’s smart-alecky thoughtlessness.”

But it’s not presented as a black and white issue. By switching between the point-of-views of Christine and her aunt in this first part of the book, the “rich vs. poor” is not represented as “good vs. evil” – Christine meets people at this hotel who mean well, who sympathize with her, and appreciate her company regardless of background. In fact, one of the most crucial lines in the novel is uttered by Christine in the second part, after she’s abruptly thrown back into her monotonous routine: “I don’t mean ‘why not me instead of [them]’…Just ‘why not me too.’” There is no desire to bring others down, she just wants herself to be lifted up. This jump starts the second half of the book, as Christine meets Ferdinand, another deprived soul. Together, they talk about their experiences, and through many monologues by Ferdinand, we learn his views on class, on capitalism, and the shaky postwar Austrian government.

“How terrible it is to have to live here, and why, who’s it for? Why breathe in this day after day, knowing that there’s another world out there somewhere, the real one, and in herself another person, who is suffocating, being poisoned, in this miasma.”

Since this was published from unfinished manuscripts, Zweig leaves us with something of an open ending, which might be unsatisfactory to some – but I don’t mind speculating on how the story continues, and personally, I’m choosing a (comparatively) happy ending. Or maybe this was Zweig’s intent all along, and he wanted the ending written as is, open for interpretation.

So, what’s more dangerous than someone who has nothing? Someone who had everything first. As essayist William Deresiewicz writes in the afterword, “midnight has struck for Cinderella, but there will be no glass slipper and no prince,” as she is whisked out of that world almost as soon as she is whisked in. At least, this is the main takeaway I get from Zweig. The Post-Office Girl is a great historical gem of a novel – but reader beware, as you may find yourself preferring a supernatural thriller or monster horror.

“At worst we’ll lose, but when did we ever win?”

Postscript: I’ve been finding tons of great literature at New York Review Books. They bring to light unfamiliar works (unfamiliar to me, that is), usually having been translated for the first time. Someone called them “the Criterion Collection for books” and I can’t stop thinking of that. It’s how I found one of my favorite books of last year, Notes of a Crocodile. Any books I find and read through this site will have the #nyrb tag, so check them out!

#readingyear2025 #nyrb #german

by Italo Calvino (1972)

2025 reads, 5/25:

“Arriving at each new city, the traveler finds again a past of his that he did not know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer possess lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places.”

A reread of one of my favorites. My wife gifted me the beautiful Folio Society edition of this book for Christmas, and only having read it on Kindle, I immediately wanted to experience all its literary and descriptive glory on the physical page. My appreciation for Invisible Cities has grown since I first read it a couple years ago, as I find myself thinking about it now and again, rereading certain passages just for the sheer brilliance of the descriptions. But this being my second full time around, I not only gain a deeper appreciation of Calvino’s prose, but how Invisible Cities fits into the world we live in today.

For the uninitiated, Invisible Cities is a novel that contains fifty-five poetic descriptions of different cities, interspersed throughout a conversation between world-class explorer Marco Polo and the great emperor Kublai Khan, who wishes to know more about his empire. And although it is outright said in one of their conversations, I'm not sure I subscribe to the notion that Marco Polo is describing Venice in different ways.

“No one, wise Kublai, knows better than you that the city must never be confused with the words that describe it. And yet between the one and the other, there is a connection.”

I could see Calvino using different viewpoints of Venice as an inspiration for some of these cities (a subtle but important difference). But who’s to say that these descriptions can’t describe other cities? I could see Despina (Cities and Desire 3) as a physical representation of San Francisco. Valdrada (Cities and Eyes 1) could represent Cleveland, or any city on a lake, or even any city that makes you feel like you’re being watched. And Zaira (Cities and Memories 3) reminds me of visiting my hometown years after moving away. But these are just my interpretations, based on memories and experiences of cities I’ve been to.

And many of these descriptions are not even about cities themselves, but how people see cities, how people see themselves, even how people see each other. By 2050, the United Nations estimates that over two-thirds of the world's population will live in a city, and since the best cities are a collection of diverse citizens, I could see an interpretation where a person who desires sees a city differently than a person with memory, or a person towards the beginning or end of their life – we all perceive in different ways. Yes, one could say all of these cities describe Venice. But I’ll extrapolate that a bit – why just Venice? Why not take thirty different people from New York, Tokyo, São Paulo, or Beirut? Ask them to describe where they live, and even within the same city you’ll find incredibly different views. A city, a home, is what you make of it.

“So the garden remained a shapeless waste, until the benevolent tsar, passing by one day, glanced at it by chance, and ordered them to tell him what kind of garden it was.”

In M83’s “Midnight City” he sings

“the city is my church it wraps me in its blinding twilight”

– and who, at times, hasn’t felt the religious allure to skyscrapers, sidewalks, alleyways, lights, walkability, and community. Invisible Cities explores this, through memories, through trade, through love and fear, through death. This is within my top five books of all time – it’s that good. If you decide to read it and succumb to the imagination of Calvino and all these fantastical cities, I hope you share my love for it.

“Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.”

#readingyear2025 #fantasy #favorites #italian

by Martin Luther King Jr. (1963)

2025 books, 4/25:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Choosing to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. today, instead of allowing this inauguration, this administration, to shadow him.

Read this letter.

#readingyear2025 #american #history

by Lao Tzu (~300 BC)

2025 reads, 3/25

“Empty yourself of everything. Let the mind become still. The ten thousand things rise and fall while the Self watches their return.”

How does one even review the Tao Te Ching? It's like reviewing the Bible, as it’s infinite interpretability and historical endurance situate it as one of the most translated texts in world literature. Thousands of scholars and philosophers have written thousands of essays, analyses, and translations. So, after one measly read through of this foundational text in Taoism, what does a white guy from New Jersey have to add?

Nothing.

But although I’m no scholar on Taoist thought, Eastern philosophy, or literally any sort of humanities discipline, I can talk about my experience reading it. First, and I think most will agree, that I find it odd to call Taoism a religion, at least not how I think of one in the traditional WASP sense: church services, prayers, commandments, bread & wine. I find this much more introverted, contemplative, philosophical – a way of life, if you will.

“The space between heaven and Earth is like a bellows. The shape changes but not the form; The more it moves, the more it yields.”

And as with any philosophy, I cannot just read the Tao Te Ching and call it a day. I need to think it and live it. And although I started reading it last year, absorbing it bit by bit while I have my morning tea, I’m certainly not there yet; but I have the physical book, and I’m going to do my best to go back to it when I can.

So maybe this wasn’t really a review, maybe this was more of a personal reaction. The four stars don’t really mean anything. (Do numerical reviews ever really mean anything?) It’s short enough to check out yourself, too: I enjoyed the translation I have, the one by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English – supposedly it sacrifices some intricacy in exchange for straightforward prose that cuts to the essentials of the original (and you can even find it online).

“The Tao begot one. One begot two. Two begot three. And three begot the ten thousand things.”

#readingyear2025 #philosophy

Philip K. Dick (1956)

2025 reads, 2/25:

“The existence of a majority logically implies a corresponding minority.”

It’s a pretty obvious statement, but a crucial one, as PKD demonstrates in his novella The Minority Report, first written in 1956. In a world where people are persecuted for their crimes before they are even committed, how does the commander of such a system react when he sees his own name come up?

One of this month’s collections on The Criterion Channel is Surveillance Cinema, which includes dystopian sci-fi classics like The Truman Show, Gattaca, and Minority Report, the last of which is obviously based on this story. I’ve never seen the movie, and because I usually like to read a book first, I figured I’d give this one a tackle.

“‘You’ve probably grasped the basic legalistic drawback to precrime methodology. We’re taking in individuals who have broken no law.’”

The concept of “precrime” is a novel idea for its time, but I really underestimated how much these themes of free will and predestination show up in other media. Reading this reminded me of the show Person of Interest, a television drama where a group of vigilantes stop crimes before they happen based on an artificially intelligent machine. However, this machine predicts that a person will be either a victim or a perpetrator of a crime (but cannot decipher which).

The Minority Report starts with a great but chilling concept, and PKD follows through with a great story. It’s written well, and short enough such that you can dive into some cyberpunk-esque and dystopian sci-fi without committing to a full-length novel.

“Perhaps he was trapped in a closed, meaningless time-circle with no motive and no beginning. In fact, he was almost ready to concede that he was the victim of a weary, neurotic fantasy, spawned by growing insecurity. Without a fight, he was willing to give himself up.”

#readingyear2025 #scifi #dystopia

by James Baldwin (1963)

2025 reads, 1/25:

“You were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being. You were not expected to aspire to excellence: you were expected to make peace with mediocrity.”

A necessary read. James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time is a short, yet powerful pair of letters written in 1963, one hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation. The first of the two letters, titled “My Dungeon Shook,” is a letter to Baldwin’s 14-year-old nephew, where he shares his experience of being Black in the United States. It’s a primary example of how Black children must learn about race much earlier than their white counterparts, an eye-opening fact I learned from Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?

The second letter, “Down at the Cross,” takes up most of the novel. In this letter, not particularly aimed at anyone, he discusses his Harlem upbringing, and the effect of the church on his life and on the Black community. It’s filled with memories, anecdotes, and personal philosophies. I could see how, being published in 1963, this was a shock to the white-dominated literary world, who were either unaware or ignorant of the civil rights movement.

“This is the message that has spread through streets and tenements and prisons, through the narcotics wards, and past the filth and sadism of mental hospitals to a people from whom everything has been taken away, including, most crucially, their sense of their own worth.”

This is my first book of Baldwin’s, so I didn’t know what to expect going in, but his voice is passionate. It comes off the page, and I imagine him speaking clearly and confidently about what he’s writing. There's fury, but it’s not a rant: it’s calculated. And although there is this deep personality in his prose, I learned a lot in these one hundred pages. He recalls primary accounts of historical figures such as Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad, and discusses the Nation of Islam. These firsthand accounts of life as a Black man in the early twentieth century are worth more to me than facts from a textbook.

I recommend this wholeheartedly as a necessary read for anyone. We need to open our eyes more often to the world around us, to the experiences of others, whether in the present or the past. I will certainly be reading more of Baldwin’s works from here on forward.

“The fear that I heard in my father’s voice, for example, when he realized that I really believed I could do anything a white boy could do, and had every intention of proving it, was not at all like the fear I heard when one of us was ill or had fallen down the stairs or strayed too far from the house. It was another fear, a fear that the child, in challenging the white world’s assumptions, was putting himself in the path of destruction.”

#readingyear2025 #american #history