Optic Nerve | 
I happily recommended this (again) today because someone commented on a PC wallpaper painting that led to the rabbit hole that is this lovely book! It's not for everyone (usually I need plot... there's no plot!) but it's a great book for noodling on all sorts of subjects.
so-soThe memories and anecdotes from the narrator‘s life interwoven with historical stories of artists and various works of art were beautifully stitched together, but I found myself wanting to know a bit more about our narrator. I enjoyed learning about the art, and looking up the artists and paintings while I read definitely enriched the experience, but I did find this a little hard to connect to sometimes.
"It reminded me that all of art rests in the gap between that which is aesthetically pleasing and that which truly captivates you. And that the tiniest thing can make the difference."
Taking some #audiobook eye-resting time after six hours on Zoom today... Even with f.lux, looking at a computer screen for so many hours strains my eyes and gives me a headache. 😵 Thankful for the ability to just close my eyes and be read to 💕 I don't know anything about this book, but that it was in the #TOB2020, so I'm hoping it's good! 🤞
#EasterExtravaganza #Readathon
pickI read Optic Nerve as a part of Curious Iguana‘s annual #ReadBroader challenge. It‘s autofiction about a woman—an Argentinian art critic—obsessed, wonderfully, with her field of study. It‘s interspersed with musings about passerby, her friends, and her family. March‘s Read Broader theme was Women‘s Work in Translation. If you want to know the other titles we chose to feature, comment!
pickthis book is a meditative tour through a series of artworks, both well-known and not so. I‘m not always especially moved by visual art, but the way that Gainza located this within a narrative brought meaning to the way I was able to read and engage with the visual medium. Optic Nerve was both measured, and even meandering, but also at times brutal, shocking, and visceral. It is a thoughtful meditation on the relationship between life and art.
This week‘s #bookreport
All three books are so good!!! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Optic Nerve by Maria Gainza, translated by Thomas Bunstead
The Factory by Hiroko Oyamada, translated by David Boyne
A Place For Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza
pickAs many have noted, this takes a form that is hard to pin down. I suppose that doesn‘t matter when I enjoyed it so much. In each chapter, Gainza writes of an artist whose story in some way paralells a story from the narrator, Maria‘s, life (which are often drawn from Gainza‘s own experiences). It‘s in the clear and observant way Maria understands art and life that leaves you with a clear sense of her as a character.
#TOB2020
#BookReport 08/20
I had a very productive reading week with Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead as an absolute favorite 💕.
Two more #ToB books (Mary Toft is one of a kind 🐰), two #1001books and two I could use for #ReadingEurope2020.
How satisfying multitasking is 😂😉
pickBetween a pick and a so-so. This one didn‘t really work for me even though I am a sucker for books about art. Most of the stories felt a bit too aloof.
The stories I did like were the ones that felt more personal: Separate Ways, Lightning at Sea and the one about Rothko and the prostitute in the hospital. Those made me lose myself googling the artists and their works. I love it when that happens
#ATY2020 Set in Southern Hemisphere #ToB2020
María Gainza's Optic Nerve made me consider everything I've ever learned about reading and prior knowledge. I listened to Optic Nerve via Scribd—that format was a mistake because, despite increasing my audiobook listening, I'm just not as adept at listening as I am at reading with my eyes. For challenging material like this, that's a problem. ⬇️
pickWhat makes something a novel? This is the question I pondered as I read this work, which seemed more essayistic than novelistic. Each chapter, an interweaving of a painting and painter's history with some event in the narrator's life. It felt detached and cerebral, each chapter its own little meditation on art and life. By the end some aspects of her story come together, but very loosely. A pick, but with reservations.
pickIt took me a little while to get into this one, but I ended up liking it. If you are not a fan of didactic or intensely internally-focused books, this book is not for you. I was looking up art references on Google every few pages, and disappearing down Wikipedia rabbit holes. I had a similar fascinating experience with Alexander Chee‘s Queen of the Night. If you read every detail on museum exhibit signs, you might like this book too. 😉 #ToB
so-soI enjoyed parts of this autobiographical fiction tale. The individual tidbits were interesting, centering around art history and tying in with a piece of Maria‘s story. But I did not think they added up to more than the sum of the parts. Also, I think audio was probably not the best format for this, as it made looking up the artists and art infeasible.
#tob2020 #tob #tob20
My next one will be the Attenberg because I‘ll be flying to Oregon and back in the next two weeks and I have it as a kindle ebook. I think another one is in Hoopla so I need to figure that out tonight.
pickHere's one from the Tournament of Books shortlist, a debut novel from an Argentinian art critic translated to English. Each chapter uses an artist that connects to an event in the narrator's life, which makes it feel more like memoir in essay but it is categorized as fiction. I am a person who has always struggled with ekphrastic poetry but in longer form, it really worked for me, even though I had to look up all the artwork.
“Cándido López thought that in order to touch the heart of reality, it had first to be deformed.”
(Describing an artist)
I‘ve only finished the first chapter of this book, and it‘s feeling like a DNF. Nothing is happening. I like cerebral books, but this may be a little too random-internal-musing for me. I‘ll give it a few more chapters.
Library hold came in! Working on reading the Tournament of Books shortlist titles for this year. #tournamentofbooks2020 #ToB #TournamentofBooks #tob2020
pickThis is the second book that I finished today that I would call weird and wonderful. The narrator relates episodes from her life through various works of art and the stories of the artists. Wonderful writing about art and life, in general. My only complaint is that I would have liked the parts to be more coherent and fit together more logically. As what might be called experimental fiction, however, this is one of the better examples. #Hoopla 4⭐️
pickI loved this meandering, thoughtful, strange book about art and artists. It‘s set in Buenos Aires and is narrated by a woman who is an art critic and who tells us stories from her life and from the lives of artists she loves. It‘s weird and great.
My latest. A meandering book about art and everything the narrator is thinking.
