New Yorker
OCTOBER 23, 2012
LOOK AT YOUR HANDS
POSTED BY MARK O'CONNELL
"When you first discover a writer who is unlike any you’ve read before—whose work seems at once to demand and to deny the possibility of contextualization—you tend to seek insights, in the writing itself, into where this strangeness and difference might be coming from. When I came to this passage in “Jerusalem” about Mylia’s way
of touching things, I read it again and again, convinced
that, in its oblique way, it revealed something essential
about Tavares. There is an indecency to his writing, a
strange and thrilling obscenity, that has to do with its
way of handling things as though they were people, and
people as though they were things."
of touching things, I read it again and again, convinced
that, in its oblique way, it revealed something essential
about Tavares. There is an indecency to his writing, a
strange and thrilling obscenity, that has to do with its
way of handling things as though they were people, and
people as though they were things."
"he has a gift—like Flann O’Brien or Kafka or Beckett—
for revealing the ways in which logic can be as faithful a
servant of madness as of reason. "
for revealing the ways in which logic can be as faithful a
servant of madness as of reason. "
"This alienated recognition—the way in which something
unfamiliar and unsettling can seem to carry the aura
of irrefutable truth—is, for me, one of the hallmarks of
serious art. His books may be bleak and unnerving, but
they are, for this reason, exhilarating in the way that only
the work of a powerfully original artist can be."
unfamiliar and unsettling can seem to carry the aura
of irrefutable truth—is, for me, one of the hallmarks of
serious art. His books may be bleak and unnerving, but
they are, for this reason, exhilarating in the way that only
the work of a powerfully original artist can be."
Illustration by Seymour Chwast.
