Thursday, December 28, 2023

The Most Secret Memory of Men



I really love New York Review Books. If I had lots of money (nope) and lots of reading time (nope), I'd buy every book they publish AND read them. 

And I love The New York Review of Books, too. It's a bit pricey--even the digital only subscription is 20 issues for $79.95--but the LFPL has it on tap, so I try to have a look at it when it comes out. Which is how I came upon "The Ghost in the Labyrinth" by Ursula Lindsey, a review of The Most Secret Memory of Men by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr (translated from the French by Lara Vergnaud).

I'm not sure why I started reading this review. I'd never heard of the book, the author, the translator, OR the reviewer. 

But when I read this




I knew that this book was For Me. So I put on my buffalo hide robe and horned hat, grabbed my spear, and went out to hunt.

Amazon had it, of course. $19.99 for the book book, $11.99 for Kindle. Couldn't find it for much cheaper as a book book, and none of them beat the Kindle price. Internet Archive? Nope. Louisville Free Public Library? YES! 
1 e-copy (which was out, and with two holds waiting for its return) and two book books, one of which was out, the other of which I put in my request for. So I'm thinking I can hold off for the few days it will take it to be shipped to my library. 

But of course I want it Right Now. So I downloaded the free Amazon preview. A pretty generous 40 pages there. Read it. It was good. GOOOd good. Like this:

"The Labyrinth of Inhumanity belonged to the other history of literature (which is perhaps the true history of literature): that of books lost in a corridor of time, not cursed even, simply forgotten, and whose corpses, bones, and solitudes blanket the floors of prisons without jailers, and line infinite and silent frozen paths."

And this:

"I wrote a little novel, Anatomy of the Void, which I published with a fairly small press. The book was a flop (seventy-nine copies sold the first two months, including the ones I bought out of my own pocket). And yet one thousand one hundred and eighty-two people had liked the post I put on Facebook to announce the pending publication of my book. Nine hundred and nineteen had left a comment. “Congratulations!” “Proud of you!” “Awesome, bro!” “Bravo!” “An inspiration!” “Thank you, brother. You do us proud,” “Can’t wait to read it, inshallah!” “When’s it out?” (even though I had included the publication date in the post), “How can I get it?” (also in the post), “How much does it cost?” (same), “Interesting title!” “You’re a role model for our youth!” “What’s it about?” (this question embodies the Evil in literature), “Can I order it?” “Is there a PDF?” et cetera. Seventy-nine copies."

That one really tickled me. I put one of my novels--A Matter of Reason--on Amazon some time ago. Told my friends about it. Many of them told me how much they liked it. More than the number of copies sold--and considerably less than 79. Several "friends" asked me for free copies. I sent them. What the hell. I'm pretty sure few of those were read, either, though. Let's just say feedback was minimal or non-existent.

So it goes. But it helps to know that it's not just me, y'know?

At any rate, 40 pages was not enough, and a 3 or 4 day wait was too long. So I went back online to see what Google Books had to offer.

I was very surprised. 104 pages! *  That's 20% of the whole book. Woo-hoo!

First off, I found that the Amazon preview had taken me to page 52, actually, not 40. And then I ripped right through the rest of the Google Books preview.

Hmm. Clearly I'm going to be needing more of this toot suite.

News as it happens.

"...women sometimes forgive a man who forces the opportunity, but never a man who misses one." (68)

Yep. Been there a couple of times. Sigh.




* Well, actually it goes to page 96, but still...free!

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