Here’s a couple of book reviews I did for a pair of neglected modernist novels:

The Juggler (Paperback) by Melanie Rachilde, translated by Melanie C. Hawthorne
Rutgers University Press $12.95

"The Juggler" is an unjustly neglected work. Gracefully poised between decadence and dada, it combines the sensuousness, love of the artificial and sexual ambiguity of Huysman with the word play, subversion and dramatic irony of (Rachilde’s friend) Alfred Jarry. The story of the relationship between the "juggler" of the title (in fact a well to do widow), Eliante Donalger, and her younger, somewhat callow suitor, the medical student Leon Reille, the novel alternates between their dramatic exchanges and their equally dramatic letters. The gender reversal and strong female character are reminiscent of Rachilde’s more famous work, the scandalous "Monsieur Venus," but "The Juggler" is more nuanced, sure footed and mature, while being just as scandalous. It’s a sexy book, even though there’s nothing explicit in it, mostly through the author’s attention to the minutest of sensations and her appreciation of the elastic wonders of the female body. Eliante’s defiantly outsider pose and her suggestion of the artificiality of gender itself make reading "The Juggler" a strangely contemporary and immediate experience, and I must admit I savored every word.

: A Novel (Paperback)
by Mikhail Artsybashev, translated by Michael R. Katz

Cornell University Press $19.95

I found "Sanin," as you probably did, sort of by accident, but have enjoyed it as much as anything I’ve read for a while. Although the back cover uses the word "pornography" umpteen times, Sanin isn’t explicit in the slightest, although it does address sexuality in a refreshingly straightforward way. It’s wonderful at capturing the way that young bodies call to each other under the fashionable facades, and how the most elevated of thoughts can be hijacked by lust. Being Russian, it’s also a novel of ideas, in this case the titular character’s free spirited nihilism, the sort of anarchy of ideas that were released from the pandora’s box of oppression, placing it in the tradition of Lermontov’s Hero of our Time, or Dostoevsky’s The Devils. It’s also more ambigious than it might seem, allowing the reader to see exactly how destructive those ideas can become and letting us make our own judgement on the nominal "hero." (I think he’s kind of a jerk myself, though there are plenty of teens and twenty year olds who would idolize him.) This is the kind of book that completely shames what passes for literature today. It’s vigorous, full of ideas, well written, titillating without being sensationalistic, extremely ambitious and not overwhelmed with having "sympathetic" characters or being commercial or politically correct. Love him or hate him Sanin will blow your mind and there aren’t many books of today that can say that!