“This week’s installment of Ten Questions features Eugene Lim, whose latest novel, Search History, is out today from Coffee House Press…. Often simultaneously hilarious and devastating, Search History is an adventure story that offers profound insight into grief and grieving in the contemporary era…”
>Q: What is the earliest memory that you associate with the book? >A: I remember thinking the title would be bad for SEO.
[T]hese stories have shattered preconceived notions about novels and recast the bits into fresh forms…This bricolage surprisingly coheres by the novel’s end into an authentic expression of a mind striving to comprehend the inexplicable cruelties of the universe and humanity’s most proper response… Fans of Haruki Murakami’s melancholy, oneiric tales will also delight in Lim’s assault upon consensus reality. He encourages the reader to “stop making sense,” in the Talking Heads manner, and experience the universe as a magical tapestry of events whose overall pattern is perceivable only by God — or maybe after one’s own death.
i was very happy to receive this review in the Washington Post by Paul Di Filippo. it was a very gratifying review for me as it explicitly states some of my conceptual hopes and furthermore laid them out in a personal, insightful, and elegant style. at times it felt like a duet, so seen and well represented i felt. a sincere thanks to Paul Di Filippo.
[as an aside, the review does make a small and unimportant error by misnaming one of the characters as Muriel. (it’s truly not an important detail for a reader’s experience — but why it isn’t important is kinda important. (characters are a technology that evaporate within a greater and wider sense of personhood, might be brief summary of the/my argument.) but, to the reviewer’s credit, having an unnamed narrator is always confusing (and this one might have more than one). but, to clarify: the unnamed character that goes on the global hunt with Donna Winters for the AI/dog (in my non-authoritative authorial mind) is not Muriel.]
A short story about a long story about a short story about our wedding day. A writer is invited to our wedding. She is famous for her perfected, very short stories. Later, as a gift to us, she writes a story about that day. Years later still, a composer known particularly for an aural mise-en-abyme, wherein he repeatedly records the recording of his own voice until any semblance of the original speech act “with perhaps the exception of rhythm” is destroyed, creates a similar composition based on this famous writer’s story about our wedding. I feel elated to be indirectly part of these accomplished artists’ works, but also I am fearful and am struck by profound wonder that these are based upon — and in the case of the composition also replicate — the erosion of one of my happiest memories. Selah.
A little late posting this, but here’s an interview I did a month ago as part of Entropy’s excellent small press series.
Tell us a bit about Ellipsis Press. What are your influences, your aesthetic, your mission? From our submission statement, we say: “We like novels that look normal but aren’t (more than those that look weird but are actually quite normal)…” And I think that that gets close to it. The novel is a flexible container. I think I’m interested in those books that transform and transcend the genre but in a way that brings the reader along—does not forget or insult the reader—and, in the best case, expands what it is possible to understand via new forms of long narrative.
yesterday’s writing session was a low point producing a terrible poem slash yeats pun called The 2.0 Coming. first line: “The falcon says fuck you and flies off.”
SPACE DETECTIVE HAS HER FEET ON THE DESK of her basement office. She is profoundly bored. A series of disasters has conspired to confine her to her house for several months.
She had thought she was too old for it but several of her friends have already done it. The thick fog of boredom, which she momentarily and perfunctorily acknowledges as an aspect of entitlement, finally convinces her to go. She activates the cryogen casket. She takes the pill. She puts on the suit and helmet. She double checks the IV lines and lays down in the casket. She hums the passcode and is instantly sent to Videogame.
i’ve been meaning to post about these books for a few months — but they’ve been weird and busy months. but just before the quarantine, i received an email from yongsoo park — an author i have admired but never met. he’d written two memoirs, had self-published the first and was about to self-publish the second.
i’d loved and was truly inspired by his earlier novel, BOY GENIUS published by Akashic in 2002. (i remember stumbling upon it probably at one of those pre-AWP small press book fairs they had i believe in what was the old mercantile library. i forget the name of the organization that ran these book fairs and wonder what happened to it. was it run by CLMP? this was before Center for Fiction was there. or was it a different subscription library?) … i can’t remember exactly how i found it, but BOY GENIUS was a revelation. it was asian-american literature far beyond anything i’d read before, importantly different from the (also important) foundational assimilation theme that predominated, and came from a familiar but surreal perspective. i’ve written briefly before about what it meant to me, but its very existence was crucial for me. it inspired me to keep writing, frankly, and to think there were other perspectives (somewhat like mine, near mine) that were possible in a literary world that seemed at the time beyond entrance.
the two new memoirs are very nyc books. one is about his raising his kids in harlem. and the other is about his childhood in the neighborhood where i now live: the area in queens made up of Jackson Heights and Elmhurst.
his queens is no longer there but it was here just a moment ago. he took me to where his dad’s shoe repair store used to be located, in a small stall in the Jackson Heights subway station that i used to pass every day and is now occupied by a barber shop and a cell phone accessory store. i think i moved here just as the old neighborhood was evaporating; in fact no doubt my gentrifying move was part of the titrating force that changed the formula of its place.
i love both these books. the parenting memoir reflected conflicts i’d had (and continue to have) as a korean american father, and his urban childhood — entirely different from my midwestern one — resonated more than harmonically. here’s the overly long blurb i wrote for the more recent one:
The beautifully remembered details of a Queens boyhood circa 1980s is so colored with a particular light of Korean-American immigrant experience that the reader, who could be forgiven for thinking they are reading a folksy document of yesteryear, is so bedazzled that their mesmerized state occurs before they are even aware, and achieved perhaps so subtly that the hypnotized might even deny the trick — except for a lingering and transformative mist…
Frankly, it is difficult for me to convey how gratifying and exciting it is to see such an experience articulated in print. The current argot talks about “feeling seen,” and we are in a season of new (and winning) demands for better diversity of representation in our national media. And yet how can I speak of my wonder for the writings of Yongsoo Park — whose affable and low-key style belies not only an incredible courage but weaves a steady-tempoed music that insidiously, sentence by sentence, recapitulates a past so that one is in tears at the recovery of what one was certain was lost forever. For me, from the beginning of his career with the outrageous Boy Genius to these latest memoirs, Yongsoo Park’s books are the mirror and lens I have been seeking my whole reading life — and ones I have not yet encountered elsewhere.
i’d add that if you have any interest in korean-american literature, they are a must. these are self-published books, which i wish they weren’t. i respect his decision to do so, the fulfillment of an urgency, and its maintaining of certain control — but i wish it was a different world, one that was better prepared to recognize Yongsoo Park’s adult genius. maybe it soon will.
april 2, 2020 | this morning i remembered this short short that derek white published in sleepingfish ten years ago and that seems now autobiographical and which i reproduce here in its entirety.
the whole Sleepingfish issue (edited by derek white and gary lutz) is available as a PDF through the calamari archive here: https://www.calamaripress.com/SF/8/line.htm
big thanks to Margaret Rhee and her students for this interview! They created a podcast series with author interviews, including those with myself, Mark Doten, Katie Williams, George Abraham, and Darius Kazemi.
Machine Dreams is a podcast created by the English undergraduate seminar in the Department of English at Harvard University. In our course, we’re interested in how machines, robots, and codes are represented in, and shaped by literary texts. For example, in 1920, Czech playwright Karel Capek coined the term “robot” in his play RUR (Rossum’s Universal Robots) and transformed societal conceptions of mechanical beings. The contemporary literature we read as a class, similarly push the boundaries of the intersection of technology, machines, and literature. We had the fortunate opportunity to speak with invited authors on this topic of machines and literature, and engage in a collective conversation together. What follows is a dialogue that explores robots, technology, science fiction, intimacy, human conditions, and literary form. We are also interested in literature beyond the page, and the classroom. Our podcast interview is our gesture to a Machine Dream, and we hope you enjoy listening, and join our exploration together.”
i’ve a doubling/cleaving short piece called “Diptych” in the latest issue of the Iowa Review. many thanks to editor Evan James. it’s a beaut of an issue with pieces by Joyelle McSweeney, Stacey Levine, CA Conrad, Kate Bernheimer, Wayne Koestenbaum and many amazing others. here’s a bit from my piece:
seems in/appropriate to allude to maestro and blind librarian jorge luis borges, who i’ve been thinking about prolly too much as i lay about recovering from yet another eye surgery… the dapper manhattan ophthalmologist said in the post-op meeting—and rather frustratingly failed to detail any further what he might mean—that when he went into my eyeball that it had felt very “unusual.” still i like the man very much even despite or maybe because he played jethro tull in the operating theater (during which i was rather squeamishly awake) … don’t worry. everyone says the eye should be nearly as good as before sometime very soon.
anyhoo. this only to say that in my rather mopey cyclops convalescence, i was gladdened this evening to receive copies of a chapbook made from a chapter from the novel-in-progress. it’s called THE BASEMENT FOOD COURT OF FORKING PATHS and the chapbook is a product of the editorial vision of David Gonzalez of Skylight Books, where copies are for sale. they should soon be available also through their soon-to-be website, which will be here. Cover art by Liana Jegers and design by Alex Hemming — many thanks to them!
[as an aside and basically unrelated to the story of the chapbook, the plot of the borges story involves a chinese professor named Doctor Yu Tsun, an early prototype for self-harming victims of the model minority myth, who justifies an act of thankless espionage because he “wished to prove to [the kaiser] that a yellow man could save his armies.”]
my chapter has little to do with borges’s tale (except perhaps in its thinking of the multiverse, chance, and regret) but does celebrate the grimy glory of the original and now-gone Golden Shopping Mall. the chapter also has not a little to do with music and so shout-outs to Danny Tunick and Chris Mannigan who guided the, um, research.
Here’s a bit from the chapbook:
I look up and see Muriel hit a record button. Then she holds up the phone and says:
Do you like it? I’m not sure what I think about it. Because my old one was getting so laggy I had to get a new one.
For the most part I trusted the cloud. That is, I had faith in the current magic to get what I needed from my old exo-brain to the new one. I mean I trusted the marketplace to take somehow from my old phone to my new phone all my memories, years and years of correspondence, all my tiny keys to all my unbreakable tiny locks, lists of songs to private parties, top scores to games I never wanted to play, selfies in front of and by things I wanted to be proven once near. But there was one thing I didn’t trust the cloud with, at least not enough that I didn’t take precautions. These were old voicemails from a friend named Frank Exit who died about a year ago.
why are red states red? if you want to read a convincing thesis on WHY the rise of global fascism is being fed by the disenfranchisement of the quote nativist working classes, as well as a deliciously trashy romp through worlds (and maybe an explanation on why the youth seem to have abandoned guitar rock), try VERNON SUBUTEX about an aging French hipster, now down and out. less filled with bloatware than Knausgaard, and as dark but swifter and funnier than Ferrante, Despentes is as perfectly detailed, engrossing and life-filled as both. she is in fact master of the most clever, deep empathies. and you’ll be stunned to be inhabiting the minds of the unexpected. _______________________________
“In Lim’s work, nothing makes sense except for the sharp absurdity of living within capitalism, and the real threads of resistance that worm their way out of our fantastical, perhaps even delusional visions for a better world. Built out of the crime scene of our past decade, Dear Cyborgs is a book of perfect illogic that I’m grateful will sustain me through the next.”
The good doctor was working on a special kind of AI that anticipates your needs, and, of which, so claims Donna, the dog is a prototype. The program is turning out to work all too well, as the robots not only seem to anticipate when you want companionship or a beverage or the stereo turned on but quickly evolved to discover and emulate that which you most longed for—a desire perhaps unconscious, secret even from yourself—a desire which in most people turns out to be the recovery of the dead. This, though I’m not sure if I entirely believe or trust her explanation, is why, according to Donna, I thought the dog was the reincarnation of my deceased friend, Frank Exit.
Welcome to Shhh…Secrets of the Librarians, a new series (inspired by our long-running Secrets of the Book Critics) in which bibliothecaries (yes, it’s a real word) from around the country share their inspirations, most-recommended titles, thoughts on the role of the library in contemporary society, favorite fictional librarians, and more. Each week we’ll spotlight a librarian—be they Academic, Public, School, or Special—and bring you into their wonderful world.
This week, we spoke to Queens-based writer, publisher, and librarian, Eugene Lim.
IN ENGLISH. FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. NO RSVP NECESSARY.ALBERTINE 972 FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK, UNITED STATES
My Friends is Emmanuel Bove’s first and most famous book. Its narrator, Victor Baton, is a classic little man, of no talent or distinction or importance and with no illusions that he has any of those things. All Victor wants is to be loved, all he wants is a friend, and as he strays through the streets of Paris in search of love or friendship or some fleeting connection, we laugh both at Victor’s meekness and at his odd pride, but we feel with him, too.
With Victor, Bove has created a kind of everyman, an archetypal, indomitable knight of human fragility who invests the back streets of the city and the unsorted moments of daily life with a weird and unforgettable clarity.
On Wednesday, May 22 at 6:30pm, join Donald Breckenridge, Eugene Lim, Jonathon Sturgeon, and John Yau as they discuss Emmanuel Bove’s masterpiece.
In English. Free and open to the public. No RSVP necessary.
I’ll be reading at 5PM on May 19th at the Queens Museum along with writers N.K. Jemisin and Sabrina Vourvoulias, followed by a discussion moderated by scholar Joy Sanchez-Taylor.
Part of a bold and dreamy series of events put on by the Queens Library’s Science Fiction Festival and the Queens Museum’s Mundos Alternos: Art and Science Fiction in the Americas.
“This episode features writer Eugene Lim reading from and discussing his short fiction, his novel Dear Cyborgs, and his novel-in-progress.
Among the many things we talk about are writing, literature, reading, books, editing, editors, libraries, librarians, experimental fiction, Jorge Luis Borges, publishing, Ellipsis Press, Third Space Theory, Renee Gladman, Miranda Mellis, Joanna Ruocco, Evelyn Hampton, Tom Whalen, dialogue, monologue, Karen An-hwei Lee, Jean Echenoz, Jonas Mekas, Tehching Hsieh, Adrian Tomine, and more.”
People with more money than us don’t seem to trust us (not strictly true) We have hardly any, ever Maybe they shouldn’t trust us we’re always looking to borrow five ten or twenty dollars we only want to have just enough money, today they think it all “goes for pills” how much do they think pills cost we have no expensive habits I mean as in other people’s worlds clothes, travel, decor, enter- tainment we do buy books we don’t have a phone for seven years, no checking account
Of course I’m not being objective it was my life As a matter of fact I feel positively defiant about it I liked our economics they were transparent I understood money thoroughly I had guilt from borrowing but never the guilt of having something the only thing that suffered was Ted’s health it suffered considerably
I can’t get at the poem of this I think of ’81, ’82 as rather ugly years casting cold shadows black against the sky of a sun disappearing but back to economics nobody trusts the poor the poor are more interesting than others almost uniformly they’re crazed resentful struggling paranoid excessive anxious about their faded rickety possessions and their stoops their patches of sunlight or shade on stoops their children going wrong and all the disorder of the garbage cans everyone else boringly has clean cold spaces new things private schools self-filled conversations rooms full of shadow where rage should be and the voices of people subject to the fits of demonic radios in their heads well I’ve had my radio implant at times and known people with louder ones everything the voices scream about relates to money one way or another
I’m being self-righteous so I can own my own past again and so my present, no bondage or confinement of shame of not making money it’s a talent people are born with–poetry isn’t it’s life’s condition poetry’s so common hardly anyone can find it money’s common but much more cornerable poetry’s air and money’s ore–a certain mineral that slides across distances into hands it fits born with a hand shaped like money they say, that cute clean white hand
I can’t get to the poem of this though I choke with it again being there in another decade being here’s not much different the rage of unremunerated work — can’t you hear the voice in my head can’t you hear this fucking voice in my head of course I’m not right I’m never right I’m fucking lazy unskilled and you deserve your money
sometimes one’s white (/brown) noise app gets boring, no? buh-buh-billions of testing hours — some of them sad, most of them sleepy — went into the production of this playlist [spotify, youtube], which is what I’ve been writing to… poetaster tested, scribbler approved.
also: i’m reading this saturday afternoon with Caleb Beckwith and Alan Davies. come by?
AT THE ZINC BAR
82 WEST 3rd STREET, BETWEEN THOMPSON AND SULLIVAN STS.
NEW YORK CITY
SATURDAYS FROM 4:30 – 6:30 PM
CALEB BECKWITH, EUGENE LIM & ALAN DAVIES
Caleb Beckwith is a writer and editor living in Oakland, CA; work includes Political Subject (ROOF), and Heat Win (Gauss PDF).
Eugene Lim is the author of the novels Fog & Car (Ellipsis Press), The Strangers (Black Square Editions), and Dear Cyborgs (FSG). He works as a high school librarian, runs Ellipsis Press, and lives in Queens, NY. http://www.eugenelim.com.
Alan Davies‘s books include Name/ Signage/ Rave/ Candor/ Raw War / Odes & fragments. In addition to his poetry / Alan is known for his book reviews / critical theory / aphorisms / essays. Long a resident of NYC / Alan can be contacted at idonot@mail.com.
to talk to hsieh was really an honor. here’s my favorite part of the interview:
_________
Tehching Hsieh: In the beginning I couldn’t meet your kind of people. Your kind of people would say, “What is this guy, a stranger, an illegal?” Because your kind of people—this is the first time I’ve been interviewed by your kind of people in 42 years.
BLVR: Really? Wait, what do you mean, us “kind of people”?
TH: Asian American. [Laughter.] You get it! This is the first time. I’m not trying to make it an issue.
BLVR: You say this is the first time Asian Americans are interviewing you, which I find both surprising and not, but, you should know, for us, you are a very important precedent, a groundbreaker.
TH: I just wanted to say that it’s come late. Forty-two years late.
a lot of pitfalls when writing about the immigrant generation. or, to be particular and personal, i find it very difficult to write directly with any honesty about my parents, who i know worked harder and persisted in ways it’s not even in my constitution to comprehend. as, one assumes, was partly the goal. but from which a division is necessarily born.
anyway. this is to say i wrote a thing about my mom. below is a photo of her as a girl (in the darker clothes) circa 1955. many thanks to the editors of Cagibi.
N E S T S
I remember the only time I ever saw my mother cry. I was eating apricot pie.
—Joe Brainard, I Remember
I remember my mother remembering her father.
I remember walking with my mother through the woods near her home. She points out a small purple flower. She says they called these “ring-flowers,” and in her childhood they would pluck these flowers and make from their stalks a kind of ring. I remember she didn’t stoop to pluck one but mimed the act… [Read the rest here.]
The library of the future is more or less the same. That is, the branch is an actual and metaphoric Faraday cage. You enter, a node and a target, streamed at and pushed and yanked, penetrated by and extruding information, sloppy with it. And then your implants are cut off. Your watch, your glasses, jacket, underwear, your lenses, tablet, chips, your nanos—all go dry…
read the rest here along with the other authors in Wired’s “Future of Work” series including fiction by Laurie Penny, Charles Yu, Charlie Jane Anders, Nisi Shawl, Adam Rogers, Martha Wells, and a great one on smart contracts and crypto by Ken Liu.
2) and also my essay “The Nameable : on experimental writing,” published in The Brooklyn Rail and in SomethingOnPaper was nominated for a Pushcart by fiction editor Donald Breckenridge
very happy to have new fiction called “No Machine Could Do It” in latest Granta magazine.
I’d become friends with a Public Intellectual. He handled everything: scandal, sex, politics, political sex scandals, racism, weather, the racism of weather, Japanese cartoons. Everything was under his purview, but his specialty was the Future. He was a much more successful colleague at the university where I would occasionally adjunct. Several years ago entirely by accident, when collecting some papers from our department’s office, not knowing who he was, I saw him standing next to the faculty mailboxes with a copy of a book I’d just read. I was younger and new to the place and excitable – and so I started up a brief conversation about the book…
