"In a glamour of obscure distinction, I remember my face as his face from glances in the mirror - a little scared - as those glances were - with the reason-to-live stuff, the reason-to-die stuff in the silent mirror. This becomes embarrassed amusement, taut-nerved, fattened with uncertain and embarrassed recollection, imbecile. My temper - what I look like . . . who gives a fuck . . . is contentiously male. In the liquor of the blind-sidedness of recall of one's circumstances first thing in the morning when one awakes, I remember that, on the average, he (I am) is odd-looking but okay. My looks are not a torment to me."
and as far as i can tell, it's ALL like that! i enioy it to a certain extent, but i'm not sure i can take 835 pages of it. this is supposed to be brodkey's life's work, a novel he spent 30 years on or something, but it almost feels like the kind of cod-poetic automatic writing a well-read 19-year-old might fill up his livejournal with.
maybe i should check out one of his short story collections instead?
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 21:56 (eighteen years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 23 February 2006 00:37 (eighteen years ago) link
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 23 February 2006 08:45 (eighteen years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 23 February 2006 13:55 (eighteen years ago) link
― kenchen, Thursday, 23 February 2006 16:59 (eighteen years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 23 February 2006 18:17 (eighteen years ago) link
Should I pick up Runaway Soul for a couple bucks used? I love the short stories I've read.....hmmm.
― Michael_Pemulis, Tuesday, 21 July 2009 01:10 (fourteen years ago) link
It can be read chapter by chapter as kind of vignettes and short stories. I think some of it is actually an expansion of the stories (or just Brodkey having another go at big moments in his personal history; the long going-down of "Innocence" has equivalents here).
― Eazy, Tuesday, 21 July 2009 15:34 (fourteen years ago) link
He seems to be one of those folks, like John O'Hara, who was famous in NY literary circles as much for his personality as his writing, so that after he passed the legacy diminished.
― Eazy, Tuesday, 21 July 2009 15:35 (fourteen years ago) link
if you pick it up, be warned: you will never be able to sell it back anywhere because every used bookstore in the country already has four copies
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Thursday, 23 July 2009 23:44 (fourteen years ago) link
Edmund White's new memoir City Boy has some amusing dish: Brodkey's denial about his sexuality, his efforts to promote himself with Harold Bloom, Sontag, et al.
― Throwing Muses are reuniting for my next orgasm! (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 22 April 2010 02:44 (fourteen years ago) link
https://brickmag.com/harold-brodkey-yesterdays-genius/
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Tuesday, 12 June 2018 18:47 (five years ago) link
A friend and I were quoting the worst of Brodkey's, screaming with laughter.
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 12 June 2018 18:48 (five years ago) link
Great piece.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 14 June 2018 09:01 (five years ago) link
Brick is good overall, eh? Anybody here used that Submittables service?
― dow, Thursday, 14 June 2018 16:36 (five years ago) link
Will follow Scott's advice on getting the collected stories, but also the novel looks like a suitable case for treatment, since I sometimes find myself editing my reading anyway.
― dow, Thursday, 14 June 2018 16:41 (five years ago) link
Reading this New York magazine profile from 1988, just for a taste of when the combination of short stories and anticipation could make a sensation.
― paisley got boring (Eazy), Thursday, 8 February 2024 18:00 (two months ago) link
He is at once grandiose ("It's dangerous to be as good a writer as I") and humble ("Look, I can understand if you don't like my work and don't want to write about me").
(Cover story is a few pages up from where the link leads.)
― paisley got boring (Eazy), Thursday, 8 February 2024 18:30 (two months ago) link
One more thing: listening now to this sparring with Michael Silverblatt in this 1991 Bookworm interview. Less interested today in Brodkey's actual writing than who he was during this era of publishing.
― paisley got boring (Eazy), Thursday, 8 February 2024 21:05 (two months ago) link