Nota Bene
Lindsay Tuggle
Calenture
Cordite BooksFrom widely published and venerated
Australian poet Lindsay Tuggle comes a
stirring collection of poetry that draws
strength from both its unapologetic
entrenchment in the female experi-
ence and in its willingness to delve into
the immensely personal heart of every
issue that fills its pages. Performing
poetic subversions of long-held notions
about the subjects of death, loss, and
the societal perception of femininity,
Calenture is at once uncomfortable and
hauntingly memorable.Tanguy Viel
Article 353
Trans. William Rodarmor
Other PressThis terse novel uses the form of a
legal deposition to unspool the com-
plex set of events that precipitate a
murder. Tanguy Viel uses the sprawl-
ing dialogue to critique the fraying
threads of the French social fabric in
the broader tapestry of twenty-first-
century Europe.Nobody’s sure if the scholar of Nazi Ger-
many jumped or was pushed. With a cast
of treacherous academics and rumors of
a pilfered Third Reich relic, The Republic
has all the makings of a canny, if derivative,
intellectual thriller.
De Vries, however, is a comic novel-
ist with metafictional inclinations. Mainly,
he’s interested in exploring what it means
to work within a milieu—in this case, the
world of university publishing—that places
a premium on developing new narratives.
Why do humans build reductive tales out
of discrete, often unrelated events? The
travails of his protagonist, a Brik disciple
named Friso de Vos, might help us arrive at
an answer.
The editor of a
journal of Hitler-relat-
ed scholarship, de Vos
falls ill during a work
trip. When he wakes up
in a hospital, he learns
of Brik’s death. Anoth-
er Brik devotee, Philip
de Vries (note that he
shares the author’s last
name), has stepped in
and delivered a glow-
ing eulogy. De Vos is
crestfallen—he was
supposed to be the one
“giving Brik’s death
meaning” by “fitting it
into a story.” Eager to
reinstall himself atop
the Brikian hierarchy, he resolves to imper-
sonate—and thereby humiliate—his rival.
His increasingly reckless antics will draw
the attention of Nazi artifact-fetishists and
far-right politicos.
De Vries’s tone is droll, nonchalant. The
Dutch writer’s depiction of a punch-up at
an academic conference is funny, but he has
an unaccountable weakness for sight gags.
One chapter includes images of inanimate
objects that resemble Hitler, giving it the
feel of a forgettable internet meme. Though
de Vries’s plot is competently assembled,
his narrative games are distracting. Many
novelists have named characters after them-
selves, but his reasons for doing so remain
obscure. His decision to import fictional
professors from elsewhere—Jack Gladney,
a Hitler scholar from Don DeLillo’s superb
White Noise, makes several appearances—
only reminds the reader of better books.
Eyeing a snowy city square in Austria, de
Vos notes that it’s “as white as an unwritten
Word document,” ready to be filled with
stories. There’s a promising yarn at the heart
of The Republic, but it’s burdened by a glut
of gimmicks.
Kevin Canfield
N e w Yo r kChloe Aridjis
Sea MonstersTrans. Anne McLean.
New York. Catapult.- 224 pages.
One doesn’t have to
see the carved face of
the Grand Canyon to
know water is power-
ful and mysterious but
also beautiful. It is this
combination of danger
and poetic mystery
that draws a middle-
class teenager like
Luisa out of her books
and into the arms of
Joy Division, indiffer-
ent romance, and the crashing waves of
Zipolite, the beach of death. Chloe Aridjis
crafts an undulating story not of inno-
cence lost but innocence exchanged. Luisa
exchanges her ordinary and unexceptional
days to solve a mystery. This action will lead
her to a beach where she meets strangers she
believes will want to hear her story, though
in truth, she lacks a tale anyone would find
thrilling.
Yet the title of the novel seems to prom-
ise malicious creatures. As one follows
Luisa’s decisions, which lead her away from
her predictable middle-class life, the seaWORLDLIT.ORG 107