People are always saying "I don't read books." Too often, the problem is reading too many of the wrong books, thus turning a potentially great experience into something they'd rather avoid. This is where _DictionaryGirl_ and PointBlank come in and let you borrow something awesome. Let's go to town and make some recommendations, shall we?

We’re all familiar with the canonical classics. But does anyone really think that all the great books that have ever been published have been given their just due? I mean, we’ve all read a supposed “classic” and thought, “is that all there is?” So, by that logic, there must be some pretty damned great books that have gone ignored. Every so often, a writer will publish a book that is at least as accomplished, and just as good as anything else on the market yet for some reason, it simply doesn’t make a mark on the general population. Sometimes they aren’t even published until the author is dead. Sometimes the books simply fall out of favor until someone rediscovers them and a new classic is (re)born.

We all love feeling like we found something that no one else knows about. I like turning people on to those hidden gems that I’ve discovered (or have been discovered for me). So, let’s look at a couple of my bookshelf favorites that you might not know about yet.


1.Chromos by Felipe Alfau

The story behind Chromos and Alfau is almost as interesting as the book itself. In 1936, Alfau, a Spanish immigrant to New York, published a book called Locos which was fairly well reviewed but was bought by almost nobody. Whether this was because of its style (a proto-postmodernist mélange of Barthelme, Coover, and especially Barth), its difficulty, or the author’s rumored support of Generalissimo Franco is up for debate. What is known is that the book disappeared, almost without a trace. Disappeared, that is, until an editor from the Dalkey Archive discovered a copy at a yard sale. Surprised at the high level of talent, she tracked Alfau down to a retirement home and offered to publish it. Instead of taking any money, Alfau simply asked that Dalkey consider publishing his second novel, which he had written nearly half a century before. They did, and in 1990 the novel was nominated for the National Book Award.

The opening is one of my favorites:

The book takes place in New York (writing in English, Alfau joins writers such as Conrad, Beckett, and Nabokov, who did much of their great work in “foreign” languages) and concerns a group of Spanish immigrants—“Americaniards”—who are habitués of a bar called El Telescopia. From the title, and even the name of the bar, one can guess that time, and it’s abilities to “telescope,” that is to seem to move too fast and too slow at the same instance will play a large part in the book. The émigrés complain about the lack of time in New York, where no one stops for even a moment. In fact, the novel itself is bracketed by a story that seems to pause as the rest of the story is taking place. There are also books within books, dead characters who return from Alfau’s previous work, and characters who both argue whether they are too American, or too Spanish, mostly through a lesson on the correct way to make paella. Thankfully, this isn’t, a dry study in postmodernist technique, nor is it a book where characters talk endlessly about their circumstances. While there is an ominous undercurrent stalking the Amercaniards, there is more than enough drinking, dancing and humour to fill several lesser books. Chromos is a book that takes an unflinching look at life and its problems, but it obviously written by a man in love with living.

Chromos is available through The Dalkey Archive, one of the greatest small presses in America.

2.Epitaph Of A Small Winner by Machado De Assis

Unlike Felipe Alfau, Joaquim Maria Machado De Assis is not an unknown writer. In fact, he is probably considered one of Brazil’s greatest novelists. That, of course, doesn’t stop him from being nearly anonymous in the rest of the world (America, I’m looking at you!). What the two do have in common is their prescient ability to use postmodern techniques several years (and in the case of Machado, nearly a full century) before they would become codified. Assis, in fact is most often compared to that ur-postmodernist Lawrence Sterne and Epitaph of a Small Winner is often seen as his Tristram Shandy.

He, as well, can write a heck of an opening:

For me, that paragraph just about perfectly sums up what is so great about Epitaph of a Small Winner. That balance between, in the first statement about the author already being dead, meant to surprise the reader, is a great stylistic trick, but then in the second phrase, he admits that it’s also a great trick to keep the reader interested and to sell books. The ironic comparison to the Pentateuch at the end is just the sort of self-effacing and satirical humor that makes this book so much damned fun. Machado takes much joy in skewering the hypocrisies of nearly everyone, and he’s been called the greatest satirist since Swift. Since his targets aren’t (always) those obvious, evil people of power, he also has the ability to make the reader sympathize with those he is mocking, not to mention that his biggest target is, more often than not, himself.

Epitaph of a Small Winner is available now. Please note that it’s original (Portuguese) title is Memorias Postumas De Bras Cubas.

Hey, while we're at it: why not let me know what some of your “secret books” are and, as always:

Join us again next week for a word or two-hundred from _DictionaryGirl_! If there's anything you'd like to see here, never hesitate to let us know.