EZRA SLEF: The Next Nobel Laureate in Literature – Andrew Komarnyckyj

TARTARUS PRESS 2021

My previous reviews of this publisher: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/r-b-russell-tartarus-press/

When I read this book, I hope to record my thoughts in the comment stream below…

4 thoughts on “EZRA SLEF: The Next Nobel Laureate in Literature – Andrew Komarnyckyj”

  1. INTRODUCTION
    LIST OF PLATES
    Chapter 1: ORIGINS AND EARLY LIFE

    I am, thanks to the glossary, already feeling my way into the Slefesque syndrome. A very engaging start by this book, with hints of wonderfully pale shades of fire? Slef was born in Russia. If I tell you more or proceed with this review in my usual real-time fashion, I may be guilty of spoilers. I will definitely be back here, though, intermittently to tell you what I think of what already promises to be a landmark read for me.

  3. Chapter 2

    When I do happen to come back to report on my progress, I’ve decided not to quote the titles of each chapter for fear of spoilers. But I can’t , meanwhile, today, resist mentioning here the tendency of this writer in this chapter to empathise — by means of his own experience — to such a degree of empathy with his subject Slef, so as to project for us a certain part of the latter’s life, that I wonder to what extent they are tantamount to the same person in certain alternate worlds. Here, I empathise, myself, with arguing that Charlotte Brontë and Jane Austen were the same writer, or at least members of the same gestalt. I used to argue such things when I was at University all those many years ago!
    (I like the footnotes, reminding me of those of an erstwhile Nabokov alter-ego … so far.)