Books

• Giorgio Bassani, The Smell of Hay, translated by Jamie McKendrick
• Jenny Diski, Skating to Antarctica
• Muriel Spark, Not to Disturb
• Jenny Diski, Stranger on a Train
• Anthony Burgess, The Enemy in the Blanket
• Alan Garner, The Owl Service
• Percival Everett, Glyph
• Tomás Saraceno et al., Arachnid Orchestra. Jam Session
• Valerio Magrelli, The Embrace: Selected Poems, trans. Jamie McKendrick
• Ross Macdonald, The Moving Target

Exhibits

• “Guo-Liang Tan: Ghost Screen,” Ota Fine Arts, Singapore
• “Hong Sek Chern: More Space,” Lim Hak Tai Gallery, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts
• “Tang Da Wu: Hak Tai’s Bow, Brother’s Pool and Our Children,” Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts
• “Siapa nama kamu? Art in Singapore Since the 19th Century,” National Gallery
• “Wu Guanzhong: A Walk through Nature,” National Gallery
• “Strokes of Life: The Art of Chen Chong Swee,” National Gallery
• “Rediscovering Treasures: Ink Art from the Xiu Hai Lou Collection,” National Gallery
• “Ghosts and Spectres – Shadows of History,” NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore
• “Siren Eun Young Jung: Wrong Indexing: Yeoseong Gukgeuk Archive,” NTU CCA Lab
• “That’s Contemporary: Contemporary Art from Marc Chagall to Nowadays,” Partners & Mucciaccia
• “Adeel uz Zafar: Hell, Purgatory and Paradise,” Fost Gallery
• “Antonio Puri,” Sundaram Tagore Singapore
• “Angki Purbandono: If You Give Me Lemon, I’ll Make Lemonade: Tales from Tokyo and Tangkahan,” Mizuma Gallery
• “Aung Ko: Diary from the Dark,” Chan + Hori Contemporary
• “Dusadee Huntrakul: To Dance Is To Be Everywhere,” Chan + Hori Contemporary
• “Fyerool Darma: Monsoon Song,” Yeo Workshop
• “Re/Collecting Asia: Selections from Singapore Private Collections,” Shanghart Singapore
• “From Pop Art to New Media: Shanghart Group Exhibition,” Shanghart Singapore
• “Richard Lewer: Life, Love and Death,” Sullivan+Strumpf Singapore 

Books

• Natalia Ginzburg, Family Sayings, translated by D. M. Low
• Jenny Diski, The Sixties
• Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingdé, I Didn’t Know Mani Was a Conceptualist
• Jenny Zhang, Sour Heart
• Bob Mould & Michael Azerrad, See a Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Melody
• Anthony Burgess, Time for a Tiger
• Leonora Carrington, Down Below
• Christian Morgenstern, In the Land of Punctuation, trans. Sirish Rao
• Robert Walser, Thirty Poems, trans. Christopher Middleton

Exhibits

• “Tales of the Malay World: Manuscripts and Early Books,” National Library of Singapore

Books

• Giorgio De Maria, The Twenty Days of Turin, translated by Ramon Glazov
• Christopher Logue, Patrocleia of Homer: A New Version
• Lisbon Poets, trans. Austen Hyde & Martin D’Evelin
• Antonio Tabucchi, Requiem: A Hallucination, trans. Margaret Jull Costa
• Dorothy B. Hughes, In a Lonely Place
• Sarah Manguso, 300 Arguments
• Jenny Diski, In Gratitude
• Vikram Chandra, Geek Sublime: Writing Fiction, Coding Software

Films

• Okja, directed by Bong Joon-Ho
• Born in China (生在中国), dir. Lu Chuan

Exhibits

• “Ng Teng Fong Roof Garden Commission: Danh Vo,” National Gallery, Singapore
• “Children’s Biennale 2017,” National Gallery
• “Yayoi Kusama: Life Is the Heart of a Rainbow,” National Gallery
• “Ng Eng Teng: 1+1=1,” NUS Museum
• “ ‘Who Wants To Remember A War?’ War Drawings And Posters From The Ambassador Dato’ N. Parameswaran Collection,” NUS Museum
• “From The Ashes: Reviving Myanmar Celadon Ceramics,” NUS Museum
• “Radio Malaya: Abridged Conversations About Art,” NUS Museum
• “Massimo Giannoni: Panopticon,” Partners & Mucciaccia
• “Phi Phi Oanh: Make Shift,” FOST Gallery
• “Apertures,” Yeo Workshop
• “Masanori Handa: A Palace,” Ota Fine Arts
• “Jason Wee: Labyrinths,” Yavuz Gallery
• “Mark Justiniani: Provoking Space,” Mizuma Gallery

Books

• Paul Fussell, Class: A Guide Through the American Status System
• Oliver Sacks, Awakenings
• Morten Strøksnes, Shark Drunk: The Art of Catching a Large Shark from a Tiny Rubber Dinghy in a Big Ocean, translated by Tiina Nunnally
• Anthony Burgess, Devil of a State
• Randall Jarrell, Pictures from an Institution: A Comedy
• Paul La Farge, The Night Ocean

Exhibits

• “Anna Maria Maiolino,” MOCA, Los Angeles
• “Home—So Different, So Appealing,” LACMA
• “Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery, 1959–1971,” LACMA
• “Form in Fragments: Abstraction in German Art, 1906–1925,” LACMA
• “Creatures of the Earth, Sea, and Sky: Painting the Panamanian Cosmos,” LACMA
• “Unexpected Light: Works by Young Il Ahn,” LACMA
• “Ed Fella: Free Work in Due Time,” LACMA
• “Ancient Bodies: Archaeological Perspectives on Mesoamerican Figurines,” LACMA
• Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum, Singapore
• The Live Turtle and Tortoise Museum, Singapore

Books

• Martin Herbert, Tell Them I Said No
• Walter Benjamin, Berlin Childhood Around 1900, translated by Howard Eiland
• Antonio Tabucchi, The Edge of the Horizon, trans. Tim Parks
• Antonio Tabucchi, The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro, trans. J. C. Patrick
• Antonio Tabucchi, Letter from Casablanca, trans. Janice M. Thresher
• Chester Himes, Cotton Comes to Harlem
• Joanna Walsh, Vertigo
• Eugene Lim, Dear Cyborgs
• Eve Babitz, L.A. Woman
• Antonio Tabucchi, Indian Nocturne, trans. Tim Parks
• Antonio Tabucchi, The Woman of Porto Pim, trans. Tim Parks
• Ursula K. Le Guin, The Wind’s Twelve Quarters
• Philip Graham, The Moon, Come to Earth: Dispatches from Lisbon

Exhibits

• Kunsthaus Dahlem, Berlin
• “Mary Bauermeister: Memento Mary,” Grisebach, Berlin
• Käthe-Kollwitz-Museum, Berlin
• “Karel Appel: L’Art est une fête !,” Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris
• “Derain, Balthus, Giacometti: Une amitié artistique,” Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris
• “Paul Armand Gette: Un Parcours Alicien,” Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris
• “Picasso Primitif,” Musée du Quai Branly
• Musée d’Orsay, Paris
• Palácio da Pena, Sintra, Portugal
• Castelo dos Mouros, Sintra, Portugal
• Palácio Nacional de Sintra, Sintra, Portugal
• “Escultura em Filme. The Very Impress of the Object,” Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, Portugal
• “Helmut Federle. Matéria Abstrata (Pinturas e Cerâmicas),” Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, Portugal
• “Emily Wardill. Matt Black and Rat,” Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, Portugal
• “Portugal em Flagrante – Operação 1, 2 e 3,” Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, Portugal
• “Ragnar Kjartansson: Guð, hvað mér líður illa,” Hafnarhús, Reykjavík, Iceland

Books

• Ursula K. Le Guin, Rocannon’s World
• Ursula K. Le Guin, Planet of Exile
• Ursula K. Le Guin, City of Illusions
• Jeff VanderMeer, Borne
• Ko Ko Thett, The Burden of Being Burmese

Exhibits

• Jagdschloss Grunewald, Berlin
• Pergamonmuseum, Berlin
• Neues Museum, Berlin
• Bode-Museum, Berlin
• Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin
• Altes Museum, Berlin
• Brücke Museum, Berlin
• “Hanne Darboven. Correspondences,” Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin
• “Rudolf Belling. Sculptures and Architectures,” Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin
• “Moving Is in Every Direction. Environments – Installations – Narrative Spaces,” Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin
• “Adrian Piper. The Probable Trust Registry: The Rules of the Game #1—3,” Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin
• Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin
• “Teresa Burga: Conceptual Installations of the 70s,” Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin
• Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
• “Franz Kafka. Der ganze Prozess,” Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin
• Feuerle Collection, Berlin
• “Jasper Morrison. Thingness,” Bauhaus-Archiv/Museum für Gestaltung
• “Bauhaus in Bewegung,” Bauhaus-Archiv/Museum für Gestaltung
• Museum Berggruen, Berlin
• Sammlung Scharf-Gerstenberg, Berlin
• “Gip‘s Luft? Renate Hampke – Shlauchobjecke,” Abguss-Sammlung Antiker Plastik, Berlin
• “John Miller: The Insanity of Place,” Galerie Barbara Weiss

Books

• Percival Everett, I Am Not Sidney Poitier
• Percival Everett, Erasure
• Percival Everett, So Much Blue
• Percival Everett & James Kincaid, A History of the African-American People (Proposed) by Strom Thurmond, As Told to Percival Everett and James Kincaid
• Sabahattin Ali, Madonna in a Fur Coat, translated by Maureen Freely & Alexander Dawe
• Paul Beatty, Tuff
• Paul Beatty, The White Boy Shuffle

Films

• In Jackson Heights, directed by Frederick Wiseman

Books

• Paolo Baciagalupi, The Windup Girl

Almost all fiction written in English about Bangkok (from Anna Leonowens on) is terrible, and science fiction about an imagined future Bangkok is not particularly promising. This book isn’t as terrible as it might be, though the supposition that Bangkok, a city which reliably floods every year in a country with horrific environmental policies, might be a bulwark against global warming is inadvertently hilarious. (Several locations mentioned as existing in the future have already disappeared, though the culprit there is the insatiable appetites of Bangkok’s developers.) The book falls too easily into ethnic stereotyping (those with scientific know-how are Western; Chinese are crafty; Thais are mystic; the Japanese are kinky), and one’s left with the feeling that once again the city merely serves as a signifier of exoticism.

Films

• Saint Jack, directed by Peter Bogdanovich
• Der müde Tod (Destiny), dir. Fritz Lang
• 哀しみのベラドンナ (Belladonna of Sadness), dir. Eiichi Yamamoto
• Арсенал (Arsenal), dir. Alexander Dovzhenko
• The Mark of Zorro, dir. Fred Niblo
• Underground, dir. Anthony Asquith
• リリイ・シュシュのすべて (All About Lily Chou-Chou), dir. Shunji Iwai
• The Informer, dir. Arthur Robison
• Our Pet, dir. Herman C. Raymaker
• 忠魂義烈 実録忠臣蔵 (Chushingura), dir. Shōzō Makino

Books

• Raymond Chandler, Trouble Is My Business

Passing time.

• Liu Xia, Empty Chairs: Selected Poems, translated by Ming Di & Jennifer Stern

A friend’s project: nice to see Chinese poetry given a decent presentation in English translation. Liu Xia’s photographs are astonishing, and one wishes there were more.

• Anthony Burgess, Abba Abba

A dying John Keats meets the Roman dialect poet G. G. Belli and changes his poetic approach. Half of the book is a translation of seventy of Belli’s sonnets, ostensibly done by a fictional character. Maybe I’d be more interested in historical fiction if more of it were this strange?

• Benjamin Lytal, A Map of Tulsa

Reminiscent of those Edgar Allan Poe stories where the narrator is utterly fixated on a dying woman, all the more strange for having been written a century and a half later.

• Mark Dion, Katherine McLeod, Madeleine Thompson, editors, Exploratory Works: Drawings from the Department of Tropical Research Field Expeditions

The catalogue to the show at the Drawing Center, which nicely contextualizes the work. Also full of unexpectedly beautiful imagery: oil painting, it turns out, works just fine under water.

• Ronald Firbank, Vainglory
• Ronald Firbank, Inclinations
• Ronald Firbank, Caprice

Finally getting around to Firbank’s first three novels, which are rather minor but still enjoyable. The best of them is Inclinations, which I’d be surprised if Gaddis hadn’t read before writing The Recognitions.

Films

• Tokyo Fiancée, directed by Stefan Liberski
• Wild, dir. Nicolette Krebitz
• Toni Erdmann, dir. Maren Ade
• Cleopatra, dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz
• Le Mépris, dir. Jean-Luc Godard

Books

• Reiner Stach, Is That Kafka? 99 Finds, translated by Kurt Beals

(More about this soon.)

• Vivek Shanbhag, Ghachar Ghochar, trans. Srinath Perur

The themes of this novella are familiar (the American tradition would go back through A Hazard of New Fortunes; more recently, Mohsin Hamid’s How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia was more formally innovative with a very similar subject), but Shanbhag’s book is well done.

• Paul Beatty, Slumberland

Atoning for not reading Paul Beatty earlier: I’m almost of a mind to go through past book reviews to look at his critical treatment.

• Paul Theroux, Saint Jack
• Paul Theroux, Kowloon Tong

I’ve never read Paul Theroux; Saint Jack pops up various places as a good fictional treatment of Singapore: it’s not perfect, but it be part of acanon of expat novels. Kowloon Tong, written much later, deals with Hong Kong just before the handover, and it’s cartoonishly stereotyped: the British seem to be overgrown babies and the mainland Chinese are devilish; the present city, twenty years later, isn’t recognizable at all.

• Geoff Dyer, Another Great Day at Sea: Life Aboard the U.S.S. George H. W. Bush

In a trying time, Dyer can make ordinary Americans seem admirable, which is a talent.

• Julio Cortázar, Final Exam, trans. Alfred Mac Adam

Read with a broader sense of his writing, this is pretty clearly juvenilia: there’s a big jump between this and the Rousselian The Winners, written ten years later, and I’m curious whether Cortázar would have wanted this published if he had lived longer. Read now, it feels like an early version of Hopscotch and obviously suffers in comparison.

Films

• Personal Shopper, directed by Olivier Assayas
• Song to Song, dir. Terrence Malick