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Fiction ChronicleMay 2003 A safe preserve for sport by Max Watman A review of The Interpreter, by Suki Kim; Cosmopolis, by Don DeLillo; The Time of Our Singing, by Richard Powers; The Commissariat of Enlightenment, by Ken Kalfus & The Hazards of Good Breeding, by Jessica Shattuck. It was something, I guessed, in the primal plan, something like a complex figure in a Persian carpet. The search for an enigma catalyzes the revelations of character in “The Figure in the Carpet.” Too often, writers learn not from James but from his character Vereker. They learn not the use of a macguffin to expose character flaws but, rather, that fiction might have a pattern. Likewise, revelation and discovery are key to the novel. The forced manifestation of an imposed pattern is merely boring and academic. Patterns can be put to work, however. Suki Kim’s pattern of Korean immigrants—her delivery truck drivers, pool hall sharks, vegetable stand owners, and over-achieving second-generation kids —creates a fresh New York, one of which we’ve not read much and that, in our daily lives, we take for granted. The In ... This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchaseSubscribe to TNC (Print and Online editions) Subscribe to TNC (Online only) This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 21 May 2003, on page 63 Copyright © 2012 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/A-safe-preserve-for-sport-1747
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by Max Watman Reviews of "The View from Castle Rock: Stories," by Alice Munro; "Talk Talk," by T.C. Boyle; and "Special Topics in Calamity Physics," by Marisha Pessl. by Stefan Beck On The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta, Zone One by Colson Whitehead, The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco & Cain by José Saramago. by Stefan Beck On The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Slim by Jonathan Coe, Emily, Alone by Stewart O'Nan, Swamplandia! by Karen Russell & The Pale King by David Foster Wallace. by Stefan Beck On Freedom, 03, A Visit from the Goon Squad & Dogfight, A Love Story.
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