...] its effect, its character, its purpose, its lines, are turning it into a favourite.’ See full review. The Boat – Nam Le. A moving, intelligent, original, absorbing short story collection. I was lucky [...

...] Firmin – Sam Savage. I said: ‘It makes it a deeply artistic, truthful and quite absurd book. I walk around with the feeling of it still, a little unshakable – it feels a lot like Midnight Cowboy … I think about Firmin still weeks afterwards and bring the book up in all sorts of conversations, and I know its effect, its character, its purpose, its lines, are turning it into a favourite.’ See full review. [...

Sonj, Firmin’s inability to communicate with humans properly makes it so that it is generally pretty hopeless. His knowledge is a kind of burden. Poor little chinless fella. But obviously it has parallels with the human world where someone can be in conversation with someone, thinking they are communicating meaningfully and connecting, but when the other person replies you realise you could have been saying ‘goodbye zipper’.

Gerard, no I haven’t seen that episode. Do do do do, do do do do, and so on…

Also – dusty corner, falling-apart bookstore, end of the world… ever seen the Twilight Zone episode about exactly that?