Christopher Burlinson
@cmburlinson.bsky.social
A green thought in a green shade. Early modern English literature. I teach at Jesus College, Cambridge, but these words are mine, not theirs.
And now this, my first Enard - Compass, trans. Charlotte Mandell @avecsesdoigts.bsky.social
November 2, 2025 at 7:32 PM
And now this, my first Enard - Compass, trans. Charlotte Mandell @avecsesdoigts.bsky.social
Two crackers just finished. Oğuz Atay, Waiting for the Fear (trans. Ralph Hubbell), knotty stories of inertia, loss, absence, beautifully felt; Annie Ernaux, The Other Girl (trans. Alison L. Strayer), even by Ernaux’s standards this was stunning, a letter to the sister who died before she was born.
November 2, 2025 at 7:27 PM
Two crackers just finished. Oğuz Atay, Waiting for the Fear (trans. Ralph Hubbell), knotty stories of inertia, loss, absence, beautifully felt; Annie Ernaux, The Other Girl (trans. Alison L. Strayer), even by Ernaux’s standards this was stunning, a letter to the sister who died before she was born.
For one reason or another it has been weeks (months!) since we’ve sat down in the evening to watch a film, so this feels really uncommonly exciting. So much praise and love for this film on here!
October 29, 2025 at 7:04 PM
For one reason or another it has been weeks (months!) since we’ve sat down in the evening to watch a film, so this feels really uncommonly exciting. So much praise and love for this film on here!
Next up: Oğuz Atay, Waiting for the Fear, translated by Ralph Hubbell.
October 28, 2025 at 7:12 AM
Next up: Oğuz Atay, Waiting for the Fear, translated by Ralph Hubbell.
These books never fail.
October 13, 2025 at 9:59 AM
These books never fail.
It’s going to have to wait for a few weeks, but my copy of Schattenfroh arrived this afternoon.
October 9, 2025 at 7:54 PM
It’s going to have to wait for a few weeks, but my copy of Schattenfroh arrived this afternoon.
New teaching year; let’s go!
October 6, 2025 at 10:02 AM
New teaching year; let’s go!
Wow. This didn’t quite click (for me) until a hundred pages from the end; it’s funny and tender and formally brilliant - and then something desperate and furious and awful bursts out and consumes it. I wasn’t prepared for how hard the ending would hit: I think I always feel that with Krasznahorkai.
October 1, 2025 at 8:28 PM
Wow. This didn’t quite click (for me) until a hundred pages from the end; it’s funny and tender and formally brilliant - and then something desperate and furious and awful bursts out and consumes it. I wasn’t prepared for how hard the ending would hit: I think I always feel that with Krasznahorkai.
Godt voet alle creaturen / God feeds all creatures.
Leiden botanical gardens
Leiden botanical gardens
September 27, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Godt voet alle creaturen / God feeds all creatures.
Leiden botanical gardens
Leiden botanical gardens
One last day of summer light!
September 19, 2025 at 3:45 PM
One last day of summer light!
Back to Proust (trans. James Grieve). The Lydia Davis translation of the first volume was so good: really looking forward to this one too.
September 11, 2025 at 7:03 PM
Back to Proust (trans. James Grieve). The Lydia Davis translation of the first volume was so good: really looking forward to this one too.
And what a thing to read the final aeronautical paragraphs on the flight home. This has been one of my reads of the year.
September 9, 2025 at 11:15 AM
And what a thing to read the final aeronautical paragraphs on the flight home. This has been one of my reads of the year.
Also found my way to the end of this brilliant, kaleidoscopic book. I get the frustration with Pynchon, but it’s dazzling, just as funny as I expected and a thousand times more moving.
September 9, 2025 at 11:12 AM
Also found my way to the end of this brilliant, kaleidoscopic book. I get the frustration with Pynchon, but it’s dazzling, just as funny as I expected and a thousand times more moving.
The end of three weeks in Brazil, and I’m finally getting round to seeing this.
September 6, 2025 at 10:35 PM
The end of three weeks in Brazil, and I’m finally getting round to seeing this.
Summer reading; lots of it was wonderful. Now time for a short pause, and a long book: about to crack open AGAINST THE DAY.
August 17, 2025 at 6:06 AM
Summer reading; lots of it was wonderful. Now time for a short pause, and a long book: about to crack open AGAINST THE DAY.
Radiant this morning.
August 15, 2025 at 6:45 AM
Radiant this morning.
And I didn’t realise that it was the basis for this excellent film (which I think he also co-wrote):
August 11, 2025 at 7:37 PM
And I didn’t realise that it was the basis for this excellent film (which I think he also co-wrote):
I'm late to this, I know, but MICHAEL KOHLHAAS is so, so good. One hundred pages long; it moves like some terrible machine, no waste at all. Wilder and wilder with every step, and deeper and deeper into the grip of its own crazy story. Really does read like a Kafka ur-text. A banger!
August 9, 2025 at 10:31 AM
I'm late to this, I know, but MICHAEL KOHLHAAS is so, so good. One hundred pages long; it moves like some terrible machine, no waste at all. Wilder and wilder with every step, and deeper and deeper into the grip of its own crazy story. Really does read like a Kafka ur-text. A banger!
Two new reads, two recommendations, two German novels from 1809-10. Goethe is brilliant, unsettling; you keep thinking it's about to settle into schematic observation, and then something ecstatic or horrific blows it out of the water. Have just started Kleist: such an amazing, relentless narrative.
August 8, 2025 at 7:23 AM
Two new reads, two recommendations, two German novels from 1809-10. Goethe is brilliant, unsettling; you keep thinking it's about to settle into schematic observation, and then something ecstatic or horrific blows it out of the water. Have just started Kleist: such an amazing, relentless narrative.
Bookshelf ghosts.
July 31, 2025 at 5:25 PM
Bookshelf ghosts.
One new read and an old one. Two books of puzzles: stories within stories, worlds within worlds. Loving them.
July 29, 2025 at 9:55 AM
One new read and an old one. Two books of puzzles: stories within stories, worlds within worlds. Loving them.
Beautiful. I had been in a (very slight) funk, but then I watched these two intriguing little films and started a book that I actually wanted to read and had a bit of chocolate, and everything's ok again.
July 15, 2025 at 7:09 PM
Beautiful. I had been in a (very slight) funk, but then I watched these two intriguing little films and started a book that I actually wanted to read and had a bit of chocolate, and everything's ok again.
I've been reading Trieste by Dasa Drndic for the last few days and it has absolutely wiped me out. Reading it next to Celan, Pound, etc., and my head is spinning. What a work of fiction - as well as a historical and documentary indictment of the world that reads it.
July 8, 2025 at 6:25 PM
I've been reading Trieste by Dasa Drndic for the last few days and it has absolutely wiped me out. Reading it next to Celan, Pound, etc., and my head is spinning. What a work of fiction - as well as a historical and documentary indictment of the world that reads it.
I felt warm and well-disposed to The Fish Can Sing, but also underwhelmed. Does that make sense? Wisdom and humour, but I just didn't get the bite. So I'm going back to another small town: something I loved when I first read it.
June 24, 2025 at 7:20 PM
I felt warm and well-disposed to The Fish Can Sing, but also underwhelmed. Does that make sense? Wisdom and humour, but I just didn't get the bite. So I'm going back to another small town: something I loved when I first read it.