As the image above demonstrates, I did a lot of reading this month as I hid from the smoke outside, watching the forests of my beloved evergreen state burn. I finished a few real gems, but I’m happiest to note that I am now an Ann Quin completist, having read her four novels, The Unmapped Country (comprised of stories, memoir chapters, and an incomplete novel), and Dalkey’s Re: Quin, which is a short, critical and biographical book about her. Quin was amazing, but it’s especially fascinating to read her books in order, where at first you see an evolution and then, later, realize she’s always experimenting, but it looks different as the years progress. But also, all the books are just amazing. Period.

The subject I want to write about for my August wrap-up, though, is Satan. Why? Well, for a lot of reasons. Let’s get into it.

Once a year I teach a course about Satan for my university honors college. Last week I got word that a number of students dropped entirely out of the college because they heard about this non-mandatory class. (They don’t want to accidentally start worshiping Satan.) I was…annoyed. It is a course examining the rise and evolution of Satan in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, which makes long digressions into various other faiths & philosophies before wrapping up in larger discussions about the nature of evil. Ultimately, I teach it so students can gain a better understanding of a variety of religions and think hard about what it means to be bad or evil, but, conversely, what it means to be good.

I change many of the required readings every time, but I always begin with Aeschylus’ short play, Prometheus Bound. I love this play. And it’s especially fun because it changes expectations for the course. The play, if you don’t know it, features Prometheus, bound (“Ah, that’s where the clever title comes from”) to a rock and griping about injustice while a variety of gods and demigods give him advice: just apologize and Zeus will forgive you; Zeus is new, but if you wait, he’ll calm down and be more level headed; Zeus is the most powerful, so get in line and shut up. Meanwhile, Prometheus refuses to relent, acting as a sort of anti-Job, refusing to accept Zeus’ power and his own subjugation.

Read in the context of my course, though, PB raises interesting questions. Prometheus challenges the throne, much as Satan does in extra-biblical Christianity, though in both cases the supreme god proves far too powerful; the difference is stark, however, as Zeus’ flaws come through again and again whereas scriptures always point to YHWH / Trinity / Allah as, well, perfectly good.

From there, we soon find ourselves at Genesis, which of course never mentions Satan but only a snake. This really flips everyone out. But the Tanakh is nearly devoid of any devils. In fact, when you find “satan,” it tends to be someone acting as a block, or satan, for another, such as the angel who stops Balaam from cursing the Hebrew people as they travel the wilderness—which is portrayed as a good thing!

I’m going to skip a lot here and just get to one of my favorite parts: Samuel vs. Kings. In the book of Samuel, YHWH wants to punish King David, so he convinces him to take a census. (This is bad because, presumably, he’d be counting soldiers in order to ponder his military strength, whereas he is expected to simply trust in YHWH no matter the numbers.) But here’s the thing—the same story is told in Kings, with the difference being that it is Satan, not YHWH, who convinces David to do this bad thing! Whoa. Satan and YHWH should not be interchangeable, bruh.

So what changed? Well, perhaps we can think about religious syncretism and the fact that the educated and powerful of Israel lived under Persian (ahem, Zoroastrian) rule for generations. Before, the logic was simple: if something bad happened, it’s because you sinned against YHWH; if something good happened, it’s because you are following and living into the covenant you made with YHWH, and he’s pleased. Now, though, they could follow Zoroastrian dualism, which posits us living in a world divided; beneath the surface, there is a spiritual realm where a good and perfect god battles a hateful deity. In other words, when bad things happen, you can blame Aingra Mainyu or Satan rather than Ahura Mazda or YHWH.

All this, plus the infusion of Greek, Egyptian, and later Roman beliefs about spirituality and salvation, and it’s no wonder that Christianity emerges when and where it does, with its hard-core dualisms of God-vs-Satan, spiritual-vs-physical, good-vs-evil.

One interesting thing to me is that despite being mentioned quite a lot in the Christian New Testament, who Satan is—his power, his origins, his goals, his residence—is really quite convoluted and confusing. I happen to be a big fan of Elaine Pagels’ The Origin of Satan, where she posits that Satan quickly became a stand-in for Jews in early Christianity, the larger point being that Christians tended to find connections between those they opposed and the so-called Prince of Darkness.

That’s why it isn’t so surprising that not only racism, but also sexism rears its ugly head when it comes to Satan. Satan’s gender seems fairly sealed, (Perhaps because nobody wants to attribute too much power to a woman?) but the workaround seems to have been to connect Eve and Satan. One Christian re-telling of the garden not only transforms the serpent into Satan—no, it goes much further! Satan goes to the river and bathes, specifically washing his armpits and genitals. Then, when Eve drinks the water, she seems to have become more amenable to his wiles, the sexual implications being more than a little obvious. And this is par for the course, Eve and Satan linked with strong physical / sexual inferences.

So even as Satan becomes, in Christianity and Islam, the depiction of evil, nobody ever seems to come up with a clear picture of him. In Islam he is a fallen angel or djinn. In both he is the father of lies, but we remain unclear about his origins, powers, residence, goals, etc. Honestly, it’s Milton who seems to really give us a lot of what we know about Satan (and Hell), with a little help from Dante, both of whom, ironically, were helped by the Greeks and Romans, to say nothing of the wonderful Zoroastrian text, The Book of Arda Viraf, which is basically a much more fun-to-read articulation of the afterlife than Dante’s boring as hell trilogy (pun intended).

Thus, Satan bounces around a lot, gaining and losing power depending upon who’s in power and whom people fear, until we get to Faustian legends—stories in which people sell their soul to the devil for wealth, power, abilities, etc. And this is about as far as I’ll go today, as this is long for a Substack post.

My favorite Faustian myth comes from Washington Irving: “The Devil and Tom Walker.” I love the story because it implies that the Devil emerges where whites had wiped out a tribe of American Indians; in other words, it connects white colonialism and evil, throwing traditional racist connotations about Satan upside down. But here’s what I especially love: once Tom Walker sells his soul to the devil, Walker becomes a wealthy man who loans money for interest. Satan suggests charging 2% interest, but Tom, in his greed, goes for 4%. That’s right: Satan, the epitome of evil, charges 2% interest on loans. Average home loans in the US right now are above 6% interest; loans for used cars tend to be about 11% interest; Visa charges 20-23% interest; and the average payday loan is 391%.

So what lessons are to be learned from all of this?

First, Satan appears to have nothing on us when it comes to devising evil, greed, and selfishness.

Second, though, I’ve been pondering the notion of selling one’s soul. Literature professors like to point to Lorraine Hansberry’s classic play, A Raisin in the Sun, as a secular version of this story, where a family can sell themselves and their beliefs out but make some good money in the process. Or let me bring it more closely to home: a few days ago I received an email out of the blue, asking if I’d be interested in training AI to teach, create, and write about literature. My daughter is going off to college and I’m paid shit to teach as an adjunct professor by one of the many universities who exploit us because they can—how could I not be tempted to look out for myself and my family?

And third, if Satan is the “Father of lies,” what can we call ourselves if we choose to believe our own lies? As my evergreen state becomes a blackened husk of its former self thanks to our addiction to fossil fuels, who else is there to blame but us? And as my would-be students choose ignorance over taking a class that might help them understand their own belief systems a little bit better, I wonder if I’m any better.

Okay, one last thing and then I’ll be done. (Though who in the hell is even reading this far? C’mon, I know how it is on Substack!) This is, ostensibly, my Substack about reading Dalkey archive with occasional turns into avant garde literature; today’s post is pretty far off. However, I want to point out a little tidbit as I sign off: a lot of literature references the Bible. Whether its “…the sun also rises…” or “…east of Eden…,” literature, especially American literature, loves alluding to the Bible, gaining a bit of extra meaning/implication in the process. One thing I am noticing these past few years is that avant garde literature is different. Faiths outside the big three are what show up most, along with wonderful allusions to splinter groups, and a shit-ton of blatant references to the demiurge that are in practically every book. I love it. There does not need to be one overarching narrative, and the more stories we can interact with—not to mention seeing stories interact with other stories—the better!

Keep reading!

Matt

[To the uninitiated: this Substack is where you can follow my attempt to read every book Dalkey Archive has ever published. Every time I finish a book, I write a 200-word epistolary poem in response.]

Dear Gerald,

Did you know I was raised Baptist? Well, it was the 1980s, so more like Reagan-era evangelicalism where the Bible is worshiped as the fourth member of the trinity, its every word equaling capital-T Truth. I remember the boredom of a Sunday morning, reading Genesis where YHWH speaks and things that were not now are.

“Language begins only with the void…plenitude and certitude do not speak” says Blanchot.

Did you know feminist theologians challenge the traditional interpretations of Adam and Eve, noting Eve’s misquoting of God’s commands, commands she only knew through Adam? Words matter, they say.

Adam, naming the animals, “annihilated them in their existence as beings,” writes Heidegger.

Being-in-the-world is to exist within the slippery confines of language—a thing existing between syllabic pauses, an interplay of void and existence. “Language is the house of being” Heidegger says, but it is only one half of the house; silence is the other.

As Blanchot wrote, “The language of literature is the search for the moment which precedes it.”

Or how about Lao Tzu instead—“The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal Name.”

Matt

[To the uninitiated: this Substack is where you can follow my attempt to read every book Dalkey Archive has ever published. Every time I finish a book, I write a 200-word epistolary poem in response.]

A bundle of myrrh is my wellbeloved; I shall lie all night betwixt her breasts.

I have compared thee, O my love, to a company of horses, studs of silver.

The stupid and foolish people cultivate heedlessness.

But the sagacious one guards heedfulness just as his greatest wealth.

By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.

Every man hath his sword upon his thigh because of fear in the night.

An agitated, unsteady mind, difficult to guard, difficult to ward.

The sagacious one makes straight, as a fletcher does his arrow.

“Take a fig for yourself. I will take another. Let us go to our cave.” // “I am afraid to eat of this fig. I know not what may come over me from it.” // Satisfy my hunger, without my having to eat this fig. // What shall I desire and ask of you … when it is gone?” // “I know not what will befall me through it.”

He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.

Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love.

[To the uninitiated: this Substack is where you can follow my attempt to read every book Dalkey Archive has ever published. Every time I finish a book, I write a 200-word epistolary poem in response.]

I the Supreme Dictator of this Substack,

Order that upon the occasion of my death, my Substack be dissolved; its notes passed around the Substacksphere for general derision; and its articles given to the Onion and then, if not accepted, to lesser satirical platforms for the sake of mocking my work…

The US dicktater is a predator who calls people animals for escaping their countries of origin.

The US dicktater can’t speak in coherent sentences but consistently questions the intelligence of people of color. Especially women.

The US dicktater threatens war crimes to those who do not capitulate, admires manly men who follow through with such manly threats.

<“And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks into you,” says Nietzsche.>

Dear Augusto, my Substack has been hacked, no doubt some anonymous, churlish ignoramus wishing to undermine my authorial efforts, broken free from their internet immurement but not their internal imprisonment. The insolence!

I beat them. I destroyed their advantages… I know the mark of each card they play. I know what books they’ve been ripped out of… This is my game of truque. In it I play the trump card cold-bloodedly, without tricks of any sort.

Matt

[To the uninitiated: this Substack is where you can follow my attempt to read every book Dalkey Archive has ever published. Every time I finish a book, I write a 200-word epistolary poem in response.]

Dearest Hugh,

At 1:00 pm today, Pacific Standard Time,^[1] I will walk to the CWU Brooks Library to return your book.^[2] The walkawalka will take twenty-nine minutes—expending 3,182 steps along the way. Though I could just as easily drive my 2018 Kia Sorento and avoid the wildfire smoke,^[3] I shill nuntheless wok.

Where now? Who now? Face in smoke, graylung grayeyestye. The smoke goes on forever, but on the contrary it will one day leave, but until then it will be gray, grey, the greasy graygreyness proves nothing but they will return with more my mind blank, a graygrey eyes burning soot falling end neighing you must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on.

Matt

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

^[1] Maybe. Time is relative, existence is fragile, and there’s a rock in my shoe.

^[2] Interlibrary loan from Eastern Washington University’s JFK Memorial Library.

^[3] A wildfire is an unplanned, uncontrolled fire that primarily burns vegetation; they are best avoided through preventative raking.

[To the uninitiated: this Substack is where you can follow my attempt to read every book Dalkey Archive has ever published. Every time I finish a book, I write a 200-word epistolary poem in response.]

Dear Gustave,

I worked seasonally at Target. A woman came in with 100 cans of cat food, each of which I scanned individually. I knew no better way.

We built garden beds, but I’ve done nothing with the soil. I have mis-formed, flower-less sunflowers, a tomato plant laying on its side, weeds. The soil is hard; the weeds still grow.

Elections: always rigged!

In college I ran heavy machinery; I could never change the oil correctly on my CAT; everyone was annoyed.

In my thirties, I worked in landscaping; I changed the spark plugs incorrectly; everyone was annoyed.

America: love it or leave it!

I wanted to be a geology major, but I kept failing chemistry classes.

I wanted to be a photography major, but my camera was broken.

Guns: more good guys with guns will protect us from bad guys with guns, which means we need looser gun laws to get more guns into the hands of good guys, who are guys with guns. Unless they’re bad guys. Good guys are good guys with guns. Otherwise they’re bad guys.

In my late twenties, I read multiple books about chaos theory. I do not understand chaos theory. At all.

Matt

[To the uninitiated: this Substack is where you can follow my attempt to read every book Dalkey Archive has ever published. Every time I finish a book, I write a 200-word epistolary poem in response.]

Dear Robert, midway through your book, you write “Increasingly her characters find they can realize their internal search only through an external one elsewhere. In Quin’s world, search is synonymous with travel.”

I agree but might add one thing: their goal is, equally, escape.

· Berg is searching for his father but escaping his past (and mother).

· S, in Three, escapes; Ruth and Leonard escape mundanity through S—first physically, then via the memory of her.

· Passages, the search for a missing brother, turns out to be a couple fleeing their dissolving relationship.

· Tripticks—duh. Everyone is fleeing across America.

· And “Leaving School,” too, the point is the escape from order toward Quin’s own inner “anarchy, a frightful disorder.”

Travel, for Quin, is an escape from convention. It is still a search, but it is a doomed search, a negation of what was knowing that one is left to cobble together a life that may not hold up as well but will be far more honest. Thus, Quin burns the proverbial boats and continues forward: “…let us begin another journey. Change the setting. Everything is changing, country, the climate. There is no compromise now. No country we can return to.”

Matt

[To the uninitiated: this Substack is where you can follow my attempt to read every book Dalkey Archive has ever published. Every time I finish a book, I write a 200-word epistolary poem in response.]

Dear Dubravka,

Have you considered reality television, perhaps Croatia’s Got Talent?

What socials do you have?

What about a film script?

If you preorder the first thousand books, it’ll really help.

What about Tik Tok dances?

Oprah? Reese? Mulaney? Just try a DM, please!

For $100, we can buy soooooo many bot followers…

Have you considered smiling more?

Do you even have a publicist? A personal trainer?

[…]

Um, no I’ve not read Faust. Is it like a novelized The Fast and the Furious?

[…]

Okay, I love Fox, but what if we tweaked it just a little bit? I’m thinking just focus on one story, with actual characters and obvious plot. Maybe two people fall in love—we’ll need a meet-cute, a simple misunderstanding at the beginning, a major misunderstanding midway through, and of course we’ll need a sassy best friend for one of them, and, I don’t know, maybe a socially awkward-yet-loveable best friend for the other.

Oh, wait, okay, what if instead we make them teens? Do a whole YA thing?

Or, and hear me out, what if it was set in a dystopian future? Or the past?

[…]

Dubravka, your voice is missed. And sorely needed.

Matt

[To the uninitiated: this Substack is where you can follow my attempt to read every book Dalkey Archive has ever published. Every time I finish a book, I write a 200-word epistolary poem in response.]

Ann, I’m on the couch your books on the shelf above me. But also careening round the globe, laptop open, phone in hand, traveling at the speed of 3G.

Nobody expected what happened next

Don’t take this pill if you are pregnant or plan to become pregnant

Things are only getting hotter on Love Island

I am a Nigerian prince, and

If your erection is too crooked

My moderate-to-severe psoriasis

Heart attacks, blindness, kidney failure, and death have been known to

***

Bug infestation in my office. University has no money for maintenance, janitors, union says I can’t do the work myself. On the weekend the bugs magically vacuum themselves up as I organize, recycle stacks of papers that felt important once.

Rubrics to reuse

Lists of people to email

Trainings to take

Books to read (Keep!)

Recommendation letters to write

Meetings to schedule

Calls to make

***

Daughter in her room, texting friends. Online I’m soon distracted with things to buy, next-day shipping at my fingertips.

Saucony Lone Peaks, size 12

Trotzig’s Queen

Dust buster

Maxx graphic novels

Fire-resistant safe

Hiking pants I can wear to work

LEGO Star Wars

Sour gummies

Kettle bells

***

I fall to my knees, prostrate.

Matt

Hello, dear reader,

After nineteen months, I’m really starting to put a dent in the Dalkey Archive archives, though this project still has a lot of years before it’s done. Fortunately, I continue to find the work rewarding, especially as a) there are so many great books and authors who keep popping up and surprising me with their under-heralded brilliance, and b) I take a lot of side adventures into non-Dalkey books/authors. In fact, the plan for this month was to finish and share an essay I’ve been working on, all about the works / art / life of David Albahari. Alas, I’m not done reading his complete oeuvre, so, instead, I’m taking on a different subject today.

When I was in Switzerland last month (yeah, yeah, I hear it), I visited Kunsthaus Zürich—the Zurich art museum—which had a giant feature on the life and works of Marisol (Marisol Escobar, 1930-2016), who was once world famous but is now far less so. I admit, if I had ever heard of her I’d forgotten her by now. But wow, what a loss for all of us who don’t know her work! Let’s get into it.

Marisol was Venezuelan-American, born in Paris, and managed to be educated and live all over the US and world. She is mostly associated with New York, though, and the pop art movement in particular, which I suppose makes sense, as she sometimes featured famous people in her works and was friends with Andy Warhol.

However, her work was definitely unique. A piece might feature a celebrity or political figure, but it just as easily might include her own visage or images of people she knew and loved. It was often satirical, too.

Many of her pieces incorporated animals into them, not to mention indigenous / traditional images and methods. Moreover, she included found objects, blended them with her work in a strange, dada-esque manner. Some are blatantly political, others are maybe just experimental, pushing the boundaries of artistic expression. In other words, when I look at her work, I find myself thinking of Warhol, yes, but both Kahlo and Rivera, and Duchamp. That’s quite a list! And ultimately, what I love is that she is like these creative folks but she is still entirely her own artist.

I’m still just learning about her life and works, but I am incredibly impressed and excited, finding it fascinating and fun. In fact, I’m maybe most reminded of the writers I love, folks like Barthelme, Joyce, and Stein, who are incredibly fun and creative, but their works are only more thought provoking and important through all of that. Add Marisol to that list. If you know her work, and know a lot more about her than me, I welcome the comments (and corrections). Like I said, I’m just learning, but I wanted to share it with you this month to do something different and hopefully spread the word.

(Yes, that is a certain former US president above, and no, that it is not me below…)

Thanks for joining me for another month of Who Archives the Archives! Next month I’ll get to one of the very few 19th century novels Dalkey published, as well as a certain scholarly work notorious for being their worst-selling book ever. Stay tuned!

[To the uninitiated: this Substack is where you can follow my attempt to read every book Dalkey Archive has ever published. Every time I finish a book, I write a 200-word epistolary poem in response.]

Dear Donald,

In my youth I dropped out of college. I wanted more than what they could give: purpose, meaning. I found hunger, underemployment: Target, Olive Garden. Back to school.

Desire: to long or hope for

After college I was underemployed—again—so went to grad school. My thirtieth birthday was my first day of freedom after quitting Career #1. I’d been a pastor, if you can believe it, but then I saw the lack of a wizard behind the curtain. Not to mention the people—mean, angry, but behind a veneer of friendliness; quick to hug, to declare affection, to quietly curse to hell, to vote against human rights.

Desire: to want to have sex with (someone)

I started mowing lawns. For just-above minimum wage. With a baby at home and one of those upside-down mortgages that decimated the economy. Back to school. Again.

Desire: to invite [archaic]

Three years later, I’m an adjunct professor. The dream! Higher education—deep conversations, the pursuit of truth and beauty. Ha! I discover that Emersonian ideals have gone the way of truth, replaced by, well, you know: Capitalism. Division. Indifference.

Desire: to feel the loss of [archaic]

You know anyone hiring?

Matt

[To the uninitiated: this Substack is where you can follow my attempt to read every book Dalkey Archive has ever published. Every time I finish a book, I write a 200-word epistolary poem in response.]

When thou art on thy knees in supplication, sister Djuna, thy mouth moving in silent benedictions or imprecations, and thou experiences a tickle in thy fancy, or more likely find thyself tickling the fancy of another, rememberest myself and mine own tales—a grandfather, Harold, who knew my grandmother, Joyce, and together begat Tom, Kim, and Cindy, as well as mine own mother, before he passeth beyond his mortal coil to the arms of the Lord, helped, no doubt by the fruit of Noah’s vine, to sayeth nought of tobacco via Virginia, both consumed in quantities that passeth understanding.

Sayest thou not salvation lyest amongst the blessed of the Earth, Djuna, but knowest thou findest hope most true amongst those deemed most wretched, amongst whom thou and I alike mayest find much lamenting, forsooth, but likewise life in its manifold manifestations, whereupon the spiritus mundi rests upon the wicked and the damned but thine offspring, and my own, are not damned by those that wouldest claim blessings upon themselves, those who, like Christ sayeth, have received all their blessing in this life, but instead those who are blessed because they art disenfranchised.

Blessed be the name of Djuna Barnes. Amen.

[To the uninitiated: this Substack is where you can follow my attempt to read every book Dalkey Archive has ever published. Every time I finish a book, I write a 200-word epistolary poem in response.]

Matins

Open my Lips, O Djuna, that my Mouth mayest sing thou praises.

Lauds

Come! Let us come together, o Readers. Let us praise Djuna with Hearts and Bodies aflame!

Prime

May what enters and departs my Orifices be only what pleases you, Djuna.

Terce

“After this the Angels parted, and on the Face of each was the Mother look. Why was that?” Thus sayeth Djuna. Let us hold this question in our hearts.

Sext

Assist us, Djuna, as we, thou humble Servants, endeavor forth to Ryder. May we find the Fortitude and Forbearance to carry Forth.

None

“One time we rained frogs and another time we rained fish. But best of all is hail. Precious stones pummel towns and skulls and tomatoes. Round and frozen… The frogs fell like a plague… The fish fell like a blessing on the men and women’s heads, like slaps… But whatever. Best of all are the hailstorms.” Blessed be the Words of Irene Solà.

Vespers

“So take the first Hair from your Head, and boil it with Mare’s milk and wrap in a Napkin and bring the Goat inside out…”

Compline

Find us in our Beds, Djuna, do with Us what thou wilt.

[To the uninitiated: this Substack is where you can follow my attempt to read every book Dalkey Archive has ever published. Every time I finish a book, I write a 200-word epistolary poem in response.]

Viktor,

I’d like to tell you about how I dropped out, then back into college. I transferred to Western as a junior with a love of geology and photography, though my future was still up in the air. I roomed with J___, an old friend from high school who had some digestion and cognitive issues, as in, he digested certain chemicals and then could not cogitate well.

Twice I awoke to him watering the corner of our shared bedroom, though he strangely was not holding a watering can when he returned to his bed.

Oh, what to do—my friend was a nightmare roommate!

There were nineteen stairs down to the ground floor, a quarter mile took me to south campus, but one could also turn right, follow the steep trails to the top of the arboretum, which I began to do that fall, running longer and longer distances.

A year later I was working at Olive Garden for a wage that pleased my CEO overlords, rescuing people’s uneaten food while temporarily residing in the men’s facilities. I had a dozen new roommates; every so often there’d be a note: The boa constrictor is loose and angry. Be careful!

Matt

[To the uninitiated: this Substack is where you can follow my attempt to read every book Dalkey Archive has ever published. Every time I finish a book, I write a 200-word epistolary poem in response.]

My dear Tadeusz,

Canada is on fire and Americans sit in the ashes like Job, who refuses to curse God and die.

I pour out a drink sacrifice to the demiurge, put in a call to Ahriman.

Everything’s fucked as fucked can be. / We’re not free, we’re not free.

Argentineans relitigate the Falklands and FIFA / the world says “The Whatlands?”

My daughter goes to Kalaloch, her grandfather’s ashes get accidentally dumped on her feet. The Tree of Life is nearly gone, washed away.

Somehow everyone is satisfied with the places fate and chain of genes has assigned them. And they modestly go about doing the bidding of the Great Entropy.

The president, a overgrown oompa loompa in a bad toupee, goes on prime time to limit democracy.

I go for a long run, see baby quail sprinting ahead.

An allusion is truth clad in a metaphor.

Better one intelligent reader with a literary head than tens of thousands of coelenterates with toilet paper between their ears.

ICE agents murder unarmed civilians on the streets.

Orcas are attacking ships.

I sleep late, turn the AC down a degree.

We are free because we have imposed our own slavery.

Matt

[To the uninitiated: this Substack is where you can follow my attempt to read every book Dalkey Archive has ever published. Every time I finish a book, I write a 200-word epistolary poem in response.]

To write a letter to to write a letter. To compose. I compose.

I compose.

If at the same time I delete and add and add and delete just as often as I compose and I delete and add.

To begin with a salutation, to salute, to begin. I begin I begin.

Everybody is named Gertrude.

Everybody is named Alice.

Gertrude is addressed is addressed is Gertrude.

I begin.

The body is the body. The body is not the body. The body is the meat of the letter. The body is not the meat of the body. Supposing there is content and content is content.

They must make do.

They make a big to-do.

Arranging to not at all.

Arranging to connect to the body and arranging differently to the not at all.

Arranging differently to the not at all.

The closing is the close is the close is the close. What can you do to be all of you. What can you say to say all the way. It was to be done today. Do it this way.

He signed it himself.

A little later he signed it himself. Himself he signed it away.

Matt is Matt is Matt.

[To the uninitiated: this Substack is where you can follow my attempt to read every book Dalkey Archive has ever published. Every time I finish a book, I write a 200-word epistolary poem in response.]

Dear Joe,

Last night she slid across lanes—no, asshole, I wasn’t in the turn lane. Look! LOOK! Right there you can see two lanes going straight! Did you notice when you crossed over into another lane, the lane I was already in?! Don’t you even—hey, hey, I’m sorry, please don’t cry. It’s okay.

Last night the AI data centers drained another town’s water, another kid’s ability to think, our collective sense of purpose.

Last night the kids played late in the street while my daughter recovered in bed with a sunburn and Tadej Pogacar prepared to dominate on the Tour and Spain prepared to dominate in the Cup.

Last night, talkin’ bout last night.

Last night Matt Martinson worked as an adjunct professor for his fifteenth year.

Last night I was quite a sight. Last night I had a fright. Last night I got in a fight. Last night I pondered Samuel Taylor’s last night. Last night I questioned my place in the universe and the universe’s place in eternity, ad infinitum, but quite literally. Last night I drank a beer with a skull and crossbones on it—last night I was a pirate philosopher.

Matt

[To the uninitiated: this Substack is where you can follow my attempt to read every book Dalkey Archive has ever published. Every time I finish a book, I write a 200-word epistolary poem in response.]

One final note before today’s epistle: when Dalkey first published Cobra, as the image above demonstrates, they also published Sarduy’s Maitreya—two novels in one. For some idiotic, unexplained reason, the new Essentials version only contains one of the two books. Thus, I’ll be posting a second “Cobra” letter soon, which will in fact be in response to Maitreya. (Seriously, they kept the Introduction, which makes almost no sense without the second book, which McCourt obviously liked more… C’mon!)

Dear Severo,

Here’s an old attempt I made at translating Li Zhuan’s (c. 223-260s) poem, “East Mountain”:

Watch for the village temple, concealed above.

Its high, distant towers hidden in green fog.

With short staff, exit city gates, seek the secluded path.

Wild birds cry out, people reach ridgelines, peaks.

Do not ask Are we there yet? “There” is limitless.

So listen: arriving here allows settling down, meditation.

Why worry about yourself in this mountain landscape?

Rather than laugh at this place, laugh at expectations.

And another, Xue Tao’s (c. 768-831) “The Horse Leaves the Barn”:

Snow-white ears, red coat, jade-green hooves,

We chased the new, while the sun went from east to west.

Then—Surprise!—a young colt appears and you dismount,

And I’m no longer welcome to nightly carriage rides. Neigh!

Remember when Pound said to make it new, ironically borrowing the slogan from the ancients?

Remember that Dillard character who tried to unite Plato and Aristotle through poetry?

Remember our past selves who were not selves but matter, physicality begetting physicality?

Remember Lucretius, where all is stuff and void, existence and nonexistence.

Li Bai gets tanked, dives in, chasing the moon. We should be so lucky.

Matt

[To the uninitiated: this Substack is where you can follow my attempt to read every book Dalkey Archive has ever published. Every time I finish a book, I write a 200-word epistolary poem in response.]

Deer G. Umbrella Athlete,

Let us have them, two endives, miles of buns and beerbar dives, like a penitent catharized in the stable.

Is that Headintheway? Perched Two Steins? Robber O. Bolagno? Elizabeth’s Hard Wick? Robert Yodel?

Or is it the Warner Bros. Gates? What rouged breast, its orb come down to lust, lurches to warn Swaziland to be bored?

Where was I? Werewolf eye? Weirdass guy. I lurched bye the Matterhorn, Zermatt, Matteiger, the Mattfrau, Mattich, Alpenmatt, sawed Swatcherland in half in half, sheep’s bells ringing, sheep balls zinging, chef’s balls itching, ich Meine singen.

To putt it more symphony, here’s Paul Kleenex (1879-2001): “BEVPNOKD KHUEYIAR XWMNO VDSOREHO.”

Twisty Tarzana (1896- ): “Acai blue paper / Capped incisors.”

He, Twiggy Tarzana, Twitchy Czarina, Anna Karina, wondered Matterland buck ten with Muck Fulligan’s auteur, Mames Moyce, and Glad I’m Here Lemon, Jean Lennon, Squeezed Lemon, who wrought Grouchy Marx to Ruska—pussed to melt you, hope you nest my game.

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Your frond,

Matt

Oh, hi there, Reader. Yes, I’m very early with my monthly update, which I’ll explain in a minute. First off, though, I want to mention a couple of books from this month. In June I’ve already read the first three books of Knausgaard’s seasons quartet and am loving them! Second, I plan to finish (tonight) Ivan Ângelo’s The Tower of Glass.

What can I say about The Tower of Glass? I keep thinking he’s like the Brazilian Roberto Bolaño, except that Ângelo came first, so maybe Bolaño is the Argentine Ângelo? Whatever. The point is—this novel is brilliant. It comes in at under a hundred pages but manages to do something quite unique. Ângelo will introduce a Pynchonian amount of characters, all with little mini-stories or monologues, then we see them all, later, gathered together during/after some major event, and we are stuck trying to pull all these narrative threads together after the author gave us enough information but didn’t handfeed us. It’s very good writing.

The way these narratives and monologues come together reminds me of The Savage Detectives, but the connection is also in the characters’ manner of talking—they are crude, angry, and often full of machismo and falsehoods. Yet they feel very real. It’s just so well done! I recommend those Knausgaard books, which I just might like more than his My Struggle series, but I recommend this book even more!

Okay, so here’s why I’m sending this newsletter out so early: I am about to leave on a two-week trip to Switzerland. I know, I know—poor me! The truth is, my daughter just graduated high school and this is where she wanted to go for her trip. I’m very excited to go there and hike, not to mention see some great Dada and James Joyce sites (pics to come).

But, in connection with the point of this Substack, I have been reflecting on what books to pack—the ultimate reader problem. My logic is that I like to pack very light, I want enough to keep me busy, but I also want a variety of levels, with some books requiring more concentration than others, as I’ll be tired (jetlag) or distracted (on the plane). So I chose Sarduy’s Cobra, which sounds dense but rewarding; I also chose to bring Infante’s Three Trapped Tigers, which is a bit thicker but slightly less challenging. Both are Dalkey books, which is a plus! It’s funny, of course, that I’m bring Cuban and Mexican books to Switzerland, but whatever. I do have a couple of thin Swiss books I’m considering adding to the pile, but I’m not sure if I want to add the weight. And though you see that Knausgaard book pictured above, I’m actually bringing an audio version of it, which I can listen to when the plane is dark and I don’t want to annoy other passengers.

I still have time, so I’ll just ask—do you approve of these selections? How do you pack your books for traveling?