Liminal Review of Books
Open Concept
In this witty analysis, Lucy Van dissects the 'outrageous banality' of the reality show House Hunters International through the lens of Erich Auerbach’s magnum opus, Mimesis.
What would Auerbach have made of HHI? Writing Mimesis in Istanbul during WW2, he was in double exile from his home and his library (one of the most impressive facts in literary history is the fact that Auerbach composed this masterful work nearly entirely from memory). Would he, like me, be soothed by the show’s vacant formula, or be strangely seduced by the mysteries of the show’s rituals?
Where Nonfiction Belongs
Reading nonfiction that avoids easy classification has led me to write nonfiction that is difficult to classify, because it frustratingly – and sometimes delightfully – doesn’t seem to belong anywhere. This elusive category could also be described as experimentalism, hybrid essay writing, literary narrative nonfiction, zine-making, autotheory and ficto-criticism, although the last two have been subsumed or at least collapsed into the autofiction genre, which has been experiencing a comeback in contemporary novel writing.
Khalid Warsame on Christos Tsiolkas: If Every Portrait is a Self-Portrait
Here’s what I think: I don’t believe Christos Tsiolkas when he implies the only thing stopping him from writing from 'someone else perspective' is how much or how little he knows about them or how interested he is in writing that story.
By the Guest Editor: Leah Jing McIntosh on the Liminal Review of Books
This edition of The Circular was curated by Leah Jing McIntosh. In 2021, she launched the Liminal Review of Books, a new series of literary criticism by First Nations writers and writers of colour. To close, we’d like to share her introduction to the series.
Glissant wasn’t fucking around when he proposed one’s right to opacity. Staying with the trouble is one thing, but sometimes I’d just like my heart to stop beating so hard.