Spurious: reviews and mentions overview
Spurious, the novel, by Lars Iyer, published by Melville House, was launched on the 25 January 2011 in the USA and Canada, and will be launched on the 24th March in the UK. Spurious has its own page here.
It is available from usual online retailers.
My A-Z of Spurious is catalogued here.
Interviews
Ready Steady Book interview, with Mark Thwaite, March 29th.
'The Quest for Seriousness Trammelled by Idiocy', interview with Colin Marsall at the Marketplace of Ideas. Podcast available on the MOI site and at the Itunes shop. It will be broadcast at KCSB-FM 91.9 in Santa Barbara, California, at 1PM Pacific Time. Mid March.
Reviews & other longer pieces
Asylum, by John Self, May 26th.
Art-Review, by Laura McLean-Ferris, Issue 51, Summer 2011
BiblioDrome, May 10th.
Being in Lieu, 'Then a Pitiable Faculty Developed in Their Minds', by Jen Craig, May 6th.
The Cherwell, by Tom Cutterwell, May 6th.
The Believer, 'Lars Iyer's Spurious' by Casey Walker, May.
Kevin From Canada: 'Spurious, by Lars Iyer', April 26th.
Letters and Sodas: 'Spurious, by Lars Iyer', by Heather, April 16th.
Bookmuch, by Valerie O'Riordan, April 9th
Laish: 'Spurious', April 8th.
Full Stop, by Michael Schapira, March 30th.
The Nervous Breakdown, by Nick Antosca, March 16th.
The Guardian, 'Sad Apes', by Stephen Poole, March 12th.
Quarterly Conversation, 'Pile of Shit Reviews Profound Philosophical Rhapsody', by David Auerbach, March 5th.
I've Been Reading Lately: 'Kafka Remains the Rage, Or Siding with Spurious', March 4th.
The Brooklyn Rail, 'The Dynamic Duo', by Tatiaana L. Lane, March.
The Hipster Book Club, by Yennie Cheung, March.
San Francisco Chronicle, by Kevin Canfield, Feb 27th.
The Millions, by Emily S. John Mandel, Feb 22nd.
Known Unknowns, by Emmett Stinson, Feb 15th. Also broadcast on Triple R Radio, Melbourne.
Biblioklept, Feb 2nd.
KGB Bar Lit Magazine, by Linus Urgo, Feb.
Complete Review, M.A. Orthofer, 31st January.
Washington Post, Book World, by Carolyn See. 'Foolish Posturing Atop the Ivory Tower', 27th January.
NYLON, not online, in a co-review with Correspondence Artist by Barbara Browning. Review by Erinrose Mager:
A tragic mien, too, undercuts the sheer hilarity of Lars Iyer’s Spurious (Melville House). “Start with these letters on a piece of paper: s-p-i-n-o-z-a,” quips W., our narrator’s companion and co-philosopher. “Ponder that in your stupidity.”Iyer, a British scholar of the theorist Blanchot, started a blog called Spurious in 2003, the content of which serves as the base for Iyer’s first novel. A narrative My Dinner with Andre turned on end, Spurious is peppered with moments of epistemic interrogation: “Were we the condition of thought?” “Are we capable of religious belief?” “Is he the Messiah? Am I?” W. and the narrator don’t want the reader to answer their questions, but rather for them to acknowledge the significance of their being posed in the first place. All along, they attempt to uncover a fungus that molders in the narrator’s flat, lest it consume the place entirely. The high/low binary we find in Browning’s prose appears again in Iyer’s; to read Spurious is to discuss Kafka’s The Castle and farts in one exacting sentence–all the while reeking of gin.
Modern Painters, by Scott Indrisek (not online), February:
Two “mystics of the idiotic” argue over their own insufficiencies in this hilarious and eminently quotable debut novel. The essentially plotless tale portrays unconventional friendship and crushing self-doubt, and circles around various obsessions: Kafka, booze, the Messiah, genius, and the lack thereof. “Our position is structural, we’ve always been convinced of that,” laments the narrator. “We’re only signs or syndromes of some great collapse, and our deaths will be no more significant than those of summer flies in empty rooms.” The pair awaits the end of the world while lamenting their own stupidity.
Book Forum, by Erik Morse, 25th Jan.
LA Times, by Susan Salter Reynolds, from her 'Discoveries' column, 23rd Jan.
Publishers Weekly, not online, Jan 20th.
Two friends drink, walk in the English countryside, and talk (and talk and talk) in Iyer's playfully cerebral debut. The action--what there is of it--revolves around an unnamed Hindu narrator and his frenemy, a mopey professor known as W., who harbors a deep insecurity, is contemptuous of the narrator, and loves Kafka. The narrator, meanwhile, lives in a rotting home that's being taken over by a creeping fungus and suffers W.'s constant tongue lashings with a resigned cheeriness as the pair muse, debate, ponder, and talk endlessly about their places in the world. Iyer finds ways to weave in contemporary cultural artifacts, from film director Bela Tarr and rock group Godspeed You Black Emperor to a range of influential European intellectuals, though it's not clear whether the narrator and W. are more yin and yang or Abbott and Costello. It's a love it or hate it book: repetitive, too much in its own head, and self-satisfied, yes; but also piquant, often hilarious, and gutsy.
Mentions
March blog roundup: Shhh I'm Reading is currently reading Spurious. So is Akacocolopez, and, for that matter, Stuart Evers, interviewed at Shortfire Press. By My Green Candle quotes from Spurious. Conversational Reading asks whether there are flat or rounded refrerences in Spurious.
The page for Spurious at Buy.com has an interesting 'annotation', Feb.
Ads Without Products: I Like An Idiot, Put It All On the Internet, Feb 22nd.
Moby Lives: How Should Writers respond to Criticism, Feb 10th.
Moby Lives: On the Comedy of Cruelty. Feb 3rd.
The Dewey Divas and the Dudes, Jan 25th.
Cherwell, 'Fantastic fiction 2011' by Fay Lomas, Jan 20th.
New York Times, 'Inside the List' by Jennifer Schuessler, an article on recent bestsellers in Philosophy, Jan 14th.
Moby Lives: On Those for Whom We Write. Jan 13th.
Other
A review in a Chinese language on what I think is an online book retailer.
Back to blog.