Dalkey Archive Press

If I were picking things at random from just the American list of the Dalkey catalog I might include David Markson's Reader's Block, Harry Mathew's The Conversions, Joseph McElroy's Women and Men, Curtis White's Memories of My Father Watching TV. But it just goes on and on!

I recently read one I liked a lot called Television by Jean-Phillipe Toussaint, about a man who is quitting watching television and at the same time is trying to finish,or more precisely, start his paper on Titian (He can't get started because he can't decide on the correct spelling of the artist's name). Might sound pretentious, but it was really pretty funny.

Oh, you're the one.

david markson, 'reader's block'

I have "This Is Not A Novel" but I've never gotten around to reading it. It seems like "Reader's Block" all over again.

I didn't know that Paul Eater was a Mylesian!

Also: unlike the Yanks, I have never seen a Dalkey Archive book remaindered. In fact, I think I have never seen one.

I saw and bought Yves Navarre's Sweet Tooth and Barthes' Letters on remainder recently. Seen Stein, Barnes' Ryder, Sorretino's Red the Fiend but passed on them.

Couple of others bought as bday presents...

More Search and Destroy you all - looking at the Latin American series yesterday, but need any golden nuggets as xmas is coming soon...

http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/catalog?order_by=Series

For what it's worth, I just did an interview with the chap who's designing their lovely new covers:
http://causticcovercritic.blogspot.com/2008/10/interview-with-nicholas-motte.html

Is he related to Warren Motte?

OK, I clicked. He is.

Ok, so I picked the 10 books for $60 dollars option. I've always wanted to check out "Christ Versus Arizona" and Toussaint's books are going on my list. Anybody got any suggestions? I'm open to all types of books, would love some interesting Lit Crit. I love Dalkey.

The above post refers to the Holiday sale Dalkey is having now.

this one looks good

http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-ca-stanley-crawford14-2008sep14,0,2805562.story

also

David Markson--Reader's Block, Wittgenstein's Mistress
Flann O'Brien--Third Policeman, At Swim Two Birds

Stefan Themerson- Tom Harris. I bought the other two but haven't read them yet.
Gilbert Sorrentino- Aberration of Starlight, Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things.

Anne Carson - Eros The Bittersweet. I had to read this for a class in college and was surprised how much I ended up liking it. It's kind of like Barthes' Lovers' Discourse, but grounded in classics and lot better imo.

If you love Dalkey, you've probably read Harry Matthews, but if not pick-up Cigarettes or My Life in CIA. They're both atypical for him and I think a lot more interesting than his OULIPO texts.

Has anybody hear read the Dalkey edition of Bouvard and pecuchet? How does the translation compare to the old Penguin one?

that crawford book is great!

http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/images/book/cover/166/things_in_the_night.jpg?1207918638

this was a pretty good book.

i'm gonna have maria buy me the four ann quin novels that dalkey has reissued (for christmas). i need to read those.

Thanks. I just put in my order, here are my 10:

1. Christ Versus Arizona , Cela
2. Oulipo : A Primer of Potential Literature , Motte
3. Theory of Prose , Scklovsky
4. The Counterfeiters , Kenner
5. Flaubert, Joyce, Beckett: The Stoic Comedians , Kenner
6. Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things , Sorrentino
7,8,9,10 Arno Schmidt's four volume catalog

I'm excited, but I got the Schmidt stuff on a complete whim. I know NOTHING about him.

Aww, US-only offer. I wanted to buy a hundred books when they had that amazing offer a while back, but was too slow to build up a list of titles.

Is Gass too obvious to be mentioned here? "The Tunnel" is fantastic. I just got a copy of the essay-collection "Temple of Texts", which looks really good too. (I recently ordered nearly all the Gass books I don't have, in a moment of materialistic exuberance)

Would love to hear the audio book where he reads the novel himself, but that probably won't happen. Turns out not a single Norwegian library even has a printed copy of the book.

!!

"Turns out not a single Norwegian library even has a printed copy of the book."

How did you check on this?

Get yer library to buy them - like I do sometimes...

There are a couple of online national library database aggregate searches. That's an idea though.
Now that I've actually looked it up, I see the audio book is much, much cheaper than I expected; it's just $15.96 at the moment.

I'd recommend Max Frisch's "I'm Not Stiller", but I have hardly any memory of it at all, except that I really liked it. Sheesh.

2008: The Year I Officially Lost My Edge!

I'm Not Stiller is pretty good but by the halfway point I thought it really lost its momentum

Dalkey publishes the actinic Age of Wire and String by Ben Marcus ("the antiperson"). Sample it on google books.

I didn't know they had finally put out more by Jean-Philippe Toussaint. Four in total now! Those are definitely worth checking out.

Briefly looking through my shelves for something not mentioned, I seem to remember enjoying Hidden Camera by Zoran Zivkovic.

http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/catalog/show/593

The big sale is here again! http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/ . What will make your list?

'Zat you, Momuspaws?

Oh no, sorry.

Sale looks like a good deal but I'd probably have to find the shelf space by getting rid of ten unread Dalkey Archives to make room for ten new ones.

feelin u

Not good outside US -- waaaaah!

Recent purchase just came in post yesterday:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/P/1564785300.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

Joseph McElroy's Women and Men is no longer on their site. Hmm.

Hm.

Good luck with the Puig. I tried to read that one, but couldn't keep track of who was talking at any given time. Mak

alimosina - Does Dalkey always keep bks in print? Its an oddly under discussed novel, unlike Recognitions, GR. Which makes me very curious to read it.

I had thought so, and this interview backs me up:

"Further, I wanted these books permanently protected, which is why from the start the Press has kept all of its fiction in print, regardless of sales."

But I guess they didn't stick with that policy.

One of my all-time favorites is A Minor Apocalypse by Tadeusz Konwicki. Put it on your list!

OK, thanks for the tip.

Tried to find something besides the McElroy that went out of print but couldn't. Maybe it was at the author's request?

Nobody repped for Felipe Alfau yet, the loony Spaniard with a day job writing in English for his dresser drawer? I will then.

Read a review of the Konwicki a few weeks ago so am on the look out -- sounds great, on my list!

Jiri Grusa's The Questionnaire is another good 'un (he spent two months in jail for distributing it), really now getting a focus on the post-Stalinist lit of the Eastern states in the period just before the collapse of the Soviet union.

Love the hell out of Stanley Elkin (who i guess I got to through Gass, who I see I've mentioned upthread)
Get The Franchiser; my god, it's a fucking celebration!

I've fallen for the hype and ordered a copy of Witz. We'll see how it turns out.

Witz?

Witz is the new novel by Joshua Cohen. See this, for instance. I guess it's this year's huge damn book.

(link kinda randomly picked from google hits, I couldn't think of any particular article that had made me interested in it)

I have a volume of Arno Schmidt's stories on Dalkey that is awesome. Need to get the others in the set!

there's an extract from the new patrik ourednik (europeana) translation case closed here, f-y'alls-i. his last one got some love on the ilx book decade list thing.

here

ok, John E.Woods is apparently bringing out a translation of Zettels Traum (this is accoring to wiki), its a near 1500 page novel "concerned with the problems of translating Edgar Allan Poe into German".

It's so crazy it might just work!

I'm gonna read Zettels Traum, I tell you what

they've really stepped it up with their aesthetics

http://img1.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n61/n305188.jpg

Ooh that's beautiful. I have this one:

http://static.letsbuyit.com/filer/images/uk/products/original/147/30/notebooks-of-malte-laurids-brigge-the-german-austrian-literature-14730686.jpeg

I don't have this one but look how pink it is:

http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/Resources/titles/15647100070860/Images/15647100070860L.gif

More here:

http://causticcovercritic.blogspot.com/2008/10/dalkey.html

oh, i guess you do know!

This interview with Dalkey archive founder John O'Brien is pretty interesting. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2009/07/john-obrien-of-the-dalkey-archive-part-1.html
Had not known that their first book with Gilbert Sorrentino's Splendide-Hotel and that GS had come up with the name of the press.

The ILL for the Konwicki came through yesterday. This has one of the best first paras of any novel I've ever touched!

Just looking at the archive by country: kinda feeling I know quite a few authors, love the work Dalkey does to bring dissident writers from the old Eastern bloc and Latin American exiles to the fore and how their backgrounds cross over with innovation in narrative techniques: I the Supreme is one of the better novels I have read from the imprint and the multiple shifts of narration to convey views of a supreme leader lead to powerful dissections.

But one thing I haven't really dug much out of are the American authors, like, apart from Harry Mathews and Djuna Barnes no names really register too much. Dislike Mulligan Stew, and I find myself getting less and less interested in Ben Marcus/Markson (and its not necessarily confined to Americans: I'm not as into the Noveau Roman, though I am v fond of Butor's The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Ape).

On the other hand Felipe Alfau sounds interesting, mainly because to do with when it was written. Also interested in checking McElroy short story collection at some point.

Has anyone got more US names they'd like to rep for?

I mean its, with all the claims for bringing lit from other countries still the biggest section. About 200 titles. I think the next biggest is the French with about 50 or so.

Has anyone got more US names they'd like to rep for?

William Gass, The Tunnel.

Think of him more as a very fine writer in critic mode. Didn't it take him about 30 years to finish?

Just went to the Dalkey Archive sight and found a link to an interesting interview with Christopher Sorrentino about his unloved-by-ILX-except-for-me father http://www.matrixmagazine.org/2010/09/christopher-sorrentino-interviewed-by-john-goldbach/

Sorry about that. You have been a solid advocate for Sorrentino over the years.

Might try another one or two, the interviewer in your link does say the novels are v different.

I adored "Under The Shadow", which seemed to me closer to the spirit of surrealist painting/cinema than any (other?) surrealist book I've ever read. I've struggled with the other couple of GS's books I've randomly picked up.

(Not that I've made a point of reading much surrealist lit, btw.)

xyzzzz which Konwicki are you reading? A Minor Apocalypse? if so, rock on, I remember it kickin' ass

I love that book.

Yes, A Minor Apocalypse. Has this really corrosive tone that I seldom come across.

The aim is to enrage a censor, like every page for 2-3 sentences, at least. You get a feel that its one for the drawer, or for smuggling across the border. And reading about him (and of course the novel itself which is about him, as much as Poland at that time) you get a sense of making up for all the shameful stuff he must have written in his soviet realist phase.

Quite remarkable. This and Grusa's Questionnaire have that fantastical thing to it, as far removed from any even ground, as possible.

Also interesting to draw a parallel between Konwicki and maybe Bolano: how culture is hijacked by politics to present certain images abroad. Stuff which you come across anyway but here you get an insider view.

(Not that I've made a point of reading much surrealist lit, btw.)

Well I've recently read Blaise Cendrars (which was recommended on the my 'prose as novelists' thread by you, Tim, iirc). I've got a Rene Crevel novel (not the one published by Dalkey) and I'm gonna give that a go soon.

how was blaise cendrars?

Moravagine is brill! Guy frees a murderer and they go on a journey across the world together. Just an excuse to write great phrases tho'.

Given the bits and scraps I know about the art, its how I might have imagined a surrealist novel.

Should read more, its the only that I see 2nd hand.

I've never been too fond of Moravagine, but if you can find it Lice is a really great book

Oh right why not? I'll be on the lookout for Lice

Just got Mela Hartwig's “Am I a Redundant Human Being?” from Dalkey, which looks promising. And I really want to read the Konwicki--it's been 'in processing' at my library for about 3 months, so I might just give up on waiting and buy it.

Holiday sale is back. Kind've tempted by some of the issues of Review of Contemporary Fiction (Herman Melville's ; or The Whale, maybe the E.White/S.Delaney, New Catalan Fiction & the Future of Fiction ones ...) - is it fairly academic, or ...?

Managed to pick up both of the Michel Ajvaz books (here's hoping they'll translate The Empty Streets & his book on Borges), Juan Filloy's Op Oloop and Melville's The Confidence Man while in Europe - such a treat seeing large swathes of Dalkey/NYRB in bookstores compared to NZ.

Really? Can't see anything about that sale on the website.

http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/book/?GCOI=15647100655980
http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/book/?GCOI=15647100177270

OK, thanks!

thought this bump would be abt best euro fiction but is not out yet apparently

Joseph McElroy's Women and Men is no longer on their site. Hmm.

Permalink
― alimosina, Friday, 6 November 2009 03:30 (1 year ago)

Another publisher wanted to bring it out, so Dalkey turned it over. Then that same publisher turned down McElroy's next book, leading to acrimony.

"It's in limbo at the moment, but it will come back." says McElroy.

Thanks for clearing that up. It was worrisome.

Another publisher wanted to bring it out, so Dalkey turned it over. Then that same publisher turned down McElroy's next book, leading to acrimony.

That is quite funny...

anyone read or reading suicide? i'd quite like something short to read after the thing i'm reading, & zadie smith made it sound good in harper's

Yesterday I was thinking how much I enjoy books by authors where suicide is such a big part of their aesthetic, as an idea for a thread at some point...

Yeah, I was intrigued by that one too, schlump. Hopefully, Dalkey will be having another 60% off summer sale soon. They did one around this time last year.

Kinda want to read that recent book about David Markson

Yeah, I was intrigued by that one too, schlump. Hopefully, Dalkey will be having another 60% off summer sale soon. They did one around this time last year.

i just saw this in a store and leafed through the first pages (actually familiar because they're the focus of zadie's comparison between this & leve's earlier book), it looks good. and short. i should stick with dalkey because a lot of their books are short, and i can persevere with something i'm not sure about if it's <150pp

Just finished "Suicide". It's really good. Interesting article about book and author here:
http://berlinbooks.org/brb/2010/03/happiness-sadness-death/

Been meaning to pick up Suicide. Anyone pick up the Best Euro Fiction yet, and how does it compare to the previous offering? & has anyone dipped into Gert Jonke yet? Geometric Regional Novel is described as somewhere between Flatland and Peter Handke, ooer.

Dalkey Summer Sale going on now through June 15th. 10 books for $65 with free shipping in US.

http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/book/?GCOI=15647100916100

Aargh. David Markson book is in the "Scholarly Series" so sale does not apply. Which of course makes sense but...

Juan Filloy's Op Oloop

i think this is really good but im not really sure i can put together why.

The Michal Ajvaz books are both astonishing. The Other City is the more accessible, a fantasy of what goes on in Prague when you're not looking that reminded me of Bruno Schulz and the Little Nemo strips. Golden Age is more demanding, but worth sticking with. I will pre-order anything else that comes up in translation.

I loved The Golden Age, just got The Other City from the library

The Ajvaz are amazing - read The Other City a few years ago just before we spent a week in Prague, & The Golden Age reminds me of some of the Chinese classics.

Anyone read Wilfrido Nolledo's But For The Lovers or Salvador Espriu's Ariadne In The Grotesque Labyrinth? Really wish I still lived near a place where bookstores would have Dalkey Archive displays.

This is pretty crazy: http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/aboutus/?fa=Employment

Though I would seriously love to work at Dalkey... But still!

lol they fuckin nuts

wow

such a comprehensive way of changing your feelings toward dalkey archive press

thats really terrible

i couldn't be bothered reading all the way through but in this intern on intern deathmatch, is it the case that some of those who do not emerge triumphant will have given up their life, let their ill parents die without visiting &c & yet never be paid?

they're so gross

Any of the following will be grounds for immediate dismissal during the probationary period: coming in late or leaving early without prior permission; being unavailable at night or on the weekends; failing to meet any goals; giving unsolicited advice about how to run things; taking personal phone calls during work hours; gossiping; misusing company property, including surfing the internet while at work; submission of poorly written materials; creating an atmosphere of complaint or argument; failing to respond to emails in a timely way; not showing an interest in other aspects of publishing beyond editorial; making repeated mistakes; violating company policies. DO NOT APPLY if you have a work history containing any of the above.

DO NOT APPLY if you have ever been unavailable at night or on the weekends

Good riddance to these guys, then.

btw I was talking to some dude who worked at dalkey last year (this was last year, dont know what the sitch is now) but he said their best seller far and away was the the third policeman because it was featured in Lost for like 3 seconds so even if they were able to pay I doubt it would be any sort of living wage maybe i'm wrong idk

Well, being a small firm who might require some voluntary effort for the love of the work is one thing... actually sounding like an angry cult leader in your job posting is another...

https://twitter.com/DalkeyIntern/

id like to think the advert was vaguely meta or at least viralbait

i think on some level that would be more depressing than it being totally sincere

more than vaguely meta but still illjudged tbh

three, two, one....

Dalkey boss now trying to pass it off as Jonathan Swift-style comedy.

You can see the defence here: http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/pursuedbyabear/2012/12/13/dalkey-archive-responds-to-that-job-advertisement/

The first bit (The advertisement was a modest proposal) could theoretically wash if he didn't follow it up with shit like this:

I’ve seen so many applications to Dalkey in which CVs list upwards of six internships, which tend to smack of ‘we looked, we evaluated, and didn’t think the person was good enough to keep’

Some of those could be because the candidate wasn't good enough, but an awful lot of those will be because shitheads like you force people into internships and will only offer a job if they become estranged from family, friends and their own soul.

Employers do not offer internships out of the goodness of their heart

Lol, no shit. Dude, you offer internships so you can get free labour.

interns aren’t employees

So you don't have to pay them.

they have to do something worthwhile for the company or why else have them around; but, at the same time, they don’t have much to offer because they don’t have the knowledge or experience to do very much

Maybe try looking at some with multiple placements, then? That sounds like experience to me. Oh, but no, you might have to pay them at the end.

Fucking internships are such a con. As far as I know we don't have them in Australia. Slave labour bullshit.

I've never been sure as to how legal they are. I was under the impression that if you were "shadowing" someone who is working, you don't need to be paid but if you are doing actual work you have to get minimum wage but idk.

"Dalkey Archive" is such an awful name for a publisher anyway, also comparing that joblisting to O'Brien etc on a satirical level is just awful (it does kinda read like it was meant that way, but clumsily fails to hide a basic "we're a gigantic bunch of pretentious cocks" tendency), good riddance again

Could be good.

https://dalkeyarchive.substack.com/

Yeah

This is very much my thing. Chad Post is great.

One of these days I’ve gotta get around to reading Miss Macintosh My Darling.

Did anyone read that novel Dodge Rose they put out a few years back? I read about 20 pages and found it completely impenetrable, saw some people online discussing whether it was an elaborate hoax.

Nope. But I wouldn't be surprised if it was a hoax. I haven't bothered with Dalkey's new releases for years, and Chad talks about the decline of Dalkey so I'm very interested.

The publisher sounds like one of those colourful figures, which basically tells me there are scars to heal for a lot of ppl.

Which goes back to the Dalkey intern business...

Didn’t he pass away recently?

Yes, a couple of weeks ago. Chad and Deep Vellum are taking over at Dalkey to maintain its books in circulation, I think.

Hence this side-project.

Chad has made a lot of allusions to abusive behaviour at Dalkey over the years.

I hadn’t noticed. Just found this
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2020/12/chad-w-post-on-the-complicated-honesty-of-dalkey-archives-john-obrien-19452020

Which links to this

https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/dispatches/article/remembering-john-obrien-dalkey-archive-chad-post

Just got an email from Chad.

Me too. A fascinating read!

At one point I had both versions of Splendide-Hôtel.

Looking forward to reading the latest missive which I just received

Amazing!

Latest one arrived today.

And another one. Really good.

Is anyone else reading these but me?

I haven't been but I might have a read over soon. Are there any particularly good ones?

I've read most of them. If you read any then read the first one.

https://t.e2ma.net/webview/0lq5ii/9cffabafe0a497b406320c176535faee

Letter on the relaunch

Dalkey is back.

https://dalkeyarchive.store/products/marshland

They are also reissuing writing like this.

Miss MacIntosh, My Darling pic.twitter.com/DGsHX86CYe

— Shannon Burns (@sjaburns) January 7, 2022

!

Ugh, that’s been on my bookshelf unread for so long.

I want to hear the promised stories about publishing Omega Minor, translated from Dutch by the author!

https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/more-is-more/

…and another post from Chad.

What’s going on with these upcoming Dalkey Archive Essentials? Don’t think he mentioned in his newsletter.

Stoked for newly translated Michal Ajvaz https://dalkeyarchive.store/products/journey-to-the-south

Is it just me or is this a bit fucked?

For anyone who didn’t see it, we’re looking for a dozen or so people willing to proof part of MISS MACINTOSH MY DARLING. If you’re interested (we’ll give you a finished copy as payment), DM or email. Can get you the PDF and assignment this weekend!!

— Chad W. Post (@chadwpost) March 23, 2023

Proof stuff for free (one book = not free?)

Guess they never did fill that one intern position.

It is a bit fucked, but from memory they're a non-profit with him and one other half-time staff member, so they're not exactly swimming in cash.

I know...feel for Chad I suppose, he has done some good work.

And I would like to read that book. I thought it came out last year..

https://dalkeyarchive.substack.com/p/special-edition-podcast-the-history

https://open.substack.com/pub/dalkeyarchive/p/nathalie-sarraute-and-england-by

That's a sweet piece, a lot of love in it.

Exactly