Books I Read June 29th, 2025

Many things are sad, but some sad things are beautiful.

The Hounds of Hell by Jean Larteguy – A very lightly fictionalized account of the Katangese rebellion, written by France's Frederick Forsythe. I think I've probably hit my current quota for Congolese history but that's on me, this was a well-written and thoughtfully observed.

The Chronicles of DOOM: Unraveling Rap's Masked Iconoclast by S.H. Fernando Jr. – Probably the best biography we'll get of hip hop's most enigmatic MC, whose obsession with privacy means that fairly basic aspects of his life remain unknown. Ayone reading this is going to be a DOOM fan, and the image that does come out—of a fascinating, brilliant, mercurial and often amoral figure—are worth the price of admission.

The Old Man Who Read Love Stories by Luis Sepulveda – A hunter obsessed with romances pursues a man-eating ocelot into the Amazon in service of a civilizing influence to which he is simultaneously drawn and repelled. Lovely if small.

The Wall by Marlen Haushofen – A vacationing hausfrau awakens one morning to discover her mountain refuge has been cut off by a force field which seems to have also killed every human on the planet. Her struggle to survive with a small menagerie of pets becomes not only an engaging survival story but a profound statement on modernity, motherhood, and our relationship with the natural world. Really excellent, certainly among the best post-apocalyptic novels I've read.

Congo Inc by In Koli Jean Bofane – The ruinous effects of globalization as suffered by a cast of Kinshashan neer-do-wells. Unfocused.

The Silent Cry by Kenzaburo Oe – Two brothers return to their rural hometown, unearth dark secrets expressing the corruption of Japanese society and the existential discomfort of identity and existence. Masterful and disturbing. This feels an ur-text to a lot of other Japanese fiction I've read, full of disturbing imagery, subterranean obsessions and an uncanny if peculiar plot. Murakami in particular seems to have taken a lot of his career from this book. But don't hold that against it! If you're in the market for a difficult, peculiar, moody work from a Nobel laureate you could do a lot worse.

Night on the Galactic Railroad and Other Stories from Ihatov by Kenij Miyazawa – A lovely little parable by Japan's most beloved children's writer. Sad and bright.