{"id":147018,"date":"2020-08-21T16:24:54","date_gmt":"2020-08-21T20:24:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=147018"},"modified":"2020-08-21T16:41:30","modified_gmt":"2020-08-21T20:41:30","slug":"staff-picks-dictators-deep-souls-and-doom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/08\/21\/staff-picks-dictators-deep-souls-and-doom\/","title":{"rendered":"Staff Picks: Dictators, Deep Souls, and Doom"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Lyonel Trouillot. Photo: Georges Seguin. CC BY-SA (https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0).<\/p><\/div>\n

A sense of unease pervades the Haitian writer Lyonel Trouillot\u2019s Street of Lost Footsteps<\/em><\/a>, translated from the French by Linda Coverdale, as does a sense of political hopelessness. The novel charts, over the course of a single night, a violent uprising in Port-au-Prince against the dictator Deceased Forever-Immortal, told from the perspectives of three characters: a taxi driver, a madam in a brothel, and a post office employee. Central to the story is the problem of how one should approach the subject of political violence in a work of art. In language that does nothing to prettify\u2014in fact, the poetry of Trouillot\u2019s sentences serves to better underscore the horrors he describes\u2014the characters navigate lives lived in a moment of grim uncertainty. \u201cHow could we have made love,\u201d the postal worker asks his lover, \u201cwhen we were perhaps already dead, uncertain of our own existence, even incapable of imagining the point of existence? \u2026 What do such pretty phrases have to do with the paralysis of terrified flesh, already absent from its own desires?\u201d These are salient questions, questions that have no answers. \u201cIn the silence,\u201d he continues, \u201cthe dream flowered in her eyes. In some way or another, we had led the night to us.\u201d \u2014Rhian Sasseen\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until my four brief years living in Appalachia that I realized how distinct it is from the Deep South as a culture. Certainly, the two overlap and relate to each other in a number of ways, but you need only look at their landscapes to sense the difference: flat forests and swamps versus vast mountain ranges and swaths of coal country necessarily provide for divergent experiences. Appalachia\u2019s struggles lie forgotten in comparison to those of the North, the South, and even the Midwest. For that reason, I urge you to pick up Leah Hampton\u2019s F*ckface and Other Stories<\/em><\/a>. The humor and the hardship of those mountains are imprinted in the very bones of this collection. The title story immediately grabbed me with its compassion and wit, and the rest of them continued to push the envelope by constantly reasserting the dignity of the populace alongside the political, economic, and ecological tragedy of the region. The stories work hard to reject \u201call the stories blaming mountain people\u201d for America\u2019s systemic problems but work harder to represent the complex reality of living in Appalachia. Ranging from a forest ranger\u2019s marriage falling apart in the midst of ruinous fires and elections to a lovestruck woman\u2019s vision of splendor in Dolly Parton\u2014patron saint of Tennessee\u2014each story envisions an especial view of the mountains. Oftentimes, my friends from the area would tell me quite grim stories about themselves or their families, but they would be laughing the entire time; Hampton captures this sensation to an incredible exactitude. And if it\u2019s any indication of how enthralling and rich these stories proved to be, I finished eighty percent of the book in a single sitting. \u2014Carlos Zayas-Pons<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>

Bill Frisell. Photo: Monica Frisell.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bill Frisell is one of my top three favorite living musicians, along with Joni Mitchell and a rotating third artist I can\u2019t decide on today. The fact that so much sadness, so much joy, and so much humor can seamlessly coexist in one sensibility, one body of work, even one song, has always meant that I feel less alone in the world listening to Frisell\u2019s music, lovers and haters be damned\u2014which is to say I recognize myself, or something I aspire to, in his music. Out today is Frisell\u2019s new album Valentine<\/em><\/a>, featuring his current working trio with Thomas Morgan on bass and Rudy Royston on drums. Frisell has been playing with each of them for years, and both have appeared on many of Frisell\u2019s recordings, but\u00a0Valentine<\/em> is the first record with this exact configuration. Morgan has one of the best bass tones in the business, like he\u2019s playing an ancient, deep-souled redwood tree, or like if Nick Drake had been an upright bass player. Royston plays, at times, like a super-precise popcorn popper. With every new album\u2014and there\u2019s one or two every year\u2014Frisell tries on a different mood, mode, genre. I sometimes want a \u201cregular\u201d Bill Frisell album, just his dreamy sensibility against a backdrop of jazz. That\u2019s what Valentine<\/em> is, and I\u2019m really grateful for it. It mixes old and new tunes by Frisell and others; on ones he\u2019s played a lot, like \u201cBaba Drame\u201d and \u201cWhat the World Needs Now,\u201d Frisell finds a deep groove, embellishing meaningfully everywhere, leaving space everywhere else, weaving a cohesive fabric with his partners. There\u2019s a gorgeous version of \u201cKeep Your Eyes Open,\u201d a decades-old Frisell composition. And the album ends with a subtly triumphant rendition of \u201cWe Shall Overcome,\u201d a gentle anthem for and against current events. All of which is to say that this is a great album, one of Frisell\u2019s clearest statements in years. It won\u2019t change anyone\u2019s opinion about his music, but it may feel to many, as it does to me, like a much-needed visit from a dear old friend during a lonely time. \u2014Craig Morgan Teicher<\/strong><\/p>\n

The second episode of Hulu\u2019s High Fidelity<\/em><\/a>, aptly titled \u201cTrack 2,\u201d begins with Minnie Riperton playing as Zo\u00eb Kravitz describes the \u201cdelicate art\u201d of making a playlist. There are rules, apparently\u2014it can\u2019t be too obvious or too obscure, it has to feel familiar but still surprising, it has to tell a story\u2014that the show itself seems to follow. And certainly every song in every scene feels as intentional as a carefully curated playlist, as tributary as a love letter. Here, the soundtrack says, I made this for you. This invitational approach to music redeems the show\u2019s characters, who otherwise could be seen as snobs. An early scene shows them playing \u201cCome On Eileen\u201d in earnest, off of a playlist that supposedly also contains Lauryn Hill. It\u2019s not about what<\/em> music you love, the show offers; it\u2019s about how much<\/em> you love it and how hard you\u2019re willing to go. So an anticipatory energy hangs heavy above each scene as the music plays. An energy that feels like listening to a playlist, waiting to hear track 2 and so on and so on. A delicate art, a story. I\u2019ll admit (albeit semi-ashamedly) that I\u2019ve never actually read the Nick Hornby book the show is based on, but I\u2019ve seen the 2000 film starring John Cusack, and barely any specific songs come to mind when I think of it. The opposite is true with this version. So when Hulu recently announced that the show wouldn\u2019t be returning for a second season, the first thing I did was turn on its soundtrack. I wasn\u2019t surprised to hear of its cancellation. All the best shows get only one season. But now I think of this one every time I hear Ann Peebles or Minnie Riperton or \u201cCome On Eileen.\u201d \u2014Langa Chinyoka<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the 2016 video game Doom <\/em>(which I wrote about<\/a> a year and a half ago), hell is an energy drink, a panic attack, a condemned corporate office park in space. In the game\u2019s 1993 forebear<\/a>, also titled Doom<\/em>, hell is a methodically mapped but no less nightmarish procession of puzzles. Booting it up for the first time on my Nintendo Switch, I expected to encounter a mere historical curiosity, something I might play for thirty minutes before setting it down for good. As technology progresses and game design develops alongside it, the classics become further enshrined in the dust of memory, barely scrutable to future generations. Instead, I was thrilled to discover that the joys of the original Doom<\/em> require no footnotes, no scholarly preface; immediately, the player is immersed in a cramped, bloody, pixelated approximation of the netherworld and asked to shoot their way out. The early levels challenge the player to learn the game\u2019s language; the later levels spit out whole paragraphs at once, demanding complete fluency, an innate, twitch-level understanding of how each demon behaves, how quickly a rocket can collapse a distance, how much everything, absolutely everything, can hurt. Nearing my fortieth attempt at a mission in the game\u2019s fourth episode, \u201cThy Flesh Consumed,\u201d I couldn\u2019t keep my hands, and then my entire body, from quaking. Stress-induced tremors are perhaps not the usual mark of a good time, but I promise that in this case, they absolutely were. As you\u2019re reading this, I\u2019ve probably found my way back to the game once more, flitting through the fields of one-eyed cacodemons, ducking the volleyed flames of imps, dancing to the howls of the barons of hell. \u2014Brian Ransom<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Still from the video game Doom<\/em>, 1993.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week, the staff of \u2018The Paris Review\u2019 reads \u2018F*ckface,\u2019 mourns the cancellation of \u2018High Fidelity,\u2019 and plumbs the depths of hell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[438],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-147018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-this-weeks-reading"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nStaff Picks: Dictators, Deep Souls, and Doom by The Paris Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This week, the staff of \u2018The Paris Review\u2019 reads \u2018F*ckface,\u2019 mourns the cancellation of \u2018High Fidelity,\u2019 and plumbs the depths of hell.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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