When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamín Labatut

When We Cease to Understand the World

by Benjamín Labatut

(Translated by Adrian Nathan West) 

A book review

 _____________________________________________

Walking with Bohr, Heisenberg had his first intuition of the radical otherness of the subatomic world. “If a mere particle of dust contains billions of atoms,” Bohr said to him as they were scaling the massifs of the Harz range, “what possible way is there to talk meaningfully of something so small?”  The physicist – like the poet – should not describe the facts of the world, but rather generate metaphors and mental connections. From that summer onwards, Heisenberg understood that to apply concepts of classical physics such as position, velocity and momentum to a subatomic particle was sheer madness. That aspect of nature required a completely new language.

To Drown in Dark Water by Steve Toase

 
To Drown in Dark Water

A book review of Steve Toase's debut horror story collection

At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop

At Night All Blood is Black

by David Diop

(translated by Anna Moschovakis)

The Others by Sarah Blau

 

The Others 

by Sarah Blau

(translated by Daniella Zamir) 

"Judas: The Troubling History of the Renegade Apostle" by Peter Stanford

 

Judas 

The Troubling History of the Renegade Apostle

by Peter Stanford

A book review

In Every Wave by Charles Quimper

 

In Every Wave

by Charles Quimper 

(translated from the French by Guil Lefebvre)

I cling to your name like a man desperate and dispossessed, probing the sound as it emerges from my mouth into silent starless nights. I ponder it from every angle, whisper it, recite it like a poem or prayer. I hiss it like a threat. However intoned or inflected, your name remains unchanged, always ending on the same note that lingers in the dark, like the inkling of a ghost… 

I left you behind, my love, but I’m the one drowning every day…

The Shortest Day By Colm Tóibín

 

The Shortest Day

By Colm Tóibín