Established 2008 — Please use this septuagenarian reviewer’s 'Navigation & Backstory’ shown in the top pinned post of this site — Books chosen carefully by buying them, and review copies not accepted.
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Public comments (Part 6) about this site of Gestalt Real-Time Reviews are shown in the comments stream below.
Continued from Part 5 here: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/13754-2/
CODY GOODFELLOW
We’ve never met, but I cherish your reviews as spiky reminders that what we’re attempting is not just worth doing, but little short of sorcery. Cheers! HERE
Only thing that can prepare you for having a book real-time reviewed by @DF_Lewis is having had one reviewed by him before, as a sort of dummy run. Thank you, Des! https://t.co/TKOyAoGDHT
“Des Lewis has just finished realtime-reviewing my collection The Fallen West, and what a perceptive and sympathetic reader and critic he is. The way I feel reminds me of the closing paragraph of The Circular Ruins by Borges in which the narrator realises he cannot be destroyed by flames because “another man is dreaming him…”
It’s always interesting to read Des’ insightful reviews. It often feels like he looks at the stories from a different angle. The results are always illuminating. https://t.co/MmwCqudJk1
i love this review! and this book! i’m so glad you two encountered one another. (kerry’s first book, the black country, is also completely brilliant. and des’ recent collection, the big-headed people, is amazing.)
what an absolute privilege to read the book and then ‘read’ it again through someone else’s perceptions and responses. it’s amazing as a writer to be read that way, but as a fellow reader it’s also a unique and valuable thing.
they are really fantastic. i so appreciate having someone *read* my story and share that reading with me. and to have my words absorbed into the gestalt of des' enormous head! (a big-headed people reference, not an insult!)
This Des Lewis review must be the best a writer can receive. 1) It is generous well-beyond my personal capacity for generosity, complete with comparisons to Proust. But 2) It finds codes and complexities in the book that I had not been aware of myself, proving Bad Donald Barthelme was right when he spilled the beans and admitted that an author “is a sort of lightning rod for an accumulation of atmospheric disturbances, a St. Sebastian absorbing in his tattered breast the arrows of the Zeitgeist.” Who knew that’s what my tattered breast had been absorbing all these difficult years, the Zeitgeist. [Scroll Down for the Real Time Review]
— Mike Sauve on Facebook today,
HERE
“That incomparable cowboy Des Lewis continues to ride herd across the landscape of dark fiction, managing to simultaneously both corral and free the stories he reads.” – Eric Schaller
Des, after publishing a millenium’s worth of surrealistic short stories, has reconfigured the way we interact with fiction, first through his editorship of Nemonymous and most recently through his gestalt real-time book reviews. I’m sure, by now, that the weight of words he has committed to reviewing the field would be enough to sink heaven or raise hell, should anyone be foolish enough to corral their energies and attempt that task.
— Eric Schaller
See comments here:
https://rosannerabinowitz.wordpress.com/2018/05/31/resonance-revolt-real-time-reviews-and-some-rugelach-too/
Some kind comments about my reviews.
Gwendolyn Kiste’s Facebook: HERE
https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/2018/06/04/recent-quotes-about-my-reviews/
CODY GOODFELLOW
We’ve never met, but I cherish your reviews as spiky reminders that what we’re attempting is not just worth doing, but little short of sorcery. Cheers!
HERE
HERE
Kudos to Des Lewis, for his x-ray vision and for breathing new life into the review.
Douglas Thompson today –
“Des Lewis has just finished realtime-reviewing my collection The Fallen West, and what a perceptive and sympathetic reader and critic he is. The way I feel reminds me of the closing paragraph of The Circular Ruins by Borges in which the narrator realises he cannot be destroyed by flames because “another man is dreaming him…”
“Des Lewis, your reviews are works of art. I learn a lot about myself when you read me!”
== David Mathew HERE
i love this review! and this book! i’m so glad you two encountered one another. (kerry’s first book, the black country, is also completely brilliant. and des’ recent collection, the big-headed people, is amazing.)
what an absolute privilege to read the book and then ‘read’ it again through someone else’s perceptions and responses. it’s amazing as a writer to be read that way, but as a fellow reader it’s also a unique and valuable thing.
—-Georgina Bruce HERE
This Des Lewis review must be the best a writer can receive. 1) It is generous well-beyond my personal capacity for generosity, complete with comparisons to Proust. But 2) It finds codes and complexities in the book that I had not been aware of myself, proving Bad Donald Barthelme was right when he spilled the beans and admitted that an author “is a sort of lightning rod for an accumulation of atmospheric disturbances, a St. Sebastian absorbing in his tattered breast the arrows of the Zeitgeist.” Who knew that’s what my tattered breast had been absorbing all these difficult years, the Zeitgeist. [Scroll Down for the Real Time Review]
— Mike Sauve on Facebook today,
Des, I can’t thank you enough for all these exotically penetrating insights… a joy to read and ponder. Makes this lonely craft almost worthwhile.
https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/2018/05/24/the-fallen-west-douglas-thompson/#comment-14170
Comment here…
HERE
“That incomparable cowboy Des Lewis continues to ride herd across the landscape of dark fiction, managing to simultaneously both corral and free the stories he reads.” – Eric Schaller
Des, after publishing a millenium’s worth of surrealistic short stories, has reconfigured the way we interact with fiction, first through his editorship of Nemonymous and most recently through his gestalt real-time book reviews. I’m sure, by now, that the weight of words he has committed to reviewing the field would be enough to sink heaven or raise hell, should anyone be foolish enough to corral their energies and attempt that task.
— Eric Schaller
Des reviewing one of one’s books is one of the most fascinating things I’ve ever experienced.
— David Mathew
Here: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2658728960808967&set=a.140084829340072&type=3&theater
Part 7 of these comments continued here: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/17630-2/