New VS: EoD

Happily, there is a new Viktor Shklovsky title out from Dalky Archive: Energy of Delusion. & while it is true that not each of Viktor's works is as magically affective as Third Factory, this volume seems more than a little promising, as Dalkey reports that V worked on it for about, oh, three decades, a timeframe similar to William Gass's magnum The Tunnel.


This is, like Theory of Prose, a critical work, but the Dalkey description uses the good phrase "writing that roams" when describing the book, which should turn any Shklovsky fan on something nice. This is the first time the book will be published in English; it is somewhat confounding but not-that-confounding when you realize that a sizable chunk of VS' work has yet to make it out of the mothertongue. The text focuses of the works of Tolstoy, but if we're lucky that will be only half the battle, & Viktor shall shine like the halogen of the future he never saw. Also, perhaps this new publication indicates that Dalkey is on track after all, despite the recent Review of Contemporary Fiction hijinks.