Even in December, early mornings are rarely pleasant on much of India's Andhra Pradesh coast. The air is already muggy by 06:30 as a crowd mills restlessly on platform five at Visakhapatnam (Vizag) railway station. However, these would-be passengers are no ordinary commuters, but travellers gathered for an experience. When the Visakhapatnam Kirandul Passenger Special rolls onto the platform, the crowd's relief is palpable; the two vistadome coaches at the back of the train that they've been anxiously waiting to board are air-conditioned.
Indians have only a nodding acquaintance with the concept of queues, so a mad scramble ensues as the train comes to a halt. Things settle down as it chugs out of the station and gradually picks up speed. The Visakhapatnam Kirandul Passenger Special also serves as a regular commuter service headed to the town of Kirandul in Chhattisgarh state, about 400km to the north-west, and takes about 14 hours to traverse the distance. But those in the vistadome coaches are interested only in the first leg, to Araku Valley. This serene hill station is about 120km away but takes four hours as the train winds its way through a whopping 58 tunnels cut through the Eastern Ghats. The two vistadome coaches – with their extra-large windows and rotatable seats – are designed to provide panoramic views of the area's mountain peaks and valleys and its gentle forested slopes that end in rushing rivers and streams, gorges and rocky promontories.
Above all, the frames of a comic lend themselves so perfectly to Auster’s city setting and his stories’ themes of chance and loneliness. They bring irresistibly to mind doors and windows; a sense of what lurks unseen beyond apartment landings. Push against them, dear reader, and who knows what you’ll find.
At the Bottom of the Garden, however, is a gothic novel in the old-school mode, a story of powerful psyches contending with the ever-present threat of the supernatural knocking around in the shadows and pushing the boundaries of sanity. Combining traditional set pieces (gardens and forests and bedrooms and other secluded removes from society) with a wryly contemporary narrative voice, Camilla Bruce has crafted a fast-moving modern fairy tale that recalls variously the Brontës, Shirley Jackson, V. C. Andrews, Frances Hodgson Burnett, and Lemony Snicket.
“I have so much love for Cohen’s work. I had to do something with it, or the love I had would be incomplete.” So Christophe Lebold told me over Zoom from a small room at the University of Strasbourg in France, where his shaven head, elegant but simple clothing, and intelligent, sensitive face highlighted against the bare white walls of the room helped to invoke a Cohen-esque atmosphere for our discussion. Lebold, who teaches classical and modern literature of North America and Britain and theater studies at the University of Strasbourg, is the author of a recently published book on Cohen called Leonard Cohen: The Man Who Saw the Angels Fall. The book went through two editions in French and was translated into English by the author in 2024.
It is an engaging, jazzily poetic, and erudite presentation of Cohen’s life and work as a modern rock ’n’ roll Kabir, a unique poet of defeat and transcendence, the love of God and the love of women, and the game of seeking enlightenment where only “beautiful losers” win. Lebold wrote his PhD on the songs of Cohen and Bob Dylan and regularly teaches the songs of singer-songwriters like Nick Cave and Lou Reed as literature. His keen powers of analysis and intense interest in his subject are evident on every page, and having taught and written about Cohen for years, I was in awe at how well-informed and up-to-date Lebold is with the available sources.