{"id":136,"date":"2015-10-25T09:19:54","date_gmt":"2015-10-25T09:19:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/index.php\/2015\/10\/25\/the-first-bad-man\/"},"modified":"2018-11-24T20:25:39","modified_gmt":"2018-11-24T18:25:39","slug":"the-first-bad-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/2015\/10\/the-first-bad-man\/","title":{"rendered":"The First Bad Man"},"content":{"rendered":"

A book I always like to give away as a present is Miranda July\u2019s first collection of short stories, \u201cNo one belongs here more than you\u201d<\/a>. They are all brilliant, weird, and heart-shaking in their own way. You can\u2019t really go wrong with it, there is something for everyone in it, and it always tells you something new.<\/p>\n

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With July\u2019s first novel, \u201cThe First Bad Man\u201d, it\u2019s a little different. Even though it says on the back cover that I need to buy this twice and give one to a friend, I hesitated to do so. Don\u2019t get me wrong: I enjoyed reading it, and there were many scenes and ideas I really liked: The Globus Hystericus<\/a> for example, which appears to be the narrator\u2019s main concern at first. Her visits to the doctor weave a beautiful and sad connection between the characters, and strain a golden thread throughout the book. Miranda July has great talent to subtly create scenes and spaces\u2014I immediately felt as a neighbor or observer, hanging around somewhere in the vast, sunny and empty streets of Los Angeles. In a way, the whole story felt a bit like a rumor being spread in the neighborhood\u2014a rumor about this really strange person and her gardener, a story about violence, unrequited love and parenthood.<\/p>\n

Before thinking about giving this novel away as a present, I do recommend to read it for yourself first. It\u2019s not for everyone. Also: The german title is \u201cDer erste fiese Typ\u201d, and this just sounds so wrong and absolutely not how Miranda July would speak; you should read it in english if you can.<\/p>\n

For the book launch, Miranda created an online store<\/a> where she sold artefacts that make an appearance in the book. A broken vase, a long dress with many buttons, a spoon or an old envelope\u2014by now it\u2019s all sold. July always adds a layer to everything. I still love that about her.<\/p>\n

\u2014
Read also: My book review on Fridolin Schley\u2019s \u201cWildes, Sch\u00f6nes Tier\u201d<\/a> (german)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A book I always like to give away as a present is Miranda July\u2019s first collection of short stories, \u201cNo one belongs here more than you\u201d. They are all brilliant, weird, and heart-shaking in their own way. You can\u2019t really go wrong with it, there is something for everyone in it, and it always tells … The First Bad Man<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1204],"tags":[239,41,238,240,2,241],"class_list":["post-136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ueber-medien","tag-book","tag-english","tag-miranda-july","tag-review","tag-text","tag-the-first-bad-man"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1807,"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136\/revisions\/1807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}