JEAN-PHILLIPE TOUSSAINT — TELEVISION

Image: Interior at Paddington by Lucian Freud

A hornball French guy putters around Berlin, doing things other than writing a monograph on Titian. Yes, this novel is a dispatch from the weedy wilds of writer’s block. Among its peers in the genre — Nicholson Baker’s The Anthologist comes to mind — Television stands out for the elegance of its prose and Mr. Toussaint’s fresh eye for quotidian detail. But I should confess that my experience of reading this kind of narrative is marked by conflict and agitation. Often I fail to keep reading. Often I end up back at my desk, trying to prove I’m not blocked myself. Read, May 2020.