After the end of Transcription—the point when Max relates the story of his father’s holding his hands and says “For fear of vibrations, low voices in their presence…” —there is more. It is a quoted letter by the man who created the glass flowers, Leopold Blaschka. He is writing about the process of creating the flowers and says, “We (he and his son) have the touch…the touch increases in every generation. The only way to become a glass modeler of skill…is to get a good great-g

The third and final section of Ben Lerner’s Transcription differs from the first two in that it appears to be one long scene of dialogue. The characters are the protagonist—who actually has a small role—and Max, Thomas’ son, who is shown telling the protagonist a long story about his daughter Emmie and then his father. So, the narrator changes between sections two and three, going from the protagonist to Max; the protagonist becomes a character, no longer an “I” but an entity

As I mentioned in my first post about Ben Lerner’s Transcription, the novel has three sections. Today, let’s consider the second. It’s shorter than the others and is entitled [Hotel Villa Real]. Yes, it does have those brackets Best B, and no, I don’t know what they mean. Maybe that it’s in the middle? Could it be that simple? It begins: “After my talk at the museum I walked back to the Hotel Villa Real and wrote a few emails in the business center. Then I opened a new browse

Last time, we considered some aspects of Ben Lerner’s Transcription. Today, let’s continue, best B. Is Transcription a realist novel? “A realist novel is a work of fiction that portrays everyday life, ordinary people, and familiar social environments in an accurate, truthful way. Rising to prominence in the mid-19th century, this movement rejected romantic idealism, grandiose plots, and the supernatural in favor of psychological depth, moral ambiguity, and meticulous social c

Last time, I threatened to examine the passage in Ben Lerner’s book Transcription concerning the unnamed protagonist/narrator’s visit to his mentor Thomas, but there’s something else I’d like to address first, best B. In the section just prior to the visit, when the narrative goes into the past, showing him remembering his university days twenty years prior, he and his friend Anisa go to the Natural History Museum on the Harvard campus in Cambridge. There, they see an exhibit

Let’s pick up on our plunge into Ben Lerner’s excellent Transcription. In this first section of the story (first of three), the as yet unnamed protagonist arrives in Providence, Rhode Island where he went to school some twenty years before and where he met his wife, Mia, and studied with Thomas, his mentor. As I mentioned, he’s returning to Providence, a place redolent with memory, to interview an elderly Thomas. The night of his arrival, he intends to go to Thomas’ house and

Today, let’s examine a new book, Ben Lerner’s 2026 novel, Transcription. Mr. Lerner is the acclaimed author of three previous novels and several books of poetry. Transcription is written in first person, simple past tense although the first person narrator is a different character in the story’s third section which indicates the work of the implied author. There are three distinct sections to the book. I’ll say more about this but today I want to compare the story’s beginning