
IN THE WAKE OF THE WAKE: The Calf by Leif Høghaug - Translated by David M. Smith
The video reviews Leif Høghaug’s experimental novella The Calf, newly rendered into English by David M. Smith. Smith chose a Southern Appalachian dialect to mirror the original Norwegian regional speech, turning the translation itself into a literary performance. Chris explains how the book collapses waking life and dream logic, using cubist imagery—cubes, spheres, multiple perspectives—to create a looping, Sisyphian narrative. The text repeatedly returns to “chain‑tooth voices,” a metaphor for the internal chatter that persists across memory and language. Key passages cited include a sky‑scraping hourglass emptied to the bottom and a counter‑clockwise summer‑night dream that folds into an elevator plunge. Høghaug opens with a fall reminiscent of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake and closes with a hopeful apple, underscoring the work’s cyclical structure. The review argues that The Calf demonstrates how translation can be an act of creation, blurring the line between source and target. For publishers and readers, it signals a growing appetite for avant‑garde works that challenge conventional narrative and linguistic boundaries.

Top 10 Reads of 2025 + Subscriber Wildcard Pick + Subscriber Shoutout + 2026 Thoughts
Chris’s latest "Leaf by Leaf" episode serves as a hybrid year‑end roundup and forward‑looking roadmap. He revives the subscriber wildcard pick—viewers comment a single title, and Chris randomly selects one to read and review before year‑end—while also giving a heartfelt...