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I was recommended C.J.Sansom's sequence of novels featuring Matthew Shardlake, a London lawyer in Tudor times, and he's rather taken over as far as books go. I'm reading them in sequence - definitely recommended - so have got through 'Dissolution' (2003) and 'Dark fire' (2004) and am now well into 'Sovereign' (2006). They get bigger and better. Now I'm not really one for historical novels, let alone historical crime, and I can't say the Tudors have ever really interested me, but I'm hooked here. Bit of a cliche - he makes the history come alive. I've learned loads; suddenly all those monastic ruins make sense, what was gained and what was lost. The writing is deceptively simple; Sansom tells you a lot and with a tremendous narrative drive, and the characters engage - the hunchbacked Sheldrake, of course, and the streetwise Barak, are becoming one of the classic double acts of detective fiction. There are no purple patches, there is no striving for fine writing but he reaches out well beyong the genre and you are moved, intellectually, spiritually, emotionally. Without spelling it out, all the debates, the events that fuel the conflicts, both personal and social, have tremendous resonance with today. And his understanding of the way social change works, its internal logic, its complicated relationship with morality - idealism and opportunism - is a big part of that. The chorus of Ray Davies's 'Village Green Preservation Society' seems apt: "Preserving the old ways from being abused, Protecting the new ways for me and for you". And a couple of my favourite lines from the poet Yeats fit with Sheldrake too: "The best lack all conviction, The worst are full of passionate intensity". I'll throw in some Dylan too: "I used to care, but things have changed" - yes, but you still wrote that song, Bob. Sheldrake cares and is still one of the best. And I do hope he gets a gal. Thanks for the tip, Neil.
The standout piece - the stand on piece - of Richard Woods' 'Flora and fauna' exhibition at mkG (Milton Keynes's art gallery) is - and I've only just recognised the word play involved here - the floor. He's covered the floor throughout the ground floor, all three rooms and the entrance - with consistently patterned handprinted wood cut laminate-like strips in green, brown and yellow and it just looks amazing; this is more than just interior decoration. And what he's done to the exterior of the building - covered it with a collection of large block prints of non-specifc but what are undoubtedly logos drawing inspiration from nature, from, well, flora and fauna - is interesting too. One of their better shows.
We went on a day out to the Nene Valley Railway and Peterborough. An absorbing collection of locos in varying condition on and around the shed at Wansford, even if the motive power on the journey was - sorry - a bit boring, a 1945 saddle tank. The international nature of the operation and the variety of motive power - a massive Polish loco which to use its technical description as a tank engine rather misses the point, for example, the presence of some diesels (D306 in shining BR green!), never mind a fine Standard Class 5 in gleaming black, make this an original operation. And in Peterborough the Railworld centre, a distinctly odd museum with, let's say, great potential if only the money available matched the enthusiasm. Hugely well intentioned environmentally, and with a few interesting objects (couple of locos unusual in a british context, needing a lot of work) but amateurish in presentation, sometimes charmingly so. I wish, in particular, the new pa kua (is that right?) garden, utilising as it does, all sorts of odds and sods and bits and bobs from the railway environment in a spiritally themed planting plan encompassing flower colours, well. At the moment though, that makes it sound better than it is. Peterborough Cathedral has had a bit longer to bed in. We should have spent more time there. Reading the Shardlake novels certainly helped me with the history of the place - I even found myself getting interested in Catherine of Aragon - but it was the spectacular fan-vaulted ceiling in the east end that really got me. (July 17)
I've finished
Philip
Hensher's engaging 'The northern clemency' (Fourth Estate, 2008) in record time,
given it's a 700 pager. It's a tremendous book, one you inhabit;
I want to know what happened to their children too. Focussed on
1970s and '80s Sheffield - a lot of the action in areas I'm familiar
with - the novel is an epic constructed around a newly built suburban
street on the western - close to the Moors - edge of the city,
on two families really, one of which has moved from London. State
of the nation for sure - miner's strike and all - but an emotional
epic too, also the fallout from what happens in families, how
children turn out, how people change and are changed. Heartening
and depressing - the human condition no less. In a way a very
old fashioned - or should that be classic? - novel. If there's
any justice it should win prizes.
Glastonbury channel hopping including the red button, it's Buddy Guy who's the star for
me. What a showman, what a show! (June 29)
If memory serves correct, in an essay in his 'Advertisements for myself', Norman Mailer chided Ernest Hemingway, the great realist, for chickening out when it came to using direct obscenities in his characters' speech, whereas Mailer famously managed to push the boat out with "Fuggin' "; I think 'For whom the bell tolls' is a better book for it, those people retaining a nobility without the relentless fuggin' swearing - as authenticity - the loss of which inevitably follows Mailer's supposed veritee approach. It's not as if Hemingway doesn't intimate what's being said, but rather frames it. I'm not sure I would have finished R J Ellory's 'A quiet belief in angels' (Orion, 2007) if I hadn't known I was going to meet him. The level of violence seemed gratuitous, and the relentlessness of Joseph Vaughan's wretched life is over-determined, though his kind of victory is moving. He is striving to write American literature while living in the Birmingham but you certainly can't deny the commitment to writing and reading. I can forgive a fair amount for a mention of Don Marquis's wonderful archy and mehitabel, Archy being a former a vers libre poet reincarnated in the body of a cockroach (and so unable to use the shift key on a typewriter), Mehitabel the office cat; I love those books. Indeed, rather than provide, like a lot of his contempories, a soundtrack as the action progresses, Ellory gives you a reading list in passing.
When you get down to it there is nothing quite like live music. And nowhere better than in a pub. Week before last was 'Stony live' and, as usual, we should have seen more. There was a nice little Lonnie Donegan tribute (it's only lately I realise just how important he was), and a lunchtime session with the Concrete Cowboys - accomplished bluegrass from men with beards of a certain age - in the 'Fox and Hounds' really hit the spot. The culmination of the week with Folk on the Green saw more men in beards getting acrowd moving with more rockin' Americana - I give you Fat Freddy's Cat and the Bullfrogs. Solo folkie acoustic guitarist Gran Bartley did well after a rousing covers band - Band Substance - had the crowd on their feet. And then we had Great Pig in the Sky - a decent Floyd covers band. You couldn't deny their popularity and I'm pretty sure it's more entertaining seeing a Floyd covers band than listening to the real thing's records, but it's so ploddingly boring. Has there ever been a tribute song so imappropriate to its subject than 'Shine on you crazy diamond'? Where is the Syd Barrett who wrote 'Bike' in that? Do Floyd covers bands ever actually do any of Syd's songs? Probably not. Enough.
A brief mention for the quality of the dialogue and David Duchovny's performance in the US tv show 'Californication'. And Alan Ayckbourn's swinging '60s relationships farce 'Relatively speaking' at the theatre was very funny, some beautiful timing - Peter Bowles superb.
Deep into the Philip Hensher's brick of a book 'The northern clemency' (Fourth Estate, 2008). Absorbing - doesn't feel like a 700 pager. Some lovely set pieces. (June 22)
And so I finally catch up with Ernest Hemingway's 'For whom the bell tolls' (1940). Why am I surprised it's such a huge book? Not the number of pages, but in its thematic scope - philosophy, politics, faith, commitment, compassion, how things happen, how people are, how to live. Key twentieth century text. Then there's the quality of the action, the interactions, the description. Not sure the old charges of misogyny can really stick what with Pilar here and Lady Brett in 'Fiesta'. Great writer, unfashionable too long. (June 3)
And so to Broxbourne's Civic Hall on a Saturday night to witness John Dalton ('Nobby') hang up his rock and roll shoes and give his gold Elvis suit an airing and exercise all his inimitable proud flourishes. Top gig with a full complement of Kast Off Kinks including vocalists Debi & Shirlie given their own solos ('Nothing lasts forever' and 'Mirror of love' respectively - great songs out of their Preservation contexts) and cameos from Bob Henrit & Ian Gibbons. Less mucking about than the Boston Arms shindigs, cracking versions of 'Waterloo sunset', 'Shangri-La' (John's favourite Kinks song) and 'Celluloid heroes'; and a splendid work out on 'Milk cow blues' to give most a run for their money. Hell, I even liked 'Juke box music' from 'Sleepwalker', my least favourite Kinks album. Dalton for me was the definitive Kinks bassist - end of an era, no question. (25 May)
When I hit
Wells Next
The Sea
with time to kill I sat outside a pub near the harbour and read
some more of Hemingway's
'To have and have not'
in sight of boats announcing they were for hire for fishing trips.
Light years and oceans away from the Cuban and Florida coastlines
but a certain kinship, of making a living, nevertheless, a quaint
juxtaposition anyway. It's a book I really liked, although I read
somewhere Hem himself wasn't that keen. The panorama of the rich
households he takes you on as the shot up boat with the body of
Harry Morgan on it is towed back in from the Straits is a devastating
picture of a society gone awry. And I've followed it straight
up with 'A
farewell to arms'
(1929) which didn't disappoint 40 years on from my first reading
it. Never mind the vivid action and sense of place, he does men
talking and drinking so you're there at the table, in the bars.
And he knows being in love; I'm not sure the charge of misogyny
sticks as much as it used to, either. A growing feeling of a society
and meaning being lost but still a huge poignancy at the end.
Anti-war because of what it does to people, radical but hardly
pacifist - what a writer. And so on to 'For whome the bell tolls', this one for the
first time. Then I'll have to find something else.
Time on the North
Norfolk coast:
the seals on Blakeney Point, the sight of terns diving. A cinnamon
ice cream on the way down to the beach at Sheringham, a pistacchio
and amoretto ice cream on the way back (from Ronaldo's of Norwich). Sheringham an interesting
little seaside town, Smuggler's
Cave a
terrific emporium of imported goods from Asia browsed with pleasure.
We got to Sheringham on the North Norfolk Railway, motive power a shining
black WD (War Department) 2-10-0, precursor of the 9F Standard
freight engines that were British steam's final flourish. Way
back when, in trainspotting days, the WDs (aka 'Austerities'), with their much more
numerous 2-8-0 smaller brothers, ugly and usually filthy to boot,
were the least of my interest but now I just want to know more,
particularly about the war service overseas, of these truly international
loco classes. Another railway connection - the old station at
Wells is now a rambling Bookshop and Pottery (one of those bookshops, stuffed to
the gills, full of memories). I was disappointed I couldn't find
anything I really wanted to buy. What didn't disappoint was a
reacquaintance with a few pints of Woodforde's Wherry, full of taste and a mere 3.8%. And
a heated up cheese and onion pastie at the end of a walk the length
of Holkham Nature Reserve and back along the dunes and beach -
was it ever going to end? - was indeed the food of the gods. (May
22)
I read 'Mister Pip' by Lloyd Jones (John Murray, 2006). Wish I could remember - senior moment - who it was recommended it to me. On the cover it says, 'A book can change your life for ever' and I'm thinking, Oh no, I don't know how bad 'The Celestine prophecies' were but I do know Paulo Coelho's 'The alchemist' was dreadful. But it's actually Dickens's 'Great expectations' it's referring to, with that book having a leading role in an Oceanic setting. It's a complex tale and there's magic in the telling, a parallel rites of passage narrative with a shocking civil war climax and a fascinating denouement. And yes, it did make me want to go back to 'Great expectations', which, as it happens was one of the formative books of my youth, leading me to the socialist position I wish I wasn't so disillusioned about now (not that I'll ever vote Tory). But Charles Dickens will have to wait - too much richness for someone still deep into a Hemingway binge. (May 12)
I always wondered
how long it would be before Charlie Resnick achieved full resurrection (I know, he never
died, but you know what I mean). The other coppers John Harvey has featured never
really came off the page with the same affection and Charlie kept
making guest appearances. So here here he is again, in 'Cold in
hand' (Heinemann, 2008), a book that fair zips along for all its
grief (there's a significant death); the musical references this
time are obscurish (to the general reader) '50s jazz mostly, plus
a Romanian avant-garde pianist out of Monk, with some early dub
reggae thrown in. At one stage Harvey also seems to have developed
an unhealthy namedropping interest in trainers. You do wonder
how much the genre can take of East European crime gangs, immigrant
labour and inner city youth violence as its thematic content as
far as the crime that drives it goes without collapsing into boredom;
the specific social significance factor creaks a bit. Still, as
I said, I zipped through it just like that.
Reading Ernest
Hemingway
rather spoils it for you when you read other writers, who can
seem like lazy bastards, wasting words, not cutting to the bone
but also detracting from the bigger picture and essence at the
same time. It strikes me that the opening section of 'To have and have not' (1937) is as near
perfection as it's possible to get in the downbeat existential
thriller mode - not that you can categorise writing of such sheer
quality. He takes you there. (May 6)
'Havana Rakatan' at the theatre was colourful. It was good to see and hear the Cuban dance troupe and musicians but it to tell the truth it was frenetic and a bit wearing; even 'Guantanamera' was high energy. As threatened am now deep into an Ernest Hemingway binge. 'A moveable feast' (1964) can feel a bit odd, a time warp kicking in now and then, not the least the Gertrude Stein chapter and the stuff on homosexuality therein. But he takes you there, and Paris way back then seems a pretty good place to be. Wish I'd kept a notepad for some wonderful phrases. Spare but vivid prose. "It was the year that the rich showed up" - he writes as the fun goes out of a ski scene. And talk about taking you there - 'Fiesta: the sun also rises' (1927) is a tremendous piece of writing, the absolute moment, the sadness, the land and cities so vivid; no jokes but a huge feeling of wellbeing for enough of the time too. He's so good that stuff you aren't that keen on the idea of - bullfighting, game hunting - has you completely. There's a two part Nick Adams solo fishing trip in 'The first forty-nine stories' (1939, but written 1921-38) that is mesmeric. Moments in a man's life in the context of a world full of terrible things, moments of salvation in the personal. Unfashionable but a huge presence.
Watched the dvd of 'Atonement'. A fine film, the war scenes devastating - Hemingway would approve I'm sure - but is 'atonement' quite the right word for what that bitch Briony 'achieves' after a successful writing career 50 years on? I don't think so, and how can she? - now there's 20 novels I wouldn't ever want to read. There have always been monsters at the core of many of Ian McEwan's books; maybe that's what I hold against him. [Dreadful football dilemma of who do I least want to win they Premier League. Ferguson such a pain (of course Carrick handled) as against a team bought with money stolen from the Russian people, but then there's sympathy for Avram.] (April 27)
Catching up
with the sequence chronologically, re-read Mark Billingham's 'Lifeless' (2005), the one where
Thorne goes undercover among the London homeless. The backstory
certainly enhances the reading and you learn a bit about the milieu.
Didn't really like Ian
McEwan's 'On Chesil beach' (Cape, 2007), which struck me as being a bit
prurient, like a lot of his early stuff. For sure Edward and Florence's
sexual disaster may well reflect the misery that afflicted couples
before the knowing '60s (not a problem, really, in 'Atonement', set some 20 years
earlier, by the way), but to posit the problem of premature ejaculation
as some sort of turning point is pushing it to my mind; the Chuck
Berry, and too early Beatles & Stones references are wrong
- shoulda been Big Bill Broonzy?
I have this problem with Ian McEwan and his giant reputation, and it's not just
that he uses posh people and rich backgrounds - I really like
Poliakoff's work, after all - and drops high culture references
all over the place. So I forced myself to read 'Atonement' (2001), which loads of people, including
my partner, absolutely love. It's clever stuff (the playing with
notions of fiction and mucking us, the readers, about, are well
done) but there are too many words and - what does this say about
me? - too many unnecessarily long paragraphs. I'm a sucker for
decent dialogue as narrative drive and I just don't need all that
description, 'fine' writing though it may be. I'm in danger of
diving for the Hemingway to compensate. Having
said that, I was gripped a lot of the time, not least by the Dunkirk
section. The final 'surprise' was well worked and the young Briony
is one of the prize bitches. What I can't lose, however, is the
feeling that, given how hard it is to get a rape conviction even
these days, Robbie wouldn't have beaten the bum rap that is central
to the book (not that we are party to the court scene), never
mind that she, the victim ... but I won't give it away.
Was good to be in the audience for 'Zorro: the musical'; lot of colour and movement, a set
that really worked and some great music - Gipsy Kings tunes - compensating for its somewhat
uneven tone; death scenes, cod fights, Bond jokiness, gentle humour,
heroism from a little guy with big heart - soap really, I guess,
but genuinely entertaining. I'm listening to the Gipsy Kings right
now.
On TV, the second series of 'Gavin and Stacey' hits a lot of spots - 'What's occurin'?' Barry lass Ness a
deadpan delight. And that episode of 'The class' where Richie drives his car into the
convenience store front is a real classic - so much going on.
(April 11).
And so to the splendid new (well, it was to me) Wembley Stadium to see the mighty Dons beat Grimsby and so win the Johnstone's Paint Trophy. Good day, lucky with the trains; shame wembley has to be in, um, Wembley. They reckon about an eighth of the population of MK was there. I've always seen Jeff Beck's 'Hi-ho silver lining' as some sort of musical nadir, but I guess there's a time and place for everything. And while we're on music - what a joy Nick Cave's video to 'Dig, Lazarus, dig' is. And I'm working my way through a boxed set (not that big a box, it must be said) of Lonnie Johnson, who not only played the blues, but also with Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington along the way. Great guitar and an education in music history, further evidence that we rock kids of old were blinded by a certain notion of authenticity. Speaking of which, is there a better book written by a participant than George Melly's 'Owning up' (1965), telling the tale of his days in a jazz band from the period of the post-war birth of the revivalist movement in the UK through to the Trad boom (and bust) and beyond? Fascinating, informative and very funny. I've got 4 CDs of Louis Armstrong's Hot Fives and Sevens to look forward to, too. Behind me, a performance of the RSC production of Chekhov's 'Uncle Vanya' at the theatre. Neil Pearson's performance was worth seeing but I came out saying, "What was the point of that?" To which Andy wisely replied, "Precisely". Because that seemed to be the conclusion that the soppy girl and her uncle came to about life; oh yes, but there's a spectacular starry sky to look forward to at the end apparently. You can see why the Russian Revolution was such a pushover for the Bolsheviks.
And, what a hectic life I lead ... had a good time Thursday in the Fox & Hounds in Stony with modern and fusion jazzers the Cathi Cooke Band. All this and Jackie Leven tomorrow night. After these 6 days it'll take a while to recover. (March 30)
Keeping it chronological, Mark Billingham really hits his stride in the fourth Tom Thorne book, 'The burning girl' (2004). The plotting gets niftier, the characterisation hits decent sitcom level when it doesn't have to be too heavy. The title image of the burning girl haunts; chilling stuff again, socially and personally. As a copper, Thorne is a bit of a grumpy old man, but this is his basic credo: "He stood for a minute, and then another, letting people move past him as the day began to wind down. It wasn't that he had any grand moral notions about serving these people. He didn't imagine for one second that he, or the thousands like him, could really protect them. But he had to side with those who drew a line ... " In passing, he's a Spurs supporter. Should never a surprise that football can be so dispiriting; I'll just say: Cristiano bloody Ronaldo, Didier bleedin' Drogba. (March 24)
The third of Mark Billingham's Tom Thorne sequence of crime novels, 'Lazy bones' (2003) keeps up the good work, this one with a sharp eye to the consequences of violent crime on generations of families, and the disappointments and blindnesses that can happen, without resort to sentimentality. It's powerful and chilling stuff, but the sometime comedy of Thorne's day to day existence is still there. John O'Farrell's 'An utterly impartial history of Britain, or 2000 years of upper class idiots in charge' (Doubleday, 2007) made me laugh a lot but I learned a fair bit too from its 400+ pages - like the weather rather than Francis Drake & the English navy defeating the Spanish Armada and what a big deal David Lloyd George was. The main trick is to present history with an easy contemporary perception (the Vikings = lager louts etc) and the luxury of hindsight, but also with a canny eye seeing parallels of today's news with historical events. 'The Bronze Age: when the clever kids did metalwork' is a fair reperesenation of the sub-chapter heads and gives a flavour. There's also the quiet and moving celebration of the emergence (relatively peacefully) of democracy in these islands, of the common people (now there's a phrase) making their way. Finishes with, "Why don't I put the kettle on". Spent a diverting 20 minutes at mkG for the Marcel Broodthaers retrospective, left with a wry smile; had no idea he died 30 years ago until I read the handout afterwards - not so modern, then, this wide variety of 'art practice'. Liked all the work that had gone into the message in a bottle - the wine bottle, the elegant graphics, the literary touch. (16 March)
Some catching
up to do.
And so, a long time ago now, to the theatre, there to enjoy Matthew Bourne's production of Tchaikovsky's 'Nutcracker'. Great set, great
music, moving, charming - my favourites the licorice allsorts.
He did a Q&A afterwards; along with all the stupid stuff,
like, "Where do you get your inspiration?", some intersting
autobiog from him and on how the company works. When asked what
his next ballet was going to be he averred - no, I don't do ballet,
we put on a SHOW. I don't do dance or ballet but I do do Matthew
Bourne.
'South
Pacific'
a week later was mostly hopeless. Am-dram, fiddly sets, mannered,
unnecessarily cod American accents, horrible synthesizer backing
track, no sexual chemistry. And very long.
What Kevin Keegan calls 'the people's theatre' - you do begin
to feel sorry for Kevin - the mighty Dons get into the final of the Johnson's Paint Trophy
at Wembley via a penalty shoot out. Nice Swansea chant of "We're
the sheepshaggers from hell". You still can't get away from
the fact that an awful lot of stupid people, especially kids trying
to impress their mates, go to football.
Reading matter of late:
Robert
Spencer: 'The truth about Muhammad: founder of the world's most
intolerant religion' (Regnery,
2006); it's not pretty. A warrior prophet into conquest without
the wait; with Christianity it was the kings who converted a few
centuries later who started slaughtering people. People of the
book? - Spencer can't find anything to substantiate the claim
that Muhammad was the fulfillment of anything foretold in the
Xtian scriptures. The prophet seemed to get some awfully convenient
messages from the angel Gabe at certain junctures. Depressing
stuff.
Knocked out, as ever, by the fifth and final book of Alan Moore's phenomenal comic
'Promethea' (2005) - we, our thoughts,
what we make and do, are all still part of the big bang. Worth
many, many more conventional works of exegesis - wit, learning,
wisdom.
Read 'Reading
in bed'
by Sue
Gee (Headline,
2007) in bed, naturally. The plight of a couple of, on the surface,
contented, well off, well educated 60 year old middle class women
pondering retirement and the passing of time, and of their nearest
and dearest, centred on the worlds of academe and do-goodery in
north London. Light and dark, with some nice authorial touches
- compassion and contempt. I cared what happened to them all.
Much laughter at 'Rafta
Rafta'
at the theatre. Went on as long as 'South Pacific but I could
have taken much more. Poignant too, this tale of two generations
of Indian immigrants in the north of England. Beautifully acted
and a tremendous set, a house with kitchen, living room &
two upstairs bedrooms all there all the time, cast going up stairs
etc. Some lovely comic timing.
Somewhat entranced by MasterChef on the telly. Superior
reality tv (can you say that, given what they were cooking?) with
finalists Johnny, James & Emily all such - well - nice and
good people, all of whom I wish well. (March 3)
I'm still not convinced as to quite why they twinned the two murderers at the start of the investigation in Mark Billingham's 'Scaredy cat' (2002) but that hardly matters as he develops his detective, Tom Thorne, and the action and agonies mount. "Were they mutually exclusive - the good copper and the good person?" pretty much sums it up, as he gives it a haunted go. The first book in the sequence - 'Sleepyhead' (2001) - works well too, emotional twists and all. Couple of really disturbed villains in these two novels. Hard, too, to resist a line like, "Johnny Cash made good music to read post mortem reports by."
Omid Djalili live was much better than I'd feared - we'd bought the tickets before his tv series was aired. Less of the shouting and none of the naff sketches. With room to breathe there was some very funny stuff and some great body language. And a rich vein around the mantra of, "Racism ... or playing with race?", which as an Anglo-Iranian, he can do.
Intriguing exhibition at the British Library - 'Breaking the rules: the printed face of the European avant garde 1900-1937'. Now graphic design classics, of course, but what a leap it must have been back then. A lot of it still fresh. Was particularly taken by, "In 1930 Marinetti published a manifesto of Futurist cuisine in which he attacked bourgeois cooking and proposed the abolition of pasta."
And back a couple of weeks, a Saturday in the winter sun in Brighton, buzzing with life. Couple of 12 year old buskers doing great business with spirited versions of stuff like 'Knocking on heaven's door' and another troupe, a Spanish (?) style brass band, hugely entertaining, near the Pavillion. Along the shore, loads of washed up timber from a distressed cargo boat, being shaped into words of love (and, though less, it has to be said, obscenity); a couple of teepees constructed, Incan (or was it Aztec) sun patterns, sculptors amateur and pretty obviously not so amateur at work. Not to mention a terrific meal at 'Terre a terre'. Spoiled for taste now, after that. (Feb 11)
Back to a quick blast of Brit crime fiction complete with soundtrack in the text. The latest Tom Thorne from Mark Billingham, 'Death message' (Little, Brown, 2007) does very nicely thank you. Younger than Rebus and Banks, but maverick enough, best mate a gay pathologist with piercings - interesting enough to make me want to start the sequence from the first book, anyway. Some nice one liners about living in London. Musically, of late, a Sonny Boy Williamson compilation is hard to remove from the CD player. (Jan 21)
Totally absorbing 90 minutes of film by Thomas Riedelsheimer - 'Rivers and tides: Andy Goldsworthy working with time' (2001). The artist biting off bits of an icicle to make it fit. Feel the disappointment of the literal collapse of a project. That battered and damaged state of the man's fingers from being hands-on with his material, outdoors, creating temporary wonders, making you see the landscape and its processes, humanity's interactions, afresh.
Major contribution to the literature of The Kinks from Thomas M. Kitts with 'Ray Davies: not like everybody else' (Routledge, 2007), the most detailed examination of the man and his work yet.; I learnt from it. (Jan 17)
Philip Roth's novel featuring the writer Nathan
Zuckerman, 'Exit ghost' (Cape, 2007), continues in his usual cheerful
vein about the joys of growing old (not) and muses over many things,
not the least being the idea of literature, of literary reputation
and, indeed, creation itself. There's a fine rage here and some
great dialogue, some of it imaginary in the context of this fiction,
fuelled by desire. Hell of a writer, the plotting, carrying on
from his 'Ghost
writer' intrigues as well,
and does not disappoint. He makes one of his characters write
a letter to a newspaper complaining of the celebrity status that
fuels the book world these days:
p184: "If
I had something like Stalin's power, I would not squander it on
silencing the imaginative writers. I would silence those who write
about the imaginative writers. I'd forbid all public discussion
of literature in newspapers, magazines and scholarly periodicals.
I'd forbid all instruction in literature in every grade school,
high school, college and university in the country. I'd outlaw
reading groups and Internet book chatter, and police the bookstores
to be certain that no clerk ever spoke to a customer about a book
and that the customers did not dare to speak to one another. I'd
leave the readers alone with the books, to make of them what they
would on their own."
Mad, of course, and impossible - an inevitable contradiction in
there - but you can see what she/he means. (Jan 13)
Finally finished a great fat bio of Rudyard Kipling going under the title of, um, 'Rudyard Kipling', by Andrew Lycett (Weidenfeld & N, 1999). It went on a bit, to tell the truth. I read this because Billy Bragg mentioned Kipling's 'Kim' in the same breath as one of my favourite books - Mark Twain's 'Huckleberry Finn' - and was knocked out by it, full of life and beautifully written. He was a Daily Express reader at heart but at his writing best a daemon (the word he used) of greater wisdom took over. Jingoism & empire but virulently anti-Fascist (if pro-Mussolini) - see what I mean? The man is something else, full of contradictions. In India, he favoured the Muslims, but was a pretty unreligious man prone to giving praise to Allah. Great champion of the airplane but wouldn't have a phone in the house. 35 years in each century, family connections with the Pre-Raphaelites and Tory prime Ministers. He was a friend of George V but refused a knighthood. Never mind 'The jungle book' and his personal Great War tragedy - jingoist recruiter whose underage son was killed on the first day he was 'legal' to fight. Some choice quotes to make you ponder:
p500: " ... Rudyard replied, saying he liked the descriptions of sights and smells [in a book about Marrakesh] but could not understand his friend's liking for the 'barbaric music ... for I always thought that Europeans were not affected by the scales of coloured people - always excepting those imbeciles who find satisfaction in the horrors of 'jazz' music which is pure nigger.' " (Well I'm the king of the swingers!)
p511: "(This may well have been the occasion when Rudyard was examined rectally. He later joked, or so Oliver Baldwin liked to recount, 'If this is what Oscar wilde went to prison for, he ought to have got the Victoria Cross.)"
p551: " ... his concern at what he saw as the breakdown of established values in the countryside. He attributed a spate of country house fires directly to the practice of allowing junior maids to smoke, for example. He felt that morality was being eroded by servants staying out late at dances." (Needless to say, he was a smoker.)
p577: "Although ... paid $25,000 each for [movie] options on ... ['Captains Courageous' and 'Kim'], Rudyard had come to view this aspect of his business with wry scepticism. When the studio asked if he could add some sex appeal to the script of 'Captains Courageous', he provided the information that 'a happily married lady cod fish lays about 3 million eggs at one confinement'." (Jan 10)
Saturday night we're in the pub playing book-the-cabaret-for-the-Titanic. Switch to New Year's Eve in front of the telly (yeah, I know) and some of the first names mentioned in the pub are there from the off in Jools Holland's 'Hootenanny'. Lulu, Kylie, the stupid big-grinning face of Lenny Henry. Well I've been wavering of late, Jools, but now you've really blown it for me. Surely someone can come up with a reasonable alternative also minus the drunk celebrities dubiously bopping in their seats? Like just having Seasick Steve (thanks for that at least) interrupted by the bagpipes at the right moment. And some people (hi Sal!) still won't believe it's pre-recorded. (Jan 3)
