STUART HOME - any love here?

Buick6

too punk to drunk
I been reading and highly enjoying his books of late...I read the 69 THINGS book and COME BEFORE CHRIST AND MURDER, I woukld desribe his work as psycho-geographic art-pulp..i love how his potty charatcers just fuck and schiz their way across the urban/rural landscapes of the UK and HOme cross references with all this radical art-movement theroies and history.

In many ways his books tune into the the 'hyperlink' culture of today better than pretty much any novelist going, but the thing I really enjoy is that his books have a real strong narrative rigour to them..He doesn't just write any fucken stream of consiousness fucken bullshit like all those 'trendy' 'transgressive' writers of today, his books have stories, ideas and cracking prose. They're also funny as hell and wander in and out of genres like horror, noir, mystery - he's really doing something post-cyberpunk or even 'slipstream' should be with his clusterfuck of genre.

I guess thats why his books read better now than fucking dated dogshit Irvine Welsh or Dennis Cooper.
 

jenks

thread death
The Home I have read certainly hasn't lived up to teh advance publicity.

Just read this by his old mate Sinclair and thought, now that's real writing:

"In the mornings, there is a clinging, overripe smell that some people say drifts in from the countryside, a folk memory of what these clipped green acres used, so recently, to be. Mulch of market gardens. Animal droppings in hot mounds. The distant rumble of construction convoys. The heron dance of elegant cloud-scraping cranes. Flocks of cyclists clustering together for safety, dipping and swerving like swallows. Hard hats and yellow tabards monkeying over the scaffolding of shrouded towers, the steel ribs of emerging stadia. Early risers, in the privilege of first-use recreatio n, a smudge of sun burning off the fug of pollution that hangs over a pre-Olympic city, fall into quiet conversation. Ice-cream kiss of almond blossom, bridal abundance of cherry: pink and white. Yellow pom-poms of japonica, horticultural cheerleaders. In a corner, under a high wall that gives away the previous identity of this public park as a decommissioned energy-generating plant, retired workers sway, stiffly and slowly, in t’ai chi ballets."

Opening para from his piece on this week's LRB.
 

slim jenkins

El Hombre Invisible
I think Home's interesting...how he's carved out a career from what he does, without compromise and become some kind of darling of the critics in some sections. I like the way his writing doesn't pander to Lit traditions, regardless of it's 'quality'. What would you expect from a Richard Allen devotee?

He almost made me lay down my tools during the Art Strike. Almost.
 

hucks

Your Message Here
The Home I have read certainly hasn't lived up to teh advance publicity.

Just read this by his old mate Sinclair and thought, now that's real writing:

Can anyone recommend any Sinclair in particular? I've never read any, but am desperate for new reading material.
 

nomos

Administrator
Can anyone recommend any Sinclair in particular? I've never read any, but am desperate for new reading material.
I liked Lights Out for the Territory. Now I'm wondering whether to start Downriver or London Orbital next.
 

jenks

thread death
I liked Lights Out for the Territory. Now I'm wondering whether to start Downriver or London Orbital next.

I think Orbital is similarly accessible to Lights Out.

I am a big fan of his fervid fiction - Downriver being his masterpiece. Essentially taps into that whole East London alternative history which Ackroyd then polishes for public consumption. It fots alongside Limehouse Golem, Mother London by Moorcock and Capital by Duffy but with rogue second book sellers, a wiff of Conrad and a personal rant on the Isle of Dogs.

Also check out his poetry - White Chappell, Scarlett Tracings and Lud Heat.
 
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