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Men and Apparitions? I read that earlier in the year. I liked most of it an awful lot. I’d be interested in what you think of the final section.

There is a real sun-genre of literary trauma writing at the moment - usually women writing about how awful, painful events have continuing effects on their lives. Alice Hart Rick’s Ill Feelings, for example. There was also a whole anthology by Dodo Ink called Trauma. Some of it is good writing...

I have banned myself from commenting on Bowie on this forum.

That is true

I haven’t invented a rule. Like/dislike stuff but don’t be comparing her to Cook. In much the same way you’d be pissed off if people compared Prynne to Pam Ayers. It might be a good joke but it’s not useful criticism

No. I’m not having that. But you framing the discussion about fat ankles/draughtsmanship etc makes it a pretty pointless discussion cos you are positioning Rego in a way that suits you -ie denigrating her and privileging Cook over her whilst also suggesting I’m a philistine. I’m not going to say...

Oh for fucks sake! This ‘something really good is actually shit’ trope that we’re having recently on here is getting tiresome. I get iconoclasm, I get it but sometimes it’s just a philistinism. Rego is not like Cook at all. There…I’ve bitten to your trolling Luka.

A shame as I’d been looking forward to it as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a cornerstone text for me - I did my dissertation on it many years ago. The reviews have generally not been kind. Birtwhistle did an opera based on it but I know fuck all about opera.

Read The Red Tent whilst i liked some of the ideas the prose was pretty dire

This is the Day is a great tune. Love this. Thanks @bunnyhausen

As well as Monument Maker mentioned previously (which I’m enjoying even if it is a formless mess.) I’m also reading the latest Percival Everrett - his I am Not Sidney Poitier was one of my favourites last year - this is similarly a mix of playful narrative styling with much to say about identity...

Trust the Oratory to do it differently! Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa etc

I think you might be confusing the Catholic Church with the Temple of Mithras, an easy mistake.

I like Heart of the Matter but then again I like almost all of Greene except the comic ones like Travels with My Aunt.

Of course vespers is an evening service not an afternoon one …if you want full ‘smells and bells’ then St Ethelreda’s in Ely Place at 11 on a Sunday is a good insight into a High Catholic Mass. Farm St, Soho Sq and Hoxton Sq all have busy Catholic congregations.

There’s a new edition that looks like they’ve actually reset it rather than just used the same ancient plates - with that slightly fuzzy print which does my eyes no favours at all. I think all they do is magnify the plate and that creates the poor resolution which the NYRB edition has.

Yes

Currently reading Monument Maker - engaging and all but structurally a bag of spanners so far.

The snobbery over Proust translations is long standing. The recent-ish Penguin split the volumes across a number of people - most agree Lydia Davis’ opening volume is the gold standard but bouncing around between different translators makes for an uneven read while the updated Montcrieff has the...

That passage reminded me of the suicides encased within trees in Dante - then I googled it to find Blake had done a series of illustrations- drawing two of your themes together. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wood_of_the_Self-Murderers:_The_Harpies_and_the_Suicides