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I’m still waiting for mine. I have a horrible feeling that the total implosion of Unbound/Boundless may mean mine forever remains in a box in a warehouse somewhere like an artefact from Indiana Jones.

I thought the Sebald one showed just how difficult a man he was and potentially an unpleasant one - wife and daughter refusing to contribute - but also how important his work was/is - specifically the way he broke with the German literature of the past. Not sure I'd want to go for a pint with him.

I think you should finish it - i must have tried Proust half a dozen times before it finally clicking - I've now read the whole thing twice, couple of biogs, his early work and lots of critical stuff on him - the only other writer that i had that same level of obsession with was Flaubert.

I’ve read it. It’s pretty readable. Found the relentless present tense quite wearing after a while and I did wonder if a modern totalitarian state would operate in quite the way he suggests but the focus on the woman rather than the ‘heroic’ man is of interest.

I think I like it because he allows himself to become a bit more unhinged in it - there are the usual great comic characters but there is a great interest in obsession - sexual, monetary which he develops more fully than in his other work. And the golden dustman is a fabulous character.

One of my favourites of his.

Like a pound shop Curtis

If you’re interested this discussion on FMF and The Good Soldier is worth a listen - I was in the audience for the recording. https://www.backlisted.fm/episodes/212-the-good-soldier-by-ford-madox-ford

I read a lot of them - the very best ones are either the totally exhaustive doorstops like Ellman on Joyce or the Robb biogs of Rimbaud or Hugo, Bellos on Perec or they’ve got some stylistic or structural quirky angle - Schama’s Rembrandt’s Eyes or Lewis’ Peter Sellers or his Erotic Vagrancy. I...

That’s a rather vicious one. There is a three volume Pound biog that is forensic in its detail. Probably more information than anyone ever needs.

Inspired by @Benny Bunter asking about Ackroyd’s Eliot and also reading that Ellman’s biography of Joyce is to be the subject of its own book, I was interested by: what are the good biographies of writers out there; what makes a good one and, by comparison what makes a bad one...

It’s good enough if you want to get the main points - line you say no verse quoted which makes it awkward when actually discussing his work and ideas. It’s Ackroyd before he becomes a parody of himself. I like his Blake much more but found his Dickens too fanciful in places - including actual...

Not far off - COYS

Just seen this on Audible planning to have AI generated narrators for audiobooks https://open.substack.com/pub/samj/p/thats-audiobooks-ruined-then?r=4hxm6&utm_medium=ios

I was talking to someone about this. He was saying that record companies now want cover art to something identifiable as a thumbnail - hence the crap designs.

Perec: Un Homme Qui Dort You are only occasionally fascinated by an insect, a stone, a fallen leaf, a tree: sometimes you spend hours contemplating a tree, describing it, dissecting it: the roots, the trunk, the branches, the leaves, every leaf, every rib of every leaf, every branch again...

Not listened to this but thought it might appeal to the few regular Dead posters here

Not a novel but a non fiction account of her commute - all written on her iphone notes app https://www.laurenelkin.com/9192