Wyndham Lewis

[Benny B]

Just ordered The Wild Body collection of short stories, won't get to read it for a while, gotta finish Ulysses first, but I'm sure there's a few people here who've read him and like his art and I want recommendations, opinions so fire away.

BLAST mag, vorticism, short stories novels, poetry, essays...fascism???

 

[luka]

time and western man
wild body
enemy of the stars

all good

some dull novels and some that are just too baggy and too long

 

[Benny B]

I was between ordering wild body and Tarr but I thought short stories would be an easier introduction.

Don't actually know very much about him and read nothing, but he seems like another important piece of the modernist puzzle and someone to go to after reading Pound, Joyce etc...

The little I've seen of BLAST looks brilliant on a purely visual level, but the only thing I've read is Pound's vorticist manifesto

 

[Benny B]

Published reproductions of blast look to be out of print/ridiculously expensive unfortunately

 

[version]

Published reproductions of blast look to be out of print/ridiculously expensive unfortunately

There are scans online at least, Luke posted one a while back.

https://monoskop.org/images/c/c1/Blast_2.pdf

 

[Benny B]

Ah brilliant. Just flicking through, had no idea that Eliot's Preludes was published there, that's one of his best.

Annoying to have to have to squint-read it on a mobile phone but better than nothing, thanks!

 

[luka]

been reading a bit of tarr. i'd be amazed if i finish it but i do love his descriptions of people. grotesques devoid of any sympathy.

 

[jenks]

There was a very good exhibition at the NPC of Lewis’ portraits. It endeared me to him once more. As a youngster I loved the Blast stuff, read a lot of the fiction but with diminishing returns, Huxley rather skewered him in Antic Hay with his character Lypiatt - a barely concealed version of WL.

With all these people from the 10s-20s, I’m always impressed with the sheer energy and productivity. A real sense of urgency about everything they’re doing. The exceptions are Elliot and Joyce (they took ages over a small oeuvre) and, I don’t know if that’s a coincidence, they’re the ones whose reputation has never faltered.