what are you reading now?
luka
Well-known member
g'day sheilas. i am reading robert hughes the fatal shore which i reccommend even if you dislike australians. it is a history of the transportation of convicts to australia. if you find swaggering priapic prose repugnant you better give it a miss though. im also reading the third volume of poems for the millenium which focuses on the romantic era and is maybe the best one of the series.
Lucia Lanigan
Member
Yep, that's the one (both are superb, mind you). He didn't really write anything bad, although his focus did flit between religion / the occult on the one hand and modernity on the other. There's a right little gem called M. Bougran's Retirement which Hesperus publish as an add-on to With The Flow. Anyone who's experienced the reverse of Morrissey's looking for a job and finding one will feel right at home in its vertiginous absurdity.
IdleRich
IdleRich
In his autobiography Klaus Kinski cliams that people often compared his writing to Celine's (probably favourably knowing Kinksi) - he's definitely got the misanthropy down pat, dunno about the rest of the package though.
Sounds really interesting. Is that some kind of Melville reference in the title?
i like robert hughes. in a level art classes sometimes they used to show us a series he made for channel 4 (i think) called 'shock of the new'. it was about modernism in art and his stridency affirmed the subject matter in a sort of inspiring way.
but anyway i'm reading albert angelo by b s johnson. its in a recent collection of three out of print novels, called omnibus. it's pleasantly close to the bone for anyone who's ever led a foggy-minded existence in london of dully and mildy tortured sort.
he thought that in the province of storytelling the 19th century novel had been superceded by film and tv, so he wanted to bring it into a newly distinctive arena by focusing on inward states and experimentally revising form. even at the time apparently, people played down his innovations as old. on the other hand, he is in fact a good storyteller and he does have jacket quotes from samuel beckett, which were hardly granted on an everyday basis. eventually, it seems, he had some kind of breakdown and stopped writing.
maybe it's interesting that his concerns don't seem to have been reflected since in any general development of thr novel form. but that a version of his morose personal confessionalism has become tiresomely common with nick hornby and so on. i'm already pretty sure he's a pretty great writer.
Lucia Lanigan
Member
People who said Johnson wasn't truly 'experimental' would have a point, in that the formal innovations he talked up had already been made, more succesfully, by the French nouveau roman and our own Christine Brooke-Rose, not to mention various modernists, surrealists and so on before he was born.
But I don't think that matters. He was a unique and talented writer, equal parts Tony Hancock and Jean Luc Godard at times. There's a conflict between the inescapable crapness of British life, where the 50s didn't end until the 70s for most people, and his autodidact's awareness of artistic possibilities just within reach, that gives his stuff a manic drive I enjoy. Christie Malry's Own Double Entry captures that best, I think.
But I don't think that matters. He was a unique and talented writer, equal parts Tony Hancock and Jean Luc Godard at times. There's a conflict between the inescapable crapness of British life, where the 50s didn't end until the 70s for most people, and his autodidact's awareness of artistic possibilities just within reach, that gives his stuff a manic drive I enjoy. Christie Malry's Own Double Entry captures that best, I think.
Still bugging out on how great this book is. I reckon it'd be of interest for anyone doing creative stuff of whatever kind - e.g. there's a bit where Murch is talking about translating an Italian writer's prose into English poetry and how he just instinctively threw in line breaks to compensate for the lack of musicality in his translation vs. Italian. Ondaatje says the line breaks are fantastically placed, Murch comments it's just the same as choosing when to cut in a film. Lots of musing on creativity - the roles of collaboration, realisation, chance, etc.
I did a wee search, saw someone quote it back in 2005 (wow there were some good threads back then), but nothing more recent.
Didn't help me when I went to see a blockbuster the other night, admittedly.
jenks
thread death
The Tin Drum by Grass but my edition (hard back Everyman) has got a horrible font size and when I looked at the Vintage edition in a bookshop it was equally as bad. I know it sounds pathetic but it's really off putting and I want to read it (and i have to read it as part of a book group thing). I don't suppose there are other editions out there with better fonts - oh for the days of Black Swan books.
I should also add that the first chapter is excellent.
Just finished The Hare with Amber Eyes - really fascinating book that is essentially a Sebald like discovery of family history through the movement of a collection of netsuke between family members. It's a very delicately written account that starts in Oddessa, takes in 19th C Paris in its pomp, the rise of the Nazis and eventual return of the netsuke to Japan. And it's non-fiction. First class stuff
I should also add that the first chapter is excellent.
Just finished The Hare with Amber Eyes - really fascinating book that is essentially a Sebald like discovery of family history through the movement of a collection of netsuke between family members. It's a very delicately written account that starts in Oddessa, takes in 19th C Paris in its pomp, the rise of the Nazis and eventual return of the netsuke to Japan. And it's non-fiction. First class stuff
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Small traditional Japanese ornaments, carved from wood, ivory or whatever.
Edit: damn, that's a much better (and cuter) answer.
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grizzleb
Well-known member
My vintage copy of Tin Drum is pretty tiny font size too. I'm not too fussed by font size though - but I'd keep at it. Some of the scenes and quips in it are absolutely hilarious. The darkest of dark humour, a brilliant novel.
Will keep a look out for the second novel you mentioned. I loved Austerlitz when I read it.
yeah stuff like the holes struck me as a bit dada maybe. i don't know anything about nouveau roman or christine brooke-rose to be honest, but i'll hit wikipedia at some point!
i agree it doesn't matter at all. that 50s going on 70s crapness is really pungent, i like that.
i'm onto trawl now which is great as well, but i want to read christie malry too, that looks good and maybe quite funny.
