tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10938371313892369422024-02-19T18:00:10.597-08:00Little Dog LaughedA blog for lovers of literature...JohnBurnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15907847376933023678noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1093837131389236942.post-76236902714543833892014-11-18T03:25:00.000-08:002014-11-18T03:25:54.023-08:00Vegan Reading: The Jungle by Upton Sinclair<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja5Vean7YAM3I_r6vEr2eHuHBl5AXY3_0LCa5_pYvUtXahIpUtvwjDOHpUMytpyxEnhLLKPdy00CLN2vHX4HSXmF0PC4GkmaVNsOPk30FkVze4RdJ9s0o6TKv-XijaPFpfVzyt6RJP3vE/s1600/Upton_Beall_Sinclair_Jr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja5Vean7YAM3I_r6vEr2eHuHBl5AXY3_0LCa5_pYvUtXahIpUtvwjDOHpUMytpyxEnhLLKPdy00CLN2vHX4HSXmF0PC4GkmaVNsOPk30FkVze4RdJ9s0o6TKv-XijaPFpfVzyt6RJP3vE/s1600/Upton_Beall_Sinclair_Jr.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Upton Sinclair</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
On the surface a novel about the starry-eyed migrants who came to the USA in the 19th century in search of a better life, The Jungle by Upton Sinclair has been highlighted as a text that inspired some readers to make the leap to a vegetarian lifestyle.<br />
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Published in 1904 by socialist-minded journalist Upton Sinclair, The Jungle follows Lithuanian migrant worker Jurgis Rudkus as he struggles to make a living in 19th century Chicago. The book’s central theme is the way in which those on the bottom rungs of the labour ladder are swallowed by the capitalist machine, drawing instant comparisons with Robert Tressell’s The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists published a decade later.<br />
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But it is the brutal realism of the depictions of the Chicago meat industry that have left a profound effect on many readers. Rudkus initially works in the slaughterhouses of Packingtown, helping to operate the machinery that sends cattle en masse irrevocably to their end. The power of the descriptions of these mechanisms – themselves mirroring the callous progress of their capitalist creators – has turned more than a few stomachs over the years, and even turned some towards a complete lifestyle change.<br />
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<a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/7-books-that-might-make-you-a-vegetarian/">Writing on the Barnes and Noble blog</a>, Lauren Passell describes the impact of the book on her reading group, even a century after it was first published;<br />
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“When my book club read The Jungle a few months ago,” Passell writes, “membership dropped drastically. People said they couldn’t handle reading about the nastiness of the meat industry, even though the meat industry in question existed more than 100 years ago.”<br />
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Have any other books provoked such a drastic lifestyle change in you? Let me know!<br />
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<a href="http://healthyhints.com.au/effective-protein-substitutes-for-vegetarians/">Click here for information on good protein sources for vegetarian diets.</a><br />
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JohnBurnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15907847376933023678noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1093837131389236942.post-16030112605377055742014-11-06T19:50:00.000-08:002014-11-06T19:50:32.575-08:00Cliché: Something to Avoid or to Attack?Writers are told to avoid clichés at all costs, but is such an attitude really necessary? After all, words and phrases become clichés after they are used again and again, which means they must be possessed of some inherent good in the first place.<br />
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Of course no great literature ever came out of re-treading tired turns of phrase over and over ad infinitum, and so it is the duty of all writers to find new ways to express their ideas. And if those methods of expression are good enough they might just become the clichés of the future, if the author is lucky!<br />
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But this does not mean that writers should simply give up the ground lost to cliché. If something has become passé, it simply means that it requires a new construction. To shun something for being cliché is not good enough; it constitutes a simple adherence to a ‘writer’s rulebook’ – something which does not, and should not, exist.<br />
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The best writers have the skill and confidence to tackle clichés head on, without fear of their work becoming mired in what has been said before. These writers can twist a cliché into a new form, reconstructing it and making it their own. Do this and you will be victorious; run away from clichés out of fear and you will have suffered defeat.<br />
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<a href="http://loveromance.hubgarden.com/5-romance-novel-cliches-that-writers-should-be-aware-of/">Click here for more info on clichés in romance literature, and how to deal with them.</a><br />
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JohnBurnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15907847376933023678noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1093837131389236942.post-43578994533349567472013-11-16T18:46:00.001-08:002014-10-28T23:12:52.807-07:00Translated Texts vs the Originals: When Language Becomes a Problem<div style="text-align: left;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tim Mackintosh Smith, author and translator.<br />
His work with the writing of Moroccan traveller<br />
and writer Ibn Battutah has earned him deserved plaudits</td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US">Unless we happen to be some kind of
superhuman polyglot, all of us are going to read a translated text at some
point. Of the thirty highest ranked novels in The Guardian’s much lauded/argued
over “Top 100” list, eight were written in a language other than English. Meanwhile, novels translated into English repeatedly bother the upper reaches of
bestseller charts, proving that literature truly is a beast that transcends geolinguistic
boundaries.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The work of novelists such as Norway’s </span><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 12pt;">Jo </span><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Nesbø</span><span lang="EN-US"> and
Sweden’s Stieg Larsson have proved phenomenally popular in Anglophonic countries,
and the English translations of texts such as “Crime and Punishment”, “Madame
Bovary” and “The Dangerous Liasons” continue to shift copies many generations
after their original publication.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">So, does it matter that the book we are
reading is perhaps not the one envisaged by the author?</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">There are several schools of thought on
this, the most popular being a pragmatic one: of course we should try to read
works of literature in the language in which they were written, but we should
also recognize that this will not always be possible. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Last week marked the 100<sup>th</sup>
anniversary of birth of Albert Camus, an event that went almost unnoticed in the
author’s homelands of <st1:country-region w:st="on">France</st1:country-region>
and <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Algeria</st1:place></st1:country-region>,
but caused the global blogosphere to explode into life. Between the tributes
and the reminiscences on the author’s career, a discussion opened about the comparative
merits of reading works like “The Outsider” (“L’Etranger”) or “The Plague” (“La
Peste”) in English or in the original French.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lexical cross-pollination is rife between
English and French; both languages are peppered with words that have hopped the
Channel and nestled snuggly in the dictionaries of their neighbours. As a
result, the division between our two tongues is a fluid one: your average
Marseillais would probably be able to order a beer in <st1:city w:st="on">Birmingham</st1:city>,
while a Geordie would be similarly at ease in the bars and taverns of <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Bordeaux</st1:place></st1:city>.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">However, getting to grips with a novel –
with all its nuance, subtlety and hidden depth – is another matter entirely.
Such a feat is likely to be beyond the linguistical abilities of most readers
(myself included). As the discussion raged online, an unpleasant level of
snobbery began to arise, belittling the experiences of people who had read
Camus’ novels in English compared with those who tackled the books <i>en Français</i>.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Is this snobbery ever justified? I suppose
it can be argued that the very action of translating a text involves straying
into a dangerous area. By translating a text, particularly a text by an author
who is no longer around to oversee it, we are transposing our own judgment onto
the words of the original. In doing so, we run the risk of adding our own graduations
and variations in content, style and tone. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Barthes’ famous “Author” did not suffer
death just so another one could come along and project his or her own vision
onto a text; we should remember that a text is very much alive and open to
interpretation, and so all tinkering and translating must be done with the
lightest of touches.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">A light touch becomes even more necessary
when we encounter words that are unique to a certain language. These so-called
untranslatable words provide something of a quandary for a translator: should
such words be translated as literally as possible – creating occasionally
clunky and awkward sentences but preserving the original meaning – or should
more weight be placed on retaining the author’s intentionally streamlined prose
style.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Milan Kundera – after writing “The Book of
Laughter and Forgetting” in his native Czech tongue – oversaw its translation
into French, adding an entire chapter devoted to explaining the Czech word
litost, roughly meaning a psychological state of self-torment followed by a
desire to equalize matters through physical revenge. Writer Dilshan Boange
describes litost as</span><span style="font-family: 宋体; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“</span><span lang="EN-US">a state of emotions that is rooted in the individual feeling himself
to be a singular entity in the face of overwhelming hopelessness and a
painfully evident helplessness.” </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Kundera’s litost is by no means the only
example of a word whose meaning does not bridge the social-cultural boundaries
of language. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s poem “Waldeinsamkeit” uses 12 stanzas to
explore the depth and complexity of its title; a German word that is can be
tentatively translated to English as a ‘solitary oneness with – or an
abandonment of oneself to – nature’.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Another example – picked at random, but a
concept that many empty-headed internet keyboard warriors would do well to
employ – is the Catalan word Enraonar, meaning “to discuss in a civilised
manner, using meticulous reasoning.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">These words, and the thousands of others
that proliferate across the globe, serve as proof of the richness and diversity
of the human consciousness. In a world where culture is in increasing danger of
becoming homogenized and contained in order to fit with the <i>lingua franca</i> of accepted global
thought, these words provide refreshing new perspectives, allowing people of
all cultures to think outside the constraints imposed by their own language.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">German academic, Thorsten Pattberg
recognizes this. In a recent article for The Shanghai Daily, Dr Pattberg warns
against Western media outlets “coercing their authors to hold back non-English
words or eliminate them from their submissions” in an attempt to retain the
purity and readability of their newspapers. Pattberg also calls for an end to
“irresponsible translations of foreign key terminologies” and urges us to “work
overtime to find the untranslatable words in each language”.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Dr Pattberg is correct; as lovers of
literature we must welcome anything that broadens the scope of writing and
reading. We must admit that language is, and forever will be, only a limited
tool of expression, and so must embrace any methods that can decrease those
limitations, both in an artistic and in an anthropological sense.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">However, the fact remains that literary
translation is a vital and invaluable endeavour. It democratizes literature,
removes it from the preserve of the few and hands it to the many, while also
facilitating the spread of ideas and debate around the world. Translation is as
much an art as authorship; it requires patience, skill and an astounding amount
of selflessness to produce a successful translation.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Many translations have been derided as
failures, while others have been criticized as diluting the power and impact of
the original. However, the work of translators such as Michael Glenny – whose
adaptation of Bulgakov’s “The Master and Margarita” into English was particularly
lauded – and Giovanni Pontiero, who was concerned primarily with translating
Portuguese texts into English, introduced the British book-buying public to
spell-binding editions of some of the cornerstones of our global literary
heritage.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The key is to find a balance; to embrace
the heterogeneous nature of language and literature while also promoting the
lightness of touch and lack of egocentricity required to produce a truly
masterful translation.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10.5pt;">In the coming weeks I
plan to have a crack at Alaa Al Aswany’s 2002 novel "</span><span style="font-size: 14px;">Imārat Ya‘qūbiān"</span><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">. As my Arabic is not fully up to scratch (read: nonexistent) I will
have to rely on Humphrey Davies’ translation. And still the world keeps on
turning. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 14px;"><a href="http://www.weekendnotes.com/untranslatable-words-translated/" target="_blank">Click here for more information on untranslatable words.</a></span>JohnBurnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15907847376933023678noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1093837131389236942.post-85580898653014748822013-11-06T18:20:00.001-08:002013-11-06T18:20:22.012-08:00Happy Birthday Albert Camus!<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwNiSqcLREPFKFO3_Wee_yf75_S5N9mvVPiuXwoKes4vUcQIzxBTQjMVTYVuvs1iIJAlSB5kZV-56c-JFZoRojqoCCfrzE28B11obAUyGl2KG4oVPYtn9mKqKyV9-cQQs8yHN0GYYGhJY/s1600/camus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwNiSqcLREPFKFO3_Wee_yf75_S5N9mvVPiuXwoKes4vUcQIzxBTQjMVTYVuvs1iIJAlSB5kZV-56c-JFZoRojqoCCfrzE28B11obAUyGl2KG4oVPYtn9mKqKyV9-cQQs8yHN0GYYGhJY/s1600/camus.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Collar up, cigarette lit, hair neatly<br />slicked back: Camus is still ready to<br />roll at 100.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
It was always unlikely that Albert Camus was going to live to see his 100th birthday. Had he not died on that roadside in northern France in the January of 1960, then it is likely that the endless stream of cigarettes he liked to be photographed with would have caught up with him in the end. And then there were all the rumours of Soviet agents plotting against his life.<br />
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No, Camus was a man who was always going to live fast and die young, but in his 46 brief years he managed to become one of the 20th century’s most striking philosophical and literary voices.<br />
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Born on November 7th 1913 in what was then French occupied Algeria, Camus never forgot his homeland. He penned lovingly crafted essays on the place – most notably “Summer in Algiers” and “Return to Tipasa” – and two of his best known pieces of philosophical fiction - “L’Etranger” and “La Peste” - are set in the North African territory.<br />
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It was these works that helped cement Camus’ reputation as a fascinating critic of the absurd.<br />
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While some philosophers despaired at the entropic uncertainty of the world, its apparently barren moral landscape and lack of overarching meaning, Camus reveled in it. In “La Peste” he explored the human capacity for altruism and selflessness, even in the face of apparently overwhelming opposition, while “L’Etranger” saw Camus questioning the arbitrary social conventions that decide our validity as modern human beings.<br />
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Along with Camus’ essay, “The Myth of Sisyphus”, published in 1942, these texts provide the clearest picture of the great man’s groundbreaking take on absurdism, and perhaps offer an insight into his acrimonious philosophical falling-out with friend and fellow thinker, Jean-Paul Sartre.<br />
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But enough about the philosophy, what about the trenchcoat? Yes, Camus was the poster-boy for philosophy in the late 20th century. His snappy dressing, intellectual Gallic drawl and ubiquitous cigarettes made his image a regular fixture on the bedroom walls of college students all over Europe and the US. He was the James Dean of existentialist thought, and probably appreciated the absurdist sentiments contained in Dean’s picture “A Rebel Without a Cause”.<br />
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To put it simply, Camus is cool as hell and not a man to let a little thing like being dead stand in the way of his status as a philosophical maverick. Happy birthday Albert, many happy returns!<br />
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JohnBurnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15907847376933023678noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1093837131389236942.post-70673660135440961692013-10-28T01:47:00.004-07:002013-10-28T01:47:55.276-07:00Gallacher Might Not Be a Fan of Literature, but Nick Cave Knows a Thing or Two About It<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx5r3hucTkWB9VM2vXjPaajO7lIzdeHinBXdWBBkS8pGCfN40rl08SmpNHUD20Pg96avEAmomhcPkpF7Do8S0hHyv4uJK90hd9RyGPrRJ8AS9e7nMP5YI_alxvdBzMSZETVjj67L3373w/s1600/600full-nick-cave.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx5r3hucTkWB9VM2vXjPaajO7lIzdeHinBXdWBBkS8pGCfN40rl08SmpNHUD20Pg96avEAmomhcPkpF7Do8S0hHyv4uJK90hd9RyGPrRJ8AS9e7nMP5YI_alxvdBzMSZETVjj67L3373w/s320/600full-nick-cave.jpg" width="225" /></a></div>
Last week I wrote a post on this blog about <a href="http://little-d-l.blogspot.com/2013/10/a-fucking-waste-of-time-noel-gallacher.html" target="_blank">Noel Gallacher’s recent comments to Danny Wallace in GQ magazine</a>. Over the course of the interview, Gallacher branded literature a “fucking waste of time”, before claiming that people who write and review fiction only do so to look down on others.<br />
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It was an odd rant, I’ll be honest. At times Noel Gallacher has shown himself to be a truly excellent lyricist, and for a proponent of one artform to pour scorn on those who practice another for no apparent reason seems baffling to me, not to mention a little mean.<br />
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But don’t worry, not all musicians have been so scathing about literature, some have embraced it as their own. Some have even done it well! Introducing, Nick Cave.<br />
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Born in Victoria, Australia in 1957, Nick Cave has become one of the most unanimously revered musicians on the global ‘alternative’ scene. His onstage persona as a wide-eyed, finger-jabbing deranged preacher of the Southern Gothic gospel have earned him as much affectionate parody as respect, but his undeniable sonic artistry has been enough to land him critical acclaim in spades, as well as legions of fans, and, I dare say, a fair amount of cash.<br />
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Anyone familiar with the dark poetry, the biblical obsessions and the murderous wit of Nick Cave’s lyrics will be aware that his lyrical fiction is already not too far removed from literary fiction. Disturbing vignettes are woven together with the intricate, detailed eye of a novelist, while the rich and complex characters he conjures are placed in environments to match.<br />
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Take Lottie, the sweet, green-eyed, 14-year-old narrator of “The Curse of Millhaven”, taken from Cave’s acclaimed 1996 record “Murder Ballads”. Lottie tells us about the series of horrific tragedies that have befallen her hometown of Millhaven, until the narrative tone suddenly becomes confessional.<br />
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Then the dark side of little Lottie’s character quickly makes itself known. “My eyes ain’t green and my hair ain’t yeller,” she tells us. “It’s more like the other way around.[...] The last thing that [Mrs Colgate] said before the cops pronounced her dead was 'my killer is Loretta and she lives across the street'".<br />
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It’s this kind of smart characterization and cunning way with a narratorial arc – evident throughout his extensive catalogue of work – that makes Cave’s music so rewarding to listeners.<br />
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It will, therefore, be of no surprise that Cave is an accomplished novelist. Published in 1989, Nick Cave’s first foray into the world of novel-writing was the sprawling southern epic “And the Ass Saw the Angel”, in which ideas raised by Cave’s lyrics were explored in more depth.<br />
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Writing like a sort of nightmarish Faulkner, Cave leads his reader through his own version of the great man’s Yoknapawtha County: an encapsulated microcosm of the American South upon which the author is able to unfold his tragedy. The novel reads like an extended play of Bad Seeds’ song "The Carny", a dark tale of a travelling circus stalked by death and disaster, which draws as much from Tod Browning’s "Freaks" as from Edgar Allen Poe’s Southern Gothic.<br />
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True to Cave’s esoteric song-writing style, he plays fast and loose with language in his prose too. In an effort to create a total – “perfect”, in his own words – isolation for central character Euchrod, Cave set about constructing his own vernacular for his protagonist, as explained in an interview with Bomb Magazine’s Lindzee Smith;<br />
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“I wanted to create an alien language. That was one of the reasons I made Euchrod a mute. He didn’t use language to communicate. Language was an abstract thing to him. Although he would not know these words, I wanted his way of speaking to be… difficult for the reader to understand.”<br />
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The result is a fascinating study of a man adrift in a frighteningly violent world, a study of the darkest machinations of the human psyche, and the roll that religious and societal constructs play in these machinations. At times, “And the Ass Saw the Angel” makes for tough reading, such is the density and luridity of its prose and subject matter, but the rich, visceral world that Cave builds for his marginalized characters makes the book a must-read for those who like their literary kicks that little bit darker.<br />
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JohnBurnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15907847376933023678noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1093837131389236942.post-43376363707136260002013-10-24T05:28:00.000-07:002013-10-24T05:28:11.292-07:00“A Fucking Waste of Time”: Noel Gallacher Does Not Mince His Words When It Comes to Literary Fiction<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.hitthefloor.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Noel+Gallagher.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://cdn.hitthefloor.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Noel+Gallagher.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Noel Gallacher, looking unimpressed. Presumably with a book.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Quite what Noel Gallacher thinks he is doing when he sits down to pen lyrics for High Flying Birds is beyond me, but, according to the man himself, it certainly ain’t writing fiction.<br />
<br />
Speaking to GQ’s Danny Wallace, Gallacher described fiction as “a fucking waste of time”, and as a way for “people who write and read and review books [to] fucking put themselves a tiny little bit above the rest of us”. This from a man who, in his day, could confidently count himself amongst the pantheon of great lyricists born out of the Manchester indie scene.<br />
<br />
But Gallacher is obviously confused. Even as he sets about levelling his pot-shots at the world of literature he manages to betray his past as master song-crafter with some natty turns of phrase:<br />
<br />
“You can substitute any word,” he says, discussing the esoteric nature of the titles read by Gallacher’s wife, something that has so obviously got the man’s goat.<br />
<br />
“It's like a Rubik's Cube of shit titles - it'll be entitled 'The Incontinence Of Elephants'. And I'll say "What's that book about?" And she'll say, "Oh it's about a girl and this load of fucking nutters..." Right... so it's not about elephants, then? Why the fuck is it called 'The Incontinence Of Elephants'? Another one: 'The Tales Of The Clumsy Beekeeper'. What's that about? "Oh it's about the French Revolution."”<br />
<br />
“A Rubik’s cube of shit titles”. The man is a genius, and I’m having that one for myself.<br />
<br />
So am I going to set about exploding Noel Gallacher’s rather controversial theories about literary endeavours? Maybe I would have, but he does it himself later in the interview when Wallace asks him about his favourite film, Sergio Leone’s spaghetti western “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.”<br />
<br />
“Well, you’ve presented me with a dilemma there,” he says, hopefully squirming in the plush leather wingback that they I imagine they provide for interviewees at GQ towers.<br />
<br />
“I don’t want to have to invent the character Clint Eastwood plays, I just want to watch him.”<br />
<br />
Fair enough.<br />
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JohnBurnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15907847376933023678noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1093837131389236942.post-27833403460128724212013-10-22T04:28:00.000-07:002013-10-22T04:28:05.028-07:00Somerset Maugham’s China: The Painted Veil<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLZ5dFMQ6HG8eiLXmv0KpH6DLe3-6uZjI7NVkPP_eA6js-ji5uZAN-4rBqrvNcetJsMsdaE4trGOnWF1hubw-GkHyyTA0okrXs7F-8X-tRFtO9se_ehzvY-8sSG-7duhCZtGHlPHYcvJc/s1600/Avenue_Joffre_in_the_1930s.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLZ5dFMQ6HG8eiLXmv0KpH6DLe3-6uZjI7NVkPP_eA6js-ji5uZAN-4rBqrvNcetJsMsdaE4trGOnWF1hubw-GkHyyTA0okrXs7F-8X-tRFtO9se_ehzvY-8sSG-7duhCZtGHlPHYcvJc/s320/Avenue_Joffre_in_the_1930s.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shanghai's French Concession in the '30s. A clash of West and East.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The regularity of my posts on this blog has been a little out of whack in recent months. I have an excuse, and it’s a fairly good one.<br />
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After 26 years of living in the British Isles, travelling around intermittently but always impelled back to the UK by that centrifugal force of home, I decided to up sticks and move away. A long way away, it turns out; to China.<br />
<br />
But this blog is not about me, it is about literature, and so I will shut up about myself and get to the point. Finding myself in China with limited reading material, I decided to re-read a novel that had had a profound effect on me when I initially read it last year: "The Painted Veil" by W. Somerset Maugham.<br />
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Maugham’s novel, published in 1925, deals with the events and repercussions of socialite Kitty Fane’s affair with colonial administrator Charles Townsend. When Kitty’s husband – Walter, an eminent bacteriologist – discovers the affair, the acrimonious couple leave the comparative safety of the European enclave of Hong Kong for the Chinese interior, moving right into the heart of a cholera epidemic in the fictitious village of Mei-tan Fu.<br />
<br />
On reading the novel back in England, I found that it posed some interesting questions about nationhood and race, <a href="http://little-d-l.blogspot.com/2013/07/re-imagining-nationalism-in-literature.html" target="_blank">two themes that I covered to an extent in an earlier post</a>. Maugham paints a picture of Hong Kong at the tail end of the colonial era as a sort of transplanted European city, full of the sorts of functions, social activities and airs and graces that would not be out of place in Tolstoy’s imperial ballrooms, or Austen’s Netherfield Park.<br />
<br />
However it becomes a sort of community in limbo, existing neither truly in China or in Europe, and is held together by arbitrary associations such as geographical origin and class. This is highlighted by an assumption at the heart of the book’s narrative; the assumption that Walter will never bring a scandal upon himself by confronting the socially superior Charles over the affair.<br />
<br />
This anachronistic social naivety backfires on Charles and Kitty, when the relatively lowly Walter plays the hand that he is dealt. As Maugham was putting pen to paper, the Chinese Communist Party, recently formed by Li Dazhao and Chen Duxio in Shanghai, was entering into an uneasy alliance with the ruling Kuomintang party. The red flag was already flying high in parts of China following bloody strikes in Beijing and Hunan, and the stage was being set for the bitter struggle between Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists and Mao’s Communists.<br />
<br />
Intentional or not, Maugham’s foreshadowing of the political tumult unfolding across China is one of the things that makes the work so compelling. Charles and Kitty make their moves in a feudal chess game of class-posturing and chivalric-maneuvering. It backfires and they fail. Karl Marx would have been proud. If only Walter had been a brickie. <br />
<br />
The awkward nature of Hong Kong in the 1920s is highlighted when the narrative shifts beyond the walls of the citadel to the beleaguered village of Mei-tan Fu on the Chinese mainland. Maugham paints Hong Kong’s decadent grandeur as archaic and inflexible, an anachronism in a world that is rapidly consigning its colonial past to history. However, once we slip outside these walls, the voice changes.<br />
<br />
Here Maugham shows his readers a China in transition, displaying the effects of the political unease and turmoil that was gripping the country at that time, and would continue to do so for much of the 20th Century.<br />
<br />
While Maugham put the finishing touches on “The Painted Veil”, Sun Yat Sen, the father of modern China was gradually succumbing to the cancer that would kill him shortly before the book’s publication in the UK. Meanwhile, his successor – China’s future Generallissimo, Chiang Kai Shek – was waiting in the wings, preparing to remodel the Kuomintang around his own ideas.<br />
<br />
Nationalist fervour was rising in China at that time, largely unbeknownst to the Western Emigres in the ivory tower of Hong Kong. The violent scenes depicted later in the book illustrate this, helping to contextualise the position of the Fanes as two people in isolation, adrift in a world that seems all too ready to reject or harm them.<br />
<br />
However, the book is far more than mere period drama concerned with intrigue at court. The themes of isolation, of nationhood, of moral and political ideology, and of sacrificing oneself for ones beliefs still ring true today. I sat down to re-read "The Painted Veil" out of necessity; I finished it for different reasons.<br />
<br />
Wherever you find yourself, however far you are from home, Maugham’s 1925 work is certainly worth delving into.<br />
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JohnBurnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15907847376933023678noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1093837131389236942.post-23488205043036616472013-10-15T22:06:00.001-07:002013-10-15T22:06:56.031-07:00NottsLit: New bookshop to open in city centre<a href="http://nottslit.blogspot.com/2013/10/new-nottingham-bookshop-to-open.html?spref=bl">NottsLit: New bookshop to open in city centre</a>: Exciting news! Nottingham is to have its first independent bookshop in the city since 2000. Opening in mid-November - at 14a Long Row, ...JohnBurnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15907847376933023678noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1093837131389236942.post-26670551034990536852013-10-15T04:50:00.000-07:002013-10-15T04:50:00.557-07:00How Nietszche Ruined My Life, and Why I Wouldn’t Have it Any Other WayToday is the 169th birthday of the man who ruined my life.<br />
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Born on this day in 1844, Friedrich Willhelm Nietzsche has delighted and confounded thinkers, writers and philosophers in equal measure. He has been described variously as a visionary, a nihilist, a genius, a misogynist and a proto-fascist. George Santayana called him an egotist, while Adolf Hitler reportedly took great influence from Nietzsche’s writings, although probably never read a single word of them.<br />
<br />
Largely ignored during his own lifetime, Nietzsche’s work may never have reached the wide audience it enjoys today if it were not for the enterprising, bizarre and thoroughly misguided efforts of his younger sister Elisabeth – although that is a story for another time.<br />
<br />
I am not setting out to explain the finer points of Nietzschean doctrine (or anti-doctrine, depending on your viewpoint); my lack of seven PHDs and a lifetime spent poring over Nietzsche’s impressive back catalogue renders myself unqualified to do so. Instead, I’d like to pay tribute to a man whose writing ruined my life.<br />
<br />
As a fairly happy teenager with a passing interest in philosophy, I was misquoting Descartes with the best of them. Cogito Ergo Sum was my jam, I guess I quite liked the idea that one could only rely on oneself, that that was the only constant in history, and that the concept of the self was irrefutable.<br />
<br />
Then I read “Beyond Good and Evil” and the bottom fell out of that world. In the early chapters of that work, published in 1886 when the author was in the full flush of his creativity, Nietzsche sets about exploding the preconceptions and conventions that his philosophical contempories were basing their work upon.<br />
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The very ideas of moral truth and falsity are turned on their head in those early pages, as Nietzsche shows us just how arbitrary the concept of the self is, and how its use as a sort of philosophical building block, a moral basis that cannot be questioned, is not so much disingenuous as downright dangerous.<br />
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Ever the iconoclast, Nietzsche was busy laying the course for a paradigm shift in the landscape of philosophy, and paving that course with the rubbished reputations of his predecessors. He died in 1900, on the dawn of a new era in critical thought and philosophical theory; an era in which scholars would apply the uncertainty and esoterica of Nietzschean thought to a rapidly changing world.<br />
<br />
No one knew it at the time – except for possibly Elisabeth and Friedrich Nietzsche themselves – but the works of this shadowy figure from Prussia would replace those of Descartes and the later Entlightenment thinkers as the go to texts for young philosophers seeking making their own mark on the world.<br />
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Of course, elements of Nietzschean philosophy are somewhat less inspiring. The vitriolic ramblings against women that pepper his work, for example, are of little interest to me, although they may be of some interest to psychoanalysts, particularly in light of the strong evidence that Nietzsche died a virgin.<br />
<br />
However, the bulk of the man’s work offers a fascinating, refreshing, confounding and often contradictory look at the problems beset by us all, as co-experiencers of the human condition. Don’t look to Nietzsche for a solution, think of him as a conduit… oh, and expect to be met with as many questions as answers.<br />
<br />
It will ruin your life but it will also expand your mind. And when you finally think you fully understand it, the next page will throw you a savage curveball, casting you back down into the depths of doubt.<br />
<br />
Just try to enjoy the ride.<br />
<br />
“He who speaks a bit of a foreign language has more delight in it than he who speaks it well; pleasure goes along with superficial knowledge.”<br />
<br />
Friedrich Nietzsche – “Human, All To Human”<br />
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JohnBurnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15907847376933023678noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1093837131389236942.post-75523051356381135712013-07-21T13:15:00.001-07:002013-10-15T01:18:32.389-07:00Re-imagining Nationalism in Literature<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQP4AByB2RgwfP3ymQxXREYx2Cf3jEsLr1rTABPvEr0Z2fPmdtsKPNs0MYL6enKytba4qSrml5MJKgzEWKLYECDWt5VXA7g33hz2NYP6VOtLmxeitzDvhu9q_NSx23RgUpv0OkwOr5Yck/s1600/LonelyLondon.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQP4AByB2RgwfP3ymQxXREYx2Cf3jEsLr1rTABPvEr0Z2fPmdtsKPNs0MYL6enKytba4qSrml5MJKgzEWKLYECDWt5VXA7g33hz2NYP6VOtLmxeitzDvhu9q_NSx23RgUpv0OkwOr5Yck/s320/LonelyLondon.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Samuel Selvon's "The Lonely Londoners"</td></tr>
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There can be few more contentious topics than nationalism.
In the UK – or, more accurately, in England – nationalism is seen inextricable
from racism, zealous hatred and kneejerk reactionarism. Ask someone to describe a
nationalist and they will likely describe an EDL member, a staunch opponent of
immigration, a white supremacist etc etc. </div>
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<br /></div>
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It has become a sort of Nietzchean slave morality – a belief
defined completely by an opposition to another, and therefore an unsubstantial
one. It creates an ‘us v. them’ scenario – those within the haven of our
national boundaries (with justifiable reason to be there) versus those without.</div>
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<br /></div>
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This highlights the arbitrary nature of modern nationalism,
specifically English nationalism. During World War Two, when Britain was under
a real threat of invasion by the forces of Hitler’s Germany, such nationalism
became almost a practical necessity, if a sometimes unpleasant one. Nowadays,
with most of the world connected in an open forum of information exchange, it
feels archaic and redundant.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Johann Gottfried Herder first coined the term “nationalism”
in the 1770s while developing his philosophical concept of the “Volksgeist”, or
“spirit of the people”. Seventy years later, another prominent German writer,
Arthur Schopenhauer, would pour scorn on the concept, and on people who hold
nationalism up as a defining facet of their character;</div>
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<br /></div>
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“The cheapest sort of pride,” Schopenhauer wrote, “is
national pride; for if a man is proud of his own nation it argues that he has
no qualities of his own of which he can be proud.”</div>
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<br /></div>
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Schopenhauer was writing over 160 years ago, but his comment
on nationalism and national pride still stokes the fires of debate today. The
truth is – speaking from my experience as an Englishman – the majority of
English people would readily distance themselves from the “nationalist” tag,
while simultaneously attempting to renegotiate some semblance of national pride
from elsewhere.</div>
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For example, you may cry when England lose a penalty
shootout, you may proselytise about the unparalleled beauty of the Peak
District or the Lakes, you may feel a flush of pride when watching footage of
the Olympic closing ceremony – but are you a nationalist? No way!</div>
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Nationalism is an increasingly awkward concept, particularly
now that transnational borders are becoming more fluid and global mobility is
more readily accessible. It seems to me that a person should align their pride
to their surroundings and to their community – on as wide a scale as they may
wish – rather than practice a simple, blind loyalty to a sovereign state. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Literature thrives off this awkward pairing of the
individual human soul and the arbitrary groupings of nationality. Passages in Milan
Kundera’s “The Book of Laughter and Forgetting” , for example, act as symphonic love letters
to the Czech capital Prague, but are told through the eyes of exiles and
neurotics, each dislocated from the city in their own unique way.</div>
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Another example is Salman Rushdie’s “The Moor’s Last Sigh”. In his 1995 novel, Rushdie deconstructs what is
supposedly a key aspect of nationalism – language; exposing it as the organic,
polymorphous beast that it truly is, all the while in the midst of a Portuguese
merchant enclave in India, and later in southern Spain.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The blisteringly brief, but nonetheless brilliant novel “The
Lonely Londoners” by Samuel Selvon is amongst the most immediate examples of
negotiated nationalism in literature. Penned in 1956, the novel charts the life
of a group of West Indian immigrants who arrived in London following the
British Nationality Act of 1948, the parliamentary bill that effectively ushered
in the first waves of migrant workers from the Commonwealth. </div>
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<br /></div>
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The book examines the different cultures emanating from distinct
Caribbean islands and their transplantation into a metropolis on the cusp of
the next stage of its evolution, cultures that become unintentionally
homogenised as the émigrés clamour to find their place in a new society. In the
eyes of the indigenous Brits, this gaggle of lonely Londoners are refugees from
only one nation: “Black”. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Trinidadian, Jamaican, Antiguan, Barbadian, even Nigerian; none
of these distinctions matter in the eyes of the racially suspicious post-war
Britons that Selvon’s characters come into contact with. It is this aspect that
makes the novel one of the most fascinating critiques of modern nationalism and
identity in twentieth century literature.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As the global community continues to develop, and artistic
inspiration ceases to be limited by parochial geographical locale, the debate
surrounding nationalism – and the great art and literature that springs forth
from it – can only become more fascinating, more discomfited and more <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">vital </i>to our sense of human identity,
than ever before.</div>
JohnBurnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15907847376933023678noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1093837131389236942.post-43596994347834927522013-07-20T13:31:00.000-07:002013-07-20T13:31:59.894-07:00A Writer’s Hangover - Literature and Alcohol<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Today an interesting article appeared on The Guardian’s
website entitled <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/jul/20/why-do-writers-drink-alcohol" target="_blank">“Why Do Writers Drink?”</a>. Penned by Blake Morrison, the article
discussed the relationship between alcohol and literature, examining the
drinking habits – and, obviously, the writing habits – of some of the best
loved authors of the past two centuries.</div>
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<br /></div>
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On reading the piece, I began to question what it was about
the article I found interesting. At its heart is a generalisation, and one that
I found troubling: writers, by definition, like to drink. </div>
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<br /></div>
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As with most generalisations, this is perhaps unfair,
although history does record a long line of writers who looked for success in
the bottom of a bottle, as well as a long line of drinkers who looked for a way
out in the written word.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Morrison’s smart conclusion sheds some light on why this may
be.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Most [great authors] get there despite the drinking, not
because of it,” he writes. "'Drank like a fish, wrote like an angel,'
would make a pleasing epitaph. 'Drank like a fish, wrote like a fish'
is more likely.”</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Writing is an exercise in exposing oneself to the world.
While writers are self indulgent in what they create, no one sets out to write
a novel that no one is going to read, and as such they are preparing their
souls for a thorough going over whenever they sit down to work.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This takes courage, not to mention temerity and fortitude.
Human beings, as a species, have been known to turn to liquor in search of these
qualities. This might explain the link, and why writers are susceptible to this
kind of substance abuse, but to imply that it is unique to literature in any
way is disingenuous.</div>
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<br /></div>
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In my own experience, drinking and writing in tandem has
produced staggeringly variable results. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I drink, very often I drink too much, but
nowadays I ensure that my drinking and the mechanical process of actually putting
pen to paper remain separate.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
William Wordsworth wrote about poetry as taking its “origin
from emotion recollected in tranquillity.” I find that this is mirrored in the
Hemingway quote that Morrison uses in his piece: </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"What else can change
your ideas and make them run on a different plane like whiskey?" asks
Ernest, presumably while pouring himself a straight.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When you’re drunk, ideas come pouring forth from you.
Probably only one in every 100 will be of any use to you, but maybe – just maybe
– one might be the key to unlocking that tricky part of your novel, or creating
a satisfactory closing stanza for your poem. However, I can think of few worse
states to be in when applying the necessary finesse to those raw ideas than
blind drunk.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I found this out to my detriment in the early days of my
writing. Reading back over poems and prose composed drunk in my late teens and
early twenties is like being first on the scene of a car accident: terrifying,
horrifying and instantly humbling. Mind you, so is reading most of the stuff I
produced sober in those years. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I must admit that, like many young writers, I was seduced by
the idea of Kerouac with his winesacks and his desolation angels, or of Fitzgerald
and his Pernod in Parisian cafes. Fitzgerald died aged 44 of a heart attack,
while Kerouac was 47 when he succumbed to cirrhosis of the liver. A relative of
mine – also a writer, also seduced by that imagery – was around the same age
when he died of a similar illness to Kerouac’s. This is not a sustainable way
to be.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m not here to moralise. I like to drink, I like to write.
Writing is all about experience, without experience you can’t write. Where you
find that experience is up to you. Just try to be sober enough for it all to
make sense when you write it down in the morning.</div>
JohnBurnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15907847376933023678noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1093837131389236942.post-77407657068772205522013-04-15T14:50:00.000-07:002013-04-15T14:50:26.632-07:00Thatcher's Legacy in Literature: The Miners' Strike 1984/85<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbpIEwXyQ6IFeTUo2r3zKq70z84EHZwhg6nHDty7EOCqrWwljqzz_Scrntj97PgYnp7oLZQh55CSz8wULZTjRFCDou6w9Ui4OBx-q7Ch1xy8QyHUTVRNFl-CfQ1Tj3Hlt4VtVcK8orHbw/s1600/article-2305751-192D0C48000005DC-601_306x423.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbpIEwXyQ6IFeTUo2r3zKq70z84EHZwhg6nHDty7EOCqrWwljqzz_Scrntj97PgYnp7oLZQh55CSz8wULZTjRFCDou6w9Ui4OBx-q7Ch1xy8QyHUTVRNFl-CfQ1Tj3Hlt4VtVcK8orHbw/s320/article-2305751-192D0C48000005DC-601_306x423.jpg" width="231" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">When the Notts coalfields were a battleground</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
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This was a tough one. As a literature blogger it makes sense
to remain as apolitical as possible – despite the temptation to do the exact
opposite – but at the same time, is it not the place of literature to reflect
and explore political and philosophical questions? And therefore is it not the
place of a literature blog to follow suit?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is a debate I’m going to save for a future post. In the
meantime, I’m going to forge right ahead.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So the funeral of Margaret Thatcher is upon us. The final
send off for a woman who has inspired love and revulsion in seemingly equal
measure (although I suspect that the true ratio is not quite as evenly split as
the mainstream media would have us believe).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m not going to get into an argument about the legacy of
Thatcherism; such questions are for the “Politics Blog” that I have yet to –
and probably will never – create. Instead, I’m going to take a brief look at
the literature that sprung from one of the key moments in Thatcher’s 11-year
tenure as prime minister: the miners’ strike of 1984 to 1985.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Having been born in Mansfield and brought up in Nottingham,
it’s perhaps unsurprising that I am descended from miners, but only on my
mother’s side. As my maternal grandfather had three daughters and no sons, I am
two generations removed from my mining lineage, but still engaged with my
heritage.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For this reason, the novel “Notts” by American writer William O’Rourke has
always fascinated me. Due to a lack of a publication deal in Great Britain it has always eluded me. But its premise – not to mention its title – is
something that has inflamed my interest.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The novel follows an American college professor as he
journeys to England and becomes embroiled in the civil unrest between the
miners’ unions and the government/police in the mid-1980s. On his journey he witnesses
the strike first hand in places like Ollerton, Nottinghamshire, viewing the struggle alongside a
young labour organiser from the US who has come to England to lend support to the
strikers on behalf of American mineworkers.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
While researching this article, I found my fascination
growing, not least because reviews of O’Rourke’s book describe it as lending an
international perspective to what is often seen as a definitively British
struggle.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I haven’t read the book, and therefore cannot engage in any
sort of analysis of it, but the fact that it exists at all is a testament to
the far reaching cultural impact of the strike on the international literary
stage.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Some reviews of “Notts” compare it to a book that I <i>have</i>
read – and re-read – on more than one occasion: David Peace’s “GB84”.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I read “GB84” after struggling with “The Damned United” –
Peace’s follow-up to his 2004 work – a book I expected to appreciate a lot
more, given the subject matter. So, I approached “GB84” with a degree of
trepidation.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This book, however, blew my socks off. Offering a scathing,
furious and – above all – complex reflection of the events of 1984 and 1985,
Peace comes closer than anyone to getting to the very heart of this fascinating
but traumatic chapter of British history.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The book has dazzled some and infuriated others. Plotlines
tumble over one another and Peace’s scintillating, dark prose zips along at
breakneck speed. This is no factual document – don’t go expecting a history
lesson on the standoff – but it is a pure and ferocious literary evocation of
an era that left vast scars on the East Midlands and the English north.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Scars that, in some cases, have refused to heal; even two
and half decades later.</div>
JohnBurnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15907847376933023678noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1093837131389236942.post-75017319064414792842013-04-07T06:03:00.001-07:002013-04-07T06:03:27.364-07:00"The Master Builder": Should We Just Shut Up About The 'Nudge-nudge-wink-wink'?<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7fxw03jcgwng-FLeKh45i32VLITlwWVUNSCflh78654nlcJGcKA16bjkc1WSSBA3CqApwR5nRt99ucmapj-qbqrHuGXBOHGS-UAWG3J1rIEFAr5YkxLjvQGIaM6sz3h7Y52fEbIVpgSQ/s1600/The+Master+Builder+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7fxw03jcgwng-FLeKh45i32VLITlwWVUNSCflh78654nlcJGcKA16bjkc1WSSBA3CqApwR5nRt99ucmapj-qbqrHuGXBOHGS-UAWG3J1rIEFAr5YkxLjvQGIaM6sz3h7Y52fEbIVpgSQ/s320/The+Master+Builder+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gemma Arteton as Hilde Wangel </td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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<br />
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Slightly pushing the boundaries of a literature blog, I admit,
this post focuses on Henrik Ibsen’s 1892 play, “The Master Builder”. As
readable in its own right as some of the era’s best loved prose works, “The
Master Builder” cements the Norwegian playwright’s reputation as one of the 19<sup>th</sup>
century’s finest wordsmiths.</div>
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<br /></div>
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In the century and a bit that has passed between Ibsen’s
completion of the play and the present day, much has been made of the symbolism
of the piece. The aging builder (Solness), nagged by doubt as to his potency
and his skill; the vibrant, enthusiastic young woman (Hilde) who wants nothing
more than to hold Solness high on a pedestal; and of course, the towering
steeple Solness builds for his new house and for the church at Lysanger. Need I
say more?</div>
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<br /></div>
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But to take such a ‘nudge-nudge-wink-wink’ tack with “The
Master Builder” is lazy and reductive. This is not to say that such themes
aren’t evident in the play, but to write off Ibsen’s work as the ramblings of a
horny old man seems somewhat unfair.</div>
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<br /></div>
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That said, this reading of the text does have a basis in
historical context. Ibsen penned the play on his return to the land of his
birth after 27 years abroad. Two years earlier, while on his travels, Ibsen had
met and – by most accounts – become besotted with an 18-year-old Viennese girl
named Emilie Bardach.</div>
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<br /></div>
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It seems likely that Miss Bardach was a direct inspiration
for the play’s character of Hilde Wangel, the young girl who arrives at
Solness’ home, demanding her promised kingdom. Some academics have disputed
this, including Jens-Morten Hanssen, the editor of Norway’s National Library,
who cites the “devilish and calculating” habits of Hilde has evidence that
Ibsen was not in fact writing about his beloved Emilie.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I don’t read the text in this way. For me, Hilde is the
antithesis of Solness’ aging, waning character. While she
is wilful, carefree and full of joie de vivre, he is old, aching and carrying a
lumbering heart. For the briefest of moments, Solness is given the chance to be
free and happy once again.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As Ibsen was entering the final phase of his career when he
penned “The Master Builder”, certain parallels can be drawn between himself and
the character of Solness, just as similar parallels can be drawn between Hilde
Wangel and the real life Emilie Bardach.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, read as one of Ibsen’s later ‘realist’ plays, “The
Master Builder”’s exploration of the dichotomies of love and duty, and of human
happiness and responsibility remains a fascinating and ultimately multi-faceted
one. The drama is rife with symbolism and is a tantalising candidate for any
sort of analysis, but it goes far beyond common conceptions of the play as a
sort of Scandinavian proto-Carry On piece with a tragic ending.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Isn’t it time we looked a little deeper?</div>
JohnBurnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15907847376933023678noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1093837131389236942.post-61180244890244855162013-03-24T06:36:00.001-07:002013-03-24T06:44:46.361-07:00Chinua Achebe Dies Aged 82: The Extraordinary Life and Work of an Extraordinary Man<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdqHarj7KxJWg3nECkPH3Mq_a2NBzkBj9-16d9VpbOrYRVwO8mWfziTFZZBu-CAyhyO6QdrMnb3vsgW2JhW6PbzS4tUrCqXeyQxEcD0EdPedzlLxe_fd8-I_1kgX0383i-gbiuodJD8pQ/s1600/chinua-achebe-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdqHarj7KxJWg3nECkPH3Mq_a2NBzkBj9-16d9VpbOrYRVwO8mWfziTFZZBu-CAyhyO6QdrMnb3vsgW2JhW6PbzS4tUrCqXeyQxEcD0EdPedzlLxe_fd8-I_1kgX0383i-gbiuodJD8pQ/s320/chinua-achebe-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chinua Achebe will be sorely missed</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
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In 2008, while studying for my Postcolonial
Literature module at Manchester Metropolitan University, I read Chinua Achebe’s “A Man
of the People”.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Finding the book a short but fascinating introduction to an
author who my course tutors seemed to adore, I set about reading the better
known “Things Fall Apart” over the following summer. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As “Things Fall Apart” has been described by Achebe himself
as a ‘spiritual predecessor’ to “A Man of the People” and to several of his later novels, I found myself delving backwards through the work of a man who
characterised African literature in the 20<sup>th</sup> and early 21<sup>st</sup>
centuries. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On Thursday, Chinua Achebe died in Boston, Massachusetts
after a short illness. Born in Ogidi in the Protectorate of Nigeria in
1930, Achebe spent the first 24 years of his life under British colonial rule,
until the disbandment of the colony in 1954. By this point, Achebe had studied at Nigeria’s
first university – University College in Ibadan – achieving a second class
degree.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
While not excelling academically – not yet, anyway – Achebe did
find the time to fall in love with literature at the university, something which we should all be
thankful for.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Four years after Nigerian independence, Achebe published his debut
novel, “Things Fall Apart”, followed by “No Longer At Ease” two years later and then
an extensive period of travelling. On returning to Nigeria, he set about
creating the Voice of Nigeria network, nurturing and encouraging the cultural
identity of this fledgling, independent nation.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Over the years that followed, Achebe produced three more
novels, as well as countless short stories, poems and works of critical and political
theory. The great man will be remembered as a novelist, but – amongst the fiction
– it was one of his works of academia that resonated most greatly with me.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“An Image of Africa” is Achebe’s essay on the depiction of
his home continent in Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novella, “Heart of Darkness”. Often appearing in
the upper reaches of those irritating “Best Books Ever” lists, Conrad’s work has
been held up as a stunning psychological study of the human mind as it retreats
into a sort of Freudian ‘other world’; heading, quite literally, for the heart
of darkness.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Achebe instantly dismissed the legitimisation of Conrad’s
writing as a modern or pre-modern text. He pronounced that there was something altogether more disturbing about Conrad's work than what initially met the eye,
and advocated that it was the author himself himself who should be subjected to psychological study;</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"Conrad had a problem with niggers,” Achebe wrote. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“His inordinate love of that word itself should be of
interest to psychoanalysts.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Published as part of the 1988 collection “Hopes and Impediments”,
“An Image of Africa” could easily have become an interesting, if rather
pedestrian, historical assessment of a hoary old Victorian writer and his
problem with “those black chaps”. However, Achebe’s keen sense of social and
political relevance ensured that the essay offered far more than this.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He maintained that, by simultaneusly holding up an outdated text like this one as a paragon of its literary movement, and apologising for its often less-than-salubrious messages, we are simply perpetuating support for prejudice,
subjugation and segregation; attitudes that we like to think we have left behind.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When we cite works like these as foundation texts upon which modern literary
schools of thought are based, this practice becomes all the more dangerous.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Achebe argued that, in Conrad’s eyes, notions of African humanity should be dismissed, and the continent should instead be viewed as a sort of experimentation chamber within
which the refined European psyche could be put to the test.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"Can nobody see the preposterous and perverse arrogance
in thus reducing Africa to the role of props for the break-up of one petty
European mind?" Achebe asked.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Who else could produce such a politically charged, powerful
and contemporaneous analysis of a book written almost a century before?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Chinua Achebe will be sorely missed. Read his novels, by all
means, but do not overlook “An Image of Africa”, a text that did as much to
promote African culture and literature in the international consciousness as
the celebrated “Things Fall Apart” or “Anthills of the Savannah”. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
RIP.</div>
JohnBurnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15907847376933023678noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1093837131389236942.post-45514683588419172442013-03-24T04:08:00.001-07:002014-10-28T23:35:31.705-07:00Nicola Monaghan, Alan Sillitoe and Nottingham’s Literary Soul<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhevAKkU8aAXOOyV5dYyWYImBaE3nJJybK8R-YtP8Gnw0PT5L5LpxunGlu-HlziVfnHkt9_17Pw9ob-HrKFPmCboANIn4zQLF69asxz412bkNGWIIK5JEiBJ_c-Q19K66_tU3U2zIh4X0/s1600/Notts.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhevAKkU8aAXOOyV5dYyWYImBaE3nJJybK8R-YtP8Gnw0PT5L5LpxunGlu-HlziVfnHkt9_17Pw9ob-HrKFPmCboANIn4zQLF69asxz412bkNGWIIK5JEiBJ_c-Q19K66_tU3U2zIh4X0/s320/Notts.JPG" height="218" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nottingham on a rare sunny day</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
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Nottingham is a city with soul. </div>
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<br /></div>
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This is a non-negotiable
position, and one which is soon reached by anyone who has spent time in
the East Midlands conurbation.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s got its problems, like anywhere. But, time and time again, its positives outstrip its negatives, both in number and in weight.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Ask someone to describe Nottingham’s literary soul in two words, and the answer
that is likely to be fired back your way is: 'Alan Sillitoe'. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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This is unsurprising: the author's scintillating work “Saturday
Night, Sunday Morning” continues to reverberate in every drunken laugh that echoes out at 3am
on Forman Street and Broad Street to this day.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To paraphrase the Arctic Monkeys – somewhat appropriately, given
the Sheffield quintet’s admiration for Sillitoe’s novels – there is a certain
romance in the next generation of Nottingham’s youth emulating Arthur’s
adventures on the cobbles of Old Market Square each weekend. How accurate they
make such emulations is up to them.</div>
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<br /></div>
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So, while Sillitoe is the undisputed grand master of
Nottingham’s literary scene, and is immortalised at the heart of the city’s
cultural soul; who are the young writers ready to take up that torch and forge
on into the 21<sup>st</sup> century?</div>
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Writers like Ghanaian-born, Freddy Fynn have already helped to
expand the traditional boundaries of Nottingham’s literature. </div>
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<br /></div>
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His outstanding collection “Of Life and
Love: Eight Moral Tales” retells traditional African short stories handed down by Fynn’s
grandfather, and could not be set further from NG1 if it tried. Despite this,
Fynn’s book instantly became part of the cultural fabric of the East Midlands
city.</div>
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<br /></div>
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If writers like Fynn are taking Nottingham in new and
exciting directions and introducing fresh perspectives, it is writers like Nicola Monaghan who are continuing the Sillitoe lineage and drawing influence directly from the city
of Nottingham, from the ground upwards.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The influence of Alan Sillitoe is evident throughout
Monaghan’s work. Even the title of her blog “The Loneliness of the Long
Distance Writer”, owes a debt to the famous author, while her short story “Sunday
Night and Monday Morning” offers more than just a gentle nod in his direction.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Published in 2006, Monaghan’s award winning debut novel “The
Killing Jar” follows young Kerry Ann Hill as she grows up on a council estate
in Aspley, north-west Nottingham. Certainly not a love letter to the city, “The
Killing Jar” contains some of the most hard-hitting writing and bleak
subject matter produced by a British writer in recent years.</div>
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The book’s central metaphor is its eponymous killing jar.
Used by Kerry Ann’s elderly neighbour, Mrs Ivanovich to kill butterflies for
her collection, the jar becomes a symbol, not only for the drug-infested
council estate, but also for Kerry Ann’s poisonous relationship with her mother
and, later, her abusive partner, Mark.</div>
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Tackling these issues head on makes “The Killing Jar”
uncomfortable reading at times, but there is a thread of positivity that runs
throughout the book that prevents the novel becoming an ‘it’s-grim-up-norf’ caricature
of itself. Without giving too much away, it is this antithesis of the positive,
the uplifting and the downright horrible, that makes the book so readable.</div>
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<br /></div>
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With a keen eye and ear for what makes her city tick, Monaghan's “The
Killing Jar” is a triumphant text that repeatedly lays bare the foundations of
Nottingham’s strong identity, for better or worse. With that identity brought under scrutiny so often over the last decade, we need texts like this to preserve and propagate it.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Monaghan followed up her debut by moving on to
pastures new and producing “Starfishing” – a dark tale of corporate excess set
in The City in the boom days of the late ‘90s – and “Okinawa Dragon”. I have to
admit that I haven’t read either novel, although I will do someday. However, I
go about my day with constantly crossed fingers in the hope that Nicola will
return to our shared hometown for her next literary outing.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the meantime, I continue to be quietly overwhelmed with civic pride.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.weekendnotes.co.uk/nottingham-oldest-pubs/" target="_blank">Click here for an exploratory journey around Nottingham's oldest pubs.</a></div>
JohnBurnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15907847376933023678noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1093837131389236942.post-61986263453349566732013-03-14T13:26:00.001-07:002013-03-14T13:26:59.006-07:00Fellow readers; how much guidance do we really want? Or need?<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrNVw_Chv0hQNeWIHCSCCXxbhVH86ggvBloTGaVidWO51OnxhTk35746x-iIZt7RMAX7THqC5sLl5hFHZwReFDP9cMTAz7yfKkxKnU0_tqStvh4LE3wM0D7FtulZynaXCbqPqEiUoyQOc/s1600/kafkaesque.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrNVw_Chv0hQNeWIHCSCCXxbhVH86ggvBloTGaVidWO51OnxhTk35746x-iIZt7RMAX7THqC5sLl5hFHZwReFDP9cMTAz7yfKkxKnU0_tqStvh4LE3wM0D7FtulZynaXCbqPqEiUoyQOc/s320/kafkaesque.jpg" width="258" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">It has
little to do with the remainder of this post, but it is a fact that Russian
literature is something I can get enthusiastic about. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Today I decided to search
for my next literary fix from the former Soviet republic and found myself
reading through the Amazon user reviews for Dosoyevsky’s “The Devils” (aka –
for the sake of accuracy – “Demons” or “The Possessed”).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The only
review I could for Dostoyevsky’s 1872 novel which did not offer a glowing 5/5
write up was a one awarding the book a paltry 3/5. The main gripe that his
reviewer had with “The Devils” was the reluctance of the author to give the
reader any concrete details in terms of character development and back-story.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The
discussion raged in the comments, with defenders of Dostoyevsky praising the
literary maestro adoptions of narrative ambiguity as to the origins of the
characters. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">One
supporter in particular seemed ecstatic about the way in which the author posed
certain questions: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">how did such-and-such
character get here?</i> for example, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">what
are they planning?</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">what is real and
what is not?</i> These are questions which Dostoyevsky leaves for the reader to
answer. Something that evidently rankled the poster of the 3/5 review.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">This
interesting point led me to pose a question of my own. As no novelist
approaches a work with a completely open and objective mind, should the writer
lead his or her readers through the novel, to the conclusion they intended? Or
should they cede some degree of narratorial control to the reader themselves?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Acolytes
of Roland Barthes’ literary criticism will have a very short answer to this
question: it is not up to the author, the author is metaphorically dead – or
quite literally dead in the case of Dostoyevsky. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">While I
prescribe to this view to an extent, it is too neat to completely remove the
author from the equation. Novelists are narcissistic by their very nature, and
so are understandably reluctant to simply release their creation into the world
with no guidebook to help a reader navigate its pages.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">So it is
interesting when a writer appears to be trying to do just that. Milan Kundera
is a writer who has been described variously as narcissistic and even
misogynistic – we won’t go into that here, there’s not time – but in his 1979
book, “The Book of Laughter and Forgetting”, he appears to be willing to put
his egocentrism to one side, opting to hand over elements of control to the
reader themselves.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The
narration takes the form of a series of discrete, seemingly unrelated
components, which ultimately spiral in on themselves to form a whole. The novel
has been described as ‘a whirlwind dance’ – a phrase which echoes the rings of floating
dancers that appear at various points in the novel, whether in the skies above
Prague or levitating above the floor of a classroom. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">However,
despite this apparently meticulous choreography, the breathing space given to the reader
allows us to form our own connections, formulate our own back-stories and,
crucially, draw our own conclusions.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">While
Kundera’s work is at times dazzling (and at other times frustrating) his
techniques are neither experimental nor extreme when compared to the work of
certain other postmodern reader. Published a decade prior to Kundera’s work,
B.S. Johnson’s “The Unfortunates” is one of the arch examples of a pure
rejection of accepted narrative forms.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The novel
follows a sports writer who journeys to an unnamed city in the English Midlands
(a thinly disguised version of my beloved home town of Nottingham) to cover the
match of an unnamed football team (it’s Forest; not County).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Already
scoring big in my book on the strength of the setting alone, “The Unfortunates”
clinches the winner by virtue of its astonishing disregard for traditional convention.
In a move that would have made Gustave Flaubert turn in his grave, Johnson
published the novel as a box of 25 un-ordered chapters of various lengths.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The
chapters were designed to be read in any order the reader desired, ensuring
that any one reader’s experience of the now infamous ‘book-in-a-box’ would be
totally dissimilar to that of another. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">A victory,
then, for those Barthesian literary anarchists who believe that authorial jurisdiction
ceases when the pen leaves the paper? Well, not entirely; “The Unfortunates” is
packaged up with a proviso that, once again, casts everything into doubt.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">B.S.
Johnson designed his ‘book-in-a-box’ so that only 23 of the 25 chapters were to
be read in the reader’s chosen order. The novel’s opening and closing chapters
are clearly demarked as such, acting as carefully inserted bookends to this
groundbreaking novel. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">So, if
even an arch-experimentalist like B.S. Johnson was reluctant to completely cede
all control of his narrative, what hope is there for a work which completely
eschews traditional for and structure? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can a novel ever be truly free of the
‘tyranny’ of its author? And – more pressingly – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">should</i> it ever be released in this way?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">I began
this post with a question, and ended it with one. Sorry about that. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
JohnBurnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15907847376933023678noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1093837131389236942.post-86681943337280771422013-01-20T05:06:00.000-08:002013-10-15T01:13:18.484-07:00Eric Arthur Blair: The Death of Idealism<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV9BUEM85Cd9kXU4ZU7KPdpdx1poWCTW61hxiHL5sTJ56FPYWCCtMBnMA0l1pdaFRc6jpnVZS-KfWwjuKNVpbybp1XH1LCuiimGlqb9yRNMw-rDxY_e0gREged6zwusNGm9XHXUkDxCa4/s1600/orwell-in-spain2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV9BUEM85Cd9kXU4ZU7KPdpdx1poWCTW61hxiHL5sTJ56FPYWCCtMBnMA0l1pdaFRc6jpnVZS-KfWwjuKNVpbybp1XH1LCuiimGlqb9yRNMw-rDxY_e0gREged6zwusNGm9XHXUkDxCa4/s320/orwell-in-spain2.jpg" width="218" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Eric Arthur Blair - tallest figure - poses with the POUM militia. His wife Eileen O'Shaughnessy Blair crouches beside him.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Tomorrow, Eric Arthur Blair will have been dead for 63 years. Better known to most as George Orwell – prolific author, journalist and thinker – Blair contributed a great deal to our national literary consciousness, even adding a few new words and phrases to our language along the way.
But I’m not here to wax lyrical about George Orwell – there are plenty of writers who are in a better position to do so – instead I want to illustrate what the man and his work means to me.
My favourite George Orwell work is “A Homage to Catalonia”. Published in 1938, the book details its author’s involvement in the civil war in Spain, a conflict which was still raging at the time of “A Homage…”’s release and one which was continuing to set the tone for the dark years that would follow in the continent’s history.
As someone who is fascinated both by the Spanish Civil War and by Orwell’s politics, I decided to read the book ahead of a one month trip that would be spent exploring Portugal and Spain. I had – rather naively – viewed the Spanish Civil War as one of the last truly great ideological struggles; a crusade to which idealists with strong views and the moral character to back them up flocked from all over Europe.
Reading the book, I began to doubt this assertion. I began to doubt whether any conflict in the history of mankind could ever be defined as a “truly great ideological struggle.”
Without giving too much away, the book follows an idealistic Orwell as he heads to Barcelona and joins up with the POUM socialist militia. Using Orwell’s own experiences of the alternate horror and tedium of life on the frontline, the book becomes a stunning piece of proto-gonzo journalism. Through the author’s eyes we are able to witness the two totemic Republican powers – the anarchists and the communists – grow increasingly distrustful of one another.
In a piece of narration that is almost too convenient to be true – although not, I would imagine, particularly convenient for Orwell himself at the time – the author returns from the rugged frontline at Jaca in search of some much needed r’n’r in Barcelona, only to discover that the city has been torn in two by fighting between the anarchist CNT and the communist UGT factions. Orwell – although then more ideologically more aligned to the anarchists – takes up arms with his comrades in the communist POUM, defending their headquarters from the chaos unfolding around them.
I won’t give away too much more; “A Homage to Catalonia” is a wonderful book and I urge you to read it for yourself. For me, it permanently altered the way in which I view politics and even the way I approach the study of history. To say it has influenced my life would be an understatement.
There is far more in Eric Arthur Blair’s back catalogue to amaze and excite readers – just as there are far more expansive pieces of writing on the civil conflict in Spain – but as a starting point, a reader cannot go far wrong with “A Homage to Catalonia”.
JohnBurnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15907847376933023678noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1093837131389236942.post-52044578884286035692013-01-06T11:07:00.000-08:002014-11-03T06:19:46.414-08:00Gate Way Books<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSO5yLhwgigZON-PrpR5zsW0dkarenwLdZut6N4TU1ivVxCLIXMcOIG3bgXq72Z66rE1Qtc8L8Q6fURSA9PLwI5KzJcGbnztdDr8ZPkGQOnXTaGYsARmiNQ5flumKIQntzUfZwUpmUA_k/s1600/MF.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSO5yLhwgigZON-PrpR5zsW0dkarenwLdZut6N4TU1ivVxCLIXMcOIG3bgXq72Z66rE1Qtc8L8Q6fURSA9PLwI5KzJcGbnztdDr8ZPkGQOnXTaGYsARmiNQ5flumKIQntzUfZwUpmUA_k/s320/MF.jpg" height="300" width="300" /></a></div>
When I was a child I read, a lot. Nothing in particular, just whatever I could get my hands on. Then, I became a teenager, discovered drinking and other such evils, and gradually I stopped reading.<br />
It wasn’t a conscious decision, it was just that one day
I discovered that I didn’t have the time to do all the things I wanted to do in that day, and so it was reading that was cut from the schedule.<br />
When I was 18 and getting ready to go to University, I found a book in Eastwood Library, Nottinghamshire that brought reading well and truly back into my consciousness. That book was "M/F" by Anthony Burgess.<br />
Those who are unaware of "M/F" will surely be aware of Anthony Burgess’ more famous work “A Clockwork Orange”. “M/F” is an altogether weirder proposition and, while it lacks the full-blooded violence and darkness of Burgess’ earlier work, its bizarrely Oedipal, carnivalesque characters and situations come together to form a truly nightmarish atmosphere wholly unto itself.<br />
The protagonist, Miles Faber – himself a sort of Caulfield-esque college dropout – finds himself on a nightmarish pilgrimage across the Caribbean in pursuit of the poet Sib Leguru, his intellectual idol and muse. On his travels he meets a bizarre lion-headed man, a bird woman, and his freaklike estranged twin Llew – events which are played out in front of the backdrop of a noisy, frightening and chaotic West Indian carnival.<br />
Freudian in almost every sense, the book draws upon evocations of the ego and the id, as well as the power of childish nightmares and even the more incestuous aspects of Dr Sigmund’s philosophies. But while freakish and labyrinthine are two words often used to describe this book, it remains the book that caused me to fall back into love with literature, and for that I am eternally grateful.<br />
Of course it “lead me onto harder stuff”, but had this not have occurred, god knows what I would have been doing right now instead.<br />
What were the “gate way books” that got you back into reading after a long period of literal-inactivity? Let me know…<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.weekendnotes.co.uk/we4poets-live/" target="_blank">The International Anthony Burgess Foundation hosts We4Poets Live this November. Click here for more info.</a>JohnBurnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15907847376933023678noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1093837131389236942.post-37939673833959084432013-01-06T02:26:00.000-08:002013-01-06T02:28:09.332-08:00Daily Mail Proclaims YA Fiction “Sick”<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i-allow.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Daily-Mail-Logo.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i-allow.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Daily-Mail-Logo.jpeg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Never ones to shy away from a ‘morally outraged’ headline,
the Daily Mail recently ran a story about the ‘evils’ of young adult books that
have the audacity to tackle weighty themes, or worse, themes which are important
to their target audience.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Tanith Carey, writing for the Mail, described the plotlines
of books like “The Fault In Our Stars” – a bestselling children’s novel
centring on a 13 year old cancer sufferer – and “Thirteen Reasons Why” – a book
dealing with the suicide of a young teenage girl – as “mawkish” and
“distasteful”, evidently decreeing them to be unsuitable reading material for members
of our fragile younger generation.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I wonder what it is in particular about these subjects that
Tanith Carey finds so obscene. Scanning her article in the Mail, I can only
conclude that it is their realism that she finds so shocking; the fact that –
at some point in most of our lives – we are going to have to confront these
things head on.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What the author seems not to recognise – or to wilfully
ignore, depending on your viewpoint – is that these issues are real issues for
youngsters as well as for adults. Rather than allowing children to use literature to negotiate and work through
these themes in a Bakhtinian sense, Tanith Carey would sooner see them not explored
at all.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Carey also calls upon two of the traditional tenets of the Daily
Mail’s canon of immorality: “sex” and “foul language”. Anyone who thinks that sex
and swearing are somehow beyond the radar or vocabulary of an average teenager
has been reading too much “Just William”.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So what exactly is Carey’s point? That children’s fiction
should deal only with football and adventuring for boys and ponies and light
romance (no sex) for girls? Surely Carey realises that modern teenagers have
bank accounts and internet access; any child with the inclination could easily
pick up “American Psycho” from Amazon, or find something far darker on the
internet itself. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Or is Carey trying to make the point that the regulatory
codes governing the publishing industry are not stringent enough to protect our
youngsters? Maybe, then, children should not read at all until certification
falls into line with that of films and video games.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The fact is, under close scrutiny, it becomes abundantly
clear that Tanith Carey does not have a coherent point at all. Instead this is
just another story of faux moral outrage that the Mail concocts every now and
again to give their strait-laced, Audi-owning readers heart palpitations over
breakfast.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Don’t let the Daily Mail’s insincere moral crusading
guilt-trip you into thinking you’re in some way a bad parent because you let
your 13 year old read a book about cancer, and don’t let the Mail’s kneejerk
censorial attitude dictate what you or your children read. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
JohnBurnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15907847376933023678noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1093837131389236942.post-56585623174893793152012-12-16T02:33:00.000-08:002012-12-16T02:33:42.141-08:00“A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man”: The Ultimate Bildungsroman<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTmmxqTz6F9lO8nfGapyMglXLuW6Ja3Z9FYwvZn972EgQnaKkpt_debXj4wqzd6pzOnz7ma52cyPEclQlchYop5_3gfnleEq9AijqhoijSuHUhIFjW_lSM8jEknWpyANQ98qLp0r519dU/s1600/A_Portrait_of_the_Artist_as_a_Young_Man_by_James_Joyce.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTmmxqTz6F9lO8nfGapyMglXLuW6Ja3Z9FYwvZn972EgQnaKkpt_debXj4wqzd6pzOnz7ma52cyPEclQlchYop5_3gfnleEq9AijqhoijSuHUhIFjW_lSM8jEknWpyANQ98qLp0r519dU/s320/A_Portrait_of_the_Artist_as_a_Young_Man_by_James_Joyce.jpg" width="212" /></a></div>
The Bildungsroman, or coming of age novel, has been done into the ground. As universal as breathing air, or eating food to stay alive, the concept of “coming of age” is something each of us can relate to, and so the Bildungsroman has become a well-worn and well-trodden novelistic form, almost to the point of cliché.<br /><br />
If there is one writer whose work can definitely not be described as clichéd, it is James Joyce. Joyce’s modernist masterpiece, "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man", is my nomination for the title of “Ultimate Bildungsroman”.<br /><br />
While anticipation continues to grow over Sunday’s Sports Personality of the Year Award, I’m holding my own little ceremony in my head. Not populated by Olympians and sporting greats – well, not many – the nominations list for Ultimate Bildungsroman features some of the literary titans of the past 250 years.<br /><br />
You probably have your own ideas about what deserves to go on this list: "Catcher in the Rye"? Definitely. "Tom Jones"? No list would be complete without it. "William Meister’s Apprentice" by Goethe? Possibly, I’ve never read it. But, as this blog is run entirely undemocratically, it is "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" that takes the prize.<br /><br />
Originally sketched out in 1905 as "Stephen Hero", "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" finally saw light of day when it was serialised in The Egoist in 1914 before its release as a complete novel two years later.<br /><br />
It is "A Portrait…"’s famous first sentence that frames the novel’s Bildungsroman credentials;<br />“Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road…”, writes Joyce, dropping the reader directly into an infantile world of onomatopoeic lexicon and minimal punctuation. We then learn that this is a story told to young Stephen Dedalus – the novel’s protagonist – by his father Simon, a figure seen only through glass and described as having “a hairy face”.<br /><br />
The opening is the author's perfect evocation of childhood, something that Stephen Dedalus almost immediately begins to drift away from. Within a few pages, Stephen is attending boarding school at Clongowes, and by page 100 we are told that Stephen’s memories of childhood are already fading from his mind. This is Joyce’s comment on the unreliable fluidity of human existence and a rejection of the snapshot realism favoured by authors from the previous century.<br /><br />
Compare this startlingly childlike opening with the discussions of philosophic truth found later in the book and you begin see the vastly expansive scale of Joyce’s take on the Bildungsroman. Or – more appropriately – his take on the Künstlerroman, a novel charting the intellectual development of an artist.<br /><br />
It is this enormity of scale that elevates "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" beyond the standard constraints of the Bildungsroman, into a plane far removed from the thematic concerns generally associated with the form. Weighty matters such as spirituality and nationalism are all dealt with on young Stephen’s journey into adulthood; two concerns which form key parts of any true intellectual development.<br /><br />
One passage in particular draws parallels with Salinger’s "Catcher in the Rye", written several decades later and often held up as an archetype of the Bildungsroman form. This is the passage dealing with Stephen’s first encounter with a prostitute, during which he is unable to kiss her and expresses his desire to be “held firmly in her arms”. While Stephen does eventually give in to the “swoon of sin” – unlike Holden Caulfield – it is this tender naivety of youth that sets the reader up for an acceleration in Stephen’s slide towards adulthood.<br /><br />
Having tasted sin and therefore forsaken eternal life in heaven, Stephen finds that “no part of his body and soul had been maimed but a dark peace had been established between them”. This is the crux of Stephen’s development towards academic, philosopher and artist, wrestling with the constraints placed upon him by the rigididity of Christianity and nationhood.<br /><br />
I could continue, picking out passage after passage from Joyce’s work and analysing it in detail, but I think I’ve put my case forward plainly. Whoever claims that coveted SPOTY crown on Sunday night, "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man"’s place as the pinnacle of the Bildungsroman genre is assured, for the time being at least.<br />JohnBurnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15907847376933023678noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1093837131389236942.post-60283459835565542012012-09-27T12:45:00.001-07:002012-09-27T12:55:59.713-07:00Joan Didion: Fiction v Non-Fiction<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW72Q2PTXqyR6bZeFPjAUmnMuC4YWx1OhHFOjYs68K4GKPwAYaKr8aT5ncJBPjKkBrmpkf0SQO1N_rjeBxx2PrVOBxcDHZ3V1WYnf8fYZNnPVEYGxEpQbuv9XZRePD2JaHIZT7HxxOTzY/s1600/didion_pic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW72Q2PTXqyR6bZeFPjAUmnMuC4YWx1OhHFOjYs68K4GKPwAYaKr8aT5ncJBPjKkBrmpkf0SQO1N_rjeBxx2PrVOBxcDHZ3V1WYnf8fYZNnPVEYGxEpQbuv9XZRePD2JaHIZT7HxxOTzY/s1600/didion_pic.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Joan Didion in Hollywood, 1970</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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I never liked Joan Didion. I have yet to discover whether
this is a controversial statement or not. I’m guessing that it is, given the
amount of “Top 50”/”Top 100”/”Books to Read Before You Croak” lists her work
crops up on.</div>
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I read “Play It As It Lays” a couple of years ago and couldn’t
get into it. I found it stylistically irritating and – while I enjoyed the
flourishes of ingenious language and description that abound throughout the
book – I was unable to get beyond this.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Descriptions of characters driving into the “<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">hard white empty core of the world,” for example,
are excellent, and showcase Didion’s talents as a true literary artist. But each
time the book is given a chance to fly, we are dragged back down into the lazy,
languid, mire of Didion’s own narcissism.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">You might think narcissism
is the wrong word, that I’m being unnecessarily harsh, but I’ve thought about
this long and hard and found it to be the right word. Joan Didion’s prose is narcissistic
in that the concept of “Joan Didion” – i.e. “the author herself – is always
fully evident within it, staring back at the reader with its ironic, beatnik-ian arrogance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I’ve read substantially
about the relationship between Didion and her late husband John Gregory Dunne –
who co-wrote the screenplay for the 1972 movie – and have spotted more
than a couple of parallels between the real life ‘Didions’ and the characters
of “Play It As it Lays”. The problem with this sort of dreary gonzo-literature
is that Didion appears to be almost legitimising the actions of a ‘Lost
Generation #2’ (or #3,#4 or whatever number we’re up to now) and denying the existence all other responsibility or obligation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">So, not to put too fine a
point on it, I didn’t like "Play It As It Lays" and I didn’t particularly like
Joan Didion as a person.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Earlier this year, I read “The
Year of Magical Thinking”. My reasoning for picking up this book was that I was
thinking about "Play It As It Lays" one day and was struck with the peculiar
thought that Didion’s self-absorbed writing style would probably translate
rather well to a memoir.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">So I went out on a limb,
purchased the book with low expectations, and gave it a go. The thought process
that led me to this book must have been a form of magical thinking in itself,
as I found it thoroughly compelling from the outset.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">For those who are unaware,
The Year of Magical Thinking deals with Joan Didion’s own experience of the
sudden death of her husband and its immediate aftermath. It is also grimly capoed
by the death of the couple’s daughter shortly after the book was completed, an
event which would be dealt with in a second book,<i> </i>“Blue Nights”.<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Maybe it is the grim and
sobering subject matter of the book that finally brings Didion – now an elderly
lady – into the realms of sympathy and normality, or maybe it is that – with Didion
in this newly reflective frame of mind – the author is able to write more
candidly about her own failings and her own issues, rather than retreating into
the superficial constructions of her fiction.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">In the book, Didion deals
with death head-on, often more bluntly than many of her fellow authors. Those
whose literary diet began with the stoicism of Hemingway will be fascinated by
the way that Didion’s grief is personified to such an extent that it almost
becomes an additional character in the book, as well as the way in which she accommodates
the insanity this monstrous grief brings.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Unflinching and reflective
in its portrayal of Didion’s relationships with both her husband and her
daughter Quintana over the years, "The Year of Magical Thinking" is made even
more poignant by the reader's prescient knowledge of Quintana’s imminent and
untimely death following intensive brain surgery in 2005.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">"The Year of Magical Thinking" is literary redemption for Joan
Didion, in the most heartbreaking and brutal fashion. </span></div>
JohnBurnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15907847376933023678noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1093837131389236942.post-61584792545011510282012-09-20T11:27:00.000-07:002012-09-20T11:30:10.964-07:00Elmore Leonard wins Lifetime Achievement Award<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4d/Elmore_Leonard.jpg/220px-Elmore_Leonard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4d/Elmore_Leonard.jpg/220px-Elmore_Leonard.jpg" /></a></div>
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Novelist Elmore Leonard – the skilful crime writer who
produced such high-paced classics of the genre as “Out of Sight” and “Rum Punch”
– is to become the latest recipient of a prestigious lifetime achievement
award.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The 86 year old will receive the National Book Foundation’s
Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, in New York on
November 14<sup>th</sup>.<br />
<br />
In receiving the coveted – if slightly longwinded –
award, Leonard joins a list of luminaries that includes John Updike, Norman
Mailer and Tom Wolfe.</div>
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After the news broke, Leonard answered questions about the
award with characteristic humility;</div>
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<br /></div>
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"I was very surprised,” he said. “I didn't ever count
on winning this kind of an award; I’ve won a lot of awards but not like this
one.”</div>
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<br /></div>
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Leonard is expected to make a speech at the National Book
Awards on the same evening, the organisers of which are requesting her trims
down to only six minutes. We’ll see if he manages to adhere to such a
limitation.</div>
JohnBurnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15907847376933023678noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1093837131389236942.post-51688882591867181682012-09-18T11:46:00.000-07:002012-09-19T01:57:44.174-07:00“Hamsun Was a Nutcase”: Why It’s Not Always Necessary to Agree With Someone’s Politics to Enjoy Their Work<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hamsun on the cover of "Hunger" </td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">("Sult")</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Most modern Norwegians have an uneasy relationship with Knut Hamsun, a man who should’ve been one of the nation’s cultural darlings.<br />
<br />
For many years, Hamsun – an author often cited as the originator of the modernist movement and an undeniably brilliant and innovative writer – was shunned as a Nazi sympathiser and his work largely ignored by a country still scarred by the effects of German occupation during the Second World War.<br />
<br />
<br />
Now attitudes are changing. Hamsun’s work is gradually creeping back into the classrooms and libraries of Norway and is slowly but surely becoming a more acceptable subject for discussion or even appreciation.<br />
<br />
But does this softening of attitudes represent a natural and sensible view of the work of a man now consigned to the annals of history? Or does it symbolise an apathetic response to the sorts of far-right views and extremist politcal values that Anders Breivik has brought back onto the national agenda?<br />
<br />
History does not record Hamsun as a particularly good person. Attempts to play down the Nazi ravings that characterised Hamsun’s later life as the baseless ramblings of someone deep in the grips of mental illness are discredited by his description of the USA as “a mulatto studfarm” as early as 1889, when the author was only 30 years old and in the first flushes of his creative brilliance.<br />
<br />
Hamsun’s view of himself as a member of an intellectual elite led him to despise the egalitarian politics of the left and instead embrace the cause of the fascists during World War I. He became a member of the notorious Nasjonal Samling party that would later seize power in Norway during World War II and even wrote a passionate eulogy for Hitler after his death in 1945, only escaping execution for treason after the war by being declared psychologically unsound. <br />
<br />
So no, Hamsun was no angel. In fact, the man was downright abhorrent. But does this render works like “Hunger” (published in 1890) worthy of deletion from literary history?<br />
<br />
“Hunger” is an exceptional piece of work. Following a struggling journalist as he traipses around Oslo in search of food, work and self-respect, this short, searing and devastatingly visceral novel represented a step away from the realist traditions of the 19th century and laid the groundwork for what would become the modernist movement.<br />
<br />
Hamsun’s literary manifesto is clear: writers should only concern themselves with a character’s own, inherently flawed perception of the world around them; presenting that world in terms of cold hard fact is boring and disingenuous. Without Hamsun, it’s debateable whether the work of Joyce, Woolf, Faulkner or any of the other totemic writers of the first half of the twentieth century could have developed in the way it did.<br />
<br />
Hunger remains a stunning portrayal of the strange experiences and bizarre rationale of a man on the edge. Think “Post Office” transposed to Scandinavia in late Victorian times on you’re on the right track. Whether or not you agree with the class politics or racial prejudices of its author – none of which are touched on in the novel – Hunger remains a fascinating book.<br />
<br />
As human beings, we should trust ourselves enough not to be so swayed by the argument of another that we lose touch with our own principles and convictions. We should be able to expose ourselves to views we do not agree with, without fear of succumbing to some sort ideological radiation poisoning.<br />
<br />
When we specifically select our reading material based upon what we think our principles are, we are in serious danger of prejudicing ourselves and reinforcing the rigidity of our thought processes. Strong convictions will stand up to any test; reading Knut Hamsun will not turn you into a fascist. Unless you are one already, of course.<br />
<br />JohnBurnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15907847376933023678noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1093837131389236942.post-77072212158852991262012-09-18T08:05:00.000-07:002012-09-18T08:05:12.570-07:00Lermontov, Pushkin and Byron – The Original Superfluous Men<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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</a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A youthful looking Mikhail Lermontov</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The <i>superfluous man</i> is one of the lasting legacies of
Russian literature in the 19<sup>th</sup> century. The phrase – referring to a peculiar
individual, undoubtedly gifted but tortured and existing outside the practical
bounds of society – was coined by Ivan Turgenev in the title of his 1850
novella “The Diary of a Superfluous Man”, but the roots of the concept stretch
further back in time.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The origins of the concept of the <i>superfluous man</i> are so
fitting that they are almost predictable. The formation of its constituent
parts began in the mind of – you guessed it – Lord Byron; in many ways the
archetypal <i>superfluous man</i> himself. Byron’s narrative poem, “Childe Harold’s
Pilgrimage” was published over 30 years before Turgenev’s famous work and is
widely credited with sowing the seeds of the <i>superfluous man</i> character in the
Russian literary consciousness.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">It was Alexander Pushkin who first took the idea of the <i>superfluous
man</i> back to Russia, using Byron’s work as the inspiration for his own famous
narrative poem, Eugene Onegin. Onegin is a suitably Byronesque dandy from Saint
Petersburg, who cobbles together his own ‘individual’ personality from various
literary tropes and ideals.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">If Pushkin and Byron laid the groundwork for the character
of the <i>superfluous man</i>, it was Mikhail Lermontov who cemented its place in the
Russian literary canon. Born in 1814 to an aristocratic family, Lermontov was
an artistic prodigy, producing poetry, stunning landscape paintings and prose
while barely in his 20s.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">It was in 1839, when aged only 24, that Lermontov completed the
work that would crystallize the character of the <i>superfluous man</i>, “A Hero of
Our Time,” a novel which elucidates the life of its central character,
Pechorin, through the eyes of a number of witnesses to his deeds. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Apart from both being prime exponents of one of Russian
literature’s most enduring devices, the parallels between the lives, careers
and deaths of Pushkin and Lermontov are eerily apparent. Both “Eugene Onegin”
and “A Hero of Our Time” describe a duel between the protagonist and another
character; both Pushkin and Lermontov came to untimely ends while participating
in a duel.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">On July 25<sup>th</sup> 1841 the dashing, swashbuckling army
officer Mikhail Lermontov engaged in a duel with another officer, Nikolai
Martynov, whom he had offended. Martynov shot Lermontov dead; the writer was
26 years old.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In many ways, Mikhail Lermontov, Lord Byron and Alexander
Pushkin represent the archetypes that have made the idea of a <i>superfluous man</i>
so enduring throughout the development of modern culture. The
live-fast-die-young-leave-a-beautiful corpse attitude has pervaded into some of
the most famous and evocative cultural iconography of the 20<sup>th</sup> and
21<sup>st</sup> centuries.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">James Dean, Marilyn Monroe and Kurt Cobain are all more
modern examples of the <i>superfluous man</i> – and <i>woman</i> – concept made flesh, of
people whose disorders made them brilliant but crucially incompatible with real
life. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Criticised by some as symptomatic of arrogance and an
inability to “pull yourself together”, but embraced by others as a fascinating
critique of social convention, the <i>superfluous man</i> concept will continue to be relevant
as long as society continues to impose its restrictive framework onto ordinary lives.</span></div>
JohnBurnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15907847376933023678noreply@blogger.com0