Steve_Bamlett_blog

Creation Lake “was the most fun I’ve ever had doing anything in my life” said Rachel Kushner in a recent interview with Lisa Allardice. [1] This is not a review: ‘Close in the name of jesting! / Lie thou there, / for here comes the trout that must be caught with tickling. / — Maria, … More ‘Creation Lake’ “was the most fun I’ve ever had doing anything in my life” said Rachel Kushner in a recent interview with Lisa Allardice. This is not a review: ‘Close in the name of jesting! / Lie thou there, / for here comes the trout that must be caught with tickling. / — Maria, from ‘Twelfth Night’’.

‘Real, unreal; inner, outer – always debatable land to her. … He sees his dead daughter. What’s that if not a disputed boundary?’ [1]Greek myth contained numerous contesting stories about its protagonists. The point always was to choose a story that revealed people who experience the world, and describe and act in it in ways … More ‘Real, unreal; inner, outer – always debatable land to her. … He sees his dead daughter. What’s that if not a disputed boundary?’ This is a blog about Pat Barker (2024) ‘The Voyage Home’

The fratricidal protagonist of his novel ‘Falconer’ (the name of the prison setting of the novel), Ezekiel Farragut eventually leaves Falconer. Though a laundromat shop-front he examines the ‘bull’s eye windows of drying machines’ in which there are ‘clothes tossed and falling, always falling – falling heedlessly, it seemed, like falling souls or angels if … More The fratricidal protagonist of his novel ‘Falconer’ (the name of the prison setting of the novel), Ezekiel Farragut, eventually leaves Falconer. Though a laundromat shop-front he examines the ‘bull’s eye windows of drying machines’ in which there are ‘clothes tossed and falling, always falling – falling heedlessly, it seemed, like falling souls or angels if their fall had ever been heedless’.[1] This blog is a comment on John Cheever  (2014, first published 1977) ‘Falconer’.

Talbot Rice Gallery, aided by the artist, this year shows us the continuing newness and vitality of the work of the artist El Anatsui for the Edinburgh Art Festival. This blog interrogates the exhibition with the help of Susan Mullin Vogel (2020) El Anatsui: Art and Life Munich, London, New York, Prestel Verlag. It concludes … More Talbot Rice Gallery, aided by the artist, this year shows us the continuing newness and vitality of the work of the artist El Anatsui for the Edinburgh Art Festival. This blog interrogates the exhibition with the help of Susan Mullin Vogel (2020) El Anatsui: Art and Life Munich, London, New York, Prestel Verlag. It concludes I need to learn more, and see more, of this artist.

Daisy, our recue Staffy is a roller. She always has been. As she has aged, some of her nervous disposition has increased. She is easily frightened by loud noises, especially hunting gun shots, which happen a lot over the field behind our house. But one thing she has always done is roll. I have to … More Roll, Daisy, roll!

Speaking of his novels and short stories, Colm Tóibín says of James Baldwin’s prose style that, ‘I have no memory of being impressed or even detained much … . I just read it. I wonder if it was designed for that purpose: to be read without noticing the style’. This is a blog on style … More This is a blog on style that uses dramatic tension and ordinariness together, and, what readers ‘notice’ in their reading and what they don’t notice as discussed in both noticeable and hard-to-notice ways in Colm Tóibín (2024) ‘On James Baldwin’.

Leanne, your name sounds softer now, your loss Echoing still, and making space between stars A little greater. But spaces are to cross Not linger in. They are not prison bars Nor vast and empty soundless, sightless holes. Endings were just stage-light that dare our souls   Live larger like that fine actress you are … More Our friend Claire asked us to write some words on the loss of our dear friend and her mother, a woman who gifted us and the world with someone who ought to be our ‘daughter’.

In yesterday’s blog I wrote, referring to Ralf Webb’s fine book (Strange Relations: Masculinity, Sexuality and Art in Mid-Century America, [2024] London, Hodder & Stoughton) and referring to his section on Baldwin Of James Baldwin I could not get enough. I will read him again, when I have finished Colm Tóibín’s new book on him at least, but … More ‘The “road” means my return South’. The mission that was the life and witness of James Baldwin. This blog reflects on the great film ‘I Am Not Your Negro’, with the writing of Baldwin himself.

When Kathryn Hughes reviewed Ralf Webb’s (2024) Strange Relations: Masculinity, Sexuality and Art in Mid-Century America, London, Hodder & Stoughton in an otherwise highly positive review she picks out the necessary negative, in order to prove her credentials as a critic. She says that Webb ‘feels obliged to include chunks of plot summary’ (of the … More I think a lot can be learned by just ‘relating’ stories. This is is a short blog on Ralf Webb (2024) ‘Strange Relations: Masculinity, Sexuality and Art in Mid-Century America’

In a poem called There’s a Problem in the Arts, the voice of a lyric says of literature that, ‘it’s an industry / for cunts! / Where’s the fucking poetry in it?’ [1]. What is that problem? This is a blog on Jenni Fagan (2024) A Swan’s Neck On The Butcher’s Block Edinburgh, Polygon. It … More In her new volume Jenni Fagan has a poem called ‘There’s a Problem in the Arts’. What is that problem? This is a blog on Fagan’s (2024) ‘A Swan’s Neck On The Butcher’s Block’.