Tag: books

From irresponsibility to organized competitive play (and / or choreographed display).

January 29, 2026

When I was but a child, the sport that filled those small flickering monochrome and then early colour TV screens was wrestling. It was killed off as a ‘sport’ when it was revealed that most of it was engineered for purposes of exciting spectators with over-exaggerated characters (‘Big Daddy’ and ‘Giant Haystacks’ for instance) with … More From irresponsibility to organized competitive play (and / or choreographed display).

There is a point in reading trees, not just as somewhere – buried in the sense of the word or the product we call ‘paper’ – that contains writing. They bear the scars of human presence and the latter’s need to appropriate nature with alien systems of possession.

January 27, 2026

In an earlier answer to this question I concentrated on ambiguities in the word ‘read’, wherein I inferred (rather than stating directly perhaps) that just because our eyes pass over text, they cannot be really said to ‘read’ that text. I used a passage from a yet to be published book to show that reading … More There is a point in reading trees, not just as somewhere – buried in the sense of the word or the product we call ‘paper’ – that contains writing. They bear the scars of human presence and the latter’s need to appropriate nature with alien systems of possession.

‘I’m not sure how I ended up here … and I see only blocks of text that are unclear like each word is fused into the next …’. Reading is an aspiration towards a communion.

January 24, 2026

Have you ever felt that so much depended on a reading of what is in front of you? I have just made a first reading – fast and furious – through the proof text of a novel not due for publication until, I think, September 2026, Derek Owusu’s The Recovery House, which will be published … More ‘I’m not sure how I ended up here … and I see only blocks of text that are unclear like each word is fused into the next …’. Reading is an aspiration towards a communion.

From making myself feel better by expressing my suffering to finding a means of redress for a grievance.

January 21, 2026

In reading this question, the contemporary and most frequent use of the word ‘complaint’ will be uppermost, which is mainly related to an expression of grievance or satisfaction leading to seeking a means of redress from the person or institution providing those goods or services which are found faulty or dangerous. It is part of … More From making myself feel better by expressing my suffering to finding a means of redress for a grievance.

Is there a rationale or purpose for a queer reading of Benjamin Britten’s operatic drama, ‘Peter Grimes’?

January 20, 2026

Worthwhile modern readings which root Peter Grimes in the experience of Benjamin Britten as a queer man may be available, although I think Phillip Brett’s Cambridge monograph on the opera may have served as a last word on why it both requires that perspective and why it is insufficient to provide a satisfactory reading on its … More Is there a rationale or purpose for a queer reading of Benjamin Britten’s operatic drama, ‘Peter Grimes’?

‘without transformation / Men become wolves on any slight occasion’. This blog takes as its starting point, Jacob Kerr (2025) ‘The Wolf of Whindale’, London, Serpent’s Tail.

January 15, 2026

‘without transformation / Men become wolves on any slight occasion’. This blog takes as its starting point, Jacob Kerr (2025) The Wolf of Whindale, London. Is it conceivable that, asked to choose an animal you like, you would choose one you consider yourself to be like. There is no certain link or even line of … More ‘without transformation / Men become wolves on any slight occasion’. This blog takes as its starting point, Jacob Kerr (2025) ‘The Wolf of Whindale’, London, Serpent’s Tail.

Memories clutter but are dangerous to seek to clear out sometimes.

January 12, 2026

Source: https://observer.co.uk/culture/books/article/the-sunday-poem-burning-car-by-andrew-mcmillan I suppose even physical clutter is the residue of memories, sometimes transmuted into obsessional and repetitive images – the better if repeated with a kind of nuance that varies each token from others in its type of memory. I use the words type and token as in philosophical metaphysics, explained in the link … More Memories clutter but are dangerous to seek to clear out sometimes.

Despite the literary establishment, biography can be done differently. Reflections on James Campbell (1991) ‘Talking at the Gates: A Life of James Baldwin’.

January 6, 2026

The white literary establishment once considered itself to be colour-blind, dealing equally with all writing free of categories such as ‘Black writing’, as distinguished from ‘White writing’, neither of which this establishment considered valid categorisations of the written literary text. For a literary biographer however it may be possible to tell the story of black … More Despite the literary establishment, biography can be done differently. Reflections on James Campbell (1991) ‘Talking at the Gates: A Life of James Baldwin’.

‘He’d now the power he ever loved to show, / A feeling being subject to his blow.’ In 1810, a long time ago, a rhyming vicar, George Crabbe, could trace the origins of domestic abuse to the leeway given to men to ‘assert the man’ by the exercise of power and control. Why is it possible to see no end of this leeway in the future?

January 5, 2026

‘He’d now the power he ever loved to show, / A feeling being subject to his blow.’ In 1810, a long time ago, a rhyming vicar, could trace the origins of domestic abuse to the leeway given to men to ‘assert the man’ by the exercise of power and control. Why is it possible to … More ‘He’d now the power he ever loved to show, / A feeling being subject to his blow.’ In 1810, a long time ago, a rhyming vicar, George Crabbe, could trace the origins of domestic abuse to the leeway given to men to ‘assert the man’ by the exercise of power and control. Why is it possible to see no end of this leeway in the future?

You get to build your perfect space for reading and writing. What’s it like? I think that for me the only answer I could supply would be that I should build a space that breaks down the boundaries we build around us to define our interior, even between reader and writer. This blog uses as a case study Timothy O’Grady (2025) ‘Monaghan’.

December 27, 2025

You get to build your perfect space for reading and writing. What’s it like? I think that for me the only answer I could supply would be that I should build a space that breaks down the boundaries we build around us to define our interior. Talking about his inspiration in writing To Anthony Cummins … More You get to build your perfect space for reading and writing. What’s it like? I think that for me the only answer I could supply would be that I should build a space that breaks down the boundaries we build around us to define our interior, even between reader and writer. This blog uses as a case study Timothy O’Grady (2025) ‘Monaghan’.

It was this blog, of course! It is on Peter Jefferies & Gregory Jusdanis ‘Alexandrian Sphinx: The Hidden Life of Constantine Cavafy’.

December 20, 2025

It was this blog, of course! How to write on a life, whose archival raw material is ‘marked by two conspicuous gaps – the relative absence of material regarding Constantine’s erotic life and his views of Muslim Egyptians’.[1] This is a blog on Peter Jefferies & Gregory Jusdanis Alexandrian Sphinx: The Hidden Life of Constantine … More It was this blog, of course! It is on Peter Jefferies & Gregory Jusdanis ‘Alexandrian Sphinx: The Hidden Life of Constantine Cavafy’.

Ian McEwan states in his novel’s title a concern with ‘What We Can Know’. Clearly, this concern with the nature and limits of knowledge is central to the conduct of history including predictive history, biography and the study of the art or even counterfactual forms of those things. However, the epigram of this novel, taken from the biographer Richard Holmes, implies that biography embodies ‘human truths poised between fact and fiction’ themselves which requires the question of ‘what we can know’ but also goes on to ask ‘what we can believe, and finally what we can love’.

December 11, 2025

Ian McEwan states in his novel’s title a concern with What We Can Know. Clearly, this concern with the nature and limits of knowledge is central to the conduct of history including predictive history, biography and the study of the art or even counterfactual forms of those things. However, the epigram of this novel, taken … More Ian McEwan states in his novel’s title a concern with ‘What We Can Know’. Clearly, this concern with the nature and limits of knowledge is central to the conduct of history including predictive history, biography and the study of the art or even counterfactual forms of those things. However, the epigram of this novel, taken from the biographer Richard Holmes, implies that biography embodies ‘human truths poised between fact and fiction’ themselves which requires the question of ‘what we can know’ but also goes on to ask ‘what we can believe, and finally what we can love’.