Tag: books

We have to learn how to accept loss in our life or live with distortion, for (as E.M. Forster tried to show his beloved hero, Maurice) ‘letters distort even more quickly than silence’?

May 5, 2026

It must have seemed a mystery to me, else why did I write it so carefully on the front endpaper of my copy of Maurice (written in 1914 but first published in 1971, and mine was a first edition), at the age of 20 to consider why it seemed to matter so much to me … More We have to learn how to accept loss in our life or live with distortion, for (as E.M. Forster tried to show his beloved hero, Maurice) ‘letters distort even more quickly than silence’?

Perhaps the answer is ‘ a moment of anticipation’! This blog reflects on Eugene O’Neill (1956) ‘A Long Day’s Journey Into Night’ in anticipation of seeing a production revived by Elysium Theatre Company at the Gala Theatre Durham on 19th May 2026.

May 4, 2026

Perhaps the answer is ‘ a moment of anticipation’! A young man and his father are lost to the consumption of hoarded whiskey until the woman, who is their mother and wife respectively, enters pale as a ghost carrying her ancient wedding dress. At this point the youth’s ‘head jerks and his eyes open’, though … More Perhaps the answer is ‘ a moment of anticipation’! This blog reflects on Eugene O’Neill (1956) ‘A Long Day’s Journey Into Night’ in anticipation of seeing a production revived by Elysium Theatre Company at the Gala Theatre Durham on 19th May 2026.

‘boustrophedon, one of the loveliest words in the English language, …’. If only the aims of life were not so ‘chopped up’, end-stopped and linear, we might realise that ‘in our minds’ are ‘only sinuous furrows of thought’. This blog reflects on Yann Martel’s novel, ‘Son of Nobody’.

May 1, 2026

‘boustrophedon, one of the loveliest words in the English language, …’. If only the aims of life were not so ‘chopped up’, end-stopped and linear, we might realise that ‘in our minds’ are ‘only sinuous furrows of thought’. [1] This blog reflects on Yann Martel’s novel, ‘Son of Nobody’. Of course, writing is about giving … More ‘boustrophedon, one of the loveliest words in the English language, …’. If only the aims of life were not so ‘chopped up’, end-stopped and linear, we might realise that ‘in our minds’ are ‘only sinuous furrows of thought’. This blog reflects on Yann Martel’s novel, ‘Son of Nobody’.

Is being productive the issue? Producing art or understanding thereof is more often about the analysis of the unproductive or listless: in Russian, the state of ‘khandra’. This blog is a case study based on preparions for seeing The Metropolitan Opera’s ‘Eugene Onegin’ streamed to Durham Gala on the 6th June.

April 28, 2026

Tchaikovsky could only mount the story of Eugene Onegin according to the strict material limits of the nineteenth century opera and its conventions. There must be three Acts. What must have been clear to him that these acts needed each to revolve around a central dramatic encounter – of course three such were obvious. And … More Is being productive the issue? Producing art or understanding thereof is more often about the analysis of the unproductive or listless: in Russian, the state of ‘khandra’. This blog is a case study based on preparions for seeing The Metropolitan Opera’s ‘Eugene Onegin’ streamed to Durham Gala on the 6th June.

Should we ever regret taking the risk of giving a straight answer to a queer question? In her new novel, ‘My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein: a fiction’, Deborah Levy examines, amongst other things why: ‘Stein had put so much in the way. In the way of understanding. She did not believe in it’. The narrator of the novel continually asks: ‘What is it?’ of numerous ‘its’ that are so often getting lost to good, ill or mixed ends. What’s wrong with being always understood?

April 26, 2026

Should we ever regret taking the risk of not giving a straight answer to a queer question? In My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein: a fiction, Deborah Levy examines, amongst other things why: ‘Stein had put so much in the way. In the way of understanding. She did not believe in it’. [1] The … More Should we ever regret taking the risk of giving a straight answer to a queer question? In her new novel, ‘My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein: a fiction’, Deborah Levy examines, amongst other things why: ‘Stein had put so much in the way. In the way of understanding. She did not believe in it’. The narrator of the novel continually asks: ‘What is it?’ of numerous ‘its’ that are so often getting lost to good, ill or mixed ends. What’s wrong with being always understood?

Cashing in on ‘Thy sweet love remembered’:Some preliminary thoughts on Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29 before some historical reflection on its use in queer literary culture in the twentieth century

April 19, 2026

Sonnet 29 is used to provide the title, and is quoted in full as its message, by a non-binary character in prison named by inmates as ‘Mona’ (after Mona Lisa), of John Herbert’s Fortune and Men’s Eyes, an important if not a very good queer play, and in 1971 a minor film, no longer easily … More Cashing in on ‘Thy sweet love remembered’:Some preliminary thoughts on Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29 before some historical reflection on its use in queer literary culture in the twentieth century

‘Man measured his words like food and decided what was worth opening his mouth for’. Words and food in Derek Owusu (2026) ‘Hunger Pains’ for The Reading Agency Quick Reads.

April 18, 2026

‘Man measured his words like food and decided what was worth opening his mouth for’.[1] No-one measures his words like Derek Owusu, and no writer has pursued the link between food and the ‘matter’ that is, as in Hamlet (Act 2, Scene 2, 204ff.), ‘Words, words, words’, (whether spoken or written) like him since Shakespeare. … More ‘Man measured his words like food and decided what was worth opening his mouth for’. Words and food in Derek Owusu (2026) ‘Hunger Pains’ for The Reading Agency Quick Reads.

I use ‘social media’ to imagine a void in which a mirror placed therein might be a window or vice-versa and wonder why I talk to what I cannot see in it.

April 17, 2026

I have addressed the cogent reasons for me to use social media in a blog on ‘Why I Blog!’, at this link. But following on from all that is difficult, like driving on through dark empty space and pretending that it can be named as ‘social media’ or some other name that hardly fits the … More I use ‘social media’ to imagine a void in which a mirror placed therein might be a window or vice-versa and wonder why I talk to what I cannot see in it.

‘Where do you see yourself in ten years?’: This stock question in job interviews is at the root of a society that has no other standards than narcissism and magical thinking.

April 13, 2026

‘Where do you see yourself in ten years?’: This stock question in job interviews is at the root of a society that has no other standards than narcissism and magical thinking. Karl Stevens’ response above to imagining the stock job interview questionin our prompt – though the version he uses features a shorter duration of … More ‘Where do you see yourself in ten years?’: This stock question in job interviews is at the root of a society that has no other standards than narcissism and magical thinking.

The idea of the exception that stands out from a plethora of forgettable random encounters should be now recognised as the trope of what we used to call the sexual revolution in the short term or the ‘Crisis of Faith’ in the longer term.

April 12, 2026

The idea of the exception that stands out from a plethora of forgettable random encounters should be now recognised as the trope of what we used to call the sexual revolution in the short term or the ‘Crisis of Faith’ in the longer term. This blog should, perhaps, be treated as an interim reader’s ‘report’ … More The idea of the exception that stands out from a plethora of forgettable random encounters should be now recognised as the trope of what we used to call the sexual revolution in the short term or the ‘Crisis of Faith’ in the longer term.

I read this book and it changes you. This blog considers the short stories in Colm Tóibín (2026) ‘The News From Dublin’.

April 10, 2026

I read this book and it changes you. ‘In his preface to The Spoils of Poynton, Henry James talks about this idea of a “germ”, what he called “a mere floating particle in the stream of talk”, something that “has the virus of suggestion”. Life, as James would have it, is “all inclusion and confusion”, just as art is … More I read this book and it changes you. This blog considers the short stories in Colm Tóibín (2026) ‘The News From Dublin’.

Domestication or anthropomorphism: do people ‘make the worst pets’? Some thoughts derived from Thomas Gray’s ‘Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes’.

April 6, 2026

Domestication or anthropomorphism: do people ‘make the worst pets’? Some thoughts derived from Thomas Gray’s ‘Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes’. Do you know the poem I refer to in my title? It is by Thomas Gray (he of the infamous Elegy in a Country Churchyard), … More Domestication or anthropomorphism: do people ‘make the worst pets’? Some thoughts derived from Thomas Gray’s ‘Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes’.