Tag: books

This is a blog on the translation and interpretation of East European migrant experience to America in Ledia Xhoga (2025) ‘Misinterpretation’.

August 23, 2025

‘The phrase Çdo gjë është e shrkruar – Everything is already written – came to mind. Albanians usually offered it to an anxious person for comfort, as a reminder that the cogs of some future event had been spinning since the beginning of time’.[1] This is a blog on the translation and interpretation of East … More This is a blog on the translation and interpretation of East European migrant experience to America in Ledia Xhoga (2025) ‘Misinterpretation’.

This is a blog on Ben Markovits (2025) ‘The Rest Our Lives’ London, Faber.

August 19, 2025

Thinking of his father, John Layward, who has ‘He is gone into the world of light,’ inscribed on his flat grave, the protagonist and narrator, Tom Layward, of Ben Markovits’ Booker-longlisted novel wonders whether that proud man’s ‘hatred of religion’ ‘was only important to him in the context of the battle with my mother’. So … More This is a blog on Ben Markovits (2025) ‘The Rest Our Lives’ London, Faber.

Somehow twilight at evening draws us to favour it. Why? After all it promises us nothing but the night, unless we hope to make the next day the first of the ‘rest of our life’!

August 18, 2025

Somehow twilight at evening draws us to favour it. Why? After all it promises us nothing but the night, unless we hope to make the next day the first of the ‘rest of our life’! When I was a student at University College London, I used to find myself walking through Russell Square to and … More Somehow twilight at evening draws us to favour it. Why? After all it promises us nothing but the night, unless we hope to make the next day the first of the ‘rest of our life’!

If I use the verb ‘to write’, do I really mean that what I write must or should endure

August 17, 2025

The best known quatrain of Persian Poetry, in stolid Victorian translation is that from what The Poetry Foundation calls the ‘Rubáiyát, his collection of hundreds of quatrains (or rubais), was first translated from Farsi into English in 1859 by Edward Fitzgerald’, attributed to Omar Khayyam. There are versions on versions of the quatrains translated, not least by Fitzgerald . … More If I use the verb ‘to write’, do I really mean that what I write must or should endure

This is a blog on the role of endings in the modern metafictional novel and the light shed on that role by Maria Reva (2025) ‘Endling’ London, Virago Press.

August 15, 2025

‘She felt a small pang of resentment: the endling’s last moments on Earth, and it pined over not getting laid. Of course this was normal. If anything, endlings should pine all the louder for the end of their species. … // At least gastropods yearned in silence, …’.[1] This is a blog on the role … More This is a blog on the role of endings in the modern metafictional novel and the light shed on that role by Maria Reva (2025) ‘Endling’ London, Virago Press.

This is a blog on  Benjamin Wood (2025) ‘Seascraper’.

August 14, 2025

‘Edgar’s almost shrouded by the white swell of the fog. … All of Longferry – the tall spires of the churches and the chimney-tops of the terraces receding to the lights of other towns – has been snuffed out’. I think no other modern novel I know about has such a sense of being near … More This is a blog on  Benjamin Wood (2025) ‘Seascraper’.

On the Edinburgh book festival: why I still go and on whether I should keep going.                  

August 11, 2025

The Edinburgh Book Festival may be anybody’s kicking post for at least some of the time. For years, it was supported financially by Baillie Gifford with known assets in some very illiberal regimes and ethically if not legally (as far as we know) shady practices. That tie now severed, the right wing press led by … More On the Edinburgh book festival: why I still go and on whether I should keep going.                  

This is a blog on Natasha Brown (2025) ‘Universality’.

August 8, 2025

“Working families, small communities, traditional British industries and jobs. We used to value these things”.[1]Sometimes we wonder if this was said by a fictional columnist or own present prime Minister (and I won’t answer ‘whether I have a problem with our prime minister’: Natasha Brown meant Rishi Sunak; I, of course, mean Sir Keir Starmer’s … More This is a blog on Natasha Brown (2025) ‘Universality’.

To carry is a moral task (not least because it demands nuanced and mature ethical grasp). Let’s hope I can be worthy of it in my remaining years.

August 6, 2025

The word ‘carry’ derives originally from the idea not on the personal capacity to bear something along with you on a journey but on the use of a ‘vehicle’ (‘from Latin “carrum” originally “two-wheeled Celtic war chariot), although the Celtic use itself bears the more difficult to reconcile association of “run”. Maybe the later etymology makes it … More To carry is a moral task (not least because it demands nuanced and mature ethical grasp). Let’s hope I can be worthy of it in my remaining years.

This is a blog on Katie Kitamura  (2025) ‘Audition’.

August 5, 2025

Is the idea that psychosocial or other roles are ‘parts’ played upon the stage a tired metaphor (from the too-often quoted lines of Shakespeare’s jester, Jacques, from As You Like It: ‘All the world’s a stage, …’). Why might modern novels then take up that idea again, other than to keep saying and showing the … More This is a blog on Katie Kitamura  (2025) ‘Audition’.

An alternate universe is, for me, sitting in a cinema that is entirely empty but for your presence, waiting to see the end of a film that keeps freezing at the same place. Getting to see ‘The Hidden Master: George Platt Lynes’ less alternatively at home on DVD.

August 4, 2025

The Electra suite of the Tyneside cinema at 1.10 p.m. on Friday 25th July The events of Friday 25th July are a fitting image of an ‘alternate universe’, so I’ll describe those. I had planned to see a new film, one just released in the UK at least,Sam Sahid’s biographical and art documentary of the … More An alternate universe is, for me, sitting in a cinema that is entirely empty but for your presence, waiting to see the end of a film that keeps freezing at the same place. Getting to see ‘The Hidden Master: George Platt Lynes’ less alternatively at home on DVD.

‘”What d’you mean?” / “What do you mean what do I mean?”‘ Do we ever know what a person ‘means’? Is that the issue in David Szalay’s 2025 Booker-longlisted novel ‘Flesh’.

August 2, 2025

‘”What d’you mean?” / “What do you mean what do I mean?”‘[1] Do we ever know what a person ‘means’? Is that the issue in David Szalay’s 2025 Booker-longlisted novel ‘Flesh‘. Male novelists, with a deserved reputation for being interested in the nature of contemporary constructions of masculinity like David Szalay are perhaps too vulnerable … More ‘”What d’you mean?” / “What do you mean what do I mean?”‘ Do we ever know what a person ‘means’? Is that the issue in David Szalay’s 2025 Booker-longlisted novel ‘Flesh’.