Tag: books

‘I’ve done worse things, things I am not proud of including standing here in the dark with David, I know there’s a little bit of hypocrisy there, there are shades of hypocrisy in everything. Our principles stretch like elastic bands’. This is a blog on Nicola Dinan (2025) ‘Disappoint Me’.

February 23, 2025

‘I’ve done worse things, things I am not proud of including standing here in the dark with David, I know there’s a little bit of hypocrisy there, there are shades of hypocrisy in everything. Our principles stretch like elastic bands’.[1] When certainties fail us, as they must in time, there may be no alternative to … More ‘I’ve done worse things, things I am not proud of including standing here in the dark with David, I know there’s a little bit of hypocrisy there, there are shades of hypocrisy in everything. Our principles stretch like elastic bands’. This is a blog on Nicola Dinan (2025) ‘Disappoint Me’.

Is a day being a mythical version of someone else, worth the crashing out afterwards? “Jackie is just speedin’ away / Thought she was James Dean for a day / Then I guess she had to crash / Valium would have helped that bash”.

February 18, 2025

Is a day being a mythical version of someone else, worth the crashing out afterwards? “Jackie is just speedin’ away / Thought she was James Dean for a day / Then I guess she had to crash / Valium would have helped that bash”. It feels easier for me to say why not I would … More Is a day being a mythical version of someone else, worth the crashing out afterwards? “Jackie is just speedin’ away / Thought she was James Dean for a day / Then I guess she had to crash / Valium would have helped that bash”.

The ‘gnomic aperçu’ seemed once to be the quest of the literary academy. John Banville tells us that apparent words of arcane wisdom often turn out to be ‘academic writing at its most convoluted, most resistant and most sterile, the deathless products of the publish-or-perish academic treadmill’. [1]

February 8, 2025

It seems odd to take as the text behind a blog not a great work reviewed but the review itself. Nevertheless today I do just this. John Banville is a great reviewer – the grim and rather schoolmasterly distaste for orthodoxy in which he specialises makes him a resistible public speaker but a novelist of … More The ‘gnomic aperçu’ seemed once to be the quest of the literary academy. John Banville tells us that apparent words of arcane wisdom often turn out to be ‘academic writing at its most convoluted, most resistant and most sterile, the deathless products of the publish-or-perish academic treadmill’. [1]

A reader falls into Joelle Taylor’s fabulous ‘The Night Alphabet’.

February 3, 2025

‘Everything moves. Everything passes.  Threads tangle so easily, so completely. It is their nature to knot. …/…/ The truth is you must be everyone in a story to understand the story. …’.[1]  A reader who comes to The Night Alphabet looking for a linear story and quickly understood connections between the novel’s sub-narratives  (or some … More A reader falls into Joelle Taylor’s fabulous ‘The Night Alphabet’.

Feeling the Baroque and Roll of the Classical Drama and Leigh Bowery over two days in London.

January 29, 2025

Now hubby Geoff is so unexpectedly well so soon, I am off comprehensive culture -seeking in London again on the 26th-27th February. It’s a return that promises to make me feel the Baroque and Roll of the Classical Drama and Leigh Bowery over two days. Hubby Geoff now so well he is finding fault with … More Feeling the Baroque and Roll of the Classical Drama and Leigh Bowery over two days in London.

In the self-published memoir-cum-novel ‘poof: a curriculum vitae’, James, the narrator, generalises on the background human condition assumed in the work. He says, for instance: ‘Despair over our own existences certainly makes us bury obvious truths. Masochistic for meaning, we give ourselves over to existing powers so easily’.  At another point, James says: ‘Now I have become a master of fieldwork psychology’. Yet we cannot know the full context in which  that naming of a role has meaning. This blog tries to read this analytic novel’s study of the lives of masters and slaves, and a world where power seems all there is in relationships, in a way that makes sense to me.

January 23, 2025

In the self-published memoir-cum-novel poof: a curriculum vitae, James, the narrator, generalises on the background human condition assumed in the work. He says, for instance:  ‘Despair over our own existences certainly makes us bury obvious truths. Masochistic for meaning, we give ourselves over to existing powers so easily’.[1]  At one point, James says: ‘Now I … More In the self-published memoir-cum-novel ‘poof: a curriculum vitae’, James, the narrator, generalises on the background human condition assumed in the work. He says, for instance: ‘Despair over our own existences certainly makes us bury obvious truths. Masochistic for meaning, we give ourselves over to existing powers so easily’.  At another point, James says: ‘Now I have become a master of fieldwork psychology’. Yet we cannot know the full context in which  that naming of a role has meaning. This blog tries to read this analytic novel’s study of the lives of masters and slaves, and a world where power seems all there is in relationships, in a way that makes sense to me.

Why offer me a dream of doing what might be better never done.

January 19, 2025

The idea of winning the lottery – or winning the pools as was the norm when when I was a child and before the advent of a state lottery in the UK – may have appealed once as an means of evoking impossible resolutions to real problems – real or relative poverty, economic insecurity and … More Why offer me a dream of doing what might be better never done.

Fables for the age: The ambition of Tim Winton’s (2018) The Shepherd’s Hut London, Picador.

January 16, 2025

First published in Open university blog Tuesday, 10 July 2018, 15:06 Visible to anyone in the world Edited by Steve Bamlett, Wednesday, 11 July 2018, 07:42 Fables for the age: The ambition of Tim Winton’s (2018) The Shepherd’s Hut London, Picador. I read every word of Tim Winton as it falls (in the UK) from the press. … More Fables for the age: The ambition of Tim Winton’s (2018) The Shepherd’s Hut London, Picador.

Of a ‘chert the size of an olive pit’, that travels with the narrator through the spaces and times of the novel ‘Juice’ [2024] by Tim Winton, the narrator says that ‘… a stone is an expression of the earth, a signal of time. … but its journey isn’t over, and neither is its destiny fixed’. In the dystopia imagined by Tim Winton whether destiny is fixed or not at any point in the globe’s political and environmental history is the central ethical problem of the novel.

January 16, 2025

Of a ‘chert the size of an olive pit’, that travels with the narrator through the spaces and times of the novel Juice [2024] by Tim Winton, the narrator says that ‘… a stone is an expression of the earth, a signal of time. But it’s also a relic of experience. A thing propelled into the world. … More Of a ‘chert the size of an olive pit’, that travels with the narrator through the spaces and times of the novel ‘Juice’ [2024] by Tim Winton, the narrator says that ‘… a stone is an expression of the earth, a signal of time. … but its journey isn’t over, and neither is its destiny fixed’. In the dystopia imagined by Tim Winton whether destiny is fixed or not at any point in the globe’s political and environmental history is the central ethical problem of the novel.

Is thinking differently, doing something differently? Or is thought a means of doing nothing? ‘We are all of us born in moral stupidity, taking the world as an udder to feed our supreme selves’ says George Eliot magisterially with perhaps this issue in mind. If we are born thus, the emergence of independent moral understanding is painful as a result, for in that emergence we begin to know the otherness of others beneath the barriers set by our thick skins. (Cue George Eliot’s ‘Middlemarch’ from the end of Book 1, Chapter XXI).

December 29, 2024

Is thinking differently, doing something differently? Or is thought a means of doing nothing? Can thinking become its own object rather an an eternally self-reflecting subject seeing itself repeated infinitely in a Hall of Mirrors. A Yayoi Kusama Infinity Mirror Room. ‘We are all of us born in moral stupidity, taking the world as an … More Is thinking differently, doing something differently? Or is thought a means of doing nothing? ‘We are all of us born in moral stupidity, taking the world as an udder to feed our supreme selves’ says George Eliot magisterially with perhaps this issue in mind. If we are born thus, the emergence of independent moral understanding is painful as a result, for in that emergence we begin to know the otherness of others beneath the barriers set by our thick skins. (Cue George Eliot’s ‘Middlemarch’ from the end of Book 1, Chapter XXI).

“If there were no time there would still be some / Sometimes, …. / :Cocooned in comfort where there’s no splendour”.

December 27, 2024

If there were no time there would still be someSometimes, wherein we would find time containedIn some special relationship with us:Cocooned in comfort where there’s no splendour. It does not surprise me that when I think of time I type some plangent iambic pentameters like those I typed above with echoes of the moment in … More “If there were no time there would still be some / Sometimes, …. / :Cocooned in comfort where there’s no splendour”.

‘Stop saying words, my sister whispered back. I want to hear the story’. This is a blog  on Ali Smith (2024) ‘Gliff ‘.

November 26, 2024

‘Stop saying words, my sister whispered back. I want to hear the story’.[1] The paradox may be that we express our identity in words and names not in the process of telling and hearing our stories. I think Ali Smith thinks that may be true of the configuration of sex/gender too. This is a blog  … More ‘Stop saying words, my sister whispered back. I want to hear the story’. This is a blog  on Ali Smith (2024) ‘Gliff ‘.