I was reading T.S. Eliot’s The Family Reunion, which is, I have to admit, a tedious bore to read and which I only took up as an example of a play based on the idea of The Oresteia by Aeschylus. The basis of comparison is very loose. It takes up the Oresteia late in the … More Dining with Amy, Dowager Lady Monchensey on her birthday.
This blog uses Elizabeth Strout (2026) The Things We Never Say London, Viking / Penguin as a test case for a thesis based on the difficulty of erasing trends from history. In it, the narrator says that Artie Dam, thinks his despair at the ‘state of the world’ relates to the hopeless hope that a … More This blog uses Elizabeth Strout (2026) ‘The Things We Never Say’ as a test case for a thesis based on the difficulty of erasing trends from history. In it, the narrator says that Artie Dam, thinks his despair at the ‘state of the world’ relates to the hopeless hope that a dangerous right-wing demagogue does not win an American election fought(and won by the wrong person) in the background of the narrative yet influential within it. However: ‘because he had studied history. He was aware that in all human existence there had never been a time where people were not killing one another, and why he had not been affected by this as strongly throughout his life as he was these days he could not understand’. As he gets home and removes his sailing boots he suddenly understands that his despair had another more primary cause: ‘It was an accretion of loneliness; …’.
Let’s assume that ‘who we are’ can release an agency that shapes us beyond ‘who we are and were’ into some refined or reconfigured version of that self in the near or distant future. However, it can only do this by its response to experience. Do novelists deal with the kind of problem any more? … More Let’s assume that ‘who we are’ can release an agency that shapes us beyond ‘who we are and were’ into some refined or reconfigured version of that self in the near or distant future. However, it can only do this by its response to experience. Do novelists deal with the kind of problem any more?
The answer to whether one is a ‘lifelong learner’ is the title of the latest novel by Kae Tempest, namely ‘Having Spent Life Seeking’: as for what we seek to learn is it this? – ‘How to get by without ever getting anywhere, when getting through a minute was infinite; but every ending achieved was still … More The answer to whether one is a ‘lifelong learner’ is the title of the latest novel by Kae Tempest, namely ‘Having Spent Life Seeking’: as for what we seek to learn is it this? – ‘How to get by without ever getting anywhere, when getting through a minute was infinite; but every ending achieved was still only the beginning’.
One of the great beauties of writing an autobiography, a written story of the life you have passed thus far, is that, in writing it, you have the advantage of interpreting it, or any part of it, with a different view of what it all means now, or should as far as you are concerned … More Invited to imagine ‘your life’ as a book, the convenient thing about what you’d call a ‘chapter’ in it, is that it ends and pauses before another chapter begins. Is that because your life changed at some point or because, after the event, you want to write it as if it had?
Édouard Louis shows us that ‘happiness’ may be the result only of ‘social determinism’ succeeding in its function to ‘condition the person’ you are. [1] This is a blog on Édouard Louis (2026) Collapse [Trans Tash Aw], London, Harvill. This piece probably relates to what I have tried to say in blogs about earlier books. The … More Édouard Louis shows us that ‘happiness’ may be the result only of ‘social determinism’ succeeding in its function to ‘condition the person’ you are. This is a blog on Édouard Louis (2026) ‘Collapse’, London, Harvill.
Self-confidence is an illusion, as the best novels tell you. Try for resilience and the drive to move on. First of all think more deeply about what selves are. The Guardian entitles its review of Douglas Stuart (2026) John of John, London, Picador with the sentence ‘No man is an island’, but the reference to … More Self-confidence is an illusion, as the best novels tell you. Try for resilience and the drive to move on. First of all think more deeply about what selves are. ‘The Guardian’ entitles its review of Douglas Stuart (2026) ‘John of John’ with the sentence ‘No man is an island’, but the reference to John Donne belittles a work in which islands are not only a metonymy for alienated isolation and loneliness but also a container for non-communicating multiple selves of the same kind.
The French novel always went further than the English novel did, until the latter did it in ‘daring’ pastiche of the French in another art-form. This blog is my preparation to see the National Theatre live- streaming of Christopher Hampton’s ‘Les Liaisons Dangereuse‘, adapted from the novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos written in 1782. … More The French novel always went further than the English novel did, until the latter did it in ‘daring’ pastiche of the French in another art-form. This blog is my preparation to see the National Theatre live- streaming of Christopher Hampton’s ‘Les Liaisons Dangereuse’, adapted from the novel by Choderlos de Laclos written in 1782.
We all remember the scene from the film Gone With the Wind, even if not the details. The shallow life of Scarlett O’Hara, played by Vivien Leigh, is revealed when she is in weeds of mourning with her home, Tara (the paradisal halls of Tara in Irish mythology are enwrapped herein), compromised by the loss … More Movies that last often are as potent in pricking the bubble of someone else’s sense of their own dramatic moment, as when Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara (in the film of ‘Gone With the Wind’) says in despair: “Where shall I go? What shall I do?”and Clark Gable as Rhett Butler responds: “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
How to ‘finish’ a book. Is it the same thing as ‘reading’ a book. When I was a child, I was obsessed with having to finish a book. It was a measure of the endurance, fortitude or passion (with varying degrees of drive and amounts of compulsion enforced from some internalised diktat or standard) to … More How to ‘finish’ a book. Is it the same thing as ‘reading’ a book.
‘What’s something you’d love to see in the future, but know you probably won’t live to witness?’ This question is stuck in the mud of illusion, for as Thomas Hardy said, in a work no-one ever reads, “if a way to the Better there be, it Begins with a Full Look at the Worst’. There … More ‘What’s something you’d love to see in the future, but know you probably won’t live to witness?’ This question is stuck in the mud of illusion, for as Thomas Hardy said, in a work no-one ever reads, “if a way to the Better there be, it Begins with a Full Look at the Worst’.
In the loosest of uses of the word ‘moment’, I want to identify a ‘moment’ as that period of time over which I realised that reality is constantly reshaped by the means of its description. It is the kind of ‘moment’ that might be used as an answer to the title of James’ Baldwin’s novel … More It is the kind of ‘moment’ that might be used as an answer to the title of James’ Baldwin’s novel ‘Tell Me How Long The Train’s Been Gone’, wherein moments have duration and measure in so many domains including measures of time and the quality, rather than quantity, of our attention to a phenomenon: the time scales, for instance, of narrative, history and self-awareness wherein ‘reality’ is at a premium.
Steve_Bamlett_blog 