Tag: fiction

I am passionate about the role of reading and the redemption of material life it carries with it. This is a blog on Ocean Vuong (2025) ‘The Emperor of Gladness’

June 12, 2025

‘The linoleum, too, … is blue. So blue you’ll have the feeling  of being swept away because you are, into a current of corridors intentionally too narrow to turn around in’.[1] Queer writers have so long challenged the false universals of heteronormative stability, and perhaps privileged the discourse of sexual interaction as a panacea  for … More I am passionate about the role of reading and the redemption of material life it carries with it. This is a blog on Ocean Vuong (2025) ‘The Emperor of Gladness’

‘… something between me and the picture felt poised on an edge waiting to happen, the verge of something wild’. This blog is for Joanne, who loves and understands Ali Smith, relating to that author’s republished essay on Munch in book form, ‘So In The Spruce Forest’.

June 2, 2025

‘… something between me and the picture felt poised on an edge waiting to happen, the verge of something wild’.  [1] This blog is for Joanne, who loves and understands Ali Smith, relating to that author’s republished essay on Munch in book form, ‘So In The Spruce Forest’. Some people, and Joanne is one of … More ‘… something between me and the picture felt poised on an edge waiting to happen, the verge of something wild’. This blog is for Joanne, who loves and understands Ali Smith, relating to that author’s republished essay on Munch in book form, ‘So In The Spruce Forest’.

This blog is a reflective take on Seán Hewitt’s 2025 novel ‘Open, Heaven’ New York, Alfred A. Knopf.

May 29, 2025

‘It was  all unfinished and most likely it always would be’. Open, Heaven, which despite having many endings is also truly an unending story, asks us how much we really want our loves to remain open rather than closed to future promise: that ‘life of constant negotiation, movement, agony, bliss’ And we desire this perhaps … More This blog is a reflective take on Seán Hewitt’s 2025 novel ‘Open, Heaven’ New York, Alfred A. Knopf.

Children Processing the Hard Stuff in Dying County Durham Mining Communities

May 9, 2025

Geoff brought me a gift from his day volunteering at Oxfam to include in my mining books. It is a pamphlet published in 1990 by Durham Arts Association.  It charts encounters by a retired miner, of 40 years work down pits, who was dedicating the time released to his lifelong wanting to produce art with … More Children Processing the Hard Stuff in Dying County Durham Mining Communities

‘But there is no sign of the boy.’ The coming to age of a queer boy told in the third person captures the alienation possible in that experience but that may be all it seeks to show! This is a blog on Michael Amherst (2025) ‘The Boyhood of Cain’.

May 4, 2025

‘But there is no sign of the boy.’ The coming to age of a queer boy told in the third person captures the alienation possible in that experience but that may be all it seeks to show! This is a blog on Michael Amherst (2025) The Boyhood of Cain London, Faber & Faber. I sighed … More ‘But there is no sign of the boy.’ The coming to age of a queer boy told in the third person captures the alienation possible in that experience but that may be all it seeks to show! This is a blog on Michael Amherst (2025) ‘The Boyhood of Cain’.

‘The Story of the Stone”: the artist and shaman come nearest to us in sharing an acknowledgement of the opaque density of our experience.  New short stories by James Kelman.

April 30, 2025

“The Story of the Stone: Tales, Entreaties & Incantations“: the artist and shaman come nearest to us in sharing an acknowledgement of the opaque density of our experience.  New short stories by James Kelman I have already referred to this set of stories in a past blog [see this link to read if you wish]. … More ‘The Story of the Stone”: the artist and shaman come nearest to us in sharing an acknowledgement of the opaque density of our experience.  New short stories by James Kelman.

‘… caught in improper possession of another person’s property’.  Abdulrazak Gurnah (2025) ‘Theft’ is a novel in a great tradition of ‘David Copperfield’ & ‘Great Expectations’.

April 26, 2025

‘… caught in improper possession of another person’s property’.[1] This blog examines the sensibility of the outsider’s desire to belong and have no belongings. Abdulrazak Gurnah (2025) ‘Theft‘ is a novel in a great tradition of ‘David Copperfield‘ & ‘Great Expectations’. Karim, whose growth to total self-possession makes him the main contender pretender to be … More ‘… caught in improper possession of another person’s property’.  Abdulrazak Gurnah (2025) ‘Theft’ is a novel in a great tradition of ‘David Copperfield’ & ‘Great Expectations’.

When I do strange things, fortunately I laugh at myself. A case in point …

March 28, 2025

My current reading Being retired and in one’s seventh decade of age leaves the issue of time open and yet I seem forever to find certain nagging questions pressing on my mind as if they mattered top anyone – even myself. Here is a case in point. i have resolved to do a blog a … More When I do strange things, fortunately I laugh at myself. A case in point …

The art of not being looked at comfortably: Ron Mueck

March 27, 2025

I am still cataloguing books, clearing away rejects as I go and re-reading when I feel the curiosity. I placed the 2826th book for keeping on the catalogue I am making tonight (the rest boxed for various Fates) and then sat down to read that little book through again and reflect. It was a volume … More The art of not being looked at comfortably: Ron Mueck

‘There is always too much and too little said in any story of desire’. A blog that won’t be written on a book that just needs to be read and reflected upon.

March 26, 2025

‘There is always too much and too little said in any story of desire’. [1] Simon Goldhill is an exquisite historian as well as scholar of Greek drama, as his book on the Benson family deeply illustrates (see my blog on this at this link). As works they they therefore satisfy without commentary – for … More ‘There is always too much and too little said in any story of desire’. A blog that won’t be written on a book that just needs to be read and reflected upon.

Tash Aw’s ‘The South’ focuses upon the lives of queer ‘angry young men’, and even boys grown as wild as El Niño.

March 23, 2025

Growth and hunger create awareness of ‘hollow spaces that never existed before’: Tash Aw’s The South focuses upon the lives of queer ‘angry young men’, and even boys grown as wild as El Niño. But are both responding to an extraordinary and new  ‘physical evolution stronger than’ any of us or merely to ‘the effect … More Tash Aw’s ‘The South’ focuses upon the lives of queer ‘angry young men’, and even boys grown as wild as El Niño.

Racism, Sexism, and British writing at the end of the colonial period and the knotty problem of point of view.

March 21, 2025

We sometimes think racism was inevitable in post-colonial Britain, but looking for evidence of it in writing is sometimes an issue that needs thought. I have a good, if incomplete collection of Robin Jenkins’ novels amongst my library which I once read avidly and all the time. I still prize above above many other novels … More Racism, Sexism, and British writing at the end of the colonial period and the knotty problem of point of view.