Tag: fiction

‘”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’.

New directions in the queer novel. In a recent example from those written by the ‘best novelists’ of our time, William Rayfet Hunter’s debut novel ‘Sunstruck’ (2025), the story is often about the dual function of telling stories in society.

July 22, 2025

The job of the novel is not only to tell a story but to edit it to fit some kind of purpose that is its raison d’être. Yet simultaneously questioning its own purpose has also been a feature of the novel since its inception in the best novelists. In a recent example from those written … More New directions in the queer novel. In a recent example from those written by the ‘best novelists’ of our time, William Rayfet Hunter’s debut novel ‘Sunstruck’ (2025), the story is often about the dual function of telling stories in society.

Let’s answer this prompt as if Thomas Mann were justifying his last novel: the ultimate game – of confidence tricks and roleplay. This blog holds my thoughts on  Thomas Mann (trans. Denver Lindley) [1997 Minerva Paperback from ed. of 1954] ‘Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man: Memoirs Part 1’.

July 18, 2025

Let’s answer this prompt as if Thomas Mann were justifying his last novel: the ultimate ‘game’ – of confidence tricks and roleplay. In a diary entry from 25th November 1950, Thomas Mann calls his final and unfinished picaresque novel Felix Krull ‘my homosexual novel’. Yet the case for seeing it as that perhaps reduces to … More Let’s answer this prompt as if Thomas Mann were justifying his last novel: the ultimate game – of confidence tricks and roleplay. This blog holds my thoughts on  Thomas Mann (trans. Denver Lindley) [1997 Minerva Paperback from ed. of 1954] ‘Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man: Memoirs Part 1’.

A great novel always takes the trouble to ‘bother me’. The example of Colum McCann (2025) ‘Twist’.

July 11, 2025

A great novel always takes the trouble to ‘bother me’. The example of Colum McCann (2025) ‘Twist’. In it the narrator talks about his own ‘bother’ about his writing and trying to keep it focused. ‘Tell me about a complicated man, how he wandered and was lost. The story would drift away from repair, which … More A great novel always takes the trouble to ‘bother me’. The example of Colum McCann (2025) ‘Twist’.

‘For our family and others like us, separation is an expression of love. Not just in the physical sense, but in the way we think’. This blog is a reflection on distance in memoirs after reading Tash Aw (2021) ‘Strangers on A Pier: Portrait of A Family’.

July 10, 2025

‘For our family and others like us, separation is an expression of love. Not just in the physical sense, but in the way we think’. [1] The obsession with a certain interpretation of attachment theory in Western culture was always in practice racist and a simplification of human neuro-flexibility. This blog is a reflection on … More ‘For our family and others like us, separation is an expression of love. Not just in the physical sense, but in the way we think’. This blog is a reflection on distance in memoirs after reading Tash Aw (2021) ‘Strangers on A Pier: Portrait of A Family’.

Is giving up on a challenge a strategy that ever brings comfort? An example from my reading.

July 5, 2025

The illustration – by Liz Zonarich/Harvard Staff – is from the Harvard Gazette article cited below, but to give up a book because it makes you uncomfortable may not be to ‘bin’ it but just re-shelve it in your mind (source: https://content.news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2024/10/when-to-quit-a-book/ ). After all the bin in the illustration has a l;ong shadow – … More Is giving up on a challenge a strategy that ever brings comfort? An example from my reading.

‘… the name dear me the name was the same it was Rose and under Rose was Willy and under Willy was Billie. / It made Rose feel very funny it really did’. The propriety and ethics of name-dropping (and innuendo finding) in Gertrude Stein’s (1939) ‘The World Is Round’ London, B.T. Batsford Ltd.

June 15, 2025

‘… the name dear me the name was the same it was Rose and under Rose was Willy and under Willy was Billie. / It made Rose feel very funny it really did’. [0] The Ethics of name-dropping and innuendo finding in Gertrude Stein’s (1939) The World Is Round London, B.T. Batsford Ltd. I have … More ‘… the name dear me the name was the same it was Rose and under Rose was Willy and under Willy was Billie. / It made Rose feel very funny it really did’. The propriety and ethics of name-dropping (and innuendo finding) in Gertrude Stein’s (1939) ‘The World Is Round’ London, B.T. Batsford Ltd.

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’.