Tag: fiction

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.

Each day is a chance to learn how to rely neither on what I possess, or wish to possess, and hence no longer, perhaps, to be possessed.

March 12, 2025

In her mid-career (in 1990), the mow deceased novelist A.S. Byatt wrote a novel called Possession. This novel attempted to bring together people whose actions running in parallel between two centuries learn about the values that gather around the term posession. to do so Byatt called on most of the meanings that the word ‘posession’ … More Each day is a chance to learn how to rely neither on what I possess, or wish to possess, and hence no longer, perhaps, to be possessed.

This blog discusses Santanu Bhattacharya’s 2025 wonderful queer novel, ‘Deviants’.

March 6, 2025

‘I don’t think I can write about my own life yet, but I’ve written it all down. … It’s funny how I’ve been writing stories about other people until now …’, says ‘Mambro’, the middle generation of the queer men as named by his nephew, in one Bangladeshi family. However, when Mambro told the story … More This blog discusses Santanu Bhattacharya’s 2025 wonderful queer novel, ‘Deviants’.

‘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’.

‘EAT YOUR OWN HOUSE, WITCH! I don’t even like candy, darling! (But Candy Darling is another matter entirely) : “Hey, sugar / Take a walk on the wild side”

January 31, 2025

Now here’s a blog prompt that I never ever thought I would answer. My usual recourse to etymology to find a nuance in the question has already reached a block. In the UK we use the term ‘candy’, only because we see and hear the word in USA cultural imports, The UK word for candy … More ‘EAT YOUR OWN HOUSE, WITCH! I don’t even like candy, darling! (But Candy Darling is another matter entirely) : “Hey, sugar / Take a walk on the wild side”

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.

Many of Iris Murdoch’s characters feel they are in a drama not of their own scripting (which, of course they are) that can only be changed by getting out from ‘under the net’ of a web of false relationships. This blog contains some thoughts on reading a play I had neglected by the great novelist.

January 8, 2025

Many of Iris Murdoch’s characters feel they are in a drama not of their own scripting (which, of course they are – as Bradley Pearson and Hamlet are in The Black Prince and Hamlet respectively and both together in the first) that can only be changed by getting out from under the net of a … More Many of Iris Murdoch’s characters feel they are in a drama not of their own scripting (which, of course they are) that can only be changed by getting out from ‘under the net’ of a web of false relationships. This blog contains some thoughts on reading a play I had neglected by the great novelist.