At the beginning of Lady Oracle, Joan Foster is hold up in her Italian apartment after faking her death. Back in Canada, Foster was hailed as a literaAt the beginning of Lady Oracle, Joan Foster is hold up in her Italian apartment after faking her death. Back in Canada, Foster was hailed as a literary sensation and a major author on the rise, so why did she choose to die at the height of her hype?
In many ways, Lady Oracle is the polar opposite of Atwood's previous novel Surfacing. Surfacing is a quiet, introverted, atmospheric novel that concerns only a handful of characters over a few days. Lady Oracle is a globe-trotting saga that follows our protagonist from early childhood up to the present day in a style that mirrors the Gothic romances that she secretly authors.
This novel is bloated but enjoyable. It is clear that Atwood had a lot of fun with this one. As it was written has a partial pastiche of Gothic romance novels, there are a lot of scenarios and characters that fall into the realm of the ridiculous. I mean, there is literally a Polish count in here and a dude called the Royal Porcupine. As the novel is told through flashbacks when the author is in self-exile in Italy, a lot of her memories read like heightened fantasies which leads you to question just how truthful she is being.
My favourite parts of the novel were the early chapters when Joan was recounting her early childhood. She was an obese child who found solace in the company of her Aunt Lou. These are the most touching and, shall I say 'rational', chapters before everything turns slightly bonkers.
Overall, I feel this novel needed a better editor. My edition almost hits the 400-page mark and that is so totally unnecessary for this novel. One could argue that Atwood was somewhat over-indulgent in her tale of Joan Foster and gets carried away in the minute details and events of her life which have no overall impact on the plot. It is as if post-Surfacing she decided to have the literary equivalent of a binge and pen a novel which is essentially all plot and nothing much else. But there are many fun aspects to Atwood's binge. I liked this one, but it is odd....more
Used this book a lot in my history of art dissertation, which was based around Bataille's theory of the formless but I applied it to Young British ArtUsed this book a lot in my history of art dissertation, which was based around Bataille's theory of the formless but I applied it to Young British Art. You really cannot get any better than Bois and Krauss on this subject, even if at some points of this book you wonder whether even they fully understand what Bataille was talking about....more
A fine investigation of Sarah Lucas' work. You're in safe hands with Collings. A fine investigation of Sarah Lucas' work. You're in safe hands with Collings. ...more
A nice overview of modern art written from a Young British Art perspective. Collings draws links from (then) contemporary artists such as Sarah Lucas,A nice overview of modern art written from a Young British Art perspective. Collings draws links from (then) contemporary artists such as Sarah Lucas, Chris Ofili and Tracey Emin to their common ancestors, Picasso, Dalí and Duchamp (with the occasional excursion to more off-the-wall artists like Bruce Nauman and Paul McCarthy). Collings has a wonderful but oft criticised prose style which is like reading Vasari, as transcribed by Viz. The accompanying Channel 4 documentary is the pinnacle of Channel 4's 90s in-yer-face style and it is wonderful....more
My dissertation for my history of art degree was based on the work of the Young British Artists. This book is a critical rebuttal of the work and iMy dissertation for my history of art degree was based on the work of the Young British Artists. This book is a critical rebuttal of the work and influence of the yBas, hence much of my dissertation was dedicated to critiquing Stallabrass and his views. The following review is constructed from sections copied straight from my dissertation
It comes as an anomaly that there is so little critical scholarship on the yBas. In fact, when it comes to serious, academic discourse on the yBas there has been only one book written – High Art Lite (1999) by Julian Stallabrass. [...] Stallabrass’ book puts the yBas’ art within the context of a country rising from recession and the effect that had on the art market. However, most of High Art Lite is marred by the fact that Stallabrass openly detests the yBas. In fact, he refuses to even call them yBas and instead makes up his own term, ‘high art lite’, in order to describe their ‘low art’. ‘High art lite’ is ‘an art that looks like but is not quite art, that acts as a substitute for art’. He emits this stubbornness for 295 pages.
[...]
In High Art Lite, Stallabrass dismisses the application of theory to yBa art as ‘comic’ and suggests that the theories of Sigmund Freud, Jean-François Lyotard and Georges Bataille now had to be ‘cool and self-mocking’ if they were to be applied to ‘high art lite’ – as if this ‘low’ form of art was not worthy of having such names attached to it. This rejection of theory by Stallabrass could be one of the contributing factors as to why yBa art has been dismissed by some critics over the past three decades. Many of the yBas ‘play[ed] down the conceptual and theoretical sources of their work’ even though a vast majority of the artworks produced by the group was embedded with clear theoretical groundings.
[...]
In the last pages of High Art Lite, Stallabrass questions when the yBa craze will die. Writing in 1999, he could already observe ‘one or two clouds on the tendency’s horizon’. The sensation of the yBas did not last that long into the 2000s. Much like Young British Art’s musical counterpart, Britpop, the ‘movement’ eventually died out as the 90s died out. Most great art movements, no matter how famed or influential, usually only last a mere number of years. The yBas were no different. However, for their brief decade in the limelight, they not only dominated the British art scene, but they also revolutionised it....more
A very nice overview of Australian art from the landing of Cook up to the 1990s. Allen does give a mostly impartial view but is quite prone to fits ofA very nice overview of Australian art from the landing of Cook up to the 1990s. Allen does give a mostly impartial view but is quite prone to fits of personal criticism, especially when his timeline reaches the mid-20th century (as can be seen in a small tirade against Brett Whiteley). Apart from that however, this would be the book I would shove into the hands of anyone wanting to know anything about Aussie art....more
In 1916 in the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich a man named Hugo Ball is standing on a small stage dressed in a suit made of cardboard. He opens his mouth aIn 1916 in the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich a man named Hugo Ball is standing on a small stage dressed in a suit made of cardboard. He opens his mouth and out comes a procession of nonsense words and sounds. He sounds like he’s having a stroke. But what he’s saying isn’t nonsense, it’s a poem he wrote called Karawane. And you in the audience, you’re a young man who is disillusioned by the war happening around you. Machines are killing man. How did this happen? Modern life has become an absurdity. Just as absurd as Hugo Ball up on that stage in his cardboard suit and saying words like ‘jolifanto bambla ô falli bambla’. Back then they called this display of insanity ‘dada’ and it eventually became one of the most important movements in twentieth-century art history. Times of great political unrest are when we need absurdity the most. 1916 had Hugo Ball but 2017 has Blindboy Boatclub.
Many of you will know Blindboy as one half of the artist duo the Rubberbandits but this book is a solo venture. The Gospel According to Blindboy is a collection of fifteen Gas Cuntist story stories. Gas Cuntism is the aesthetic movement founded by the Rubberbandits, an artistic venture described as ‘Dada and Fluxus on a horn’. Therefore, this book acts not only as a conventional collection of stories but as an endeavour for Gas Cuntism to be recognised within the public sphere. Much like how André Breton’s novel Nadja has become one of the major texts for understanding the beginnings of French Surrealism, The Gospel According to Blindboy acts as primer for those wanting to learn about Gas Cuntism.
But ultimately, none of this means anything if the stories do not hold up. I am happy to report that not only do these stories hold up, but this book is one of the most eloquent and well-crafted debut collections I have ever read. Short story collections are very often hit-and-miss, in a collection of fifteen like this one you would expect maybe one or two standout stories, peppered with a couple of middling tales and handful of duds thrown in just to bulk the whole thing up. The Gospel According to Blindboy is astonishing in its consistency with each new story being just as strong as the previous. It’s the ABBA Gold of short story collections, there isn’t a bad one in there.
To give an example of the Gas Cuntist stylings of these stories, let me describe what I believe to be the masterpiece of the whole collection, ‘Arse Children’. This story (which is actually more a novella) takes place on a November evening in the Mansion House in Dublin. Éamon de Valera and Michael Collins are hypothesising what is to be done about the Cairo Gang. We discover that De Valera has been given the gift of a womb in his bowels and is able to give birth to arse children, an army of two-foot tall soldiers with a bloodlust for killing the Cairo Gang. Eventually the story leads to a scene in which Michael Collins is fucking Éamon de Valera in the arse after being liquored up on tiki cocktails. The final section of the story deals with the apparent author of this tale and the outrage the story causes when it is released online. Only Blindboy Boatclub could turn a story about De Valera birthing children out of his anus into a meditation on online culture and the mob mentality. In fact, many of the stories are not what they seem, with the overwhelming absurdity masking deeper meditations on mental health and modern life. Perhaps the most affecting story in the collection is ‘Ten-Foot Hen Bending’ which involves a young woman dealing with crippling anxiety and how it essentially ruins her life. Ultimately, we see her attempting to overcome her anxiety by tormenting a group of Italian tourists in Bunratty Castle with Australian actor Sam Neill.
The Gospel According to Blindboy is a blindingly inventive collection. Echoes of Flann O’Brien and Leonora Carrington permeate the pages, whilst Blindboy’s unique prose style could be described as a lyrical patois. There is just something so wonderfully visceral about phrases like ‘tit milk’ and ‘rape brothel’. Chuckles beget hysterics. And all of this from a debut collection. It really is unheard of. I loved this book and I can already see myself taking it down from my shelf every so often to dip in and out of, like a mad trout in a river of sizzurp....more
Atwood's previous novel, The Edible Woman, dealt with a young woman who is so terrified of marriage that it causes her to lose her touch with reality Atwood's previous novel, The Edible Woman, dealt with a young woman who is so terrified of marriage that it causes her to lose her touch with reality and fall deeper and deeper into mental illness. It was a good novel but its biggest weakness was its plot. In Surfacing, Atwood treads much of the same ground but completely jettisons any semblance of a plot and thus presents us with a far more intriguing and mature work.
Our unnamed female narrator brings her lover and their two (married) friends to her childhood lakeside cabin in the woods for a brief getaway from life and for the two men to capture some footage for the amateur film they are producing. She hides her true intentions of returning to this familiar lake however. She is trying to find her father. Long missing, our narrator does not presume him dead but instead believes that he is still alive and living by the lake. The whole novel is essentially our narrator's internal monologue throughout this strange week by the lake.
It becomes obvious early on that we are stuck in the mind of a mentally ill young woman. Her grasp on reality is oneiric and muddied, leading to the whole novel being written in a semi-lucid and dreamlike style. There are passages of this novel which would be better described as poetry than prose, as our narrator seemingly slips in and out of her reality and into a chimerical and other-worldly state. The novel is also almost oppressively atmospheric with dirt and grit rammed underneath its fingernails. What I'm basically saying is that if this were adapted into a movie today it would have a lot of Sufjan Stevens on the soundtrack.
I found myself completely absorbed by this novel. The manner of Atwood's prose baits you into reading the whole novel in a small series of large chucks and whilst I did find the narrative to be languorous at times I could not seem to escape the narrator's mindset. In Surfacing you find yourself set adrift in the murky waters of a young woman's mind. The gentle current guides you along as you drift further and further into the darkest recesses of the lake, without even the faintest semblance of a paddle to navigate your way....more
I think I'm going to give up on literary awards. Naomi Alderman's The Power found its way into my hands by winning 2017's Bailey's Prize. The plot souI think I'm going to give up on literary awards. Naomi Alderman's The Power found its way into my hands by winning 2017's Bailey's Prize. The plot sounded so intriguing. Young girls around the world began developing 'the power', or essentially being able to shoot lightning from their palms. This discovery leads to a great event known as The Cataclysm, after which women become the dominant sex in society. It's fairly classic speculative fiction territory. However, what may have done quite well as a classic half-hour Twilight Zone episode is here stretched out into a 339-page novel.
Alderman employs many different POVs to form her narrative, which caused the Minnie Effect*. My personal favourite character was Margot, a woman running for election before the Cataclysm. As great as Margot was, that did not make up for the fact that she was possibly the only character who I actually warmed to in this novel. Many of the other characters (particularly Allie and Roxy) just seemed to meld together in my mind and I had trouble trying to separate all of the threads.
However, all of these reservations seem moot when one asks the question: what genre is this novel? The book seems to switch between Young Adult to international thriller to literary fiction in as little time as the turn of a page. It reads like several very different books stitched together. I will admit that since this won the Bailey's Prize I was expecting something more along the lines of Atwood's literary dystopias but instead I was given a Twister board of genres being spun by Suzanne Collins. Much like Withnail's famed exclamation that he and Marwood had gone on holidays by accident, I seemed to be reading The Hunger Games by accident.
However, what do I know? My edition came with a whole second cover behind the first cover just absolutely plastered in praise. In fact, every blank space on this book is populated by a glowing review or a showy tagline. I applaud the publicity team behind it, they really went above and beyond. However, I was left feeling bored by this novel. The plot isn't very compelling, which was demonstrated by my unwillingness to pick up this novel again whenever I put it down. However I did power through - an effort which I now view as somewhat pointless. This isn't a one-star review because I didn't hate this book, it was merely just overwhelmingly second-rate.
*The Minnie Effect, named for the eponymous character in Kathryn Stockett's The Help, is a phenomenon in POV novels where the best or most entertaining characters are given the least amount of attention within the overall novel whilst the least entertaining or boring characters dominate the narrative.
Stray observation: This whole novel is meant to be written five-thousand years in the future, yet at one point a character makes a movement that is compared to the moves of John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. So we are meant to believe that the only thing in all human history which survived the Cataclysm and the five-thousand years of life afterward was the 1977 disco movie Saturday Night Fever?...more
A pitiful and unhinged man does everything in his power to make sure that a female candidate loses an election. Why does that sound so familiar?
Tom PeA pitiful and unhinged man does everything in his power to make sure that a female candidate loses an election. Why does that sound so familiar?
Tom Perrotta's Election is one of those stories that has done far better as a film than it has as a novel. The film has become one of those 90s classics which has managed to seep into popular culture whilst the character of Tracy Flick has very much become a cultural icon, joining the ranks of Cher Horowitz and Nancy Downs. Tracy Flick is the name on everyone's lips in this novel, but she rarely appears to give her side of the story.
The novel revolves around a high school presidential election. Tracy Flick is running unopposed and is clearly the best student for the job. That is until Mr. M interferes. Mr. M despises Tracy because she got his best friend fired and thus he plots to make sure that Tracy does not become president.He convinces Paul Warren, the most popular guy in the school, to also run for president and thus the brutal presidential race begins.
Tracy Flick is honestly one of the greatest characters created in the last thirty years. Her take-no-prisoners approach to life and relentless perfection are so enjoyable to read and, on some levels, relate to. Her searing brilliance is so perfectly contrasted in the character of Mr. M, who is essentially a human skid mark. Mr. M dominates the novel as much as he dominates the election. He gets the most vignettes and we spend the most time with him, which really allows our hatred of him to slowly build up throughout this short work. As a mentioned before, Tracy, despite being the star of this novel, receives the fewest and shortest vignettes (if you discount the few vignettes from the janitor near the end of the novel). Perrotta's effective silencing of Flick's narrative mirrors Mr. M's effort to silence Flick in everything she does. The novel is masterfully constructed and Perrotta really does well working with the difficult vignette structure.
Those of us familiar with how the film version of Election ends will be surprised at just how differently the novel finishes. The novel's ending is far more bleak and unrelenting. The film attempts to somewhat pardon Mr. M for his actions, whilst the novel gives a far more realistic ending for both Mr. M and Tracy.
Overall I enjoyed Election and I'm looking forward to being able to say 'well ACTUALLY, in the original novel....' the next time someone discusses the film with me. Yup, I'm that guy....more
I rarely ever do this, but I'm rating and reviewing this even though I haven't finished it. I just cannot continue. Exit West is one of the most bitteI rarely ever do this, but I'm rating and reviewing this even though I haven't finished it. I just cannot continue. Exit West is one of the most bitterly disappointing and downright awful novels I have read in a long while.
The novel begins with Nadia and Saeed, a couple living in an unnamed Middle-Eastern city. This setting and story is what we come to expect from Hamid, who also wrote the flawed but admirable The Reluctant Fundamentalist. The city is crumbling around Nadia and Saeed, blackouts are frequent, the water supply is often cut and drones hover overhead at all times. But yet, despite these enormous setbacks and struggles, they live on. If the novel were just the couple and their fight to live in their city, then what a wonderful book it would have been. I truthfully absolutely loved these initial scenes. They are a fascinating study of a couple in wartime. But then Hamid fucks everything up.
Hamid, possessed by his own ego and the spirit of Salman Rushdie, decides that this perfectly serviceable novel needs something extra. A little bit of magic needed to be injected into the story. Literally. For some unknown reason, Hamid has these magical doors pop up all around the world. Doorways that lead you to anywhere in the world. You step into a door in the Middle East and suddenly you are on Mykonos. This concept sounded familiar to me, but I couldn't pinpoint it exactly. So I read on.
It is inevitable that our couple is shown to one of these doors and are whisked away from their city and their lives. The second they step foot into the magical door is when the novel goes from fairly good to absolute shit. Why did Hamid add this ridiculous conceit to this novel? Why would he sabotage himself like this? I tried to ignore all door nonsense, but then it happened again. Hamid completely abandoned his great story of a couple in wartime to focus on his stupid doors. And then it hit me. I knew where I had seen this concept before.
It's Monsters Inc.
This book is fucking Monsters Inc.
The moment I realised this I just could not continue. I had to end it. And thus we are here. I'd like to say that I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed but I am angry and disappointed. Hamid's ridiculous urge to write magical realism is possibly one of the most ill-fated attempts at cross-genre literature ever. It could have been so great if his editor had just said, hey Mohsin, you have a great novel here but all this door shit has to go. It's a shame. Think of what we could have had....more
'Swing! Dig the rhythm! Swing! Dig the message!' - 'Swing' from Bernstein's Wonderful Town
Possibly Zadie Smith's most divisive novel to date, Swing Ti'Swing! Dig the rhythm! Swing! Dig the message!' - 'Swing' from Bernstein's Wonderful Town
Possibly Zadie Smith's most divisive novel to date, Swing Time is a tale of two brown girls, both dancers, dreaming of being the Ginger to someone's Fred. Both girls, Tracey and our unnamed narrator, grow up on the estates of North London (or, as Smith herself puts it, a North London of the mind). Our narrator lives with her black activist mother, she is something of a mix between Assata Shakur and Diane Abbott, whilst Tracey lives with her white Croydon facelift'd mother who seems to be a somewhat more mature Vicky Pollard. As with most Smith novels, class divides all. The novel follows the two girls and our narrator's eventual career in the media as an assistant to Madonna standee, Aimee.
It's a road well-worn. A novel about two girls from different class backgrounds magically kindling a friendship. Just off the top of my head I can recall numerous other authors who've written books on the exact same subject; Maeve Binchy, Edna O'Brien, Toni Morrison, Elena Ferrante. However, with Smith, it didn't feel like I've been here before. The sections of the novel dealing with our narrator's relationship with Tracey are by far its saving grace. Never a chore to read (unlike other sections) everything is so naturalistic between them and Smith writes this relationship with such intimate detail that at times one forgets that this novel is fiction. The girls' love of the golden age of musicals obviously aided in my adoration of these sections, with numerous references to Gypsy, Show Boat, and Guys and Dolls, I felt right at home laughing at every joke and understanding every reference.
However, this novel is not without flaws. The largest flaws for me were the West Africa sections. In the novel, the superstar Aimee (to whom our narrator is a PA) funds the building of a school in a West African nation and thus our narrator must make numerous trips there to make sure that everything is going smoothly. Whilst these sections did serve as foils for our narrator's naivety, they are also the sections in which a whole lot of nothing happens. Often slid in between sections detailing the narrator's friendship with Tracey, these sections eventually became utterly labourious. I must admit at times skimming a couple of these sections in order to get back to Tracey and her life.
Another flaw of the novel is its sheer scale. There is absolutely no reason for this book to be the behemoth it is. Honestly, you want to save the trees? I've a solution. Hire better editors. This novel could have been cleaned up a lot more and could've lost maybe 150 pages. If Orwell managed to do Animal Farm in 95 pages then you have no excuse Zadie.
This novel had an interesting time with the press. The Guardian called it whilst The Irish Times said it is . I think I fall somewhere in the middle of these reviews. Is it Smith's best? God no. Is it a good starting point with Smith? Dear god no. Swing Time is a minor novel in Smith's oeuvre. I'm starting to feel we'll never reach the heights of White Teeth ever again. I would align this novel more with The Autograph Man, another Smith novel which had a hard time with the public but which I found to be throughly enjoyable. And just like The Autograph Man, I think Swing Time is more a Smith novel for Smith fans. A notch on the bedpost for completionists. Because for every Middlemarch, there has to be a Silas Marner....more
Hailed as the first post-Brexit novel, in Autumn Ali Smith proves to us all that she is probably the greatest w2020 update: this is still amazing.
Hailed as the first post-Brexit novel, in Autumn Ali Smith proves to us all that she is probably the greatest writer currently working in the United Kingdom. The fact that this novel was published a mere four months after the disastrous Brexit vote but yet analyses its aftermath as a central theme shows a turnaround that is nearly insane. Smith must have practically vomited this novel into her word processor, which makes its utter flawlessness almost divine.
The novel begins with a man, Daniel Gluck, who seems to have washed up on a beach. Believing he has died he casts his eye along the beach and sees even more like him. The corpses of refugees line the beach, interspersed between lounging sunbathers and laughing children who seem to take no notice of the corpses around them. This opening scene demonstrates Smith's intent with Autumn, she is writing a Zeitgeist novel.
Luckily for Daniel, this scene is all a dream, as he is in a coma. Most days, in the chair beside him is a woman who the nurses believe is his granddaughter. She is no relation. She is Elisabeth (with an S) Demand (from the French, Du Monde). She is the tentpole upon which this novel drapes. Autumn is a exploration of her life and of those around her. But it is also a study of every person living in Great Britain post-Brexit. It is the story of Christine Keeler, yes THAT Christine Keeler, of Profumo fame. And it is the story of Pauline Boty. But I'll let you discover the wonder that she was.
Autumn is oftentimes hilarious, touching, informative and playful. Smith is still the master of structure and form and plays around with each like a master conductor. There are no flaws in this novel. If I had read it when it was published Autumn would have by far been my favourite novel of the year. Ali Smith can do no wrong....more
I picked up Goodbye, Vitamin because I had read a review which called it a 'comic novel about Alzheimer's'. I am very much of the belief that anytI picked up Goodbye, Vitamin because I had read a review which called it a 'comic novel about Alzheimer's'. I am very much of the belief that anything can be made funny, even Alzheimer's, so this novel sounded right up my alley. I quickly discovered however that this isn't a comic novel about Alzheimer's, it's a comic novel featuring Alzheimer's. But this didn't put me off, Rachel Khong's hilarious worldview kept me going throughout this short novel.
The plot revolves around Ruth, a woman who has reached her mid-life crisis at age thirty, who decides to pause her life for one year to act as carer for her father who has Alzeimher's. The novel takes the form of her day-by-day diary. The weakest aspect of this novel is by far the plot. The novel trundles along with a story that is somewhat unbelievable and, whilst the character list is relatively economic, there are no standout stars of this novel.
However, what I do applaud this novel for is its random observations. Sometimes Khong will just stop the whole plot to talk about the most incidental of facts or she will point something out about a character and nearly every time this happens you can be guaranteed to chuckle or at least think 'huh that was actually a really clever joke'. Khong's comedy is the saving grace of this novel, it would be a total disaster without it. I really genuinely enjoyed how she sees things and how subtle she makes her jokes, there is no fanfare or warning, she would just drop a hilarious aside into the middle of a paragraph about the horrors of late-stage Alzheimer's. She is a master of comic relief. And the novel is the better for it. ...more
Read this for my dissertation. As a narrative, it's somewhat messy. As erotica, it's somewhat depraved. As a synthesization of Bataille's theories and Read this for my dissertation. As a narrative, it's somewhat messy. As erotica, it's somewhat depraved. As a synthesization of Bataille's theories and worldview, it's a treasure trove....more
I was in a charity shop one day and I noticed a couple of books by this Sidney Sheldon guy which all had the most hideous covers. I didn't know at theI was in a charity shop one day and I noticed a couple of books by this Sidney Sheldon guy which all had the most hideous covers. I didn't know at the time that Sidney Sheldon was the 7th bestselling writer of all time. I bought three of his books, which coincidentally were his first three, all for the reasonable price of 50c, or, about 16c each.
The Naked Face was Sheldon's first novel and it is awful. I mean, it is spectacularly terrible. The book is about a psychoanalyst named Judd who, after the murder of one of his patients and his receptionist, is next on the hit list of some crazed murderer. The first two victims of this killer are a gay guy and a black woman, I think that explains the territory we are in here with Sheldon's fantasy. In fact, I will happily call this entire novel racist and astoundingly homophobic, but that doesn't even begin to describe this mess of a novel.
So, I guess you're wondering why this is a two-star review then? Why am I not absolutely tearing into this obviously horrendous novel? Well, it's because I had so much fun with this bad book. The Naked Face seeps so far down into the chasm of abhorrence that you just cannot look away. It's like the movies they watch on Mystery 카지노싸이트 Theatre 3000, they're so bad that they're good.
I found myself guffawing at the sheer ridiculousness of the plot and eventually rooting for our protagonist to finally get what he deserves and meet his death. At certain points of this novel it was like I was attending a pantomime and booing and hissing every time a baddie entered stage left. One major plot point is that a gay man was seeing Judd in order to 'cure' his homosexuality. How could anyone take this novel seriously after that? The novel's one black character is only present for a few pages but her impact is immense. She speaks in such heightened ebonics that you wonder if Sheldon ever actually met a black person and at one point she speak my favourite line in the whole novel, "If you don't ball me quick, I'll go out of my cotton-pickin' mind." YIKES. What was Sheldon thinking!?
In the end I didn't really want this novel to finish. I was having so much fun with it. Thankfully Sheldon has loads of other novels, all of which I hope are even more awful than this one. The Naked Face is a fabulous disaster. ...more
I approached this novel trepidatiously. How could I ever suspend my disbelief with this work? How could I ever believe such a ridiculous tale about VeI approached this novel trepidatiously. How could I ever suspend my disbelief with this work? How could I ever believe such a ridiculous tale about Vermeer and one of his most revered paintings? I must admit that I opened this novel expecting to utterly detest the lies it weaves. By page two I realised that I was an idiot who should never be listened to.
Griet is hired as a maid to the Vermeer family in Delft. This novel supposes that Griet the maid was the sitter for Vermeer's great work Girl with a Pearl Earring. However that is not the story, or at least it is only a small part of it. The novel mainly concerns the inner workings of the Vermeer household and Griet's attempts to keep everything in control. It is a fantastic character study and I do admire Chevalier's bravery in using the first-person narrative. Whilst I will admit that at times Griet's dialogue is somewhat stilted and some lines are just downright odd ('His smile made me grip my broom tightly' was one line that made me chuckle due to its utter ridiculousness), she is never an annoying or tiring character.
I really enjoyed the subtlety and delicacy of the novel. The plot flows along nicely which causes you to really fly through the narrative. It is not a criticism that I often voice but I would have almost liked for this novel to be longer. I feel I will truly miss Griet. I must say that I am somewhat smitten with this novel. It genuinely surprised me. It's really great. ...more
Artists' biographies are usually some of the most boring books you will ever read. I know this, having spent three years powering through them at univArtists' biographies are usually some of the most boring books you will ever read. I know this, having spent three years powering through them at university. The artist is born, usually into a wealthy family, and they then go to an art college or an academy where they learn nothing and develop their own style as a rejection to everything they have been taught. Then they become famous and die. There it is - every artists' biography ever.
Jennifer Clement rejects this formula. Instead of writing a straightforward biography of her friend Jean-Michel Basquiat, she writes about the woman who was constantly at his side - Suzanne Mallouk. Widow Basquiat is a fiery journey through the 1980s New York art scene. It is the story of Suzanne's life, but also, of course, the life of Basquiat. It moves along at a blistering pace as we switch between Clement's narrative and Mallouk's first-hand accounts.
The most refreshing aspect of Widow Basquiat was its effort to not become hagiographic. Clement and Mallouk never once place Basquiat on a high pedestal. He was a controlling and unstable drug addict. He treated his closest friends awfully. He gave Mallouk P.I.D. which caused her to become sterile for life. But he was also a genius who had the art market in his hands. He was insecure and always thought about his image. The flamboyant Basquiat is also shown, how he would wear Armani suits when he painted and then would throw them away and his insistence, in his final years, to travel everywhere by limousine.
Mallouk puts up with all of these quirks and in the end Widow Basquiat becomes an intimate but riotous portrayal of a turbulent relationship. It is one of the most well-constructed and enjoyable artists' biographies that I have ever read. As mesmerising and complex as any of Basquiat's works....more
In the late 1960s John Lennon bought an island off the west coast of Ireland. Most Irish people are aware of it. Ask anyone about John Lennon's islandIn the late 1960s John Lennon bought an island off the west coast of Ireland. Most Irish people are aware of it. Ask anyone about John Lennon's island or 'Beatle Island' and they'll know what you're talking about. Beatlebone is a fictionalised tale of John Lennon's attempt to visit his island in 1978 in order to combat his writer's block and to finally have a place to Scream. And it is a masterpiece.
The novel is far from conventional. In fact, it won the Goldsmith's Prize, which is an award specifically granted to novels which challenge the conventional novel form. The whole book is heavily influenced by that spectre who sits on the shoulder of every Irish writer, James Joyce. There are some chapters in which Beatlebone turns into a play script, exactly as in Ulysses. However, where most writers would just end up with a poor pastiche of Joyce's great novel (as Orwell did with his modernist mishap A Clergyman's Daughter), Kevin Barry takes on the great Dubliner and triumphs in every aspect.
The whole novel reads like a Surrealist jaunt in the West of Ireland. Hints of Du Maurier come through when the novel decides to tread along recesses of the paranormal, whilst many of the characters themselves seem to be close relatives of the persons who inhabit the scripts of Martin McDonagh. John Lennon himself doesn't really 'star' in this novel. In fact, it would be wholly possible for you to read this novel and never once realise that you are reading about John Lennon. He is only ever referred to as John and mentions of his superstardom are fleeting.
In a typically postmodern move, there is one chapter about two-thirds of the way through Beatlebone in which the whole narrative is paused and Barry decides to tell us about how he went about writing the novel. He writes about his own visit to Beatle Island and his adventures around Clew Bay, where all of the novel takes place. After this chapter, the narrative continues on exactly as before. It is this chapter which pushed this novel from a great book to a fucking great book.
I absolutely adored this book. Kevin Barry has been a big name in Irish writing for a while now and I finally understand why. Every Irish writer must write with the burden of those great names behind them; Joyce, Beckett, Bernard Shaw, Wilde, Yeats. Instead of cowering away from these names, Barry challenges them. This town ain't big enough for the both of us, Sparks once sang, and Barry wears that sentiment on his spud-Irish sleeve....more
There is one edition of Doctor Zhivago whose cover boasts that it is 'one of the greatest love stories ever told'. In fact, that one tagline is what aThere is one edition of Doctor Zhivago whose cover boasts that it is 'one of the greatest love stories ever told'. In fact, that one tagline is what almost put me off reading this epic novel from Russian master-poet Boris Pasternak. This is a hefty book. I didn't want to dedicate all my time to a soppy love story. Thankfully, calling Doctor Zhivago a 'love story' is like saying Crime and Punishment is about the perils of being a pawnbroker.
Doctor Zhivago is a vast novel. Like most great Russian novels, there is a large cast of characters (all of whom go by at least three different names) and many chapters in which a whole lot of nothing happens. Therefore, being a masochist at heart, I just adored it. There is nothing I love more in a book than pages and pages of nothing, and Doctor Zhivago delivers nothingness in abundance. For example there is a whole chapter just set in a train carriage. Over fifty pages we spend in that carriage. Nothing happens. And it's brilliant.
If one insists of a plot synopsis then it is a story of Doctor Yuri Zhivago and his attempt to keep his life together as his country crumbles around him.
Pasternak's politics are very much at play throughout the novel. The book was famously banned from publication in the Soviet Union and it is no surprise why. Overall I read this work as a searing critique of the modern Soviet state and the bloodshed from which it grew. Pasternak does not side with either the Whites or the Red, both destroyed Zhivago's beloved country. At times Zhivago does become somewhat of a mouthpiece for Pasternak, especially near the end of the novel where it becomes a brutal critique of everything from War Communism to the NEP to Collectivisation. I would suggest a somewhat sound knowledge of the Russian Revolution and its aftermath is needed for this novel, as the entire plot is based around the formation of the Soviet state.
I really enjoyed my time with Doctor Zhivago. It is an epic tale of an epic time in modern history. It is throughly readable and wholly enjoyable (something which you can't often vouch for with Russian literature). I would recommend this for Russian lit beginners as it gets the balance of plot and philosophy just right (something which Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy often fail to do)....more
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