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ReadySteadyBlog
One of the Guardian Unlimited Books' top 10 literary blogs: "A home-grown treasure ... smart, serious analysis"
Blog entries on '12 October 2005'
Wednesday 12 October 2005
Ellis on t'Booker
Boyd Tonkin is livid that the Booker judges, "made possibly the worst, certainly the most perverse, and perhaps the most indefensible choice" in choosing Jonn Banville's bloated The Sea as this year's winner. Ellis has a different take:
I didn’t bother watching the Booker, in part because I couldn’t care less who won. I have no idea whether or not The Sea is a great novel or not, but Boyd Tonkin’s anger certainly made it sound interesting ... What annoys Tonkins also annoyed the Sunday Times reviewer, who grumbled that “Banville has a talent for sensuous phrasing and pungent observation of human frailty, but in other areas important for fiction – plot, character, pacing, suspense – The Sea is a crashing disappointment.” But Banville evidently intends to disappoint those readers who think that serious fiction should aspire to the condition of genre fiction, where suspense and characterisation in primary colours is everything.
Ellis then helpfully reproduces the whole of Banville's excoriating review of Ian McEwan's Saturday (also scathingly - and superbly - reviewed by Ellis in his The Politics of Ian McEwan' Saturday.)
Posted by Mark Thwaite
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Wednesday 12 October 2005
Christian on Brett Easton Ellis
Christian on Brett Easton Ellis at the Cheltenham Literary Festival:
For a man about to kill himself, Brett Easton Ellis looks disarmingly chipper. He strides onto the stage and takes a seat opposite his interviewer. He looks perfect - just as I had imagined he would look. His sobre suit and shoes are immaculate. He is, perhaps, a little more handsome than I had expected, and as the evening progresses, I decide that he is a little less pretentious than he is generally credited to be ...
(For all of Christian's article on Brett Easton Ellis at the Cheltenham Literary Festival.)
Posted by Mark Thwaite
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Wednesday 12 October 2005
Lee on White
Lee has just reviewed Marie Darrieussecq's White for us:
It's a sad fact but I can't help thinking if Marie Darrieussecq was a man her profile as a writer of true, original and startling literature would be bigger [...] Darrieussecq's fifth book to date [...] is simply masterful; its detached, unhinged narrative is a joy to read - albeit a rather difficult, challenging joy. Such prose styling is probably the reason not that many people have heard of her in this country, flimsy poetic books by French authors not really being our cup of tea. I say "our" through gritted teeth, of course. I always have.
(For all of Lee's review of White.)
Posted by Mark Thwaite
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Wednesday 12 October 2005
Lisa Williams - new site
Sandra says she is disappointed by what she wrote about Lisa Williams' Letters to Virginia Woolf. She certainly shouldn't be - it was a lovely entry. Lisa, who I interviewed last month, has just got herself a fancy new website so, for those who want to know more about her Letters, that is a very good place to start.
Posted by Mark Thwaite
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Serendipoetry
To a Stranger
Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me
as of a dream,)
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall'd as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate,
chaste, matured,
You grew up with me, were a boy with me or a girl with me,
I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become not yours
only nor left my body mine only,
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass, you
take of my beard, breast, hands, in return,
I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or
wake at night alone,
I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.
-- Walt Whitman
-- View archive
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