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ReadySteadyBlog
The Times: "One of the best places on the web for clever, wise, sparky book-related discussions and reviews"
Wednesday 01 July 2009
Sad music
Indulging in listening to sad music is one of life's finer pleasures, I think. From Strauss's Four Last Songs, Schubert's Winterreise, Valentin Silvestrov's Silent Songs (the song based on Keats' La Belle Dame Sans Merci, sung in Russian, is -- almost literally -- to die for) through to David Sylvian's Let The Happiness In, the better (i.e. most melancholic) moments of This Mortal Coil, The For Carnation or Dakota Suite or parts of Jacaszek's Treny album, miserable music is a vital part of my armoury against the world. I'm always on the look out for me -- and this thread on violinist.com has pointed me to some new sad sounds to indulge in... but if y'all have any favourites please let me know.
Posted by Mark Thwaite
Tags: music, personal
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Tuesday 30 June 2009
Michael Jackson
I'm certainly not the person to write anything insightful on Michael Jackson, but k-punk has stepped up to the plate:
The death of this King - "my brother, the Legendary King Of Pop", as Jermaine Jackson described him in his press conference, as if giving Michael his formal title - recalls not the Diana carcrash, but the sad slump of Elvis from catatonic narcosis into the long good night. Perhaps it was only Elvis who managed to insinuate himself into practically every living human being's body and dreams to the same degree that Jackson did, at the microphysical level of enjoyment as well as at the macro-level of spectacular memeplex. Michael Jackson: a figure so subsumed and consumed by the videodrome that it's scarely possible to think of him as an individual human being at all... because he wasn't of course... becoming videoflesh was the price of immortality, and that meant being dead while still alive, and no-one knew that more than Michael (more...)
Posted by Mark Thwaite
Tags: deaths, music, philosophy
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Monday 29 June 2009
Publishing Laid Bare Conference
Last Thursday, I spoke at Legend Press's first Publishing Laid Bare Conference. Basically, I said, "the internet is good, bloggers are fab" -- so nothing particularly newsworthy there then! But thanks so much to the good folk at Legend Press for inviting me to speak and thanks to everyone for the warm reception I got from those in attendance on the day.
Posted by Mark Thwaite
Tags: events, personal, publishing news
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Monday 22 June 2009
Stuff and links
Oh, when am I not busy! Anyway, today I seem even busier than ever... So, a few web goodies to tide y'all over:
Posted by Mark Thwaite
Tags: blogosphere, internet, personal
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Friday 19 June 2009
David Lodge interview
I interview novelist, critic and Emeritus Professor of English Literature at Birmingham University, David Lodge, over on The Book Depository:
Mark Thwaite: Is Deaf Sentence based on your own experiences David?
David Lodge: The portrayal of the central character's deafness is closely based on my own experience, and it is exceedingly unlikely that I would have thought of writing a novel about this condition if it I hadn't I suffered from it myself. From my late forties I was afflicted with gradually worsening high-frequency deafness, the most common form of hearing impairment, which makes it difficult to distinguish consonants, especially when there is a lot of background noise. The character of Desmond's father is also closely based on my own father who died in 1999. He was also deaf, as a result of old age, but wouldn't wear a hearing aid, so communication between us was often difficult. (More.)
Posted by Mark Thwaite
Tags: authors, the book depository
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Friday 19 June 2009
World Literature Weekend
World Literature Weekend -- 19th to 21st June 2009:
The idea of dedicating a weekend of talks and discussions to foreign and translated literature has evolved over the six years since the London Review Bookshop first opened and began holding events that have earned it a proud reputation. Looking back at those events, I notice one thing immediately: how lucky we have been in attracting writers from all over the world. This festival is our way of celebrating that; several of the distinguished authors who have agreed to take part are travelling from abroad especially for the festival. (More.)
Posted by Mark Thwaite
Tags: events
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Friday 19 June 2009
Oxford Working Class Bookfair
On Saturday (20th June) the first Oxford Working Class Bookfair is being held:
... between 11 am and 6 pm at Ruskin College, Walton Street, Oxford... On the eve of the Summer solstice there will be a gathering of the tribes - a bookfair - a place to meet likeminded people and exchange ideas and information. There will be talks, badges, posters, DVDs, CDs, workshops, music, culture, short films, magazines, lectures, warm atmosphere, fellowship, meet new people, education, entertainment, magazine, newspapers and BOOKS! (More.)
Posted by Mark Thwaite
Tags: events
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Thursday 18 June 2009
Another take on Iran
SF writer Ken Macleod quotes the Iranian revolutionary communist Mansoor Hekmat writing in early 2001 who said:
In Iran [...] the reality is that the rise of political Islam and religious rule has caused a staggering anti-Islamic backlash, in both ideological and personal spheres. The emergence of political Islam in Iran has become the prelude to an anti-Islamic and anti-religious cultural revolution in people's minds, particularly amongst the young generation, which will stun the world with an immense explosion and will proclaim of the practical end of political Islam in the whole of Middle East...
In my opinion, the Islamic movement in the Middle East and internationally will run out of breath with the fall of the Islamic regime in Iran. The question is not that Islamic Iran will be a defeated model, which others can disassociate themselves from. The Islamic Republic's defeat will arise within the context of an immense mass secularist uprising in Iran, which will touch the foundations of reactionary Islamic thought and not only discredit but condemn it in world opinion. The defeat of the Islamic regime will be comparable to the fall of Nazi Germany. No fascist can easily hold on to their position by merely distancing themselves organisationally and ideologically from this fallen pole. The entire movement will face decades of stagnation. The defeat of political Islam in Iran is an anti-Islamist victory, which will not end within the confines of Iran. (More.)
Posted by Mark Thwaite
Tags: politics
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Tuesday 16 June 2009
Tomas Tranströmer
From Contemporary Poetry Review:
Every year, as the announcement of the Nobel Prize in Literature approaches, partisans of the Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer hold a collective breath, hoping against hope. A win for their man is unlikely for a number of reasons. One is the residual fallout from 1974 when the Swedish Academy gave the prize to two of its own members, Harry Martinson and Eyvind Johnson. Both were fine writers, but the appearance of nepotism was impossible to avoid. No Swede—no Scandinavian—has won the prize since. There’s also the unfortunate fact that the choice of recipient often seems guided as much by politics as by literary considerations. Tranströmer is not an apolitical poet, but there is nothing about him—no confinement by the state, like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn or Joseph Brodsky, no sense that he speaks for his people, like Heaney or Walcott, no rabid opposition to the United States, as with Pinter—to excite the more narrowly political (more...)
Posted by Mark Thwaite
Tags: poetry
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Tuesday 16 June 2009
You're Human Like The Rest Of Them
Thanks to Sukhdev Sandhu for bringing my attention to this:
You're Human Like The Rest Of Them is the name of a rather special event taking place this evening at London's National Film Theatre. Curated by Nigel Algar, it's a celebration of the film works of one of the most intriguing English writers of the last half century: B.S. Johnson. A dynamic and compelling figure, an advocate of experimental and avant-garde literature at a time (the 1960s and early 1970s) when naturalism and social realism dominated British fiction, he produced a number of novels that raged with passion and invention.
Posted by Mark Thwaite
Tags: authors, film
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Books of the Week
The Lemoine Affair was inspired by the real-life French scandal involving Henri Lemoine, who claimed he could manufacture diamonds from coal and convinced numerous people — including officers of the De Beers diamond mine company and Proust himself — to invest in the scheme. In a series of pastiches — imitations written in the style of other writers — Proust tells the story of the embarrassment rippling across high society Paris in the wake of the scandal, poking fun at himself (in one story, a character declares that Marcel Proust is so embarrassed he’s suicidal) while lampooning some of France’s greatest writers, including Flaubert, Balzac, and Saint-Simon. Full of sophisticated wit and dazzling wordplay, and rife with allusions to his friend and fictional characters, many Proust scholars see the dead-on mimicry of The Lemoine Affair — written soon after Proust’s rejection of society life—as the work by which he honed his own unique, masterly voice.
-- View archive
With death looming, Jacques Derrida, the world's most famous philosopher sat down with journalist Jean Birnbaum of the French daily Le Monde. They revisited his life's work and his impending death in a long, surprisingly accessible, and moving final interview. The Derrida found in this book is open and engaging, reflecting on a long career challenging important tenets of European philosophy from Plato to Marx. The contemporary meaning of Derrida's work is also examined, including a discussion of his many political activities. But, as Derrida says, "To philosophize is to learn to die"; as such, this philosophical discussion turns to the realities of his imminent death — including life with a fatal cancer. In the end, this interview remains a touching final look at a long and distinguished career.
-- View archive
Serendipoetry
Cromer
We sat in the beach hut, eating
tuna sandwiches off moonfaced melamine plates.
The women with the pug dogs, hooded
hawklike between the fishing boats, spelled out
the summers in tricksy triple-word-scores, gulling
each other while they waited for the kill:
the seven-letter fifty-pointer
that would blow their opponent
right out of the water.
Overhead, the yards rattled
like cipher machines, tapping out secrets
the length of the prom.
We sat in the beach hut, watching for
enough blue sky to make a pair of sailor's
trousers.
-- Helen Tookey
-- View archive
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