a stretch of the Rocky Mountains

Literary history can give us a bit of a Tralfamadorian view of significant events.

While I was at university I attended a class taught by China Mieville, the sci-fi author, on ‘Weird Fiction’ – the kind-of-movement, kind-of-genre in the early part of the twentieth century associated with HP Lovecraft, Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, etc. China described the First World War as a ‘shotgun blast’ in this context: emanating outward in its influence in both directions in time, a peppering of shot around a central explosion.

Literary history is good for this. It shows, paradoxically, the influence of future events on the sociological moment; it also doesn’t quite allow the event to have changed everything that happened after it, peppering its influence outward in bursts and blasts, sometimes hidden, sometimes direct and explicit recreations of that past moment.

China Mieville was talking about the First World War; I wish to talk about the Second, and about other things as well. But while we’re thinking about the First: Paul Fussell, in The Great War and Modern Memory, famously thought of the First World War as a watershed for European culture, a blast that even changed the meanings of words - forcing innuendos upon innocent language, a kind of original sin for culture to bear from then on. He quoted that brilliant Larkin poem, MCMXIV, the one which describes the crowd of young men signing up as volunteer soldiers for the Great War; its final line, ‘never such innocence again’, summed up the influence of that war for Fussell. Here is the last stanza of that poem:

Never such innocence,
Never before or since,
As changed itself to past
Without a word--the men
Leaving the gardens tidy,
The thousands of marriages,
Lasting a little while longer:
Never such innocence again.

Fussell’s book is very good. It was in the papers again recently, because he died of old age last May. So it goes.

But these poet eyes of Larkin’s are kind-of-significant in terms of how time kind-of-folds-over-itself. The innocence, actually, hadn’t existed before that moment of the photograph either – yet it has a kind of infinite quality in it, encased as it is within the stillness of the image – it seems to stretch out repetitively, like holding a mirror to a mirror – in it we see the ‘little while longer’ of the thousands of marriages in time, the tidied gardens in space. The moment of departure from one world into the next reverberates in all directions. The watershed is not part of a linear progression, it is a shattering of time, the violent dispersal of a shotgun blast.

Two very famous accounts of the Second World War, and the American experience of it, take place in shattered time. There is Heller’s Catch-22, about American bomber crews; where things seem whimsical at first, a kind of anarchic humour, but there is an underlying order gradually being revealed to the chaos, revealed through a totally non-linear approach to time. There is Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5, about the bombing of Dresden as seen by American POWs; here, the central character ‘has come unstuck in time’, living the moments of his life in a random order. He also encounters aliens, the Tralfamadorians, who see every moment at once,

All moments, past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist. The Tralfamodians can look at all the different moments just the way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. They can see how permanent all the moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever.

Let’s say each of these books has pure trauma at its heart, encapsulated in a single moment (though one which sums up a series of moments, perhaps all moments, leading outward in both directions in time) - like the photo that Larkin is looking at. The traumatic event is so vast, in its own magnitude as in its significance upon other events, that it cannot really be approached unless it is approached by all angles, surrounded on all its chronological flanks.

I wanted to read and write about the Second World War because tomorrow is Holocaust Memorial Day and I believe in memorial days.

'a miscellany of anthropomorphic sea creatures'

Here is Julie Sokolow, author of 'The Lobster Kaleidoscope', describing the brilliant Dadaoism anthology from Chomu Press:

1) Metaphysical Portals:  As a devotee of Borges, Kafka, and Beckett, I get kicks out of masterful meta-ness, psychological terror, and gallows humor, all of which Dadaoism’s opening piece, “Portrait of a Chair”, possesses in levels of toxicity.  In Reggie Oliver’s story, a retired antiques dealer, keenly aware of his mortality, attends an auction where he purchases a captivatingly simple portrait of a chair.  The portrait is not just some symmetrical schlock to mount over a mantel, but rather, a metaphysical portal to a dimension in which inanimate objects are paradoxically conscious, and the narrator, having undergone a paralyzing transformation, must fight through telepathic intellect alone to survive. 

2) Street Cred:  Dadaoism ends with two poems by Bjork and J.G. Ballard’s darling favorite, Jeremy Reed.  Called by the Independent, “British poetry’s glam, spangly, shape-shifting answer to David Bowie”, Reed’s poems read like lyrics to a song you’ll want to air guitar solo to.  That is, before the anxiety-provoking subject sinks in.  In his poem “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicides”, he samples the true story of Joe Meek, the pioneering record producer, songwriter, and paranoid occultist, who shot and killed his landlady before turning the gun on himself.  Reed weaves together the details of Meek’s particular story and the greater mythos of rock ‘n’ roll’s dark side.  Meek’s loft is “a sounds lab–pop and Ouija and blue pills…”.  Reed canonizes Meek with those other archetypal “death-inducers” (e.g. -Presley, Hendrix, Cobain), “excess bingers hallucinating in the drop/into the roaring underground.”

She goes on to explain that her own story - 'a miscellany of anthropomorphic sea creatures' that sits somewhere between these two poles - was conceived on LSD. Seems pretty fitting considering the perception-altering nature of the anthology itself.

The full article is online on the HTML Giant blog at http://htmlgiant.com/word-spaces/chomus-pure-liquid-lsd/.

Reviewing the anthology on Amazon, I called it the best book of 2012 so far and I've still yet to read a more satisfying or exciting new book this year.

'And now I draw the map': Ursula K. Le Guin discusses Earthsea

Here is Ursula K. Le Guin - one of the most wonderful writers of our time, whose Sci-Fi and Fantasy novels brilliantly combine a fascination with language and belief with an in-depth, highly sensitive analysis of political and societal systems - talking about her Earthsea books, a fantasy collection for young adult readers.

And now I draw the map. The first thing I did for the book was the map.

Peter Carey: The Chemistry of Tears (Kensington and Chelsea Review)

The new Kensington & Chelsea Review is out, featuring (on p.23) my review of Peter Carey's new novel, The Chemistry of Tears. You can read the whole magazine here (I've put a transcript of the review below it):

(if that doesn't work go to www.kensingtonandchelseareview.com)

A careful layering of reality and unreality runs through Peter Carey’s new novel. It mostly takes place in a fictional museum, but detailed localism and the intrusion of a utilitarian, centre-right Coalition government seem all-too familiar. Here a fictional object is being restored: a clockwork automaton of a duck – or swan, depending on which narrator you believe at which point in the book –based on Vaucanson’s famous ‘digesting duck’ that appeared to eat and defecate. The overall effect is reminiscent of Angela Carter’: a world so close and vivid as to seem realistic, but where something unreal always threatens to break the surface.

The clouds cast moving shadows on the land.

John Banville's article in yesterday's Guardian, reviewing the Complete Poems of Larkin (edited by Archie Burnett), was a reminder of how exciting Larkin's poetry is. Banville notes that we need not take Larkin at 'face value' - that is, we need not see Larkin's persona (or indeed his authorial voice) as the definitive interpretation of his work. Burnett is a 'definitive' editor, writes Banville, and we should be grateful for this; the work can speak for itself, the voice of the author being a (sometimes useful) parallel to its reality.

Larkin is one of those poets that gets in your head and doesn't leave. It doesn't matter if it's been years or days since you read him, he's still present, still there; an extra voice in any conversation. Lines like 'never such innocence again', 'this is the first thing I have understood' and 'the clouds cast moving shadows on the land'; isn't there something of them that is now, that is the way we live now? Here is a shifting bitterness that comfortably accommodates an honest relationship with death (something we've always looked for in poetry, since Homer; poetry being perhaps the only place that it can be found).

This was your place of birth, this daytime palace,

This miracle of glass, whose every hall

The light as music fills, and on your face

Shines petal-soft; sunbeams are prodigal

To show you pausing at a picture’s edge

To puzzle out a name, or with a hand

Resting a second on a random page –

The clouds cast moving shadows on the land.

Are you prepared for what the night will bring?

The stranger who will never show his face

But asks admittance; will you greet your doom

As final; set him loaves and wine; knowing

The game is finished when he plays his ace,

And overturn the table and go into the next room?

(II from The North Ship, 1945)

I saw the Turner Prize exhibition at the Baltic in Newcastle; the programmer for George Shaw, a painter from Coventry, had given the poem above, one of those Larkin pieces that's never let go of me, as an example of the corrolation between the poet and the painter. At the time I thought it was inappropriate, a misunderstanding of Larkin based on biography rather than on poetry, but now I look at Shaw's paintings again and I understand: Larkin is a poet of this moment, just like Shaw is a painter of it, and the richness of their styles is a celebration - both ironic and heartfelt - of the arbitrary place of birth alongside the inevitable next room of death.

Six Dollars and Sixty-Six Cents

In Greg Araki's stunning film The Doom Generation, that's the price of everything. Three teenagers meander an apocalyptic roadtrip, pursued by meaningless violence, pursuing non-conformity through sexual pleasure or sexual pleasure through non-conformity depending on how you look at it. As in Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood the apocalypse is readable in signage and symbols; O'Connor's broken car drove down route 666, while Araki's teenagers stop off at gas stations to buy Doritos, nachos, hot-dogs. And everything costs $6.66.

As a very young child, I used to ask my parents nightly; 'Is today the last day?' 'Will tomorrow be the last day?' 'What will happen on the last day?'

Apparently (I don't remember any of this) I concluded – not unhappily – that on the last day, time would start flowing backwards. I think I was pretty pleased with this idea because I was confident this would mean the eventual return of dinosaurs.

Then when I was about 11 someone told me that the ancient Mayan calendar ended in 2012, the logical conclusion being that time would also end there. Dear Quentin, I sympathise thoroughly with your fears about the end of the world, I even wrote a song about it once, I'm sorry for leaving that book lying around.

2012, then; significant because 2 + 0 + 1 + 2 equals 5, always a spiritually potent number, as well as being 2 & 3 (23), which should set alarm bells ringing, plus if you rearrange the 2s just slightly it spells Zion, right? So when it comes to making New Year's resolutions, be careful. I've just made mine and it shot me right in the foot...

See, the torment of working in a bookshop (which I have been doing for the last two months) (which incidentally is where I'm writing from, as not that many people are buying books on New Year's Eve) is learning to love certain editions, certain imprints. The Everyman Library, for example, is just amazing, I'm always jealous of anyone buying one of their editions. So I figured this year I'd aim to read every one of their 100 Essential Reads, in their edition where possible. And yeah, it turns out I've read 34 of them already. Which leaves... Good God! 66.

reading in 2011

This blog is going to remain structureless for a bit longer yet, though hopefully as I get some more writing done and maybe publish some articles over the next few months (my new job could come in handy with that) I will start to make this something more professional, a little advert for myself and my services and all that. Whoever's reading this, and someone must be reading this right now, you who are reading this right now - it's the tree falling in the woods thing, isn't it - I apologise for the messiness, the lack of any contribution to your life and mind, etc etc etc, also I hope you've enjoyed it so far...

Anyway, it occurred to me I might get some writing practise by writing about books, or something. I'm not going to start this properly yet, I'm just going to ramble a bit. But it's going to be great anyway, so if you've read this far I reckon you should read a bit further. Come on pal. I'm getting all if on a winter's night a traveller on your ass... which brings me to my next point:

Unlike a lot of my fellow students, particularly fellow English students, I managed to read a lot during my degree. a lot of people I knew found that reading had become 'work' and no longer found it enjoyable; conversely, my constant sensations of guilt have always been assuaged by the fact that I consider reading to be, somehow, a kind of work. So I read as much as possible. I don't feel guilty when I read, even though I enjoy it so much. I feel guilty doing many things which I think aren't really worth feeling guilty about - watching tv, sleeping, eating (especially at night, but pretty much all the time), spending money (especially on the internet, but pretty much anywhere else as well), taking long showers and baths, using moisturiser, playing the piano or guitar on my own, etc etc etc. Reading, listening to music, playing music with others, walking out of doors, cycling anywhere, dancing, having sex, running, cooking, fixing things or building things: these are all things I enjoy a great deal, but don't feel guilty about. They've retained something wholesome; an aspect of them is 'work', and rather than detracting from the pleasure they give me, this increases it.

Yeah, there's something sick and a bit puritan work ethic about that, but there's also a positive element. To quote Wilhelm Reich, someone I've been reading recently:

Love, work, and knowledge are the wellsprings of life; they should also govern it

So, in a good way, I felt that at university. I tried to let love, work and knowledge act as positive, governing forces in my life. And reading was an example of that. So I read a lot.

As a result, 2010 - half of which was spent finishing my degree - had the best of all possible reading worlds. And a lot of what I read I now consider to be highly important to me. Chuang Tzu, the Manyoshu poetry, Akiko Yosana's poetry, Kerouac's Big Sur, all of Raymond Chandler (except Playback, which doesn't look worthwhile to me), Philip K Dick's Valis and The Man in the High Castle, Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker, Allegro's little book on the dead sea scrolls (before he turned into an immense theological shroom head!), lots of Richard Brautigan, Petrarch's Canzoniere... there are a lot of books, many more than that of course, a year's worth but a good year's worth. It was a good year for books. I even got through things I wasn't sure of, but I'm pretty sure were still worthwhile (R D Laing, Salman Rushdie, Kazuo Ishiguro, that sort of thing). And I ended the year on a high - Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveller, truly amazing; Wyndham's Midwich Cuckoos, followed by his slightly-trashy-but-with-incredible-moments rediscovered novel Plan for Chaos, Dante's Divine Comedy (which I haven't finished; I'm stuck halfway through Paradiso, symbolically enough) and Vita Nouvo; these were among several things I got through in December, but these are the ones that stood out. I don't know if any of it means anything. I just wanted to look back on it. I wonder what about me has changed.

So far this year I've only read two novels, Quentin S. Crisp's astonishing Remember You're A One-Ball!, Atwood's The Year of the Flood. I've dipped into some other things, of course; some of Petrarch's prose, and Hodges' Turing biography (I'm about halfway through, BUT IT'S SO LONG AND DIFFICULT), Wilhelm Reich's Mass Psychology of Fascism (among various works on fascism I've been reading lately; stylewise, Reich's is certainly the most interesting, if perhaps not too informative [its history, if not its thinking, feels a little bit far in the past considering the contemporariness of the issue, but then it was written in the 30's]), Deneslow's book on political pop music (When The Music's Over), and some other things I've no doubt forgotten. The plan is, for all of 2011, to write up something about every single book I read. Starting tomorrow, maybe?

If you actually read this far, I genuinely feel sorry for you.