The french

C

catalog

Well-known member
i tried re-reading from hell a few years back and it started to do my head in cos it gets very ploddy in the middle. but it was a proper brain breaker when i first read it, especially that bit where nettley pukes up after he reveals the pentagram and the final chapter where he ties it all up.

i know ackroyd inspired sinclair a lot but he seems a very boring/straight writer so i've never bothered.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
@catalog Speaking, as we were, of the French, this line:

...as his killing career progressed there came a point where he was committing the murders in order to see hallucinations, feel weird, and hear voices. The murders, in other words, became his way of accessing an alien universe -- an altered reality.
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reminded me a lot of Gilles de Rais, as described in La-bas.

The only Ackroyd I've read is Hawksmoor, but I remember enjoying it. Can't recall what the writing was like particularly, but it had some cool ideas.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
catalog said:
i tried re-reading from hell a few years back and it started to do my head in cos it gets very ploddy in the middle. but it was a proper brain breaker when i first read it, especially that bit where nettley pukes up after he reveals the pentagram and the final chapter where he ties it all up.

i know ackroyd inspired sinclair a lot but he seems a very boring/straight writer so i've never bothered.
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Seems a bit harsh... I enjoyed Hawksmoor, Chatterton, I think there is one called Fleet or something... admittedly he did one about John Dee which I struggled to get into. But in general he has interesting ideas and he writes well. His books are small and low-key... less grandiose than his obvious contemporaries as discussed, but I don't see that as a weakness necessarily. He writes historical fiction with interesting extra elements to it and he does it well.
 
C

catalog

Well-known member
IdleRich said:
Seems a bit harsh... I enjoyed Hawksmoor, Chatterton, I think there is one called Fleet or something... admittedly he did one about John Dee which I struggled to get into. But in general he has interesting ideas and he writes well. His books are small and low-key... less grandiose than his obvious contemporaries as discussed, but I don't see that as a weakness necessarily. He writes historical fiction with interesting extra elements to it and he does it well.
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Might give him a go sometime.
 
jenks

jenks

thread death
The one of his that I think is the most successful is Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem where he seems to strike a balance between his love of the arcane/secret knowledge strand of his work and being a proper story telling writer. English Music is an early one I enjoyed but he kind of went off the boil after his mammoth books on London and his Dickens biog. After that, it’s slim pickings. Albion is suitably idiosyncratic.
 
C

catalog

Well-known member
i'm quite interested in finding out more about John Dee, ever since i went to a really good talk at Chetham's library, i suppose about a decade ago now. here are my notes from it:

The guy at Chetham's talking about John Dee. Too clever. He could have been Archbishop of Canterbury if he had just kept his head down and did as he was told. But he could not shut up. He was sent up to Manchester in his dying days to investigate fraudulent activities at the library. He found out that the Crown was actually stealing from itself but trying to say it was someone else. They sent him so that it looked as though they were doing something about it, but who would have thought he would ever figure it out! But he did, so then they were really pissed... Then he was also being asked by thick northerners to cure them of ailments, due to his reputation as an alchemist.
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Moore was in talks at one point with Damon Albarn/Gorillaz to do some collab and write an Opera, which came to nowt, cos Albarn is obviously such an ape.
 
C

catalog

Well-known member
everything about that visual image screams about how much he does not get it at all. it's like john higgs with his weird garish pink cover of the blake book.

or maybe it's just the marketing department who knows.

that higgs book turned out to be ok.

just ok mind, nothing special.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Mr. Tea said:
The only Ackroyd I've read is Hawksmoor, but I remember enjoying it. Can't recall what the writing was like particularly, but it had some cool ideas.
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Tell a lie, it's the only Ackroyd novel I've read. I've also read his London: the biography, which is compulsory reading for anyone who's lived in London I reckon, and another one about subterranean London, which was also good but not quite as epic in scale.
 
linebaugh

linebaugh

Well-known member
doing what we could call a soft open on the tattoo operation and the french love me. my inbox is flooded with attractive young parisians, presumably because they have no reference for what qualifies as a good illustration
 
linebaugh

linebaugh

Well-known member
no, just online. lots of my favorite tattoo artists are in france so I just followed everyone whose following them
 
C

catalog

Well-known member
What is a soft open? We say soft launch here and it means you don't do anything cos you're embarassed/can't be arsed etc but you dress it up as a strategy.
 
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