jenks

thread death
Along other bits and pieces (all of Gwendoline Riley, Barbara Skeleton’s diaries, The Dance to the Music of Time and. TJ Clarke book on Manet and after) my main focus is the new Olga Tokarczuk Books of Jacob which is loosely based on the story of Jacob Frank who claimed himself the Messiah to a polish shetl sometime in the 18th C. She’s got a fantastic way of spinning loads of plates while also slipping across time and characters. she’s obviously interested in the mystic experience but also about the importance of faith on an everyday level. I read both the other books publicly Fotzcarraldo and neither are similar in any way. There’s also a great film of Dtive Your Plough called Spoor - in Polish which I really recommend. I forgot to mention it’s nearly 1000 pages long.
 
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IdleRich

IdleRich
Along other bits and pieces (all of Gwendoline Riley, Barbara Skeleton’s diaries, The Dance to the Music of Time and. TJ Clarke book on Manet and after) my main focus is the new Olga Tokarczuk Books of Jacob which is loosely based on the story of Jacob Frank who claimed himself the Messiah to a polish shetl sometime in the 18th C. She’s got a fantastic way of spinning loads of plates while also slipping across time and characters. she’s obviously interested in the mystic experience but also about the importance of faith on an everyday level. I read both the other books publicly Fotzcarraldo and neither are similar in any way. There’s also a great film of Dtive Your Plough called Spoor - in Polish which I really recommend. I forgot to mention it’s nearly 1000 pages long.
I remember thinking Drive Your Plough sounded interesting... and then promptly forgot about it, thanks for reminder.

Speaking of films of books... did someone say there was a film of Jesus' Son? If it was any good we'd all know about it though wouldn't we? Or is that a kind of self-fullfilling prophecy type argument? Hollywood doesn't adapt anthologies well though, normally they just take the name and make it a single narrative so the star can be on the screen all the time. I suppose they made Trainspotting work by doing that though.
 

luka

Well-known member
cant remember the last time i read a book. like woops said its a whatever gets you through the day phase. no guilt, so superego injunctions. stay in bed and do nothing.
 

woops

is not like other people
cant remember the last time i read a book. like woops said its a whatever gets you through the day phase. no guilt, so superego injunctions. stay in bed and do nothing.
oddly enough reading books has been the get me through the day thing recently, just finished a really long and boring Eliot biography yesterday and plowing through an antiquated Henry Green novel as well (btw @jenks it's actually alright) etc etc
 

jenks

thread death
I love a bit of Henry Green - Loving is always cited as his masterpiece but I really like the one where he’s a fire warden in WWII - Caught - I think.
 

catalog

Well-known member
What did you think of "I love dick"?

I've read that Petit book, it's alright. Are you into the porn bits yet?

I read another Petit called "The hard shoulder", that's good too, pretty different.

Im reading a book of interviews by some Geordie called Neil Jackson. It's Iain Sinclair, Chris Petit, Alan Moore, Stewart Lee, someone else. Very strong, a lot of syncs with stuff we talk about here. Keep meaning to post an excerpt up.

 

woops

is not like other people
What did you think of "I love dick"?
i thought it was alright and a lot of the art criticism bits were interesting but it's a bit hard to square the forceful feminist messages with the fact that it's basically a tale of her being obsessive. also she does the bit about how hard it is to be poor, how strange it is to be schizophrenic (if not making it into a gift) when she's clearly not poor or schizophrenic. and most of her friends are objectively geniuses.

in fact that aspect of it reminds me off Paul Auster, who wrote a book called "hand to mouth" about his days as a struggling author, when on reading it he has never been anywhere near skint in his life, and he's also a great one for this kind of stuff:

"she was the most intelligent woman i've ever met in my life. we talked for hours. next day,[...]"

that kind of silly stuff. his wife siri hustvedt is the same. beautiful bohemians living in massive lofts, taking eccentric young artists under their wing and that kind of thing. it's a very american scmaltzy vision of the artists.
 

catalog

Well-known member
It's hard to believe she's skint but easy to believe she spent years making art videos that never got anywhere. An odd character. But I really liked it. Had that rambling, tangential feel but sort of kept it all together.
 

wild greens

Well-known member
did someone say there was a film of Jesus' Son? If it was any good we'd all know about it though wouldn't we? Or is that a kind of self-fullfilling prophecy type argument? Hollywood doesn't adapt anthologies well though, normally they just take the name and make it a single narrative so the star can be on the screen all the time. I suppose they made Trainspotting work by doing that though.

It's... alright

Some of it works and some of it really doesn't, but you do get Denis Johnson playing man with knife in his eye which is a decent little novelty

*

Reading lots of noirs at the moment, mainly because theyre pretty easy i guess. Dashiel Hammett- Red Harvest. Not the best but the language carries it through really
 
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catalog

Well-known member
i'm gonna order that jesus' son book as soon as I've finished this current batch of reads:

1. Undead uprising by john cussans - really stalled on this. It's interesting but a bit academic/dry, can't seem to get any rhythm with it.
2. Accursed share volume 1 - nearly finished, he's gone into a long sociology section which is less interesting than the very beginning, but still some good nuggets especially around the role of Churches in the middle ages.
3. Isabelle Nicou - Genesis 0. Just started this, it's very short and readable, little chapters of about a page or so, about a woman finding out she's pregnant and hiding it form a partner, musing/agonising over it.
 

woops

is not like other people
I've read that Petit book, it's alright. Are you into the porn bits yet?
right yeah i see what you mean now. of course, in a book like this (from 93), porno films have to be shot by a bunch of dead eyed vagrant alcoholics and germans speed freaks in a derelict warehouse. seems quite quaint now in a way. but there's another business opportunity for the slaithwaite nightclub perhaps.
 

catalog

Well-known member
this interview with him is quite funny cos he talks a bit about his career in film. apart from 'radio on' and the films he's done with iain sinclair, it basically amounts to an agatha cristie drama, something like that. he says he would love to get on the midsummer murders circuit. he's funny though, i might read the psalm killer at some point. there's a really good purge tape with him i've got where he is slaggin goff iain sinclair a bit and explaining the reasoning behind the robinson name. think we got into it here before, it's a celine reference.
 

woops

is not like other people
right yeah i see what you mean now. of course, in a book like this (from 93), porno films have to be shot by a bunch of dead eyed vagrant alcoholics and germans speed freaks in a derelict warehouse. seems quite quaint now in a way. but there's another business opportunity for the slaithwaite nightclub perhaps.
finished this now, starts off well with all the Soho-based underworldliness you could ask for, then goes further and further over the top until it's the apocalypse at the end for some reason I don't quite get. Worth a go if you're into the Derek Raymond kind of sordid and dissipated atmosphere. Next up is Lux the Poet long after @sufi sent it to me seems to promise a bit of light relief in an urban setting not a million miles away from Robinson.
 

jenks

thread death
i'll be interested to see how Lux the Poet has aged - very much a fan of their work back in the dim and distant past and haven't even thought about them for ages. I'll have to fish them back off the shelf over the holidays.
 

woops

is not like other people
i'll be interested to see how Lux the Poet has aged - very much a fan of their work back in the dim and distant past and haven't even thought about them for ages. I'll have to fish them back off the shelf over the holidays.
so far it's a load of what i imagine are 80s tropes of scummy squatters and cold-hearted corporates all stuck together with a wide-eyed faux-naïf writing style plus a mythological subplot seems like it might get more interesting as it progresses.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Developing the Dead : Mediumship & Selfhood in Cuban Espiritismo - Diana Espirito Santo

Amazing. Based on fieldwork in Cuba over 10 years or so, an account of how the different schools of Espiritismo (a mediumship practice) interact with each other and broader Cuban social and political structures. The way these traditions thrive in a nominally atheist country is really a trip. Lots of accounts of possession, prophecy, dreams and visions, wonders and signs but in a non-dismissive academic philosophical register. First time I've read a tough academic book for a minute, feels like being back in the gym, mentally.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
i'm gonna order that jesus' son book as soon as I've finished this current batch of reads:

1. Undead uprising by john cussans - really stalled on this. It's interesting but a bit academic/dry, can't seem to get any rhythm with it.
Be interested to know what you think if you progress. Lots of fascinating information in there I thought. I like the fact he has links with Haiti so isn't just a dry and distanced academic (though I'm not sure if that comes over in the book, I can't remember).
 
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