william_kent

Well-known member
Yesterday checked the post box downstairs on the off-chance and discovered postie had stuffed a book into it. Think it was a @william_kent tip. Today is Saturday and it's fucking cold, I'm sitting in bed with a coffee and reading it until I warm up.

I'm feeling so guilty now.... I hope you haven't wasted your money

this book resonated with me because, once upon a time, I plunged into an amphetamine induced rabbit hole of JFK conspiracy "reality tunnels" for several years, and Anthony Frewin really knows the territory and, although, on the surface Sixty Three Closure might seem like an airport / beach thriller, it actually runs much deeper, but of course I can't expect anyone else to appreciate the mastery he displays regarding the "Cambridge" telegram, etc.,

but I'm worried that you'll spot the twist in the tail, just the same way I did, ( because "foreshadowing" ), although I'd say just enjoy the ride, it's not James Joyce, it's an afternoon's diversion ( but if you do enjoy it I'd recommend London Blues by the same author, it's all about the 1960s London porno film scene* )

( * and the intersection with the Profumo Scandal, how could I not mention that.... )

( edit: TLDR; Anthony Frewin knows his shit when it comes to parapolitics )
 
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IdleRich

IdleRich
I'm feeling so guilty now.... I hope you haven't wasted your money

this book resonated with me because, once upon a time, I plunged into an amphetamine induced rabbit hole of JFK conspiracy "reality tunnels" for several years, and Anthony Frewin really knows the territory and, although, on the surface Sixty Three Closure might seem like an airport / beach thriller, it actually runs much deeper, but of course I can't expect anyone else to appreciate the mastery he displays regarding the "Cambridge" telegram, etc.,

but I'm worried that you'll spot the twist in the tail, just the same way I did, ( because "foreshadowing" ), although I'd say just enjoy the ride, it's not James Joyce, it's an afternoon's diversion ( but if you do enjoy it I'd recommend London Blues by the same author, it's all about the 1960s London porno film scene* )

( * and the intersection with the Profumo Scandal, how could I not mention that.... )

( edit: TLDR; Anthony Frewin knows his shit when it comes to parapolitics )

Not at all, I'm loving it, couldn't put it down last night. Was just about to pick it up again now. Got a genuine sense of paranoia to it, nothing that I've not read before with the break-ins and so on but somehow has more of an edge to it than many things I've read. When I bought it looked as though he's written a few interesting books in various styles, I may check others out too.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I thought that this looked interesting before I bought it @william_kent



But it now strikes me that Georges Armoulian is probably the character from Sixty Three Closure so it's got that self-referentiality that I like and intrigues me even more.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
i think you're right - the Secret Library does refer to other works by Frewin as far as I can recall, I'll have to dig it out later

I forgot to tell you about this. In the book, towards the end he does get fully introduced to this strange Georges guy with the cape and hat who I was assuming must be the same as the similarly garbed bloke on the front cover of Georges Armoulian, however, although his surname is similarly Armenian, his name is in fact Georges Kurzian - unless he's lying of course, and as we find him telling about twenty other lies in the two or three pages he gets, that's not impossible. However it is also SPOILER strongly implied that he is killed /SPOILER which may or may not prevent him being the guy from the book, depending on the precise nature of that book and when the events it describes take place if that 's the right sort of question to be asking .

Anyway, I really enjoyed the book. I would like to read more of his when I get round to it. I'm a bit confused by this...

but I'm worried that you'll spot the twist in the tail, just the same way I did, ( because "foreshadowing")

What twist are you referring to here? I hope I haven't missed something massive because while the narrative was I suppose sort of twsty-turny in parts, there was no particular think that I would have described as A Twist.

re sleaze, this passage was very nasty, says a lot without really saying anything.

"The two young girls looked dazed and drugged. In some of the shots their faces were grimaced in pain.
There would never be anything sexually new for them to discover with boys their own age. They had it all, and some, in this single photographic session. A crash courser in defilement."

So when you say that London Blues may be pretty strong I can well believe it. Still, I reckon I will read that and the Cabinet one and maybe the one where he misspells scorpion too if I can get round to it... also, I was gonna ask you WK, what is your JFK theory... but then I thought, I don't think we've ever had a thread on that, so let's just do that, let's actually tackle THE conspiracy theory instead of pussy footing around the edges as we have done for years. Only thing is, if we start getting followed or our homes get broken into, I will back off as fast as my cowardly little legs can carry me.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
As for what I'm reading right now... when I'm short of ideas of stuff to read or listen to I often go to the What Are You Reading Right Now? thread on dissensus, or the Tune Of The Day one. The idea is that I will hopefully find something totally different to the last thing I read or listened to and which people felt able to just drop in as almost stand-alone type thing, which means that with a little luck, I don't need much context to read the book or hear the song. And that's how I came to buy 63 Closure... today I had two cards for deliveries by the postie when I was out of the flat and I went to pick them up. One was a book called The Agent by George V Higgins which I think was a tip by @luka, I've read only the first pages but so far so good....
 

william_kent

Well-known member
I'm a bit confused by this...

I was out of it when I typed all that, and now I've just read that I've confused you I have to admit I'm not surprised at all, because the "foreshadowing" I mentioned is actually something that happens in another of Frewin's books, so it's not really "foreshadowing" at all, that was the wrong word to use.... in my defence I was off my face...
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I just finished up Progress & Poverty and started The Prince. Anyone else here read Machiavelli?

Only to the extent that someone I knew had a copy kicking around, possibly in a rack in their toilet. I think what I discovered is that although it was a nice idea it is a bit too much to dig into for toilet reading.

I suppose there is actually a bit of an art to selecting toilet books. I think ideally books made up of fragments such as Roger's Profannisaurus or the like are the obvious ones. It seems a bit odd to put a whole book there unless you are badly constipated. I mean if you went round someone's house and there was a rack with War and Peace and Ulysses you would wonder about the thinking behind it. Perhaps if it's your favourite book you might put it there you could just dip into it and read your favourite passage - but primarily toilet books are for guests aren't they? And you can't be expected to know the favourite of absolutely anyone who might happen to come and use your bog can you so I don't think that is the best tactic.

In fact, what is the purpose of toilet books? You want to make them as happy as possible so they enjoy their visit, but, and I think that this is a fairly important but, you don't want to prolong their visit and delay any other visitors who may need to visit. So it's not simply a matter of selecting your best fragmentary books, you can't have anything that will draw them in too much that they keep wanting to read "just one more" - and at all costs you must avoid anything that might send anyone to sleep.. Also you need to offer a bit of choice I'd say. So there's more to the ancient English art of Bog Books than might immediately meet the eye. Still, if a thing is worth doing it's worth doing well... so, with that thought in mind, as with many things, I have decided that it's not worth doing and so I have no books in my bathroom,
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
One was a book called The Agent by George V Higgins which I think was a tip by @luka, I've read only the first pages but so far so good....

I wanted to start reading this properly last night but it was so cold that when I got into bed I couldn't take my hands from under the sheet to turn pages... so I start now... and it's great, dialogue is gun straight away.


20221123_120532.jpg

Just interesting where you have these colleagues - one gay, one black - and it was written 1999 I think, in what was seemingly another country... they do things differently there.

I wanna get back to it, see where it takes me
 

luka

Well-known member
elmore leonard is on record saying he got it all off higgins. order the friends of eddie coyle for when you finish this one. thats supposedly his best book. i havent read many of them so couldnt say but its definitely the best one ive read
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Sadly I actually spent the rest of the day not having the chance to read even a single page further... maybe when I go to bed.
 

martin

----
GEORGE REYNOLDS: “Wagner The Wehr-Wolf”

Earlier this year, I read Reynolds’ “Mysteries of London Vol 1” – a massive collection of 1830s goth-pulp originally cooked up in weekly instalments for publication in penny dreadfuls. It’s difficult to sum up all 1,000 pages but if ‘Bronte Sisters meet De Sade uptown’ floats your (Wapping river pirate) boat, you might want to check it out. Put it this way, somewhere in between all the deformed hunchbacks, murderous grave-robbers, child prostitution, cross-dressing female vigilantes and bewitching Italian countesses, young Queen Victoria herself makes a cameo – with a street urchin burglar hiding beneath her sofa, natch.

To be honest, though, realising I had another 1,600 pages to go with “Vol 2” made my heart sink. It’s stating the obvious to say this book could have done with an editor, but Reynolds was hacking this stuff out on demand for weekly serials, so why would he pass up the opportunity to boost the word count for more dosh?

Anyway, I just finished “Wagner The Wehr-Wolf” (500+ pages), another penny dreadful series he did in the 1840s, which is credited as being the first British werewolf saga. I LOL’d at the first transformation scene, and how can you knock a book set in the 1500s that manages to throw in guest appearances from the Inquisition, Suleiman the Magnificent, the Rosicrucians, Faust and Lucifer (who can show his victims what's going on elsewhere in the plot using a magic telescope)? Plus more hot chicks with alabaster skin, raven hair and smouldering black eyes than you can shake a severed head at? Some of it’s absurd beyond belief, other bits up there with Bataille. What makes Reynolds interesting is he was a Chartist, so the courts, police and clergy get a regular mauling (probably more so in “Mysteries…” than here). This one’s also notable for making a case against the persecution of Jews (yep, there’s a harangued Jewish pawnbroker in this too), which isn’t your standard goth-lit fare. But either way, you also get a shipwrecked werewolf having a fight with a giant anaconda; bandits liberating kidnapped ‘wayward’ girls from a fiendish underground punishment block beneath a convent; and people literally dropping dead from a welter of emotions. A doozy.

IAN BOURN “B”

Compact A8-printed mini-book about the utter fucking horror of workfare culture and struggle in Austerity Britain. Recommended. Received it as part of one of two unexpected, mystery packages in October – the other being, inexplicably, a David Cassidy 7”.

Now starting - a book by someone on Dissensus...more soon....
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
GEORGE REYNOLDS: “Wagner The Wehr-Wolf”

Earlier this year, I read Reynolds’ “Mysteries of London Vol 1” – a massive collection of 1830s goth-pulp originally cooked up in weekly instalments for publication in penny dreadfuls. It’s difficult to sum up all 1,000 pages but if ‘Bronte Sisters meet De Sade uptown’ floats your (Wapping river pirate) boat, you might want to check it out. Put it this way, somewhere in between all the deformed hunchbacks, murderous grave-robbers, child prostitution, cross-dressing female vigilantes and bewitching Italian countesses, young Queen Victoria herself makes a cameo – with a street urchin burglar hiding beneath her sofa, natch.

To be honest, though, realising I had another 1,600 pages to go with “Vol 2” made my heart sink. It’s stating the obvious to say this book could have done with an editor, but Reynolds was hacking this stuff out on demand for weekly serials, so why would he pass up the opportunity to boost the word count for more dosh?

Anyway, I just finished “Wagner The Wehr-Wolf” (500+ pages), another penny dreadful series he did in the 1840s, which is credited as being the first British werewolf saga. I LOL’d at the first transformation scene, and how can you knock a book set in the 1500s that manages to throw in guest appearances from the Inquisition, Suleiman the Magnificent, the Rosicrucians, Faust and Lucifer (who can show his victims what's going on elsewhere in the plot using a magic telescope)? Plus more hot chicks with alabaster skin, raven hair and smouldering black eyes than you can shake a severed head at? Some of it’s absurd beyond belief, other bits up there with Bataille. What makes Reynolds interesting is he was a Chartist, so the courts, police and clergy get a regular mauling (probably more so in “Mysteries…” than here). This one’s also notable for making a case against the persecution of Jews (yep, there’s a harangued Jewish pawnbroker in this too), which isn’t your standard goth-lit fare. But either way, you also get a shipwrecked werewolf having a fight with a giant anaconda; bandits liberating kidnapped ‘wayward’ girls from a fiendish underground punishment block beneath a convent; and people literally dropping dead from a welter of emotions. A doozy

This sounds fantastic it must be said.
 
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