The Guardian's Blog, page 110
August 14, 2014
Eve according to Christos Tsiolkas
One of the book festival's hottest tickets is a nightly promenade performance of four epistolary short stories, which have been adapted by Edinburgh's Grid Iron theatre company into two stage plays, a film installation and a play for voices, performed in rooms around Charlotte Square.
At a session to discuss the project, three of the writers Kamila Shamsie, Kei Miller and Christos Tsiolkas met their collaborators for the first time. (The fourth, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, was in Nigeria, where her twohander about the aftermath of a holiday romance between two women is set.) None of the writers had yet seen the show and it would be hard to say which contingent was more nervous. As Grid Iron's Ben Harrison explained, no text is more sacred than the responsibility to keep an audience entertained. The four stories had duly been "shaped" to 20 minutes each.
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The best books on Sudan: start your reading here | Pushpinder Khaneka
August 13, 2014
Reading American Cities: Washington DC in books
Blog: Boston in literature
Boston books: readers' picks
Washington DC is an awkward city. Like New York City, its significance transcends the geographical boundaries of the metropolis, but unlike New York, the city's urban design is such that it's almost hard to see it as a city at all. The boroughs of New York are demarcated and distinct, as are the north and south sides of Chicago; in Washington, the districts of Virginia, Maryland, and Columbia tend to blur city centre into suburb inextricably. The different tenor of the urban environment perhaps accounts for the way its literature is probably the least "urban" of all the cities on this list.
Washington is predominantly, of course, America's political centre, and, "Bartleby" and Little Dorrit aside, bureaucracy doesn't tend to make for great literature. There are, however, some exceptions here: Democracy, by Henry Adams, is an incisive study of politicians, socialites, wannabes, and the nature of power that has aged remarkably little since its first publication, anonymously, in 1880. The political system is seen through the eyes of Madeleine Lee, an outsider who moves to the city seeking "the mysterious gem which must lie hidden somewhere in politics", and her salon soon becomes the place to see and be seen in Washington. But she rapidly becomes the object of an increasingly vicious conquest by two ambitious, machiavellian politicians, and by the end she leaves, disillusioned, for Egypt. Adams believed absolutely that the future of the world lay in the United States and that the future of the United States lay in Washington, but as Madeleine declares, "half of our wise men declare that the world is going straight to perdition; the other half that it is fast becoming perfect. Both cannot be right. [...] I must know whether America is right or wrong." It isn't clear if Adams himself could quite make his mind up.
"In June of the year 1957, my half sister, Nina (known henceforward as Nini) Gore Auchincloss, married Newton Steers in St John's Church, 'the church of the presidents,' in Washington, DC. For over a century presidents, of a Sunday, would wander across the avenue that separates White House from Lafayette Square and its odd little church, whose chaste Puritan tower is topped by an unlikely gold Byzantine dome metaphor?"
"And the streets how their throbbings throbb'd, and the cities pent lo, then and there,/
Falling upon them all and among them all, enveloping me with the rest,/
Appear'd the cloud, appear'd the long black trail,/
And I knew death."
Boston in books: readers' picks
The Massachusetts capital has a great literary history that includes crime, satire and childrens books. Heres a selection of your favourite books about Boston. Add your own below the line
If youre planning a trip to Boston and want to read up on it first, weve got it covered. Last week, we offered you a blog with a selection of great Boston reads, from Henry James to Margaret Atwood. And you had a great list of books to add. Interestingly, as reader Isabelle Leinster pointed out, there are many historical books which depict Boston as it was back then but I cant think of one which accurately portrays Boston as it is today.
Its strange that so many writers have managed to conjure up the essence of New York in books but not Boston. I think its because really Boston is rather provincial and not cosmopolitan in the way New York is, pointed out our reader. But the following list would contest that.
The flyers also saturated the worst of the Boston slums, where one was most likely to find the core of the criminal element - the plug-uglies, the bullyboys, the knuckle-dusters, and, of course, the Gusties, the citys most powerful and fuck-out-of-their-minds street gang, who headquartered in South Boston but spread their tentacles throughout the city at large.
Boston had to be the least safe city hed ever come across in his life. The Athens of America ... hed change the name to the Asylum of America.
This lifes hard, but its harder if youre stupid.
The thing is it has to be the truth to really go over, here. It cant be a calculated crowd-pleaser, and it has to be the truth unslanted, unfortified. And maximally unironic. An ironist in a Boston AA meeting is a witch in church. Irony-free zone. Same with sly disingenuous manipulative pseudo-sincerity.
Orins special conscious horror, besides heights and the early morning, is roaches. Thered been parts of metro Boston near the Bay hed refused to go to, as a child. Roaches give him the howling fantods.
Trinity Park lies directly across from the library, Trinity Church rising like a midieval thought amidst the glass and steel towers.
If not for the rats you could crawl beneath a bush. A bush. A bench. The alliterative universe. Rats too can pass through that needles eye to enter heaven. . . . This box held a refrigerator, the refrigerator is an apartment, a man is in the box. . . . Wake up on the grass, soaking wet. Dew is the piss of God. Another bullshit night in suck city, my father mutters.
I took my .38 out and looked to see that there were bullets in all the proper places. I knew there would be, but it did no harm to be careful. And Id seen Clint Eastwood do it once in the movies.
We split a bottle of Norman cider. Not everybody sells Norman cider by the bottle.
Has a European feel Susan said.
One day Mr. Mallard decided hed like to take a trip to see what the rest of the river was like, further on. So off he set.
I find it a huge strain to be responsible for my tastes and be known and defined by them.
Yeah, well, were all grieving in our own way, obviously. Its just I heard this crazy rumor about your having inherited twenty-two million dollars. He tried to meet her eyes, but shed turned away, squeezing her thumbs, fists balled.
Maybe that was the definition of life everlasting: the belief that the next generation would carry your work forward.
She made him sit down; she assured him that her sister quite expected him, would feel as sorry as she could ever feel for anything for she was a kind of fatalist, anyhow if he didnt stay to dinner. It was an immense pity she herself was going out; in Boston you must jump at invitations.
She is very honest, is Olive Chancellor; she is full of rectitude. Nobody tells fibs in Boston; I dont know what to make of them all.
There were people who wanted one to spend the winter in Boston; but she couldnt stand that--she knew, at least, what she had not come back for. Perhaps she should take a house in Washington; did he ever hear of that little place?
When I was living in Boston I was recommended The Last Hurrah, a novel by Edwin OConnor a good insight into local (tribal?) politics in the 1950s and earlier. Then there must be dozens of books about the RedSox and the old fans defeatist attitudes, allegedly typical of the New England character. The Curse of the Bambino by Dan Shaughnessy is as good as any.
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RA Lafferty the secret sci-fi genius more than ready for a comeback
RA Lafferty might just be the most important science-fiction writer you've never heard of.
Raphael Aloysius Lafferty RA for the byline, "Ray" to friends was born on 7 November 1914 but, centenary year aside, what singles out Lafferty's work from the legions of forgotten paperback SF writers is the sheer absurdity of much of his output and the singular marriage of fable, comedy and fantasy that underpins his writing including his novels Past Master, Space Chantey and Fourth Mansions, and his huge body of short stories.
There was a young man who had good eyes but simple brains. Nobody can have everything. His name was Freddy Foley and he was arguing with a man named Tankersley, who was his superior.
"Just how often do you have to make a total fool of yourself, Foley?" Tankersley asked him sharply. Tankersley was a kind man, but he had a voice like a whip.
The panhandler was Basil Bagelbaker, who would be the richest man in the world within an hour and a half. He would make and lose four fortunes within eight hours; and these not the little fortunes that ordinary men acquire, but titanic things.
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A brief survey of the short story: Italo Calvino
Read more on the short story masters
In a lecture delivered in New York in the spring of 1983, Italo Calvino remarked that "most of the books I have written and those I intend to write originate from the thought that it will be impossible for me to write a book of that kind: when I have convinced myself that such a book is completely beyond my capacities of temperament or skill, I sit down and start writing it".
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August 12, 2014
How Edith Wharton led me on a long and winding road back to Henry James
I have not read Henry James for years. As I've admitted previously, I've not much of a memory for books, no matter how much I enjoy them, so this is what I retain of James: very disturbing small children, in a story wrapped within a story that I loved (The Turn of the Screw). Italy, Madame Merle, unbearably irritating heroine (The Portrait of a Lady). Most of all, though, extremely long sentences.
I am very much minded to return to him as soon as possible, however, after I was pointed by a good friend towards this new blog post from the Edith Wharton Society, which quotes Wharton reminiscing in her autobiography A Backward Glance about a trip with the great man. Apologies to those who might have already seen it: I hadn't, and it has filled me with affection for James.
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Why The Hunger Games' killer Katniss is a great female role model
Katniss Everdeen, heroine of The Hunger Games, is spiky and hard to like; but her qualities are so much more admirable than Twilights mopey vampire-lover Bella
A page into The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen talks about love. She once tried to drown her sisters cat in a bucket, but now she feeds him entrails from the prey she hunts, and hes stopped hissing at her: Entrails. No hissing. This is the closest we will ever come to love.
Suzanne Collinss 16-year-old heroine is hard as nails. And hard to like. Shes tough, hostile, calculating and lethal. The trilogy is set in a dystopian future America where children are forced to kill each other on television to entertain the rich and powerful. When Katniss volunteers for the games in place of her sister, she knows nice people dont win. But she doesnt care about nice; shed rather be brutal, and survive.
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Making Alexander great: creating a hero from zero
We need to talk about Alexander: he isn't quite right. The signs have been there since his early youth. He's always been a bit too keen on hunting. A bit too keen on talking about the death of Achilles. A bit too interested in the soldiers and their weapons. A bit too, well, scary. Take, for instance, the time he met Demosthenes. OK, Demosthenes was a bit rude and probably shouldn't have grabbed his arm. Even so, wasn't his reply a bit worrying? How many other pre-pubescents would say "quietly" and "with fastidious correctness": "Take your hand off me. Or you are going to die. I am telling you."
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August 11, 2014
Tips, links and suggestions: What are you reading this week?
Your space to discuss the books you are reading and what you think of them
Welcome to this weeks blog. Heres a roundup of your comments and photos from last week.
Today were TLSing from the Edinburgh international book festival. You can follow all of our coverage here. And weve been asking the crowds here what theyre reading what a density of books per person! Well bring you a round-up on the next blog. Right, on to this weeks reads.
Im about half way through Patrick DeWitts The Sisters Brothers, which is reminding me (in the best possible ways) of the Coen Brothers No Country for Old Men (I havent read McCarthys original novel) and Sam Shepards True West. I had started it a few months ago but guess I wasnt in the right place to appreciate it then. Theres a kind of melancholy and fragility about the book despite its subject matter (the brutality of Manifest Destiny and free market individualism perhaps). What Im enjoying most are the surprising delicately drawn relationships and the beautiful turns of phrase of the eponymous contract killers.
In the spirit of trying to read more short stories, more books by women, and more books by Scots- I have just bought myself AL Kennedys Now That Youre Back. What could go wrong?
Can't wait to get started....
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By Betty Bee
6 August 2014, 10:11
Its his account of his time in the war as an American flying for the RAF, then being imprisoned in Stalag Luft III (the one where the great escape happened) and another POW camp in Poland. He was partly the inspiration for Steve McQueens character in The Great Escape.
Its a fascinating story, and a good companion piece to Paul Brickhills The Great Escape, as you find out what happened to several of the prisoners who were transferred between the camps.
The Remains of the Day was really disappointing. Looking for what to read next, I saw on my Goodreads that almost everybody on my friends list had read it with all of them giving it four or five stars, not to mention it seems to have won all kinds of awards but it just seemed very plain. The voice of Stevens is perfect but what he actually has to say, even viewed from the jazzy its what isnt on the page style, isnt particularly compelling. Perhaps his upper lip is too stiff for my taste.
In truth, much of what I'm reading this month I discovered by chance in my local bookshop. I found Helen Humphreys' account of the life and death of her brother Martin whilst I was looking for Blake Morrison's Things My Mother Never Told Me. The Morrison wasn't in stock and was too impatient to order, so as I scanned left across the shelves this one presented itself. How could I have possibly made this wonderful, and entirely random, discovery online? Humphreys' clarity in the telling of her story is exquisite.
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By caminoamigo
5 August 2014, 15:02
I'm over 50 so feel that need to excercise my brain, I bought the book from the "Book Club" at work. I'm hoping it will help, but looks fun anyway. The novel, Motherland, was bought as part of a multi buy offer and is set in the second world war. I bought it on the strength of the red dress on the cover I think!
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By DVerdaguer
8 August 2014, 20:10
For you. Youll soon. Youll read her book. In the constant genius chatter. Have you? Read you? Best thing ever written. Compelled you, even though sceptical. She made a bookeen. A little slender thing it. Ten years in a bottom drawer. But now they hoopla in the sickly slickly prizegiving noisemaking and. You. Will. Read. This. Fecking. Book.
And they comparing. Comparing uncle James. Uncle James she gets comparisons like she want before. Being Irish and using funny sentences. Uncle that uncle with his consciousness streams.
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