The Guardian's Blog, page 18
February 25, 2016
Food in books: onion soup from The Little White Horse
Sometimes preparing food can be as comforting as eating it. Kate Young turns to one of the meals from Elizabeth Goudge’s 1940s children’s classic
By Kate Young for The Little Library Café, part of the Guardian Books Network
The supper was delicious. There was home-made crusty bread, hot onion soup, delicious rabbit stew, baked apples in a silver dish, honey, butter the colour of marigolds, a big blue jug of warm mulled claret, and hot roasted chestnuts folded in a napkin.
The Little White Horse, Elizabeth Goudge
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Karl Ove Knausgaard: 'I would have cut off my arm if it ended up in a novel'
The Norwegian literary phenomenon tells Guardian Live event how and why he has put the most intimate details of his life into his autobiographical novels
Towards the end of A Man in Love, the second of six volumes in Karl Ove Knausgaard’s autobiographical My Struggle series, the author returns to his native Norway to deliver two talks. Drinking coffee at a kiosk in Kjevik airport, he runs through his cues, reassuring himself: “It’ll be fine … It didn’t matter too much that these were old ideas and I no longer believed in them. The important thing was that I said something.”
This notion might also be applied to Knausgaard’s autobiographical novels, which, like real life, can be inconsistent and contradictory. His thoughts on art, philosophy, marriage and raising children can be fallible and often change, but the fact that he has written them down, unrestrained and without moderation, is what counts. In this vein, Knausgaard has produced something colossal, prioritising “presence” and personal truth over all else.
I was constantly afraid [and] full of fear, non-stop everyday… But then almost everybody has been extremely generous
Related: A Man in Love by Karl Ove Knausgaard – review
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February 24, 2016
A brief survey of the short story: Elizabeth Taylor
Her work may be set in a world of dated manners, but its hard insights into social vanity and anxiety speak all too clearly to our own
If it wasn’t for Paul Theroux, I might never have got around to reading Elizabeth Taylor. In the face of a succession of articles that praise her, and bemoan the fact she is ignored, I continued to ignore her. But when I heard Theroux reading her 1958 story The Letter Writers, I suddenly knew I was missing out.
The Letter Writers takes place in an English coastal village where Emily, a middle-aged spinster, is nervously preparing for the visit of a man called Edmund, a writer she has been corresponding with for a decade. They have become close without meeting – although Emily did once stand outside his apartment in Rome without having the courage to announce herself.
Over her bare arms the warm air flowed, her skirt seemed to divide as she walked, pressed in a hollow between her legs, like drapery on a statue.
[Jane] was hard, he thought – unlike [Barbara], whom he found rather girlish and sentimental. He was not greatly drawn to either of them; but they had been part of his holiday and because of that he must feel disturbed at saying good-bye to them.
‘What a pretty frock, Frances,’ Myra said, beginning with the worst. ‘Poor pet,’ she thought, and Frances guessed the thought, smiling primly and saying thank you.
The fact would increase their air of dependability and give them background and reality and solid worth. The boy was at a public school, he went on, and did not divulge to his friends the name of his parents’ profession. Silcox, Edith realised with respect, was so snobbish that he looked down upon himself.
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February 23, 2016
Translating the Iliad: webchat with Caroline Alexander – post your questions now
The latest translator of Homer’s masterpiece – the first woman to recreate it in English – will be here to answer your questions about tackling this ancient epic on Monday 29 February at 1pm. Join the discussion below
9.23am GMT
Caroline Alexander is an author and journalist who has written for the New Yorker, Granta and National Geographic and has several books to her name. These include The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty (2004), and The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition (1998). In 2009, she also published The War That Killed Achilles: The True Story of Homer’s Iliad and the Trojan War, which Tom Holland described here as “a worthy memorial to Homer’s poem: compassionate, urgent and unfailingly stimulating”.
Most recently, Alexander has translated the Iliad, which has to be the literary equivalent of climbing Everest. I’m also tempted to reach for another metaphor and suggest that wrestling with Homer must sometimes feel a bit like taking on Achilles himself – an almost impossible task, yet also the ultimate test … But she’ll be able to tell you her feelings about that on Monday 29 February at 1pm, when she joins us for a live webchat.
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February 22, 2016
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 week’s blog. Here’s a roundup of your comments and photos from last week, including novels that will take you to spring without you even noticing, books about bookish people, and joyous rereads.
We’ve been seeing a lot of Marilynne Robinson love lately – MsCarey said:
Marilynne Robinson’s Lila is astonishingly good, an extraordinary fusion of content and style which makes one bleat with pleasure. The intensity of feeling coming off the page was such that I sometimes had to close the book and walk away from it. The only reservation I had was nothing to do with Robinson and everything to do with the residual uneasiness I feel when the educated and articulate (in this case the author) attempt to speak for those who cannot. But even this prejudice of mine fell away in the face of the power of Robinson’s creation. Lila is no representative of an entire section of society. She is just herself, a remarkable woman. I can’t not read Gilead now but, due to my constitutional inability to read a series of books at one go, it won’t be for some time.
As usual, Gissing did not disappoint. The narrator is a book person. For example:
It is a joy to go through booksellers’ catalogues, ticking here and there a possible purchase. Formerly, when I could seldom spare money, I kept catalogues as much as possible out of sight; now I savour them page by page, and make a pleasant virtue of the discretion I must needs impose upon myself. But greater still is the happiness of unpacking volumes which one has bought without seeing them. I am no hunter of rarities; I care nothing for first editions and for tall copies; what I buy is literature, food for the soul of man. The first glimpse of bindings when the inmost protective wrapper has been folded back! The first scent of books! The first gleam of a gilded title! Here is a work the name of which has been known to me for half a lifetime, but which I never saw; I take it reverently in my hand, gently I open it; my eyes are dim with excitement as I glance over chapter-headings, and anticipate the treat which awaits me.
Thank you Mr. Gissing.
This is the perfect time of year to read le Carré. There’s something cosy about his books, perhaps the meticulous natures of the spies he writes about. Either way, ten pages in and I’m looking forward to the next 600 taking me through till Spring.
She first came to my attention when Darkmans nearly won the Booker prize in 2007. Since then, I have read three more of her books: she’s always funny, always has something a bit odd or mysterious going on and is very focussed on narrative. For example, Burley Cross Postbox Theft involves the theft of a mailbag: she does her best to create a distinctive voice for each and every stolen letter.
I recently finished her most recent book, In the Approaches. The title has at least two meanings: it is set on the coast near Hastings, and the locals refer to it as being in the approaches. Then there is a distinction between those who live life as if they are centre stage – with full, fulfilling lives – and the others who linger in the shadows (or in the approaches – “kitchen scraps” as one character says). It is possible that the two main characters might end up out of the shadows, by realising that they are in love with each other and acting on it, but this is not the sort of book to tell us so. [...]
I’m pretty sure Nicola Barker had a lot of fun creating this book: it was certainly very funny to read. It took a while to work out exactly what was going on, but that makes sense: a first person narrator is not going to sit down and set out a precise, chronological account. Instead, bits and pieces of the history will come to mind at different times.
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Poem of the week: Autumn Rain by DH Lawrence
Intensely alive to the details of the natural world, Lawrence here combines the energy of his free verse with formal invention
Autumn Rain
The plane leaves
fall black and wet
on the lawn;
I didn't want to resort to self-publishing, but it's an exhilarating change
My debut novel did very well with conventional publishers, but they weren’t interested in the ‘difficult second’ – so I’m going it alone
My debut novel Mrs Sinclair’s Suitcase was published in 2014. It did OK. The novel has respectable sales figures for a debut, it did particularly well in foreign rights and has been translated into 14 languages. Two of my foreign deals were for six-figure sums. In the UK, it was reviewed in the Times and the Daily Mail and in several women’s magazines. I assumed I would be a shoo-in for that “difficult second novel”.
But my (very difficult, as it turned out) second novel was turned down flat. Cue the disbelief, followed by the tears, then the ranting and raving, the why, why, why? And that was just my husband.
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February 20, 2016
Why Stig Abell is right for the Times Literary Supplement
The Sun managing editor’s appointment as editor of the TLS may have been met with amusement in more lofty circles, but his credentials for the role are impeccable
The late Karl Miller called his memoir of a life spent largely in literary journalism Dark Horses. No equine could be more subfusc than the incoming Times Literary Supplement, editor, Stig Abell, formerly the managing editor of a much more sparkling gem in the Murdoch diadem, the Sun. Although Abell’s appointment has been met with a certain amount of amusement in more elevated circles, it should be pointed out that his credentials for the exacting task of replacing Sir Peter Stothard in the editorial chair are impeccable. In fact, under the name Stephen Abell, this Cambridge double first has already made numberless appearances in the magazine over the last 10 years as a reviewer of fiction.
Related: Sun managing editor Stig Abell to become editor of the TLS
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February 19, 2016
Umberto Eco in quotes – 10 of the best
A bestselling novelist, semiotician, philosopher, essayist, literary critic... no matter the form, Umberto Eco explored the intricacies of human behaviour, love and literature with grace and nuance. Here are some of his best quotes
Italian author Umberto Eco dies aged 84Obituary: Umberto Eco, 1932-2016Umberto Eco, the bestselling Italian writer and academic has died aged 84. Known for his philosophical musings on everything from fascism to Charlie Brown, Eco offered countless pithy observations about humanity’s search for meaning. Here are 10 of his most memorable quotes – if you would like to contribute more, please add them in the comments.
What is love? There is nothing in the world, neither man nor Devil nor any thing, that I hold as suspect as love, for it penetrates the soul more than any other thing. Nothing exists that so fills and binds the heart as love does. Therefore, unless you have those weapons that subdue it, the soul plunges through love into an immense abyss. ― The Name of the Rose
I think a book should be judged 10 years later, after reading and re-reading it. I was always defined as too erudite and philosophical, too difficult. Then I wrote a novel that is not erudite at all, that is written in plain language, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, and among my novels it is the one that has sold the least. So probably I am writing for masochists. It’s only publishers and some journalists who believe that people want simple things. People are tired of simple things. They want to be challenged. – interview with the Guardian in 2011
All the stories I would like to write persecute me when I am in my chamber, it seems as if they are all around me, the little devils, and while one tugs at my ear, another tweaks my nose, and each says to me, ‘Sir, write me, I am beautiful’.
On the morning of July 27, 1943, I was told that, according to radio reports, fascism had collapsed and Mussolini was under arrest. When my mother sent me out to buy the newspaper, I saw that the papers at the nearest newsstand had different titles. Moreover, after seeing the headlines, I realized that each newspaper said different things. I bought one of them, blindly, and read a message on the first page signed by five or six political parties – among them the Democrazia Cristiana, the Communist Party, the Socialist Party, the Partito d’Azione, and the Liberal Party. Until then, I had believed that there was a single party in every country and that in Italy it was the Partito Nazionale Fascista. Now I was discovering that in my country several parties could exist at the same time. – from his 1995 essay UR-Facism, from the New York Review of Books
Books are not made to be believed, but to be subjected to inquiry. When we consider a book, we mustn’t ask ourselves what it says but what it means. - The Name of the Rose
I should be at peace. I have understood. Don’t some say that peace comes when you understand? I have understood. I should be at peace. Who said that peace derives from the contemplation of order, order understood, enjoyed, realized without residuum, in joy and truimph, the end of effort? All is clear, limpid; the eye rests on the whole and on the parts and sees how the parts have conspired to make the whole; it perceives the center where the lymph flows, the breath, the root of the whys... ― Foucault’s Pendulum
The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else.
The [Da Vinci Code] author Dan Brown, is a character from Foucault’s Pendulum! I invented him. He shares my characters’ fascinations—the world conspiracy of Rosicrucians, Masons, and Jesuits. The role of the Knights Templar. The hermetic secret. The principle that everything is connected. I suspect Dan Brown might not even exist. – interview with the Paris Review in 2008
Charlie Brown has been called the most sensitive child ever to appear in a comic strip, a figure capable of Shakespearean shifts of mood; and Schulz’s pencil succeeds in rendering these variations with an economy of means that has something miraculous about it. The text, always almost courtly (these children rarely lapse into slang or commit anacoluthon), is enhanced by drawings able to portray, in each character, the subtlest psychological nuance. Thus the daily tragedy of Charlie Brown is drawn, in our eyes, with exemplary incisiveness. – Eco on the comicstrip Peanuts, for the New York Review of Books in 1985
How does a person feel when looking at the sky? He thinks that he doesn’t have enough tongues to describe what he sees. Nevertheless, people have never stopping describing the sky, simply listing what they see... We have a limit, a very discouraging, humiliating limit: death. That’s why we like all the things that we assume have no limits and, therefore, no end. It’s a way of escaping thoughts about death. We like lists because we don’t want to die. – interview with Der Spiegel in 2009
Flash Friday: Grandma's Sex Robot
Could you (or your nan) fall in love with a machine? This short story explores how far the relationship between humans and artificial intelligence could go
By William Hawkins for Flash Fridays by Tin House, part of the Guardian Books Network
Grandma calls her sex robot Sony. We tell her that’s just the company who makes it.
“Well,” she says, “he looks like a Sony. Doesn’t he?”
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