Ian Gouge's Blog, page 3

“Some Sort of Genius”

Having finally got round to finishing reading it, I can say I really enjoyed Paul O’Keeffe’s “Some Sort of Genius: A Life of Wyndham Lewis”. It seems to me that O’Keeffe has managed the book’s tone and balance really well; navigating between fact and narrative can be difficult when it comes to biography. We are … Continue reading “Some Sort of Genius” →

Some of May’s Substack posts

“when you see anything of mine that you don’t like remember that I’m sincere in doing it and that I’m working toward something.” – Ernest Hemingway  A selection of recent posts from my Substack site.

“Being Various”

“Being Various” is a collection of ‘New Irish Short Stories’ i.e. their authors are all Irish, as are most (but not all) of the stories’ locations. By and large it’s an interesting and inoffensive compendium; the stories are well-written, and the collection’s cover trumpets some ‘big names’: Sally Rooney, Sinéad Gleeson, Eimear McBride, and Kevin … Continue reading “Being Various” →

“A Long Long Way”

Wow. I love the way Sebastian Barry writes, and in The Long Long Way – a story about Irish soldiers fighting in the First World War – he really puts us through the wringer. Some of the imagery (e.g. men in trenches walking over the bloody fragments and broken bones of fallen colleagues) is so … Continue reading “A Long Long Way” →

Some recent Substack posts

“when you see anything of mine that you don’t like remember that I’m sincere in doing it and that I’m working toward something.” – Ernest Hemingway  A selection of links to recent posts from my Substack site.

“That They May Face the Rising Sun”

Not very much happens in John McGahern’s “That They May Face the Rising Sun” – but don’t let that put you off! The novel paints a considered and in-depth picture of slow, rural Irish life which, even though the scale of it is quite narrow, still manages to touch on the universal. If I had … Continue reading “That They May Face the Rising Sun” →

Books available at discounted prices!

Thanks to an agreement with the printer, you can obtain a number of my books at lower than list price (UK and US only). In order to take advantage of this offer, please go HERE.

“The Big Frog Theory” – new edition!

“The Tattoo Collector” & “no matter how it ends a bluebird’s song”

I include both these poetry collections in the same post not simply because I finished with both today, but because I couldn’t finish reading them… I read Tim Tim Cheng’s “The Tattoo Collector” about two months ago. Not being sure about it, I put it to one side and recently came back to it. Whilst … Continue reading “The Tattoo Collector” & “no matter how it ends a bluebird’s song” →

“The Brueghel Moon”

A small confession. I had no real idea what was going on in Tamaz Chiladze’s “The Brueghel Moon” – though I suspect this says more about me than the book! It was the first time (to the best of my knowledge) that I’ve read any Georgian fiction, and whether my confusion had anything to do … Continue reading “The Brueghel Moon” →