I finished Perdido Street Station, the stunning and gigantic novel by British author China Miéville. Note that, while it is a genre novel, I didn’t specify which kind. I think it definitely is genre, but not like any genre fiction I’ve ever read before. Miéville’s work has been compared to the writing of Mervyn Peake, which my friend Joleen tells me is quite something. I picked up a copy of the Gormenghast Trilogy (in one huge volume) while I was in Texas, and I plan on reading it by the time the year is out (or, at least one of …
Category: REVIEWS
Listen To The Words
The fiendish Adam asks us this week: What are your 5 favorite lines from any song? Not the song itself, but specific lyrics that you dig, and find yourself repeating in your head. Oh, now, that’s just not fair. I listen most of the time to instrumental music, man! I mean, no singing, no words… Well, I’m gonna have to cheat a wee bit, choosing songs that were at some point important to me, however brief that moment was; so please, please bear with me. The complete lyrics of the Nat King Cole song It’s ONly a Paper Moon, which …
Bride And Prejudice
What’s the follow-up to Gurinder Chadha’s wonderful film Bend It Like Beckham? Oh yes: Jane Austen in a sari. I can’t wait to see Bride and Prejudice. In Bride and Prejudice, the Bennet family of sleepy Longbourn, Hertfordshire, become the Bakshis of Amritsar, a city equally far removed from Indian high culture and society. Elizabeth Bennet has become Lalita Bakshi, while Mr Darcy is a wealthy heir to an American hotel chain, who meets Lalita while visiting India for a friend’s wedding. With swift changes of locale that would do justice to any Bollywood film, the action ricochets between India, …
Again, Graham Greene
Again, found on Arts & Letters Daily (as have been many of the links in today’s posts, because I’m finally catching up there after missing out on a few weeks of updates), another great bio-sketch of Graham Greene which convinces me I ought to take advantage of how many of his works are in the local library and read at least a few.
Another PKD Bio
Why is it that so many artistic wonders were mad? These people could never function in most contexts, but as musicians, painters, writers, they thrived. There’s another bio out now, on one of my favorite writers, Philip K. Dick. It’s called I Am Alive and You Are Dead: A Journey into the Mind of Philip K. Dick, by Emmanuel Carrère, and you can read a review here. Looks good.
On Essay-writing
As we trade links and debate the importance of blogging to journalism, or who’s influenced who, tons of trash is posted online. Nobody seems to know how to write. Well, not nobody. But you know what? I think this essay on writing essays would do a lot of the blogosphere some good. Makes me wonder what essay-writing looks like when my Korean students do it in Korean. I wonder…
Bonjour paresse
Bonjour paresse is a newish book in France that is apparently selling like mad. It’s basically a kind of satirical attack on the private sector and of course the bureaucracy (oops, I originally typed bureaucrazy, and it might be closer to the truth) of France, but also the whole philosophy of business and working for companies. The author, one Corinne Maier who works for the French Electricity Company (a state-owned operation), seems to have struck oil. The book is a craze in France, and understandably. Jo Johnson writes about the book thus: You sit next to idiots, loathe office bonhomie …
A goodish poem
I found a decent poem here and I think you’ll think it’s decent too, in its dubious yet hopeful middle-class rendition of how money and capitalism apparently works.
Reading and Reading and Reading Some More
I’ve been reading a lot lately, but haven’t had much of a chance to post about any of it, so this is going to be a mass posting about several books I’ve read lately. (As in, during the past few months, the ones that come to mind only.) Okay, let’s see. First in importance come two graphic novels I’ve read in French: Paul a un travail d’été, by Michel Rabagliati, and Volume 1 of Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi. […and here’s an odd note: both of the authors’ names begin and end with the same letter. Hmmm.] The two graphic novels …
Tongueless in Jeonbuk
Well, I’m not tongueless but it feels like I have no tongue. This medicated mouthwash I’m using is making it feel as if my tongue is just not there, at least for nine of the first ten or so minutes after I use it. (The first minute, it feels as if it’s haloed in burning light, perhaps transfigured, so to speak.) Last night we played an okay show to a rather big crowd, big considering the venue. I should have brought my mic, but I thought we’d be playing “unplugged”, ie. with an acoustic guitar and minimal mics. Turned out …