It’s the way of great writing to bend the world to its own shape. And so, having spent yesterday lunchtime sketching out thoughts for a review of Erik Davis’ ‘Nomad Codes’, I found myself last night at the Tallow Chandlers’ Hall, watching a combined Bollywood lecture / series of clips / song and dance extravaganza.Continue reading “My heart is full of the pain of disco”
Category Archives: Essayists
Dispatches from a moving time
Well, the process of moving continues – silence for the last week or so as I’ve been deep in final moving and decorations (with hugely invaluable help and support from H) before the new carpets go in at Allumination Central. More busy-ness continues – furniture ordering, sorting estate agents, etc, before the upcoming move toContinue reading “Dispatches from a moving time”
Flesh eggs, scarlet tracings
Bringing Iain Sinclair’s book of poems, ‘Buried at Sea’, into work this morning made me think about the impact his selected poems ‘Flesh Eggs and Scalp Metal’, and his novel ‘White Chappell Scarlet Tracings’, made on me when I first read them. I was at a very conservative boarding school in Dorset; every so oftenContinue reading “Flesh eggs, scarlet tracings”
Myths to a flame
In ‘Mythologies’, Barthes notes – ‘it is well known how often our ‘realistic’ literature is mythical (if only as a crude myth of realism) and how our ‘literature of the unreal’ has at least the merit of being only slightly so’. Elsewhere, M. John Harrison has pointed out that, as soon as you’ve got aContinue reading “Myths to a flame”
Scott of the Rantarctic
Well, despite a bacon, mushroom and brown sauce sandwich, and a rather nice cappuccino, I’m still hungover, so I’m just going to rant a bit, releasing my inner literary Richard Littlejohn (for non-UK readers, a noted right wing ranting journalist / loon) on the world. We’re going to hell in a handcart! If there’s oneContinue reading “Scott of the Rantarctic”
Loving the Gerard
Returning to Gerard de Nerval briefly. I was obsessed by him while I was writing my book, and I think he’s someone that – if you’re fascinated by the fantastic – is well worth checking out. His work covers a very broad range, from vividly evocative reportage of nineteenth century Paris to (quite genuinely) unhingedContinue reading “Loving the Gerard”