So. I finished reading Ian McEwan’s “Amsterdam”. Can’t now understand how I could have taken so long to make a start with it. Aspiring novelists should both read and not read this book. Read it, because it is perhaps the closest thing to a “perfect” novel that I can think of: characterisation, plot, pacing, tension, place, time, anything else you care to mention. When the trademark McEwan shocks occur, you are not only there with the characters, you are inside their heads, feeling what they are feeling, which is something I last remember experiencing while reading “The Comfort of Strangers”, in 1986, lying on the lawn in Carlton Gardens, where the Melbourne Museum now sits, one afternoon, until it started to cool down and darken, whereupon I went back to the flat at 666 Lygon Street to finish it off. That is the only book I have ever read in one day.
Whereas aspiring novelists should, also, not read it, because it can only leave them with an overwhelming sense of “Man, why would I bother?”.
Meanwhile, readers of “serious” fiction who have been hearing about these things called “graphic novels”, but can’t quite get beyond the idea that they would never be seen dead reading comic books, might break the ice with “La Perdida” by Jessica Abel, a well-written, well-drawn story about a somewhat misguided and/or naive young woman who goes to Mexico to find her roots and instead gets into a bit of, er, trouble. Abel may not be in the same league, writing-wise, as McEwan, and she may also not be as great an artist as, say, Picasso, but the particular skill of being able to combine writing, and especially narrative, with a strong visual sense, is something rare, and deserves to be appreciated on its own terms. This book's relationship with superheroes does not exist. I read some of it on the bus, and some of it sitting in cafes, and the world didn’t end. Go on, be brave.
(I also, to keep things a bit lighter, romped through another hardcover work of graphic fiction, “Get A Life” by Dupuy-Berberian, an absolutely gorgeous collection of Monsieur Jean stories, translated from the French, and packaged to the exceptionally high standard we have come to expect from the good people at Drawn and Quarterly. For those of us whose next visit to Paris is some years away, it’s the next best thing to being there.)
“Stranger Than Fiction” is a better movie than you might think. I had never seen a Will Ferrell “vehicle”. The closest I have ever come is watching him interviewed by Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show Global Edition” some months ago. I took him to be a glorified ham actor, but there is nothing hammy on show here; it is all very quiet and understated, perhaps bearing comparison with Adam Sandler’s surprise turn in Paul Thomas Anderson’s last film. The story itself, meanwhile, is the kind of mess-with-your-head concoction that has appeared in recent years in films like “I [heart] Huckabees”, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, and especially “Adaptation”. What the creators have done here, however, is to transpose these seemingly post-modern avant garde ideas into the mainstream, and they have done so in such a way that you don’t notice the joins. It won’t win any awards (although Dustin Hoffman should be noticed for his beautiful performance as a literature professor/sleuth, not a million miles away from the character he played in “Huckabees”) but there are plenty worse films out there at the moment.
Over in the world of the blogs, Woebot has, as you might expect, be the first of the old guard to embrace video streaming, if that’s what you call it, with Woebot TV, while over at his usual home he has posted a scantastic tale of his grandparents’ record collection, which would appear to bear a striking resemblance to that of my own parents. (No Winifred Atwell, though?)
Elsewhere, Mark K-Punk has finally put up the second and third parts of his too-difficult-by-half-but-that’s-how-we-like-it discourse on The Fall’s “pulp modernism”, while our man Tom Ewing has brought some much needed freshness to the frequently uninspiring pages of Pitchfork with a nicely meandering essay on the Beatles and the music-hall tradition. Marcello Carlin, meanwhile, has produced four consecutive pieces of writing that are up there with his best (which, of course, is way out of reach of us mere mortals), dealing, in turn, with the new Stooges album (and in the process totally nailing the fan’s urge to welcome any new, and especially any new and unexpected, material from a long-dormant favourite as a “stunning return to form” - yes, we all do it; I even had kind words to say once upon a time for the Howard DeVoto/Pete Shelley sub-Buzzcocks reunion album, the name of which I can no longer even recall, and the desire to hear which is zip), “Treasure” by the Cocteau Twins, an album which means more to me than almost any other album by any artist anywhere ever (i.e. it’s quite good), and, by way of two posts, Judee Sill, whose “The Kiss” destroys me every time I hear it. Good work, fella.
And a final mention to new blogger on the block, Sammy Harkham, comic-book creator and editor of the cutting-edge graphic anthology “Kramer’s Ergot”. Sammy is doing a fairly regular blog which is tied in with a Los Angeles store called “Family”, which I can’t help thinking I would spend way too much money in if I lived anywhere near it. Sammy’s blog is to some extent “advertising”, but it is sufficiently stand-alone, and he is such a natural at this blogging caper, that it merits a regular visit.
Oh, and I have also bought the Tom Waits triple-disc set “Orphans”, which will take a while to digest, and I would like to have bought the new David Kilgour except the guy behind the counter at Canberra’s “hippest” record shop had no clue who or what I was talking about. Sheesh. Dude is only a living legend ...
So, what have you been up to?
