Books read:
Friedrich Engels - 'The Condition of the Working Class in England' (non-fiction)
J.G. Ballard - 'Miracles of Life' (auto-biography)
Will Self - 'The Unbearable Lightness of being a Prawn Cracker' (non-fiction)
Charles Dickens - 'Great Expectations'
Films Watched:
'Eraserhead' (David Lynch) (@ the BFI Southbank)
'The Woman in Black' (James Watkins)
'Saving Private Ryan' (Steven Spielberg)
Albums Played:
Trentemoller - 'The Last Resort'
Lana Del Rey - 'Born to Die'
Cliff Martinez - 'Contagion OST'
The Album Leaf - 'In a Safe Place'
Monday, 6 February 2012
Thursday, 26 January 2012
"We are currently experiencing severe delays on the London Underground..."
...so intoned the announcer, with a regret that was smeared on like cosmetics on an over-zealous teenage girl. The exhalation of irritance reverberated around the crowded platform like a Mexican wave. Sensing the collective brewing of discontent, a toddler in its mother's arms began to wail, whilst a man further along the platform swore loudly before diving back inside the pages of his Evening Standard as though ashamed of his uncharacteristic coarseness. There followed an advisement to seek alternative modes of transport but, it seemed, this time the people's patience had begun to seriously fragment.
The quotidian nature of the tube, so much a reluctant entity burrowing its way through people's lives, had been reeling in almost perpetual paralysis since the descent onto London of the world and their personal trainers for the duration of the Olympic Games. Now, 9 days in - with the stench of anti-climatic disappointment palpable in the air - it seemed like finally the people had had enough; all apparently operating on some kind of mass telepathic apoplexy.
Ignoring the tannoy pleas for passengers to find solace on additional bus routes being provided, the people across the network - from Elephant & Castle to Maida Vale began to rise up and barricade themselves inside the stations, easily overriding station officials who were only too happy to surrender their posts and clock off early.
The people, growing from initial hesitancy into unabashed enthusiasm, quickly formed distinct factions, adopting their own roles and responsibilities as part of this improvised subterranean lock-in. Women and young children gathered together food supplies from the various newspaper stands and vending machines, whilst besuited City types took charge of the distribution and allocation of resources. Burly men fought off the immediate attempts by police to bring an end to the unfolding subway seige and gain entry, but these efforts were hastily pacified by higher authorities.
Indeed, government, eager to avoid drawing attention to the civil disobedience whilst the spotlights were brightly trained on the city, declared a media blackout on the event and all attempts to coerce information from them were met with feigned ignorance and dismissal. And so the decision was made simply to contain the situation and wait for it to reach its own conclusion, as if there had been an outbreak of some malignant virus which needed to be isolated in quarantine.
Once everyone became aware of their prolonged confinement it was intriguing to note the effects that manifested themselves in this new submerged community. Initially, realising the loss of online connectivity was total, many lapsed into states of withdrawal sickness, hugging themselves tightly, sweating without exertion, and compulsively checking electronic devices in the vain hope that their feeble signal may have been received and beamed back. Tourists, who were from the outset rather alarmed at this development sending their plans awry, slowly came to accept the situation; perhaps considering it to be some kind of underground carnival that their guidebooks had omitted to mention.
Everyone waited on the platforms for the next trains to roll on through; everyone melted through the doors like grains of sand in an hourglass, but people chose to depart from their normal routes, sensing almost that they had been liberated from oppressive routine and were now free to stretch out across the network. They chose to ride the Northern line instead of Circle, Waterloo instead of Piccadilly, or stayed on until Zone 4 instead of normally disembarking in the frontier land of Zone 3. Ingrained habits were still evident - there was still the furtive surveillance of the carriage in an effort at locating a vacant seat, and many still raced for the closing doors, apparently unconcerned with the fact that they no longer had any appointments to keep. Slowly, people began to tire of the free newspapers - which were after all, several days old - and began to interact with one another, as nervous and shy as couples on a first date.
Once this major milestone had been reached the underground began to resemble an ant colony of collective high spirits, almost harking back to the times of the Blitz (only this time the only horrors being evaded were equestrian or synchronised swimming heats). The tunnels echoed with the joyous sounds of open and unlicensed busking from every white-tiled alcove; and children wore themselves out racing up and down escalators. Each station was alive with a celebratory kinship of the kind that government had been so desperate to invoke nationwide; each train running between stations was like patriotic bunting being draped all across the city.
Of course such solidarity could not last for long. Like phosphorus the glow would burn fast and fade faster. News seeped down into the network that the Olympic torch had been lowered and cradled off by the next nation, the structures dismantled and packed away, and the swimming pools drained. The sense of melancholy and slight embarrassment was pervasive amongst the community; they had stayed at the nightclub right until the end, with the music stopped, lights brightened and the awful feeling that they should have left several hours ago. Eye contact began to drop, glances were lowered and hands nervously twitched at gadgets once again.
Slowly but steadily the people began to rise up from the underground like a defeated guerilla army, blinking aggressively at the daylight glare, shoulders weighing heavy as they foraged for excuses for their rebellion like guilty teenagers returning to the parental home. Normal life could now resume its delayed course.
The quotidian nature of the tube, so much a reluctant entity burrowing its way through people's lives, had been reeling in almost perpetual paralysis since the descent onto London of the world and their personal trainers for the duration of the Olympic Games. Now, 9 days in - with the stench of anti-climatic disappointment palpable in the air - it seemed like finally the people had had enough; all apparently operating on some kind of mass telepathic apoplexy.
Ignoring the tannoy pleas for passengers to find solace on additional bus routes being provided, the people across the network - from Elephant & Castle to Maida Vale began to rise up and barricade themselves inside the stations, easily overriding station officials who were only too happy to surrender their posts and clock off early.
The people, growing from initial hesitancy into unabashed enthusiasm, quickly formed distinct factions, adopting their own roles and responsibilities as part of this improvised subterranean lock-in. Women and young children gathered together food supplies from the various newspaper stands and vending machines, whilst besuited City types took charge of the distribution and allocation of resources. Burly men fought off the immediate attempts by police to bring an end to the unfolding subway seige and gain entry, but these efforts were hastily pacified by higher authorities.
Indeed, government, eager to avoid drawing attention to the civil disobedience whilst the spotlights were brightly trained on the city, declared a media blackout on the event and all attempts to coerce information from them were met with feigned ignorance and dismissal. And so the decision was made simply to contain the situation and wait for it to reach its own conclusion, as if there had been an outbreak of some malignant virus which needed to be isolated in quarantine.
Once everyone became aware of their prolonged confinement it was intriguing to note the effects that manifested themselves in this new submerged community. Initially, realising the loss of online connectivity was total, many lapsed into states of withdrawal sickness, hugging themselves tightly, sweating without exertion, and compulsively checking electronic devices in the vain hope that their feeble signal may have been received and beamed back. Tourists, who were from the outset rather alarmed at this development sending their plans awry, slowly came to accept the situation; perhaps considering it to be some kind of underground carnival that their guidebooks had omitted to mention.
Everyone waited on the platforms for the next trains to roll on through; everyone melted through the doors like grains of sand in an hourglass, but people chose to depart from their normal routes, sensing almost that they had been liberated from oppressive routine and were now free to stretch out across the network. They chose to ride the Northern line instead of Circle, Waterloo instead of Piccadilly, or stayed on until Zone 4 instead of normally disembarking in the frontier land of Zone 3. Ingrained habits were still evident - there was still the furtive surveillance of the carriage in an effort at locating a vacant seat, and many still raced for the closing doors, apparently unconcerned with the fact that they no longer had any appointments to keep. Slowly, people began to tire of the free newspapers - which were after all, several days old - and began to interact with one another, as nervous and shy as couples on a first date.
Once this major milestone had been reached the underground began to resemble an ant colony of collective high spirits, almost harking back to the times of the Blitz (only this time the only horrors being evaded were equestrian or synchronised swimming heats). The tunnels echoed with the joyous sounds of open and unlicensed busking from every white-tiled alcove; and children wore themselves out racing up and down escalators. Each station was alive with a celebratory kinship of the kind that government had been so desperate to invoke nationwide; each train running between stations was like patriotic bunting being draped all across the city.
Of course such solidarity could not last for long. Like phosphorus the glow would burn fast and fade faster. News seeped down into the network that the Olympic torch had been lowered and cradled off by the next nation, the structures dismantled and packed away, and the swimming pools drained. The sense of melancholy and slight embarrassment was pervasive amongst the community; they had stayed at the nightclub right until the end, with the music stopped, lights brightened and the awful feeling that they should have left several hours ago. Eye contact began to drop, glances were lowered and hands nervously twitched at gadgets once again.
Slowly but steadily the people began to rise up from the underground like a defeated guerilla army, blinking aggressively at the daylight glare, shoulders weighing heavy as they foraged for excuses for their rebellion like guilty teenagers returning to the parental home. Normal life could now resume its delayed course.
Monday, 23 January 2012
REVIEW: A Life During Wartime - Don McCullin exhibition 'Shaped By War'
Don McCullin - 'Shaped By War'
(Imperial War Museum, London, 19th Jan 2012)
There is something about photography, some innate sense of actuality - a moment plucked from reality and frozen within the frame - that lends it an almost helpless objectivity. You may be forgiven for breezing through a gallery of artwork waiting for that revelatory discovery of brilliance to launch itself at you from the periphery, or for feeling disenchantment on viewing a painting held in lofty esteem by the masses. There is a certain element of self-investment in viewing art; what you get from it is often tangential to the mentality you approach it with. Because what we are viewing is purely the artist's representation of his private reality, rendered through skill and technique to canvas, it does require a certain amount of subjective engagement with the artist's vision.
Art leaves itself open to ambivalence and misconception. Photography, on the other hand, by its very nature cast in concrete verity (and therefore also because of the lesser demands on the viewer's own imagination in tandem with that of the artist's), demands a reaction.
Indeed it would be impossible to be ambivalent about the work of Don McCullin, photojournalist for 'The Observer' and 'The Sunday Times', and purveyor of some of the most visceral and harrowing war images of the 20th century. Sent to cover some of the most dangerous places in the world - from the Cypriot civil war, to Vietnam, the Londonderry riots, to Cambodia - the exhibition is perfectly encapsulated by its title. It is as much a study of the man behind the lens, a life well and truly 'shaped by war'.
The horror and the intensity of the situations are scorched across every one of McCullin's well-crafted images. At times you can actually sense the panic and the chaos, the bullets flying overhead, the mud and the stench of fear. You stare at the photo of the shell-shocked soldier in Vietnam and you can almost hear the bombs punctuating the air around him like morse code. You stare at the famous image of the distraught Turkish wife (which won him the World Press Award in 1964) and can almost taste the bitter despair crystallised in a moment of raw human emotion.
Of course no photograph can capture the sheer terror of the situations as witnessed first-hand. Watching the accompanying documentary film, McCullin admits to an 'uneasy enjoyment' of his time spent in such hostile environments. In a way this is perfectly understandable. The level of tension and adrenalised energy that must be exerted and relied upon whilst immersed in a war zone, where the next bullet or mortar blast could be the one that claims you, must be undeniably potent and surely have intoxicating agencies. In the same way as the motor-sport driver, stunt pilot or daredevil straddles the boundary of mortality, the thrill of emerging on the other side alive must be as compulsive as any drug.
As with any member of the armed forces, constantly exposed to such extreme situations from which they may not survive, the succumbing to combat neurosis and the readjustment process once back home must be disorientating and harsh. Indeed, McCullin once said - 'when I was at home away from war, I was unhappy'. This must have invoked his obsessive urge to dive back into the ferocity of the front line, to re-engage with danger time and again; and perhaps elucidates his anger (alongside obviously a sense of professional pride) when refused a press pass to cover the Falklands conflict and his regret at having visited but 'not seen any action' in the Gulf war.
This is not to suggest any perverse revelling in such situations, but instead demonstrates a burning desire to be at the epicentre of the event, thereby capturing it as accurately, honestly and unflinchingly as possible. It is only natural that one's psychology be permanently altered by the exposure to murder and destruction on such a grand scale. By comparison, normal everyday life must forever after assume a kind of removed and faded tonality, akin to underdeveloped photo film in a dark-room.
One of the pervading emotions McCullin expresses throughout his story is of a sense of guilt. A guilt at being in such close proximity to men killed for their country, and being forced by professional duty to stay emotionally detached, remain partisan and capture the moment as truthfully as able. As he says, 'what a way to make a living!' His yearning to 'do his bit' is emphasised in moments such as when, embroiled in the Battle of Hue, he carried a wounded solider out of the firing line. He also described feeling like 'a Judas to both sides' when covering the Londonderry riots in Northern Ireland.
Ultimately though, this is misguided guilt, albeit also perfectly understandable. The overriding lesson to be gleaned from the exhibition is just how necessary and vital photojournalism is in terms of throwing bright light on the darkest of human endeavours. With the rise of 21st century 'citizen journalism', where anybody with a camera phone can assume a McCullin-style role, the importance of responsible and unbiased representation cannot be understated.
However they enter the public domain, we must feel an obligation to view these images, regardless of how distressing, in order that we might be afforded a more salient understanding of the events as they happened, but never allow them to lull us into complacent acceptance, thereby neglecting to ponder the reasons why the events had to happen at all.
Thursday, 12 January 2012
Culture - January
Books read:
William S. Burroughs- 'The Naked Lunch' (re-read)
F. Scott Fitzgerald - 'The Great Gatsby'
Christopher Hitchens - 'God Is Not Great' (non-fiction)
Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels - 'The Communist Manifesto' (non-fiction)
George Orwell - 'Critical Essays' (non-fiction)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (and other poems)'
Films watched:
'Come and See' (Elem Klimov)
'The Wind that shakes the Barley' (Ken Loach)
'Pickpocket' (Robert Bresson)
'DIal M for Murder' (Alfred Hitchcock)
'About Schmidt' (Alexander Payne)
'Network' (Sidney Lumet)
'Of Gods and Men' (Xavier Beauvois)
'Shame' (Steve McQueen)
Exhibitions:
'Don McCullin - Shaped by War' - Imperial War Museum, London (photography)
Albums played:
The Big Pink - 'Future This'
Saul Williams - 'The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust'
I Break Horses - 'Hearts'
M83 - 'Saturdays = Youth'
William S. Burroughs- 'The Naked Lunch' (re-read)
F. Scott Fitzgerald - 'The Great Gatsby'
Christopher Hitchens - 'God Is Not Great' (non-fiction)
Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels - 'The Communist Manifesto' (non-fiction)
George Orwell - 'Critical Essays' (non-fiction)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (and other poems)'
Films watched:
'Come and See' (Elem Klimov)
'The Wind that shakes the Barley' (Ken Loach)
'Pickpocket' (Robert Bresson)
'DIal M for Murder' (Alfred Hitchcock)
'About Schmidt' (Alexander Payne)
'Network' (Sidney Lumet)
'Of Gods and Men' (Xavier Beauvois)
'Shame' (Steve McQueen)
Exhibitions:
'Don McCullin - Shaped by War' - Imperial War Museum, London (photography)
Albums played:
The Big Pink - 'Future This'
Saul Williams - 'The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust'
I Break Horses - 'Hearts'
M83 - 'Saturdays = Youth'
Thursday, 15 December 2011
A Public Exercise in Detachment
During my time spent in America - my solo Stateside odyssey - I spent a large amount of solitary time in bars, cafes and in restaurants. Anyone travelling independently for a considerable length of time can't really avoid such situations even if they want to. For a lot of people the prospect of being alone in such situations may seem unpleasant or undesireable, somehow outside of 'acceptable' social conventions even. Personally, I've grown to enjoy it.
It is strange how so readily people who travel alone are prepared to latch onto another, with a persistancy that I find beguiling and often an unwelcome irritation. Not always of course, it pivots around the twin determinants of mood and circumstance. That said, I would always be much more content by myself, if the alternative were to be cemented in the company of people with whom conversation is stilted, perfunctory and awkward. Laboured company for the sake for alleviating solitude is not something I'm interested in.
It is interesting to observe though, the obsessive-compulsive attachment people have developed to new technologies as a means of suppressing self-conscious feelings that would otherwise seep awkwardly to the fore. Watch next time when one half of a couple in a restaurant or bar rises to go to the toilet or to get more drinks. Within a matter of seconds the tragic victim of this desertion will have sought easy refuge with their phone or iPod; checking messages, posting tweets or updating statuses. What is it about the psychology of those in public environments that gives them cause to delve into the safe realm of the online world as soon as they become marooned in its physical equivalent?
The same thing happens in other social situations. When two strangers enter a lift for instance, or when waiting at the same bus shelter. Such close proximity breeds self-consciousness and it is only a matter of agonising microseconds before one of them will elope into the alternate ether of connectivity.
'So what?' you might ask. Surely its better than just sitting there twiddling your thumbs or looking gormlessly around at your surroundings? I'd argue not at all. Next time you find yourself in a situation like this - a friend or colleague has to dash away early from the coffeeshop or a partner attempts to shuffle his or her way through to the bar - fix yourself with mental sturdiness and refuse to give in to that technological habit, however niggling the urge. All it represents is a social crutch, the same as smoking used to be - the preoccupying ritual of holding, lighting and smoking a cigarette.
I'm reminded of a quote by a French intellectual - I don't recall precisely which one - who said, "what's the world coming to when an afternoon spent staring out of a window is considered a waste of time?" It might be argued that a whole afternoon is slightly unnecessary, but I recommend next time you are alone in a public place, taking a handful of moments to glance around at your surroundings. Pick at random something completely incongruous or banal; something thriving along unnoticed in its ordinariness; it could be a coffee machine or ceiling fan, 'Exit' sign or wall panel. Stare at it and try, maybe for just half a minute, to devote all your concentration on the observation on it. With an open mind you might just glimpse something, some fresh angle or nuance, that with increased effort begins to bleach away the inherent mundanity to offer a clean interpretation that had hitherto remained concealed.
I do believe that from time to time we could all benefit from a concerted re-engagement with our fundamental realities instead of succumbing to the compulsive habit of technological distraction. Sometimes its easy to suspect that the more reassuringly connected we are with the online landscape, the more readily psychological barriers are erected between ourselves and genuine human connection.
It is strange how so readily people who travel alone are prepared to latch onto another, with a persistancy that I find beguiling and often an unwelcome irritation. Not always of course, it pivots around the twin determinants of mood and circumstance. That said, I would always be much more content by myself, if the alternative were to be cemented in the company of people with whom conversation is stilted, perfunctory and awkward. Laboured company for the sake for alleviating solitude is not something I'm interested in.
It is interesting to observe though, the obsessive-compulsive attachment people have developed to new technologies as a means of suppressing self-conscious feelings that would otherwise seep awkwardly to the fore. Watch next time when one half of a couple in a restaurant or bar rises to go to the toilet or to get more drinks. Within a matter of seconds the tragic victim of this desertion will have sought easy refuge with their phone or iPod; checking messages, posting tweets or updating statuses. What is it about the psychology of those in public environments that gives them cause to delve into the safe realm of the online world as soon as they become marooned in its physical equivalent?
The same thing happens in other social situations. When two strangers enter a lift for instance, or when waiting at the same bus shelter. Such close proximity breeds self-consciousness and it is only a matter of agonising microseconds before one of them will elope into the alternate ether of connectivity.
'So what?' you might ask. Surely its better than just sitting there twiddling your thumbs or looking gormlessly around at your surroundings? I'd argue not at all. Next time you find yourself in a situation like this - a friend or colleague has to dash away early from the coffeeshop or a partner attempts to shuffle his or her way through to the bar - fix yourself with mental sturdiness and refuse to give in to that technological habit, however niggling the urge. All it represents is a social crutch, the same as smoking used to be - the preoccupying ritual of holding, lighting and smoking a cigarette.
I'm reminded of a quote by a French intellectual - I don't recall precisely which one - who said, "what's the world coming to when an afternoon spent staring out of a window is considered a waste of time?" It might be argued that a whole afternoon is slightly unnecessary, but I recommend next time you are alone in a public place, taking a handful of moments to glance around at your surroundings. Pick at random something completely incongruous or banal; something thriving along unnoticed in its ordinariness; it could be a coffee machine or ceiling fan, 'Exit' sign or wall panel. Stare at it and try, maybe for just half a minute, to devote all your concentration on the observation on it. With an open mind you might just glimpse something, some fresh angle or nuance, that with increased effort begins to bleach away the inherent mundanity to offer a clean interpretation that had hitherto remained concealed.
I do believe that from time to time we could all benefit from a concerted re-engagement with our fundamental realities instead of succumbing to the compulsive habit of technological distraction. Sometimes its easy to suspect that the more reassuringly connected we are with the online landscape, the more readily psychological barriers are erected between ourselves and genuine human connection.
Wednesday, 7 December 2011
Books with the greatest impact
These are a handful of the books that have had the greatest impact on me during my life. All of these have played a substantial part in inspiring my own literary aspirations.
Roald Dahl - 'Charlie & the Chocolate Factory'
As far as I can recall this was the first 'novel' that I ever read, at the perhaps precocious age of 4 (speaking somewhat immodestly), and in the following formative years I must have revelled in it time and time again. The sense of magical adventure brims with a relentless energy, it races along like the sugar longboat down the chocolate river with Dahl's fervent imagination flailing off into countless avenues that you long for him to stop off at and develop further. The boyhood ecstasy at discovering that mythical 'Golden Ticket' - essentially an exit, an escape route from harsh reality - surely must speak profoundly to everyone.
Stephen King - 'The Shining'
Whilst not being the first King novel I read - that was 'Insomnia' - this was the horror hook on which I was ensnared around the age of 14 until eventually managing to wriggle free almost 2 years later. In the interim period I must have read almost exclusively Stephen King. The film became seared into my brain after being scared senseless by it at age 11 - to this day no film since has had such a profound effect on me. The book had a lot to live up to therefore, and King's constantly imaginative prose and vivid character portrayals didn't disappoint. Indeed the two versions, book and film, are such different entities that each have their merits over the other. Whilst the film is, in my view, a flawless achievement by Kubrick, what I enjoyed about the book was the much more forensic examination into Jack Torrence's troubled past (aggression and alcoholism, essentially human, issues) and consequent damaged psyche that result in his gradual unravelling at the hands of the Overlook Hotel's equally disturbed history.
Irvine Welsh - 'Trainspotting'
This was another book I gravitated to as a result of my fondness for the film adaptation, and again I found there was just as much, if not more, about the novel to appreciate. Given that I'd been gorging myself on Stephen King's often production-line ouevre for so long, first encountering Welsh's gritty, sardonic writing style was - pardon the cliche - a real slap in the face. Instead of ghouls, demonic forces and axe murderers, here was a writer who was seemingly writing from the very gutter; with all the filth and grime of degenerate reality embedded under the fingernails of the prose. Substance abuse, Scottish council estates, scummy pubs, prejudice and violence - it all burned from the pages with a vitriolic wit that I found almost as compulsive as the subject matter. After 3 or 4 revisits, I still find it just as entertaining and now credit it as being the novel that exposed me to harsh fictional realism, wrenched me from my King-induced apathy and made me passionate about literature again.
George Orwell - '1984'
I forget at what age I first read this book, having been pressured to by my father, but I'm certain I failed to understand it. Several re-readings later, I consider this book to be something of a sacred text for me; the sheer weight of the ideas and concepts that come tumbling from every page is staggering, and the pervading sense of despair and hopelessness is more palpable than any other book I can think of. The final 'interrogation' section is as disturbing and visceral as I believe fiction has achieved, and for a book to have had such a lasting impact on society is surely something all writers can only fantasise about.
JG Ballard - 'Crash'
Whilst I don't believe this to be Ballard's most ingenious work (that, for me, is 'The Atrocity Exhibition' or several of his short stories), it was 'Crash' that first introduced me to Ballard and is still perhaps the single strongest influence on my own writing. Indeed, as far as my relationship to literature (and perhaps outlook on society itself) is concerned there is my life pre and post 'Crash'. I can remember precisely where I was and what my frame of mind was as I sat down and began reading the first page. I recall closing the book at the bottom of the first page and sitting back swimming in a very odd sense of dual emotions. On the positive side - I knew just from a single page that I had discovered a writer who's fervent imagination and body of work would captivate and inspire me from then onwards. The same feeling you get when you see a great film or hear a musical artist's work for the first time; that striking sense that your life has just been enriched somehow by that discovery. The other sensation I felt however was a crushing sense of inadequacy - here was a writer who seemed to be saying everything I wanted to say only decades earlier and far better than I would most likely ever be capable of!
Roald Dahl - 'Charlie & the Chocolate Factory'
As far as I can recall this was the first 'novel' that I ever read, at the perhaps precocious age of 4 (speaking somewhat immodestly), and in the following formative years I must have revelled in it time and time again. The sense of magical adventure brims with a relentless energy, it races along like the sugar longboat down the chocolate river with Dahl's fervent imagination flailing off into countless avenues that you long for him to stop off at and develop further. The boyhood ecstasy at discovering that mythical 'Golden Ticket' - essentially an exit, an escape route from harsh reality - surely must speak profoundly to everyone.
Stephen King - 'The Shining'
Whilst not being the first King novel I read - that was 'Insomnia' - this was the horror hook on which I was ensnared around the age of 14 until eventually managing to wriggle free almost 2 years later. In the interim period I must have read almost exclusively Stephen King. The film became seared into my brain after being scared senseless by it at age 11 - to this day no film since has had such a profound effect on me. The book had a lot to live up to therefore, and King's constantly imaginative prose and vivid character portrayals didn't disappoint. Indeed the two versions, book and film, are such different entities that each have their merits over the other. Whilst the film is, in my view, a flawless achievement by Kubrick, what I enjoyed about the book was the much more forensic examination into Jack Torrence's troubled past (aggression and alcoholism, essentially human, issues) and consequent damaged psyche that result in his gradual unravelling at the hands of the Overlook Hotel's equally disturbed history.
Irvine Welsh - 'Trainspotting'
This was another book I gravitated to as a result of my fondness for the film adaptation, and again I found there was just as much, if not more, about the novel to appreciate. Given that I'd been gorging myself on Stephen King's often production-line ouevre for so long, first encountering Welsh's gritty, sardonic writing style was - pardon the cliche - a real slap in the face. Instead of ghouls, demonic forces and axe murderers, here was a writer who was seemingly writing from the very gutter; with all the filth and grime of degenerate reality embedded under the fingernails of the prose. Substance abuse, Scottish council estates, scummy pubs, prejudice and violence - it all burned from the pages with a vitriolic wit that I found almost as compulsive as the subject matter. After 3 or 4 revisits, I still find it just as entertaining and now credit it as being the novel that exposed me to harsh fictional realism, wrenched me from my King-induced apathy and made me passionate about literature again.
George Orwell - '1984'
I forget at what age I first read this book, having been pressured to by my father, but I'm certain I failed to understand it. Several re-readings later, I consider this book to be something of a sacred text for me; the sheer weight of the ideas and concepts that come tumbling from every page is staggering, and the pervading sense of despair and hopelessness is more palpable than any other book I can think of. The final 'interrogation' section is as disturbing and visceral as I believe fiction has achieved, and for a book to have had such a lasting impact on society is surely something all writers can only fantasise about.
JG Ballard - 'Crash'
Whilst I don't believe this to be Ballard's most ingenious work (that, for me, is 'The Atrocity Exhibition' or several of his short stories), it was 'Crash' that first introduced me to Ballard and is still perhaps the single strongest influence on my own writing. Indeed, as far as my relationship to literature (and perhaps outlook on society itself) is concerned there is my life pre and post 'Crash'. I can remember precisely where I was and what my frame of mind was as I sat down and began reading the first page. I recall closing the book at the bottom of the first page and sitting back swimming in a very odd sense of dual emotions. On the positive side - I knew just from a single page that I had discovered a writer who's fervent imagination and body of work would captivate and inspire me from then onwards. The same feeling you get when you see a great film or hear a musical artist's work for the first time; that striking sense that your life has just been enriched somehow by that discovery. The other sensation I felt however was a crushing sense of inadequacy - here was a writer who seemed to be saying everything I wanted to say only decades earlier and far better than I would most likely ever be capable of!
Tuesday, 6 December 2011
Culture - December
Books Read:
Emily Bronte - 'Wuthering Heights'
Iain Banks - 'Espedair Street'
H.G. Wells - 'The Time Machine - and other stories'
Primo Levi - 'The Drowned and the Saved'
Mark Kermode - 'It's Only a Movie: Reel-Life Adventures of a Film Obsessive' (auto-biography)
Films Watched:
'Jacob's Ladder' (Adrian Lyne)
'Jeremy' (Arthur Barron)
'Che (Part 1)' (Steven Soderburgh)
'Che (Part 2)' (Steven Soderburgh)
'The Man Who Would Be King' (John Huston)
'Office Space' (Mike Judge)
'The Inbetweeners Movie' (Ben Palmer)
'The Graduate' (Mike Nicholls)
'The Last Detail' (Hal Ashby)
'On the Waterfront' (Elia Kazan)
Albums Played:
Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross - 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' (OST)
The Kills - 'Blood Pressures'
Tune-Yards - 'W H O K I L L'
Bon Iver - 'Bon Iver'
Emily Bronte - 'Wuthering Heights'
Iain Banks - 'Espedair Street'
H.G. Wells - 'The Time Machine - and other stories'
Primo Levi - 'The Drowned and the Saved'
Mark Kermode - 'It's Only a Movie: Reel-Life Adventures of a Film Obsessive' (auto-biography)
Films Watched:
'Jacob's Ladder' (Adrian Lyne)
'Jeremy' (Arthur Barron)
'Che (Part 1)' (Steven Soderburgh)
'Che (Part 2)' (Steven Soderburgh)
'The Man Who Would Be King' (John Huston)
'Office Space' (Mike Judge)
'The Inbetweeners Movie' (Ben Palmer)
'The Graduate' (Mike Nicholls)
'The Last Detail' (Hal Ashby)
'On the Waterfront' (Elia Kazan)
Albums Played:
Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross - 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' (OST)
The Kills - 'Blood Pressures'
Tune-Yards - 'W H O K I L L'
Bon Iver - 'Bon Iver'
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