Books 2009: Andrew Crumey - Mobius Dick

About eighteen months ago I read Scarlett Thomas' The End of Mr Y. I really enjoyed it and recommended her to several people. I regret doing that now I've read several books by her. Earlier I wrote this:

I do not know why I’ve read three Scarlett Thomas novels because if you take away the colourful packaging of a) metafiction (”The End of Mr Y”), b) anti-consumerism (”PopCo”) and c) popculture (”Going Out”) you get pretty much the same novel.

New Age health solutions? Check. Schrödinger’s cat? Check. Main protagonist being into her math puzzles? Check. Slightly deviant sexual orientation painted in a fairly vague way? Check. C-category drug use? Check. Vegetarianism or some variant upon it? Check. Internet featuring heavily? Check.

Andrew Crumey's novel, Mobius Dick, has me hoping that I have found the novel I thought I had in my hands when I read The End of Mr Y. It is a dazzling, original novel which defies easy categorisation (postmodern metafiction? science-fiction? thriller?). Like Thomas' book, Mobius Dick takes its cue from theoretical physics, the idea of parallel worlds and the intersection between literature and science. However, unlike Thomas, Crumey is in full control of his material and does not take the reader on unnecessary detours (although getting to the "end" is quite a roller-coaster ride).

Will I read more Crumey novels and discover he is a one-trick pony much like Ms Thomas? I hope I'll end up discovering a new favourite author. Right now it feels as though I have. Explaining the plot of Mobius Dick terrifies me slightly, so suffice to say that it feels like a bit Jorge Luis Borges mixed with David Mitchell and a dash of early Alasdair Gray. Heady.

Poetry Animations

This is both very cool and just a bit creepy. Jim Clark, a "videographer" based in London, has animated photos or paintings of long-gone poets, paired the animations with poetry and you get things like Lord Alfred Tennyson "reading" his Ulysses:

While I'm sure some of the animations will be removed due to copyright violations (Sylvia Plath? TS Eliot? Oh yes, their estates will be in touch), Jim Clark has many excellent (and, again, creepy) videos uploaded to YouTube. Try some of these:

+ John Donne: Go Catch A Falling Star + Ezra Pound: The Year Puts On Her Shining Robe + W.H. Auden: Musee des Beaux Arts + John Keats: Ode To A Nightingale

A good reminder that poetry is as much about hearing as it is about reading. And just a touch disturbing.

PS. Uncanny valley, anyone?

Books 2009: Gregory Maguire - Wicked.

First book read in 2009: Gregory Maguire's Wicked which is a retelling of "The Wizard of Oz" from the viewpoint of the Wicked Witch. It read a bit like really decent fanfiction in the sense that it subverted canon, told the story via a secondary character and fleshed out the world of Oz (like, just how did they build the Yellow Brick Road and why?). Like much fanfiction, the book also adds a healthy dollop of sexuality to a familiar story.

Did I like it? If it had been fanfiction - i.e. self-published fiction by someone whose day-job does not involve literature - I would have sung its praise because it is clever, inventive and does a marvellous job at humanising a character who's cardboard Evil in the original book. But it's not the work of a smart fan. "Wicked" is professionally published, has a John-Updike-in-the-New-Yorker recommendation on the front cover and its author talks about his book being a parable for the Vietnam war. This is where I begin to have serious reservations.

"Wicked" simply isn't good enough for that sort of pretension. It's a fun read with its fair share of structural and characterisation problems (most of which are forgiveable, admittedly, except for the middle third of the book which is one big mess) but it does not go any deeper than that. Maguire sets up quite a few interesting points - the distinction between Animals/animals; attitude towards sexuality; the divide and interdependence of science/religion - and completely fails to follow up on these points. Other Half has another two Maguire books set in Oz. I will be reading them at some point, but I'm not in any rush.

Related: Gregory Maguire reimagines "The Little Match Girl" for NPR.

A Few Links

My nose is running, my head is stuffed and my throat is sore. So, let's cut this short. The identity of the new Doctor Who is going to be revealed today on BBC1.  I called Paterson Joseph in November after watching a potential slip-up during an interview. Behind The Sofa has an interesting discussion going with Stuart making a surprisingly good case for Hugh Grant(!) although the consensus seems to be either Paterson Joseph or Chiwetel Ejiofor. The Daily Dust points out that "if there’s a black doctor, it means that when the world gets round to doing all the press for Barack Obama and how black people are getting into positions never thought possible even just a few years ago, then Doctor Who is getting mentioned in those articles." We shall know very, very soon.

UPDATE: None of the above as it turns out..

BBC has one of those prediction things that they like doing: "we may be witnessing the death of the English indie scene that rose out of the embers of Britpop, and has now become tired and cliched." Which is utter nonsense, of course. We may see the end of identikit guitar bands pushed into the limelight by clueless record companies (The Pigeon Detectives, anyone? The Kooks?) but those bands have very little to do with indie music. Auntie Beeb also thinks that 2009 will be the year of electro-pop-rock which is a complete contrast to, say,   Klaxons who vowed British audiences and critics in 2007 with their, er, electro-pop-rock.

I didn't like this site when it first popped up, but it has improved. Which Book? gives you reading recommendations based upon parameters of your own choice. I plugged in a few "musts" and was recommended Patricia Duncker's Hallucinating Foucault (which I have already read and absolutely love).

Have a lovely Saturday.

Comfort Reading

The last Christmas present has been wrapped (Misty Garden by Jo Sharp in Rowan Damask), I have had a lovely pre-Christmas get-together with friends and I 'just' need to pack my bag now. Yes, that was a slightly hysterical 'just' there. Christmas stress has finally set in and I'm getting slightly frayed at the edges. What do you mean that I 'just* need to pack? Don't you understand how that means I need to find matching socks, clothes that match and a suitable knitting project?!

Thankfully I have enough time to sit down and think to myself: "Yes, TS Eliot has wonderful sentence structures" which automatically means I am less stressed.

The child wonders at the Christmas Tree: Let him continue in the spirit of wonder At the Feast as an event not accepted as a pretext; So that the glittering rapture, the amazement Of the first-remembered Christmas Tree, So that the surprises, delight in new possessions (Each one with its peculiar and exciting smell), The expectation of the goose or turkey And the expected awe on its appearance, So that the reverence and the gaiety May not be forgotten in later experience, In the bored habituation, the fatigue, the tedium, The awareness of death, the consciousness of failure, Or in the piety of the convert Which may be tainted with a self-conceit Displeasing to God and disrespectful to the children

Eliot's "The Cultivation of Christmas Trees" is rather obscure as Eliot poems go. It is a continuation of the mystical-religious poetry he wrote in the mid-1930s to late 1940s - the poetry that hardly ever gets anthologised and only occasionally gets taught. I am not a religious person myself, but I derive much comfort from Eliot's poetry (both the heady early Modernist period and the mystical late years).

Today it was a pleasure and a respite to sit down with "The Cultivation of Christmas Trees" and just let myself drift into the convoluted-ness of it all. A pleasure.

Oh, and happy birthday to my mother who is ever-young. I don't know how she does it but I suspect she must have a portrait hidden away in the attic..

When I Think All Hope Has Gone -- R.I.P. Adrian Mitchell

Adrian Mitchell has died. His The Oxford Hysteria of English Poetry is seriously funny:

Then suddenly --- WOOMF --- It was the Ro-man-tic Re-viv-al And it didn't matter how you wrote, All the public wanted was a hairy great image. Before they'd even print you You had to smoke opium, die of consumption, Fall in love with your sister Or drown in the Mediterranean (not at Brighton).

And in the mid-1990s, Mr Mitchell suddenly found himself credited as co-writer of a big UK hit - The Bluetones and their lovely "Bluetonic" single - as they quoted a snippet of his poetry..

Rest in peace, Adrian Mitchell. I've always really, really liked you.