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Barbara Wright (1915-2009)

Something I have in common with Adam Thirlwell: regret.

Richard pointed me this weekend to an article by Adam Thirlwell on Barbara Wright. Thirlwell mentions that the respected translator passed away in March, and he regrets never having a chance to meet her.

Life has no message: only mess

The Death of Vishnu

Manil Suri

If you want a novel which wilfully mystifies far-off places to make the middle classes think their reading tastes are exotic—think by authors like McCall Smith—then look for one whose quoted reviews talk of "characters smell[ing] of cardamom and clove." Such books wear their broadmindedness heavily, patronising reader and subject alike, adding layers of sensual description until there remain no hard edges. in the story.

Reflections on an enormous puddle

25 Jul 2007

You ignored all the warnings
About global warming
(Or climate change as we now call it)
You dismissed the statistics
As myth told by mystics
In favour of cramming your wallit.

All those air miles behind you
Expanding your mind? You
Know: brains aren’t things on which you sit.
So instead now you find
An expanded behind
That’s the size of the cloud you emit.

Now, given the rain
Fell again, and again,
And poor Yorkshire is all under watter
Then if you still deny
The state of the sky
You must be as mad as a hatter.

But if you’re not sure
Of the need for a cure

Something is squeezing my skull

The Doctor is Sick

Anthony Burgess

Diagnosed with a brain tumour, and given a year to live, Burgess set himself the task of posthumously supporting his wife through royalties: by writing, a lot. The result was patchy but prolific and, a year later and with no sign of actual physical death, he slowed down and improved a good deal: classics like A Clockwork Orange followed shortly afterwards. The Doctor is Sick is very much a workmanlike product of that long year, and in some ways one of the most thinly-veiled of Burgess' semi-autobiographical novels.

Time as a tool, not as a couch

Cloud Atlas

David Mitchell

It's easy to praise Cloud Atlas: partly because so many others have; partly because it's so good. But you wonder how it came about: if short stories don't sell, is this a way of selling short stories? Unite them with a theme, as Arabian Nights does. That's a set of short stories with a concept, and in its time it's sold rather well. So, take a central conceit—a nested set of tales, each told by a character in another—and apply it to any anthology you like.

Spineless Book Reviews on QlL

19 Apr 2009

The erstwhile contents of Spineless Reviews are now available on QlL: pushing 100 miscellaneous book reviews for your delectation.

Heggers plays pop

14 Mar 2005

I went to see John Hegley
With a couple of my mates
John had one of his on stage,
A sort of Norman Bates
(Of the type inclined to violence only when directed against black rubber gloves and/or his own head)
He read some poems that I knew
And some that I did not
And of the latter ones there were
Quite a lot
Afterwards he signed the books
That I had brought along
I should’ve bought some new ones
I didn’t
Which was probably wrong
But I’m used to making such social gaffes
And the queues for writer and written were so long

Delays expected

26 Jan 2004

Where do you think you are closing, Dr Beeching?
Is this how a railway’s run?
We are the ones who will suffer for your crime
We are the ones who won’t get to work on time
So how much of our network’s network are you closing,
How long till your work is done?

In with the old!

30 Mar 2009

While I work on new content, I've decided to bring older work into QlL, that for some reason never appeared here at the time. So the more dedicated readers might spot some apparently new bits and pieces appearing that they recognise. It'll tide you over till I pull my finger out, anyway.

Still there?

5 Oct 2003

They’d ring the single bell in Christ Church:
it chimed for every student in.
They ring it still, although the curfew
  has faded long before the din.
A comforted old boy might wander
  with silent, ghostly, measured tread
Through colleges he still remembers
  While hearing words his friends once said.
    Beside the River C. he sits-
      the bench still bears his name-
    And looks around contented that