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I’ve lost track of what I’ve been reading recently post move, it all ended up in various crates which are now residing under the piano – some more early Will Self if I recall, which I quite enjoyed again. From My Idea of Fun there’s a sense of the Self’s lack of interest in appearing as traditionally literary, being quite bored with the idea of being a “good” or “consistent” writer. There are moments of grotesque humour in that and to some degree The Quantity Theory of Insanity that increasingly make me think he’s more than just a witty writer, although at the same time he appears to be very resistant to being analysed in the same terms as other “literary” authors. No ideas where his later books go mind.
Duncan McLean’s Bucket of Tongues was deliciously nasty, even if some of the stories in the collection seemed to tail off into nowhere. Most had a strange, inconclusive style; intriguing if not easily digestible.
Thomas Disch’s The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of” (great title) wasn’t quite the book I thought it would be. Expecting a book focusing on how our present technology apes the science fiction of the past, there was instead a sort of potted history of American science fiction split into chapters dealing with different cultural themes (The bomb, the military, religion, the role of women) and how science fiction has reflected (upon) them. Obviously well written and erudite, Disch’s views are occasionally inflammatory, often gossipy, but certainly broadly entertaining enough to fill out the book.
I’ve also been reading The Elfish Gene (awful title) by Mark Barrowcliffe: recent book about a young man’s experience playing D & D in the seventies. What’s maybe most remarkable about this book is the fact that it’s a very specific moment in the culture when books like this (alongside Johnny Magic and the Card Shark Kids about a famous Magic: The Gathering turned poker player) can get published, when individuals who basically haven’t done anything biography worthy can rise above the sea of individual online journals detailing everyday lives and get a book deal while the publishers of biographies are still looking for as yet un-mined niche markets. It’s not particularly well written, some occasional nice turns of phrase aside, but it’s a fascinating look at the impact of roleplaying on a random sample of the young boys of the era and their differing motivations, their need to construct rules, values and worlds to have mastery over, and maybe even more significantly on the types of relationships between the young boys that developed. The author notes, amidst painfully honest recollections of his strained attempts to fit into the group of slightly less unpopular boys, the almost total absence of females from this world, and the corresponding way the books of the era are explicitly geared towards the titillation of the imaginations of teenage boys (and possibly primarily still are). The idea of queer roleplayers or even playing non-exploitative characters from the opposite gender are utterly alien to his experience, which is interesting reading for someone coming from the (relatively) sophisticated world of contemporary roleplaying where it’s, well, at least a bit more common. Maybe. None of it (unpopular saddos have their own geeky perspective on life and don’t mix well with girls) is exactly hold the front page news, but it’s a suitably nostalgic read for anyone wishing to masochistically relive their own socially dysfunctional childhood (can one do something masochistic nostalgically?), although it does somewhat leave you thinking that pretty much anyone with similar experiences could have written a comparable book equally as well.
Furthermore, I raced through Area Code 212, Tama Janowitz’s collection of non-fiction. In some places it’s sweet, some funny, some dubious, but the most memorable sections deal with the idea of New York where the traditional values and polite expectations of society have been upended, or maybe dispensed with altogether, and she seems to take the view that rather than lament this fact visitors and residents should actively celebrate it in all its morally alien strangeness, which I thought was a fairly refreshing reaction.
And I’ve just finished Naïve. Super, by Erlend Loe, which I confess I didn’t really feel I fully appreciated, but apparently it’s a European bestseller, so if anyone else has read it feel free to enlighten me. Written in a “‘deceptively simple’ – thank you back cover blurb” naïve style, the somewhat directionless narrator peppers his musings on the meaning and possible futility of life with various lists of things he likes and doesn’t like, letters and faxes he has received and sent, and various other documents. It doesn’t, to my mind, add up to terribly much: it’s occasionally amusing, sometimes sweet, but it doesn’t really do or say anything, and by the end the narrative voice seemed unconvincingly clueless for someone in the narrator’s position unless they actually were meant to have mental health difficulties, so I’ve either missed something rather crucial, the translation’s at fault, or the narrative voice just is a bit artificial. Ho hum.
Christopher Priest’s The Glamour up next – joy! |
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