Bugged

Posted on June 11, 2010 by Krendalin

I found out about a project called Bugged the other day. It sounds brilliant, not least because I overhear bizarre things all the time (and usually fail to write them down).

For example, on the train today an older man was talking to a younger woman, whom he clearly knew through her parents. I (thought I) overheard him say, “…yeah, she’s okay. But she’s thirty now. Past her prime. Got a bit of arthritis.” Which made me raise my eyebrows. But further eavesdropping revealed that they were talking about pets, and he probably said thirteen, not thirty. Hopefully mishearings also count for the project.

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This is the foreground

Posted on June 4, 2010 by Krendalin

Ooh, it’s June. Time for another (culturally-themed) update, then.

Music/radio

  • This post was inspired by Grizzly Bear, to whom I’m listening now. They’ve been recommended to me by a few people. I finally bought Veckatimest after hearing the track Dory on Adam Buxton’s Big Mixtape. I liked the album, then didn’t listen to it for a while. Then tonight, I listened to it again, and I realised that it’s brilliant. I also very much like Joanna Newsom’s Have One On Me, which I need to listen to again.
  • When I use proper grammar in a sentence, like ‘to whom’ in the previous point, it feels a bit wrong and poncy. Although I cringe at spelling mistakes and misplaced apostrophes, sometimes it’s fine to do rebellious things like put a preposition at the end of a sentence, because otherwise it would just sound weird.
  • Grizzly and Newsom are the only new musical offerings I’ve properly listened to lately. It feels strange to be detached from music like this, only delving into the odd thing that takes my fancy; but I suppose that’s what happens when you don’t put the time and effort into keeping up with new stuff.
  • I’m trying not to think about the fact that Tori Amos is playing in London next month, and I haven’t got tickets. It feels wrong. I saw her twice last year, though, so that should make it okay. It doesn’t, really.
  • I’m glad that half of Adam and Joe is still on the air, in the form of Adam’s Big Mixtape, which I’ve enjoyed. But when Adam’s on his own, before his guests arrive, he tends to go off on crazed tangents; and while they’re enjoyable, you feel that Joe needs to be there to rein him in. They’re the perfect couple.

Film

  • I watched the film adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline recently. The animation was fantastic. It was quite scary for a kids’ film – I was too frightened to leave the room alone (but then, I’m easily scared. Jonathan Creek used to terrify me). The overriding feeling I got from it, though, was one of hollowness. I realised that the Gaiman novels I’ve read, Neverwhere and Stardust, left me with the same feeling. (His short story collection, Smoke and Mirrors, I found much more rewarding). I wondered if, perhaps, the hollowness in Coraline was deliberate – was it intended to reinforce the bleakness of Coraline’s real life, and the eerieness of the life she finds in the other world? But even if it was, it was still unsatisfying (even the bleakest book I’ve read, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, was packed with intimacy and tenderness).
  • I thought about this a bit more, and realised that I’ve been hesitant to admit that I’m underwhelmed by Gaiman’s novels. After all, he’s a close friend of Tori Amos. His themes, genres, characters and settings appeal to me greatly. He cites Diana Wynne Jones as a big influence. I should love his stuff. But I don’t. His work simply doesn’t have the warmth, erudition and complexity (but mostly the warmth) of, for example, Wynne Jones’s.

Books/theatre

  • All this rambling is just an attempt to mask the fact that I’m still reading the two books that I was at the beginning of May – Wolf Hall and The Children’s Book. I think that (recently, anyway) I have had an issue with chunksters; that is, books that are over about 400 pages. They’re overwhelming. I should never again try to read two at the same time, even if they are by authors I already know and admire. (I do love both books, though, so I should see it as a good thing that I’m spending a lot of time with them).
  • It’s also an attempt to persuade myself that I don’t need theatre in my life, with all these musical and filmic delights to explore. But I miss it, and need to book (cheap) tickets for something soon.
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Why don’t you stop talking (and reading notes)

Posted on May 2, 2010 by Krendalin

I recently read and very much enjoyed Jackie Kay’s vibrant short story collection Why don’t you stop talking? I was glued to the book from the first page, which meant it was a quick read.

The stories seem to be very well ordered within the book. There are several about people living unsatisfactory lives, who are heading for unavoidable change, often with a surreal bent. In Shark! Shark!, Brian can’t get over a sudden, obsessive, irrational fear of sharks; in Shell, Doreen’s realisation of just how dissatisfied she is coincides with a gradual physical transformation; and in The woman with fork and knife disorder, cutlery plays a big part in driving unappreciated Irene into the realms of madness.

There are a few stories convincingly written in the patois of Jackie Kay’s native Scotland. There are those narrated by outsiders, such as the fantastic title story which made me empathise with a character I would probably avoid or clash with in real life; and the unsettling Making a movie. Then there are the love stories: in the wonderful Physics and Chemistry, two female schoolteachers are fired when their relationship is brought out into the open, despite having worked there for years with no issues. They simply leave the bigotry behind and open a wool shop, because “they had this thing between them, this spark. It could always change colour.” In the heartbreaking final story, In between talking about the elephant, two lovers have an agreement that helps them transcend bleak reality. The story hurtles towards its devastating ending in a sort of desperate, fevered, exhilarating tone.

It is, essentially, a book overflowing with warmth, especially in the final three stories. Some of the tales have the power to shift your perspective and make you rethink prejudices. Kay is also unflinching in her descriptions, and not just of physical things: she’s not afraid to really prod at a subject until the raw emotion behind it oozes out.

*

I’m also (still) reading The Children’s Book. I adore every word. I never want it to end, and it does appear to be my mission to drag it out for as long as possible. I’m also reading Wolf Hall (it’s my commuting/lunchtime book). It actually took a little while to get into, which surprised me, as I was already a big fan of Mantel’s writing. It was probably just because of my shamefully patchy historical knowledge. I’m really enjoying it now (150 pages in), though.

My next read might be Hope Mirrlees’ Lud-in-the-Mist, which I recently bought, and should hopefully satisfy my recent yearning to read something faerie-related. I can’t remember where I found out about it, but I’m surprised I didn’t sooner, because it’s been hugely influential on contemporary fantasy writers; and because she was associated with the Bloomsbury Group. I’m also on the lookout for any similar books; but failing that, I’ll just have to re-read Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, a book I think about quite a bit, despite it being five years since I read it.

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Posh

Posted on April 19, 2010 by Krendalin

On Saturday night I went to see Posh by Laura Wade. Its subject is very topical, and it was an eagerly anticipated new play (Wade won awards a few years ago for being Most Promising Playwright), so it has inspired a rash of publicity. I’ve gobbled it all up, with the consequence that I went to see it with a crowded mind. Much like with reading literary classics for the first time, I felt weighed down by the mass of criticism and speculation. Therefore, my thoughts on it are a bit cloudy.

It is about a fictional Oxford University club called the Riot Club, which many have compared to the infamous Bullingdon Club. The play is set in a private room in an Oxfordshire pub, and takes place over the course of one evening, as the members eat a “ten-bird roast” and get more and more drunk. They are determined to uphold Riot Club tradition by making sure the room is thoroughly trashed by the end of the night. When it becomes clear that the pub landlord and his daughter, the waitress, are less than keen to accommodate their needs, things turn nasty.

It is an enjoyable play to watch. The acting and dialogue sparkle. The characters are clear-cut: Wade has paid meticulous attention to the details of their language and customs. The boys are funny, witty, rude, and often caricaturish. Their behaviour is similar to that of many groups of people on an evening out, and this was reflected in the audience’s enjoyment of the jokes: they could identify with the Riot Club, because they knew peope who actually behaved like that. This placing of the upper-class and traditional within a contemporary context was also reflected in another great touch: interludes of perfectly executed a cappella group singing of such modern classics as Wiley’s Wearing My Rolex.

Just before the interval, the character Alistair makes a speech, bemoaning the lack of cooperation they are getting from the landlord. It is one of the first glimmers of menace. He is angry that people of their status seem no longer able to command the respect that they once did. It is a promising set-up for the second act, in which their behaviour deteriorates, and culminates not just in trashing the room, but in acts of violence against the landlord and his daughter; from which the Riot Club are easily absolved. The play is essentially a warning, and a condemning of a certain attitude. The characters think they are entitled to get their way, and will do so, because they know they have the cleverness, resources and connections with which to cover up any resulting mess.

This is where I become confused: as I’ve said, I liked the actors, and the script, and all the small touches. I liked what the play was trying to say. And yet I ultimately felt that, as much as it shone in many ways, Posh stopped short of its potential. I wanted the climax to epitomise the idea that the play was obviously building towards – that these people could be genuinely dangerous. But instead, it felt implausible and empty. It’s frustrating, because I really wanted it to work, and I can’t pinpoint exactly why it didn’t.

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The shadow-self

Posted on April 5, 2010 by Krendalin

I recently read The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters (if you plan to read this book, skip this post as it’s extremely spoiler heavy. Also, it’s a really long post, so click on the title to get through to the rest of it).

The Little Stranger is the kind of book that, once you’ve finished reading it, you immediately have a great urge to discuss it with someone else who’s just read it. It’s also a book that does not tie everything up in a neat little package at the end. Instead, the implications of the ending gradually wash over you, so that even hours after you’ve finished, you’re still realising that the book you’ve just read (possibly) isn’t what you thought it was at all.

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