Busy Louie

Having finished "The Colour of a Dog Running Away", I allowed myself a treat from my current favourite participatory-martial-arts-memoir genre, before embarking on the seven hundred odd pages of the el grupo mandated "Daniel Martin".

The New York Times says:

In the ring his nickname was Busy Louie. In the classroom, where he spends much more of his time these days, it is easy to see why. Confined by street clothes, his feints and jabs accompanied not by leather gloves but merely by a dwindling piece of chalk and a blackboard eraser, Loïc Wacquant, a professor of sociology at the University of California campus here, all but dances his way through a seminar on the criminal justice system.
Twisting, turning, hopping, scribbling, he is in constant motion, demonstrating, for an oblivious audience of a half-dozen sleep-deprived graduate students, the fleet-footed agility that fueled his brief, abortive stint as a pugilist and nearly derailed his academic career.

Body and Soul: Notebooks of an Apprentice Boxer is the work in question. It is an extraordinay combination of yada yada yada:

Just as one cannot understand what an instituted religion such as Catholicism is without studying in detail the structure and functioning of the organization that supports it, in this case the Roman Church, one cannot elucidate the meaning and roots of boxing in contemporary American society-at least in the lower regions of social space, where it continues to defy an extinction periodically announced as its imminent and inevitable fate-without canvassing the fabric of the social and symbolic relations woven in and around the training gym, the hub and hidden engine of the pugilistic universe.

..... with precise, local and evocative reportage.

Check it out, you won't regret it.

Hair of the Dog

An alcoholic is someone you don't like who drinks as much as you do.

I finished reading "The Colour of a Dog Running Away" this morning through the fog of a gentleman's head occasioned by last night's AbbeyFest, and reflected that this was the first book I've read since Sean's "Deadwater" in which the central character drinks as much as, if not more than, me. What is it with Welsh authors and protagonists and booze?

I can't say much about the book pre el grupo meeting, but it certainly contains a scene worthy of a Bad Sex in Fiction Award; whenever I read about tongues "flickering" I get a mental image of monitor lizards rather than any sort of erotic charge.

Welsh fiction is a bibulously libidinous bibliography, and if your tongue can twist that without tripping (or flickering) you are not drunk.

And the nominations are ....

El Guapo

After my unexpected success with "American Shaolin" I've hit a bit of a lean spell in the book club department with my peers failing to finish - never mind enjoy - both "Crime and Punishment" and "Bombay: Maximum City".

We've had the hardy perennial "The Great Gatsby" and Fowles' "Daniel Martin" nominated for the next meeting. Fair enough. Chris and I still have to step up to the plate, so I'm going back to the genre that's worked for me in the past with A Fighter's Heart: One Man's Journey Through the World of Fighting

I read it last year and by coincidence there's an extract from it in The Times this morning.

What about it guys, will you follow Sam Sheridan (and the shade of George Plimpton) as he trains for Muay thai in Bangkok, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in Rio, boxing in Oakland and MMA in Iowa?

An Amazon reviewer of a previous edition said, "how can someone so obviously intelligent say such dumb things?"

Irresistible.

stream of unconsciousness

I've found the copy of Black Swan Green that I lost, I thought I had left it in Virgin Active as I was reading it during a half hour on the recline exercise bike, but when I asked at reception I was told that they hadn't got it, yesterday however I found it on one of their bookshelves, it was unquestionably mine as a page was turned down at the exact point I was up to, I've been training at Virgin Active as it is so near the office for just over three years now , ever since it opened, sometimes I do weights and sometimes I do cardio, I find that I sweat more on the bike than on the treadmill or rowing ........

Prodnose: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Myself: I accept that, as an anecdote, it does lack vim and panache; probably not worth pitching to a Hollywood studio then?
Prodnose: Probably not no.

The Road

I've finished Cormac McCarthy's "The Road". I read so much science fiction in my youth that the barren post-apocalyptic landscape in which is set seemed almost cliched. At its heart the story is a fable about a father and a son and their love and sacrifice in a wicked world; think Life is Beautiful refracted through A Boy and His Dog.

Reviews always comment 0n the spareness of the prose. I think that this is because someone shook the typescript until every quotation mark and about one apostrophe in two fell out, leaving us with dialogue along the lines of:

Are you talking now?
Yes.
But you're not using quotation marks?
No.
Or apostrophes in negative contractions?
I wont use them ever.
But we'll use them elsewhere.
I'll always do that.
Do you want to die?
Yes.

Prodnose: Not exactly a barrel of laughs then?
Myself: This is a shocking and brilliant work, at once terribly pertinent and impressively universal. (I wonder what I mean by that?)

High Rise

I had to replace my original el grupo book choice a few weeks back because "A Solider's Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point" isn't published in the UK yet.

I'm now recommending Suketu Mehta's account of Bombay, "Maximum City". Thanks to the blog I have a record here of what I thought when I read it myself three years ago.

The post also reminds me that in February 2005 the BBC was reporting on Bombay slums being forcefully cleared. In 2008 The Times reports:

A flagrant style of luxury living is springing up above Bombay’s densely populated slums for a select few prosperous enough to spend up to £5 million on a designer apartment.

Bombay is the seventh most expensive place in the world to buy an apartment, according to the Global Property Guide, despite half the 18 million population living in slums without a lavatory or running water.

I propose a new HTML tag to be used a follows:

That's <irony> progress </irony> I suppose.

Light of My Life, Fire of My Loins

The wonder of woolies:

The Lolita Midsleeper Combi, a whitewashed wooden bed with pull-out desk and cupboard intended for girls aged about 6, was on sale on the Woolworths website for £395.

I'm reading Lolita at the moment, as Chris has assigned it for the next book club meeting,

I generally carry a paperback around with me to help kill quiet moments travelling or waiting.

Lolita is proving quite problematical in this regard. Even I am sensitive enough to realise that its not really being the thing to be seen pulling out while sitting on a park bench watching your seven year old and chums cavorting on the swings, slides and roundabouts.

Whereas many mothers were familiar with Vladimir Nabokov and his famous novel, it seems that the Woolworths staff were not. At first they were baffled by the fuss. A spokesman for the company told The Times: “What seems to have happened is the staff who run the website had never heard of Lolita, and to be honest no one else here had either. We had to look it up on Wikipedia. But we certainly know who she is now.”

Quite so.

Also, in "only connect" mode, I see that Mark from my neighbouring Wheelhouse Theatre Company impersonated Humbert Humbert at the Edinburgh Festival in 2006. Perhaps I'll bend his ear about Lolita as well.

Battle at Kruger

Chris having already taken care of documenting the next lot of books we are to read, I thought I would commemorate my trip to Swansea by digging up a YouTube video Dave recommended. It has been viewed over 23 million times to date.


Wikipedia: The video begins with the herd of buffalo approaching the water, unaware of the lions resting nearby. The lions charge and disperse the herd, picking off a young buffalo and unintentionally knocking it into the water while attempting to make a kill. While the lions try to drag the buffalo out of the water, it is grabbed by a pair of crocodiles, who fight for it before giving up and leaving it to the lions. The lions sit down and prepare to eat, but are quickly surrounded by the reorganized buffalo, who move in and begin charging and kicking at the lions. After a battle which sees one lion being tossed into the air by a buffalo, the baby buffalo (which is miraculously still alive) escapes into the herd. The emboldened buffalo chase the remainder of the lions away.

Mea Culpa

I'm off to Wales today for some book talk, but I am ashamed to say that - although I have polished off the other three nominations - I haven't reread 'Crime and Punishment' even though I am the one who recommended it. I remember it reasonably well even though I first read it years ago, so a little internet revision and a flick through the paperback will have to take the strain.

On the importance of reading - now that I am feeling remorseful for ducking Dostoevsky - I was very struck by this review of 'Soldier's Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point' last week.

While freshmen down in Manhattan at Columbia and NYU think about jobs and paychecks they'll secure after graduation, and hook-ups they make before it, cadets have a rigorous regimented existence in class and out, and they know they will assume command of 30 men and women when it's over, probably in a hot zone.
The prospect throws them into hard questions of life and death, duty and sacrifice, courage and leadership, and they probe great works to figure them out.

Another stereotype bites the dust.

Drinking and Writing and Reading

I've finished A Thousand Acres, Chris's el grupo recommendation. The novel is a retelling of King Lear set in Iowa twenty odd years ago, and it is a very accomplished work.

I can't talk any more about the book until we hoist the Jolly Roger at the next meeting, so until then divert yourself at The Drinking & Writing Brewery, a site that "works to keep the tradition of the hard-drinking writer alive, and to explore the connection between creativity and alcohol."

Between the sheets (Phnarr Phnarr)

Today is devoted to books.

First off the bat, I've finished Rob's El Grupo recommendation Constantinople: The Last Great Siege, 1453. Obviously I can't write about in detail until we have met to discuss it, but it is full of practical information. On impaling technique for example:

The Grand Turk [makes] the man he wishes to punish lie down on the ground; a sharp long pole is placed in the rectum; with a big mallet held in both hands the executioner strikes it with all his might, so that the pole, known as a palo, enters the human body, and according to its path, the unfortunate lingers on or dies at once; then he raises the pole and plants it in the ground; thus the unfortunate is left in extremis; he does not live long.

Ouch! So now you know Vlad.

Next up, I have ordered this year's books from the Folio Society as I continue to assemble the library of handsome volumes to which I intend to devote my twilight years. The books will be published over the next twelve months. I can't provide links as they aren't on the Society's website yet, but my choices are:

• Tolstoy's Anna Karenina
• Best of Saki
• Shelley: Collected Poems
• Food in History by Reay Tannahill

Finally, I dropped Sean a line yesterday after discovering that he was implicated in introducing messy, emotional Welsh to the prim and proper Oxford English Dictionary, and learned from the reply that his magnum opus "The Ethics of Writing" is now at proofs. He's split it into two books, and the first has a definite publication date of January 2008.

If you pre-order it via this link - The Ethics of Writing: Authorship and Legacy in Plato and Nietzsche - I get to wet my beak as well via the Amazon affiliates scheme. (I'm not holding my breath.)

It is always good to have the smart as a whip Dr. Burke back in the loop. Far too often with other acquaintances, as my mind wanders while talking to them, I find myself wondering if they might count towards my five vegetables a day .

(If you are an acquaintance reading this, then I obviously don't mean you.)

Kirk Out

I finished reading The Testament of Gideon Mack today, and thought it very fine. The usual el grupo embargo applies. There is a website devoted to the book at http://www.scotgeog.com/ if you're interested. See also "The Generous Gambler".

Drinking Bitter

We gathered at The Castle on Friday to discuss our latest batch of books. The Castle has only just reopened after a refurb, and the ubiquity of blogs is proved by the availability of a "'warts & all' account of the transformation of a run-down pub in Bradford-On-Avon into a 'proper' Inn" at http://thecastle-boa.blogspot.com/.

Rob raised the bar early on by coming up with the idea that the aristocratic nurse who shares a flat briefly with Barbara in "Winter in Madrid", is intended to be Cordelia, sister of Sebastian, Julia, and Bridey from Brideshead Revisited. I think that he must be right, so I'm reasonably put out that I didn't notice it first.

I was also surprised when American Shaolin - my suggested read - came out ahead of Slaughterhouse Five as our overall favourite book. Dave's antipathy to Vonnegut's Tralfamadorians, playing no small part in the decision.

We've introduced a new rule for the next meeting; the obligatory nomination of one stone cold classic.

The next set of books, which will be discussed while sailing the Solent (details to follow) later this year comprises:

• Crime and Punishment - nominated by me as the classic
• The Testament of Gideon Mack - put forward by Dave
• A Thousand Acres - Lear in Iowa from Chris
• Constantinople: The Last Great Siege, 1453 - courtesy of Rob's interest in Asia Minor

So It Goes

I finished "Slaughterhouse 5" last night, which means that I've read all the books for the next El Grupo with nearly a month to spare. So this is what it would have felt like in school if I'd done all my homework and revision when it was assigned rather than at the last minute. I would have been an insufferably smug little twerp, or perhaps more accurately an even more insufferably smug little twerp.

Rereading the book after a quarter of a century, I was struck by how concise it was, exactly the sensation I had last year during a decades overdue second canter through Brideshead Revisited. I note that both are on Time's 100 best English-language novels list. Size isn't everything, as I've often consoled myself.

A few stray remarks follow (I am sworn to keep my profound observational powder dry until July):

• Billy Pilgrim adrift in time, c.f Chrono-Displacement Disorder in "The Time Traveller's Wife" and Martin Amis' "Time's Arrow".
• Vonnegut's folksy patter misdirects you from the sophistication of the arrangement of the piece, c.f. the structure of that other great WW2 book "Catch 22" which tells the same story again and again.
• Valencia's car has a "Reagan for President" sticker on the bumper. In a book published in the 60s! Well I never. I know I could check this out in Wikipedia in a heart beat but I can't be bothered.
• "The Destruction of Dresden" by David Irving gets name checked. Yes, THE David Irving.

Why did the Anarchists drink herbal tea?

Because all proper tea is theft!? BOOM! BOOM!

From which you may gather that I have finished reading "Winter in Madrid". MacGuffin: a passionate Communist in the International Brigades who vanished on the bloody battlefields of the Jarama.

Briefly, I thought that the covers of this book were too far apart and the plot was strangely dependent on characters coincidentally bumping into each other , but that the denouement and epilogue were neatly done. Beyond that El Grupo omerta applies until July 13, but the publishers do helpfully provide their own reading group questions:

1) Does C.J. Sansom lean more towards the historical side of the novel, the fiction or create a delicate balance between the two?
2) Have you read any Spanish civil war literature before (Orwell, Auden, Spencer, Day Lewis)? If so, how does Winter in Madrid compare?
3) Sandy and Bernie are strikingly different characters. Why does Barbara end up in a relationship with Sandy? Can you sympathise with the reasoning behind her actions in the novel?
4) What did you think about the conclusion of the novel? Did you think it was fitting?

I am off to Birmingham in a minibus later today so I will slip a copy of "Slaughterhouse 5" into my pocket. Once I've read that again, I'll have finished the syllabus for the next meeting

MacGuffin

I've finished reading The Tenderness of Wolves but unfortunately I can't say much more as we've had to slap a DA-Notice on it until El Grupo get together to hammer out the the party line.

But if I was to say that ........

A MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin or Maguffin) is a plot device that motivates the characters and/or advances the story, but has little other relevance to the story.

The director and producer Alfred Hitchcock popularized both the term MacGuffin" and the technique. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Hitchcock explained the term in a 1939 lecture at Columbia University: "[We] have a name in the studio, and we call it the 'MacGuffin.' It is the mechanical element that usually crops up in any story. In crook stories it is most always the necklace and in spy stories it is most always the papers."
........

The element that distinguishes a MacGuffin from other types of plot devices is that it is not important what the object specifically is. Anything that serves as a motivation will do. The MacGuffin might even be ambiguous. Its importance is accepted by the story's characters, but it does not actually have any effect on the story. It can be generic or left open to interpretation.

The MacGuffin is common in films, especially thrillers. Commonly, though not always, it is the central focus of the film in the first act, and later declines in importance as the struggles and motivations of characters play out. Sometimes the MacGuffin is all but forgotten by the end of the film.

...... you might well assume that something I read recently has a doozy of a MacGuffin. I couldn't possibly comment.

Penney Drops

Now that I've finished with American Shaolin, I'm reading Steff Penney's The Tenderness of Wolves (as recommended by Dave) which won last year's Costa Book of the Year Award. I vaguely remember press coverage marveling at the time that:

On leaving university, Stef became agoraphobic and could barely travel. She has never been to Canada and researched The Tenderness of Wolves at The British Library. Now recovered, Stef lives in East London.

I imagine that, never mind Canada, she has never been to the 19th century either suffering from as she did from agoraphobia rather than Chrono-Displacement Disorder.

Opened by the Western Spear

I finished reading American Shaolin last night, and I must say that I enjoyed it thoroughly. I won't review it here as I don't want to shoot my bolt before the "El Grupo" meeting at which we are to discuss it.

I've noticed this morning that Matther Polly the author has posted some videos of his time at the temple to YouTube here. These are well worth a look in light of the book.

There's also a video of Polly being interviewed on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

I had wondered what had happened to Ferguson after he wrote and starred in two movies (The Big Tease and Saving Grace) that I really liked, then I'll Be There which I missed even though it was set in Wales; seems he went to America to seek his fortune.

Next stop in my Shoalin research is to find a Hunan restaurant in London and see if I can't rustle up some baijiu.

El Grupo

In the interests of historical accuracy, let it be known that "El Grupo" convened last Friday in the White Rose in Mumbles, and then dined at Lal Qila. The books enumerated here were exposed to our collective sensibility, and "This Thing of Darkness" judged the winner by acclamation.

Next time we shall be considering:

• Winter in Madrid as nominated by Rob
  
• The Tenderness of Wolves as nominated by Dave
  
• Slaughterhouse 5 as nominated by Chris
  
• American Shaolin as nominated by me
  

As ever, ordering via one of the links above will get me a piece of the action; I have also created a new tag "El Grupo" that I shall use in future and retrospectively to gather my musings on the books we consider.