I sat up late last night and read Smut, Alan Bennett’s latest little book with two short(ish) stories.
You have to listen to Alan Bennett reading his work on the radio or something before reading any of his work to get the best effect.
I try to read him with his voice in my head. It makes a funny story even better.
These two were both hilarious and unexpected, especially picturing the man himself in his country clothes and slightly whining Yorkshire accent. The language is beautiful and perfect. His ability to write a long sentence is unparalleled. By which of course I mean he can write a long sentence that works as such, rather than something that should have been broken up into several shorter ones.
Trouble is it was just after 2.00 when I put the light out and so hopping up at the crack of dawn this morning wasn’t the easiest, and then of course it was so bloody cold earlier. Beautiful with frost covering the fields of the park. But how the dog can happily run on that cold ground for an hour or so I can’t imagine.
Well it’s time the little thing had another pee, so I’m about to pile on the layers again and set off into the big chill.
Dogs.
Brilliant.
Man just turned up at the door with a nice box. My books from Taschen.
Good packaging with those huge air bubbles and all the books in perfect order despite being supposedly damaged stock.
So far I’ve glanced at the book on Tado Ando, the Japanese architect, and I’ve in love with it already.
There’s one called Trespass which is a sort of ode to the Banksy brigade of urban art graffiti artists and then Brand Identity Now, which will be with me on the train to London in a bit, in fact very soon.
I hope the weather down south is better than here, bloody great hail stones hammering down on Manchester at the moment. They suit my mood though. I feel a bit thundery myself, no doubt in part due to the large number of beers imbibed last night in town before an excellent curry at East 2 East, which I reckon is Manchester centre’s finest.
Better pop a couple of pills and order a cab. No time for taxi now. Silly arse that I am.
Sat on the train now, unusually empty and I’ve got a table seat to myself. Not that I’m going to work though. What I really need is a pillow. It won’t be a difficult meeting, but nonetheless I need to be on the ball. In my memory print suddenly gets a whole lot cheaper when the buyer starts to walk away.
I love books. I buy more books than I read. I love book shops. And even though I think I’d love a kindle for reading at night, or for the convenience of just popping it into my pocket, I reckon I’d still buy a hard copy of most of the books that I read.
I got carried away on the Taschen website on Sunday night and popped several into my virtual basket, but knowing the danger of shopping after a few drinks I was sensible enough to not go to the checkout until Tuesday. But then I went for it. Architecture, branding, art. Yee ha! Hope the delivery comes before the weekend, and when I’m here alone so I don’t have to justify my frivolous purchasing.
I’ll take the branding book with me to London next week to swot up on my way to the printers in london which I found through the city visitor site, but who turned out to be hugely helpful. they’re going to be doing some work for a client who seems to be using me as his marketing manager as well as business advisor. Have to admit I quite enjoy it as I get to practise a bit more of what I preach.
But back to the books. I don’t care for paper diaries, but Taschen say they’ll send a free one of theirs, I guess they have a few thousand left that they need to shed. I reckon I might even start using it for a retro feel.
You know how it is when someone gives you a book for a present (in this case Christmas), but the person themselves is someone you don’t share any reading with? You wonder whether their choice will suit? I’m so fussy (in most things actually) that buying anything for me is a risky business. Mrs G rarely buys me clothes for that reason and I’ve long ago asked mother and sister not to either.
Well Mrs G’s mum bought me two books for Christmas by the same author, this fellow Robert Ryan, who it turns out, takes history and turns it into novels, such as the Great Train Robbery, Lawrence of Arabia and the like.
The first I read, Empire of Sand, loosely based on the life of TE Lawrence, was OK, but not much better than that. But I’ve just finished Death on the Ice, a story of Robert Falcon Scott’s two Antarctic Expeditions, and found myself thinking about it when I wasn’t reading, wanting to get back to it to find out more.
As it nearer the grim and inevitable end that we all know something of I was happy to sacrifice the company of friends to plough through the final stages of the disastrous journey. The descriptions of the pain, or the rotting of flesh on loving men, and the culmination of so many little things going wrong was truly awful and no man could read it without feeling a deep chill and dread.
I’ve never been drawn to the extremes of temperature at either end of the scale. So to contemplate man hauling sleds through minus 40 or worse, with no food, ancient kit, no hope of warmth. It makes me shiver even now.
It’s not a brilliant read, but it was good and educational and I liked it for that.
I was delighted to see that I started the book a month ago exactly.
Although I often love what I’m reading it can sometimes take me an age to plough through something just because I only tend to read at night, and then Mrs G is trying to get to sleep and she likes the radio on, but I can’t read with the radio on and so it goes on!
I basically read this in three short bursts, intending to stop once I’d finished the first book, but then almost by accident I carried on through book two too. And it has been wonderful. There’s love, and it is probably the weakest part of an otherwise brilliant novel. The thoughts on the nature of religion provoke the reader to consider their own beliefs, or why they are part of the big game called life. The moral confusion of killing evil people. The ever present Japanese obsession with food preparation and the author’s love of combining food and music into his novels are all here.
The copy I have just read has books one and two, I hope three comes soon. It could be the perfect escape for the forthcoming onslaught of Christmas, sneak off, perhaps to a shed somewhere, and bury my head deep into Murakami, only pausing to take the dog for long contemplative walks, that’s me contemplating, not her.
I always want to g back to good books once I’ve got the story out of the way so that I can discover the beauty of the writing. I can’t pretend I have done it often, but I certainly hope to with this.
Straight into IQ84. You’re immediately in a strange adventure as the characters either suss each other out or you’re helped through your own understanding as events unfold around them, or indeed they create events themselves.
Two sexy but determinedly left field women, a fat clever man, a thin clever man, literature, intrigue, lost information, food, drink and music. The stage is set with all his classic ingredients.
For me the hardest part is only reading a chapter a day when what I really want to do is sit down and plough through the whole volume, then start again so that I can pay more attention to the clever nuance that runs through his every work.
And how I spread the word! This morning two guys in the park were chatting over sci-fi and more general fantasy and I saw my opening. I’ve had a text from one of them already to say he has downloaded Murakami for his trip to London this afternoon. Let’s hope it lives up to my high praise in his eyes.
How strange it is recommending anything, whether music, food, literature, even a place. I’m about to start a blog elsewhere for someone who is interested in creating a landing page within his site where his audience can discuss inspirational places – I can’t wait, but also I’m nervous as I fully understand the utter subjectivity of what I’ll write.
Of late wet, wind swept moors have moved me more than a bright sunny day on the beach. Yet this scene that currently inspires me may well be anathema to many readers. I’ll have to be sure not to be too challenging at first.
Likewise Murakami. If you’re not up for working with an author then he is definitely not for you. Yet I can’t wait to finish at my desk and read again this afternoon.
Last night I downloaded Mansion Casino intending to just mess around on the slots, but then remembered the Murakami.
Mrs G was out for the evening which gave me a great opportunity to either properly listen to the new Tom Waits album at volume and idly blow a few quid on the slots, or get into the new book. In the end I did both and what a simple, but enjoyable evening it gave me.
The Murakami doesn’t mess around and gets straight into the plot, that’s unusual for him as you generally have quite a long period of getting to know the characters and their whereabouts. The two main folk both seem interesting and fitting to his strange and slightly twisted Japanese world. I hammered through 100 pages in what seemed like no time last night, though it was late when I finally turned in to bed and the dog had a bit of a late walk this morning.
She still seems tired after the Welsh trip, although it was only on Sunday that we did any decent distance, walking up Cadir Idris. It was stunning on the way up looking out to the sea in one direction and Snowdonia in the other, but it made me feel old yesterday, I’m sure I once pretty much ran up it with the old dog and an old girlfriend… but that’s another story.
I read my first Murakami in 2005. It was Kafka on the Shore.
I’ve since bought it for many friends, hoping to introduce them to this guy who I consider to be a modern literary genius.
After tearing through a few novels I realised that I’d soon run out and so rationed the reading to one a year on a particular holiday to Spain that we took for several consecutive years.
That rationing made the reading even better.
Murakami is Japanese, highly into music – jazz and blues, with a good knowledge of classical as well, and he weaves music into most of his stories. He loves to cook and the reading gives you an insight into the near religious detail that is part of the Japanese cooking ritual. He clearly loves women, and his tend to be flawed beauties. Many of the novels are set around Tokyo where he had a jazz bar for many years, but tend to include the countryside too.
The joy for me comes with his combining the real and surreal seamlessly. A story can be completely without detour into fantasy until someone looks through a wall, or maybe is spoken to by a cat. And it’s done with such conviction that the reader is left unsure whether that act is unusual even.
In a bit I’ll start his latest. A trilogy called IQ84 that I love already for it’s super subtle hardback cover. This link is to The Guardian’s review. I haven’t read it yet. Maybe I’ll save it until after the book.
Expect an update.