It has been many years since I read any Peter Carey: Oscar and Lucinda, and I remember nothing of it. Perhaps because of that I was somewhat thrown by his Collected Stories. Not in the sense of how well-written they are, but rather the strange dystopian worlds many of them seem to inhabit. There is … Continue reading “Collected Stories” – Peter Carey
Category: Reading
“17 Alma Road” highlighted on Portobello Book Blog
click to go to Portobello Book Blog
Booking for Market Rasen ‘WordFest’ performances now open!
Booking is now open for events at the Market Rasen 'WordFest' literary day on Saturday 6th July. I have two limited-seating slots: a second performance of Crash, and a more casual 'pop-up' hour of readings and conversation. BOOK HERE. From the reviews of the 2023 Ripon Theatre Festival Performance: A very moving piece of performance … Continue reading Booking for Market Rasen ‘WordFest’ performances now open!
“Birnam Wood”
Eleanor Catton's Birnam Wood is a strange amalgam of a book. For the first two thirds it meanders slowly along without seeming to be getting anywhere particularly significant - and then, as if it has been injected with some illicit substance, suddenly speeds up and turns into 'a thriller' with an ending that has more … Continue reading “Birnam Wood”
The performance is now official!
From the reviews of the 2023 Ripon Theatre Festival Performance: A very moving piece of performance poetry that captivated the audience. Beautifully executed with fabulous imagery. Thought-provoking, soul-baring, and delivered with such poignancy and realism that it left a lasting impression. Crash is impressive solo story-telling, a dramatic homage to T.S. Eliot that counts down the last minutes … Continue reading The performance is now official!
“Getting Through”
There is a theme of regret and missed opportunity running through John McGahern's short story collection, Getting Through. Mainly these involve broken relationships, between man and woman, father and son: 'Sierra Leone', 'Along the Edges'. As with High Ground and other stories, McGahern's prose has a depth which belies the narrative somehow. They are incidents … Continue reading “Getting Through”
“Eleanor Among the Saints”
This will be short. Apologies, but I found Rachel Mann's collection Eleanor Among the Saints obtuse and impenetrable. Untouched, unmoved, disinterested, I gave up about 40% of the way through. Reading list
“Sojourn”
Amit Chaudhuri's Sojourn is an odd little book. A curio. It's like a series of Polaroid photographs strung together to make an album - though obviously made up of words. Those snapshot images represent a journey through Berlin; less so a physical journey than a metaphysical one. The protagonist learns and forgets things along the … Continue reading “Sojourn”
“A Girl is a Half-formed Thing”
Eimear McBride's A Girl is a Half-formed Thing is a difficult book to read. Firstly this is because of the style in which it is written: fragmented, jerky, linguistically inaccurate, often illiterate. It seems like stream of consciousness with about a quarter of the words removed. And with stuttering where there are words. Impossible for … Continue reading “A Girl is a Half-formed Thing”
“The Silence”
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with Gillian Clarke's collection "The Silence". All the poems are entirely competent, 'poetic'. Yet for me they lack any kind of universality, something to which I can relate in such as way as to be moved or inspired or feel the work relevant. Reading them feels a little like skimming … Continue reading “The Silence”
Ian Gouge - Writer 