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Literature

Feb 18 2008
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Recommended Reading: Jane Campion on Janet Frame

By Asides, Cinema, Literature and NZ

A little late, but still recom­men­ded, Jane Campion remem­bers Janet Frame and mak­ing An Angel at My Table, in The Guardian:

Each room and even parts of rooms were ded­ic­ated to a dif­fer­ent book in pro­gress. Here and there she had hung cur­tains to divide up the rooms like they do in hos­pit­al wards to give the patients pri­vacy. On the desk where she had last been work­ing was a pair of earmuffs.

“I can­’t bear any sound,” she explained. “The double bricks haven’t worked. I think I will have to move.”

Nov 23 2007
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By Asides, Current Events and Literature

Screenwriter Ronan Bennett cri­ti­cises Martin Amis for his ques­tion­able pos­i­tion­ing on present day inter-cultural rela­tions (and oth­er com­ment­at­ors for essen­tially giv­ing him a free pass):

As a nov­el­ist, Amis is free to do whatever he wants with his char­ac­ters, but the hijack­ers’ steps on the road to 9/11 repay invest­ig­a­tion. Reducing the motiv­a­tion of the enemy to blood­lust leads nowhere, as the exper­i­ence of the British in Ireland proved. The res­ult will be wrong and it will be cliché. It may be, giv­en Amis’s spec­tac­u­lar powers, flam­boy­ant, but that will only make it flam­boy­ant cliché. Horrorism. Death cult. Thanatoid. Striking words but poor sub­sti­tutes for under­stand­ing, reas­on and real knowledge.

I am a big fan of Amis’ writ­ing but I con­fess to being uncom­fort­able with some of the pos­i­tions he is tak­ing at the moment.

Sep 29 2007
Love0

The poet of collision

By Asides and Literature

James Ellroy on Dashiell Hammett:

Hammett’s male-speak is the gab of the grift, the scam, the dime hustle. It’s the poke, the probe, the veiled query, the grab for advant­age. It’s the threat, the dim sanc­tion, the offer of friend­ship cloaked in betray­al. Plot holes pop through Hammett’s stor­ies like speed bumps. The body count accretes with no more hor­ror than prat­falls in farce. It does­n’t mat­ter. The lan­guage is always there.

(via The Guardian)

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