Right. To business. It's meme time again. A literary questionnaire, stolen from The Observer.
THE LIT BIT
2. A WORD YOU LIKE
Propinquity. Its meaning - nearness - & its sound (which tintinabulates, another favourite word.)
3. MOST ROMANTIC MOMENT IN FICTION
Impossible to judge. Romance is very much in the perception of the beholder. Very difficult to clamber past Wuthering Heights & its ongoing brief yet intense encounters. But I'm going to settle - a little quixotically - for Leo Persepied's ecstasy & agony over Mardou Fox in Jack Kerouac's The Subterraneans.
4. OVERRATED WRITER
Martin Amis. Too many words, too much sound & fury, not enough truth.
5. FAVOURITE TRANSLATION
Turning away from the impossibility of choosing between translations of Flaubert, Maupassant, Zola, Sartre & Camus + Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Turgenev, Chekhov & Gorky, I'll go for an obscuro: Willa Muir's version of Swedish poet Harry Martinson's extraordinary epic sci fi poem, Aniara.
6. BEST MEAL IN ENGLISH LITERATURE
Not really a meal, but Laurie Lee & Rosie beneath that cart during the high heat of harvest, sharing a flagon of cider.
7. UNDERRATED WRITER
Scottish poet, John Burnside. Highly rated, in fact, but not nearly enough. He should be up there with R.S. Thomas as a master of sparse but bone-hard imagery.
8. FAVOURITE CHILDREN'S BOOK
Easy... The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham. And Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne. And Babar the Elephant by Jean de Brunhof. And the entire Orlando the Marmalade Cat series by Katherine Hale. And the entire Jennings & Darbishire series by Anthony Buckeridge (classic British public school fiction, but with both humour & a cutting edge). And the entire William series by Richmal Crompton... (Speaker forcibly removed from the stage.)
9. BOOK(S) BY YOUR BEDSIDE NOW
The Constant Gardener by John le Carre, New Blood edited by Neil Astley (contemporary poetry from Bloodaxe Books), The Plot Against America by Philip Roth, Slowing Down by George Melly.
10. SEXIEST BOOK
Crevecoeur by Anne-Marie Charpentier. Smuggled back from France at age 16. An Obelisk Press English language limited edition, published by Maurice Girodias in Paris. Alongside its companion volumes, notably those depicting Henry Miller's serial (& rather joylesss) shagging, this is a masterpiece of delicate & sustained eroticism, successful for its restrained imagery & authenticity of character. (Impossible to track down now. I've tried, but it's not even showing on Obelisk/Olympia Press back catalogues.)
- 1. THE BIBLE OR SHAKESPEARE
- A difficult choice. The King James Bible - the ringing tones, the rich, rumbling language, the apocalyptic imagery, the passages of transcendent poetry, all tackling the impossible task of reconciling a God of all-consuming vengeance & a God of reconciliation & love...
- Shakespeare's entire output - the brilliant word play, the psychological truth, the serpentine plotting, the extraordinary symmetry of the verse - relentless but perfectly balanced iambic pentameter, the narrative sweep...
2. A WORD YOU LIKE
Propinquity. Its meaning - nearness - & its sound (which tintinabulates, another favourite word.)
3. MOST ROMANTIC MOMENT IN FICTION
Impossible to judge. Romance is very much in the perception of the beholder. Very difficult to clamber past Wuthering Heights & its ongoing brief yet intense encounters. But I'm going to settle - a little quixotically - for Leo Persepied's ecstasy & agony over Mardou Fox in Jack Kerouac's The Subterraneans.
4. OVERRATED WRITER
Martin Amis. Too many words, too much sound & fury, not enough truth.
5. FAVOURITE TRANSLATION
Turning away from the impossibility of choosing between translations of Flaubert, Maupassant, Zola, Sartre & Camus + Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Turgenev, Chekhov & Gorky, I'll go for an obscuro: Willa Muir's version of Swedish poet Harry Martinson's extraordinary epic sci fi poem, Aniara.
6. BEST MEAL IN ENGLISH LITERATURE
Not really a meal, but Laurie Lee & Rosie beneath that cart during the high heat of harvest, sharing a flagon of cider.
7. UNDERRATED WRITER
Scottish poet, John Burnside. Highly rated, in fact, but not nearly enough. He should be up there with R.S. Thomas as a master of sparse but bone-hard imagery.
8. FAVOURITE CHILDREN'S BOOK
Easy... The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham. And Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne. And Babar the Elephant by Jean de Brunhof. And the entire Orlando the Marmalade Cat series by Katherine Hale. And the entire Jennings & Darbishire series by Anthony Buckeridge (classic British public school fiction, but with both humour & a cutting edge). And the entire William series by Richmal Crompton... (Speaker forcibly removed from the stage.)
9. BOOK(S) BY YOUR BEDSIDE NOW
The Constant Gardener by John le Carre, New Blood edited by Neil Astley (contemporary poetry from Bloodaxe Books), The Plot Against America by Philip Roth, Slowing Down by George Melly.
10. SEXIEST BOOK
Crevecoeur by Anne-Marie Charpentier. Smuggled back from France at age 16. An Obelisk Press English language limited edition, published by Maurice Girodias in Paris. Alongside its companion volumes, notably those depicting Henry Miller's serial (& rather joylesss) shagging, this is a masterpiece of delicate & sustained eroticism, successful for its restrained imagery & authenticity of character. (Impossible to track down now. I've tried, but it's not even showing on Obelisk/Olympia Press back catalogues.)
