“Justice delayed is justice denied.”
- William E. Gladstone

Peter Straus, honorary archivist to the Booker Prize Foundation, begs to differ.  Now, thanks to him, Melvyn Bragg, Len Deighton, J.G. Farrell, Susan Hill, David Lodge, Ruth Rendell and Patrick White are just some of the authors who could win The Lost Man Booker Prize– a one-off prize to honor books published in 1970 which missed out on the opportunity to win the Booker Prize.  As the Man Booker’s web site explains:

In 1971, just two years after it began, the Booker Prize ceased to be awarded retrospectively and became, as it is today, a prize for the best novel in the year of publication. At the same time, the date on which the award was given moved from April to November. As a result of these changes, there was whole year’s gap when a wealth of fiction, published in 1970, fell through the net. These books were simply never considered for the prize.

Now, 40 years on, a panel of three judges – all of whom were born in or around 1970 – has been appointed to select a shortlist of six novels from those books…

Their shortlist will be chosen from a longlist of 22 books which would have been eligible and are still in print and generally available today. They are:

o Brian Aldiss, The Hand Reared Boy
o H.E.Bates, A Little Of What You Fancy?
o Nina Bawden, The Birds On The Trees
o Melvyn Bragg, A Place In England
o Christy Brown, Down All The Days
o Len Deighton, Bomber
o J.G.Farrell, Troubles
o Elaine Feinstein, The Circle
o Shirley Hazzard, The Bay Of Noon
o Reginald Hill, A Clubbable Woman
o Susan Hill, I’m The King Of The Castle
o Francis King, A Domestic Animal
o Margaret Laurence, The Fire Dwellers
o David Lodge, Out Of The Shelter
o Iris Murdoch, A Fairly Honourable Defeat
o Shiva Naipaul, Fireflies
o Patrick O’Brian, Master and Commander
o Joe Orton, Head To Toe
o Mary Renault, Fire From Heaven
o Ruth Rendell, A Guilty Thing Surprised
o Muriel Spark, The Driver’s Seat
o Patrick White, The Vivisector

Straus recalls,

I noticed that when Robertson Davies’ Fifth Business was first published it carried encomiums from Saul Bellow and John Fowles both of whom judged the 1971 Booker Prize. However judges for 1971 said it had not been considered or submitted. This led to an investigation which concluded that a year had been excluded. I am delighted that, even in a Darwinian way, this year, with so many extraordinary novels, can now be covered by the Man Booker Prize.

Your correspondent notes, with some regret, that in the end, Davies’ novel didn’t make the list…

As thoughts of 1971 lead us to muse that we still don’t know what became of D.B. Cooper, we might pause to celebrate a master of quantity, if not quality:  Stephen J. Cannell was born on this date in 1941.  Cannell created or co-created nearly 40 television series, mostly crime dramas, including The Rockford Files, The Greatest American Hero, The A-Team, Wiseguy, 21 Jump Street, Silk Stalkings, and The Commish. In the process he scripted more than 450 episodes, and produced or executive produced over 1,500 episodes.  At the turn of the century, Cannell turned his attention to the novel; he has to date written 14.

Man or machine?

The Booker Prize remembers some great novels 40 years on

The world famous Man Booker Prize is delving back 30 years to create the long list for what has been dubbed as The Lost Man Booker Prize. The reason for a wealth of literary gems missing out the chance to win one of the literary world’s most respected prizes has been put down to the fact that in 1971 just two years after it began The Booker stopped being awarded retrospectively and became as it is now the best novel in the year of publication. At the same time the date of the award being given was moved from April to November, this now means that one year’s worth of publications published in 1970 missed out on the chance to be nominated for the Booker prize.

Now forty years on a panel of judges whom all of them where born in or around 1970 has been selected to judge to create the shortlist of six novels that the Booker prize nearly forgot. The long list was made up of books that would have been available for selection in 1970 as well as still being in print and easily available. The panel of judges is made up of journalist and critic, Rachel Cooke, ITN newsreader, Katie Derham and poet and novelist, Tobias Hill.

The long list which was announced on the 1st of February is

• Brian Aldiss, The Hand Reared Boy

• H.E.Bates, A Little Of What You Fancy?

• Nina Bawden, The Birds On The Trees

• Melvyn Bragg, A Place In England

• Christy Brown, Down All The Days

• Len Deighton, Bomber

• J.G.Farrell, Troubles

• Elaine Feinstein, The Circle

• Shirley Hazzard, The Bay Of Noon

• Reginald Hill, A Clubbable Woman

• Susan Hill, I’m The King Of The Castle

• Francis King, A Domestic Animal

•Margaret Laurence, The Fire Dwellers

• David Lodge, Out Of The Shelter

• Iris Murdoch, A Fairly Honourable Defeat

• Shiva Naipaul, Fireflies

• Patrick O’Brian, Master and Commander

• Joe Orton, Head To Toe

• Mary Renault, Fire From Heaven

• Ruth Rendell, A Guilty Thing Surprised

• Muriel Spark, The Driver’s Seat

• Patrick White, The Vivisector

Some of the names featured in the long list have featured in later Booker prize nominations David Lodge, Muriel Spark, Nina Bawden and Susan Hill where all featured in later lists. Going one step further J.G. Farrell, novel The Siege of Krishnapur won the prize in 1973 whilst Iris Murdoch’s The Sea, The Sea won in 1978. Proving that the long list is not just made up of one hit wonders that should remain in the 70s, Ion Trewin, literary director of the Man Booker Prizes commented on the list saying “Our long list demonstrates that 1970 was a remarkable year for fiction written in English. Recognition for these novels and the eventual winner is long overdue”.

The shortlist will be announced in March but like previous Booker prizes the final six will be thrown to the reading public for voting, with the overall winner being announced in May.

by Ben Kritikos

It’s been a month since I resolved to read only women authors in 2010.  So far, so good.

Though I haven’t broken any “rules” as yet (well, that depends on whether or not you consider using Jamie Oliver’s Italy or America actual “reading”); but the unfortunate side-effect, one that I hadn’t expected, is that I haven’t read much at all.  In fact, besides Arundhati Roy’s An ordinary person’s guide to Empire, I haven’t so much as opened a book this month.

In my defense, your honour, January buried her tendrils — as Januaries do — deep into my wallet.  This month’s running theme sounds like a Conservative Party convention slogan: austerity.  2010 caught me with my proverbial pants down, unemployed, lurking in the shadows with dirty fingernails, a dubious visa status and missing teeth.

As a freelance musician, I’ve come to understand the month of January as an interregnum in the otherwise smooth flow of months in a year, a month when the only things that happen are the things you wish wouldn’t.  Like football.

Still, I’ve accumulated quite some number of interesting books from friends and well-wishers.  On my list for February are Iris Murdoch’s The Sandcastle; The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingslover; and, unlike most white Americans, I’ll actually be celebrating February as Black History Month with a long-overdue introduction to Alice Walker’s iconic The Color Purple.

The only noticeable change resulting from this resolution has been the lack of something to fall back on when I’ve nothing else to do.  Normally, I’ll skim through an old favourite, opening a page at random and reading a bit here, a bit there.  I’ve been forced to think about reading, which is a good thing.

J.D. Salinger’s death proved tricky: my immediate reaction was to reach for Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: an Introduction.  I supressed the urge.

The people behind the Man Booker Prize have announced that outstanding books from “The Lost Year” will be honored at last.  Until 1970, the Booker Prize was awarded to an outstanding work of fiction from the previous year.  In 1971, the committee changed it to an award for fiction published in the same year.  That meant that everyone who published a prize-worthy book in 1970 got left out in the cold.  Forty years later, the 1970 Booker Prize will finally be awarded.

The “long list” of nominated books has been released and is included below.  A panel of three judges, poet and novelist Tobias Hill, ITN newsreader Katie Derham and the journalist and critic Rachel Cooke, will reduce the nominees to a short list of 6 finalists.  Readers will then be able to vote for the winner.  The 1970 Lost Booker Prize winner will be announced in May.

Of the 21 long list nominees, only 12 are still living.  They range in age from 68 to 87 years.  Interestingly, one of the authors included on the list is Joe Orton, who was actually bludgeoned to death in 1967… three years BEFORE the 1970 prize for which he has now been nominated.  All 21 of the nominated books are still in print, which makes me wonder:   How many of these nominees would actually have been on the list in 1970 and how many now find themselves there simply because they have stood the test of time?  No way to ever know.

The Lost Man Booker Prize Long List

Brian Aldiss, The Hand Reared Boy
HE Bates, A Little Of What You Fancy?
Nina Bawden, The Birds On The Trees
Melvyn Bragg, A Place In England
Christy Brown, Down All The Days
Len Deighton, Bomber
JG Farrell, Troubles
Elaine Feinstein, The Circle
Shirley Hazzard, The Bay Of Noon
Reginald Hill, A Clubbable Woman
Susan Hill, I’m The King Of The Castle
Francis King, A Domestic Animal
Margaret Laurence, The Fire Dwellers
David Lodge, Out Of The Shelter
Iris Murdoch, A Fairly Honourable Defeat
Shiva Naipaul, Fireflies
Patrick O’Brian, Master and Commander
Joe Orton, Head To Toe
Mary Renault, Fire From Heaven
Ruth Rendell, A Guilty Thing Surprised
Muriel Spark, The Driver’s Seat
Patrick White, The Vivisector

January’s Wordle offering is above.

I have read:

• A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini
• The Bell – Iris Murdoch
• Dracula (audiobook, unabridged) – Bram Stoker
• Mr. Vertigo – Paul Auster
• The Whale Road – Robert Low

Lovely.

]]> http://moonlightblues.wordpress.com/2010/01/30/atipic-pentru-murdoch/ Sat, 30 Jan 2010 17:31:30 +0000 moonlightblues http://moonlightblues.wordpress.com/2010/01/30/atipic-pentru-murdoch/

Sa citesti Dilema lui Jackson dupa ce ai citit alte romane ale autoarei este o experienta cel putin bizara, ca si cum ai intra intr-un cinema sa vezi o drama si te trezesti din greseala intr-o sala unde ruleaza o comedie. Pana pe la jumatatea cartii am tot  incercat sa dau vina pe traducere sau pe lipsa chefului meu de citit asa ca am hotarat sa o pun deoparte cateva zile. Nimic nu s-a schimbat insa si am impresia ca dupa ce am reluat lectura i-am cautat si mai mult cusururi.

Ca tema, Dilema lui Jackson urmeaza acelasi tipar ca si alte romane scrise de Murdoch, cu un eveniment important in jurul caruia personajele se grupeaza, intersecteaza, tes intrigi: disparitia miresei cu o zi inaintea unei nunti indelung asteptata provoaca un sir de incidente si procese de constiinta intr-un grup de londonezi care-si petrec mare parte din timp intr-o casa din provincie.

Este o carte despre acceptare, singuratate, cu unele trimiteri la religie. Majoritatea personajelor care cauta explicatii pentru anularea nuntii isi recunosc propriile slabiciuni si temeri in scenariile imaginate. Coplesite de remuscari, cautand o impacare cu trecutul sau iresponsabile, naive, ce cad uneori in trivial. Dar cu toata diversitatea personajelor, am ramas cu impresia ca nu se prea pune accent pe evolutia lor si o mai mare importanta o au neintelegerile ivite si conversatiile de salon.

Apar o multime de dialoguri nefiresti, personaje sau gesturi voit “enigmatice “ care de-a lungul cartii par putin fortate, ce sa mai vorbesc si de rezolvarea cu trei nunti parca desprinsa dintr-o comedie cu happy end care nu a fost deloc pe placul meu. O carte diferita de ce am mai citit de Iris Murdoch, cu un stil mai lejer, poate intr-o anumita masura asemanatoare cu Fiul cuvintelor.

I belong to a book group, and our habit over Christmas is to spend two months reading a weighty tome (Nicholas Nickleby in the current vintage). We then use our December meeting to review our year’s reading and vote on our favourite book. The voting is taken quite seriously – one of our number was snowed in, down an un-gritted road in Ripponden, so she voted by e-mail. Yes, we do use proportional representation, and yes, using FPTP would have skewed the result! The winner, just pipping The Secret Scripture, was An Unofficial Rose by Iris Murdoch. We loved this book for its complexity and subtlety, and a unanimous thumbs-up from us is very rare!

Listening to all the corny Christmas stuff. Still the best by a stretch is Fairytale of New York…can’t believe Kirsty’s been gone for nine years. My Christmas stocking contained several musical offerings, but so far there’s been no chance to sample them. Something to look forward to in the dark days of January.

Watching The Life of Brian on DVD. This timeless classic of satire, with a 30 year-old documentary on Orson Welles, made current Christmas TV appear a poor thing indeed. I know I sound like a caricature of a grumpy middle-aged woman, but I’m sure there was better stuff on the box when we only had three channels. Mind you, no meta-analysis of the time/quality axis can possibly explain the longevity of Bruce Forsyth’s career! Or can it??

Happy Friday, everyone.

Friday’s are usually pretty quiet here at the office, so I usually make myself busy with checking out the blogrolls and other projects.  This morning, I wrote my sponsor child in the Philippines a letter, sorted out some OSAP details, and sent out a query letter.  Shhhhhhhhhh, don’t tell anyone!  I’m also in the homestretch of my NaNoWriMo novel (or, as Rikki says, Nanaimo novel!) and at 43,000/50,000 words, I have nowhere else to go.  In a desperate attempt for some online inspiration, I’ve found the following things to stir my imagination.

Enjoy!

Video Love

I love stop motion!  Which reminds me of these …

This has been making the rounds on the Internets lately, and what kind of (sometimes) book blogger would I be if I didn’t link to it too?

More stop motion loveliness.  I love this lyric:  She pours a daydream in a cup / A spoon of sugar sweetens up … 

I must, must, MUST see this movie!!!  It’s inspiring much of the feel of my next novel (yep, already thinking of the next one because I’m a glutton for punishment) Visually stunning and so fantastical!  And Jude Law, Johnny “Sexiest Man Alive” Depp, Christopher Plummer, Colin Farrell, Terry Gilliam, and the late, talented Heath Ledger? Yes, please!

Quote love

Wine is sunlight, held together by water  – Galileo 

Well, darkness exists so the stars can shine, darling  –  Source Unknown (if someone knows the source, please let me know!  If this is a quote from One Tree Hill or something, I will kick a pigeon.  Just kidding.  I don’t advocate violence towards animals.  But I will feel terribly, terribly let down by the universe.)

Love is the extremely uncomfortable realization that something other than oneself is real  – Irish Murdoch

Sexy authors and historical figures love

Sir Isaac Brock. You know you can't resist that hand on the hip pose!

Andrew Sean Greer, author of "The Confessions of Max Tivoli," a very beautiful book

Neil Gaiman ftw!

Joseph Boyden: hot AND Canadian!

A young Nathaniel Hawthorne could give ME a scarlet letter ... *wink wink!*

Lord Byron: HE walks in beauty, like the night

And because I pretty much have to …

Listen to Wiretap. For Jonathan Goldstein.

Read Broken Pencil magazine. For Hal Niedzviecki.

That’s all I’ve got for now.  May your weekends be as busy or as lazy as you wish them to be.  Other than writing like the madwoman in the attic (rereading Jane Eyre for the billionth time; couldn’t resist!), I plan on having a schedule-free one.

Iris

You know more about me than anyone. You are my world.

(Iris (2001) The young Iris Murdoch to John)

I miss

believing you

love me

best, for

knowing me

deepest. I

miss your

good intentions

but not

the hell

you pave

with them.

Your commitment

to mistaking

my I-dentity

is catastrophic

“The love which brings the right answer to moral problems is an exercise of justice and realism and really looking.  The difficulty is to keep the attention fixed upon the real situation and to prevent it returning surreptitiously to the self with consolations of self-pity, resentment, fantasy, and despair. Attention is rewarded by a knowledge of reality.”

~ Iris Murdoch

Jane Friedman at SCPS-NYU Center for Publishing

“To be a success, you only have to be right 51% of the time,” said former HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman about her publishing career, past and future. Friedman was speaking to an audience of graduate students, alumni, and faculty of NYU-SCPS Center for Publishing. Publishing heavyweights such as Michael Cader, creator of Publishers Marketplace; Peter Workman,  president and CEO of Workman Publishing; and Bob Miller, president and publisher of HarperStudio also listened intently as Friedman talked about her exciting new e-book company, Open Road Integrated Media.

With 70% of the population having access to the internet, 30% of all books in the U.S. being purchased online, and 96% of young adults being connected to a social network, Friedman realized the importance of creating and distributing meaningful content whenever and wherever readers want it. After 30 years in publishing, she says  that “the only constant is change.” However, sometimes change means recognizing the importance of the past and of books that stand the test of time.  Friedman noted that many of the books she reads are the same ones she wants her children and grandchildren to read. So, with the sale of classic works diminishing, she decided to reinvigorate the great masters.  “I like to tell people I am going ‘back to the future,’ ” she said. Open Road will focus on creating e-versions of backlist books; the first three authors on the list are Dame Iris Murdoch, Pat Conroy and William Styron, whose topics, of course, include depression and war. “You can ride that for a long time,” Friedman said to much laughter.

In addition to publishing electronic editions of the literary giants, Open Road will create “e-riginals”, a term Friedman has coined for books that will be born in digital format.  Other functions of the company include self-publishing and print-on-demand. Digital entertainment, with apps, widgets and audio platforms, is also in the works. She described Open Road as a marketing platform which will work with the social network community, websites and blogs and will do a lot of “pushing out and getting feedback.”

Her company already has agreements to create digi-content for two publishers, Grove/Atlantic and Kensington Books. Although Open Road is currently weighted towards fiction, they will publish in any category. Friedman hopes to publish about 1000 books in her first year.

The audience had a chance to meet her partner and Open Road’s President, Jeffrey Sharp, an award-winning movie producer. Sharp, who previously ran a film development division at HarperCollins, talked about potential movie adaptations for Open Road’s backlist.Visit the company’s website www.openroadmedia.com, designed by Code and Theory, to see the company’s first few videos.

When asked about the business model for Open Road, Friedman talked about the benefit of being a small company. Not having the same overhead as larger companies, Open Road has the ability to move quickly when something works or doesn’t, and the flexibility and edge to be potentially successful.  “Bookstores have shrunk, but advances and returns have not,” Friedman noted. With the publishing industry suffering from declining revenue, she argued that it is time to look at another way of doing business. Although, Open Road will not provide author advances, Friedman feels the profit sharing model could be extremely rewarding to authors. Furthermore, she promises a strong marketing arm and adhering to the same five fundamental tenets of publishing she has used throughout her career:

1. Publishing is about relationships

2. Hire the right people

3. Authors are your most important asset

4. Know your audience

5. Move with and embrace technology

As in any conversation about e-books, the subject of the right price came up. Friedman said she though the value of an e-book should be roughly the same as a trade paperback, and cited $14, possibly more for premium content. “The value of an e-book is the same value for the person reading it as any other format of the book,” she offered, rejecting the notion that digital editions had to be “cheap.”  Like DVD’s that include extra footage and content, Open Road will also include ancillary materials, including author bios and interviews. However none of this will be embedded in the actual text; Friedman does not believe in disrupting “the purity of the read.”

All in all, Friedman is bullish not only about her new company, but about the industry in general. “This is the most exciting time for publishing,” she said. “There are more books, more diverse formats, and more opportunities to serve customers in a whole new way.”

By Alyssa Léal

For another take on this event, check out the SCPS News blog’s entry. You can find video of the event here.

After my previous post on a few things Book Group orientated and The Riverside Readers I said that I would come back with a post on my personal top Book Group reads as well as discussing my top Book Group tips. Those two things would actually make a bit of a Bible of a post and so I will do the top books today and a few tips and my own experiences for and of Book Groups on Thursday, so hopefully you are all still interested in all things Book Group related. Could I fit the words Book Groups in these previous sentences if I tried?

After seeing Novel Insights wonderful post on her personal top twelve books a group could read in a year I thought I would have a go. This isn’t plagiarism it’s simply joining in, ha. Having been in a few book groups (in fact I am currently in two though one is rather rogue and we only do one every so often when the whim takes us) I realised that I had a list of 38 books that I could choose from. Some of the books haven’t worked (Tales of the Jazz Age – we all had different editions which all featured a different selection of short stories), some have received indifference, some have been disliked and some have been loved, more on those in my list.

Though I haven’t featured the books that were indifferent or went wrong I have included one book which I didn’t care for but caused great discussion and that’s one thing I have noticed from book groups, I might not always like a book but that in itself when lots of people do can make for a great book group read as it causes debate. So what five things do I do in order to make a book group choice now, I may not have always done this in the past mind;

1. Books you wouldn’t normally read – one of the main points of a book group in my mind – but which are accessible, you don’t want to alienate your other group members.
2. Books which have been received with strong reviews/thoughts both positive and negative way when they came out, this could cause great debate.
3. Books that make you think and cause all sorts of discussions with yourself in your own head though you can’t always predict these in advance.
4. Authors you love and admire who other people might not have tried, though don’t be precious on these as they could get ripped to shreds.
5. Books that challenge and push you as a reader, if they are going to do this to you they probably will be to others.

Looking back at all the book groups I have been part of in the past which book would I recommend the most? Well after some whittling of the 38 I have read with book groups I came up with the final twelve (like Novel Insights I have chosen a years worth) that I think have caused the greatest discussion in no particular order.

• Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
• The Bell – Iris Murdoch
• In Cold Blood – Truman Capote
• On Chesil Beach – Ian McEwan (close tie with Atonement to be honest)
• The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
• To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee
• Half of a Yellow Sun – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
• Animal’s People – Indra Sinha
• Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck (the one I didn’t like – discussion was great)
• The Book of Dave – Will Self
• Kafka on the Shore – Hariku Murakami

So there it is. You can see the full list of all 38 books now on the “new and improved” Book Group page where you can also see what the next book group read is. You may be wondering why some of the above list are in bold. Well my Gran wants a list of five books, as I mentioned on a previous post, she could put forward for her book group. I am actually going to send her a list of new books she and her group are less likely to have read along with the five above in bold. More book group musings on Thursday when I will be discussing Book Group decorum and what made me sensationally (love the drama of that word) leave a book group I started after two years! Let me know what you think of the final twelve too can you spot any themes in them? Also please do tell me of any great books you have done in a book group in the past.

P.S Sorry no picture on today’s post I am not a big fan of posts with no images, if it drives me to crazy will be the shot of The Riverside Readers again!

I never knew just how many famous people dropped off society’s radar because of Alzheimer’s/dementia! I was surprised to see certain people in this list, because often the news would only say that so-and-so passed away; the person’s Alzheimer’s/dementia diagnosis was not always mentioned.

(Please ignore the depressing soundtrack and overly dramatic ending; the names and faces are really the most interesting part of this video.)

The Sandcastle begins with a fractious dialogue between Mor (the main character) and his wife Nan. It becomes clear within only a few pages that this kind of antagonistic exchange is common between them. In the middle of the discussion, Mor makes a reference to their dead dog, seemingly out of the blue. And then Murdoch delivers two lines which put their entire relationship into perspective:

This animal had formed the bond between Mor and Nan which their children had been unable to form. Half unconsciously, whenever Mor wanted to placate his wife he said something about Liffey.

I really like this kind of specific insight into a character, especially when, as I suspected correctly, it also serves to highlight the book’s central focus. In the case of The Sandcastle, a book about an unraveling marriage, these two sentences illustrate the longstanding tension between Mor and Nan (and ultimately the complete failure of their marriage) as well as reveal a fundamental issue of Mor’s personality – his need to mollify Nan.

As the book progresses and certain important events transpire (Mor meets an engaging young painter and begins a chaste affair with her), his absolute inability to really cross Nan becomes fundamental to the rest of the story. So what looks on the surface like an exploration of the bonds of marriage and whether they are really sacred is actually a careful and detailed criticism of Mor’s particular weakness.

I mentioned earlier that Murdoch was recommended to me as a writer I would like because of my deep admiration for Nadine Gordimer. Interestingly, I think I actually put off reading Murdoch for a long time because I was afraid to make the comparison and find either writer lacking. Now that I’ve read Murdoch, I realize how silly this was. They are similar, so I can see where the recommendation came from, but of course they each carry certain distinct stylistic traits.

Without reading more Murdoch I can’t make a real comparison, but I do think it is interesting to note some of the echoes of Gordimer I found while reading The Sandcastle. First, the flawlessness of the male narrator. Not all female authors even try, let alone succeed, in writing from the male perspective. This is something Gordimer does with about half of her novels and each time I felt it was a seamless performance. The voice of the male narrator in The Sandcastle was equally convincing.

Second, I’ve written before about how much I enjoy Gordimer’s moments of insight, where, in just a few lines, she manages to explicate or illuminate a certain feeling or thought. She takes a singular experience and renders it universally understandable for the reader. Murdoch did exactly this in The Sandcastle, allowing her characters to reflect on the world with bold statements and keen observations and by giving them a voice to their precise, individual thoughts in such a way that the reader says, yes, that is exactly what that feels like.

And finally, both writers are courageous in their use of dialogue, allowing their characters to engage in complicated, weighty conversations at the risk of moving too far away from the cadence and rhythm of natural dialogue. I think Gordimer almost always gets away with this risky endeavor, and I think Murdoch succeeds perfectly in The Sandcastle.

Murdoch has an even larger oeuvre than Gordimer and although I don’t think I’ll be able to tackle it this year, I’d very much like to read her from start to finish in the way I read Gordimer in 2008. If anything I will get a copy of The Sea, The Sea and read that before the end of the year. Any other suggestions?

[belíssima dica da Carol Andreis]

I like to think of myself as a connoisseur of style. In my ambitious youth I teased myself with Homeric Greek, Dostoyevskian Russian and Flaubertian French in an effort to become more intimate with my idols. But then, in my twenties, came the devastating realisation that my native English style, despite years of patient effort, was still glaringly deficient. Writing stories was very difficult for me, writing business documents even harder. I struggled to put one sentence after another in anything like a coherent pattern. 

I started to read books on how to write. All my foreign novels went up into the attic and I refused to read anything in translation. I sought out the purist English stylists and eschewed anything showy or slipshod. 

Iris Murdoch became a favourite, followed by Terry Pratchett. 

I was appalled when I saw a television interviewer ask Iris Murdoch, “How do you account for your status as one of Britain’s best living novelists, given that you don’t really have any style to speak of?” 

“I like to think I have quite a neat little prose style,” she said. 

That was telling him! 

One of the things about great style is that it often goes unnoticed. All the craft is hidden. What emerges instead is the meaning, which the reader flatters himself he has grasped easily because he is clever. 

What makes Dostoyevsky great is his lucidity. It doesn’t matter that his work is mediated by an imperfect translator or that he tells his stories in a rambling, discursive style with lots of digressions and debates. The souls of his characters appear luminously before you and their moral and spiritual preoccupations are laid out with comprehensive candour. Nobles and peasants, cynics and idealists are all given equal treatment. There is breadth and depth in his novels. Yet everything unfolds with apparent ease. 

The style of The Brothers Karamazov, his last and greatest novel, is the effortlessness of a professional man of letters who knew that the hardest challenge was to set everything before the reader in such a way that it could be readily understood. Reading it is one of the easiest and most pleasurable things in the world only because it’s the culmination of a lifetime dedicated to the craft of writing. 

So what happens?

The narrator of Iris Murdoch’s Under The Net, Jake Donaghue, is a complete waster who scrounges a roof over his head from whichever of his (frequently women) friends can be persuaded to put up with him. He is, of course, a writer. He’s in love with Anna who he suspects is also loved by Hugo (a fireworks manufacturer cum film magnate) who is possibly loves Sadie who is, perhaps, a bit sweet on Jake. Or is it Hugo? Either way, a washed up canine filmstar, a bookie, a floozie named Madge and a mysterious Sibylline figure called Mrs Tinckham who keeps a newsagent and a tribe of cats also come and go. In the end, everyone loves someone but not necessarily as assumed. Oh, and there is a sidekick named Finn. Did someone say ‘picaresque’?

Why on earth should I read it?

Because it’s the first and lightest of Murdoch’s novels. Philosophy permeates the text but airily, like bubbles rising through champagne. It might not have the gravitas or seriousness of later works, but (with the possible exception of The Bell), there’s a lightness of touch and an optimistic sense of the possibilities of redemption in the heart of the human experience I haven’t encountered anywhere else in her novels, though I can’t claim to have read them all.

So no caveats?

None whatsoever. It wouldn’t be my favourite or the first of her books I’d recommend (that would be The Bell or The Unicorn – I’ve a weakness for the Gothic qualities of the late sixties books) but it’s unique. Well for Murdoch, anyway.

Aha! So there is a catch?

Hmm. Well, the blend of philosophical discourse and novel wasn’t new – Sartre in particular was obviously a model and Murdoch was a philosopher before she became a novelist.  And whilst London has frequently stood in as a major character in Murdoch’s books – the spookily rendered Isle of Dogs in The Time of the Angels, for example, or the whistle stop tour of Soho and the City that ensues in Under The Net itself – the novelist who most springs to mind as resonating with Under The Net is G.K. Chesterton, the Chesterton of the fantastical The Napoleon of Notting Hill and The Man Who Was Thursday in particular.

Oh, and under what net, exactly?

The net of language, of course. We don’t get out from under it but we do learn to live with it and even to see behind it.  Under The Net is full of raised veils, from the the epic collapse of the plasterboard Rome in a film studio to the final lifting of the veils of self-deception from the eyes of Jake.  Twenty four years later, the narrator of The Sea, The Sea would relapse almost instantaneously back into his old Satyr-like ways but Jake, a creation of a less jaded writer, may even have learned to be good.

The Sunday Salon is a virtual gathering of booklovers on the web, where they blog about bookish things of the past week, visit each others weblogs, oh — and read

Let’s start this Salon post with a confession: I have been a bad grrl and bought 3 more books for myself!

• I Am a Cat (Natsume Soseki)
• The Old Capital (Yasunari Kawabata)
• The Housekeeper and the Professor (Yoko Ogawa)

I’ve got a great excuse though: I joined the new online Japanese Literature Book Group and Read-along at In Spring It Is The Dawn — and these are the first books on the agenda. I am really looking forward to it!

Another fun thing to do over there is this months Hello Japan! mini mission:

Read or watch something scary, spooky, or suspenseful, and Japanese of course!

Since I have enough to read already I decided to rent a movie that has been on my wishlist for a long time now: Dark Water (Honogurai mizu no soko kara), by Hideo Nakata. You might have heard of the American remake with Jodie Foster, but I prefered to see the original. I’ll tell you why in my upcoming review post! It was a nice Friday night activity to surprise Mr Gnoe with, especially with the stormy autumn weather that has set in

But back to bookish things. For the last three months of 2009 I am also participating in the Set It Yourself Challenge (SIY) #10. Just to keep the pressure on my challenges: I have listed all 5 books I need to read before the end of this year:

• The Chosen (Chaim Potok)
• The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
• The Pillowbook (Sei Shonagon)
• The Sea, the Sea (Iris Murdoch)
• The Old Capital (Yasunari Kawabata)

I have joined this Bookcrossing challenge before in 2008 and 2009; succeeding twice, failing once…

Speaking of Bookcrossing: I made a first attempt at the Bookcrossing monthly readathon. But instead of 24 I read for 15 hours and 8 in the last week of September. So technically I failed but I am actually quite proud of the result because it was an awfully busy week. You can read about my thoughts concerning the readathon in Friday’s post. Now I am really looking forward to the autumnal 24 hour read-a-thon of October 24th! I am already making a list of books and snacks to lock myself in with

Partly thanks to the readathon I finished more books in September than I usually read in a month:

• Vlinder in de wind (Butterfly in the Wind) by Rei Kimura (reviewed)
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (review pending), #4 on the list of Banned and Challenged Classics
• Het pauperparadijs (Pauper Paradise) by Suzanna Jansen (no review planned)
• Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates (review pending)

Current book: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. Wednesday’s update post will tell you why I picked this book. I am ‘buddy reading’ with two Boekgrrls: MaaikeB and Manon, so one of these days I should mail them my thoughts so far!

Another exciting thing going on this week is BAFAB! Buy A Friend A Book. One of my favourite reads of the past years is on its way to a long time friend that is on a busy schedule at the moment. I’ll give the book a chance to arrive for a few days longer, so I can’t say more!
Do you BAFAB?

Challenges / Bookgroups etc.

Progress update on my challenges that I have not yet mentioned above:

• Japanese Challenge (Aug 2009-Mar 2010): read and reviewed 1/1
  (✔ finished, but intent on reading more)
• Classics Challenge (2009, entree level): read 3/6, reviewed 0/6
• What’s In A Name Challenge (2009): read 6/6, reviewed 3/6
• Personal 2008-2009 Challenge: read 8/12
• SIY Challenge #10 (Oct-Dec 2009): read 0/5

Current Bookgroup reads:

• Boekgrrls September book: Away, by Amy Bloom (read and reviewed in Dutch on the mailing list)
• Boekgrrls October book: Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates (read, to be reviewed)
• Japanese Literature Book Group for November 30th: The Old Capital, by Yasunari Kawabata (TBR)
• Japanese Literature Read-along for November 15th: I Am A Cat (part I), by Natsume Soseki (TBR)

That’s it for now. I need to get up my review of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird a.s.a.p. so that I can send this Bookcrossing book along to the next reader. Better get on with it!

“People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.”

~Iris Murdoch

http://impreso.milenio.com/node/8636094

Aunque su actitud hacia el arte es cambiante, para Platón el artista se opone a la labor de desbroce de la filosofía, y mientras el filósofo discierne la verdad, el artista retrata sombras. Para Platón en el arte todo se vuelve relativo y el artista mismo suele ser falaz y propenso a la debilidad moral. Por lo demás, el artista amenaza la estabilidad social: sus tramas truculentas falsean la religión y debilitan la cohesión, en particular la comedia con su representación de todos los defectos humanos y su celebración del acto brutal y degradante de la risa. El arte, pues, se sumerge en el mal y conforma una espiritualidad hechiza que obstaculiza la superación del hombre.

La refutación de Murdoch no es nueva, pero sí teñida de sentido común y emoción erudita. La actitud platónica hacia el arte —dice— está lejos de ser rudimentaria y se entiende perfectamente dentro de su contexto histórico y filosófico. Además, el escepticismo platónico hacia el arte reaparece periódicamente, y no sólo en primitivos tiranos, sino en figuras de primer orden (Tolstoi, Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein, por mencionar algunos). Cierto, no es fácil disociar totalmente el ámbito estético de la moral y puede entenderse la angustia y disgusto de algunos espíritus ante un arte que parece apuntalar la decadencia. Si se atiende a la conocida figura del verdugo nazi que de día cumplía imperturbable su deber y por la noche se conmovía hasta las lágrimas con la música clásica, es inevitable albergar dudas sobre la capacidad del arte para formar en el bien. Igualmente, si se conoce a ciertos artistas es factible que no dejen la mejor impresión de afabilidad y nobleza. Por lo demás, es posible ser bueno y justo, sin un gusto artístico refinado. Resulta fácil entonces decepcionarse de la actividad artística como formación ética y del artista como figura moral. Quizá, como lo apunta Murdoch, el problema radica en las expectativas irrealistas en torno al poder formativo del arte: si bien Platón se sentía preocupado por lo corrosivo del arte, en esta libertad radica su potencial para convertirse no en una normativa o un ejemplo incontestable, sino en un espacio de reflexión. La posibilidad del arte no radica en la enseñanza del bien, sino en la oportunidad de aprender del dolor y del mal, en eso misterioso hacia lo que apunta y que tiene que ver con las más secretas ambivalencias y contradicciones humanas.

Although I had plenty of time to maybe finish off a book or 2, I had to halt the marathon since a cousin was visiting us. Now my niece who ensures that she’s up-to-date with all the latest movies insisted that I watch Pink Panther 2. She was stunned when I showed my ignorance of such a veritable movie (that is her take not mine!)

So I sat with her to watch this funny movie – Steve Martin plays the bumbling but lucky inspector Clouseau who is assigned to the case of the master thief with the amateur Dream Team, The Tornado, who has stolen valuable artifacts across the globe against the wishes of his immediate superior Chief Inspector Dreyfus who is utterly frustrated by the lucky escapades of Clouseau. Just as Clouseau steps over the line demarcating ‘You are now leaving France’, news breaks that the Pink Panther Diamond has also been stolen. Joined by the Dream Team and a criminology expert, Sonia, the movie is full of hilarious incidents as Clouseau uses his rather ambiguous and unconventional methods to expose and capture The Tornado. But the Dream Team is questioned and Clouseau’s acts of foolishness are mocked at, when the thief manages to steal the Pope’s ring right under the nose of the Vatican security.

Then news arrives that The Tornado had committed suicide, and while the others celebrate Clouseau uncovers the identity of the real thief. He unsuccessfully tries to bring this to the notice of the rest of the team who believe that Clouseau is joking yet again but his secretary/girl friend Nicole realizes the truth. What happens next is worthwhile the watch.

Steve Martin is impeccable as Clouseau and John Cleese couldn’t be funnier as his superior Dreyfus. I unfortunately can’t say much about Aishwarya Rai’s acting as Sonia. Her presence in the film was more like the presence of an extra character to the scene. There wasn’t much meat to her character except maybe towards the end where she is revealed to be the actual thief. There is this particularly hilarious instance, where Clouseau manages to burn the same hotel twice. It’s a worthy watch and maybe addable to your DVD collection if you are a fan of Steve Martin or Pink Panther!

The next movie in line was the Elf. While the movie is funny, I can’t vouch that it is way funnier than Pink Panther. I mean Pink Panther 2 beats the list of comedy movies I’ve watched so far. The story is more or less based on the concept of the Grinch or Scrooge whichever way you’d take it.

Will Farrell stars as Buddy, a human who was adopted by the Elfs at North Pole while he was a baby. He accidentally slips into Santa’s bag while at the orphanage and well…Santa decides to introduce him to the Elf community. Sadly Buddy inability to make toys or bake cookies (routine work for the Elfs) makes him stand-out, and prompts Papa Elf to reveal the nature of his adoption. Buddy lands in New York to reconcile with his biological father Walter Hobbs who is happily married to another lady and has a 10 year-old son. While he is a publishing editor for children’s books, he is a snob who doesn’t believe in the spirit of Christmas. He initially rejects Buddy but later takes him home when he sees the picture of Buddy’s mother. The rest of the story is how Buddy and his dad reconcile through a set of circumstances that serves to bring the family closer.

And the last one in the marathon was Iris. The story is based on the life of Dame Iris Murdoch, a famed British author whose works I’m totally ignorant of. I mean I’ve stumbled on some of her books but that’s about it. Never bothered reading them yet.

Kate Winslet plays young Iris while Judi Dench plays the older one. The story revolves around Iris, her friendships, her relationships and marriage not to mention her talent with words being robbed by Alzheimer’s. Despite her forward-thinking, her boldness Iris marries John Bayley, a professor at Oxford (that’s my assumption) who is a bumbling and a timid sort of guy. While she manages the house and the relationship until the very end, Bayley is left to care for Iris when Alzheimer’s disease sets in.

The movie was kind of a slow paced one where Iris’s life unfolds in a series of flashbacks and present day scenarios but it is not until half way through that you realize her frustration at not being able to complete her latest novel due to Alzheimer’s.  Its not exactly a movie you’d watch with popcorn and coke but nonetheless watchable if only once. From the entire movie, my favorites though are these 2 quotes that I faithfully noted down for the fear of forgetting them :) -

When Iris is introduced at her alma mater and asked to say a few words:

“Education doesn’t make you happy and nor does freedom. We don’t become happy just because we are free, if we are, or because we’ve been educated if we have, but because education maybe the means by which we realize we are happy. It opens our eyes, our ears…tells us where delights are lurking, convinces us that there is only freedom of any importance whatsoever – that of the mind, and gives us the assurance, the confidence to walk the path our mind…our educated mind offers.”

In one of her TV interviews:

“People ofcourse are very secretive. And, for many reasons, want to appear what we call ordinary. Everybody has thoughts they want to conceal. Perhaps even quite simple aspects of their lives. People have obsessions and fears and passions which they wont admit to. I think any character is interesting and has extremes. It is the novelist’s privilege to see how odd everyone is.”

On language:

“Reading, writing and the preservation of language and its forms and the kind of eloquence and the kind of beauty that language is capable of is something terribly important to human beings because….this is connected to thought.”