Putting a pin through the past. The welcoming scene to greet me as I arrived at Camden Road Overground Station last night was that of a drunken old tramp relieving himself against a tree. It was good to be back in the old neighbourhood and to see that so little had changed since I finished working here almost six months ago….
Tag: Literature
Morewell
Keep the Aspidistra Flying – George Orwell (1936) After my review of George Orwell: A Literary Life last week, I decided to Google-up on what’s going on in the Orwell universe as of late. One link follows another and, as these things tend to play themselves out, I am now registered to attend an all day conference on the author’s work…
There is no such thing as revenge
George Orwell: A Literary Life – Peter Davison (1996) It is said that everybody needs a hobby, but that is not to say you should be limited to only one. While some of my hobbies could be described as practical in their scope, such as learning a new language or exercising, over the last few…
If only it were all so simple!
The Gulag Archipelago – Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1973) The Mission – In an attempt to better keep track of my reading, I have settled on the idea that creating a short a post on the book with which I am currently engaged might prove a productive and useful undertaking. For the last 2 weeks, I have been spending every spare moment utterly transfixed by Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag…
To hold the world in the palm of your hand
WordPress tells me that I have now used up the entire 3Gb of storage offered on my plan. This means that if I wish to continue maintaining this site then I’m going to have to make a decision on what to do next. I can either fork out for a premium plan or transfer everything onto a…
Be genuine with questionable haircuts
As my stretch of employment in Camden Town comes to a close, I can’t help but get a little reflective about my time spent here. When I first started working in this famously rowdy district three years ago, it would not be a stretch to say that I was far from keen on the area. However, as I’ve…
Do what you can
Herself is in Greece, so I’m home alone for the next week until I join her over there for Greek Easter. I’ll have to find something to keep myself occupied for the weekend, though I fear my efforts may amount to little more that sitting on the couch and watching Sergei Bondarchuk’s incredible 8 hour…
A screen is not a page
Nobody enjoys a good pavement sign more than myself, so when herself and I came across this humourous curiosity whilst out for a walk on Saturday, I had to take a picture to share. Enjoy.
One for the poets
In the closing chapter of Augustus by John Williams, a novel I have just finished reading for the second time, I noticed yet another passage that I criminally overlooked on the first read. This quote appears in a letter written by the elderly and reflective emperor Octavius Caesar, to his friend, the historian and philosopher,…
The Romans and the Moralists
I am half way through rereading Augustus, a suberb novel by John Williams, author of the equally brilliant Stoner and Butcher’s Crossing, and noticed this particularly eloquent passage that I had overlooked the first time through. The quote is taken from a fictionalised 12BC letter from the political advisor Gaius Cilnius Maecenas to Titus Livius and…
A Long Walk Through The City
Soon we found ourselves in Bloomsbury where around every corner you half expect to find T.S Eliot or Virginia Woolf stood in discussion with one of their literary acquaintances from that little bourgeois social circle of theirs. When Americans see London in their movies, says my old man, this is the London they are seeing.
Under Pressure
The bookshelf above my bed is now beyond overloaded and I’m quite certain that it’s going to collapse any day now. We’re at breaking point. One of the screws on the bottom left corner is looking particularly dodgy, and despite my best efforts I can’t get the damn thing tightened back into the wall. I…
The Quick and the Pointless
It is a curious thing that you are now just as likely to find a copy of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road in a second-hand bookshop as you are to find a copy of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. It reminds me of the comedian Stewart Lee’s joke that, considering the current condition of the literary world, the…
Literature, Icebergs and Movies
The members of the Pure Cinema Movement of the early 20th century understood film and literature as two irreconcilably differing artistic forms. On the contrary, I’ve always thought that beyond cosmetic details the two actually keep to very similar conventions. If you have ever attended a creative writing course then I’m sure that you’ll be familiar with the…