I would imagine that any change that makes it easier for first time novelists to be published is a good thing. So, reading this following story, I was quite pleased. We have all become aware of the problems following James Flint’s ‘bidding war’ for his novel ‘Habitus’ and if taking money from an advance makes it more possible to get in print then I think its a sacrifice worth taking. The advance, as I know it, does not seem to be of that much consequence, particularly for a first time unknown author. Therefore, if the royalties are not radically different from a traditional publishing deal by way of this new method, then I’m all for it. Particularly if less ‘promotable’ experimental fiction benefits also.

Here’s the link:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,2271165,00.html

Being at home briefly for the Easter break I’ve had a chance to catch up with my sisters and how uni is going for them. I assume that their deadlines are at the beginning of term the same as mine, they, too, are within the university of london. They couldn’t tell me, with any modicum of certainty, whether or not this is the case, however. Furthermore, they dont know, regarding the essays they are to hand in, the word limit of their assignments. They have not made any plans for next year’s accommodation after they are kicked out of halls either…

…oh to be a fresher again…

they haven’t started the essays of course…so at least they needn’t worry, yet, about having overwritten.

So this wednesday past I had an interview for a modern literature MA course at Birkbeck, university of London. It turned out to be a lot of fun really. There was a total good cop, bad cop feel to it all. The good cop was a pleasant gentleman I had met before and the bad cop was a pleasant lady I had not. Generally the accessible question came from the former and the tricky ones came from latter. The most interesting, however, came from the gentleman. He asked me whether or not I felt that modernist experimentalism had run its course, as several modern writers and critics suggest. My reply (without thinking about what I was leading myself into) was that I was sure, if not hopeful, that it was not finished.

It was then that I was asked what I thought the future of experimentalist fiction might be. To which my reply, I am sure, was pretty incoherant. However, I do maintain that the notion of the experimental is far from over. It was a question that, although I had often thought about before, was made even more important to me by its being asked in this interview. As one of a group of writers going off into the (literary?) world, I pose it to you. And wonder what you make of it.

No matter how much one might disagree with Tony Blair’s politics, one thing that is hard to refute is how well oiled his PR machine was. This is particularly evident in how well he was, and no doubt is, loved in America. It helped that, despite how much he aged over his ten years of rule, he was young and attractive when he came into office. His smile always seemed genuine also. I may perhaps be disagreed with here of course, but it is his smile I want to muse upon briefly.

Tony was often on popular youth television. He was once inteviewed by that precocious little scamp June Sarpong and having watched it I really felt he did a good job. I thought he was even quite funny. I sure as buggery didn’t feel like he was a charlatan, trying to look cool. OK. I really like Tony Blair. Maybe it’s because he plays guitar or he made the museums free but I admit it, I like him. Yes I’m up nights missing him as well. This is no more true than when I watched Gordon Brown’s appearence on American Idol. We can be as sceptical as we like. Is he only appearing on such a programme to tap into that American popularity that his predecessor was so successful in achieving? I doubt it, but it is quite possibly one reason for his doing so.

Watch for yourself and revel in the dreadfully forced smile that seems to come and go as if there is a PR man behind the camera sporadically pointing to their mouth to remind Gordo his smile has retreated into that habitual gurn of his.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7339349.stm

Finally figured out how to change my dark and depressing blog page style…this one stood out as rather pretty!!!

I’m not one for writing sentence long blogs. I like to write, when I do, about something with at least a modicum of ‘beef’ to it. But today I’l indulge myself to an exception.

Ok.

I was just watching UKTV Food, I’m a geek I know. And a cook on there was making ‘Pea Guacamole’….I mean come on!!!!!

If anyone doesn’t understand why I have blogged this inane experience then it’s not worth me explaining why I have.

I went to the new Vanity Fair photographic retrospective currently being held at the national portrait gallery this past easter weekend, and it really was impressive. If not for anything else it is a chance to see some fantastic pictures by Annie Liebovitz, whose control of lighting, in my opinion, is just fantastic. Looking at any one of her pictures, even of a subject relatively far from the lens, the detail on the face is immense. I very much recommend the exhibition on such photographs alone.

It was, however, something somewhat more idiosyncratic that stood as the highlight for me. I have now learned that Vanity Fair had a certain penchant for Modernist writers. I am something of a fan of the Modernists, and particularly the ones Vanity Fair had featured in the magazines early years. At this exhibition alone were photos of Huxley, Stein (the great self-lauder), Rebecca West, Virginia Woolf and even the big dog himself James Joyce. Maybe it’s just me being impressionable, but it was something of a thrill, nay, inspirational, to see such beautiful pictures of the very writers that I am trying to, in some, albeit tenuous, way, emulate in my present work.

Needless to say it was these personalities that occupied the vast majority of the ’20’s section. Occupying our, more recent, decades, were the likes of Keira Knightley and Jennifer Aniston. This isn’t my, rather obvious, attempt at highlighting the deplorable state of who we socially admire in the current age, trust me, I think it much more the magazine’s problem than society’s. But I did feel it a shame somewhat that the only contemporary writer’s portrait, that I can remember, from the exhibition was that of Martin Amis’. And it wasn’t even a very good one.

I remember sitting in a lecture being taken by Steven Morrison. Im sure some of you have had classes with him also. He is one of the most engaging lecturers I have come accross at Holloway. Subsequently, I have always found his literary opinions particularly interesting, regardless of my agreement.

Having recently finished Beckett’s novel Molloy I am reminded of a passing statement of his from a lecture last term. Morrison said that the funniest writer he had ever read was Beckett. By this time I had become, fairly, familiar with a lot of Beckett, he being the subject of my dissertation (now coming to completion). But I couldn’t quite grasp how anything I had read would be described by anyone as “the funniest” literature they had ever read…in finishing Molloy I now understand.

If you would like to read a book that, is not only fascinating, but genuinely laugh inducing, then read Molloy. Books don’t make me laugh out loud, ever. I have always been able to appreciate books as funny, but that hasn’t ever really meant they have made me LOL, so to speak….Molloy did…often

Trust me when I say Beckett is more than the merely complicated, depressing and cryptic writer he is often given the stereotype of.

Though I am trying as hard as I can not to let my research into my (proposed) novel infringe upon my other studies, it is invariably taking up most of my time. In my pursuit of an understanding of the current and historical evolution and perception of Islam I have come accross a great many fascinating opinons regarding this subject. Many are encouraging, some, not so. Though an atheist I have a great deal of respect for religion generally. or more precisely, those who practice religion within a moderate reading of the Bible/Qur’an and so on. It is well known that the bible as well as the Qur’an has passages that wouldn’t be advertised on church billboards, at least not in the 21st century. One passage of such a Judeo-Christian God that Dr Atkinson might not propogate is that of Numbers 14:26. A seemingly pissed off God gets Moses’ attention and asks “How much longer are these wicked people going to complain agaiinst me?…I have heard enough…you will die and you corpses will be scattered accross the wilderness…because you have complained!!!” (ED-exclamation marks added for effect). Enough of this though, my intention isn’t to suggest that Christianity is wrong, or Islam or any religion, far more intelligent people than I have covered this topic countless times.

What I want to suggest is that, at least one likes to think, that Christians in Britain today, in the post-enlightenment west have come to understand their holy book as a thing open to interpretation. It is an act of faith by which believers question their God as much as they might their government, sometimes this might even take the form of complaining but I’m sure only a fundamentalist would suggest disease or war is a punishment for such questioning.

I spoke earlier of the many opinions I have come accross in my research. Perhaps the most vitriolic, if not offensive, is that of Robert Spencer’s. He is an American writer and picking up his book alone The Politically incorrect guide to Islam alone one suspects it might not be a wholly unbiased view of the religion. The cover is characterised by a man in a balaclava wielding what I can only imagine is an AK-47, or the like. Having read his book one thing becomes clear. Spencer believes that all moderate, peaceloving muslims, enlightened muslims one might call them, are not really muslims at all. At least not good muslims. A good muslim for Spencer wields AK-47’s and locks his wife up in a cellar one can imagine.

The Islamic world, a world, lamentably, characterised by countries governed under sharia law, a law based within their religious texts, may presently be more fundamentalist than what the west has changed into. One might thank the enlightenment for this, but no such evolution happens from a single movement alone. Perhaps the Islamic world is waiting for their own enlightenment, but those pushing for it, those that go by the name of moderate muslim should and must be encouraged. The alternative is to insult their enlightened philosophies and cement the idea that Islam is and always must be a religion that is manifested most perfectly within Jihadists. As a tool of terrorist recruitment Spencer is doing a good job by understanding islam in this way. Carl Jung wrote in his “The Philosophical Tree” that “enlightenment is not imagining figures of light but making the darkness conscious”. A more zealous atheist would suggest that all of religion is that said darkness. I would not. Moderate Islam is doing that great thing of bringing the darkness within its faith, a darkness that can be seen in all religion, to light, to enlightenment and, by doing so, make it concious. Good luck to them.

Looking back on this past year of your lord 2017 I come to think how many strange turns it has taken. January was a month unlike any other for a start. Having been found fucking the tea girl, by my wife in fact, at the office christmas party I was divorced by the months end. I thank the new conservative government’s “divorce in a day” legislation for this. It wasn’t so bad. The bitch believed in love once upon a time and didn’t sign a pre-nuptual agreement…so I kept the apartment and she barely got a touch of the, thankfully continuing, royalties from that dreadful novel I got published in the latter part of the last decade. Instances in which i get to see the kids are few and far between, lamentably, however. I miss little Dylan a fair bit. It’s a shame really…i think i was just about coming to terms with what being a father actually meant. The tea girl left in march which was an absolute blessing. I often come to wonder whether it reflects badly on me that I wished i’d cheated on my wife with someone a little more aesthetically pleasing, as opposed to the monster I ended up doing it with. Honestly, there are nights I wake up moist and alone my mind tortured by physical memories of that pimply, leathery hide. Surely only God can understand the cogitations of a man on the other side of a fifth of Jack D.

By June I was fired…or maybe I quit, I dunno. Surely by telling the boss he’s a cuntmunching turkey fucker one understands that they will get fired. All about perspective I guess. This was when I started writing again. I had nothing else to do. My old friend, using the term loosely, Gareth Evans, put me in touch with his agent on the merit of my first, and only, aforementioned novel. But my ideas appealed to him almost as little as the opening 10,000 words he looked at. I didn’t have anything else to do other than write, but that didn’t mean I was going to do it unless someone paid me for it. I would argue that opening section I sent him was better than the tripe Evans churns out, but I haven’t the energy for such debate anymore, not with regars to anything as pointless as ‘literature’….can’t believe that cunt won the Booker.

It’s about now, and by now i mean this past august, having not worked for months, I should say the money ran out and I started living in a box under the Hammersmith flyover, but i didnt. Money isn’t a problem ever since they made that dreadful movie adaptation of that book o’ mine. I suggested Clive owen…but they just went ahead and put that crusty bastard Kurt Russell in it instead. My own fault I guess.

In fact by august I was in France. La rochelle which is by the west coast. I would say “I wonder why I went there” but I know why I went there. I went there becaus eI fell in love with a girl from that part of france about ten years ago now. Her name was…well I guess I shouldn’t say here should I? But then again…I didn’t actually go to La rochelle at all. But if i was to say the real place it would probably be all to obvious to those in the know, so “La Rochelle” It will remain.

I hadnt seen the girl in ten years, but I knew she would be there. I didn’t, but..you know. Sometimes you just have to go. It’s pretty sad of me really. I looked her up again on the IdentiBook. It’s a bit like that old facebook we all used to be on as kids…of course this one is mandatory for all with a British passport and linked up to your identity card. I might have wondered why, since she obviously wasn’t British, she was on there, but i didn’t really lend much time to figuring this out. I looked at her residence…where she goes out from her pictures, not that they are the pictures I remember of sweaty foreheads at that bloody students union, but pictures of her favourite restaurents and areas all the same so that i might get an idea of where i might find her.

By October I had gone about conducting a chance meeting. And she hadn’t changed. It wasn’t the same as meeting an old friend again, it wasn’t so mundane. Maybe you haven’t. But I played a video game once, a game i hadnt played in over ten years and the feeling of doing so..of revisitng a world of which i had long forgotten was one of the most powerful experiences i had even been party to. every contour of her face, the shade of peach pink that coloured her lips and the soft, subtle give that they allowed as my own pressed against hers was, revisiting them, just the same. A thousand places revisted in an instant. Remembered and experienced yet again like time travel, a living memory.

Having kissed her, after just a handful of words, she was always the impulsive type, a man rushed over and pushed me out of her way. He spoke in a familiarly home counties accent. He asked me who the fuck I was. He looked to the girl, my girl, the girl I hoped would be mine and his eyes became plump, as they do, with potential tears. He apologised. I’m sorry, he said, my wife isn’t well, she doesnt know what she is doing. How did he put it? Oh yes he said she had a kind of juvenile dementia….for some reason i could only thnk of how this was why she was on the online register with all us other british residents. She must have got one through being his wife.

I’m back in London now. And, looking on her page again, it seems she died not long after our encounter. Walked off a cliff apparently. I wonder how that home counties widower is now.

Someone just knocked on the door but i wont go and answer it. when you start answering doors thats when the world starts ending through new knowledge and awareness of ones own thinking.

Good morning 2017. I will no doubt spend most of my 2018 thinking of you and what you gave me. And so to that 2018, and the things you bring.