Selected Reading Reviews: 2015-16

A friend mentioned the use of vanity to motivate himself to read. The idea being that he regularly posts a list of books he has read, with short reviews accompanying them, in order to impress the internet and incentivise reading. It seems a perfectly good idea, so I thought I'd copy it. Fortunately I have been keeping a list of the books I have read, along with mini-reviews, for just over two years  now. Accordingly this post is an assortment of reviews for some of the good, bad and ugly books that I have read over the last two years. So, in no particular order...

Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain

A ground-breaking book in so far as it detailed the world of cheffing in juxtaposition to that of fine dining. Very honest but not entirely un-pretentious. Bourdain clearly revels in his mastery of the nomenclature of cooking and takes a childlike glee in revealing the seedy, crude and bleakly comical world of professional cookery to his presumably upper-middle-class clientele. It's as funny as it is insightful and for anyone wondering, as an ex-cook, I can confirm that it is mostly true.

Ariel by Sylvia Plath

Cutting and personal to the point of being cryptographic: such is modern verse libre. Lots of wonderful images and lovely mouth sounds: "the yew's black fingers wag" and "fat, gold watch". Initially intimidating on account of its obscurity but by the end I salvaged a few nuggets of poetic black gold.

One Hundred Years of Protest by Christopher Catherwood

A warning against what will happen to those who write about contentious subjects while trying not to upset anyone: in this case Catherwood ends up comparing Palestinians throwing rocks to rifle-fire from professional soldiers. This is done purely so that the author can preach the refrain "senseless violence on both sides".

Gandhi here is portrayed as an anti-racist (he wasn't) and a hard-line pacifist (again, nope) and the psychology of militant activism is boiled down to an expression of unreasonable outrage - despite the author holding Nelson Mandela (the leader of a terrorist organisation) in high regard. 

 

Why Fonts Matter by Sarah Hyndman

Interesting, accessible but about twice as long as it needs to be. Fonts influence us: they communicate as well as construct content and they have evolved alongside advances in culture and printing. I fully support Hyndman's goal in getting people to think about font more and her book makes for an adequate introduction to the subject - it's just a shame that this book isn't much more.  

 

Liberalism: A Counter History by Domenico Losurdo

The freedoms of the liberal world were hard won; universal suffrage and the abolishment of slavery were both contentious issues among the architects of the modern world. Losurdo's counter history reminds us of the theoretic possibility that was liberal freedom as the reserve of the privileged. Focusing primarily on the Atlantic slave trade, and also touching on the labour struggles of the developed west, Losurdo examines the philosophic acrobatics that were required to champion freedom during a time of great subjugation.  

The books thesis is rooted in an examination of the history of political struggle in early liberal society, its rhetoric and emergent conceptions of freedom. Of particular note is the idea that we could have freedom without equality and the small triumph of egalitarian struggle in helping correct that mistake.

The Philosophical Life by James Miller

The blurb of this book argues that it "confirms the continuing relevance of philosophy today". I have always been sceptical of such projects; especially when the philosophers the book points to are no more recent than Nietzsche. It would be much more prudent to prove the relevance of philosophy by pointing to the myriad of fascinating works published in recent years.

Perhaps what is meant by proving the relevance of philosophy, is its defence of philosophy as self-help - ala Alain de Botton. This is another project for which I have limited sympathy. Philosophy hasn't really operated with spiritual goals in mind for quite some time and I'm not entirely convinced that that is a problem. Even if enlightenment and happiness was the goal of philosophy I'm not sure this collection of mini-biographies makes a good case for the discipline. Seneca and Socrates were both murdered; Aristotle and Plato were widely ignored by the people they sought to tutor and Nietzsche and Kant died as pair of mad, tormented bastards. 

The book is still readable and informative, even if it doesn't achieve what it set out to do. Though there is one remark in the books conclusion worth expounding on: philosophers may face despair and madness ahead of them but they reason nonetheless. And we are all philosophers, by the very dint of being capable of thought.

 

4.48 Psychosis by Sarah Kane

A play that utilises an almost vers libre monologue to flit between moments of psychotic dread and sparkling gallows humour. Clearly written from a very honest emotional place, the clichés of mental health are steam-rolled into oblivion by Kane's candid and confused narrator. Intense, raw - must read again.

Hatred of Democracy by Jacques Ranciere

Ranciere explores the tensions of a secular republic and presents an understanding of democratic struggle as an expansion of public space in the face of technocratic elites. Modern political leaders must ape the values of democracy while simultaneously attempting to keep the populist masses at bay.

French, continental and as poorly written as it sounds. Like much of the post-modern canon it's 5% good ideas couched in post-modern verbage; an insightful analysis buried under a landslide of badly composed sentences with too many indexicals, needless ambiguity and a weird fetish for turning adjectives into proper nouns. Left me in many places feeling "the confused" and had me re-reading many passages two or three times over.

 

The Tinder Box by Hans Christian Anderson 

 Absurdly amoral fairytales seems to be HCA's thing. The Tinder Box is about a soldier who murders an old woman to steal her magic Tinder Box which gives him command of three magic dogs who help him commit regicide and marry the resulting orphaned princess. There are moments of humour here and there that make me think Hans Christian Anderson had adults in mind while also writing for children: the Deacon visiting the housewife in Little/Big Claus seems to be a wink and a nod towards more adult content.

Reconciliations: An Apology to Poetry

Just over a year ago I published a piece venting my frustration with the medium of poetry. I would like to announce a change of heart. After spending the last 12 months reading and writing poetry, in an effort to force myself to understand it, I have come to accept it as a necessary, even if sometimes dull, artform.

The aforementioned blog post is no longer available but its core contention can be distilled down to "poetry is too obtuse to be of any real value and we would lose little by jettisoning it from our culture". In hindsight it was foolish of me to even suggest that poetry could be done away with. It's musicality and rhythm come naturally to the human ear and the directness of vers libre would demand inventing, if it weren't already in existence. Indeed, although I was blind to it at the time, it was the giants of vers libre with which I took umbrage.

 Free verse is most notably what people refer to when they say they hate poetry; after-all few, my former self included, would begrudge the charm of conventional rhyme. And the vox-pop criticisms of free-verse are pretty close to the criticisms I wielded against it a year ago. Even Stephen Fry, a private poetry aficionado, shares my worries:

I think that much of poetry written today suffers from anaemia. There is no iron in its blood, no energy, no drive. It flow gently, sometimes persuasively, but often in a lifeless trickle of the inwardly personal and the rhetorically listless. This lack of anima does not strike me as anything like the achieved and fruitful lassitude of true decadence; it is much more as if the volume had been turned down., as if poets are frightened of boldness. - Fry, The Ode Less Travelled p.g. 325.

It is important to note that elsewhere in "The Ode Less Travelled", Fry expresses his love of T.S. Eliot: the grand-daddy of modern poetic crypticism. Fry doesn't fail to "get" modern poetry but he does worry for the effect of obscurantism on poetry's ability to say what is important.

Yet free-verse seems unusually predisposed to the introverted meanderings that Fry criticises. Such introspection is a by-product of free verses' directness which facilitates unmediated outpouring. This intense need to take what is inside and place it on paper is what makes the work of Plathe, or even the later plays of Sarah Kane, incomprehensible to someone with little biographical knowledge of the author. Such authors use free-verse techniques to encapsulate intensely intimate sentiments which most modern readers will struggle to unpack without the aid of contextualising references.

This particular style of free verse reflects the artist qua artist, which is why it is worth defending. It represents the legacy of conceptualism: art as a mode of expression and experimentation rather than as commodity or product of patronage. There are those who bemoan entitled art students who refuse to master their field and instead churn out conceptualist guff;  but perhaps it is the other way round. Perhaps the real entitlement lies with the on-looker who cries fraud when encountering art which doesn't speak to his interests or function within a familiar frame of reference. Defending this particular exercise in solipsistic free-verse by emphasising its artistic purity is to admit that while this kind of poetry has its place, it is far away from the limelight. But what of the more accessible, pleasing or otherwise extroverted poetry of Whitman, Shelley or Byron? Why are these forms of poetry not flourishing?

While I wish to avoid being dragged into the "Is poetry dead?" debate I think it's worth acknowledging how little poetry sales account for in the book trade. With this context in mind, poetry is often talked up as a much needed yet maligned hero fighting against a quick-fix culture. This seems somewhat rash. The contemporary era of the twitterati is one which is dominated by the succinctly written word. The memorableness, poignancy and sheer stick-ability of poetry should make it the perfect candidate to under-go a digital renaissance and yet it still remains a cultural outsider.

Perhaps the poetry industry has yet to recognise the potential of social media. Alternatively, the snobs might have a point. It may be that one of the joys of poetry is chewing over stanzas until they fall into place and its decline is due to a lack of slow-thinking engagement among modern readers. I hope for the sake of humanity that that is not the case and, whether poetry makes it to the centre stage or not, I wish it all the best.

Cut-Throat's Pre-emptive Round Up of 2015

Work, independent research and life has made writing here tricky and, I fear with the new year nearing, my posting will only get more sporadic. January-February time is doctoral funding season and work has already begun with my supervisor on my own applications; accordingly I figured that it was worthwhile doing a pre-emptive round up in case I don't have time for it come hectic December. Perhaps I could have pushed this back another month or so but then again this may make for a good ear-marking of the 2000 view milestone that I just hit: I have no idea whether 2000 views in the first 8 months is good or bad in terms of blogs but it feels sufficiently significant.

Procedurally, the process for this post will involve picking one fiction and one non-fiction book alongside one album to stage as particular highlights of the year. None of these works came out in 2015 but they are nonetheless the highlight of my own personal exploration in culture this year. So, moving beyond the fanfare...

Fiction Pick of the Year

Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh

Welsh, for a long time, has sat on the shelf in my mind labelled "must get round to him someday" and it was a pleasure to finally read him. Trainspotting is a landmark of contemporary Scottish culture which is one of the reasons I wanted to read it: when I lived in Sweden there were a surprising number of people with a strange interest in it; though generally they had seen the film rather than waded through the Scottish accent that characterises the prose. I get the feeling that their fascination was spawned by a morbid curiosity as to how a culture could produce and love a work so notoriously self-loathing.

However, the reputation that Welsh has garnered makes the actual content of the book all the more surprising. In places it is strikingly human and demonstrates a sympathy and keen eye for the foibles, roots and pathologies of its characters. Renton, the narrator focused on in the film but who is one of many in the book, has a clear rebellious streak that occasionally bleeds over into a churlish teenage nihilism but even at his worst has interesting things to say. It's a rather trite cliche but the film really isn't as good as the book; or at least it isn't as in depth. There are startlingly jarring moments such as the feminist-esque parable "The Elusive Mr Hunt" which show a more careful eye for social interaction than that which was allowed onto the silver-screen. I enjoyed it thoroughly and it has thrown my previous perceptions of the author.

Non-Fiction Pick of the Year

The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth

For the past couple of months I have been experimenting more and more with writing guides; this one is far more of a style book than it is a grammar guide. As Forsyth points out, good grammar isn't necessarily always good writing. Academically, Steven Pinker's "The Sense of Style" - itself a brilliant use of descriptive linguistics to create a field manual in good, readable grammar - has probably been more helpful but The Elements of Eloquence is just so much more fun.

The emphasis is very much on having fun with the English language, its rhythms, sounds and various effects. It may not have clued me in on how to perfect my past and present tenses or navigate the various pratfalls of plurals but it certainly re-ignited the fire in my belly for constructing some good memorable prose.  

Album Pick of the Year

Knowledge is Power by Akala

 I have remarked on this blog a number of times about my quest to search out and enjoy new music this year. In light of such talk I think it's only fair to include an album of the year in my round up. One particular genre, which has lead me to reconsider poetry, is hip-hop. I started watching battle rap about a year and a half ago and was blown away at, sexism and homophobia aside, just how witty a lot the rappers were. 

Akala however, I found through the Scottish comedian Frankie Boyle: Boyle invited Akala on to a programme of his in order to talk about racism in the U.K. As you might have guessed Akala is a "conscientious rapper" with a lot his themes and lyrics drawing from the speeches and writings of Malcom X. In particular he has a desire to speak truth to the powerless rather than wasting his breath on the powerful. In this album his focus seems to be on inspiring working class youth, particularly non-white working class youth, to engage in political, social and personal activities that benefit themselves and their communities rather than the owners of capital. Interestingly Akala interprets the role of the modern conscious MC through the tradition of the African Griot, a curator of cultural knowledge, and this no doubt feeds into his role as part of the hip-hop Shakespeare company. I could go on and on, but both the depth of his subject matter and his lyricism when discussing it has made this album a real stand out.

Closing Remarks

As remarked in the title and introduction this is a pre-emptive list. It is only as definitive in so far as I don't update it later in the year, though much of my work will be focused on political philosophy for the next few months and I don't anticipate reading much fiction anytime soon.

Resolutions 2015: Half Time Review

The cold post-winter of January is long behind me; nevertheless I am chained to its pact. Welcome to my half time review!

#1  Mo' Reading, Less Problems

A couple of months back I started reading Voltaire and realised, a bit late some would say, that you can often find two canons in one book. Continental philosophy often blurs genre lines with continental literature and this is both to its credit and detriment: the works tend to have greater cultural impact on account of their drama but sacrifice the veracity of their arguments in the process.

I have chosen to use the word "drama" rather than "readability" because while certain continentals can write fantastic fiction, their prose occasionally falls apart when writing straight laced philosophy.


For instance, in The Myth of Sisyphus Camu, for no discernible reason, behaves like the Oprah Winfrey of punctuation and hands every second word its own sub-clause despite being an otherwise very restrained and readable fiction writer.

Regardless, we are half way through the year of 2015 and I feel considerably more comfortable about my relationship with western literature. The journey is by no means at an end but I think I have good reason to hope that this year will end in satisfaction. If I continue the efforts I have made so far, I shouldn't have to play catch-up much longer.   

#2 Bad news for my cholesterol - I'm a lover not a fighter.

My health has deteriorated, slightly. My running has become infrequent and my diet unpredictable. There are two reasons for this, the first feeds into the second. I have made a number of romantic connections and I have also become more blasé with regards to my health. Consequently, I have spent more time getting drunk in bed with strange people than my doctor would of hypothetically recommended: evening runs and low fat yogurt have been replaced with rum, brie and cable ties.

Perhaps it is my, long awaited, attainment of a functional social life that has turned my attentions away from the rather solipsistic activities of calorie counting and mid-night jogging but I think a more honest appraisal involves holding myself accountable for recent complacencies.  I will try harder.

#3  Itunes - another wage-sucking vampire is now draining my current account.

Last time I wrote one of these posts my reticence and inability to scout out new artists was the one problem I had yet to fix. This time round it is the one I have had the most success with - thank you online shopping. When Steve Jobs returns from his cryo-chamber in the year 3011 he will be a little bit richer thanks to me; I have yet to decide how I feel about this.