The other books are biographies and this is based on a series of lectures so they are quite different — if you don’t especially want a G Eliot biog it would be a good place to start yes
I always find it hard to take seriously anyone who non-ironically uses the phrase "late capitalism" - a phrase coined literally 100 years ago, in order to convey the impression that capitalism was on its last legs ... and, well, here we are, and people are still claiming the same thing, and in the meantime capitalism continues, despite various ups and downs, to be going strong.
Yes, well, I never read Jameson's book, precisely because of the use of the term in the title, which suggested the same blindness as everyone else who uses it!
Really zeroed in on something I haven't seen expressed about that Lost Lambs book, though I haven't read all the discourse. Anyways, that Transcendence book caught my eye, will be getting a copy asap!
I agree with you on Martin and Kingsley, and I'd be curious to read more of your thoughts on Martin (meaning, a proper essay). Specifically, I wonder why exactly he achieved the status of "great writer" without having produced an actual "great book." Critics and journos will point to "Money" but I find, when I attempt to re-read it, as I have done many times over the years, that it has the same effect on me as do "The Information" and "London Fields" (his other supposedly great books)--namely, I am delighted and drawn in by the first twenty or so pages, and I think 'OK, this time it's going to be different, this time it's all going to click and I'm going to see what I missed all those other times!', but soon after interest ebbs and by page 30 or 40 I move onto something else by someone else. That said, I still think favorably about him: I think he was a great writer (of sentences, even paragraphs and entire essays, and he can be very very funny--I still enjoy "Pregnant Widow"), and he was charming as a character (the character "Martin Amis, Famous Writer"), but in the end I always feel that somehow, somewhere, he took a wrong turn--that he was positioned to do something great (given his natural ability and his secure place in the establishment) yet somehow he was thwarted and never quite pulled it off.
I've read almost every Kingsley Amis novel and so I read Ending Up a long time ago. I agree with your evaluation. I happened to read it at the same time as I read several other English novels about aging -- Elizabeth Taylor's Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont, Muriel Spark's Memento Mori, one or two more. Purely by coincidence, but it was interesting in that context. (Amis' own The Old Devils is another one!) Also, as I recall, it turns out that Ending Up is set in the fairly near future of its time of writing, which makes it kinda sorta science fiction, though not in a terribly useful way. (Amis of course wrote quite a few science fiction or science fiction-adjacent novels and stories.)
Taylor has become my favorite writer in that wonderful group of mid-Century English women … she’s just amazing. A Game of Hide and Seek is incredible, as of course Angel is as well.
Right up my alley, and 99 cents on Kindle, a steal.
(Kindle vs paper books is a whole Nother subject. I maintain that “the book” is the words written, not where they’re written. It’s a long argument. Also, a Kindle reader is not backlit ala computer screens.)
With regard to Kingsley Amis, I'd like to put in a vote for the Reformation-never-happened science fiction of "The Alteration," in which Harold Wilson is memorably libelled (or not) as Pope John XXIV, and Officers Foot and Redgrave do the Inquisition's dirty work. "The Riverside Villas Murder" is also fun, and carefully researched for period accuracy, which is put to entertaining use. There are a couple of jokes involving the recordings of jazz singer Billy Banks that were surely put in to amuse Philip Larkin, a great admirer of said recordings.
Agree with you completely about Lost Lambs, although, unlike Henry, I did finish it. Yet another workshop exercise that somehow found its way to a publisher. Full of set pieces that have no connection to anything. The dysfunctional family genre is so overworked that I can hardly bear to read another entry. Unless is it written by Franzen.
Re Proust. You recently inspired me to reread and I’m with the girls in the second volume. But you might do more thinking about the question you pose of de Botton’s book. Why indeed do a million people want to read about reading Proust? Is there any sense in which, as I did for many years, people feel it is an experience they should have, but they do not have the time? Does that desire tell us anything? I’ve given de Botton’s book, whose reflections on the experience I rather enjoyed, to people to encourage them to begin, but as far as I can tell with little success…
The Jamesian pastiche, “The Green Man”, was a wonderful discovery for me when I discovered it. I recall a TV adaptation with Michael Horden as the father (I think), which was excellent for its time.
Re Lost Lambs: what an absolutely chilling description of what happens when the artist becomes ideologically captured. The capacity for art disappears because the capacity for original thought disappears. In its place: reflexive replication that markets itself as more than it is. Which is either ironic, or tragic, depending how you look at it. From my point of view, I think you've described a special kind of horror: the horror writers feel when they witness another writer locked unknowingly in their own worst nightmare.
*Nobody* wrote that way at the time. Alain de Botton's style is now basically everywhere -- the movie 500 Days of Summer sort of channels it and rips it off, no? Self-help, the idea of taking a comic approach to it -- also everywhere now. Talking about the classics -- every day of the week on Substack. These things weren't the norm in the pre-Internet-for-normal-people 90s. FWIW Geoff Dyer's transcendently beautiful Out of Sheer Rage is also from around that same time.
Re Lost Lambs: what an absolutely chilling description of what happens when the artist becomes ideologically captured. The capacity for art disappears because the capacity for original thought disappears. In its place: reflexive replication that markets itself as more than it is. Which is either ironic, or tragic, depending how you look at it. From my point of view, I think you've described a special kind of horror: the horror writers feel when they witness another writer locked unknowingly in their own worst nightmare
The Clare Carlisle book does look very interesting. Never read anything by her--do you think this is the place to start?
The other books are biographies and this is based on a series of lectures so they are quite different — if you don’t especially want a G Eliot biog it would be a good place to start yes
I always find it hard to take seriously anyone who non-ironically uses the phrase "late capitalism" - a phrase coined literally 100 years ago, in order to convey the impression that capitalism was on its last legs ... and, well, here we are, and people are still claiming the same thing, and in the meantime capitalism continues, despite various ups and downs, to be going strong.
You can thank Frederick Jameson for that
Yes, well, I never read Jameson's book, precisely because of the use of the term in the title, which suggested the same blindness as everyone else who uses it!
Really zeroed in on something I haven't seen expressed about that Lost Lambs book, though I haven't read all the discourse. Anyways, that Transcendence book caught my eye, will be getting a copy asap!
Tying two references together here - Elizabeth Taylor was one of the few authors whom Kingsley Amis openly praised.
Good point!
I agree with you on Martin and Kingsley, and I'd be curious to read more of your thoughts on Martin (meaning, a proper essay). Specifically, I wonder why exactly he achieved the status of "great writer" without having produced an actual "great book." Critics and journos will point to "Money" but I find, when I attempt to re-read it, as I have done many times over the years, that it has the same effect on me as do "The Information" and "London Fields" (his other supposedly great books)--namely, I am delighted and drawn in by the first twenty or so pages, and I think 'OK, this time it's going to be different, this time it's all going to click and I'm going to see what I missed all those other times!', but soon after interest ebbs and by page 30 or 40 I move onto something else by someone else. That said, I still think favorably about him: I think he was a great writer (of sentences, even paragraphs and entire essays, and he can be very very funny--I still enjoy "Pregnant Widow"), and he was charming as a character (the character "Martin Amis, Famous Writer"), but in the end I always feel that somehow, somewhere, he took a wrong turn--that he was positioned to do something great (given his natural ability and his secure place in the establishment) yet somehow he was thwarted and never quite pulled it off.
I just don’t want to have to do the reading such an essay would entail
That is funny. I feel that way about many things.
I've read almost every Kingsley Amis novel and so I read Ending Up a long time ago. I agree with your evaluation. I happened to read it at the same time as I read several other English novels about aging -- Elizabeth Taylor's Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont, Muriel Spark's Memento Mori, one or two more. Purely by coincidence, but it was interesting in that context. (Amis' own The Old Devils is another one!) Also, as I recall, it turns out that Ending Up is set in the fairly near future of its time of writing, which makes it kinda sorta science fiction, though not in a terribly useful way. (Amis of course wrote quite a few science fiction or science fiction-adjacent novels and stories.)
Mrs Palfrey is tremendous
Taylor has become my favorite writer in that wonderful group of mid-Century English women … she’s just amazing. A Game of Hide and Seek is incredible, as of course Angel is as well.
Reading it now, and wow. Maybe should’ve waited a few years, but it’s absolutely phenomenal.
Right up my alley, and 99 cents on Kindle, a steal.
(Kindle vs paper books is a whole Nother subject. I maintain that “the book” is the words written, not where they’re written. It’s a long argument. Also, a Kindle reader is not backlit ala computer screens.)
your Lost Lambs review.
When you are sharp you're the best there is.
Do you suppose the author will read it? Or admit that she did?
“The ‘arrangement’ was better for everyone. A moral loophole. A creative outlet in the vastness of monogamy. Bud might even enjoy it too.“
Depressing only if you think about it. I’d switch out “droll and sophisticated” with pretentious drivel. Pretentiousness is a literary sin.
With regard to Kingsley Amis, I'd like to put in a vote for the Reformation-never-happened science fiction of "The Alteration," in which Harold Wilson is memorably libelled (or not) as Pope John XXIV, and Officers Foot and Redgrave do the Inquisition's dirty work. "The Riverside Villas Murder" is also fun, and carefully researched for period accuracy, which is put to entertaining use. There are a couple of jokes involving the recordings of jazz singer Billy Banks that were surely put in to amuse Philip Larkin, a great admirer of said recordings.
Agree with you completely about Lost Lambs, although, unlike Henry, I did finish it. Yet another workshop exercise that somehow found its way to a publisher. Full of set pieces that have no connection to anything. The dysfunctional family genre is so overworked that I can hardly bear to read another entry. Unless is it written by Franzen.
Re Proust. You recently inspired me to reread and I’m with the girls in the second volume. But you might do more thinking about the question you pose of de Botton’s book. Why indeed do a million people want to read about reading Proust? Is there any sense in which, as I did for many years, people feel it is an experience they should have, but they do not have the time? Does that desire tell us anything? I’ve given de Botton’s book, whose reflections on the experience I rather enjoyed, to people to encourage them to begin, but as far as I can tell with little success…
The Jamesian pastiche, “The Green Man”, was a wonderful discovery for me when I discovered it. I recall a TV adaptation with Michael Horden as the father (I think), which was excellent for its time.
What a good book
Transcendence for Beginners is in my online cart. Thanks!
Yay!
I picked up a copy of Transcendence for Beginners. Based on your assessment, I'll have to move it up in my "to read" stack.
Yay!
Re Lost Lambs: what an absolutely chilling description of what happens when the artist becomes ideologically captured. The capacity for art disappears because the capacity for original thought disappears. In its place: reflexive replication that markets itself as more than it is. Which is either ironic, or tragic, depending how you look at it. From my point of view, I think you've described a special kind of horror: the horror writers feel when they witness another writer locked unknowingly in their own worst nightmare.
Buries what should be art in tribal politicisms.
Already eating half the 🇺🇸 alive, choking in its throat.
Agree! My substack is all about this all the time.
*Nobody* wrote that way at the time. Alain de Botton's style is now basically everywhere -- the movie 500 Days of Summer sort of channels it and rips it off, no? Self-help, the idea of taking a comic approach to it -- also everywhere now. Talking about the classics -- every day of the week on Substack. These things weren't the norm in the pre-Internet-for-normal-people 90s. FWIW Geoff Dyer's transcendently beautiful Out of Sheer Rage is also from around that same time.
Re Lost Lambs: what an absolutely chilling description of what happens when the artist becomes ideologically captured. The capacity for art disappears because the capacity for original thought disappears. In its place: reflexive replication that markets itself as more than it is. Which is either ironic, or tragic, depending how you look at it. From my point of view, I think you've described a special kind of horror: the horror writers feel when they witness another writer locked unknowingly in their own worst nightmare