Marginalia

[coalescent]

Genius, or at least it is if you have my job: "What Blues Music and Healthcare Marketing have in common", complete with half-a-dozen gen-u-wine blues tracks with titles like 'Hoodoo This Marketing Plan' and (my personal favourite) 'Ain't Got No Data', which can all be downloaded here. That's what I call creative advertising.

The Picture of Everything is just damn cool. The Geneva Convention is a nice idea, but clearly they're missing the obvious guest of honour. ;-)

Slightly out of date now, but still interesting, is the Guardian's survey, carried out at the Hay festival, to determine a top 50 essential contemporary reads. I've read two: His Dark Materials and Slaugherhouse 5. I should feel ashamed, I know, but to be honest from the whole list there probably aren't more than fifteen in which I'm particularly interested.

More recently, this weekend just gone, there was a piece in the Times by Stephen Baxter, on a familiar theme, to which I am sympathetic: the role of science fiction in acclimatising us to change. Matthew Cheney writes about it more objectively here.

And finally, in the post today was a copy of Ian R Macleod's short story collection Breathmoss and Other Exhalations, from which I promptly re-read 'New Light on the Drake Equation', the story through which I first fell in love with this author. It's as remarkable as it ever was, and more fully about the spirit, the quality, of the future than almost any other story I can call to mind. Perhaps it's not exactly what Baxter had in mind when writing his piece for the Times, but it's still about what the future will be, what it won't be, what it should be, and what it can't be. It's a fierce story, and a sad one, and beautiful and bittersweet and...and look, it's still online at SCIFICTION, so go, please, and read it, and save yourself from my prattling on.

Comments

[snowking.livejournal.com]

Surprised you haven't read High Fidelity, dude.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I'd never even heard of it until the film came out. Nick Hornby was that Fever Pitch guy, and why would I want to read him?

It's one of the fifteen, though.

[snowking.livejournal.com]

You've at least watched the film, right?

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah. We've talked about it before, remember? I said it was good apart from Jack Black. :-p

[ajr.livejournal.com]

SO WRONG! Jack Black was the only good thing about what was otherwise a not-good-at-all film.

[snowking.livejournal.com]

Wow. THe WRONGHEADS are fighting.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

There's a simple maxim you can follow that will ensure your life is happy and untroubled, and that is this: remember always that Jack Black is never a good thing.

[ajr.livejournal.com]

Jack Black is good. Jack Black is funny. The rest of the film was pedestrian, and despite the fact that I usually like John Cusack, he irritated me intensely in High Fidelity. I put that down mostly to the fact that he spent a large part of the film talking straight to the camera, which didn't work for me at all.

The book, on the other hand, is very good.

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid it's clear to any impartial observer that High Fidelity is a very good movie indeed, and John Cusack is, in fact, great in it. Don't feel bad, though, you can't be right all the time. ;-)

[snowking.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, now I remember the near criminal wrongheadery.

[deccasanta.livejournal.com]

No. No. No. No. No. No.

Not about the Jack Black thing. He overacts but that's what you hire him for.

I issue a challenge! Women who like this film answer now and tell me why!

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm inclined to think you're maybe not the target audience. :)

[deccasanta.livejournal.com]

A woman with a brain and a personality? I'm inclined to think you're right. (Sorry, Liz.)

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Is there any chance of getting you to explain what you find so objectionable about it? Please?

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

Um.

I like film. Is good film. Is funny and has John Cusack in and Tim Robbins being a wanker and Jack Black is funny in this particular role.

So there.

[hawleygriffen.livejournal.com]

I agree. Especially with the John Cusack thing.

[ang-grrr.livejournal.com]

I didn't like it all that much but I'm not a fan of Hornby. It's one redeeming feature was John Cusack being all John Cusacky (*slaver*) but if I want to lust over him I simply watch Grosse Pointe Blank again, and again, and again...

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

:-) Now Grosse Point Blank is another great little movie. Not quite as perfect as it thinks it is, but I really liked it.

Picture of Everything

[applez.livejournal.com]

Mein Gott! What reference don't I get?! Ahhh...my mind is breaking down as my sci-fic consciousness grasps for Singularity!

Re: Picture of Everything

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I can't find Angel! But yep, other than that it seems to pretty much all be there. This is your life. All of it. :)

Re: Picture of Everything

[applez.livejournal.com]

"This is your life. All of it."

My word - should this be e-mailed to Ted Chiang?! ;-)

BTW, the audio tracks you offered up are cute. :-) I just can't shake that the mental image of a bunch of complaining AARP members (or rebels, for that matter).

Audio tracks...

[applez.livejournal.com]

I have to add, that these remain deeply ironic songs. Firstly, they're corporate 'toyband' tunes, and oh yes, these senior managers have so much to feel the blues over. ;-)

[tizzle-b.livejournal.com]

I've read more than you on a list of "things to read".
Am impressed.

For the record, I've read;
Antonement - Ian McEwan (all his stuff's good), Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks, Enduring Love - Ian McEwan, Slaughterhouse-five & Trainspotting - Irvine Welsh.

There are quite a few more I wanna read and some of them I think are in my house at home as well.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I would think most people have read more than me from that list, though. Hell, I'd hope they have! :)

For the record, the ones that interest me at first glance are:

Being Dead, Jim Crace
Enduing Love, Ian McEwan
High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
Money, Martin Amis
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood
The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen
The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco
The Passion, Jeanette Winterson
The Secret History, Donna Tartt
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

I've read thirteen. Not a massively controversial list but nice to see Riders by Jilly Cooper on that list! American Pastoral is a bit of a surprise, given the amount of Guardian readers at Hay it might have something to do with Robert McCrum's 100 greatest novels list.

From your list I'd say Money, One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Handmaid's Tale and The Corrections are essential. The other Atwood, the Eco and the McEwan are merely very good. Have you read Atonement?

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I haven't read Atonement but I do want to read McEwan, and of the two on the list I get the impression I'd prefer Enduring Love. Not that I know a huge amount about either, mind.

[tizzle-b.livejournal.com]

I think... Enduring Love is a lot more classic but personally Atonement is better. Which may just be that I have the whole history-knowledge and fascination with the WWs. So .. dunno.

Atonement starts with a story before breaking into two parts set in two different timeframes, complimenting each other when the book is finished. Both are linear but Enduring Love is more a continuous passage of story where, in my opinion, the conclusion seems to come about rather forced and stretched. It may just be that I've not read it outside of my A-Levels and I do recall us having to speed-up towards the end. It just seems a little bit of a big jump for the central character (I forget his name) to make. You'll make up your own mind, I suppose.

I've got a boxset of books back home which all won the Booker Prize over x-years, IIRC, and I read "Amsterdamn" by McEwan from that. Much shorter and very different than the rest of his stuff. Have also bought "The Innocent" recently which I've heard nothing off but it was in a Waterstones 3for2 sale so... why not.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Well, maybe I'll pick up Atonement instead, then. Of course, the only way this is going to happen in the near future is if it comes up in the book group. ;-)

And on the subject of war novels, if you ever get a chance to read it I'd be interested to know what you think of The Separation.

What else did you buy in the 3for2? I know Perdido Street Station, which you promised to read this summer, is an option...

[tizzle-b.livejournal.com]

I said I'd read it if I was lent it - not that I would buy it myself :P

[white_hart]

I found Enduring Love enormously disappointing - despite having been glowingly recommended to me I felt that it completely failed to transcend the limits of the protagonist's life and say anything to me...(OK, sorry, English graduate...clearly a part of my brain is still hardwired to come out with wank like that!) And it may have been the moment in history when I read it, or just that I remember seeing it reproduced in the Grauniad when the novel was first published an skimmed across it, but the much-lauded opening chapter felt distinctly underwhelming to me.

Although I haven't read Atonement, so I can't offer a comparison, and it may just be that I'm having increasing problems with male writers of 'realistic' literary fiction anyway. I've read about 15 of these...off to enumerate further in my own journal now...

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

It's interesting how the votes are splitting between the two - I think I've now seen about equal recommendations for both. And in addition, I seem to have started (or at least restarted) a meme. Oops.

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

McEwan is a definite: for me he's in the top five of writers in this country. My personal favourites are Black Dog and The Child In Time but I would happily recommend either Enduring Love or Atonement and he has never written a bad book (although Amsterdam is a bit weak and certainly didn't deserve the Booker).

If you've not read any McEwan before I would perhaps say read Atonement before Enduring Love because I think that benefits from an awareness of the type of writer McEwan is. My one complaint with Atonement is that I find the ending cruel to the reader but that's just becuase I'm a big softly.

[talvalin.livejournal.com]

I'd second The Corrections and note that Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow is an excellent book and would be well worth reading. It even goes faintly SF towards the end.

[veggiesu.livejournal.com]

I've read more than you on a list of "things to read".

Me too!

Am impressed.

Am impressed by us both. For the record, I've read:
Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
The Secret History by Donna Tartt (sooooooo overrated)
Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

Tenuous link time: hey, speaking of great short stories that can be read online, you can find Neil Gaiman's really enjoyable (and HUGO nominated) Sherlock Holmes/Cthulhu crossover story here.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

We're way ahead of you. :)

Although I have to say that I wasn't all that impressed with 'A Study in Emerald'. As Cthulu crossovers go, I preferred this.

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

We're way ahead of you. :)

*sob* I'm such a newbie. ;-)

Although I have to say that I wasn't all that impressed with 'A Study in Emerald'.

What's not to like? Elegantly written in a very nice pastiche of Victorian prose, an evocative setting, oodles of playful wit, and a lovely sting in the tail.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

It just felt a bit...well, fanficcy, really. Not particularly ambitious. I didn't hate it by any means, but I don't really consider it Hugo material (although, having Gaiman's name attached to it, it's going to win).