The Memory Man

 I reckon I read New Grub Street to the end first time around, a few years ago, but it took me until the climactic last chapters to realize I had. Before that, I once read a Sebastian Faulks novel to page 87 before it became familiar and I went upstairs and found an identical hardback on the shelves.

I like to think I have a tremendous memory for certain things but some things one is certain about can be proved to be otherwise. But not books recently read, they disappear within days of reading them, compared to The Woodlanders, for example, read at 15, and remembered in plenty of detail.

Perhaps one becomes an impressionist, with a captivating but blurred idea of what's what rather than the fine detail of a Vermeer. Or a vaguely dreamy Einaudi rather than a precise composer like Bach.

New Grub Street is a realistic morality tale, in effect, with the publishing industry a small part of capitalism. Jasper Milvain adapts to the market and succeeeds whereas the more idealistic writers who want to do something of more worth suffer for their principles.

What I found on returning it to the shlf was a bookmark a little way into The Nether World so it was that that I once abandoned. But now the library has provided me with The Whirlpool, so that will be up next in tandem with the imminent arrival of Sean O'Brien's short stories in The Long Glass. I reminded myself of a few of his from The Silence Room yesterday and was suitably, and quietly, impressed.

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Meanwhile, back at the ranch. I have a half-baked project under way. Having seen that Sheku has a new book out about music, it occurred to me to do the same, us being roughly equivalent celebrities in the music world. A sort of autobiography of how I found my way around Western Classical music, with a chapter on pop music to provide context. I thought it might be a way of collecting together all the things I always say about various composers in reviews. 

There's unlikely to be any audience for it, it would never see print beyond the possibility of being a pdf and it probably won't make anything like proper book length. The main interest in it will be how long I persevere before it is abandoned but in the meantime there is a project on the go to think about, the opportunity to exercise a few words. 

Memories of 1970's cassettes and Radio 3 have come flooding back with that first introductory catalogue of pieces I knew so well. I reckon my memory of what happened then might be better than what happened in recent months but, as I'm finding, I'm an unreliable witness.