I'm waiting for Julian Barnes' forthcoming Noise in Time, on the subject of Shostakovich, dubious about the whole idea of fictional biography but encouraged by the reviews so far. In the meantime, Patrick Hamilton's Hangover Square was as gin-soaked and cruel as I had remembered it and a pitiless evocation of obsession, selfishness and the seamy twilight world of hotels, boarding houses and the bottom end of the theatrical world of agents and actresses between jobs. What a pleasure. Hamilton's first book, Monday Morning, written when he was 19, was due a reissue last year but it's difficult to find out what's happened about that. Amazon abandoned my pre-order a long time ago and now searching for it only brings up references to the plans Faber had to make it available again.
So, yesterday I made the intrepid journey into the rich wilderness of the upstairs room that stores the less often required books and came back down with The Diary of a Nobody, A Confederacy of Dunces and Mansfield Park. And it's Jane Austen that I'm revisiting in the hope of defining the differences between her and George Eliot, which might be rephrased as why Eliot is so much better than Jane but let's not pre-judge the issue too hastily. You never know, this year might be my year of Jane Austen.
She has already delivered the observation that Tom, who
was just entering into life, full of spirits, and with all the liberal dispositions of an eldest son, who feels born only for expense and enjoyment.
I don't recognize myself in that perception of eldest children but a big question hangs over what Jane and I respectively understand by 'liberal'. And that might be the problem with Jane, 200 years on - which bits are her observations of contemporary custom and which are the social satire, because I'm not sure I'm in any position to say.
--
The avalanche of Bowie tributes and coverage meant that much overlapped, not least the often repeated leitmotif of his politeness. He was clearly someone of immense intelligence and it emerged how many of his pieces quoted any number of lesser-known books he had read. As happens with such great figures, it was also remarked more than once that his presence in a room made an immediate difference, which compares with those of us who can enter a room and it seems to everybody else in it that someone has just left.But a comparison can be made between Neil Spencer's verdict on Station to Station, that it was 'awesome' (and, not quite so appreciably, 'Wagnerian') with Giles Coren, talking about buying CD's of what one already had on LP, that 'nobody' buys it twice. It's a shame that while Spencer, who editor of the NME during the Golden Age, can be so respectful and retains a grasp of pop history, Giles can only use the opportunity to denigrate wherever possible, as is his wont, while going to great lengths throughout to make it clear he was as impressed with Bowie as anybody, and he's not instigating the backlash. I'm sure we all have our favourites and so, reviving the old Top Six feature that was once a regular on this website.
Top Six David Bowie
Wild is the Wind
Rebel Rebel
Changes
Word on a Wing
Life on Mars?
Drive In Saturday
and even that leaves no room for many that the rules of the game always said couldn't be mentioned in naming only six and it counts All the Young Dudes as a Mott the Hoople record.