The First Edition

Hello all,

Far later than I had hoped I have entered the world of antique book buying. My very first purchase was made at Jeremiah Vokes' store in Darlington. Having been open for well over thirty Jeremiah offers a huge range of fiction, specialising in Sherlock Holmes. My first two purchases were; A first edition of W.H Auden's poetry collection Thank You, Fog and a signed first edition of Peter Ackroyd's The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde. Anybody who would like further information with regard to the purchase of these books please get in touch via the blog. I have read a lot of books that have not made the blog in recent weeks; they will soon appear

Homeless

'Classic.' A Book Which People Praise and Do Not Read.'

Dear readers,

Not so much a book post but a statement of intent. Starting from Thursday I am going to be entering the world of antique book dealing. I am starting off with £50 and will only buy and sell books from antique dealerships or those who contact me via the blog; no eBay in sight. The hope is to make enough to survive my second year of university with more comfort than I have survived the first. Whilst writing about my progress on the blog I hope to draw attention toward the antique book market, one which has been truly ravaged by the advent of e-books and cheap paper backs. Clearly we must recognise that paperbacks and e-books are an excellent means of conveying the written word to a large audience, what I hope to achieve is a more realistic understanding how much the written word is worth to different people. Wish me luck, get in touch

Homeless

Ian McEwan; Enduring Love

How far can we believe those we love when what they are telling us seems so very improbable? When the version of the world they portray contains sexually obsessive monsters. Where God represents all that is evil. Where your life is controlled by the actions of strangers.

Enduring Love is concerned with the life of Joe Rose, a member of the affluent middle classes. His life is changed forever when alongside a set of strangers he attempts to moor a hot air balloon which has torn free of its moorings. The men all grab the balloon but upon realising they may die if the balloon goes to high they let go, bar John Logan who falls to his death. From here on in a member of the group, Jed Perry, becomes sexually obsessed with Joe and believes he is the only means in which he can find God. Jed's obsession is born out of de Crembault's syndrome which is an illness that rationalising dangerous sexual obsession. This obsession quickly begins to threaten Joe's life and family; soon enough Joe is driven near to murdering Jed.

The book explores the tension between chance events such as the hot air balloon accident and those who bring stability to our lives such as Joe's family. Jed can be seen to embody this instability. He is a man of God which suggests the unpredictable nature of forces we cannot see or control play a huge role in our lives. He is also suffering from an illness which makes him hugely irrational and dangerous further indicating his representation of instability. On the other side of the coin we have the stability of Joe's previous life, he is middle class, he is happily married, and he has a good job. The introduction of this instability in Jed threatens to unravel Joe's once perfect life.

The book itself is exceptional well written. We are all aware that McEwan is unable to write a poorly crafted sentence. Time and time again the biggest frustration that can be found with his work is that it is so uncomfortably middle class. His protagonist is a struggling journalist with a wife who is a university lecturer. Everything about Joe is middle class, unfortunately this means that when he encounters a character such as Jed who is clearly unwell we find it hard to empathise with his constant complaints of a man he is often cruel to.

Make no mistake this is an excellent book. An accurate commentary on the real workings of people's lives and relationships? It certainly is not.

Modernism. A Brief Overview.

Hello again everyone, sorry for the lack of posts but with exams I simply have not had the time. As I have became a bit more accustomed to this blogging business I have started to realise my blog has began to become more of a literary rambling than a strict book reviewing forum. Maybe that isn't necessarily a bad thing, in today's blog I am going to try to offer a brief overview of Modernism. Hopefully to all of you who are undertaking English qualification or to those of you who are interested in viewing literature in a new light this will be of some interest. Be warned, there is far more to Modernism than I could ever possibly hope to write in a single blog post.

American writer Harold Rosenberg was described Modernism as "the tradition of the new." If we take this as a starting point we then have to consider in terms of literature what is meant by new? The "Twilight," series is new but other than being perhaps the biggest affront to modern literature, is certainly not modernist. Therefore if Modernism does not refer to new as in an event in a chronological time frame, then "new," can be considered to be a break from the old.

The old, in terms of Modernism is Realism, a way of writing that recounts events in a believable and accurate fashion, a form of prose that holds a mirror up to our own lives. Arguably realist texts in their broadest sense form the bulk of novels in circulation; it is not hard to find examples of texts that reflect real life. Some examples include; Don Quixote by Cervantes, Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy and in more recent times books such as Saturday by Ian McEwan. Therefore what Modernism does through writing in a way that is different from Realism is writes in a way that does not hold a mirror up to our lives. Works that find their base in metaphor and complex allusions. Modernism is more like a projector, it takes the real world and beams it back to us in a way which we can relate to but don't immediately recognise.

T.S Eliot's The Waste Land is seen as the avante garde Modernist text. Set around the centre of London we are provided with a series of complex metaphors that are purposefully obtuse. Lines such as "This music crept by me upon the waters And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street," illustrate how on the one hand we are presented with the familiarity of the streets of London but at the same time offered a complex metaphor in "music crept by me upon the waters," in my opinion showing how Eliot believed the war had attributed sinister faculties to sweet things such as music.

Modernism is complex, it is obtuse but it is certainly interesting. I hope my extremely brief overview has been of some use and of some interest. I can't recommend enough going out and reading some modernists texts for yourself.

Please comment to let me know what you thought, I am a bit short on reading material at the moment so any suggestions would also be hugely appreciated :)

Barbara Clough. My own poem, because we all have to try.

Barbara Clough
Loyal wife, out of the spotlight.
Pleased to be housemaid?
The old fashioned type
The angry, the jealous, the stay at home, wife!
Well, to say I was just his wife would be the understatement of the season.

I was more than that, I was his sweeper.
His Target man and his strike partner.
His playmaker.
His main man.
He was great at home.
But then he started playing away.
He said I had too much width,
That I could not handle the pressure.
Well, he was crap in the box
Fucking useless.

Total football? Total bollocks.

“I wouldn’t say I was the best manager in the business. But I was in the top one.”
Typical pig headed Cloughie.
His mates, Jesus Christ, they were just as bad.
Johnny Walker, Jack Daniels, William Grant, his loyalist allies.

My number one.
His number nine.
Straight home after the match
Brian wasn’t the only disciplinarian in the Clough household.
Then his liver went, he thought I would care.
Jack Daniels had bit him right in the backside

Good, I hoped it would bloody kill him

He had it replaced, but I would have the last laugh.
Finally relief at last
“I’m not the best in the business but I am in the top one,
then the stomach cancer came, Brian was dead, finished, gone.




Let me know what you think guys, any suggestions for improvement or any comments at all would be greatly appreciated!