Milorad Pavić (1929-2009)

I picked a copy of Dictionary of the Khazars off a library shelf back in 1993, one of those acts of book snatching that usually bears no fruit but occasionally alters my whole perception of that cultural endeavour called 'Literature'. I was instantly enthralled by the novel's cascade of ideas and startling images, all rendered in a stunningly original prose style that made use of blisteringly strange and convoluted metaphors and similes. Added to this was the playfully experimental nature of the novel itself. Two versions, one male, one female, that differed only in a single paragraph, but a paragraph that supposedly changed everything about the story. It wasn't even essential to read either version from beginning to end, for both were constructed in such a manner as to be satisfactorily read in a non-linear progression. As if all this wasn't enough, the story told by the book was remarkable too: the historical moment when the mighty Khazar Empire decided to discard its old culture and accept a new one overnight...

So much for Dictionary of the Khazars. Despite its genius, I actually rate it as the weakest of Pavić's novels. Which means that the others are even better; an astounding achievement in the context of 20th Century literature. My favourite of all is probably Landscape Painted with Tea, set in the anachronistic theocracy of modern-day Athos. I have also a deep and abiding affection for The Inner Side of the Wind (surely one of the most poetic titles for any novel), a trans-temporal love story that is almost formally odd and yet contrives to be as ultimately moving as the most poignant works of this surprisingly extensive sub-genre (I'm thinking of excellent works in a broadly similar vein by Robert Nathan and Jack Finney). Even here, Pavić does not succumb to the (overrated) temptations of linearity. The Inner Side of the Wind is a two part story and both parts are printed back to back, thus the tales (and the lovers) meet in the middle and only truly there; content and form have been alchemically transmuted into one substance.

When it comes to my own work, Pavić provided inspiration for ideas and forms as well as language. There was a time when I tried far too hard to write like him. The zenith of my Pavić worship produced such tales as 'Spermaceti Whiskers', 'Thanatology Spleen' and 'Muscovado Lashes', where I give the impression of thrashing about in a box of pataphors. I eventually climbed out of that box because I knew my skills weren't pure enough for the task: the strain of being relentlessly original was too intense. And the world didn't need a cutprice Pavić: it already had the real thing. And yet, without my discovery of Pavić my confidence to be daring with the English language would be vastly smaller. I will always be grateful to him for showing me the way to this freedom.

Results of Poe-Themed Competition

Here is a list of all 13 Poe references in the photo competition I ran last week. The competition was run partly to help promote my new Plutonian Parodies chapbook (pictured here). Before coming up with that title for the chapbook I toyed with various other titles including Twisted Poenail Clippings, Poe Jamming, Poe Go Sticks, Poe Curling Tales and Everything but the Ghoul. Fortunately I didn't choose any of those!

(1) Torch ('The Fall of the House of Usher' -- ushers in cinemas carry torches)
(2 & 3) Toy Lion ('Lionizing' and 'A Tale of the Ragged Mountains' -- the pun on the word 'tail' makes this one a cheat: also a fact that the toy is a fox and not a lion, but he looks like a lion)
(4) Bag of Salt ('The Oblong Box')
(5 & 6) Bottle with Rolled Up Papers Stuffed into Neck ('The Cask of Amontillado' and 'MS. Found in a Bottle')
(7) Two Non-Parallel Lines ('The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall')
(8) Model Cottage ('Landor's Cottage')
(9) Oval Portrait ('The Oval Portrait')
(10) Four Headed Creature ('Four Beasts in One')
(11) Map of Jerusalem ('A Tale of Jerusalem')
(12 & 13) Inverted Skeleton on Thread ('The Pit and the Pendulum' and 'King Pest')
(14) And now for the trickiest reference of all: the fact that I said there were only 13 references whereas in fact there are 14, the 14th being 'Mystification' which is a non-reference and therefore not even in the photograph (which is why it's so mystifying). I can't imagine that anyone could ever get this reference; and in fact nobody did. It was another cheat!

Many thanks to all who participated in this competition! Ross Warren got the most correct answers; and Steve Lockley got the fewest!

Do-Re-Mi

My Own Version of the annoying 1959 Sound of Music song by Rodgers and Hammerstein:

Dough, a loaf, an unbaked loaf,
Ray, a science fiction gun,
ME, a condition causing lethargy,
Far, a Fawcett without the rah,
So, a Peter Gabriel album,
Laa, a Teletubby cut in two,
T, a bone in a bluesy Walker,

That will bring us back to:

Dough, a loaf, an unbaked loaf…
Etc.

The Monkey Wrench Gang

One of the most important novels written in the last century, Edward Abbey's masterpiece, The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975), should be read by as many people as possible. The message it contains and explores is not only pertinent but essential. If you struggle against an oppressive regime, overthrow it and install yourself as an alternative regime, only the actors have changed: the play remains the same. If you seek not to change anything at all but only to keep everything as it was (note the past tense) -- through sabotage, disruption and general harassment of the Big Soulless Machine -- then the world won't have to become better, it will be better already. Like all solutions, an 'ideal' can be corrupted easily; but how does one corrupt a doubt, a problem, a question, a quandary?

Pretty Pretentious

I wish critics and reviewers would learn the difference between the words 'pretentious', 'pompous' and 'grandiose'. They are not interchangeable terms.

Some of Dylan Thomas's poetry is pretentious -- in other words it pretends to have a meaning that it doesn't actually possess. Whether Dylan Thomas himself was pretentious is a different question. It could be that he simply never intended for those particular poems to have a meaning, in which case they function more as music than conventional poetry. He was certainly never pompous or grandiose; and neither was his poetry.

I remember reading the entry on William Gaddis in an encyclopedia of literature and finding the absurd comment that his work is 'possibly pretentious'. But what is it possibly pretending to be? Ambitious? But it is ambitious. Insightful? But it is insightful. Elegantly written? But it is elegantly written. If a writer's work is truly what it claims to be, then it can't be possibly pretentious (or even definitely pretentious), no matter how complex or difficult it might be...

Carlos Castaneda was pretentious. He pretended to be something he wasn't, namely a mystic with access to a deeper reality; but he wasn't pompous or grandiose. Khalil Gibran was both pretentious and pompous: his pseudo-Nietzschean declarations on morality, beauty and death are carefully engineered to give the impression of an enormous wisdom that simply isn't there. So much for his writing; his drawings are genuinely fine.

Kingsley Amis was pompous, but not pretentious or grandiose. His offensive conservatism never pretended to be anything other than what it was, and his pomposity was always provincial. Contrast him with Leo Tolstoy, who was grandiose in an extreme degree, but absoluely never pretentious or pompous. In such a case 'grandiose' should be a term of respect.

John Barth is pompous. He's also grandiose and arrogant. But he's never pretentious. He never pretends to be a genius -- he is a genius. The same is true for Nabokov. Nabokov was arrogant because he claimed to be better than other writers, but his work really is better than the work of (most) other writers, so by no fair means can he ever be called pretentious.

Georges Perec, on the other hand, was neither pretentious, pompous nor grandiose. Although it has the most grandiose title of all, his novel Life: a User's Manual is focussed on lives rather than Life. Neither was Perec arrogant. A smartass is what Perec was: a glorious one. It must be a bitter pill to swallow, but the blunt truth is that some writers truly are more clever than all critics; and sometimes even more clever than most readers.

Critics, please get your insults right!

Three New Chaps

Not real chaps (human males) but chapbooks. In other words, slim pamphlets containing fiction. These three chapbooks are called Madonna Park, Plutonian Parodies and The Fanny Fables and they can be ordered from The Penny Dreadful Company at various places on that website...

Madonna Park contains six stories ('Big Game', 'Three Friends', 'The Big Lick', 'Madonna Park', 'Suttee and Sweep' and 'The Gun Fight'); Plutonian Parodies contains three parodies ('Poe Pie', 'The Lollipop God is Dead' and 'The Sun Trap'); and The Fanny Fables contains six fables ('Fanny is Famished', 'The Furry Godmother', 'Petal Put the Kelly On', 'Fanny of the Apes', 'Knobheads and Dipsticks' and 'Fanny of the Opera'). I like 'em. You might too!

If You're Happy and You Know It, Clap Your Gums!

My new novel is generally bigger than Swansea Marina... but only if you don't believe in perspective!