Just finished reading this great collection of psychoanalytical case histories; a veritable Pandora's Box, full of strange conditions and foibles and a book I will frequently revisit over the next few years, I suspect.
Here is a fine review of the piece in The Guardian a few years back.
This is an elegant and quite engaging short first novel about a physically 'tainted' young girl who is attempting to come to terms with her apparently extreme ugliness and the secret history behind her mother's chronic depression. Some of this book is very well-written and while overall ultimately it feels a little slight, it has some beautifully observed moments that reminded me of incidents related to people with mental illness in my own life that rang absolutely true. A promising debut and a recipient of many awards in its native Italy that reads well in translation I enjoyed this, if not immensely, then at least a fair amount.
Here is a review from The Irish Times that led me to the work and here is a link to the publishing house MacLehose press
Having recently been nominated for the Booker Prize, 'The Spinning Heart' has garnered a lot of praise of late and deservedly so. The fact that the book was initially rejected by 50 publishers is surprising in the extreme - I was hooked right from page 1.
The story is set in small-town, rural Ireland and each chapter is told solely from the point of view of one of the town's inhabitants. The story that pieces itself together over the course of the book is massively compelling and puts paid to any fears that this is just some literary parlour trick.
In its mere 150 pages there exists here a brilliantly described, bittersweet universe and an angry polemic against the greed that has brought most of Europe to its knees. There is much more going on than just raw invective however - Ryan's ear for ribald, naturalistic speech is magnificent and frequently hilarious. On reading it I was instantly reminded of some of the more colourful and somewhat tragic characters of my youth growing up in small-town North Cork and at times I was not sure whether to laugh or cry in response to some of the stories contained within. The interior dialogues are at once both hilarious and gorgeously poetic. There is also hope I would say in its pages as well as deep, deep sorrow.
If an established writer had written this it may well have been acclaimed as a masterpiece, but the fact that it is a first novel is staggering. I look forward massively to reading more from Ryan in the future and would hugely recommend this to all readers.
I was saddened to hear Karen Black passed away a few days ago (obituary here). She worked with amany of the finest directors of the American 'New Wave' and was usually an odd but particular presence in any film I have seen her in at least. She is probably most famous for her part in 'Five Easy Pieces' opposite Jack Nicholson and was somewhat typecast as a troubled, dumb blonde in her heyday. I remember as a teenager first seeing her and being at once sympathetic to her vulnerabilities, and lazy eye, but also being weirdly repulsed by her for some reason. She certainly made a lasting impression anyhow and this weekend I decided to give one of her films a watch, 'Night of the Locust' from John Schlesinger, 1975, and my what a film it is. It must be one of the darkest representations of Hollywood ever made, almost Jodorowskian at times, like a proto 'Mulholland Dr.' and full of Freudian undertones relative to 'Civilization and its Discontents'. I have never seen anything quite like it - I hugely recommend it to lovers of the surreal and bizarre and Karen Black - fare thee well.
Watched these two films recently and both share a common theme of sorts - a spiritual search for personal peace in Morocco by 2 young European women in the throes of an emotional crisis. 'Another Sky' is a 1954 British film written and directed by the Hollywood-blacklisted Gavin Lambert and it's a supremely accomplished film on the emerging sexuality of a young British woman arriving in Morocco to work as a companion to a wealthy English expat woman. During the course of the film, which is gorgeously shot by Walter Lassaly, the young girl falls in love with an itinerant musician and must make a decision whether to abandon her comfortable known existence or to embrace life in the dusty Moroccan wilderness. It's a fascinating piece of mature film-making for its time and is hugely deserving of a wider audience I'd say.
'À Perdre la Raison', clumsily entitled 'Our Children' for the English release, is a masterful French film from 2012 by Joachim Lafosse that is based on a true story about a young woman who marries a Moroccan man with a secret whose life is intricately linked with a wealthy French benefactor. As they raise a family their living situation eventually becomes problematic and the chronically depressed woman finds herself yearning for Morocco and a simpler life. Unfortunately she cannot escape her life in Europe and is finally driven to extreme measures by her mental condition. The performances are all brilliant and Émilie Dequenne in particular is spellbinding.
In both films the clash between the European and North African cultures is dealt with in an ambiguous, unhistrionic way and both films, although massively different in tone and style, have a lot to offer. Both I would recommend very highly indeed.
Last week on September 19th saw the anniversary of Gram Parson's death in 1973 in a motel room at Joshua Tree national park. The place has become enshrined as a kind of mythical destination for those seeking to connect with the gods of Rock n' Roll and those who may be, in the parlance of The Mighty Boosh, looking for the 'New Sound' such as U2. It is also an oft-visited destination in Ian Dunlop's recent book 'Breakfast in Nudie Suits' a very engaging beatnik-influenced mix of travelogue and musical reminiscences through whose pages the ghost of Gram wanders in an out of.
Dunlop (above, second from left in photo) was the bass player and friend of Parsons during the formative stages of his career and together they were amongst the first of their generation to re-connect with Country music from the deep south. While many others at the time were looking towards The Beatles and the Stones for musical leads these two were digging the sounds of Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash and harmonising to old Everly Brothers records and forming The International Submarine Band in '65, they would for the next two years play a set of down-home style originals, R n' B and Country cover tunes to mostly perplexed and sometimes downright hostile audiences.
Half of the book chronicles this time up to the point where Dunlop leaves the group as Parsons is about to record the first ISB album with Lee Hazlewood and there are some great accounts of their experiences over those two years including filming a scene for Roger Corman's LSD-explotiation flick 'The Trip', appearing on TV host/horror star Zacherle's music show with Shirley Ellis and playing a multitude of gigs where people harass them for playing Country music. The ISB never had much luck as a band - Corman found their music inappropriate for The Trip and overdubbed a song from The Electric Flag instead and the release of their album was shrouded in ill feeling as Parsons was deemed to have broken his contract with Hazlewood's record company by joining The Byrds. Without much label backing it sank without trace. However, a few years later and The Eagles would saddle up The ISB pony and ride it all the way to the bank.
(Here is The ISB's brief appearance in 'The Trip' - Warning: there be breasts)
Dunlop, having had enough of playing before indifferent audiences with the ISB, left the group before the recording of the album and unsure what to do next with his life decided to drive across America in a beaten-up, old VW camper van in the company of Barry Tashian and Bill Briggs, two members of the seminal Boston garage-rock band The Remains. The book cuts between scenes describing this ramshackle trip in the American hinterlands and swirling scenes describing the true adventures of the ISB in the big city and by and large the contrast between the two works very well. There are some vignettes that will resonate with collectors of vinyl and guitar lovers in particular as Dunlop picks up stacks of unwanted 45's and 78's during his travels, even though his VW seems perilously close to collapsing from the weight, and there is an in-depth account of how he acquires his early model Telecaster which will have twang-busters salivating. Along the way he obtains shellac'd gems like this: Bill Haley & the Comets - Hook, Line & Sinker and describes with great love and detail the sounds that he finds particularly rewarding from the fifties and early sixties.
Parsons comes across as an easygoing and likeable soul who has an underlying sad aspect and attraction to the darker sides of life. The stoned conversations between Dunlop and Parsons that litter the text here are amusing but at some points this darkness comes through. At one stage he surprises Dunlop with his memories of his father's suicide at the age of 12, two days before Christmas and in describing his love of Country notes:
"There is so much passion in the negativity (of Country music). Some good sounds come out from behind them ol' dark curtains... It's mostly about murder, death, drinkin'. The sins of the South. Really unhappy, morbid lyrics. It's the opposite of 'Good Day Sunshine' yeah? I love all that dark music about prison walls, lonely people drowning in booze, tryin' to hide their pasts and their adultery"
This book is certainly not just about Parsons, although its packaging may have you thinking otherwise, but as a scrapbook of literary polaroidsfrom a particularly loaded moment in American musical and political history it well worth tracking down and one of the best music-related books I have read from this year.
Incidentally and as an endnote, that man Zacherle was an interesting fellow - here is a great clip of his music show in the 60's featuring the Box Tops and a very young Alex Chilton
This is a fascinating book of oral history about everyday life in North Korea
over the last 30 years or so. Some of the hardships, sadnesses and
brutalities described here are almost beyond belief and those whose
stories populate these pages are truly courageous, strong and remarkable
folk. The book is slightly let down by its poor editing with lots of
repetitions slipping through the net but the histories described here
are so compelling that one is inclined to forgive this very minor
weakness. The final chapter, simply called 'Waiting', is a fine piece of
poetic journalism and the world still waits to see what will happen
next in this troubled part of Eastern Asia.
Some of the anecdotes are also quite funny in a very grim way and the lyrics from the NK patriotic song translations are notable for their directness.
'Where are we Going?':
Where have we gone? We have gone to the forest. Where are we going? We are going over the hills. What are we going to do? We are going to kill the Japanese soldiers.
And here is another timeless classic 'Shoot the Yankee Bastards:
Our enemies are the American Bastards Who are trying to take over my beautiful homeland With guns that I make with my own hands I will shoot them. BANG, BANG, BANG.
