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alexsarllYesterday I finished a peculiar little book which left me almost more interested in its publisher than itself. Capuchin Classics have borrowed the green Penguin are no longer using for their modern classics - or perhaps one a shade away from it. They otherwise have a more uniform look, though - and not a bad one, pencil drawings for the covers, all very tasteful. The indicia lists not a publisher or editor in chief, but a chatelaine. And their selection includes a few standard, public domain classics - and then a lot of books like this one of which I had never previously heard. Clearly a labour of love; I approve.
The book itself was The Green Child by Herbert Read, of whom I knew little except that he wasn't conventionally known as a novelist - apparently this was his only one. Apparently he was an anarchist poet and critic; of those three descriptors, only 'poet' would you deduce from The Green Child. There are parts where I was reminded of Graham Greene, who supplies the introduction - except that this is a Greeneland where everything works out for the best, in peace. Something about the quality of the light made me think of Firbank, except that there's none of his fussiness in the style or his loucheness to the content. As the title suggests, the story deals with the myth of green children, except updated to the nineteenth century. Or at least, half the story does, because while the protagonist is returning to the sleepy English village where he grew up, he spent much of his life - and more than half the pages - leading the South American republic of Roncador (yes, of course it got namechecked in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) - hence a Study in Scarlet situation where for most of the book we're away from the ostensible interest. Still, it does mean we get two rather unsettling but apparently sincere utopias in one short novel, and that's some going.
Not a week of great eventfulness, unless you count the strictly local excitement of a new Sainsbury's on the Maisionette Beautiful's block. The weekend saw another fine Nuisance and another Dons rehearsal (we shall be on the internet wireless tomorrow at 2pm), and an engagement party en route to which I again took the gamble of a 'shortcut' along the canal. If this has ever worked, it doesn't with the works currently underway, but it can produce other, more interesting results. Such as finding oneself on a floating walkway which leads, ultimately, to St Pancras Old Church and Coroner's Court - two key locations in the Bryant & May book I read recently, as spookily London as one could wish in the autumn twilight.
My free Blockbuster trial* is up now, and the last of the DVDs have been watched and returned. Odd blighters they were too: both Youth in Revolt and Observe and Report star stars of Superbad, but neither is funny. At least in the latter case it seems to be deliberate. The set-up - mall security guard with delusions of grandeur - could easily have been funny. Keep the exact same script and cast Will Ferrell, you'd have a comedy. But the way Seth Rogen plays the part, it's really quite upsetting. And intermittently brilliant, especially when it skewers the standard Hollywood rhetoric about sticking to your dreams &c.
Also seen: Joe Meek biopic Telstar, which is very good though I preferred the early, funnier hour; and Centurion, in which Dog Soldiers director Neil Marshall basically remakes his bonkers Doomsday, except this time it's the real Hadrian's Wall instead of a near future one, and shot in the real Scotland instead of South Africa. Whether it has the right idea about the fate of Rome's Ninth Legion I don't know, but it does have a damn fine cast (David Morrissey, Noel Clarke, Dominic West whom some readers might like to know spends much of his appearance topless and/or in chains), and some Iraq resonances which are fairly deftly handled, and an awful lot of gore. Albeit some of it historically inaccurate gore, because the Roman legionary's gladius was not a slashing sword.
*Not strictly free, in that it's a quid for a month. But because I'm signed up to Cashback Kings, I get £7.50 back, so in fact it works out better than free. I got a tenner from a Lovefilm trial via the same method, but that only lasted half as long. Swings and roundabouts.
The book itself was The Green Child by Herbert Read, of whom I knew little except that he wasn't conventionally known as a novelist - apparently this was his only one. Apparently he was an anarchist poet and critic; of those three descriptors, only 'poet' would you deduce from The Green Child. There are parts where I was reminded of Graham Greene, who supplies the introduction - except that this is a Greeneland where everything works out for the best, in peace. Something about the quality of the light made me think of Firbank, except that there's none of his fussiness in the style or his loucheness to the content. As the title suggests, the story deals with the myth of green children, except updated to the nineteenth century. Or at least, half the story does, because while the protagonist is returning to the sleepy English village where he grew up, he spent much of his life - and more than half the pages - leading the South American republic of Roncador (yes, of course it got namechecked in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) - hence a Study in Scarlet situation where for most of the book we're away from the ostensible interest. Still, it does mean we get two rather unsettling but apparently sincere utopias in one short novel, and that's some going.
Not a week of great eventfulness, unless you count the strictly local excitement of a new Sainsbury's on the Maisionette Beautiful's block. The weekend saw another fine Nuisance and another Dons rehearsal (we shall be on the internet wireless tomorrow at 2pm), and an engagement party en route to which I again took the gamble of a 'shortcut' along the canal. If this has ever worked, it doesn't with the works currently underway, but it can produce other, more interesting results. Such as finding oneself on a floating walkway which leads, ultimately, to St Pancras Old Church and Coroner's Court - two key locations in the Bryant & May book I read recently, as spookily London as one could wish in the autumn twilight.
My free Blockbuster trial* is up now, and the last of the DVDs have been watched and returned. Odd blighters they were too: both Youth in Revolt and Observe and Report star stars of Superbad, but neither is funny. At least in the latter case it seems to be deliberate. The set-up - mall security guard with delusions of grandeur - could easily have been funny. Keep the exact same script and cast Will Ferrell, you'd have a comedy. But the way Seth Rogen plays the part, it's really quite upsetting. And intermittently brilliant, especially when it skewers the standard Hollywood rhetoric about sticking to your dreams &c.
Also seen: Joe Meek biopic Telstar, which is very good though I preferred the early, funnier hour; and Centurion, in which Dog Soldiers director Neil Marshall basically remakes his bonkers Doomsday, except this time it's the real Hadrian's Wall instead of a near future one, and shot in the real Scotland instead of South Africa. Whether it has the right idea about the fate of Rome's Ninth Legion I don't know, but it does have a damn fine cast (David Morrissey, Noel Clarke, Dominic West whom some readers might like to know spends much of his appearance topless and/or in chains), and some Iraq resonances which are fairly deftly handled, and an awful lot of gore. Albeit some of it historically inaccurate gore, because the Roman legionary's gladius was not a slashing sword.
*Not strictly free, in that it's a quid for a month. But because I'm signed up to Cashback Kings, I get £7.50 back, so in fact it works out better than free. I got a tenner from a Lovefilm trial via the same method, but that only lasted half as long. Swings and roundabouts.
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no subject
Date: 2010-09-21 02:05 pm (UTC)It's a good story.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-21 02:38 pm (UTC)