Named after the Dogger Littoral, an area of land connecting GB with the Netherlands that was submerged circa 6500 BCE, Ben Smith’s first novel is an eNamed after the Dogger Littoral, an area of land connecting GB with the Netherlands that was submerged circa 6500 BCE, Ben Smith’s first novel is an ecological dystopia in the manner of J.G. Ballard’s The Drowned World. Across the novel, the two protagonists The Old Man and The Boy potter around a rig in the North Sea, periodically repairing the off-shore wind turbines and receiving parcels of ultra-processed gloop from a creepy courier while not saying very much to one another. The nature of their relationship is slowly teased out across the brooding and uneventful novel which bombards the reader with one to many descriptive passages pertaining to the technical repairs of turbines or nacelles, keeping the backdrop of the ecological fallout intentionally opaque, allowing the reader to arrive at their own bleak conclusions about a future world of flooded interzones and primitive drudgery. Compelling....more
At 85, Reed is still serving up raucous satire and flame-hot polemics. This volume from 2019 collects work from the terrible tens, focusing largely onAt 85, Reed is still serving up raucous satire and flame-hot polemics. This volume from 2019 collects work from the terrible tens, focusing largely on various bugbears such as the shabby treatment of black males from “corporate feminists”, the ways in which black history and modern life is wrongly perceived by Jewish writers and directors such as David Simon and Steven Spielberg, and how supposedly liberal media outlets like MSNBC fall into racist tropes on issues such as drug abuse, i.e. using images of young black males in their reports. Reed also savages the smash-hit Hamilton for its depiction of Alexander Hamilton as an abolitionist, when history suggests Hamilton was much more cosy with slaving than the musical explains. Reed also wrote a play called The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda, where the airbrushed victims of history come to visit the composer one evening to correct the record. Although score-settling and personal beefs form the kernel of many of these pieces, the arguments and rants are always erudite and sharp, and offer an eye-opening view of how African-American culture and history is continually distorted through a (consciously or otherwise) racist prism....more
Using this particular to vent a peeve—why include the university you attended in your bio? In the blurbs of old, this was a way to reassure the haughtUsing this particular to vent a peeve—why include the university you attended in your bio? In the blurbs of old, this was a way to reassure the haughty reader that the literary quality was assured if the author received their First from Harbridge or Oxyale, whereas now we’re supremely uninterested in your cacademic achievements, we merely want your prose to shake us awake from our mopey holes of despair. By mentioning your alma mater, are you displaying your insecurity at being accepted in the pantheon of poindexters, are you trying to signal to awards committees and reviewers who attended the same school that you deserve big prizes, or are you simply confusing your CV with your bio? These are the questions, folks. Whatever the reason, you should never mention where you “took” your PhD in a bio, because this will only turn the reader against you. Beware. This book is one of the most tedious Dalkeys I’ve read recently, a flatly prosed humorless deconstruction of the detective novel, or something. Snooze. ...more
As someone increasingly radicalised to spend hours and minutes mocking the radicalised alt-right, I was surprised at how much of the information in thAs someone increasingly radicalised to spend hours and minutes mocking the radicalised alt-right, I was surprised at how much of the information in this book had already permeated my fortress of fash. Something of a sprawling hotchpotch of case studies, laments on the arrogance of tech-libertarians, and gonzo reportage of Trump-licking events, the book skilfully tries to navigate a coherent path through an extremely complex and incoherent period, where the utopian dream of a self-regulating internet swiftly crashed into reality’s face like a burning fokker of lies. Marantz spends time with two particularly unpleasant morons—Mike Cernovich, an egocentric crank who ranks among the worst grifters to leap on the Trump train, and Mike Enoch (some Mikes, I assume, are good people), an unhappy driftless sod who turned to anti-Semitic trolling and outright Nazi endorsement as a way of enacting some warped psychodrama taking place in his own foggy mental caverns. As with most of these stories, the end result is that America needs to spend more time on the psychiatric couch. If these lost, directionless people spent less money donating to alt-right Patreons and more on therapy, America might halt its inevitable decline into bloody apartheid and Trumpian fascism. Sad!...more
Lipsyte, the closest we have as an heir apparent to Stanley Elkin, returns to the novel after a seven-year absence, his last The Ask in 2012. Not overLipsyte, the closest we have as an heir apparent to Stanley Elkin, returns to the novel after a seven-year absence, his last The Ask in 2012. Not overly prolific, ne’ertheless Lipsyte carefully scrubs and buffs his clauses to a luminescent comic sheen, making every page a scream on the sentence level, throwing caution to the dogs when plot or coherence is concerned. Hark is a parody of post-New Age wellness health crazes with little substantive heft to them and many ways to subscribe for £££. The titular Hark is a wispy man with many nonsensical pronouncements on the art of “mental archery”, the endgame of which is to help people achieve full DFW enlightenment and focus more. The novel is more concerned with the loopy parasites hovering around Hark, among them a wibbly married twosome trying to keep a marriage afloat in a world unmoored from sense. An extremely silly, riotous chuckle in the face of a crumbling world, Hark is a fine antidote to weeping alonely into your eggnog....more
First published in New Writers 3 in 1965 by John Calder, these four short stories comprise the sum total of Trocchi’s efforts in the medium, and his fFirst published in New Writers 3 in 1965 by John Calder, these four short stories comprise the sum total of Trocchi’s efforts in the medium, and his final prose offering before ending his all-too-brief time as a writer, his career ravaged by a heroin/methadone addiction that made writing impossible for him. In ‘A Being of Distances’ a son fleetingly connects with his father in a story that has the whiff of autofiction, in ‘A Meeting’ an office worker fleetingly connects with an alluringly plump employee after six years of office cohabitation, in ‘Peter Pierce’ two businesspersons fleetingly transact before trust is broken, and in the titular story a recluse fleetingly connects with no one in particular. These stories, you may have surmised, concern fleeting connections, and share the ponderous darkness of his novel Cain’s Book, although they are fairly unmemorable and only really recommended for the Trocchi completist. ...more
A scabrous and surreal novel written in script form, the bastard lovechild of Larry Cohen and Dušan Makavejev, inverting racist tropes in cartoonish sA scabrous and surreal novel written in script form, the bastard lovechild of Larry Cohen and Dušan Makavejev, inverting racist tropes in cartoonish scenes of righteous and hilarious incoherence to perform a brutal comic KO....more
A botched attempt at hot-topic triggering and snowflake-baiting turns into a meandering and unconvincing depiction of depression with some B+ black huA botched attempt at hot-topic triggering and snowflake-baiting turns into a meandering and unconvincing depiction of depression with some B+ black humour and snark....more
There are more important things to consider than the relative merits of Guided by Voices’ lo-fi albums in contrast with their slicker noughties effortThere are more important things to consider than the relative merits of Guided by Voices’ lo-fi albums in contrast with their slicker noughties efforts (Bee Thousand or Isolation Drills, my salty friends?), or whether to construct the app version of my Welsh picaresque novel using React.js or Node with Express. The modern phenom of not particularly focusing on social ills, unless that ill is currently chewing off your own face (hello, Coronavirus!) is one punitively understood by governments, especially the hellacious one helmed by that fart in a frock, Theresa “Fucking” May, who presided over a sinister immigration policy intended to fast-track brown people back to their ancestors’ countries of origins. There are no words to express how repugnant the United Kingdom has become over the last few years, other than a stream of sadistic splatterporn terms shrieked castrato into a megaphone, and the Windrush story is one in a series of pathetic, amoral policies cooked up in response to the Murdoch media, whose hobbies include phone hacking and utterly corrupting the entire planet all the time with their lying mouths. It truly is a repulsive time to be alive, my salty friends, so better to bury your ears in the sublime discography of Guided by Voices, who have four new albums and counting for you to feast on. ...more
This pithy primer for democratic socialism is a perfect excuse to plug my suggestion for improving the world by having the Scandinavians shadow everyoThis pithy primer for democratic socialism is a perfect excuse to plug my suggestion for improving the world by having the Scandinavians shadow everyone in our debased deregulated dystopias. From Scotland Before the Bomb:
For decades, commentators had used the countries of Sweden, Norway, and Finland as exemplars of liberal, well-educated societies uncorrupted by big business that treated their citizens in a fair and dignified manner. Since Argyll & Bute had been hitting the skids corruption-wise, with thousands set aside for forest conservation siphoned into ministers’ trousers, and millions set aside for mental health provisions wired to a Swiss bank account, the populace voted that Scandinavians come to the country and shadow everyone, from ministers to trash collectors, and teach them how not to be complete pricks. Colin McGregor, a baker, was shadowed for two months by Kjell Eriksen, who lectured him on not helping himself to cream puffs, charging the same for day-old pastries, or masturbating in the back room. Iain Macquarrie, the finance minister, was shadowed by Linnéa Nyberg, who lectured him on not pocketing the OAP winter heating allowance to build an extention on his seafront cottage so his son Malcolm could move in with his new partner. Alasdair Adair, a single parent of two, was shadowed by Aki Heikkinen, who lectured him on not singing unionist folk songs to his seven-year-old son, thereby implanting a factually incorrect history of the trade union movement into his baby’s ears. Erin Stewart, a reporter, was shadowed by Jørgen Solberg, who lectured her on not arriving too early at crime scenes and interrogating traumatised victims minutes after their ordeals. Arlene Galt, a hairdresser, was shadowed by Tove Ek, who lectured her on not leaving people too long in the dryers, causing acute burns on their scalps, and not trimming her nails to a tolerable length for washing procedures. Callum Brotchie, a GP, was shadowed by Armo Järvinen, who lectured him on not letting off stink bombs under the table to force his chattier patients to leave. Iona Archie, a shepherdess, was shadowed by Aku Hämäläinen, who lectured her on not whipping the sheep with her riding crop when her patience with the flocculent ruminants was tested on windy, rainy afternoons. Jimmy Crae, a hobo, was shadowed by Alfhild Rønning, who lectured him on his poor begging technique and limited repertoire on the zither. Helen Galloway, a senior management accounts executive, was shadowed by Ake Larsson, who lectured her on not talking complete bollocks from the minute she entered the office to the minute she left the office. The scheme was scrapped after the Scandinavians had substantially improved the populace. (p.12-13)...more
Downtime from serious reading, time to check on the dismantling of the Free World. This handbook introduces readers to the most incompetent mouthbreedDowntime from serious reading, time to check on the dismantling of the Free World. This handbook introduces readers to the most incompetent mouthbreeders in Trump’s cabinet of cack-lipped dunderwhelps, among them (less known to a British audience), the strutting cock Scott Pruitt of ex-EPA fame, a man who long ago sneezed his brains into a handkerchief, and has been powered by furious snotballs of stupefying idiocy ever since. Among the others included Ryan Zinke, an ex-SEAL who loved slapping enormous charges on national parks, and wanted to introduce a pay-per-tree system to anyone stupid enough to think they had a God-given right to appreciate nature. Ben Carson, Betsy DeVos, Reince Priebus, Steven Mnuchin, what this roll-call of sub-hominid bottom-feeders have in common is their love of travelling in private planes (that you Americans are paying for), or furnishing their offices with Louis VI escritoires (that you Americans are paying for), and never being held to account for a single thing and moving on to million-dollar salaries in the private sector. America, if you fail to elect Bernie this year, I promise I will call upon Scandinavia to invade you. There is hope....more
Peripatet, the latest from stellar underground press Inside the Castle, is a work of “ambient” nonfiction, i.e. a book that appropriates samples from Peripatet, the latest from stellar underground press Inside the Castle, is a work of “ambient” nonfiction, i.e. a book that appropriates samples from popular culture, other literary sources, and the ephemera of our online lives. Maierhofer, inspired by pioneer in this niche field Tan Lin, splices snippets of memoir, freewheeling thought processes, ruminations on artists ranging from Ian Curtis to Herman Melville to Kurt Cobain, lines from Georges Bataille, strings of code from Amazon, and B&W photographs. Shunning page numbers, each sprawls over two pages, either exploding into enormous 60pt+ quotations, shrinking into almost unreadably teensy intellectual wambles (collapsing sometimes into the spine), or remaining at a readable size for a brief moment. Federman, who is referenced in the opening pages, is a keen influence on the ambitious exactitude of the typography, and Paul Morley (also referenced), in the splicing of riveting and navelgazing confessional memoir with incisive artistic criticism. The “ambient” components—the inserted photos and excessive pastings of passages from Melville’s Pierre—are less compelling. Maierhofer is a strong non-fiction writer, and the most striking elements of this unconventional work are the thoughtful excavations of his own depression and the futility of making art....more
Having scored with the boozed-up wife of a Russian ne’er-do-well at her son’s shindig, magician Erich Ambrose’s borrowed rabbit Mr. Boots draws blood Having scored with the boozed-up wife of a Russian ne’er-do-well at her son’s shindig, magician Erich Ambrose’s borrowed rabbit Mr. Boots draws blood from said son following a patchy party performance. The consequences of this unfortunate nipper-nip for Erich are vast, sending him into a minor intrigue involving stroppy FBI agents, his ex-wife’s mime seminars, and concise espionage at a football match. Several hours in the prose presence of Mr. Holdefer makes for a rib-tickling prospect, with thoughtful character sketches, sensational set-pieces, and pristine en pointe plotting....more
An improvisatory, loose novella exploring Barker’s personal fallout with the form for which she is famous, reminiscent of B.S. Johnson’s own peevishneAn improvisatory, loose novella exploring Barker’s personal fallout with the form for which she is famous, reminiscent of B.S. Johnson’s own peevishness in Albert Angelo. In her last novel, the tremendous H(A)PPY, Barker seemed reinvigorated, having boxed herself into writing tiresome screwball comedies, though this turn into self-interrogating metafiction suggests Barker is in an existential funk. As long as she continues to channel this existential funk into whatever form she pleases, I will remain a passionate devotee. ...more
