The Blind Eye

Don Paterson

It's right to do something a bit different, today: this is my 100th post, and I've just passed my 100th follower. As one of nature's premiere Giver-Uppers, I'm pretty happy to have got that far.

So here's what I'm doing differently: this is a review of a book I haven't read yet.

Haven't finished, anyway.

But that's okay; it's not a novel. The Blind Eye is a collection of aphorisms by the poet Don Paterson, and you're not meant to read it start to finish.  (Even I, who grew up reading books of quotations and one-liners as if they were novels, prefer to dip in and out of this one.)

The aphorisms stretch from sentence fragments to an entire page, and from flippancy to the murky depths of self-analysis (the obsession is not of his self, as one aphorism points out, but the self; he could be just as easily obsessed with yours, if it was as readily available for study). Often, the flippancy and intensity are, gratifyingly, one and the same; occasionally, left to their own, they become see-through or obtuse.

I love these varying fractions of anti-wisdom, but I must confess love for the form alone. I've already mentioned that I used to (still do) read books of quotations or jokes; starting from page one; with a bookmark; vainly searching for a plot. It's a pipe dream of mine to write a novel that is presented as a book of quotations. The Quotable Edward Awful, or something. What a great gimmick that would be, and I'd only have to write the killer lines! (Vainly searching for a plot...)

I guess I really should quote The Blind Eye, it being a list of the best bits to quote already. And as this is my blog-centenary, I know which one:

You've made a blog... Clever boy! Next: flushing.

Literary Blog Hop

Discuss a work of literary merit that you hated when you were made to read it in school or university. Why did you dislike it?

One of my most exceptional readerly skills (out of many), is that I like almost everything. Some could see this as a lack of discernment, or at least discrimination, but I like it: it means I avoid too many 'do I have to finish this?' dilemmas. One of the downsides is that I can't answer questions like the above very easily. I liked everything I read for English GCSE. (For some inexplicable reason, I didn't do English for A-level.)

I did get recommended a book by an English teacher, though, that I couldn't get to the end of. Looking back, I have no idea why Mr James, who I barely spoke to, thought I'd like Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre.

Anyway, I didn't like it. It was a huge long time ago, so there's not much I can say. I remember it being slow, pointless and foreign.

It doesn't say much about the book, but it does say a lot about reading books at the wrong time. I've avidly avoided everything Brontish since, and while some of that is probably due to an essential mismatch of reader and writer, a lot of it could be avoided -- if I hadn't tried reading Jane Eyre before I wanted to. Oops.

Moonraker

Ian Fleming

Bond. That's right.

I once spent a week in a farmhouse in Scotland where I read through half a dozen Bond books, because they were the only things on the shelf. And possibly because they're about Bond, James Bond, as well. Mostly that, in fact.

I didn't read Moonraker then, but I did now (obviously). The best thing about switching books with friends is you end up with things you probably wouldn't pick up for yourself; the worst thing is that you were probably right not to pick them up, some of the time.

Moonraker is a little indecisive compared to most Bond books, but also the best. It's set entirely in England, and here's the main thing: nothing preposterous happens for the first half. Read that again. Nothing. It's all vaguely, squintingly believable.

But it's indecisive: after the halfway point, it gets silly. It's not preposterous enough throughout to be brilliantly insane, but it's not reasonable enough throughout to be any good. 

But even the short break from ridiculum marks it as the best Bond novel, to me. The opening third is Fleming writing about a game of Bridge in a club in London. Fleming knows a lot about bridge, clubs and London -- more than he knows about rockets and women and supervillains, anyway. It's tense, it's a psychological battle, and it's claustrophobic. It's a lot better than I remember any of the other Bond novels I read being.

Up until page 180, that is, when the German supervillain building an atomic warhead in Dover for the Queen explodes a cliff right above Bond's head. Then comes car chases, Soviet submarines, and a girl who knows the co-ordinates for the rocket getting locked up with Bond, by Supervillain -- in the rocket control centre. Unguarded. Mwahahaha.

Oh well. At least it didn't have Roger Moore in it.

deadkidsongs

Toby Litt

One thing I like about Mr Litt, and I touched on it in my review of Hospital, is his ambition. deadkidsongs is certainly ambitious.

It is written, for the most part, in the collective 1st person. As the 'we' in question is four English boys, called Gang, that turns out to be singular 3rd person for the most part. When Gang does something, it is 'we,' but whenever a member of Gang does something, it is he.

deadkidsongs tries to be a lot of different books, but the one it succeeds at most is that of the tale of the collective 1st person, of Gang. When its membership is altered, the balance disappears, and trouble gets spilt everywhere. That is the central strength of the novel.

But the book is also succesful in other ways. It's an excellent portrayal of childhood, or rather more exclusively, of boyhood. Animalistic politics, strength and the ethics of respect are everywhere. Boys aren't nice. Not by nature.

Or maybe it's a book about fatherhood, and parental responsibility. The Best Father and Worst Father are extreme examples of where the boys are heading, either if they remain loyal to their boisterousness, or if they betray it. (Betraying it, in this sense, seeming the far better option.)

In any one of these ways, deadkidsongs is a success. But that's the problem. Litt doesn't pick one to follow through with. It's a strange flaw to have, being good in too many different ways. The different books, instead of intertwining and uniting,  get in each other's way, and confuse each other. They're like four boys trying to squeeze through one doorway. Gang could get through, because Gang is a unit. But not four individual boys, each wanting to be first.

Books on Film

I've watched three films in the last three nights, and each one of them was a book first. The typical reaction to good books becoming films is negative; fear mingled with contempt, turned up to panic levels by the tiniest glimmer of hope.

But I'm an optimist. Three bookfilms in a row, so at least one of them will be a success, I thought. But what do you call it when all three are awesome? Most book people hate bookfilms... am I too easily pleased? Please tell me.

Slaughterhouse 5

If I was asked which of my favourite authors was least filmable, I would say Vonnegut, every time. It's not that they couldn't be filmed, but that they would lose too much of what makes them special. None more so than S-5, my default answer to the favourite-book question.

But, despite the complete lack of SO IT GOES and the utter non-existence of the sounds of birds, this 1972 film captures the essense of the book, somehow. They ended it with fireworks on Tralfamadore, but I still loved it.

No Country For Old Men

This is a damn good film. I could watch it a dozen times, I think. It's harsh reality verses fiction, and harsh reality wins every time, and it still manages to be likable. It's sparse and beautiful and hardgoing and doesn't talk much and is hilarious and brutal ignores convention.

I've said all of those things about Cormac's books (apart from it's a damn good film), and so if I had to guess, I'd say this was a pretty accurate adaptation. I'll find out for sure when I get round to reading the damn thing.

Bright Young Things

Stephen Fry adapting Vile Bodies, using almost every great English actor who's young enough -- plus Peter O-flipping-Toole -- and it's still better than I expected. It's sadder than I remember the book being, just as funny, and far more beautiful than I managed to picture it.

The ending drags, or can't decide, or something. Nothing I read or see at the moment stops at the point I think it should stop, so maybe don't take this too seriously.


I honestly think I've covered all the bases: a book I know well, a book I've never read, and one I can't remember too well. Each film is great, in different ways. Seriously, am I too easily pleased? Or have I just got lucky with the adaptations I've picked recently?

What do you think about books on film?