GavinJones Posted August 11, 2005 Author Share Posted August 11, 2005 Prynne me down. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
alexhills Posted August 11, 2005 Share Posted August 11, 2005 Prynne me down. I had dinner with Jeremy Prynne last summer actually - a mutual friend has written music based on his work. A very interesting and charming man who seems like a poet should... I'm ashamed to say I hardly know any of his poetry at all - I've just read one longish poem that I can't remember much about but liked, seemed quite Empsonish, perhaps as one would expect. I think there is supposed to be a new collected works edition either just out or soon to be out. In general I'm afraid I agree with Wilfrid's comparison of the relative states of English and American poetry. Classical avant-garde music - the UK is looking a bit better at... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
g.johnson Posted August 11, 2005 Share Posted August 11, 2005 Classical avant-garde music Isn't that an oxymoron? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
alexhills Posted August 11, 2005 Share Posted August 11, 2005 Fair point - some fairly horrible historical issues going on in the 'naming' of such genres... I guess avant-garde concert music might be less contradictory seeming. People talking about the history of muscial style usually make a distinction between small c classical - all of western art music from c.1000 to the present - and big C Classical - C.P.E Bach through Schubert. But the whole term 'western art music' is loaded and difficult... My own version of avant-garde classical music is people still stubbornly trying to be modernists - Harrison Birtwistle, Pierre Boulez, Brian Ferneyhough, Elliott Carter, for instance. Of whom 1 and 3 are English, incidentally... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Wilfrid1 Posted August 11, 2005 Share Posted August 11, 2005 No coincidence that Prynne, despite a doubtless formidable command of English literature, has explicit poetic debts to the American experimentalists: Olson, Dorn, the Language poets, etc. The "mainstream" of post-war English poetry has tried very hard to ignore the States. (Oh, there are exceptions - obviously Gunn who went to live there. Currently Mark Ford). Quote Link to post Share on other sites
GavinJones Posted August 12, 2005 Author Share Posted August 12, 2005 Though Mark Ford is surely just Ashbery-lite. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ampletuna Posted August 12, 2005 Share Posted August 12, 2005 *sigh* if only this were a closed site. Husband is full of wonderful tales about Martyn Goff. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
GavinJones Posted September 8, 2005 Author Share Posted September 8, 2005 Shortlist has at least eliminated some of these authors. bum. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
mongo_jones Posted September 8, 2005 Share Posted September 8, 2005 have not read the new rushdie, but reports from people i trust suggest that it shouldn't even have been on the long list. of course, this would probably be true of all his novels since "the satanic verses". Quote Link to post Share on other sites
mongo_jones Posted September 8, 2005 Share Posted September 8, 2005 oh good. thanks. someone missed me? i'm going to cry! I now know who are middlebrow writers. But who are, I pray stupidity, the highbrow writers? Rushdie: mid or hi? i think rushdie is probably mid. and i think he's happy to be there. "midnight's children" will go down more as a significant novel--for its effect on modern indian literature--than as a great novel. of all his work i think the only one that has a chance to survive is "the satanic verses", which i thought was just fine when i first read it but thought was magnificent when i taught it last year. it is probably his only truly british novel. funny how naipaul no longer gets nominated. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Rose Posted September 8, 2005 Share Posted September 8, 2005 Prynne me down. Hester? She sure was ahead of her time. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
mongo_jones Posted September 8, 2005 Share Posted September 8, 2005 I don't have an alternative list. It just all strikes me as a bit clubby, and also as a way to comfort readers that they are reading what they should be reading. graham huggan has a nice analysis of the booker prize in his "the postcolonial exotic". but i'll be buggered if i'm going to summarize it here for you lot. i don't know about amis and mcewan but coetzee is not overrated. actually mrs. jones would say mcewan isn't either (i've barely read anything by him). she would also say that the best contemporary writers in english are american. i think i might agree. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
g.johnson Posted September 8, 2005 Share Posted September 8, 2005 oh good. thanks. someone missed me? i'm going to cry! i think rushdie is probably mid. and i think he's happy to be there. "midnight's children" will go down more as a significant novel--for its effect on modern indian literature--than as a great novel. of all his work i think the only one that has a chance to survive is "the satanic verses", which i thought was just fine when i first read it but thought was magnificent when i taught it last year. it is probably his only truly british novel. As you know I completely disagree on the relative merits of MC and SV. But that's based on my recollections from reading them 20 years ago. Maybe I should reread. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
mongo_jones Posted September 8, 2005 Share Posted September 8, 2005 oh good. thanks. someone missed me? i'm going to cry! i think rushdie is probably mid. and i think he's happy to be there. "midnight's children" will go down more as a significant novel--for its effect on modern indian literature--than as a great novel. of all his work i think the only one that has a chance to survive is "the satanic verses", which i thought was just fine when i first read it but thought was magnificent when i taught it last year. it is probably his only truly british novel. As you know I completely disagree on the relative merits of MC and SV. But that's based on my recollections from reading them 20 years ago. Maybe I should reread. i've read "midnight's children" about 5 times now, and each time it seems more and more like grass or marquez lite. and it always feels like it should end 150 pages before it does. my changed relationship with "the satanic verses" may have something to do with the fact that i re-read it 11 years into my own life as an immigrant. but in general the stylistic flourishes in this novel seem more organically connected to its concerns and less fireworky. it is, finally, a sentimental novel--it really wants you to believe in the redemptive power of love. as a nasty bastard you may have found this hard to take. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Behemoth Posted September 9, 2005 Share Posted September 9, 2005 I need to read Satanic Verses. I stayed away because of all the fatwa hooey, and then never got around to it. Not that I thought I would react in one way or the other, just that I was sick of hearing about it. Also, I had read midnight's children and felt it was meh, and to be honest, didn't want to read the controversial one in case I didn't like it and have to defend my position. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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