3:AM Magazine

Dan Rhodes gets some love from the Bookslut:

Have you heard any recent literary award announcements and thought, they got that exactly right?

Obviously the judges of the Clare Maclean Prize were bang on. More often than not I won’t have read the books so it’ll be hard to say. It was good to see the insane Dylan Thomas Prize won by a great collection of stories (Fresh Apples, Rachel Trezise again). Most fiction prizes fetishise the novel, which makes me cranky.

I read a quote of yours, “Maybe one day I’ll write a nine hundred page epic but, if anything, my books will get shorter, I think,” which reminded me of the film director Barry Sonnenfeld, who said he was the one director who would go back and make his movies shorter. Do you ever want to edit anything out of your published work?

I wouldn’t edit my old books at all. I take great care with the words, and by the time they reach the printers they are just as I want them to be. Going back and making changes would just be meddlesome.

Since you made a stand in favour of short novels, I noticed both Ian McEwan and Philip Pullman have gotten in on the act. Do you think the tide is turning in favour of books that can be fit in one’s jacket pocket?

I would hate to think that I was part of a movement that included a book as dreadful as On Chesil Beach—I can’t think of a worse advertisement for the short novel. It’s not long books that bug me per se, it’s filler. I have no idea if shorter books are on the rise. I think there’s still an exasperating perception that longer books are better value for money than short ones.

Further: Fool’s Gold, 3:AM’s 2007 interview with Dan Rhodes / A small but satisfying kick in Blair’s nuts, 3:AM’s 2003 interview with Rhodes / Paul Ewen, he of London Pub Reviews fame, reads Gold in situ

The “ageing enfant terrible” of French literature is in trouble with his “old slut of a mother” (again):

[Michel] Houellebecq was later raised in a grey French suburb by his paternal grandmother, whose surname he took in her honour. In his bestselling novel Les Particules élémentaires, translated as Atomised and made into a film in 2006, he created a loathsome, selfish, sexually voracious mother character who pointedly has the same surname as his mother, Ceccaldi.

The fictional mother finds “the burden of caring for a small child” incompatible with “personal freedom”. She leaves her young son in an attic room, eventually abandoning her children in favour of sex with young men and life in a dubious commune.

Now Lucie Ceccaldi, 83, who lives in a beach hut in La Réunion, has hit back with her own book, L’Innocente- the Innocent - in which she gives her version of her life and her son.

In a vicious postscript she writes: “Michel and I could begin to talk to each other again the day he goes to a public square with Les Particles élémentaires in his hand and says: ‘I am a liar, I am an imposter, I’ve done nothing in my life except do bad to the people around me, and I ask for forgiveness.’ Killing your mother was in fashion at the time.”

The French literary world is intrigued by the latest round in Houellebecq’s personal drama - his parents, absent for 30 years, wrote to him after Atomised was published, but he said he didn’t read the letters and stuffed them in a box.

The first extracts from Ceccaldi’s book are due to be published in the literary magazine Lire this week. The news weekly L’Express called it “reckoning at the Houellebecq Corral”. It was reported that several other publishers declined to take on the book for fear of offending him.

As The First Post note, Houellebecq has not responded and probably won’t.

On his blog in 2006, following the publication of an unflattering biography of him to which she contributed, he said of her: “She is too egocentric to produce a significant account of anything other than herself.”

Further: Lee Rourke on why Houellebecq’s bad sex scenes are a joy to read

‘Have you ever injected pure cocaine into your knob while getting it sucked by an experienced whore?’ he asked me during the course of our interviews. ‘Well you should.’

Tony O’Neill has interviewed Sebastian Horsley for the new issue of S Magazine. In the 12-page feature, O’Neill and Horsley talk drugs, art, sex, death, and the critics:

It was only natural, after I had finished reading his book, that I felt an immediate need to collaborate with Sebastian, and I knew that the sincerest form of collaboration between an artist like Sebastian and me would be the interview. For starters, nothing is throwaway with Sebastian Horsley—every word, every sentence, is deliberate and considered. And because he is such a kindred spirit, I hoped that talking to him about his book, his life, and his art might result in something unique and challenging. Our correspondence happened in the weeks running up to Sebastian’s arrival in America to promote the spring 2008, U.S. publication of Dandy in the Underworld. Of the book, it is at times hilarious, at times heartbreaking, but it is always narrated with the kind of pitch-black with that is only honed during a lifetime basking in the hellish glow of brimstone. My aim was to probe the hidden depths of the man responsible for a book so capable of rattling the reader to his or her core. It is a book that makes demands of its reader and ultimately leaves one transformed.

In Britain, where the likes of David Beckham or empty-headed ‘Big Brother’ winners are choking up the shelves with dreary autobiographies, Sebastian’s book has somehow managed to elicit some of the most vicious reviews I have ever read. Most of the book’s negative reviews seem to confuse the work and the man, and take umbrage with the very idea of someone like Sebastian rather than with the work that he has done. QX Magazine declared, “He has less talent than a used condom,” while the Evening Standard was a little more circumspect: “He is a prat… a wanker.” In light of this critical response, it seems conceivable that Sebastian may have had himself crucified to beat someone else from doing it to him first.

At this suggestion, Sebastian concurs, “Yes, perhaps it was tactical. You can’t throw a lion to the lions. You can’t crucify a man who has crucified himself.”

I asked Sebastian what he made of this extreme reaction from some critics.

“Wilde said: ‘When the critics are divided the artist is at one.’ And of course, he was right. For a man to be great, opinion must be divided on that score. It is vital that the artist pisses off the right people. If you make the right people hate you, then that will make those that like you, love you much more intensely. You can calculate the worth of any man by the numbers and quality of his enemies, and the importance of a work of art by the harm that is spoken of it. Besides, not even Jesus was loved by everyone. When my enemies stop hissing, I shall know I’m slipping. Besides, a hundred hisses outweigh a thousand kissed. The former comes more directly from the heart.”

For a man whose paintings have received (by his own admission) a sometimes frosty reception, Sebastian still manages to command a huge amount of public attention and interest. There is no middle ground—people write about him either with a great amount of passion or barely disguised hatred. I had to know if Sebastian might find a more conventional kind of ‘fame’ preferable.

“Celebrity is another trap. I used to be a universe, but now I’m only a star.” He continues, “I want to be a black hole. Celebrity is a comedown, which is the curious thing, not that I’ve got it. But the problem is that it is a trap, another form of prison. How can you talk about the concept of freedom on the one hand while you willingly give it up with the other? If you are somebody who wants to break through things and find new meanings for yourself, how can you struggle through all these different layers of disapproval, hostility, and convention only to arrive at another form of convention? Personally, I’d rather be an anonymous star than a famous nonentity. Fame is a vapour, an illusion. The only earthly certainty is oblivion.”

“It is always a problem for artists. The radical artist goes into the ring to slug it out with bourgeois society, and finds he is punching a tar baby, which, unperturbed by his blows, sticks to him and envelops him with its blandishments of success and fame. Once you join the club, some of the fire goes out of you. Art is by nature dissident. The artist, like the whore, should be fit for the highest and lowest society—but never join either.”

3:AM’s Reviews Editor Lee Rourke reads Everyday down the pub. “One of the best readings I’ve seen on here, love the clicking billiard balls on the soundtrack too…. oh and get me a double Springbank when you’re at the bar….,” says Stewart Home.

Further: The Offbeat Generation / The Offbeat Generation Film Channel / Matthew Coleman reads ‘Dream Poem’ / Heidi James reads two pieces / Adelle Stripe reads 3 poems / Ben Myers reads four Brutalist poems / Matthew Coleman reads from Her Naked Self

Charles Burns does Tintin

Dean Haspiel’s Next-Door Neighbor: “Everybody has one. And, no matter how close or how far, we all live next to someone, and we all have a Next-Door Neighbor story. With this in mind, I asked some of my favorite storytellers and cartoonists to create their favorite NDN stories so that we at SMITH Magazine could share them with you over the next year.” It’s going to be a hell of a series. First up, Next Door Neighborless, written by Jonathan Ames and drawn by Nick Bertozzi + Among the other goodies in the The Comics Journal #289, an interview with Shaun Tan: “I think what works most effectively is the repetition of certain design and pattern styles, in a similar way that occurs in real cultures. I had a folder of templates I prepared early on — designs and language forms that I would re-use throughout The Arrival. A kind of sunburst pattern was a starting point, as something that reappears in architecture, plants and animals, as well as a free-floating energy source of some kind. A lot of other design elements drew inspiration from protozoa and other very small things scaled up, as well a the natural consistency of my drawing style — certain loops, ticks, signature lines and shapes. So, a fairly contained aesthetic.” + Tori Amos‘ Comic Book Tattoo, an anthology based on ‘her girls’ (songs): ““One thing to make very clear — this isn’t just a bunch of comic creators making a book and then slapping Tori’s name on it. She’s been very involved in the editorial process. Unlike a lot of anthologies, there have been multiple deadlines along the production path; plot, scripts, layouts, all of these had to be submitted so that Tori could look them over. Not in the manner of wanting to tell people what to do, or to make the book all ‘the same,’ but more to make sure that we had all of the bases covered in terms of really pushing the creators to work with us to make the best book possible.” We’ll see… [via Daily Cross Hatch] + The Comics Reporter reviews The Complete Peanuts: 1967-1968: “These are indeed the glory years, when the strip was still working through what seemed like an infinite number of rich storylines and well-grounded gags starring the main characters while at the same continuing to introduce memorable minor ones.” + Mike Mignola visits the Hellboy 2 set + Superman will always suck [via Journalista!] + The Forbidden Planet Blog on the Mark Twain Graphic Classic: “The greatest thing I can say..is that in the end it’s a glorious and valiant failure. But they shouldn’t feel bad about this at all. Anthologies invariably are. Especially anthologies that try hard to do something a little different and put as much variety in between the covers as this one does.” + The New York Daily News talk to Jeffrey Brown: “As the title would suggest, it’s about the everyday moments that we tend to overlook and how those are actually such meaningful parts of our lives. Little Things tries to champion the everyday normal life as something worthwhile and meaningful. Structurally, it’s a bunch of short stories that go back and forth in time, it’s more about atmosphere and mood than chronological narrative.” [via Journalista!]

The Comics Reporter interviews the brilliant Leah Hayes: “I’m as far from a writer as possible. I had barely ever written a story before Funeral. I’m not sure how to describe the process; they are all exact truths about how I feel about the subject at hand. The ducks aren’t even metaphors, really. It’s all true.” + Sans Everything on why Francoise Mouly is underappreciated and essential: “Part of the problem is that she’s done some of her most important work alongside her husband Art Spiegelman. Mouly is very much her own woman and not one to hide in the shadow of her famous mate; nor is her husband the type to keep his wife away from the limelight; still, it is all too easy for journalists, a habitually lazy lot, to do quick profiles of Spiegelman’s life, touch on his editorship of Raw, and ignore Mouly’s contribution.” [via Design Observer] + Panels and Pixels interview Mouly: “We as an industry of creators of graphic novels have been taking care of ourselves. They are plundering our fields. It takes time to do good work. Especially in comics. Maus took 13 years. And by the time we showed Bone to Scholastic Jeff and his wife had been publishing themselves for 10 years. It’s not overnight. I don’t know how long Alison Bechdel spent..and Persepolis was four books in France. Black Hole was 10 years in the making. Jimmy Corrigan was six or seven years. Those publishers, as you said, are “Oh, I’ll just hire some writer and get some cartoonist to churn the stuff out.” [via Comics Reporter] + Marjane Satrapoi interviewed in The Guardian : “I don’t understand when people say it is so natural to make children… I want to devote my life to my art. And I know if I’m a man and I say that I would be this great artist who sacrifices life for his talent, but since I am a woman I become this ambitious bitch who doesn’t want to have kids. Some people think like that, but I don’t care.” + This year’s London Book Fair celebrated Arabic publishing. The Guardian asked authors and critics for good reads, and Magdi al-Shafei’s Metro, seized by Egyptian police in January & pictured above, is mentioned + Not only has Renee French started her own blog, but has been guest-stripping for the Daily Cross Hatch + Journalist and critic Jon Evans on translating his prose into pictures + How to store your comic collection.

Matthew Coleman reads from his novella Her Naked Self, an extract from which can also be found in 3:AM London, New York, Paris:

Further: The Offbeat Generation / The Offbeat Generation Film Channel / Matthew Coleman reads ‘Dream Poem’ / Heidi James reads two pieces / Adelle Stripe reads 3 poems / Ben Myers reads four Brutalist poems