ampere’s and
This week’s visuals: Alasdair Gray‘s handwritten, hand-doodled manuscript for Lanark [via] & How to draw a Golem & Where the cover of your favourite novel comes from [via] & Subverting romantic fiction & Folded in Place & Why Eric Gill wasn’t much of a stamp designer & Ivan Brunetti, Jordan Crane & Travis Louie tackle […]
Tandeta: Nabe, Melville, idleness, HST, Bolaño, Pound
“Although no oil painting, Houellebecq is Dorian Gray to Nabe‘s picture – the acceptable face of controversy. Or at least this is Nabe’s spin on events.” 3:AM‘s Andrew Gallix on Marc-Édouard Nabe / The Sopranos discuss Melville‘s Billy Budd / “In idleness is the salvaging of the inner life.” / Fear and Loathing at 40 […]
Watcher, Manipulator
One of the most disconcerting and searing aspects of Penthouse F is its examination of the power of the visual culture, and of surveillance culture. In particular, Kalich’s novel chimes with the sorts of irreversible changes or “transfiguration” of attitudes toward individuals that occurs with such an abundance of ‘reality’ images streaming into our homes through reality T.V., webcams, etc. Lurking behind the book’s obsessive and erotic watching, there’s a skewed and stunted romanticism, the sort of romanticism that comes from rom-coms. Thrilling and confusing in equal measure, Penthouse F is an important book that dismantles the reader, leaving you in fragmented bits and pieces like the barbed clips that make up the novel’s structure.
Colin Herd reviews Richard Kalich‘s Penthouse F.