Autobiography as Defacement
Rather than being tacked on as an affectation, the sense of alienation from the past created by these narrative forms — the inability to unify the self as constructed by memory, the memory as constructed by self, the text as constructed by memory, and the self as constructed by text — is in itself the subject, and it is one to which we can relate. Just as Proust’s striving for a past that remains tantalisingly inaccessible is an essentially pathetic exercise, so Coetzee’s alienated autobiographies speak to a wider alienation from the self that transcends the works’ formal cleverness and elevates them way above the realm of pure technique.
Danny Byrne reviews J.M. Coetzee‘s Scenes from Provincial Life.
Sing If You’re Winning
I’m not involved in any scene whatsoever. I do have some great friends who have become very successful artists, but many of them I’ve known for a very long time, before I was a singer. As for the type of music that interests me, the common thread is less a genre distinction than having a unique, irreplicable sensibility. I tend to love music that is raw, difficult, passionate…I really don’t care if it’s zydeco or Russian chanson or indie rock. I definitely think, though, that the internet has made it a lot easier to be genre-crossing in your tastes. I remember in the late 80s and early 90s, things seemed a lot more stratified. Indie rockers were separate from punk rockers were separate from the ska people etc.
Richard Marshall interviews Alina Simone.