In Boarding-house blues, David Lodge considers The Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton: “Hamilton is a realistic novelist, with obvious roots in the English tradition, and an eclectic technique. He is sometimes compared to Dickens, whom he read with enthusiasm from an early age, and there is certainly a Dickensian quality in his comic characterisation and occasional passages of heightened rhetorical prose. But there is also an affinity with Jane Austen, especially evident in The Slaves of Solitude, in the minute analysis of manners in a small closed community – manners in the old-fashioned sense that also includes “morals”. The analysis is rendered primarily through the consciousness of the central character, but Hamilton shifts the narrative point of view to other characters, or interpolates an authorial comment, whenever it suits his purpose, disregarding the Jamesian principle that intensity and beauty of effect in fiction require the consistent adoption of a limited point of view. This description makes The Slaves of Solitude sound like a rather naively or clumsily written book, yet it is quite the reverse: it is subtle, surprising and perfectly formed for its artistic purposes.” * “Behind the mask is a revolutionary poet of caustic wit and memorable soundbites.” Boyd Tonkin on WH Auden. See also, A Centenary of Reading. * Talking of revolutionaries, did you know that ChristieBooks, publishers of John Barker’s Bending the Bars (reviewed here on 3:AM) and run by Stuart Christie of General Franco Made Me A Terrorist fame, operate an anarchist movie channel? Recent additions include John Samson’s Dressing for Pleasure (1977) and The Skin Horse (1985), as well as Sacco e Vanzetti (1971), Giuliano Montaldo’s long-looked for tribute to the two Italian anarchists executed by the State of Massachusetts in 1927. To keep up their work, ChristieBooks are looking for a donation of £100. Money can be sent through PayPal to: christie@btclick.com * How the Dead Love, an animated film based on four Charles Bukowski shorts, voiced and produced by Johnny Depp (via Syntax of Things) * The Observer Music Monthly run an extract from Paul Trynka’s Iggy Pop: Open Up and Bleed: Iggy kept singing, the blood dripping down his chest. He discovered that if he pulled his left arm back, blood would spurt out in a continuous stream. ‘It was horrible, like a Roman arena,’ says Wayne County, Max’s DJ who later became an unlikely punk star. Nite Bob recalls, ‘We had this saying that a piece of Gaffa tape will fix anything, but he was bleeding so bad the tape wouldn’t even stick.’ * “From the beat poetry slam to Pink Floyd coming-out party, [the] filmmaker never missed a ’60s happening.” The Village Voice look at the films of Peter Whitehead. * Canadian animator Ryan Larkin has passed on. Read Chris Robinson’s essay, ‘Last Exit on St. Laurent Street: The Wonderfully Fucked Up World of Ryan Larkin’ from 2000. * A video documentary on John Callahan (from Journalista) * The sweeter side of the Crumbs. Aline Kominsky Crumb, who is swinging by Borders’ Angel store in March, promoted Need More Love in New York on Valentine’s. Anne Ishii from Vertical Inc and Gary Esposito were there. * Skullring interview Bob Fingerman: “I’m no stranger to quiet desperation. Sometimes rather loud desperation, in fact. And living in these trying times in a trying city like New York just exacerbates it. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s fuel.” (via Largehearted Boy). See 3:AM’s review of Bottomfeeder and check out Bob Fingerman’s top 5. * Londonist interview Chris Roberts, the man behind One Grey Eye (and previously mentioned here): “I was interested in doing a book about London folklore and ghost stories and had amassed quite a bit of research. However many of the stories had already been told elsewhere and it seemed that by “fictionalising” them and retelling them in a contemporary context they’d have greater impact. This is where the Penny Dreadful bit comes in because as well as re-telling old folktales and ghost stories in contemporary setting it seemed a good idea to resurrect, as much as possible, an older format as well.” * Judge a book.. by its cover (via I Like) * Band names rejected by the Smashing Pumpkins. * Les autos de Tintin (via Drawn!) * Keep the British Library free.
