The Wreck Of The Medusa.

Another painting I really admire. The Wreck of The Medusa by Theodore Gericault.

The Celestial Toymaker.

(From My Sketchbook.)

Blood Merredian

This extraordinary book knocked me sideways. If a book were to ever convince the reader it was birthed by the light of a blackstar it would be this one. The prose of Cormac Mc Carthy, if the wordsw dripping off the page into ones mind can be said to resemble mere prose, displays the inadequacy of description. If every book you ever read spoke in this way directly to the core of our being we would resemble something less than a man. More a rabid dog chasing its own tail in a pit of tarantulas. What a squirming nests of horrors this story resembles, brilliant but awful. And The Judge is truly one of the most terrifying figures given birth to in any medium. The towering unforgiving hairless monstrosity resembles nothing a woman grew in her belly. Striding the savage corners of a world without reason smiling like a child. A mad and bad creation who draws light and life from his every scene. A figure more likely to have stepped in sideways from another reality than grown from human seed, except perhaps the source of inspiration.

The Chinese Agent.

So this is the book which proceeded The Russian Intelligence!i have now read both and realise that this is not a bad way to discover these books. They work as a two hander but can very reasonably be enjoyed as seperate entities as Michael moorcock loads both with enough info to allow the reader that freedom. We are dealing with a world where nothing is what it seems and almost all narration is unreliable. A world of spies and counter espionage. If you are not being lied to chances are you are not speaking to another spy. A mistake is made at the start of this book, the kind of mistake you would expect to occur in a Hitchcock film. Or a Morcombe and Wise film.Its a mistake where solutions lead to a series of further mistakes and a journey into the impoverished underworld of inner London. Its a world of cruel povertry where people sell themselves, a world of corrugated fences and crumbling Victorianna.Its the flipside of Bondian glamour, more John Cooper Clarke than Ian Fleming.There is a lengthy chase scene which feels like a mixture of Bedknobs And Broomsticks and a Harry Palmer story. Its also very funny, with the most self serving and cowardly British Secret Agent being constantly misunderstood as a brilliant and ruthless killing machine. Both books have proved to be witty and engaging and just long enough, or perhaps short enough, for neither to outstay their welcome. Somewhere in between Chinese Agents and Russian Intelligences is a British secret service that probably bought all their clobber from Grace Brothers. Some spy networks do 'Ave 'Em.

Mary Woolstonecroft Shelley

I found a wrecked copy of her book Frankenstein in a recycling bag and rescued this frontage print from being pulped. Look at that face just lovely. gently formed features that suggest a benign creator. And those eyes brimming with a worldly wisdom beyond the years she lived and the heartaches which assailed her. The storms that hammered the Villa Diodatta were summer squalls compared to the storms in this woman's heart

The Maltese Falcon.

Hes a right bastard, is that Sam Spade, but great company, all the nsame.Not that Dashiell Hammett ever tells us what his characters are thinking. He certainly lets us know what they are doing and saying but all the rest is noirish guesswork on our part, and that always takes us to some dark places. Perhaps this is one of the reasons this story has been around us for so long. You are talking lifetimes and yet this book remains a classic, considered by many to be the best of its kind, or certainly among the best. Like so many good things it starts off as one thing and so after the bodies begin to fall it turns into something else. From a straight forward enough search for a missing person it morphs into a quest for lost templar treasure. The story is so steeped in tropes you might consider Dashiell Hammett the most shameless of plagarists, until you consider it was this book which gave birth to many of those familiar rifts., as we know and understand them. Sam Spade may not be an entirely bad man but is certainly not an entirely good one. Who better then to send on a search for something which attracts bad people the way rotten meat attracts flies. As compelling a central character Sam Spade is, The Maltese Falcon throws up some right humdingres. Most famouslythe bow tie wearing sardonically grinning Mr Cairo, immortalised in the movie adaption of this book by Peter Lorre. It has been years since I last saw the film with Hunphrey Bogart as Sam Spade but reading this original book shows me the respect its adaptors had for the original material. Powerful characters in labrynthine situations with blistering word play by Dashiell Hammett. Not just in the form of cheeky wordplay by the characters but in its lyrical turns of phrase; " Spade put the cigarette in his mouth, set it on fireand laughed smoke out."I mean, how cool is that?

Red Shift

Emrming from a memory fog, almost perfectly shaped, this Alan Garner paperback brought back such memories.I remember seeing it on a shelf in Harry Halls bookstore many years ago. Only in my memory I saw it as a lighthouse rather than the folly it actually was. a folly in all but memory I suppose.I first saw the BBC adaption of Red Shift quite some time ago also.It was concieved during an era of great experimentation and innovation on the BBC. An organisation at the height of their creativity, brave and uncompromising. With the power to punch a viewer right in their sensibilities, so to speak.It is quite a complex story, taking place in three eras, with an axe head proving a thread through time as it takes the long path, and we the viewer jump back and fourth.A lot of the complexity comes from the complexity of the dialogue and its differences in the eras used. Rather than from the visually straight forward time shifts. You will not have any problems following this aspect of the stories in play, it has more to do with the tonal shifts in verbal interplay between characters. Especially the modern era, which by now feels a period piece, a story set in a summer long ago, so much time having passed since its original transmission.The soundtrack composed for the play also feels quite period. not dated but from another era. Think Teardrop Explodes, early Bunnymen or The Sound or The Chameleons. Or maybe thats just what I was listening to at the time, showing the world my musical unconcious bias. Enjoyed the book which I read in an old paperback version that smelled like old Smithfield. Not sure what to make of the ghost of a note I found on the inside back cover... Dont think it was meant for my eyes.