Whenever I visit people's homes, I always go for the bookshelves, noting the books we have in common. It'd be interesting to imagine what people make of mine. This morning I was reading an essay by John Fowles, in which he excuses his indiscriminate, magpie-like approach to book collecting with a great line: "a bad novel tells you more about the age it was written in than a good one". Cool: now I don't have to justify the "whateverness" of my bookshelves. Bride of the Rat God lies nestled next to Walter Benjamin's Illuminations. Jack Williamson's Trapped in Space! next to Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea. Punctuated by a stack of sheer uselessness: I don't really play computer games, but I went through a phase of obsessively collecting a gaming magazine, EDGE, because I loved the turn of its form. The Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan "photonovelisation" next to Henri Leferbvre. Bizarre and average and wonderful stuff, all put together with a great shrug. (Same with my music; I'm sure all you musicbloggers would be horrified by the ill considered guff in my large pool of mediocre tunes.) I'm notorious for refusing people's recommendations, which I'm sure are quite reliable. But I really can't be bothered -- I like to rant about how much I'm against literature, but perhaps this resistance to canons is not so much a positive radicalism than a kind of lazy indifference on my part. And I like it this way. Anything too consistent isn't tangential enough for me.
whatever canon
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I am 100% guilty of looking over people’s bookshelves when I go to their home for the first time…er, and then the 2nd time (and so forth) to see if there is anything new.
I am working on a piece of fiction—can I use the “fuck the war” chant (under ‘Visual’) if I attribute it to here, and add a link? Thanks, Robin
Sure. Especially since I mostly ripped it off someone else, anyway. :)
Years ago I answered an ad by someone who was looking for a flatmate. when I went for the inteview I noticed that this guy had around 10 books in total on his shelves - and most them very boring or cliched books. The thought of being in the house with someone like that - who was a pretentious wanker too - made me feel very sad (empty even). Strangely though my parents never had many books when I was growing up. But hey they weren’t pretentious wankers either.
Was this the time you kicked that pizza at me from across the road?
um yes. did you ever eat the pizza?