Just started reading Berg after getting all her books for Christmas (no, I had never read any before asking for every book she wrote, but I'm a Johnson stan [in fact I think I'm now actually allowed to call myself a Johnson scholar, haha], so hey, it's got to be at least interesting to me). Very good so far, though it seems trapped in the Woolfian mode a little - free indirect discourse rather than the full-on stream-of-consciousness and metatextuality that Johnson managed to deliver so well. Also chock-full of Freudian motifs that perhaps (only perhaps) seem overplayed now... but also interesting Sartrean aspects on free will and determinism... Hmm.
― emil.y, Tuesday, 5 January 2010 16:11 (fourteen years ago) link
pleased to see that one of the great british experimental novels is getting reissued this month:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/I-Hear-Voices-Paul-Ableman/dp/0571259049/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262708320&sr=1-1
― Ward Fowler, Tuesday, 5 January 2010 16:20 (fourteen years ago) link
I think Sorrentino provided Selby with encouragement to write - it kind of surprises me that they even knew each other. I think those guys actually grew up together or went to high school together.
― nico anemic cinema icon (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 5 January 2010 17:11 (fourteen years ago) link
Anyway I bought some of her books when Dalkey Archive first put them out, but never got around to reading them.
― nico anemic cinema icon (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 5 January 2010 17:55 (fourteen years ago) link
Which is the kind of thing I post so much on this board, there might as well be an emoticon for it.
― nico anemic cinema icon (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 5 January 2010 17:56 (fourteen years ago) link
Or an acronym, like: ba;dr.
WHATTA YAMEAN THE SAUCES NO GOOD? THATS WHAT I SAID, THE SAUCES NO GOOD. WHATS THE MATTER, YA DONT UNDERSTAND ENGLISH? ITS NO GOOD. NO GOOD. NO GOOD. WHATTA YAKNOW ABOUT SAUCE? MEEEE, WHATTA I KNOW? I KNOW IT STINKS. NOT ENOUGH GARLIC. ITS GOT THE SAME GARLIC. JUST LIKE ALWAYS. THE SAME 8 CLOVES OF GARLIC AND YA SAY NOT ENOUGH GARLIC. YUR A FUCKIN DUMMY. ITS GOOD SAUCE. DONT TELL ME ITS NO GOOD. WHOSE A FUCKIN DUMMY? EH? WHO? I'LL GIVEYA A RAP IN THE MOUT IM A DUMMY. YA CANT EVEN MAKE A SAUCE.
still one of my favourite paragraphs ever written. still haven't finished that book
― thomp, Wednesday, 13 January 2010 16:53 (fourteen years ago) link
I'd like to see the film after seeing an ed. of the book with a shot of it on the cover.
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 16 January 2010 11:18 (fourteen years ago) link
Just finished Berg. Pretty great.
― errant flynn, Saturday, 16 March 2013 04:12 (eleven years ago) link
More on this thread too:
a thread for b.s. johnson, christine brooke-rose, ann quin, alan burns,
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 16 March 2013 09:37 (eleven years ago) link
This is a nice short appreciation of Berg:
uhttp://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/book-of-a-lifetime-berg-by-ann-quin-2063012.html
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 8 February 2016 22:18 (eight years ago) link
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/book-of-a-lifetime-berg-by-ann-quin-2063012.html
thought i remembered he did something similar in the guardian &... who cares about ann quin?
― no lime tangier, Tuesday, 9 February 2016 05:02 (eight years ago) link
anyone ever seen the movie btw?
― no lime tangier, Tuesday, 9 February 2016 05:03 (eight years ago) link
I noticed when I was up over Christmas, that it was being shown on STV Glasgow. Didn't see it.
― The Robustness of Captchas (Tom D.), Tuesday, 9 February 2016 12:18 (eight years ago) link
Film sounds like it would be terrible. I've already had to watch the excruciating adaptation of Christie Malry, I don't think I could stand to see Berg slaughtered.
― emil.y, Tuesday, 9 February 2016 13:55 (eight years ago) link
Seems awfully familiar too, I must have seen it once, but you lose track of crap British made box office duds.
― The Robustness of Captchas (Tom D.), Tuesday, 9 February 2016 13:58 (eight years ago) link
More from Ann Quin in 2018
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 3 April 2017 22:07 (seven years ago) link
But, um,...
― TS Hugo Largo vs. Al Factotum (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 4 April 2017 00:47 (seven years ago) link
Recently tried reading "Tiptricks" but I managed two pages and gave up.
― Bill Teeters (Tom D.), Tuesday, 4 April 2017 09:22 (seven years ago) link
And other stories are putting a collection of short stories and fragments by Quin
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 16 January 2018 15:43 (six years ago) link
haven't read the new collection, but it's worth following the ann quin page on facebook. the account, which i think is run by carol burns (alan burns' ex wife), occasionally posts letters and other personal documents
― dogs, Tuesday, 16 January 2018 16:35 (six years ago) link
For once I can say the words 'damn I wish I was on Facebook'.
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 16 January 2018 18:42 (six years ago) link
https://scontent-lhr8-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/89124310_3053274391390439_5823242502458572800_n.jpg?_nc_cat=104&_nc_sid=ca434c&_nc_ohc=mjQqR_3hsmwAX8WHPQf&_nc_ht=scontent-lhr8-1.xx&oh=16a432e0e53eca41eb670269ffc92829&oe=5E93B7C8
― Ward Fowler, Tuesday, 10 March 2020 15:04 (four years ago) link
Whoa, awesome.
― emil.y, Tuesday, 10 March 2020 15:07 (four years ago) link
Yeah, saw that earlier
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 10 March 2020 16:25 (four years ago) link
read "berg" recently, found it hard to get into at 1st - lot of sentences that i had to read 3 times & still didn't really know what they meant. persisted tho & overall i mostly liked it. this prompted me to check out christine brooke-rose (walk when the green man...uh shit i already forgot what it's called) but i couldn't hang w/ that at all...gave up. life's short!
― black ark oakensaw (doo rag), Wednesday, 28 September 2022 10:03 (one year ago) link
read berg last year. it has the feel of a puzzle you have to solve, of something that could easily have been done slightly more explicitly and it'd have been a menacing, broadly funny caper, but the elusiveness was to a large degree the point, perhaps indicating a loss (or a scrambling) of cognition within the writing itself to mirror that of its protagonist. anyway yeah it was good
― imago, Wednesday, 28 September 2022 10:10 (one year ago) link
I enjoyed reviews of Claire-Louise Bennett and her story recently in The New Yorker, also see that she's talked about Quin as inspiration and wrote intro for republished Passages, mentioned in passing upthread---how is it?? I'm inclined to start there, given the Bennett connection.
― dow, Wednesday, 28 September 2022 16:48 (one year ago) link
Quin is a major intertext of Claire Louise Bennett's Checkout 19, which is highly recommended (by me).
― Piedie Gimbel, Wednesday, 28 September 2022 16:51 (one year ago) link