I've finished off the essay we began, collectively, writing in the session on Tuesday 7th December. It's posted to the EN3314 Moodle site under week 10, as a word file (I'd post it to this blog too, but Blogger don't allow me to). I used the resources we found online, and a few things from the lecture PPT, but didn't put in a great deal of extra research or work. I also continued the line of the argument that we were starting to flesh out, and carried it through to a conclusion.
You don't have to write another non-assessed essay for this course; the assessed essay questions will be handed out next term, in week 5. If you want to write another essay, either covering some area and novel that interests you, or else taken from last year's assessed essay questions (also on the Moodle site, at the top) then I'd be happy to take a look at what you produce. But it's not required.
Happy Christmas, everyone!
Friday, 10 December 2010
Tuesday, 7 December 2010
Enright on Winning the Prize
You should read the article at the other end of this link, in which Anne Enright talks about the experience of winning the prize, and especially the subsequent book-tour and publicity.
Do you think winning the prize, and staying in a succession of posh hotels whilst on tour made her happy? Hmm. 'It is a melancholy thing, to pass hundreds of thousands of people on the road and remember so few.'
Do you think winning the prize, and staying in a succession of posh hotels whilst on tour made her happy? Hmm. 'It is a melancholy thing, to pass hundreds of thousands of people on the road and remember so few.'
Anne Enright, The Gathering
WEEK 10. ANNE ENRIGHT, THE GATHERING (2007)
‘[A] genuine attempt to stare down both love and death’ – A.L. Kennedy
‘There are some quite good set-piece scenes . . . but, God, it’s wearing’ – Hugo Barnacle
Anne Enright was born in Dublin in 1962. After working for RTÉ for some years, she became a full-time writer in 1993. The Gathering was her fourth novel and the first to be shortlisted for the Booker.
‘[A] genuine attempt to stare down both love and death’ – A.L. Kennedy
‘There are some quite good set-piece scenes . . . but, God, it’s wearing’ – Hugo Barnacle
Anne Enright was born in Dublin in 1962. After working for RTÉ for some years, she became a full-time writer in 1993. The Gathering was her fourth novel and the first to be shortlisted for the Booker.
Editions:
Anne Enright, The Gathering, (London: Jonathan Cape, 2007; London: Vintage, 2008).
2007 Judges:
Howard Davies (chair), Wendy Cope, Giles Foden, Ruth Scurr, Imogen Stubbs
2007 Shortlist:
Nicola Barker, Darkmans
Anne Enright, The Gathering
Mohsin Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Lloyd Jones, Mister Pip
Ian McEwan, On Chesil Beach
Indra Sinha, Animal’s People
Topics:
• Memory and the Past.
• Narrative and Unease.
• Reviewers and Sales Figures.
Reviews:
A.L. Kennedy, ‘The Din Within’, The Guardian, (28 April 2007)
Adam Mars-Jones, ‘Intimate Relations’, The Observer, (6 May 2007)
Tom Adair, ‘Every Last Piece of the Jigsaw’, The Scotsman (19 May 2007)
Hugo Barnacle, ‘The Gathering’, The Sunday Times, (27 May 2007)
Patricia Craig, ‘The Gathering’, Independent, (7 June 2007)
Eleanor Birne, ‘What Family Does to You’, London Review of Books (18 October 2007)
Tuesday, 30 November 2010
Desai on Guardian Book Club 2009
Last year John Mullan (a former Booker judge himself, and a Professor of the University of London to boot) ran one of the Guardian's 'book club' sessions on Desai's novel. Check out what he said:
Week 1: Divisions. "A novel of shifting points of view, The Inheritance of Loss flits from one character to another, from one emotion or sense impression to the next, its narrative form acting out the sense of dislocation that is its theme. "
Week 2: the Importance of Food. "Food focuses cultural unease. Eating makes you feel you belong, and makes you know when you do not."
Week 3: Kiran Desai on writing The Inheritance of Loss. "As I wrote [the novel], I began the process of considering that one's place in the world might be merely incidental, just a matter of perspective. Perhaps the centre was not firm at all? And as I wrote I became aware of the rich novelistic moments that come from many stories overlapping, from this moral ambiguity, and from the utter uselessness of the flag. Even the past – home of sorts to all of us – wasn't fixed. History is only someone's story. I felt as if I were writing to displace myself, and to know that my story wasn't the only one – that there would always be other books on the shelf."
Week 4: Readers' reponses. "One reader wanted to know about the book's title. How late in the day had this come? Only at the very end, Desai replied, had she decided on "The Inheritance of Loss" – despite being counselled strongly against it. Had other titles had been rejected? Yes, but she was coy about these. Her father had told her to call it "The Loss of Inheritance": "at least everyone would understand what that means". But after eight years working on the book, she was entirely stubborn."
Week 1: Divisions. "A novel of shifting points of view, The Inheritance of Loss flits from one character to another, from one emotion or sense impression to the next, its narrative form acting out the sense of dislocation that is its theme. "
Week 2: the Importance of Food. "Food focuses cultural unease. Eating makes you feel you belong, and makes you know when you do not."
Week 3: Kiran Desai on writing The Inheritance of Loss. "As I wrote [the novel], I began the process of considering that one's place in the world might be merely incidental, just a matter of perspective. Perhaps the centre was not firm at all? And as I wrote I became aware of the rich novelistic moments that come from many stories overlapping, from this moral ambiguity, and from the utter uselessness of the flag. Even the past – home of sorts to all of us – wasn't fixed. History is only someone's story. I felt as if I were writing to displace myself, and to know that my story wasn't the only one – that there would always be other books on the shelf."
Week 4: Readers' reponses. "One reader wanted to know about the book's title. How late in the day had this come? Only at the very end, Desai replied, had she decided on "The Inheritance of Loss" – despite being counselled strongly against it. Had other titles had been rejected? Yes, but she was coy about these. Her father had told her to call it "The Loss of Inheritance": "at least everyone would understand what that means". But after eight years working on the book, she was entirely stubborn."
Inheritance of Loss
WEEK 9. KIRAN DESAI, THE INHERITANCE OF LOSS (2006)
‘What Desai gives the Booker panel is Incredible India as Beautiful Writing. The stories are of loss and humiliation, displacement and dispossession — the rich music of victimhood is never not heard. But that makes it all the more poignant and beautiful, testing every skill that she may have honed at her creative writing course at Columbia University. . . . And hence, this Beautiful Writing should not only tell the right Stories, but should also foreground the right Issues’ – Aveek Sen
‘What Desai gives the Booker panel is Incredible India as Beautiful Writing. The stories are of loss and humiliation, displacement and dispossession — the rich music of victimhood is never not heard. But that makes it all the more poignant and beautiful, testing every skill that she may have honed at her creative writing course at Columbia University. . . . And hence, this Beautiful Writing should not only tell the right Stories, but should also foreground the right Issues’ – Aveek Sen
Kiran Desai was born in New Delhi in 1971. Currently living in the United States, she is the daughter of Anita Desai, shortlisted for the Booker Prize on three occasions. The Inheritance of Loss is her second novel.
Editions:
Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss, (London: Hamish Hamilton, 2006; London: Penguin, 2007).
2006 Judges:
Hermione Lee (chair), Simon Armitage, Candia McWilliam, Anthony Quinn, Fiona Shaw
2006 Shortlist:
Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss
Kate Grenville, The Secret River
M.J. Hyland, Carry Me Down
Hisham Matar, In the Country of Men
Edward St Aubyn, Mother’s Milk
Sarah Waters, The Night Watch
Topics:
• Indian Writing and the Booker.
• Globalisation and Internationalism.
• Promise and Accomplishment.
Reviews:
Aamer Hussein, ‘Maps of the Heart’, Independent, (8 September 2006)
Natasha Walter, ‘Mutt and the Maths Tutor’, The Guardian, (26 August 2006)
Pankaj Mishra, ‘Wounded by the West’, New York Times, (12 February 2006)
Sarah Hughes, ‘Uncle Potty and Other Guides to the Truth’, The Observer, (3 September 2006)
Aveek Sen, ‘Voices of the Same Poverty, The Telegraph (Calcutta), (12 October 2006)
Tuesday, 23 November 2010
Banville and Irish Literature
I don't have much to say in today's lecture about Banville as a specifically Irish writer; but if you're interested in his place in the tradition of Irish writing you might want to look at this article: Kersti Tarien Powell, '"Not a son but a survivor": Beckett... Joyce... Banville', The Yearbook of English Studies, Vol. 35, Irish Writing since 1950 (2005), 199-211. Here's the abstract:
John Banville's fiction represents a sustained effort to investigate the mechanics of the creative act, where the author's own search for means of representation are paralleled by his characters' search for knowledge, understanding, and unproblematic utterance. Intertextual references nuance and reflect this quest, which will be traced from Banville's earliest, unpublished literary manifesto to his later fiction. Examining Banville's complex literary allegiances to Samuel Beckett and James Joyce, this article analyses the representation of the creative act in Banville's fiction.
Banville's Sea
Week 8. John Banville, The Sea (2005)
‘It is a literary work of art’ – Rick Gekoski
‘Yesterday the Man Booker judges made possibly the worst, certainly the most perverse, and perhaps the most indefensible choice in the 36-year history of the contest’ – Boyd Tonkin
‘It is a literary work of art’ – Rick Gekoski
‘Yesterday the Man Booker judges made possibly the worst, certainly the most perverse, and perhaps the most indefensible choice in the 36-year history of the contest’ – Boyd Tonkin
John Banville was born in Wexford in 1945. One of the most widely-admired Irish novelists of his generation, he had been shortlisted for the Booker only once before, for The Book of Evidence in 1989, losing out to Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day.
Editions:
John Banville, The Sea, (London: Picador, 2005; London: Picador, 2006).
2005 Shortlist:
John Banville, The Sea
Julian Barnes, Arthur & George
Sebastian Barry, A Long Long Way
Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go
Ali Smith, The Accidental
Zadie Smith, On Beauty
2005 Judges:
John Sutherland (chair), Lindsay Duguid, Rick Gekoski, Josephine Hart, David Sexton
Topics:
· Literature and Passion.
· Irish Writing and Modernist Tradition.
· ‘High Art’ vs. the Beachbound Pageturner?
Reviews:
Allan Massie, ‘Point of No Return’, The Scotsman, (28 May 2005)
Peter Conradi, ‘Homeward Bound’, The Independent, (3 June 2005)
Tibor Fischer, ‘Wave after Wave of Vocabulary’, The Daily Telegraph, (7 June 2005)
David Grylls, ‘Fiction: The Sea by John Banville’, The Sunday Times, (12 June 2005)
Finn Fordham (our very own), ‘High Tidings’, The Guardian, (25 June 2005)
Michiko Kakutani, ‘A Wordy Widower with a Past’, New York Times, (1 November 2005)
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