nospater
@gorokhovaya.bsky.social
Librarian of unfinished books. Somewhere in Western Australia...
Re-reading is the truest form of reading. A first reading is really just preparation for re-reading. And if it isn't worth re-reading, it wasn't worth reading...
October 22, 2025 at 5:53 AM
Re-reading is the truest form of reading. A first reading is really just preparation for re-reading. And if it isn't worth re-reading, it wasn't worth reading...
Wonderful. Although the subsequent books showed that it was never really a quartet - it was to be linked trilogies, in which each book in the second trilogy reworks the equivalent book in the first trilogy, deconstructing it and reinserting the outsiders...
September 23, 2025 at 1:52 PM
Wonderful. Although the subsequent books showed that it was never really a quartet - it was to be linked trilogies, in which each book in the second trilogy reworks the equivalent book in the first trilogy, deconstructing it and reinserting the outsiders...
Is this the most impressive opening paragraph in postwar literature?
I found the books in my school library as a teen in the 70s, and they taught me how to read. Fuchsia was the first female character I met in a book that I could totally identify with as another human (written by a man, obvs...)
I found the books in my school library as a teen in the 70s, and they taught me how to read. Fuchsia was the first female character I met in a book that I could totally identify with as another human (written by a man, obvs...)
September 21, 2025 at 8:08 AM
Is this the most impressive opening paragraph in postwar literature?
I found the books in my school library as a teen in the 70s, and they taught me how to read. Fuchsia was the first female character I met in a book that I could totally identify with as another human (written by a man, obvs...)
I found the books in my school library as a teen in the 70s, and they taught me how to read. Fuchsia was the first female character I met in a book that I could totally identify with as another human (written by a man, obvs...)
If you want to see Sting as Steerpike - he desperately wanted to play the role - watch the Dennis Potter film version of Brimstone & Treacle. Right from the opening credits it's basically a riff on Steerpike's role in Gormenghast...
September 21, 2025 at 7:55 AM
If you want to see Sting as Steerpike - he desperately wanted to play the role - watch the Dennis Potter film version of Brimstone & Treacle. Right from the opening credits it's basically a riff on Steerpike's role in Gormenghast...
Perhaps not, but it's interesting to see his natural charm rub up against Pinter's archness. I watched him in Terminal Man recently - blimey! - another surprising role...
September 12, 2025 at 6:33 AM
Perhaps not, but it's interesting to see his natural charm rub up against Pinter's archness. I watched him in Terminal Man recently - blimey! - another surprising role...
I recall being surprised by what seemed to me a slightly stiff performance from Segal, then realised that he was presumably playing it in the Pinter style, which sits oddly with his natural charm...
September 12, 2025 at 6:17 AM
I recall being surprised by what seemed to me a slightly stiff performance from Segal, then realised that he was presumably playing it in the Pinter style, which sits oddly with his natural charm...
Your afterword for Lyonesse - the first thing I read from you - really was a lovely piece of writing...
September 3, 2025 at 10:45 AM
Your afterword for Lyonesse - the first thing I read from you - really was a lovely piece of writing...
"FYI. The forthcoming Auteurs boxset has not been remastered. This is because the original mastering of the albums was great. Not Remastered should become a selling point."
August 27, 2025 at 9:39 AM
"FYI. The forthcoming Auteurs boxset has not been remastered. This is because the original mastering of the albums was great. Not Remastered should become a selling point."
To the song they're playing on the radio...
June 23, 2025 at 11:43 AM
To the song they're playing on the radio...
Thanks for reminding me of this. I saw it on first broadcast and was impressed.
The BBC Shakespeare version of King John used a similar approach. (The casting of Leonard Rossiter was inspired...)
The BBC Shakespeare version of King John used a similar approach. (The casting of Leonard Rossiter was inspired...)
June 22, 2025 at 11:54 PM
Thanks for reminding me of this. I saw it on first broadcast and was impressed.
The BBC Shakespeare version of King John used a similar approach. (The casting of Leonard Rossiter was inspired...)
The BBC Shakespeare version of King John used a similar approach. (The casting of Leonard Rossiter was inspired...)
Glass raised! And then he was back in the UK for Edna the Inebriate Woman!
Ted Kotcheff, Sidney J. Furie, Norman Jewison - Canadian directors of that era were an interesting bunch, whose filmographies went all over the shop...
Ted Kotcheff, Sidney J. Furie, Norman Jewison - Canadian directors of that era were an interesting bunch, whose filmographies went all over the shop...
April 12, 2025 at 4:00 AM
Glass raised! And then he was back in the UK for Edna the Inebriate Woman!
Ted Kotcheff, Sidney J. Furie, Norman Jewison - Canadian directors of that era were an interesting bunch, whose filmographies went all over the shop...
Ted Kotcheff, Sidney J. Furie, Norman Jewison - Canadian directors of that era were an interesting bunch, whose filmographies went all over the shop...
They are beautiful, and in style unlike anything else that I know of - and they put me in mind of the view at night from my bedroom window, across the dark garden to the high window of the house over the back fence, when I was a child.
A lighted window in darkness is both comforting and eerie...
A lighted window in darkness is both comforting and eerie...
April 4, 2025 at 12:00 AM
They are beautiful, and in style unlike anything else that I know of - and they put me in mind of the view at night from my bedroom window, across the dark garden to the high window of the house over the back fence, when I was a child.
A lighted window in darkness is both comforting and eerie...
A lighted window in darkness is both comforting and eerie...
Looks fascinating. Caine & Davenport is a great pairing...
March 31, 2025 at 6:56 AM
Looks fascinating. Caine & Davenport is a great pairing...
Like a flight of stairs?
Yes, I don't dislike it, but I find it odd, and intriguing. The aggressive hyphenation seems like it should be saying something, but I'm not sure what it is. It must be deliberate - it's only needed because the typeface is deliberately too big for its space...
Yes, I don't dislike it, but I find it odd, and intriguing. The aggressive hyphenation seems like it should be saying something, but I'm not sure what it is. It must be deliberate - it's only needed because the typeface is deliberately too big for its space...
March 29, 2025 at 1:45 PM
Like a flight of stairs?
Yes, I don't dislike it, but I find it odd, and intriguing. The aggressive hyphenation seems like it should be saying something, but I'm not sure what it is. It must be deliberate - it's only needed because the typeface is deliberately too big for its space...
Yes, I don't dislike it, but I find it odd, and intriguing. The aggressive hyphenation seems like it should be saying something, but I'm not sure what it is. It must be deliberate - it's only needed because the typeface is deliberately too big for its space...
What a remarkable title...
March 29, 2025 at 2:10 AM
What a remarkable title...
The hyphenation of the Schnitzler title is a little odd...
March 29, 2025 at 1:58 AM
The hyphenation of the Schnitzler title is a little odd...
Why did he write it? To win the Booker? Oh dear. I love Burgess, and I read Earthly Powers when it first came out - what a doorstop of book! - and I enjoyed it but wasn't convinced. It felt like Burgess giving us what we expected, what he could do so well, in spades, rather than surprising us...
March 28, 2025 at 10:56 AM
Why did he write it? To win the Booker? Oh dear. I love Burgess, and I read Earthly Powers when it first came out - what a doorstop of book! - and I enjoyed it but wasn't convinced. It felt like Burgess giving us what we expected, what he could do so well, in spades, rather than surprising us...
AI literature is surely - by definition! - the quintessence of mediocrity...
March 13, 2025 at 1:28 AM
AI literature is surely - by definition! - the quintessence of mediocrity...
His real name was Fabian...
March 9, 2025 at 11:46 AM
His real name was Fabian...
It seems to be from Manon Lescaut - the phrase is elsewhere translated as "I boasted a fine head of hair...". Whoever did this translation seems to have been in a hurry...
March 5, 2025 at 1:13 AM
It seems to be from Manon Lescaut - the phrase is elsewhere translated as "I boasted a fine head of hair...". Whoever did this translation seems to have been in a hurry...