Bülent Ecevit Osman Yusuf

Paris Review - The Art of Fiction No. 211, William Gibson

Wonderful interview with William Gibson (Neuromancer, Pattern Recognition), not least of which is this tidbit on how he approaches the craft of writing:

INTERVIEWER

How do you begin a novel?

GIBSON

I have to write an opening sentence. I think with one exception I’ve never changed an opening sentence after a book was completed.

INTERVIEWER

You won’t have planned beyond that one sentence?

GIBSON

No. I don’t begin a novel with a shopping list—the novel becomes my shopping list as I write it. It’s like that joke about the violin maker who was asked how he made a violin and answered that he started with a piece of wood and removed everything that wasn’t a violin. That’s what I do when I’m writing a novel, except somehow I’m simultaneously generating the wood as I’m carving it.

E. M. Forster’s idea has always stuck with me—that a writer who’s fully in control of the characters hasn’t even started to do the work. I’ve never had any direct fictional input, that I know of, from dreams, but when I’m working optimally I’m in the equivalent of an ongoing lucid dream. That gives me my story, but it also leaves me devoid of much theoretical or philosophical rationale for why the story winds up as it does on the page. The sort of narratives I don’t trust, as a reader, smell of homework.

There’s no three act structure, or noticeboards with post-it notes mapping out the course of the story. Merely the first sentence.

They don’t teach that in creative writing classes. If they did, the course wouldn’t last much longer than an hour.

In ‘Game of Thrones,’ a Language to Make the World Feel Real - NYTimes.com

People have made a career out of this?

“There’s been a sea change in Hollywood. They realize there’s a fan base out there that wants constructed languages,” said Matt Pearson, a linguistics professor at Reed College in Portland, Ore. He created Thhtmaa (pronounced tukhh-t’-mah), the language of termite-like aliens in the short-lived NBC series “Dark Skies.”

“Game of Thrones,” based on the best-selling series of novels “A Song of Ice and Fire” by George R. R. Martin, may be the biggest television showcase for an invented language. The books, which primarily follow feuding kingdoms in the fictional land of Westeros, had a scattering of Dothraki words, but the show’s executive producers wanted a fully formed language.

I remember from my school days, there was a kid who was learning to speak Klingon. Predictably, he came in for a lot of mockery. He’s probably consulting on one of these TV shows by now.

Book Review - 'Asterios Polyp,' Written and Illustrated by David Mazzucchelli - Review - NYTimes.com

Today I read this in a bookshop, curled up in an armchair. Feeling guilty, might have to stump up some cash and actually pay for the thing:

Enter “Asterios Polyp”: a big, proud, ambitious chunk of a graphic novel, with modernism on its mind and a perfectly geometrical chip on its shoulder. The tension between formalist rigor and emotional subtlety is not just the theme (and method) of the cartoonist David ­Mazzucchelli’s decade-in-the-making opus; it’s basically the plot. The book is a satirical comedy of remarriage, a treatise on aesthetics and design and ontology, a late-life Künstlerroman, a Novel of Ideas with two capital letters, and just about the most schematic work of fiction this side of that other big book that constantly alludes to the “Odyssey.”

Asterios Polyp himself is adorably dislikable, an egocentric, condescending, irritable “paper architect” and academic who sees everything in terms of dualities. (“Anything that is not functional is merely decorative,” he declares.) When Polyp’s father came to America, we’re told, “an exasperated Ellis Island official had cut the family name in half.” That name would have to have been Polyphemus, as in the Cyclops. Asterios himself is a metaphorical cyclops, lacking the ability to perceive emotional depth. Even his head is drawn as a two-dimensional construct: half a perfect circle, interrupted by two equally proportioned curves.

The artwork was beautiful, and a world away from Mazzucchelli’s previous scribblings on Daredevil and Batman comics. There are sequences in it that don’t immediately make sense, and then a couple of hours later the meaning becomes clear, sneaking up on you like a pickpocket. I liked it very much.

One Man, Two Guvnors, Adelphi Theatre, review - Telegraph

Laugh? I nearly died!

In the play’s greatest scene, one of the most hilarious I have ever seen in a theatre, he simultaneously serves dinner to his two guvnors while reserving large quantities of food for himself, aided and abetted by an ancient and doddery waiter (the sublimely comical Tom Edden) who keeps falling down the stairs, and a member of the audience who suffers no end of humiliations. If you don’t laugh at this scene it can only be because you have already expired with mirth at the show’s previous gags.

The reviews are entirely justified. This one sequence alone is comedy slapstick heaven, and the whole building was shaking with laughter.

Attack the Block – review | Film | The Guardian

Finally got round to seeing this. Think I avoided it because, despite having a great concept, I was worried it’d be a disappointment. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case:

As well as excitement and laughs, [Director Joe] Cornish provides some sharp social comment on the subject of aliens and alienation. Now, there are many who will feel they have consumed enough hand-wringing analysis from the concerned commentariat about aggressive youths in Broken Britain controlling their turf, and yet as scared as babies of moving anywhere beyond these “ends”. Cornish tackles the same idea but with a light touch and a cheerful, unfashionably optimistic belief in a happy outcome somewhere along the line. His sci-fi urban pastoral is also a satirical fantasy. What if enemies or opposing groups were suddenly confronted by a common foe? Might they not discover common ground that should have been cultivated anyway?

Some random observations:

1. The film was a financial flop, that much we already know. Did it fail because it dared to present social undesirables as heroic? Or was it because audiences couldn’t understand the street slang spoken by the cast?
2. Even though I didn’t quite catch everything they were saying (subtitles will be switched on for repeat viewings), the young cast were excellent, by turns fearsome and vulnerable. Funny, too.
3. Given that it’s set on Bonfire Night (4th November), why was it given a summer release in the cinemas? It’s just as well, because the social commentary (such as it is), uncannily prefigures the London Riots that took place shortly after.
4. Surprised to see that the Daily Mail gave it such a thoughtful and positive review. Again, this view might have changed post-riots.
5. The design of the monsters were clearly inspired by the creatures that adorned the sides of the Space Invaders arcade cabinets, way back in the eighties.
6. The soundtrack by Basement Jaxx is brilliant.
7. Finally, if this isn’t a tribute to the films of John Carpenter, I’m going to shred my blogger’s union card and sprinkle it over my cornflakes for breakfast.