Zulfikar Ghose — Hulme’s Investigations into the Bogart Script [1981]

An unpigeonholable talent of immense proportions, Zulfikar Ghose is more than a footnote to the B.S. Johnson saga. Ghose’s eclectic fiction is a fervent skein of complex influences and contradictions. Born to Muslim parents in Pakistan, Ghose migrated to England and was educated at Keele University. His most celebrated work is the trilogy The Incredible Brazilian, whose critical reception (and suggestive cover art) prodded Ghose towards the magical realism camp with Marquez and co.—a label that Ghose refutes, having not read the magical realists, or even the picaresque novelists, at the time of composition. His influences are canonicals such as Proust, Balzac, and Dickens, a lineage reflected in his elegant and musical prose. This failure to compartmentalise his fiction has led to his not-oft-dropped name in various critical circles, coupled with his attitude to publishing—“I have no interest in the reader. I never think of the reader. I don’t know who the reader is. In one’s earlier work there might be some images or expressions put there to please or make an impression on a particular writer friend, but in one’s later work the impulse comes from within the art where one writes in the company of the dead writers who become one’s most intimate associates.”—however, this makes uncovering his canon a far more splendid treat for the unknown and unloved reader. This short novel, published by petite press Curbstone in 1981, is one of the more exuberant and humorous entries in an otherwise stark and unflinching canon and, alongside his 1975 novel Crump’s Terms, showcases Ghose’s more B.S. Johnsonian side, a writer with whom he collaborated on the out-of-print debut collection Statement Against Corpses. Hulme’s Investigations is a riotous read, recalling the freewheeling western fictions of Ishmael Reed, and subverts the clichés of the classic western through hilarious pastiche and withering observation. A paean, of sorts, to his adopted homeland, where as of 1969 Ghose began his professorship at the University of Texas, where he has remained for his entire working career. Protagonist Walt is a vagabond whose fragmented adventures take place in an atemporal America that is old west in timbre, modern in humour (childish innuendo and brash satire pervades), and the novel alchemises Ghose’s readings of quintessential American poets such as Crane, Williams, Stevens, and Cumming into an imaginative conception of America past and present, incorporating myth, cinematic cliché, and pieces of 19^th century travel writing of those heading west into his own resplendent lyrical and outrageous style. Similar touchstones might include Camilo José Cela’s brutal one-sentence assault Christ Versus Arizona, or Reed’s high-spirited Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down. Fans of clever and original takes on the usual western tropes should find this an entertaining and alert work. Perhaps the hardest to acquire of Ghose’s novels, the occasional copy should still be available floating around the internet—if not, Ghose’s vast corpus can be dipped into and devoured from the ‘60s to the final ‘90s fictions, each work presenting the reader with a fantastic, harsh, unpigeonholable vision.

Editions:
Paperback, 1981, Curbstone Press. 

Novels: 
The Contradictions, 1966, Macmillan. 
The Murder of Aziz Khan, 1967, Macmillan. 
The Native, 1972, Macmillan. 
The Beautiful Empire, 1975, Macmillan. 
Crump’s Terms, 1975, Macmillan. 
A Different World, 1978, Macmillan. 
Hulme’s Investigations into the Bogart Script, 1981, Curbstone Press. 
A New History of Torments, 1982, Hutchinson. 
Don Bueno, 1983, Hutchinson. 
Figures of Enchantment, 1986, Hutchinson.
The Triple Mirror of the Self, 1992, Bloomsbury. 

Short Fiction: 
Statement Against Corpses, 1964, Constable. 
Veronica and the Góngora Passion, 1998, Tsar Publications.

Dubravka Ugrešić — Fording the Stream of Consciousness [1991]

The first novel (and first English translation) from perhaps the finest living Croatian (and heck—one of the world’s finest) essayist(s), Fording the Stream of Consciousness is the sort of knowing wit-drenched metatext I have wet dreams about on a nightly basis. Taking place at an international literary conference in Zagreb, the novel sends up the oddballs, players, manoeuvrers, hangers-on, and sinister elements at such an event, rich in continuous fast-paced incident that makes the plot a pain to summarise, plump to the slim-brim with Dubravka’s stocks-in-trade: copious and well-placed literary references, hilarious comedic characters drawn from real personae, razor-sharp observations on location, behaviours between nations, and the various cultural and interpersonal differences from Europe and overseas. Dubravka is perhaps the most international writer working today, shown here with her on-the-ball depictions of neurotic American writer Mark Stenheim and his Eastern European friend Pipo Fink who still lives with his mother and writes unconventional prose, the oleaginous Flaubert descendant Jean-Paul Flagus, the Minister and his clinging lover Vanda, the unfortunate Czech Jan Zdražil whose stolen epic manuscript stalks the novel, among a ragbag of other delectable creations involved in a series of brilliant set-pieces and through-plots that keep the novel bouncing along with intrigue, entertainment, and comic mastery. No other writer in the literary satire business has the international scope of Dubravka, whose extensive travels and extraordinary breadth of literary and cultural reference (at evidence too in her fabulous essay collections Thank You for Not Reading, Karaoke Culture, and Europe in Sepia), places her writing at the creamiest of the crop, taking the reader places navelgazing British and American writers never endeavour to tread. If this capsule endorsement leaves you unsure, peruse also her other novels, including the more sombre tale of exile The Ministry of Pain, her mid-90s opus The Museum of Unconditional Surrender, or the recent mythopoeic mentalpiece, Baba Yaga Laid an Egg. This writer’s work will endure down the ages as a touchstone of unclassifiable, intercontinental, exploratory writing. Her work is well-served in translation, with American and British presses such as Dalkey Archive, Open Letter, Canongate, and (in this case) Telegram Books pumping her work out there to the undeserving masses. Long may her devilish wit and outstanding intellect reign! [And kudos to the peerless translator Michael Henry Heim for his spectacular work here].

Editions:

Hardback, 1991, Virago. 

Paperback, 1993, Northwestern University Press.

Bibliography:

Novels:

Fording the Stream of Consciousness, 1991, Virago. 

The Museum of Unconditional Surrender, 1998, Weidenfeld & Nicholson.

The Ministry of Pain, 2006,  Ecco.

Baba Yaga Laid an Egg, 2009, Canongate.

Short Fiction: 

In the Jaws of Life, 1992, Virago. 

Lend Me Your Character, 2004, Dalkey Archive.

David Caute — The Women’s Hour [1991]

 

I am easy to please when satire is served. My first author-crush was the mordantly inventive Will Self, whose novels How the Dead Live and Great Apes were among formative explorations into the realm of the Swiftian (before Swift himself, read a few years later), so I feel somewhat equipped to pronounce on whether a work of satire wields the scalpel to effect. This novel from former New Statesman literary editor, Oxford and Harvard emeritus professor, and leftist critic David Caute (still alive and working on criticism alone), wields the scalpel and then some. The Women’s Hour is “about the nature of caricature and how to deconstruct it”, and features a range of caricatures, among them the libidinous Media Studies professor Sidney Pyke, humourless lesbian feminist Bess Hooper, and calculating careerist mistress Chantel Poynter. The plot posits the notion that Pyke, fond of feeling up female students and colleagues, has raped tenure-seeking feminist academic Hooper in the campus pool during the women’s hour, and explores the on- and off-campus consequences of this allegation with unflinching bluntness. The novel’s narrator, although “siding” with Sidney at times as “hero”, is open for subtle mockery of each of the personae featured, with plenty of hilarity to be found for those willing to indulge in the novel’s un-PC scattershot satire. Pyke is a counterculture rebel, present at the ‘68 riots, and whose liberal anti-authoritarian cool makes him an on-campus mascot and irritant; Samantha Newman is his wife, a veteran TV host and sex-fond feminist working on a book Nature or Nurture about her ailing marriage; Chantal Poynter is Pyke’s present mistress, seeking to oust Newman from her eleven million viewers by penning an exposé into the Pyke rape case. Among the other characters include wheedling Scottish publisher Iain Davidson, German publishing magnate and former Nazi Hans-Deitrich Swindler, and Middle Eastern magnate Al Sabah Al Masri Al Fatah. This pot pourri of caricatures, each of whom Caute has no doubt encountered in their real life incarnates (for people are caricatures), make for a sparkling cast of self-interested dopes, and Caute’s funniest set-piece is the university’s rape enquiry, where top-notch fun is had at the expense of the hallowed dons and their establishment attitudes (male and female), which even in 2015, one can imagine still plague many so-called free-thinking campi. The level of observation and sly satire on show in this impish and hilarious novel is impressive, and punches with the best novels in the formidable British satirical canon. 

Editions: Hardback, 1991, Paladin. 

Paperback, 1993, Flamingo. 

Bibliography: 

Novels: 

At Fever Pitch, 1959, Deutsch. 

Comrade Jacob, 1961, Deutsch. 

The Decline of the West, 1966, Deutsch. 

The Occupation, 1971, Deustch. 

The K-Factor, 1983, Joseph. 

News From Nowhere, 1986, Hamilton. 

Veronica or, The Two Nations, 1989, Hamilton. 

The Women’s Hour, 1991, Paladin. 

Dr. Orwell and Mr. Blair, 1994, Weidenfeld and Nicolson.

Andreas Schroeder — The Late Man [1972]

Sometimes I want a book to bewitch. Sometimes I want a book to beguile. Sometimes I want a book to blast me from the consumerist coma into which I have slumped. Sometimes, most times, I want a book to bemuse. Sometimes I want to be reminded that existence is a nightmarish stumble through one bewildering scenario after another and that the absurd charade our carbon-based forms endure is to be treated with snickering scorn and amusement. The stories in this slight collection of surreal fiction from a Canadian man meets these requirements. Most of the narrators speak in the same flat confused manner and most of the stories slide past without making much impact upon one’s recall (a second skim-thru was required for the purposes of writing this), however, this is not the intention of such fiction. At the moment of reading these, sat up in bed with the blinds closed to the Scottish equivalent of summer sunlight (an achromatic cover of drab clouds), I entered the mesmeric drift of absurd and cruel life—from the musings on technique in ‘The Painter’, to the ominous disruptions in ‘The Pub’, to the absence of a notable hole in ‘The Roller Rink’, to the hammering in the kitchen in ‘The Past People’, these twelve vignettes reveal more about existence in subtler ways than a dozen heffalump tomes and hectoring sagas. In the perfect farce of ‘The Connection’, Mr. Derringer’s name is misheard so often during a sequence of connecting trips, the nature of his business is morphed and his whole life is stolen into sabotage. In the playlet ‘The Freeway’, Magda and her grandfather embark on a futile quest to the Revell River, their purpose or motives never revealed, with their mutual desperation to complete the quest the one driving desire. And in ‘The Theft’, an irate man whose suspicious of trespassing are flipped upon discovering he is the trespasser, and has nothing. The drift of life: where are we, what are we doing there, how did we end up there, and what, sweet Jesus, is the point of our being there, or here, or anywhere at all? How after so long on the planet did we end up sharing a bungalow in Skegness with a retired sailor and his cancerous Alsatian, or working for a mafia-run self-help book publisher in Des Moines, or [insert your own dire circumstances here]? This collection succeeds not in disturbing the comfortable, nor comforting the disturbed, but in disturbing the disturbed. You and me. We need fictions that prod us from our self-made cocoons of alienation and force us to confront the wider world of alienation and mania several feet from our doorsteps. Upon completing The Late Man, I stepped from the bedroom and out into the Scottish sunshine (torrential rain). I walked towards the river in a trance, nothing but the random prattle of aimless thoughts on constant transmit in my head. And I revelled in the chaos. And smiled. Then frowned at the pointless act of my smiling.

Editions:

Hardback, The Sono Nis Press, 1972.

Bibliography: 

Novels:
Toccata in ‘D’: A Micro-Novel, 1984, Oolichan Books. 
Dustship Glory, 1986, Doubleday.
Renovating Heaven, 2008, Oolichan Books. 

Short Fiction:
The Late Man, 1972, The Sono Nis Press. 
The Eleventh Commandment, 1990, Thistledown Press.

Stuart Evans — Meritocrats [1974]

Outside the noisome compositions of ex-pat John Cale, the phrase “avant-garde” is not heard often in Wales—from Lord Hereford’s Knob to Yr Arwydd, the hills are not alive with daring experimental artists eager to showcase their latest multimedia works. In the stringent anti-avant culture of 1960/70s (and post-, and post-, and post-) Britain, a Welsh novelist who takes up the mantels dropped by Nicholas Mosley and co. was never fated to become a success. His first novel, Meritocrats, is a waspish comedy-of-ill-manners set in a nouveau riche milieu, and is a fantastic satirical performance and hyper-referential homage to masters past and present. Split into five sections, voiced by five members of the milieu, Evans spins various narrative styles and modes to brilliant effect. Paul Keller is the Stephen Dedalus of the piece, the son of Robert and Sylvie, whose internal monologue is spliced into the action, and whose incestuous feelings for his sister lead to an increase in tormented and histrionic imagery. Sylvie Keller’s sections comprise of pastiches, some of which are of Victorian authors (Austen or Trollope?), and later more recognisable takes on the Penelope chapter of Ulysses, and an amusing riff on Alain Robbe-Grillet (who appears twice at one of the parties). Robert Keller, the paterfamilias, has more conventional narration sprinkled with the sexist opinions of the none-too-subtle Australian character—a course millionaire in the Rupert Murdoch mould. Eric Foster, “vernissage of the independent cinema”, is the most intriguing experiment: a cinematographic narration, blending snippets from his screenplays, pieces of real-time dialogue, and more theoretical musings, mirroring the approach of his movies: New Wave French in style, à la Bresson or Godard. Gavin McNamara is the final voice: a caustic internal monologue from an unconvincing Irish character, sprinkled with amusing portmanteau words such as ‘marshgassers’, ‘simperjunket’, and ‘gabledecock’, included self-consciously, so more entertaining than embarrassing. These narrations are sequenced in different orders over eight parts, mimicking the drunken headiness of the endless parties taking place. The end product is a fantastic intellectual romp that transcends its swinging ‘70s setting and succeeds in impressing with each sentence. Stuart Evans also authored the in-print (and so excluded for our purposes) The Caves of Alienation, a documents novel that seems (unread at the time of writing) to have expanded upon the philosophical musings in this work, veering into similar fictional territory as Nicholas Mosley. Four years past, I picked up Houses on the Site, a rather deflating title, part of the Windmill Hill sequence, a quintet about which little has been written—either Evans’ ambition spanning over five novels resulted in unfocused and rather undazzling prose (in evidence in that particular book, and a problem with Mosley’s Catastrophe Practice quintet), or the sequence remains ripe for a revival and several dozen academic papers and festschrifts. If this brilliant debut is any indication, Evans is ripe for rediscovery. He also wrote three thrillers with ‘Death’ in the title with his wife Kay, (work that Robert Keller himself might have produced), published as Hugh Tracy.

Editions:
Hardback, Hutchinson, 1974.

Bibliography: 

Novels:
Death in Disguise (as Hugh Tracy), 1969, Robert Hale Ltd. 
Career with Death (as Hugh Tracy), 1970, Robert Hale Ltd. 
Meritocrats, 1974, Hutchinson. 
Death in Reserve (as Hugh Tracy), 1976, Gollancz. 
The Gardens at the Casino, 1976, Hutchinson. 
The Caves of Alienation, 1977, Hutchinson.
Centres of Ritual, 1978, Hutchinson. 
Occupational Debris, 1979, Hutchinson. 
Temporary Hearths, 1982, Hutchinson. 
Houses on the Site, 1984, Hutchinson. 
Seasonal Tribal Feasts, 1987, Hutchinson.