Christopher Priest

I was sad to hear recently that the great science fiction author, Christopher Priest, has passed away at the age of 80. Priest was one of my favourite writers and his haunting, deceptively complex novels had a profound impact on me.

His novels were disturbing, chilly views into unreliable realities: always technically brilliant, always thought-provoking. Priest made his name as a science fiction author with such novels as Fugue For A Darkening Island and Inverted World, but his fiction quickly moved on to become uncategorisable, nearer to the "mainstream" ( whatever that is ) but, paradoxically, further away from standard literary fiction with its seemingly-endless supply of navel-gazing. Priest's characters always seemed trapped in hostile landscapes, puzzles and mental mazes, always searching for meaning which proved to be slippery and contradictory.

While this all sounds a bit dry, Priest's coolly deliberate prose allowed his characters' emotional states to slowly work out on the page, especially more so in recent novels like The Separation and The Adjacent. Recurring themes of magic, illusions, split / double personalities and, above all, the unreliability of perception gave his stories an eerie, fable-like quality. At the same time, he was unafraid to tackle such current issues as terrorism, climate change and xenophobia, grounding the fantastic in our own uncertain world. The term "slipstream" could almost have been coined specifically for his illusive, allusive work.

I don't think Christopher Priest has ever received the praise and attention he really deserved, probably because of the very nature of his work, but there are certainly a lot of fans who have enjoyed puzzling over his intriguing fiction. His passing is a great loss to the literary world, but I'll leave the last words to his partner, Nina Allan:

Chris’s physical presence may have left us, but as readers we are lucky: a writer’s soul is immortal, instantly present and accessible through the stories, essays, criticism and novels they have left for us to find. As I said to Chris many times these past weeks and months, in this most important and essential of ways, he will always be with us. The work goes on.

Things I didn't blog about in 2021 - Part One: Recent Movies

 As anyone still here would have noticed, 2021 has been a pretty poor year for this 'ere blog. Although in the last year we've had ( slightly ) more freedom as things became ( slightly ) safer, and I've managed to get out and do more things, I've done less and less blogging. ( Irony, don't talk to me about irony. ) Anyway, I'm going to write about a few things I should have mentioned earlier, starting with movies...

But first... a slight tangent. Last year ( 2020, that is, anyone remember it? ) I really struggled with reading. I've always been a voracious reader, often with a couple of books on the go at once, but the whole craziness of the pandemic left me unable to focus on prose. I managed to read a lot of magazines and comics and probably way too much crap on t'internet but not novels. I started but didn't finish a few books which I may return to at some point ( Galapagos by Vonnegut, An American Dream by Mailer, Naked Lunch by Burroughs ) but the one book I did read was Frank Herbert's SF classic Dune. I first read Dune when I was about 13 and was totally blown away by it and have re-read it a couple of times in the following decades. I've always loved the book and, while it's no longer My Favourite Book Ever, I really enjoyed returning to Arrakis in preparation for the upcoming release of the new film adaptation. Well, I say "upcoming", but as we all know the film's release was delayed more than once due to the bloody pandemic. And then, it finally appeared like a sandworm on the horizon...

An adaptation of such a complex, dense novel was always going to be a major challenge for any film-maker and David Lynch's flawed but fascinating 1984 version demonstrated the perils of trying to fit the mammoth story into one movie. Visionary Blade Runner: 2049 director Denis Villeneuve made the risky decision to split the story across two movies and the box office success of part one shows the gamble paid off.

This new take on Dune is thankfully hugely successful. And that's the key word: huge. From the endless vistas of sand stretching before the characters, to the monolithic Chris Foss-inspired spaceships, to the colossal sandworms themselves, everything about this movie is on a massive scale. Luckily the drama also finds, er, space for small, subtle moments of character and reflection in between the epic set pieces. The cast are all outstanding, Timothee Chalamet and Rebecca Ferguson in particular being just perfect as burgeoning prophet / rebel leader Paul Atreides and his mysterious, psychic mother Jessica. Oscar Isaac, Jason Momoa and Josh Brolin add testosterone as House Atreides warriors and Sharon Duncan-Brewster brings gravitas ( and exposition ) as the planetary ecologist Liet-Kynes. The luminous Zendaya has comparatively little to do but will feature more in Part Two and, similar to the charismatic Chalamet, the camera loves her.

Even with the breathing space afforded by the two-film format there's still detail missing here ( the Mentats aren't explained, there's little about the Navigators' Guild and nothing about CHOAM ) but it's not surprising really and doesn't detract from the story. Maybe more of this will appear in the next movie ( due in 2023 ) where we'll also surely see more of Paul's journey towards the later fanaticism and genocide barely glimpsed in this movie. ( Reading Dune as a teenager, I first came across the word "Jihad"  -  I'd never heard this before and presumed it was a term Frank Herbert had created for his science fiction universe. I wonder if this word will appear in the movies? I think it's likely to be replaced, as in the trailer, with the word "Crusade" which, while similar, obviously has different connotations. )

After the protracted wait for Villeneuve's Dune I was so glad to see it and in fact loved it so much I went twice, once to the Imax in Cheltenham and then to the Odeon in Hereford. I think it's a wonderful adaptation of a book that's meant so much to me over the years and I can't wait to see Paul become the legendary, infamous Maud'dib...

Another long-awaited film arrived late this year, the wonderful Edgar Wright's Last Night In Soho.

I've been a fan of Edgar Wright since the Spaced days and the idea of him directing a psychological horror movie was an intriguing one. 

LNIS tells the story of Eloise ( Thomasin McKenzie ) a shy, 1960s-obsessed fashion student who moves from Cornwall to that there London Town where spooky shit goes down. Specifically she finds herself somehow back in Soho of the 1960s, first in dreams and then maybe in her waking life, but in the form of a contemporary singer, Sandy ( Anya Taylor-Joy ), trying to make her mark in Soho's seedy clubs. Sandy is picked up by a seemingly lovable rogue ( Matt Smith ) who "helps" her with her singing career, only for things to go very wrong, and Eloise feels powerless to help her. This film is very good at showing the darkness and virulent misogyny beneath the glitz of the Swinging Sixties and Wright's recreation of the times is stunning. The casting of '60s icons Diana Rigg, Terence Stamp and Rita Tushingham adds to the verisimilitude and the film itself is dedicated to Rigg, whose last film this sadly was.

Although Wright's trademark whip-pans and frenetic editing, familiar from his more comedic films, have been toned down here, the direction is still assured and immersive, becoming looser and more jittery as Eloise's mental state fractures. When the psychological horror kicks in, the movie's debt to Polanski, Hitchcock et al becomes apparent although, for me, it doesn't go quite horrific enough. That's a very small caveat though, as the overall effect is very powerful and it's a treat to see Wright working in this genre. The script, co-written by Wright and Krysty Wilson-Cairns is sharp and barbed with some last-reel twists that really hit home. The two leads are both fantastic, especially McKenzie who completely sells Eloise's transformation, while Matt Smith was born to play a Sixties spiv.

I saw this in the cinema room of my fave venue, Gloucester's Guildhall, and it was great to see a film there for the first time since the pandemic hit.

More unblogged 2021-ness to come soon...

The Wonderful World of the Ladybird Book Artists

Yesterday we ventured into Gloucester ( or "went up town" as we say round here ) for the first time in ages to check out the Wonderful World of the Ladybird Book Artists exhibition at the Museum of Gloucester. This indeed wonderful exhibition was curated by Ladybird Books enthusiast and expert Helen Day who did a fantastic job of pulling together hundreds of old books, items of memorabilia and, most importantly, original artwork. It was just so lovely to see the beautiful pieces of artwork from books that had brightened up so many children's early years. Sarah was moved to tears ( happy ones! ) to see so many of her childhood reading memories on display.

So many memories, so many books!

This illustration for the cover of Little Red Riding Hood by Harry Wingfield is one of the most iconic from the series and it still looks vibrant and full of life, 63 years after it was first produced.

And, from a slightly later era, just check out this full-on 1970s nostalgia-fest / feast. How many toys do you recognise here?

Unlike Sarah, I wasn't actually a huge reader of Ladybird Books as a child but I do remember this Pirates book  -  what a dramatic, superbly-rendered image! The artist was Frank Humphris, veteran of the classic boys' adventure comic The Eagle, more of which later...

Around every corner we found more sumptuous images, from rosy-cheeked 1960s kids to nostalgic fairy-tale scenes...

As well as all of these beautiful, dreamlike images I was very excited to find some old Eagle comics and some original artwork from the great Frank Hampson, creator of Dan Dare. I had no idea Hampson had worked for Ladybird Books so this was a real bonus.

And from the more realistic, historical books there were these moody pieces from John Kenney  -

( My apologies if some of these images are a bit askew. I was trying to take these photos through glass and was struggling not to have reflections of myself in the shots :-)  You wouldn't want to see that. )

It was a fantastic collection of artwork and memorabilia ( not pictured are sketches, letters from the editors, original printing "flats", invoices for work produced etc. ) and we were very lucky for it to be virtually on our doorstep. I'll just leave you with this very surreal piece, also by the versatile John Kenney:

Lockdown shelf porn ( not *actual* porn )

During this lockdown we've all become accustomed to seeing newsreaders, celebrities and the like on our televisions, broadcasting from their homes, often with some ostentatiously-positioned books on their bookshelves behind them. These bookshelves often look unbelievably tidy and organised and, in reaction, some ( ordinary ) people have taken to posting photos of their untidy, un-posed shelves too. Never one to miss a pointless trend, I've jumped on the shelf porn bandwagon and so here are just some of my books, with some random Doctor Who DVDs thrown in as a bonus.

Can you spot any of your favourites?

A Decade of The Glass Walking-Stick!

...or Ten Years On The Blog...

Holy Guacamole! It's hard to believe I've been ( sort of ) working on this 'ere blog for a whole ten years. Well, I say "hard to believe" but when I actually look back at my various, random drivellings over the years, it does kind of hit me how long it's been since that first rookie post...

At the start I wasn't quite sure what I was doing ( as in life, so in blogging ), treating the blog as a kind of journal and even worrying when I wasn't posting regularly. Imagine that! Over the years my output here has sloooooowed down to a kind of backwards crawl but I still enjoy doing it when the mood takes me. I did say to James the other day that maybe I should call a halt to TGW-S after this 10th anniversary post but he convinced me to keep on keepin' on. If anything, it's a good exercise in keeping the old grey matter ticking over, probably needed more than ever now I'm in my fifties  -  I was only 41 when I started the blog! A spring chicken! A youngster...

Although not as young as in the photo above. This is me and my much-missed dog Buxton ( aka Buck, aka Bucko, aka "where's that bloody dog gone this time" etc. ), some time in the late 1980s. I know you're more used to cat photos here, Dear Hypothetical Reader, but as I'm getting all nostalgic today I thought it would be good to give a canine the spotlight for a change.
( I am kind of hopping around from one subject to another here, but stick with it, I'll only have this tenth anniversary the one time. Can't imagine I'll be doing this in another 10 years. Or will I?... )

Anyway, back to the history of the blog ( Don't you find it fascinating? Hello? Anyone? )  -  I began to suss out the things I enjoyed writing about  -  movies, music, Doctor Who, comics, all that stuff, with the occasional post about things my family and I were up to in the real world. I particularly enjoyed writing some semi-regular series of posts like Favourite Gig Fridays and Steranko Saturdays which gave the blog some kind of structure and also gave me deadlines, without which I'm pretty useless.
Of course, one of the greatest joys of blogging has been talking to fellow, like-minded ( or not ) bloggers, reading their often far superior posts and generally feeling like part of a community. That feeling has sadly waned over the years as so many blogs and bloggers have fallen by the wayside. Some retired from the scene and happily gave their friends and Followers a chance to say au revoir, some just disappeared from the Blogosphere without warning. I have to admit I really miss some of those guys... so, if any of the following are still out there, why not leave a comment?
Mickey Glitter, Wiec?, The Igloo Keeper, Momo, Richard Bensam, Mandra   -  it would be great to hear from you.
Luckily, there are still the faithful few ( and I do mean "few"! ) who still drop by, so here's a big TGW-S THANK YOU to anyone who finds themselves reading this drivel when they should really be doing something less boring instead. You know who you are...

( No, not those two, obviously... but some lovely people who are almost as cool... )
Oh, you want me to name names? Alrighty then. Many thanks to these wonderful folks for supporting this 'ere blog over the years: Tom Wiggins, Joe Bloke, Pete Doree, Steve W, Kid Robson, MD Jackson, Karen 'n' Doug, The Groovy Agent, John Pitt, Joanne Casey, Paul McScotty, Matthew Killorin...
and, of course, my Canadian brother from another mother, the mighty Calvin Heighton!

Aaand that's enough back-slapping for now. I wouldn't want anyone to get big-headed. So, while I start to think about what the hell I'm going to do with this blog after this millstone ( er, "milestone" )      ( answers on a postcard? ) I'll leave you with some random pics from the Visual Vaults of The Glass Walking-Stick.

Peace and Love  -  cerebus660 ( Simon )