![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
2010 Reading XXII-XXVIII
XXII: Robert C. O'Brien, Z for Zachariah
Reread for article for Vector and Solar Flares - post-nuclear YA novel in which a sole teenaged girls survives in a rural valley, and is threatened by the appearance of a male adult. The fact that the adult is called Loomis echoes both Psycho and Halloween, but only one of those can be intended. It's a stark novel, although I thought I remembered the protagonist actually being raped rather than avoiding it. Depressing, but probably in a good way, and a more hopeful ending than when I last read it.
Robert Swindells, Brother in the Land
Another post-nuclear YA, also reread for Vector. More people survive the nuclear war here, but they begin to wish they hadn't. The authorities are no help - in fact they are positively dangerous. The novel slowly closes down hope - although there's a slim possibility of survival. A later version added another chapter, but I've not read that.
XXIV: J.G. Ballard, High-Rise
Reread - the one in which a high-rise building acts as microcosm of society and that society breaks down. And everyone wants it to break down.
XXV: J.G. Ballard, The Unlimited Dream Company
Reread - weird Blake/Boschian fantasy of a crashed airman trapped in Shepperton, turning the population into birds. I thought there was a scene with him being intimate with a cricket pitch, but I either skipped over that bit or imagined it. If the latter, then, well... (I wonder if that was Jack Trevor Storey or DM Thomas, both of whom I read around the time I first read UDC
XXVI: Alex Farquharson and Andrew Brishton, David Hockney 1960 – 1968: A Marriage of Styles
Catalogue for the debut exhibition at Nottingham Contemporary - one of a number of exhibitions I need to write about. This contains two essays, based around the paintings, drawings and prints on display, but omits the most interesting painting Doll Boy, which associates Cliff Richard with the words queen and queer. I wonder why? I shall return to this exhibition - but see http://www.flickr.com/photos/andrewmbutler/tags/nottinghamcontemporary/ for the gallery it appeared at.
XXVII: Alison Waller, Constructing Adolescence in Fantastic Realism
Reread for review - this is a title which should be listed on last year's statistics by rights, but life intervened before I reviewed it. Coins a new genre - fantastic realism - that it doesn't quite define and talks around it. A source book rather than any use in itself - and virtually every book I went to look up wasn't discussed.
XXVIII: David Gerrold, The Man Who Folded Himself
A new read! Novel-length cousin to "All you Zombies" in which time-traveller meets himself multiple times and changes history. It falls apart about two-thirds of the way through, then regains its momentum at the end. It probably doesn't bear too much thinking about, but fun, and a new insight on 1970s sexualities for me to look at. I have three or four more by him to read.
I've left out three books, because I want to discuss four books by the same author and I've one half to go.
Reread for article for Vector and Solar Flares - post-nuclear YA novel in which a sole teenaged girls survives in a rural valley, and is threatened by the appearance of a male adult. The fact that the adult is called Loomis echoes both Psycho and Halloween, but only one of those can be intended. It's a stark novel, although I thought I remembered the protagonist actually being raped rather than avoiding it. Depressing, but probably in a good way, and a more hopeful ending than when I last read it.
Robert Swindells, Brother in the Land
Another post-nuclear YA, also reread for Vector. More people survive the nuclear war here, but they begin to wish they hadn't. The authorities are no help - in fact they are positively dangerous. The novel slowly closes down hope - although there's a slim possibility of survival. A later version added another chapter, but I've not read that.
XXIV: J.G. Ballard, High-Rise
Reread - the one in which a high-rise building acts as microcosm of society and that society breaks down. And everyone wants it to break down.
XXV: J.G. Ballard, The Unlimited Dream Company
Reread - weird Blake/Boschian fantasy of a crashed airman trapped in Shepperton, turning the population into birds. I thought there was a scene with him being intimate with a cricket pitch, but I either skipped over that bit or imagined it. If the latter, then, well... (I wonder if that was Jack Trevor Storey or DM Thomas, both of whom I read around the time I first read UDC
XXVI: Alex Farquharson and Andrew Brishton, David Hockney 1960 – 1968: A Marriage of Styles
Catalogue for the debut exhibition at Nottingham Contemporary - one of a number of exhibitions I need to write about. This contains two essays, based around the paintings, drawings and prints on display, but omits the most interesting painting Doll Boy, which associates Cliff Richard with the words queen and queer. I wonder why? I shall return to this exhibition - but see http://www.flickr.com/photos/andrewmbutler/tags/nottinghamcontemporary/ for the gallery it appeared at.
XXVII: Alison Waller, Constructing Adolescence in Fantastic Realism
Reread for review - this is a title which should be listed on last year's statistics by rights, but life intervened before I reviewed it. Coins a new genre - fantastic realism - that it doesn't quite define and talks around it. A source book rather than any use in itself - and virtually every book I went to look up wasn't discussed.
XXVIII: David Gerrold, The Man Who Folded Himself
A new read! Novel-length cousin to "All you Zombies" in which time-traveller meets himself multiple times and changes history. It falls apart about two-thirds of the way through, then regains its momentum at the end. It probably doesn't bear too much thinking about, but fun, and a new insight on 1970s sexualities for me to look at. I have three or four more by him to read.
I've left out three books, because I want to discuss four books by the same author and I've one half to go.