a thread for b.s. johnson, christine brooke-rose, ann quin, alan burns,

This story has been floating around since last August, but this is as good a place as any to mention that Music and Literature reprinted one of Ann Quin's uncollected stories:
http://www.musicandliterature.org/features/2014/8/6/every-cripple-has-his-own-way-of-walking

alan burns' work seems near impossible to find.

Just started reading, "Celebrations, a Novel" and what a peculiar thing it is. Was he using cut-ups, fold-ins, whateva?

... turns out he was. I really liked that book too. Followed that up with "Babel", which is ALL cut-ups and is tough to read for any more than a few pages at a time, often hilarious and/or disturbing. Trying to read "Europe After the Rain" right now and finding it a bit of a slog, tho that might be more down to me than the book.

http://www.verbivoraciouspress.org/the-alan-burns-omnibus-volume-one/

(have yet to actually read the one novel of his i did eventually find)

Oh, good. Not avaiable in the UK though. I've got another one of his novels lined up to read, I'll get round to it eventually.

The publisher has some good reprints, but their books are incredibly ugly.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09tybwl

^ A programme on all of this. Managed to raise a smile early on for a couple of mins worrying away as to whether this is a group or not (unlike France say) - its got that insecurity of 'have the Brits done anything since Shakespeare and Milton?' about it. 20 mins in and I'm not hearing any new points but it doesn't matter. Its got some nice archive stuff.

lol @ Brooke-Rose making a weird point 25 mins in that you wouldn't read her books on the train (which is a consumer product). I am so reading her on public transport.

Eimear McBride does take a knife to a lot of this (in a nice enough way). As in Beckett is a lot better than this.

Good discussion of the poetry (unexpected amount of time given to Bob Cobbing), although they could've discussed J H Prynne. I suspect much of the poetry and Ann Quin (on the prose side) is what will endure.

Just finished "See the Old Lady Decently". Didn't like it much tbh.

... also "Thru" by Christine Brooke-Rose is sitting waiting for me but I'm not in the mood.

xp the construction is kinda interesting but yeah remember being completely nonplussed when i finally managed to get hold of a copy

It's the worst thing of his I've read, though "Trawl" is pretty boring.

need to reread trawl; remember it being pretty slow going but certain bits, like the evacuee class war epiphany, always come back to me

i deal with tom stoppard at work occasionally and am always tempted to ask about their beef

Big Bryan had a beef with everyone, more or less.