#fitzcarraldofortnight – a look back at some previous reads during my Fitzcarraldo journey! @FitzcarraldoEds

As we make our way through #fitzcarraldofortnight, I thought it might be nice to take a look back at the books I’ve read from the publisher. As I shared earlier, this is my collection of their books:

There are of course two ways of looking at my collection; firstly, in terms of subject matter, blue cover are fiction, and white covers are non-fiction! However, with Fitzcarraldo that divide is often blurred, which is fine by me!

So here are my blue covers:

And here are my white:

They all look and sound delicious, as far as I’m concerned!

The other split is, of course, read, and unread! Here is my ‘read’ pile:

Fortunately (phew!) it’s the majority of the books and there are some really wonderful titles there.

The first Fitzcarraldo I read, back in 2018, was “Flights” by Olga Tokarczuk, which is probably the book which is most responsible for bringing the publisher to a wider audience (for obvious reasons…) I said at the time that it was “an extraordinary work, a real tour de force with soaring prose and unforgettable stories. Tokarczuk weaves a wonderful tapestry of travellers’ tales whilst all the while digging down into the human psyche to see what it is that motivates us and what it means to be human. Reading “Flights” is like taking a wide-ranging and thought-provoking journey.” I still stand by that – fabulous book….

My next Fitzcarraldo, somewhat inevitably, was Tokarczuk’s “Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead” which was very different to “Flights”, but just as powerful and affecting. I concluded that ““Plow” is another deeply moving, completely involving and thoroughly original book by Olga Tokarczuk, and I could have pulled out so many more quotes than I actually have… I reckon that this one will also end up in my books of the year round up in December. Tokarczuk is an author of originality and stature, and “Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead” is a masterly work.” I really do want to read more Tokarczuk!

Next up on my Fitzcarraldo journey was another blue cover, “Ash Before Oak” by Jeremy Cooper. Taking the format of a diary or journal, it follows the life of an unnamed male narrator, who may or may not be the author. The book takes in his life in the country, the world around him and his fragile emotional state. It’s an immersive read, covering big topics including breakdown and suicide attempts, as well as the effect of the natural world on humans. Despite the potential blurring of the lines between fiction and fact, I concluded that that element really didn’t matter; “It’s a book I found myself reading compulsively, drawn in by the imagery of the natural world around the narrator and the wish to follow his journey to whatever end it reached. In many ways, the book reads as an act of catharsis, of writing out of one’s pain, and the result is really stunning.”

By the time I got to my next Fitzcarraldo, I had really developed a taste for these lovely, thought-provoking books. As part of #WITmonth I read “Vivian” by Christina Hesselholdt, a fictionalised life of the iconic photographer Vivian Maier. This was a brilliantly written work, blurring the lines again and even allowing the narrator a snarky voice of their own, letting them insert themself into the narrative! I opined ““Vivian” … with its clever structure, wonderful writing, playful yet thought-provoking narrative, and all-round fascinating story, is a real winner. It’s such a deep, complex and provocative book that I could say a lot more about it.. “Vivian” is … a wonderful read, highly recommended.”

So far, I had only read Fitzcarraldo blue covers, but the release of a new collection of writing from Ian Penman, an author I’ve read since my teens, drew me towards reading a white cover – the marvellous anthology “It Gets Me Home, This Curving Track”. Penman is one of those authors who can make any topic he writes about fascinating and enlightening, and this book did not let me down! This is writing about music which draws in all manner of erudite references, as well as social commentary, and makes you look at things in a new light. As I said at the time, “Even if you think you don’t like the artists covered or writings about music, I would recommend you read this marvellous selection of pieces; Ian Penman was one of the first writers I read who made me realise that you could push the cultural boundaries and that it was a good thing to do so – and he’s still doing it!”

Emboldened by my first successful white cover Fitzcarraldo, I invested in several more non-fiction works when they had an amazing sale on. The first I read from this selection was a slim, intriguing and though-provoking work from philosopher Simon Critchley – “Notes on Suicide”. Critchley’s book takes on an emotive and difficult subject to discuss; and his measured look at why some might choose to end their lives is an important contribution to that dialogue. I said at the time, “However, I feel that what Critchley brings to his essay on the subject is a calm and rational look at why we might choose to end our lives, a kind of history of the subject, as well as a personal viewpoint of how the subject affects him. His philosophical training gives him the necessary expertise to discuss suicide as a concept and I feel his book is definitely adds much to our understanding of the human condition.” That’s a judgement I stand by and I’ve gone on to read another book of his, which featured on the blog earlier this week.

That book was “Memory Theatre”, a different kind of book from “Notes” and yet one which was just as absorbing and thought-provoking. Critchley explores the ancient concepts of the memory palace and memory theatre, creating in the mind a structure filled with visual mnemonics to aid memory and knowledge. It was a fascinating book which most definitely blurred the lines between genres – most interesting and you can read my thoughts here!

Well – that’s my Fitzcarraldo journey so far. The eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed there’s one book on the ‘read’ pile I haven’t mentioned – “Dark Satellites” by Clemens Meyer. My thoughts on that will appear on the Ramblings next week – but suffice to say it’s another thought-provoking read!

So, after going through the Fitzcarraldos I’ve read, I’m left with my unread pile which looks like this:

Interestingly, they’re all white cover non fiction! And all sound wonderful and all need to be read as soon as I can get to them. Will I read any before the end of our fortnight? That will be revealed later… ;D

“.. the strange codes passing back and forth between audience and stage…” @pawboy2 @FitzcarraldoEds

It Gets Me Home, This Curving Track by Ian Penman

I’ve been spending a fair amount of time recently with lovely Fitzcarraldo Editions books; and indeed I amassed several from their back catalogue in a recent flash sale they held, which are sitting prettily on my TBR. However, I was very excited to hear about one recently published volume from the publisher, and they were kind enough to provide a review copy. You might think it’s perhaps not an obvious title for me to read (or you might, given my eclectic taste and grasshopper mind!) So first off, I should really nail my colours to the mast where this book is concerned and give a little background.

Back in my teens/early twenties, I had another coping mechanism alongside books, and that was (and still is, to a certain extent) music. I grew up through Glam and then Punk and then into the 1980s and all the amazing Post-Punk stuff. However, my taste stretches backwards and forwards from those points and can take in anything from Shostakovich to Billie Holiday to Wire to the Manics to my current and recently discovered favourites, Public Service Broadcasting. I followed the music press religiously back in the day, and New Musical Express in its heyday was an amazing publication with some incredible writers on board. The cream of these were the dynamic duo of Ian Penman and Paul Morley, both of whom I still count amongst my favourite authors. They took music journalism off into esoteric and often surreal directions, producing some work that was inventive, unusual, occasionally impenetrable but always entertaining. Since then, I’ve read pretty much every book Morley has put out, but Penman has been more elusive. There was a collection of journalism a couple of decades back (which I have) and he’s continued to write for various publications, including the London Review of Books and City Journal. “It Gets Me Home…” brings together a selection of pieces originally published there, and makes for the most marvellous and stimulation collection.

There’s a clue here to how it is that a lot of supposedly lightweight easy listening, far from being merely diverting kitsch, can contain a whole world of stronger, darker currents. How often it feels, as Apollinaire said of De Quincey, like a ‘sweet and chaste and poisoned glass’.

“It Gets Me Home…” contains eight substantial pieces, each focusing on a different musician or musical culture; ostensibly perhaps they could be regarded as reviews of music books, but they’re really so much more than that as Penman takes those works as jumping off points to consider the life, music and legacy of some of the greats. There’s James Brown, a pioneering and yet complex man; Elvis, about whom you would think there was nothing left to say (but you’d be wrong); jazzman Charlie Parker and crooner Sinatra; and the late Prince, as well as others. These are not subjects that I would, necessarily, read about; but in Penman’s able hands, each essay becomes a stellar piece of reading and writing, and the book is just fascinating.

In Charlie Parker’s 1940s heyday jazz was one of the few spaces where black performers might carve out a life of relative artistic freedom, mostly on their own terms.

As I read through the book, it struck me that Penman has a rare ability to really capture and put into words the effect that music has on us. Our response (or at least mine) is so often a visceral, emotional one that it can be hard to pin down how and why music affects human beings so powerfully. In particular, the twentieth century saw such a massive increase in the influence of popular music owing to modern recording methods, radio and TV and the ability of everyone to have the music they loved in their own homes to listen to whenever they wanted. Penman is particularly astute on the changes that had to be made in the presentation of music when it moved from being seen live in concert or dance halls to being recorded.

For the music business the switch from live music to recorded in the 1950s was as much of a revolution as Hollywood’s changeover from silent cinema to the talkies.

What shines throughout the book is the sheer quality of Penman’s writing; I marked any number of pithy truths and ‘yes’ moments, too many to probably quote here, and his breadth of knowledge allows him to take a wider intellectual view. His essay on the Mod phenomenon is particularly fascinating, recognising as he does the cultural forces involved which many other commentators don’t; and he sensibly decries the modern trend of any kind of musical revival as being entirely sterile when taken away from the context in which it originally developed. He’s spot-on in his discussion of the difference between the lovers of Trad jazz and modernist jazz, commenting that “mods backed the darker horse of existentialism”. Running through the book is Penman’s love of jazz, and haunting the narrative is the discreet presence of the great Billie Holiday, who Penman acknowledges in his introduction should have been central to it; excitingly, he hints that decades of his writing about her may make it into a book and THAT would be wonderful!

Even if you’ve loved this music for half a lifetime, you can find the algebraic lingo of jazz theory about as clarifying as a book of logarithms baked in mud.

The title of this book is drawn from an Auden poem (not a song lyric, as you might expect) and as the blurb suggests, music can be a crucial support when all around is madness (and certainly the world seems very like that nowadays). It can give a sense of belonging; it can speak to our souls; for many it can be a lifeline. As Penman says in his introduction, “When all else fails, when our compass is broken, there is one thing some of us have come to rely on: music really can give us a sense of something like home.”

A Pair of Penmans

I’ve often perceived a snobbery about writing on the subject of popular music, but “It Gets Me Home…” smashes that prejudice with the insights it gives, with the social commentary Penman weaves seamlessly into his essays and with his deep understanding of just how profoundly music is essential to human beings. He’s an extremely erudite man, though never showy, and as he references everyone from the Bauhaus through Camus and Adorno to Anita Brookner, this never feels gratuitous, simply highly relevant and necessary to his exploration of the cultural significance of music. Even if you think you don’t like the artists covered or writings about music, I would recommend you read this marvellous selection of pieces; Ian Penman was one of the first writers I read who made me realise that you could push the cultural boundaries and that it was a good thing to do so – and he’s still doing it! 😀