The Mookse and the Gripes discussion

Man-Eating Typewriter by Richard Milward

This is the one I'm the most excited for - ever since I saw Marc Nash's review

I was really hoping to see this as I needed the push to read it

I've put this off too. I'm not sure how I feel about a secret language developed for self-preservation and safety used to write a novel. Is the purpose to preserve the language? Is it used as a novelty? I'm not saying it's a problem, just that I approach it with mixed feelings.

Most of the Polari in the novel is made up by Milward, it's only several phrases that were originally historically used. At least that's what I gathered while reading the book, or Milward wrote that, I can't remember at the moment.

Here's an interview with Milward, which might be what you saw: https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...

Yup, that was it.

David wrote: "I've put this off too. I'm not sure how I feel about a secret language developed for self-preservation and safety used to write a novel. Is the purpose to preserve the language? Is it used as a nov..."

An interesting one. Polari itself as I understand it (having looked through some of Paul Baker's writings on the topic, both became most famous when it was featured on the 1960s BBC radio comedy programme Round the Horne, but then also dropped out of use partly as a result. Even the standardised spelling of the name Polari has some controversy as a name given by an lexicographer rather than organically.

On the book itself - for those who've read it. What did people make of the ending - which points out that the explanation of what happened that the story gives has many 'nagging inconsistencies'.

I though that was both a clever play on the root of most conspiracy theories - there is always something in any explanation, even if as close as we can get to the truth, of any true story of this type that remains unexplained or inconsistent (as the novel says 'none of the supporting characters are around to explain themselves').

But it also points to another explanation altogether

(view spoiler)[That Merritt is Novak all along. But then why and how did he bomb Victor Value either? (hide spoiler)]

Also - if people hadn't seen - an artistic rendition of some of Novak's costumes:

https://centmagazine.co.uk/fashions-n...

The “Polari” in this book is I think pretty easy to follow - particularly if you don’t sweat over every single word I think you can take in the story easily and it flows very naturally (which is impressive).

As Paul has mentioned to me it’s reminiscent of Ezra Maas in the way the story runs in parallel in the footnotes which are as key as the text. It’s less clever though I think - with the complexity of Ezra Maas replaced by deliberately gross imagery

And it’s way way too long - hard not to think the book could be half the length as so much of the detail is repetitive. Again I would contrast with Daniel James writing which while a little too long mixed things up more.

I did feel it suffers a little from the same issues Trust had - that a pastiche of not very good writing (which people in the book admit isn’t very good writing) is …. not very good writing

Only 2/3 in so intrigued to see how the two timelines and worlds of the narrative and footnotes converge. Holding off reading Paul’s review and comments until then.

Agree with all of that. The way it used bastardised Polari but reads so naturally earns its place on the list and a 4th star for me but yes it is flawed and far too long (not just for my taste).

It will be in my bottom 3 but I need to think of the order of those (all a slightly generous three stars)

Deserves to be on the list though

I feel all of the books are trying to take the novel in a new direction albeit a number of them on this year feel a bit like one of those sat navs or phone maps which takes you in a new direction which turns out not to be anywhere near as good as the tried and trusted route.

That is a bit endemic to the prize really - heroic failures is almost what it is designed to reward - the analogy will break down a bit but often the real value is a novel that opens up a new path for others to pursue and turn into a paved road.

Teju Cole has a new novel out and he out it perfectly in an interview this week:

“Experimental” isn’t quite the right word – I write perfectly lucid sentences – but I wanted to give myself a chance to make something that could fail. I don’t know that people are doing enough with their freedom as writers – to keep doing this 19th-century thing bores me.

He also said this (the last phrase gave the article its title) and I think it’s a lesson a number Goldsmith and RoC experimental books miss out

“Later there was an encounter with Joyce. I got the idea that literature had to be ever more difficult; not “let’s try to figure out how to write Dubliners”, but “we have to figure out what comes after Finnegans Wake”. I wrote rubbish for eight years. Sometime in my late 20s I realised – I mean, it’s obvious in retrospect – that what I wanted was the maximal complexity of thinking in the clearest language that would support that thinking. Being avant garde isn’t about being unreadable”

Although non-conventional readibility is a way of stretching the form.

And there are very readable - in terms of clear simple language - books that are still very hard to parse- see Gaudby Bauble for example or Waidner generally.

My brief but I feel book appropriate (*) review

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

(*) other than in length

It's entirely inappropriate in that sense. It should be 10 times the length with various diversions and end up with a confusing conclusion.

I know but you have a monopoly on the long, diversionary and confusing review market

Most of my reviews consists of the author’s words cut and pasted so don’t blame me!!

The author does address the rather extreme nature of parts of the novel in his New Statesman interview (can't link as links seemed to be turned off again for now)

Certain parts of the novel are there to reflect the brutality of pre-Abortion Act, pre-Sexual Offences Act Britain, as well as the horror of 1960s/1970s cult predators like Charles Manson, Jim Jones, Andreas Baader, who heavily influenced the Novak character. The violence towards and exploitation of women by Manson, Jones et al is shocking in the books I was reading, and all the more disturbing in that it was part of a supposed mission to build a utopian future. It felt important to reflect in the novel just how low some people will go to achieve their diabolical, selfish, hypocritical ends.

When I put violence in my work, I want its intensity to be unsettling for the reader, to force a response similar to how it would feel to witness or experience it in reality.