Eyes and Ears - 29/08/2008

I know, I know. And yet I blog on a Sunday. This is an outrage. Remember that bookshop I told you about, with the signs above the shelves? I stopped in front of its display window today, tempted by Time: 85 Years of Great Writing. Or something. I think I'm gonna go back and git it. Anyway. That was at the bottom of the display window. Then I looked up at the top - the Mad Labeller is at it again. This display is known as The Clive James Memorial Bookshelf. Clive might be a little concerned by this - do they know something he doesn't?

Reading:
Savage Grace by Natalie Robins and Steven M.L. Aronson. Goodness gracious me, this is an enthrallingly nasty book. Apparently it was made into "a major motion picture" starring Julianne Moore, which immediately explains why I wouldn't have paid it any attention. This book is the antithesis of Portrait of a Marriage, though both are true stories and set in the world of the rich, the titled and the famous. In Portrait of a Marriage the people are eccentric and strange, but ultimately sympathetic. Savage Grace is primarily made up of the voices of main and bit players speaking for themselves and, for the most part, exposing themselves as thoroughly unpleasant human beings.

I suppose all that circle was just vapid butterflies. How else do you explain it? They were all a lot of Fitzgerald dustbags! - James Reeve

This is the story of wealthy Americans, the Baekeland family: Brooks, Barbara and their son Tony. Tony killed Barbara and rumours swirled that he and his mother had had an incestuous relationship. Rumours fanned by Barbara while she was alive.

And then she made a remark I'll never forget, it has a sort of echoing horror for me. She told me proudly that she'd said to Tony as they were being led away in handcuffs, "Here you are, darling, at last - manacled to Mummy!" - Barbara Curteis

The book contains a few introductory pages at the beginning of each chapter to set the scene and then hand the reins over to a variety of people to tell the tale from their perspective. With few exceptions, most of these people claiming to care deeply for the Baekelands clearly relish the sheer gossipiness of it all. And so many seem to have a rather warped perspective on events.

I remember leaving her apartment...in a state of shock, you know - that anyone could do that to their son. She . . . She let him put his filthy thing inside her. - Eleanor Ward

I'm so engrossed I couldn't possibly have the hypocrisy to be appalled.

The person who come out of this the worst is Brooks Baekeland, a man who wiped his hands of his wife and child, who makes points in French, who talks about a Pythagorean dilemma, who speaks at length about his grandfather's asceticism and claims to share it all the while furiously name- and place-dropping. The geezer hasn't got a clue!

If you want to feel filthy for a while, this little number comes highly recommended.

Top 5 Songs:
John Finn's Wife - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
It's a Lie - Bachelors from Prague
Sightsee MC! - Big Audio Dynamite
From a Jack to a King - Jim Reeves
The Snakes Crawl at Night - Charley Pride