It's probably fair to say that my blogging isn't up to scratch, as yet. I do hope I can pick up some momentum. For now I will persist in recording things in this desultory manner.

Last night I visited the Donmar Warehouse to see Robert Holman's Making Noise Quietly, expertly reviewed here by Mr Billington. I was struck yet again by the force and clarity with which Robert (I take the liberty as I've met him a few times) draws his scenes. And yet there's such a deal of vulnerability, charm, civility and generosity. It's quite miraculous, really, what he does. The theatre wasn't full, however, and there were some annoyingly fidgety characters, moneyed types, who looked as if they'd perhaps meant to book for Rock Of Ages or somesuch and found it difficult to contain their bafflement. Why they came back in after the interval I'll never know.

Today I read a story by Hermann Hesse, called Augustus. One of the fairy tales in the collection, Strange News From Another Star.   

Yesterday I finished reading JG Ballard's Concrete Island  (there's a pattern emerging here). I've long been interested in / obsessed with the Crusoe myth of course (see above) and Ballard's livid bruise of a novel is a significant contribution to what's termed the Robinsonade genre. Here are two wildly different covers..

Meanwhile I spent most of the past week solo parenting, as B explored Berlin. The days went pretty quickly, the boys were good company and not super-demanding, and I enjoyed the quiet after their bedtime. One of those evenings I spent watching Andrei Tarkovsky's film Stalker. Geoff Dyer has written a book about his fascination with the piece. A quote from him -

" it's not enough to say that Stalker is a great film - it is the reason cinema was invented."

Today I finished reading JG Ballard's ridiculously fantastical Hello America. It's playful and witty and sharp, less of a waking nightmare than Crash, a page-turner of a future-shocking yarn. But in addition its melodrama and landscapes, its outrageous costumery and gadgetry, its epic trekking and vistas and its set-piece action sequences positively scream out for cinematic interpretation.

Wondering about coming back to the blogosphere. It's been a while and I miss the serendipitous aspects, the writing into the void. Web 2.0 has changed immensely since I started this thing. Micro-blogging has gone supernova of course and there are myriad reasons to welcome this. Though see Will Self for a necessary corrective. So let's see if I can reactivate those pathways, relearn those rhythms.

I admit I wasn't quite prepared for the brilliance of this novel, which was Pamuk's debut according to the cover but I seem to remember this was contradicted by the article I read in the LRB and which persuaded me to get hold of this particular book in the first place*. Whatever the case, debut or simply early, The White Castle is powerfully imaginative and seductive. Even more so for me perhaps in the present moment in that superficially some of its aspects dovetail with some of my current research. I'd best leave off talking about that here as I'll tie myself in knots trying not to give too much away. Forgive me, I'm rusty at this. Point is, read Pamuk's book, it's really very remarkable.

MEANwhile I realise I forgot to record here that I had an operation last week. I mean, I'm out of the habit of diarising but I just wanted to set it down. It was nothing too worrisome or drastic - a double hernia repair. I like it that they call it a repair. I took the bus very early on a freezing Monday morning last week, to Homerton hospital. By 8.30 or so I was prepped and ready to go. B collected me at around 1.30 I think it was. The memory is very hazy because of course I was high as a kite on anaesthetics and analgesics. While I was out they repaired the inguinal hernia (in the groin, that is), and the umbilical. So I am repaired. Nine days on it is still somewhat tender in the vicinities. But I am able to get around. I write from Charing Cross Road in fact, the revamped cafe on the first floor of Foyles (bookshop).

*The White Castle his third book apparently but first to be translated into English.

The pleasures of hibernation in a big city. Holed up all day playing with Buzz, washing up, sleeping. Glimpsing the garden wearing its fresh white mantle. Then heading out into the damp dark, buttoned and booted, to take the tube to town for a spot of reading. Wintering in the metropolis has much to recommend it. Incidentally I am still enjoying The White Castle but once again I find that in the act of reading literature in translation I am more than occasionally put off my stroke by inelegant constructions in the prose. I don't have Turkish and so cannot know, but I'm guessing Pamuk's style must be smoother, more musical, than the English version published by Faber and Faber.

Hello

It's been ages. I am glad to be back. This is something of a tokenistic post to remind myself how to do this. Since I last posted I have had a show on, and written half of another, and started plotting a third. So all is well on that front. Miniaturism has been on a little hiatus but should return in the spring.

I am reading Orhan Pamuk's The White Castle. And have been watching the darts, avidly.