For Lust of Knowing

Still enjoying dipping in and out of Robert Irwin's 'For Lust Of Knowing', although fiction is taking up more of my time at the moment. Yet much of Irwin's book reads with the vim of fiction, and I'm more and more getting the sense that Irwin's decision to frame what is in many ways a consideration of Islam through the veil of Orientalism is in itself an artful ploy; it enables him to direct a complex issue sensitively without raising controversy. He does so beautifully.

"The past and present achievements of Arab culture are so considerable that they do not need to be exaggerated or to be defended from all and every single possible kind of criticism. As for Islam, a religion that embodies essential truths about the nature of the universe and man's relation to God has nothing to fear from the most advanced techniques of Western textual criticism".

Rebus on ITV

Ken Stott is wonderful as Rebus in ITV's new dramas, and the plot of last night's episode rattled along enjoyably. But why do they have to remove so much of Rankin's characterisation. Stott has the face and the one-liners, but not the anger or distress, nor the obsession with the Stones - or drink. A shame that ITV have turned a superior character into an ordinary character in a superior crime drama - could have been better; but still enjoyable stuff.

Mother's Milk

Enjoying reading Mother's Milk by Edward St. Aubyn - the passage below is a four year old, Robert, considering his relationship with his mother, and that of his baby brother.

"Robert imagined his mother talking to him when he had been sealed up in her womb. Of course he wouldn't have known what her blunted syllables were meant to mean, but he was sure he would have felt a current flowing between them, the contraction of a fear, the stretch of an intention. Thomas was still close to those transfusions of feeling; Robert was getting explanations instead. Thomas still knew how to understand the silent language which Robert had almost lost as the wild margins of his mind fell under the sway of the verbal empire".

Al Franken

It's odd, I don't actually find Al Franken that funny, and didn't even find him particularly likeable for the first half or so of Storyville's 'Al Franken: God Spoke', on tonight - but the more the show went on and the worse things got for a respectable liberal, the more I liked him, rooted for him and wanted him to turn things around; the truth is that he's a good man, and I was quite moved when, after Bush's election victory, he recounted the story of his wife's family surviving on welfare benefits. Having delivered his point perfectly, Franken paused.

"I'm, I'm, I'm thinking of, er, running in 2008 against Norm Coleman", he muttered. Of course the room rose to their feet to applaud. Spine tingling stuff.

Hisham Matar

Finished In The Country Of Men. Stunning writing throughout - you can read my review of it on Assistant Blog, here. Below, a man pleads with his executioner on the way to the gallows:

"He reminded me of the way a shy woman would resist her friends' invitation to dance, pulling her shoulders up to her ears and waving her index finger nervously in front of her mouth".

In The Country Of Men

I absolutely love Hisham Matar's 'In The Country Of Men' - a beautiful book about growing up in - and being exiled from - Gaddafi's Libya. Brilliant stuff; just picked it up but hooked from the first sentence in:

"I am recalling now that last summer before I was sent away. It was 1979, and the sun was everywhere. Tripoli lay still and brilliant beneath it. Every person, animal and ant went in desperate search for shade, those occasional grey patches of mercy carved into the white of eveything".