Reviews
POETRY ADAPTATION DON PATERSON Orpheus
(Faber) 0000
Precisely 40 years before Don Paterson was born, Rainer Maria Rilke produced 54 sonnets at a breathtaking rate of just under two weeks as a tribute to his daughter’s friend Vera Ouckama Knoop. But as 55 is deemed by some to be as fortuitous as 13, it seems he simply knocked out an extra one just for good measure. And now with the Dundee-born bard confirmed as the nation’s favourite poet and with the likes of a Forward and TS Eliot prize under his belt, there was only ever going to be one candidate to
tackle Rilke’s epic work.
Paterson’s reasons for ‘versioning’ (he’s less than keen on the word ‘translating’) are, he admits, partly selfish. Having expunged religious belief from his system, Paterson found that a void existed within his soul, and that it might only be filled with some landmark poetry. And so he returned to the German master and the words he conjured to comfort himself over the death of a 19-year-old woman. Unsurprisingly, death haunts this series. ‘A dead reflection flies back into her real and breathing face’; ‘Is that infinite life . . . torn up by the roots, and then thrown into the grave?’ Of course, the sonnets are also full of beauty and tinged with hope, ending on the line ‘Say this to the quick stream: I am.’ That such a young death should have influenced Rilke’s writing is even more pronounced when we consider that he himself died four years later after being diagnosed with leukaemia. (Brian Donaldson)
SOCIAL HISTORY BILLY BRAGG The Progressive Patriot
(Bantam) coo
Billy Bragg has been so outspoken over the years that it comes as a surprise that this is his first ever book. Conceived as a reaction to the rise of the BNP in his hometown of Barking and the 7 July bombings. this is a heartfelt yet considered investigation of identity and what it means to be English in the modern world. Bragg's well-
known left leanings unSurprisingly permeate the book, but it is open- minded and intelligent in its advocacy of tolerance and diversity.
The Progressive Patriot
Mixing personal details with history and politics. Bragg tackles the tricky balance of patriotism versus multiculturalism and tries to extrapolate from his own experience and the history of his family and home into wider society. He doesn't always quite make that jump successfully, but The Progressive Patriot is still an incredibly thought-provoking read for anyone interested in the Question of national identity in an ever- changing world.
(Doug Johnstone)
SOCIAL DRAMA RODDY DOYLE Paula Spencer (Jonathan Cape)
Epic historical trilogies
must be a hell of a grind. So. you can forgive Roddy Doyle for taking his eye temporarily off the ball of his Last Roundup series (two down: A Star Cal/ed Henry and Oh, Play that Thing, one to come in, probably, 2009) and back to one of his most vivid creations of the 90s. Paula Spencer first showed up. bruised and boozed. in The Woman Who Walked into Doors. an atypically fun-free analysis of domestic abuse. Now free of a violent husband and empty of the ale that has blighted her life. Paula is back. albeit with other family- oriented worries.
The stOry is about a new woman, but it's also about a new Ireland. a more diverse place with East Europeans and West Africans mingling with the author's archetypal stout compatriots. The book is as tender and as true as you'd have expected. but I for one can't wait for Doyle to get back to his big project.
(Brian Donaldson)
COMEDY AUTOBIOGRAPHY PETER KAY
/I.'/I'/Irrn//.//;ll,/ 15/
random pile of childhood reminiscences strung together by an endless parade of pop culture references.
Kay must surely have
; tossed this off in an afternoon. There‘s no
narrative or point to speak of, and it stops
; just before he becomes - a professional comedian; i.e. when it
might become interesting. Kay is a genuinely funny. intelligent chap. but
. frustratingly, he seems
content to sell himself
' short with anodyne
drivel like this. The
sound of laughter. all the way to the bank. (Paul Whitelaw)
COMEDY DRAMA IAN PATTISON Looking at the Stars (Black and White)
C...
' Judging by the
The Sound of Laughter
(Century) 0
Since Peter Kay has built his career almost entirely upon a shared sense of nostalgia. it is only to be expected that his autobiography might contain a few ‘an' then it were all back ‘ome for Man/‘mal' style anecdotes. But there's no excuse for this appallineg lazy. sloppin written, self-satisfied heap of pulp, which is nothing more than a
predicaments experienced by the anti-hero of his third novel, Ian Pattison looks to be exorcising his Rab C Nesbitt ghosts. Tucker. a fortysomething one- time screenwriter, currently reading scripts to make a living, lives a bitter life characterised by drink and pick-ups
around the bars of Glasgow's West End.
accompanied by his
; gang of similarly past-it writer and actor friends.
Hollywood is the Holy
i Grail for all of them. yet Tucker's ideas are more
“Proust in Paisley' than ‘Jaws in space'. Resolving to kill himself
Books
5 I our, l s I! 6000
Gordon Burn Best and Edwards The tale of two Manchester United legends whose careers ended in rather different ways is beautifully told by the man who has previously written about Fred West, Peter Sutcliffe and Damien Hirst. Faber.
Ron Butlln Belonging Another slim but potent novel from this Scottish cult author. this time chronicling the dip into despair of a small cast of characters across Europe. Serpent's Tail.
Maggle O’Farroll The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox A moving novel which portrays the different ways in which women have been moulded by men into being creatures of acceptable behaviour. Review.
Alan Spence The Pure Land A sprawling fictional epic which recounts the story of the Scotsman who became a catalyst for social and industrial revolution in Japan. Canongate.
JO Ballard Kingdom Come The septuagenarian author gets all bleak and lyrical about consumer culture and warns about the dangers of patriotism in this gripping novel. Fourth Estate.
if he hasn't achieved something by his 41st birthday. he instead kills someone else. and steals their unknown screenplay.
lnevitably, however, the Hollywood grass isn't greener when he lands there. Characterised by the same laugh-or-you'll-cry mentality of Pattison's screen work, this wonhy page-turner is nevertheless a deeper and more involving study of ambition, failure and ultimately hollow success than Rab and Mary Doll's world ever touched upon. (David Pollock)
19 Oct—2 Nov THE LIST 29