Book review from 2008

Of Sport and a Past Time: James Salter


They say you can’t choose friends. Or is it family? It’s all such a blur. Such maxims are equally confusedly applicable to novels. But we all have those that feel like our own; as though written for us in the manner of poets once scribing for Royalty. I forget how Salter’s novella fell into my hands, but it wasn’t through recommendation, it was more serendipitous than that, a prod from the book god? A right as opposed to a left? Or perhaps it was just the cover.

Before being taken over by Random House, the Harvill Panther imprint was certainly eye catching; black spines, with ornately coloured strips providing it with the continuity of a record label. Understatement in an age when covers were designed with the taste of a Turkish Premier League Footballer with too much access to marble. From their small office in Victoria SW1, Harvill strove to establish a list of classic 20th Century titles fallen out of print or the public eye; a typically idiosyncratic trip with an eye to art as opposed to, unfortunately, profit. Few books came greater than James Salter’s 1967 ‘Of Sports and a Past Time’. Never has anyone transferred their skills from piloting F-86 ‘Hunter’ class jet fighters in the Korean war, to such nuanced descriptions of the innate tragedy of human hearts and condition. Perhaps the fact that days, even weeks, of pre-operations and expense, for the sake of a 10 second burst from wing-mounted canons, fed into the accuracy of his subsequent writing. That the rush of new publications eclipsed this novella demonstrates how older works can become neglected, though not weakened; like powerful slack water at high tide, lost amongst the glory of the break.

It certainly contains my favourite sentences ever written, during which the world pauses breathing, the only accompanying noise being birds plummeting, stunned by the beatific prose, from their flight. It begins “I have a coffee in the Café St. Louis.” Which is obviously a fantastic opening line to unwritten number one records. But it gently continues, “It’s as quiet as a Doctors office. The tables have chairs still upturned on them. Beyond the thin curtains, a splitting cold. Perhaps it will snow. I glance at the sky. Heavy as wet rags. France is herself only in the winter, her naked self, without manners. In the fine weather, all the world can love her. Still it’s depressing. One feels like a fugitive from half a dozen lives.” Once I regain breath (it never ceases to pinch), I notice Microsoft spell check has suggested ‘consider revising’ some of those lines, which makes me want to shove a hardback copy of Henry Fowler’s ‘The King’s English’ into the nether regions of Bill Gates’ empire; with protruding steel bookmarks.

With such simplicity of prose and clipped poetic turn, Salter can, as someone once suggested, break your heart in a single sentence, and by that they didn’t mean “Your girlfriend’s left you…for me.” Instead, through netting those fleeting, wordless bewilderments that accompany our existence, he returns them to us flawlessly captured. In the romantic tradition of universal truths uncovered by individuals, Salter captures the hopeless awe in which men are caught when in the proximity of beautiful women, along with the far reaching, and often blinding, stains of lusting hearts. Most importantly, he celebrates those transient connections between people, those moments when the distances between us are closed. As Michael Chabon pinpointed (admittedly about something else), ‘bright sparks might leap across the gap, as between electric poles. And we must be grateful for their momentary light.” This novella is a gently precious whisper of quieter moments in our louder, overpopulated times.

A day in the life

All names have been changed. Charlie is obviously NOT me.


The meeting was droning on about aborted questionnaires and stat. collecting. He zoned in momentarily, only to immediately regret it. Doctor Alwyn, the Psychiatrist was speaking,
“..If we don’t complete the monthly stats, then the S.h.i.1 will hit the fan.” Charlie looked around, shocked to find several team members were all but writing down the anagram to make better sense of it. The Doctor put them out of their misery, “Shit.” he explained proudly. ‘Oh,’ cooed the attendees. In response to the penny dropping around the room, Charlie’s heart sank deeper. “Very good,” a few of the team mumbled appreciatively. “We drop the ‘T’ where I’m from in East London.” Alwyn explained. ‘Maybe’, thought Charlie, ‘but Welsh, 120k a year, Consultant Psychiatrists don’t do they’. It had gone quiet. He had only thought that hadn’t he? Either that or they had all died from the sudden impacted mass of their joint-stupidity. He looked around the gathering. The majority appeared on wide-screen setting and appeared to attend work only in order to eat.

A day in the life of social work - atypical

Our large-ish office is generally silent, other than the unmistakably industrious typing-clatter of job applications. Today, the drone was disturbed by what was eventually identified as conversation.

It was found to be discussing the well-explored topic of ‘which super power you would choose to be’ as a useful tool in mental health assessments of new clients. It was soon realised this only encouraged grandiosity, the kind of thing people often attended our team to ‘cure’. Although why you would want to stop thinking you ruled the world is beyond me. Discovering you don’t, while coping with the profound side effects of anti-psychiatric medication, is a long fall indeed. Anyway…

We began exploring our own choices of special power, while a few office detractors (presumably close to job application closing dates) tutted at the liveliness.

We were, ironically as Social Workers, eschewing the socio-politics of the X-men, who are of course birth defective and had no choice in their abnormality.

I chose a super power of unlimited wishes, which some card reminded me I already had. I quickly changed it to instantly gratified wishes. Pressed by team members in the advanced stages of work avoidance, I found my first wish would be to enable George Lucas to make less of a pig's ear of the (new) ‘first’ Star Wars films. What amateurish law allows an established character, ie R2D2, to have powers in his past that he no longer uses in his future? What do you mean he can fly in episode 2? Would this ability have not changed the course of episodes 4-6? Beside, this is my childhood he's dicking around with (for want of a far better phrase). I could have spent my childhood allowing R2D2 to fly. Bastard. (Lucas, not Deetoo)

BBC review of Zoot Woman

http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/rcrg

Moving to Forest Hill. 2007.

Moving to a new area plays havoc with everything, from disbelief at the broadband connection time, to the differing dimensions between purchased sofas, and the actual size of your flat.

In particular your London compass is blown. You’re convinced it wasn’t this far out when you viewed it, and now ‘zone 2 borders’ sound a little less gilded. My previous commute was 10 minutes. That’s close enough to nip into work while you run a bath. A 10 minutes cycle ride home did not allow for much to happen. I used to marvel at people’s wretched descriptions of train delays, station closures and crowded buses, before pitching in with a gleefully short description of my easy commute; god how they must have hated me.

Now of course the shoes on the other boot, or however it works. I’m currently experimenting with the best route to work, by trying all the available options. Of course the first was the best, but one has to be sure. I arrived on the first morning 20 minutes late, if 20 minutes can be described as late. However this morning I arrived 40 minutes late, which even by liberal standards is a little too close to an hour late for comfort. The journey home was worse. Following a 20 minute walk, I waited for a bus amongst a gathering, large crowd of people who, if their jostling for position, while appearing not to be, and ignoring other buses pulling in was a clue, were almost certainly waiting for the same bus as me. The pavement could barely contain the throng; how was the bus going to? And as it finally turned into view, already bulging like an alligator swallowing a cow, my smug interior dialogue of how much I loved the new flat despite this, and my ‘blitz spirit’ smile, evaporated. I squeezed ahead while holding my bag up above my head; the rest of my body was surrendered to the surge, I left its survival to chance. Somehow I got on board. We all stood awkwardly and without hand support, while the Driver’s oyster reader stripped any remaining credit we had from our back pockets and bags.

As the journey continued passengers were getting off, but somehow without causing any extra room. For 50 minutes we stood, avoiding eye contact, and most importantly the doors at each stop, while I reminisced about how the most momentous thing to have happened while cycling home was a leaf falling. With a new found belief in God, I finally recognised my road that, which since that morning, had strayed beyond the London borders, much less Zone 2. As I disembarked I noticed a few people smiling, as though to indicate they knew I was new to the area, their knowing, ‘I’ve dealt with it, so will you one day’ glances told me so, and once I was back in our glorious flat, I realised they were already correct. And now of course I can bitch about my journey home with the rest/best of them.