12 August 2022 | Issue 29
This is a story of fucking asparagus. Past, present, and future.
I've just finished Rupert Thomson's "Barcelona Dreaming". The opening story in the trilogy is extraordinarily good.
The sharp eyed, or those with a better memory than me, will spot I recommended another of his books “The Insult” a few editions back. It’s not that I’m a super fan, but Julian’s law of three kicked into place. Having mentioned him I did a quick Google to see what he’d been up to since the last book I bought of his. Writing vampire novels it seems.
And the three interconnected stories that make up “Barcelona Dreaming”. I’m going to Barcelona next month. That’s the law of three fulfilled. Maths is not one of my strong points, I concede. Also, Googling an author whose work you already like is hardly synchronicity, but I take my sigils where I can see them.
There's also the added attraction in the book being shortlisted for the Edward Stanford Fiction with a Sense of Place Award. I’d never heard of it. But I do love a good city as character read.
I’m a fan of nominative determinism, and for years have developed a sort of affiliated hobby, which I’m going to name “locational consumption”. This is the viewing of a film or reading a book in situ. While visiting L.A., my friend Bryan desperately tried to obtain a copy of the just released Mulholland Drive. So we could watch it on a portable DVD player while driving down, yes, Mulholland Drive. I did get to watch Coppola’s Dracula on the hired car's headrest screens, driving across the Yorkshire Moors. Perfectly timed to break into Whitby Abbey with a laptop ready for Dracula’s arrival. But Anne called it when our children in the back seat had lost all power of speech. Or even movement, in fact. I understand now what’s meant when people say they were petrified.
I’ve been marking the places mentioned in “Barcelona Dreaming” on a Google map. Which is perhaps a good time to mention psychogeography. Credited to situationist Guy Debord, in simplest terms it’s how the hidden layers of a city, its history, its presence, affects our psyche. 1
Something I’ll return to in future editions, but it gives me a chance to mention a favourite album. Epic45’s “May your heart be the map” is one of the few releases to be classed as psychogeographic. Fittingly I would add. The atmosphere it evokes is 28 Days Later meets The Archers, conjuring up Festival of Britain brutalism and Ballardian abandoned RAF bases. Here’s the album’s ‘pop single’ track “Summers First Breath”. Should you ever find yourself travelling across Britain by train I can not recommend highly enough listening to the album on headphones.
A main component of psychogeography is the flâneur, again a fuller exploration is earmarked for future posts. In brief it’s a person who wanders the city streets without destination, observing all around them. Alongside locational consumption, I’m also keen on locational post-consumption, which depending on where you’re heading could even be viewed as a homage. While in New York I made Anne accompany me to 53rd and 3rd street, with a headphone lodged in one ear. Anne does not view The Ramones as a major cultural keystone of the 20th century. The phrase “What the fuck are we doing here?” may have been muttered. Just as I was about to reply, another middle aged gentleman rocked up. He too had a camera in hand, and took a photo of the street sign before happily sauntering away. For once I felt I didn’t have to justify this tourist trek to an arse-end nothing-to-see-here neighbourhood. I was not the only pilgrim.
The walking in the city is a well trodden (sorry) motif in literature. James Joyce, while writing Ulysses in Zurich, had his friends time their walks through Dublin to the minute, to ensure accuracy. Tony White throws in some walking flâneur based psychogeography in his marvellously realised “The Fountain in the Forest”, and Nicholas Royle has almost made a genre out of it. Lee Rourke has a great short story about the act itself opening his collection “Everyday”. Perhaps the rock star of psychogeographic flâneurism is Paul Auster’s “New York Trilogy”. Before anyone complains, I’m not counting Ulysses as there’s no personality transference and map induced psychosis. 2
Pleasingly, I get to mention “Magnolia” again, but only in the context that Paul Thomas Anderson also wrote and directed “Phantom Thread”. I almost didn’t watch to the end, so convincing is Daniel Day Lewis’s portrayal of an utter cunt. Like Yann Martel’s “Life of Pi” and Michel Houellebecq's “Atomised” it’s worth persevering as it transforms at the last hurdle. Without any spoilers, here’s Daniel Day Lewis in maximum cunt mode and the legendary (in our household) “fucking asparagus”
Even his salt shaking is loaded with vitriol. And here, again no spoilers, is the breakfast scene.
Filmed at the Victoria Hotel in Yorkshire’s Robin Hoods Bay. Where Anne and I occasionally rent a cottage. On our last trip we were compelled to dine at the hotel, ordering the asparagus. Which naturally wasn’t on the menu. It’s only with hindsight, watching these two clips again, that I realise why the waitstaff were mystified by Anne and I shouting “fucking asparagus” at each other for the whole meal. The good news is we weren’t staying there and never need to return. Especially in light of asparagus being off the menu.
Rupert Thomson’s principal character visits Restaurante Agua on Barceloneta with her daughter, and has asparagus with crayfish pasta. We’re booked in. I only hope, for theirs, and the other diners’ sake asparagus is on the menu.
While I disagree that the book has an overwhelming sense of place, it features several delicious sounding desserts from Foix de Sarrìa. Sarrìa is a district I’m unfamiliar with. I’ve been following an online debate about Lisbon losing its sense of community and shops, as it gives way to a tourist and digital nomad led culture. A column my father wrote for The Adelaide Advertiser comes to mind. He sticks up for the much vilified backpacker, running the maths, pointing out they put more dollars directly into the grass roots Australian economy. Since they stay in hostels in poorer neighbourhoods, shopping at local corner stores. Unlike the fêted wealthy tourists who buy international brands and eat room service in multinational hotel chains.
Therefore the rules of engagement for locational consumerism are being extended to include visiting non-touristic areas mentioned in a novel or film, and popping a few dollars into the local economy. I would have no reason to visit Sarrìa had it not been for Barcelona Dreaming. So perhaps it deserves the Edward Stanford Fiction with a Sense of Place Award after all.
Ok smart arse, which book does have a great sense of place then? Why, I’m glad you asked. “Capital” by John Lanchester is often cited as being a London novel. I’ll be honest. I didn’t feel it. I haven’t got on with most of his books. But he nailed Hong Kong.
“Fragrant Harbour” captures the Hong Kong experience perfectly, the plot seamlessly weaving in the city state’s contrasting facets. The city as character is oft quoted but rarely pulled off as deftly. I’ve taken friends on a Fragrant Harbour tour, substituting Sha Tin Wai or Chai Wan for a gweilo-free light-industrial Chinese mainland experience. 3
With the liberty of the Cantonese under threat I have a heavy sense of sadness that the novel may become historical rather than contemporary fiction.
“Barcelona Dreaming” by Rupert Thomson | Buy here
“Fragrant Harbour” by John Lanchester | Buy here
Also mentioned
“Everyday” by Lee Rourke | Out of print
“Life of Pi” by Yann Martel | Buy here
“Atomised” by Michel Houellebecq | Buy here
“New York Trilogy” by Paul Auster | Buy here
A small ask
I’m currently interviewing a few more authors , who have kindly relented agreed to humour my inquisitiveness. I feel rather sheepish in the number of subscribers, and would love their words and work to reach a wider audience.
If there’s anyone you know who you think would enjoy these posts, please forward this edition on to them, or a different one you think better suited to wooing. Better still, ring them up, harangue, shout, threaten and coerce them into subscribing. Nicely, of course.
References
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gweilo
Photos by me. Casa Milà, Barcelona 5 April 2019. 53rd & 3rd, New York 22 January 2006.
Legally I have to tell you I might get five pence or something from Bookshop dot org should you purchase something, but really I just want to stick it to Amazon and keep independent bookshops alive. Yeah, rebel me, bringing the man down from the inside etc etc.
I remember feeling so excited to move to LA once I finished reading L.A Stories by James Frey - it definitely created a kind of 'connection' [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11549651-l-a-story]
I did read Disgrace with in South Africa. I ate stone crabs in Florida with a nod to Ian Fleming's James Bond in Goldfinger. But I read Fragrant Harbour after our visit to HK, a book that you gave me to read, which i really enjoyed.
And this week's homonym is principle/principal.