Word from the Bird

A short story written in 1950s American slang:

Some cat with peepers and the jets comes up thinking I'm in orbit. Thinks I'm made in the shade. He's neither hip nor tight, but no wet rag either - so I figure I give him a chance. I ask: 'What's buzzin cuzzin?' and he gives me the word from the bird. He's been on the horn to the Ivy League and hears there's a radioactive party jumping up downtown. Asks me to follow his tail.

I was feeling pretty beat; I'd had some gig on 42nd street that was really rattling my cage. For two weeks I'd been saving bread to get a rock for my baby, looking sideways down the register, but some bird was singing dirty lullabies and I was starting to feel the heat. I figure it's time to split, just as this new gig promises to lay on some kicks.

We scream down the street and pass old-timer tanks and a hundred hot stacks: it always kills me to hall ass and go ape at the greasers. We floor this hottie with the pedal to the metal, sixteen blocks and maybe more. It almost goes goopy when we flip some cat walking the sidewalk: he tells us to 'Get Bent!' and looks real frosted.

Five more minutes, flat out, and we finally get with it. I eyeball the scene and claim dibs on my dolly jiving to some sounds. Her classy chassis would throw anyone to Cloud 9. Peepers is interested in the same chick, and I warn he's cruisin' for a bruisin' if he doesn't cut the gas and dig. 'Don't have a cow' he says, all apologies, 'Cool it'. I realise he was just some square looking to get cranked and I cut him some slack. The idea of this cat cookin' back seat bingo with any of baby in the room was a big tickle.

But although I made the scene on the stick, as the night moved on I lost my nuggets on liquor and started to nod: I wanted to pile up on some Zzz's and head back to my pad. It's not long before I decide to cut out and split, leaving the wet rags and cube cats to their weed and their bad news threads. I agitate the gravel with my baby on my arm and make out in the chariot: I'm flipping out and she doesn't dig, says I'm fast. I say hanging with her is unreal and she digs the jivetalk, suggests the flicks sometime next week, I say I'm there.

Out There: The Music of Eric Dolphy

'When you hear music, after it's over, it's gone, in the air. You can never capture it again.'

Eric Dolphy

I first encountered Eric Dolphy's name on the cover of his most famous solo album, Out to Lunch (Blue Note). I've seen it in a thousand jazz bargain bins, and it surfaces time and again in the classic all-time lists. It took me awhile to get my head around Dolphy's playing, whether it was the flute, the clarinet or the alto saxophone: his approach often sounded more like a cacophonous noise than an attempt to play, and the lack of coherency was something that completely turned me off. In some ways, I associated his playing with the spoofs and potshots often attributed to avant garde jazz: the image of the jazz musician as pretentious and aloof, making a ridiculous noise and calling it art.

So I put Out to Lunch to one side for awhile, and instead settled for more traditional jazz music. I have always been a great fan of Charles Mingus, not simply for his mastery of the double-bass but for his big, brash compositions - filled with an energy and a power that was invigorating for my walk home from work. I listened to Blues and Roots and Mingus Ah Um during this period, before extending myself toward some of the live recordings. Mingus at Antibes came at the top of this particular list, and I found myself playing it on my iPod every time I left the house. It was the perfect music for footsteps, and for a sense of gathering momentum.

Mingus is the master of powerful build-ups, and Mingus At Antibes includes some of his greatest works. But what makes them so precious is the fact that they are live life recordings: they are at times sloppy and disorganized, but the momentum carries each tune forward to its climax, and it's all completely captivating. There's a lust for life in this music that's difficult, if not impossible, to ignore. And in all honesty, I think that Charles Mingus was one of the key figures that drew me toward jazz music. The bass got you hooked, and the music carried you away. I can't even count the number of times I've listened to Mingus while walking down a busy city street, a beaming smile all over my face. It's joyous stuff.

It was at this point that I discovered Eric Dolphy all over again, as an alto saxophonist in Mingus's band. There are seconds where the tumultuous storm of the music, or the swelling of the melody, falls into silence, and Dolphy takes over. The sound, or tone, of the instrument is so clear and unique, that you begin to hear it in other recordings as distinct and unique to Dolphy himself. Suddenly I could recognize him in a crowd: no one else plays like that.

But it wasn't just the sound of the instrument that stuck with me, but the notes he played. Eric Dolphy's approach would take something from the overall narrative of a given piece, and then blast off with something that was absolutely his own. This could mean a repetition of a main theme, or notes played in harmony with the rhythm, but at its apex it would dart and blast and resist all of these things at once. The music would suddenly take off in a saxophone solo that sounded simultaneously catchy and avant garde, although there was no longer a tune to be heard or grappled with. Eric Dolphy's solo would reduce each recording to a series of super-fast squeaks and squawks and crazy hell-bent yelps. But, by some miracle, you could tap your foot to it.

I started to hear some kind of logic in Dolphy's music from that point onwards. He fitted perfectly into the Mingus ensemble, and managed to bring something new to the table without detracting from the talent that was around him: they worked together seamlessly, in a way that added finesse and excitement and drama to the music. It gave each track the sense that it really was performed live and in the moment, and this has a captivating effect on the listener.

So I began to trace some of Eric Dolphy's solo work, from Out to Lunch to Outward Bound and Out There. A pattern begins to emerge, that self-consciously separates Dolphy from his time and place in the history of jazz: he continually positions himself outside of traditional, conventional musical standards and finds his niche in the exterior of avant garde music. This was the way many listeners identified with his work in the early 1960s, as his records were released, alongside other 'out there' musicians like alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman. But there is a little more tradition, and a little more coherence, than the album covers would have you believe.

One of the tracks that always gets me is a flute piece on Outward Bound called 'Glad to be Unhappy'. It's a simple melody with a slow bass accompaniment, and a quiet piano playing softly in the background. The tune is driven by Dolphy's flute-playing, and superbly evokes the title with a sense of wallowing and melancholy. There is a lyrical improvisation halfway through the track, which wonderfully captures the paradoxical sense of happiness that a depressed state can bring, before recounting the original melody and tone at the end. It's perfect night-listening, and I never tire of it.

Rather than adopting a strictly 'out to lunch' style, leaping out into the dark of chaotic, frenetic free jazz 'noise', Eric Dolphy achieves a welcome balance between rhythm, melody, and the occasional offshoot into bewildering mess. But, when I call it a mess, I don't mean it in a dismissive way (believe it or not). Dolphy's gift is in finding harmony between the harmonious and the disharmonious, and running with it, with compositions that feel like they have a logic and a rationale all of their own. And the result gives off the most fantastic feeling. Each recording is blistering with invention and virtuosity, while retaining the sense of atmosphere and resonance that all those great 1950s records had to offer.

While on a European tour in 1964, Dolphy suddenly collapsed, and later died in a diabetic coma. A tragic event, occurring just as recognition and success was beginning to dawn. He had featured on a number of records by Charles Mingus, by this time a close personal friend, and had worked on Andrew Hill's Point of Departure. He was also familiar with musicians like Bobby Hutcherson and Herbie Hancock, who were not only influenced by Dolphy's work but later became great in their own right.

For those interested in exploring some of Eric Dolphy's music, AllAboutJazz offers its own biography of the virtuoso, alongside reviews and retrospectives of his work. You can view their profile of Dolphy by clicking here.

Blanchot at 100

This Space has reported a celebration of writer Maurice Blanchot's centenary year: a conference held back in November to discuss his work and lasting significance. Videos from the conference, presented in English, are available to watch at Espace Maurice Blanchot.

The Photography of Tom Palumbo

'In America, the photographer is not simply the person who records the past, but the one who invents it.'

Susan Sontag

While browsing photographs of Miles Davis in the recording studio, I came by chance across the work of Tom Palumbo. He became a theatre director in his later years, but achieved primary recognition as a photographer for Vogue and Harper's Bazaar.

I've spent the better half of an hour poring over Palumbo's work, and love the way he's mastered both style and simplicity, sometimes in a single shot. There are colour photographs of water or floral arrangements that are at once glorious to look at and strongly nostalgic. On the other hand, there are simple black-and-white portraits of the famous and the notable that feel real and uncontrived, but are no less evocative for that.

Palumbo passed away in October 2008, but created and maintained a personal account on Flickr. This was run in addition to his official website, but allows browsers direct access to the photographs themselves. So instead of being trapped in an endless slideshow of slow-moving images, Flickr allows you to view his work in a more direct way.

The photographs are divided into neat categories, and range from the personal domestic scenes that typify his early work to intimate portraits of celebrities and American icons. There are some superb shots of Beat writer Jack Kerouac, who looks almost like a real person rather than a mystical literary figure. And there are some playful stills of jazz trumpeter Miles Davis in numerous poses. Looking over the selection, there are also snaps of Jane Fonda, Jimmy Stewart and a young Mia Farrow - most of which are well worth a glance.

As you may have guessed, much of Palumbo's work is concerned with the American fashion and celebrity culture of the 1950s. The photographer's Italian background is also represented through a short series of native images, ranging from locations to religious festivities. But it's his work as a fashion photographer that made his reputation, and the highlight of Palumbo's Flickr gallery is undoubtedly the work for Vogue and Harpers Bazaar.

In over one hundred fashion photographs, there is an opportunity to see outtakes and off-cuts from professional magazine assignments. Perhaps the most distinctive are photographs of supermodel Anne St. Marie, who was Tom Palumbo's wife at the time the shots were taken. The colour and composition of the photographs give a certain sheen to the 1950s and early 1960s that in all likelihood never existed in reality; but the photographs are compelling for this very reason. They are nostalgic in the sense that they create a past just as much as they represent it.

All of Palumbo's photographs have been arranged in separate galleries according to theme. You can browse them at your leisure by following the link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tompalumbo/sets/

Kind of Blue: The Fiftieth Anniversary Edition

I'm speechless. I am without speech. One of my favourite albums of all time, one of the finest records ever made, has been released in an ultra-deluxe new edition. Kind of Blue, the best-selling jazz record of all time, with an ultra-stellar line-up of musicians, including Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley and Bill Evans, is being re-released (again) to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary. The package sounds like an absolute must for fans and newcomers alike.

The 'Super-Deluxe' 12-inch slipcase box set contains:

• Two CDs (original album plus studio sequences, false starts, and alternate takes from 1958-59 sessions, plus 17-minute “So What” live in Holland, 1960)
  
• DVD: newly-produced documentary featuring superstars of jazz
  
• 60-page ‘perfect-bound’ 12x12 full-color book, tons of photos
  
• 180-gram blue vinyl 12-inch LP– first time ever in a Legacy box set !
  

There are also in-depth liner note essays written by award-winning Miles Davis authorities Francis Davis and Gerald Early; session transcripts by Ashley Kahn; detailed 1957-60 quintet/sextet timeline by Bob Belden and Ken Vail. Box set memorabilia: 3-page hand-written liner notes by Bill Evans; reproduction of 1959 Columbia promo brochure; six 8x10 photos; and 22x 33 foldout poster.

And as if that wasn't enough, Miles-Davis.com announces more:

'Of special importance to Miles Davis aficionados around the globe is the DVD produced by Nell Mulderry: Celebrating A Masterpiece: Kind Of Blue. The new DVD incorporates material from the 2004 mini-documentary, Made In Heaven, including black-and-white still photography of the recording sessions and the voices of Miles (at the sessions), as well as excerpts of radio interviews with the late Bill Evans and Cannonball Adderley. There are interviews with musicians and luminaries including composer/performer David Amram, the late Ed Bradley, Ron Carter, Jimmy Cobb, Bill Cosby, Herbie Hancock (who demonstrates “So What” at the piano), Eddie Henderson, Shirley Horn, Dave Liebman, the late Jackie McLean, funk-rocker Me’Shell Ndege'Ocello, hip-hop's Q-Tip, Carlos Santana, John Scofield, Horace Silver, and many others.

'The DVD also unearths the group’s entire 26 minute in-session appearance on “Robert Herridge Theatre: The Sound of Miles Davis,” a CBS television program recorded in 1959 and broadcast in 1960. Another bonus feature is the gallery of images captured by Columbia staff photographer Don Hunstein, covering the original recording sessions, as well as a key performance at New York’s Plaza Hotel in September 1958. (Hunstein is prominently represented in the 50-plus images in the KIND OF BLUE: 50th book.) In conjunction with the latter, an unprecedented four-week exhibit of Miles Davis photography will be mounted at New York’s downtown Morrison Hotel Gallery in November-December 2008 (also featuring live music); the exhibit will then travel to other Morrison Hotel locations and Starwood Hotels in 2009. [...]

[...] 'Celebrating A Masterpiece: Kind Of Blue was directed by Chris Lenz, known for his work on the bonus DVD of interviews and performances that accompanied the 2003 Legacy Edition of Jeff Buckley Live At Sin-É. The new DVD was executive produced by Adam Block, co-produced by Ashley Kahn, and written by Michael Cuscuna.

'At the absolute core of KIND OF BLUE: 50th is the original 45-minute album program, whose five titles – “So What,” “Freddie Freeloader,” “Blue in Green,” “All Blues,” and “Flamenco Sketches” – are indelibly etched in our contemporary musical DNA, be it jazz, rock, third through fifth stream classical, or beyond. They are familiar old acquaintances on the LP as it existed in the marketplace for nearly three decades: the first three numbers occupying side one (which happened to have been cut on the first day of recording, two three-hour sessions on Monday, March 2, 1959); and the last two numbers on side two (recorded at the final three-hour session of Wednesday, April 22, 1959).'

I don't think I have anything else to say on the matter: this one is a must!

Harold Pinter 1930-2008

Nobel prize winner Harold Pinter has died in London, aged seventy-eight. Known to the world for his stage plays, including The Caretaker and The Birthday Party, he became important to me for his interviews and reflections on Samuel Beckett and Franz Kafka.

There have been numerous tributes and recollections in national newspapers and online journals. Here are a few, including Pinter's one-hour appearance on the Charlie Rose show:

• Michael Billington reflects on the life and work of Harold Pinter and his immense. contribution to the world of drama.
  
• Henry Woolf, 'My 60 years in Harold's gang'.
• Harold Pinter's Nobel Acceptance Speech.
• Harold Pinter's appearance on the Charlie Rose show in 2007.

Sic!

'[What] a subtle pleasure one can still experience when one can get his hands on an elegant and rare quotation!'

Primo Levi, 'Sic!'

I first began keeping an online diary when I was sixteen years old, or thereabouts. I used it as a means to express my frustrations, publishing them online to appease the narcissist in me. (How little things have changed!) It provided a much-needed vent for my adolescent thoughts, and allowed me to feel a sense of community in others who felt the same way. The desire to write in this way persists even now, and I don't think I would be the person I am today without this lovely and convenient outlet.

One of the things that made my blog postings distinctive at the time was my use of quotes to introduce each topic. Whether the quote was from a writer I admired, or the lyrics of a song, I thought the quotation added a certain novelty appeal to my journal, and I would sometimes spend hours searching out the appropriate words.

I suspect now that my habit stemmed from a fundamental insecurity. Afraid to show myself in a public light, I would use the words of the great and good as a means to defend and sustain myself. The quotations became a means by which I could identify myself publicly, but also offered a convenient mask to hide behind; the words, after all, were never my own.

In a short observational essay by Primo Levi, the status of the quote is explored with a few insightful comments. To begin with, Levi confides the comfort and reassurance of a good quote, and the 'sincere enjoyment at finding oneself so completely in agreement with a great author as to be able to insert a shred of him in one's own fabric.' This is the enjoyment of identification, where we can read a book or a poem for what it can express to us about ourselves.

''What else have you underlined?'

''What everybody underlines,' she said. 'Everything that says 'me'.''

Philip Roth, Zuckerman Unbound

Primo Levi suggests that this public invocation of the great names in literature can be interpreted as arrogant, or snobbish. Often, he says, it is 'a less noble pleasure; it is like saying to the reader, 'You see, I draw from sources that you do not know, I know something that you do not know, and so I stand a grade higher than you.' This is an excellent point, and I have no doubt it's the reason thousands of people have a Bartleby on their shelves.

But Levi goes one step further, and suggests that the act of quotation can serve just as much to undermine as to reinforce its author's position or argument. He states that including the expression 'sic.' in a quotation can have a 'striking effect' on its meaning and effect, and can destabilize the authority of its author. It undermines the quotation by presupposing

'an error on the contender's part. It may be a venial error, a grammatical or even orthographic oversight, but the sic, this hiccup of virtuous and scandalised astonishment, blows it out of all proportion. [...] SIC: the man whom I quote and from whom I obviously dissent, is, my dear sirs, a dunce. [...] How can you trust him? He has put the subject in the objective case: thus every one of his statements is suspect, and every one of his opinions must be handled with tongs.'

This is a wonderful point, but I think one can easily apply this observation to Levi's first opening passages. There is an enjoyment in an identification with literary texts, and it is pleasant to see in something external something of oneself. Levi mentions the habit of some respected critics to invent quotations from 'none existent books by noexistent authors'. I would argue that a true identification with a passage or a line or text is, in a sense, also an 'invented quotation', in that it invents a new context and a new meaning for an altogether new purpose.

In a sense, identifying with any part of a text is to tear it from its original context. This in essence interprets the quotation in 'an incomplete and inexact manner', pulling it from its source and placing it among alien surroundings. And so: repeating a text is not simply a reinforcement of its meaning, but an active destabilization. With this in mind, perhaps all of our quotations should come complete with a 'sic', notifying us of their incompleteness.

But, for me, one of the greatest joys of literature is the licence to quote at will. If it's not loyal to its original context, if it undermines the intentions of its original author, then so be it. I think quotes exist to be wrenched from their original contexts, and invested with new meanings and new possibilities at all opportunities. Words can be reinvested and reinstated with a different emphasis and a different significance, and they become our own. And, most importantly of all, it can be fun!

You can read 'Sic!' among a collection of Primo Levi's essays and short stories, entitled The Mirror Maker.

Somethin' Else

'Jazz washes away the dust of everyday life.'

Art Blakey

It's been an emotional day, and I feel tired. I don't have the patience to read a book, or to watch a film on DVD. And if I see anymore Christmas specials on television I'm likely to lose my mind. So I've taken my things upstairs and laid them out next to my bed. I open the window to let in the cool air, and see that it's already dark outside. I feel listless, and decide to pass the time with some music. It doesn't take me long to settle on Cannonball Adderley's Somethin' Else (Blue Note).

The album was recorded in Rudy Van Gelder's Hackensack studio back in 1958, and produced by one of Blue Note Records' founding fathers, Alfred Lion. The music is at once evocative and nostalgic, aided by suggestive track titles such as 'Dancing in the Dark', 'Love for Sale' or the impressionistic 'Autumn Leaves'. Adderley's album offers the soundtrack of a bygone era, and evokes everything from the New Jersey suburb to the bustling New York city street. All in glossy black-and-white, of course. And after a stressful day, it's the perfect kind of escapism.

Miles Davis features on trumpet in one of his few appearances on Blue Note records, and dominates many of the pieces. The liner notes suggest that aside from his prominence in the music itself, he had a strong influence on the selections and even the style of playing. To this day, Somethin' Else is considered a high water mark of hard bop and cool jazz, and it's easy to compare it with Miles Davis' masterpiece Kind of Blue (on which Adderley was a key member). And in many ways the trumpet solos guide and delineate the course of the music and the record as a whole.

Hank Jones and Sam Jones feature on piano and bass respectively, and Art Blakey of the Jazz Messengers features on drums. Together, the musicians brought together for Somethin' Else comprise one of the great jazz line-ups of all time.

But, for me, the top billing rightly goes to alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley. Following Davis' trumpet solo on the first track, 'Autumn Leaves', Adderley sweeps into a sweet, clean and articulate solo that's both easygoing and lyrical. As a would-be saxophone player, it's easy to claim that I have a biased interest in Adderley's playing; but the simpler truth is that his playing is what attracted me to this music in the first place. His contributions to Kind of Blue may present the very peak of his powers as a musician, but Somethin' Else still offers invention, virtuosity and a keen display of technical skill.

The title track, Somethin' Else, offers a light and breezy interplay between Davis and Adderley, and for me it sums up the very best of what jazz music has to offer. That's not to say that I'm adverse to the occasional free recording from time to time, or that I'm against jazz-funk recordings of the late 1960s and early '70s. But Somethin' Else is a record that typifies a particular brand of traditional jazz, while giving listeners plenty to enjoy and return to on repeated listening.

And at this moment, with the window open and a glass of whiskey on the bedside table, nothing in the world could possibly sound better. It's just the kind of escapism I'm looking for. And it's all in glossy black-and-white, of course.

Franz Kafka's Zürau Aphorisms

'Kafka had never before devised this sort of layout and sequencing for one of his texts. And though he made no surviving reference, either direct or indirect, to the existence of these aphorisms, one can't help but think that he meant to publish them in a form corresponding to the way he arranged them on those thin slips of paper [...]

'The more I studied those thin slips of paper and their connections with the notebooks and letters written in the Zürau months, the more strongly I felt that those texts, like shards of meteorites fallen in a barren land, should be read in exactly the form Kafka gave them. Strangely enough, although these fragments have been published and translated many times, no edition has taken this approach - a fact that convinced me to try it.'

From Robert Calasso's Introduction to The Zürau Aphorisms

I've been spending the holiday season sitting around, watching television reruns and drinking beer. It's a charmed existence, as you can imagine. I'm at my parents' home in the valleys, and there's little to do but bask between the home-cooked meals.

But Christmas time is never complete without its dose of despair. So it's a lucky thing, then, that I've accumulated some new Kafka editions just recently. I'm dividing my reading time very neatly between Philip Roth's Zuckerman Trilogy and Franz Kafka's Octavo Notebooks. But I've also been flicking through Kafka's Zürau Aphorisms, available in a wonderful pocket-size hardback edition.

The volume includes an introduction and afterward from Kafka scholar Roberto Calasso, who describes his joy at reading Kafka's original texts in 'schoolboy notebooks' at the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Written during a recuperative period in Kafka's life, living in the countryside and tackling the onset of tuberculosis, the aphorisms marked a formal departure from his previous writings up to this point. They were to be found among his Octavo notebooks, and in the new edition have been published in isolation: each aphorism has been given a page to itself. Calasso explains his reasoning for this approach:

'If published one after the other, these fragments would occupy twenty or so pages and would be almost suffocating - because each fragment is an aphorism in the Kierkegaardian sense, an 'isolated' entity, which must be surrounded by an empty space in order to breath.'

Calasso is a little sentimental in his introduction, but it's difficult not to share his excitement at seeing such precious writings up-close and personal. And personal, to so many, is the perfect word to sum up Kafka's writing: while it resists fixed meanings and interpretations, fans of his work are often drawn to something they feel they can identify with. Harold Pinter once said his two key literary influences were Samuel Beckett and Franz Kafka, and described their appeal in a way that captures this sense of identification perfectly: 'When I read them it rang a bell, that’s all within one. I thought some thing is going on here which is going on in me too.'

So on that note, I thought I'd offer some of the Kafka aphorisms that caught my eye - for one reason or another. Sometimes it's easy to agree and identify, at other times the aphorism is something to question and react against. Some of them are real gems. Here are a few:

1. The true path is along a rope, not a rope suspended way up in the air, but rather only just over the ground. It seems more like a tripwire than a tightrope.
2. All human errors stem from impatience, a premature breaking off of a methodical approach, an ostensible pinning down of an ostensible object.
3. Like a path in autumn: no sooner is it cleared than it is once again littered with fallen leaves.
4. A cage went in search of a bird.
5. The way to tell fewest lies is to tell fewest lies, not to give oneself the fewest opportunities of telling lies.
6. Dealings with people bring about self-scrutiny.
7. He runs after the facts like someone learning to skate, who furthermore practices where it is dangerous and has been forbidden.
8. A faith like an ax. As heavy, as light.
9. Once we have taken Evil into ourselves, it no longer insists that we believe in it.
   
10. The road is endless, there are no shortcuts and no detours, and yet everyone brings to it his own childish haste. 'You must walk this ell of ground, too, you won't be spared it.

Happy Holidays, everyone.

100 Things You Never Knew About Samuel Beckett

What are the Top Ten Beckettian graveyards? Top Ten Diseases? Birds? Horses? Why the constant references to Dante? What comedy acts influenced Beckett's writing, and what were his thoughts on Buster Keaton? Well, calm yourself, dear reader. Finally, there are answers to the questions on everyone's lips.

To celebrate the centenary of Samuel Beckett's birth in 1906, 'Percy Puthwuth' has written a barmy and fastidious list of 100 Beckettian facts. It ranges from interesting trivia to bizarre observation, and encompasses both Beckett's work and his personal life. It was compiled, as you might have guessed, back in 2006, but you can read it by clicking here.

Another Green World

'Well I mean obviously when one’s dealing with words like “real” which are so ambiguous as to be almost meaningless – almost any statement can be true. But what I mean to say is that you can afford to expose yourself to uncertainties in art that you wouldn’t allow yourself in real life. You can allow yourself to get into situations where you are completely lost, and where you are disoriented. You don’t know what’s going on, and you can actually not only allow yourself to do that, you can enjoy it.'

Brian Eno

I took a train to my parents' home in the valleys, and I've secured a small space for myself in what was once my bedroom. When the door is closed, the room feels and looks very quiet; it sounds quiet, too, for that matter. I'm alone with my past. But before I have a chance to get profound about it, I realize that this is not the same room after all. There have been two major renovations in the time since I left, and to some extent the very structure of the room has been altered: wardrobe space has been torn out of the wall, painted, and new bookshelves have been installed in their place.

I have gathered together a pile of unread books, eight clothes hangers, and a bag with my other personal affects. I'm home for the Christmas period, so I am determined to make the place my own. Not in the same way that it was when I was a teenager, when the walls were plastered with images of my favourite personalities or Radiohead posters. But my own in a smaller, more modest way. A few books on the bedside table, and an internet connection on the desk: this is all I need nowadays. I'm not going to stay long, perhaps a week or so; and this room has become a purely functional space for me now.

But, as some things never change, I begin looking for something to listen to while I clear away the old objects. I've heard Brian Eno's name a few times recently, so I thought I'd spin one of his older records, an old favourite, in fact: Another Green World. It was the third solo album since his departure from Roxy Music, and took a new direction from its two predecessors. Gone was the quirky glam pop of Here Come the Warm Jets (a reference to the male orgasm there, if ever there was one) and Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy). Another Green World adhered to that tired, dreary idea of the concept album, but managed to energize it with something fresh and exciting - and a little bit strange.

I'm always struck by how catchy the songs are. Not that most of them really resemble songs: only five of the fourteen tracks have any lyrics. Another Green World feels like a selection of moods, or atmospheres, that have been constructed in a logical and cohesive way. I can remember listening to the album back in the Cardiff a year or two ago, and how cold everything was. I'm always drawn to the album during the autumn and winter months, if at all, because there is something bleak about the music that seems to suit the scene. What it gives the city is a shimmering soundtrack, and is no less poignant for that.

The music, at times, is very sparse. A few piano notes, a synthesizer, and space to breath. But it's staggering just how affecting the music can become. More than once I've choked up in the middle of 'Becalmed' or 'Zawinul/Lava' or 'Everything Merges with the Night'. There's an instrumental piece entitled 'The Big Ship' which sounds so grand and evocative and romantic that whenever I play it I stop whatever I'm doing and dream off for a few moments. It just sounds so grand and so majestic. And beautiful.

The record feels split between these sparse gestures, atmospheric instrumental pieces such as 'In Dark Trees' and off-hand lyrical ditties like 'I'll Come Running', which I love. There are so many counterpoints in the music, that every time I listen it feels new. But, of course, there is a familiarity there, too. And listening to Another Green World comes complete with an odd kind of welcoming sensation, as though no matter how strange or unsettling the atmosphere of the instrumentals, it's a world you're happy to inhabit. At least for awhile.

I remember reading some time ago that Another Green World was one of the key inspirations for David Bowie's Low album, and formed one of the central reasons for Enos recruitment to the project. It's not difficult to see why, either. 

Another Green World shares some of Low's defining qualities, from its playfulness with the structure and forms of songwriting, to its earnest attempt to create stimulating and compelling musical spaces through the instrumentals. Of course, there are many differences too. But I think it's interesting that whenever I listen to Low, it's never too long before I come back to Another Green World; a record I can happily listen to on repeat all day long, unobtrusively, in the background.

This Charming Man

I've always had a soft spot for Paul Morley. He moved to Manchester in the late 1970s and discovered its rich, tumultuous music scene, becoming both a fan and a reporter for New Musical Express. Now, he is perhaps most associated with his writing on Ian Curtis and Joy Division; Morley found himself a privileged observer of the Factory Records community, and became personally acquainted with all of the members of both Joy Division and New Order. In some ways, he could be considered the band's official archivist. Of sorts.

The catch with Morley, and there's always a catch, it in his delivery. He plays around with the words he uses as he uses them, and he was never afraid to experiment. His stint at the NME came at a time when a number of journalists were playing around with the form, in the same way that the musicians were testing theirs. As far as I remember, Morley's reviews were the first music reviews I encountered that quoted philosophers and contemporary theorists, if only in passing. It was a new writing for a new music.

Morley can be described as eccentric, quirky and offbeat. But at the same time, he's a monument of seriousness. And it can be too much at times. Philip Roth has said that 'sheer playfulness and deadly seriousness are my closest friends', and the words seem to fit snugly around this journalist, sometimes like a noose. But often not. I have a sentimental soft-spot for Paul Morley, whether it is through his writing or his television appearances. And to accusations of pretension or ostentation I can only say that, of course, he is guilty as charged. But it is his pretentious outlook that appeals to me most: it's the appeal of a philosophical Mancunian dandy, always dressed in black.

I've seen him on television a number of times, and it's never a surprise to see him getting carried away. But his heart always seems to be in the right place. In a fantastically strange interview with Brian Eno for 'The Thing Is...' back in 1992, Morley and Eno spend the duration locked in performance games, while searching out what makes Eno tick. You can click here to watch it, incidentally.

But what's drawn my attention today is a more recent clip, teasing out the meaning of This Charming Man by The Smiths. Paul Morley has enrolled Northern poet Simon Armitage to his aid, alongside one of the original band members, drummer Mike Joyce. Once again, the discussion leaps forward into loftiness without a care in the world, in much the same way as Morrissey approaches the song, and investigates the hidden meaning and significance underlying the poetic lyrics.

Of course, ultimately, it's a mystery that will never be solved: there is a magic underlying the drama of This Charming Man which is impossible to capture outside of the song itself. But it's an interesting attempt. And a nice tribute.

Life Photography

'One of the biggest photo collections in the world that ranges from the 1880s through to the seminal moments of the 20th century and on into the present day was made available to the public online yesterday.

'The bulk of the archive is from Life magazine, the premier platform for photojournalists in the 20th century. About 10m images will eventually be available, from Marilyn Monroe and JFK to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. About 97% of the pictures have never been seen before.

'Google announced yesterday it had done a deal with Life to put their pictures online. Also available is work from other archives, much of it collected by the former Time publisher Henry Luce.

'The collection includes the entire works of Life photographers Alfred Eisenstaedt, Gjon Mili and Nina Leen. Also available are: the Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination; Dahlstrom glass plates of New York from the 1880s; and Hugo Jaeger Nazi-era Germany 1937-1944.'

The Guardian, November 19th 2008

The range of photographs is exhaustive: from Queen Victoria to Marilyn Monroe, from the JFK assassination to the Belsen concentration camp, from the New York skyline to portraits of Allen Ginsberg or Jack Nicholson. I could spend hours browsing this massive collection: funny, beautiful and chilling in turn. You can find it by clicking here.

Theatres in the Golden Age of Hollywood

BibliOdyssey has published concept drawings of Californian movie theatres from the Golden Age. The architectural sketches date from the late 1930s to the early 1940s, and include the Academy Theatre (above) and the Disney Theatre.

Movie theatres dominate the selection, but there are also illustrations of department stores and office buildings of the period (notably the Max Factor Building). All of the designs, some of which were never built, were conceived by architect S. Charles Lee. To see the article in full, or to find out more about the architect's life, just click here.

What is Culture?

As part of a promotional strategy for BBC's The Culture Show, a series of celebrities, artists, presenters and politicians were asked how they would define culture. So what is culture, exactly? Is it what distinguishes us from animals? Is it what separates the social classes? Is it something that ennobles us?

Perhaps this word 'culture' can refer to something else entirely: something far more expansive and broad-minded. But if we don't have time to tune in and find out, we can visit The Culture Show's online website for a general idea. Click here for more.

Franz Kafka, The Trial

A review of what is perhaps Kafka's best known novel

'Kafka may be the most important writer of the twentieth century, far more important than James Joyce. He describes the fate of the isolated man who is surrounded by a vast and impenetrable bureaucracy, and begins to accept himself on the terms the bureaucracy imposes. Human beings today are in a very similar position. We are surrounded by huge institutions we an never penetrate: the City, the banking system, political and advertising conglomerates, vast entertainment empires. They've made themselves more use-friendly, but they define the tastes to which we conform. They're rather subtle, subservient tyrannies, but no less sinister for that.'

J. G. Ballard, 'Kafka in the Present Day'

'Now K. suddenly realized that he had been hoping all the time that either the painter or himself would suddenly go over to the window and fling it open. He was prepared to gulp down even mouthfuls of fog if he could only get air. The feeling of being desperate cut off from the fresh air made his head swim.'

Franz Kafka, The Trial

I've spent the last week or so reading The Trial. Franz Kafka's most prominent novel, it's written as a kind of modern parable, detailing the experiences of a young and respectable Bank functionary who is arrested by a mysterious law Court without explanation. His guilt is assured by all, and the protagonist begins to loose his footing in an endless series of official procedures and judicial processes. It's like a depiction of Dante's hell re-imagined as modern bureaucracy; a hell from which there is no possible end, and no escape.

A few things about the novel strike me in particular. First of all, the prose is tightly-knit and extensive. The Trial is a slim volume in itself, but the paragraphs that structure the book are long and arduous; this is not helped by the small typeface that many publishers insist upon for their editions, through budget concerns or mere spite. Kafka himself once said that he wished for his prose to be printed in a large typeface, to prevent eye-fatigue on the part of his readers, but I suppose he wished for a lot of things that were never granted.

At first, the length of the paragraphs can be slightly frustrating for an impatient reader - as I admit I was, at first - constantly attempting to link one sentence with the next under a reading lamp. But as the book progressed, the structure of the prose began to reveal its purpose. Each paragraph is dense, and gives one an impression almost of claustrophobia. There is a tightness and a confinement in Kafka's writing that at times feels almost stifling - and that's not to mention the content itself, but simply the form it takes. By the time I had reached halfway, I had the creeping sensation that I was almost trapped within the book: it was too far to retreat, and too far to reach the end. An amazing feeling.

There are many remarkable things about The Trial. Its representation of modern working life as an alienating and uncanny environment, filled with strange and absurd moments; the supposed anticipation of totalitarian horrors, complete with meaningless arrests and unjust death sentences; the portrait of a protagonist negotiating a meaningless and absurdist existence. But what interested me most this time around was the atmosphere of the prose, and the way paranoia seeped into the text through descriptions of confined and enclosed spaces. This claustrophobia, which permeates The Trial like a perpetual cold sweat, often manifests itself in incidents that much resemble the clawing desperation of an asthma attack.

Visiting the Court, protagonist Joseph K. finds himself struggling for air in the oppressive environment and is reassured by his companion:

'The sun beats on the roof here and the hot roof-beams make the air dull and heavy. This makes this place not particularly suitable for offices, in spite of the other great advantages it has. But the air, well, on days when there's a great number of clients to be attended to, and that's almost every day, it's hardly breathable. When you consider, too, that all sorts of washing are hung up here to dry - you can't wholly prohibit the tenants from washing their dirty linen - you won't find it surprising that you should feel a little faint. But in the end one gets quite used to it. By the time you've come twice or thrice you'll hardly notice how oppressive it is here. Do you feel better now?'

Joseph K. does not feel better now, and neither does the reader for that matter. As the plot progresses, K. visits more and more locations with startlingly similar effects. The nightmare of the mysterious bureaucracy that persecutes him often manifests itself in confined spaces and bad air. And as The Trial moves ever closer towards its chilling climax, the official structures that define K.'s fate tighten just as much around his body as around his name. K.'s suffering is a physical suffering, a manifestation of panic, paranoia and claustrophobia. And it makes for a disquieting and unsettling experience for readers.

David Bowie and the Berlin Period

Bowie moves to Europe to produce a series of seminal recordings

'I find that I have to put myself in those situations to produce any reasonable good writing. I've still got that same thing about when I get to a country or a situation and I have to put myself on a dangerous level, whether emotionally or mentally or physically, and it resolves in things like that: living in Berlin leading what is quite a spartan life for a person of my means, and in forcing myself to live according to the restrictions of that city.'

David Bowie speaking with Charles Shaar Murray in 1977.

The first time I lived alone was in my first year as an undergraduate in the city. Friends of mine cast themselves further afield, and in the first months I found myself feeling solitary and depressed. I was never more than eight train stations from someone I knew, but my mindset had changed and I became isolated within myself.

I found a new circle of friends in those first few months, some of whom I'm in touch with to this day. But while I adjusted, I began to realize something very simple and essential about myself. I started to see the ways in which everything I had ever done I had done alone. Up to that point in my life, all of my most treasured experiences, all of my most worthy rewards, were the result of being alone. And it was a thought that made me uncomfortable.

I have always felt myself to be a social person. It's difficult for me to comprehend what it might be like to live alone, or to be by myself for any long stretch of time. But when I moved to the city (a new career in a new town), I began to feel that I had always been somehow alone. It was difficult for me to define at the time, and still is now. But despite my warm and loving family, my fantastic group of friends, and all the others I had loved, I felt a sense of unalterable isolation; it was a sense of absence that placed a gap between me and those around me. As Ian Curtis of Joy Division once said, I felt I was 'touching from a distance, growing further all the time.' I always had the feeling when I was with someone that I was just as much with myself. I was always alone, even in company. And while this wasn't necessarily a bad thing, it was a major adjustment for me.

As a result, I began to read voraciously. I devoured Sartre's La Nausée and Camus' L'Ètranger for clues, followed by some of the major texts of existentialist philosophy. I began to look for a meaning and significance in my life which would somehow explain and justify this feeling of solitude. I read Dostoyevsky, Kafka and Primo Levi for a sense of protagonists cast adrift, attempting to attain something stable for themselves and their identities in confusing and hostile environments. I listened to The Holy Bible by the Manic Street Preachers, an album recorded in the city where I lived, and I found an adolescent solace in its desperate, nihilistic stance. I drew comfort from all of these things. And I still do.

But something special happened when I discovered David Bowie. He felt like an embodiment of so many of my anxieties, but expressed them in a joyous and liberating way. Like myself, Bowie had an enduring fascination with Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground, together with the American Beat movement of the 1950s. And I felt as though I could strongly relate to his position as an anonymous suburban lad thinking big and getting dramatic about it. It appealed to my inner-extrovert.

I found in David Bowie a fantastic empty signifier, floating along as a blank canvas, ready and waiting for me to impose and inscribe my interests, influences and anxieties in one very convenient, stable and tangible space. He became something of an idol to me for awhile. Not simply someone to identify with, but an idea or an image that I would aspire to. What strikes me in retrospect was that the idea, or image, I saw in David Bowie was one of my own creation. In identifying with him I was ultimately identifying with those elements of myself that I wanted to cultivate, strengthen and embody.

But there was more. After listening to those early albums, from Hunky-Dory to Diamond Dogs, I began to relate even more strongly to the albums Bowie recorded in Berlin in and around 1977. Struck down by personal problems, ranging from drug addiction to a crumbling marriage, Bowie left success and celebrity in a paranoid and fractured Los Angeles to recuperate in Europe. The influence of Kraftwerk, Faust, and late-1970s electronica lead Bowie to Germany, where he found a small, modest apartment in its capital city, Berlin.

The intention was striking. Bowie, together with a number of close friends, would live in Berlin and incorporate himself into its culture. There he could walk the streets unrecognized, and frequent the shopfronts and late-night bars without fear of being accosted or surveyed. It was here that Bowie began to kick his cocaine habit and adjust to the newly-found solitude of being single again. He wrote, recorded, and released three albums during this period, commonly named together as the Berlin Trilogy (although Bowie and Brian Eno always preferred 'The Berlin Triptych').

It was these three albums that caught me cold and off-guard. They dragged me into them and re-moulded me as something else. It sounds almost absurd to say it, but after listening to them I can scarcely believe that I was the same person.

Beginning with the first album, Low, which became my favourite record of all time up to that point, I was completely locked into the music. Split between fragmented, eccentric pop-funk and vast claustrophobic electronica the album became the soundtrack of early-Adulthood. "Heroes" was a boisterous and thundering voice for my inner-existentialist, and allowed me to express an identity to myself that I was often barely aware of. While Lodger managed to contain a manifesto of alienation and confusion in one, sprawling - but surprisingly short - statement.

The Berlin records express closed physical spaces, solitude, and a heightened sense of alienation or even despair. But there is something infectious and exhilarating in the music that made these negative feelings essential and valid. The music provided a rhythm and a melody to a dark period in my life, and allowed me to work through and articulate a whole range of complex emotional feelings. And when I look back or listen to the music now, I vary between periods of finding the music numbing, or finding it new and vital. I think it depends on my mood. But I can always remember a time when this music was everything I had, and the only thing I needed. It was fun, joyous and exciting.

Looking back, I think the music helped me to integrate myself into the larger world. We all fear being alone, isolated from the rest of the world, and it's a thought that can stalk us our entire lives. There is no cure for this feeling of solitude, the feeling of being lonely and cast adrift. But there are ways to alleviate the sensation. For some, there are physical exercises that can be practiced and mastered, to make one feel not simply alone, but at one with oneself. Others find comfort in literature, or music, or a hobby.

Descartes once said 'Conquer yourself rather than the world,' and I can see the man's point. Reconciling differences within myself is an infinite and impossible task. But my awareness of this absurd position had put me in good stead. I now feel far more in touch with myself, and with the chaos and confusion that exists within me. I know that my existence is messy, uneven and often unpredictable, but I don't feel resigned to it - I feel it has given me a new sense of freedom and life. I even feel that I can be more present with other people now, family, friends and loved ones. I think that learning to be present when you are alone is excellent preparation for being present with others. And for this lesson, I have Bowie's Berlin albums to thank.

A new book has been published: Thomas Jerome Seabrook's Bowie in Berlin: A New Career in a New Town. Aside from the author's startling name, which is almost exactly that of Bowie's protagonist in The Man Who Fell to Earth, Thomas Jerome Newton, the book appears to offer a number of fascinating insights. Beginning with Bowie's troubled time in Los Angeles recording Station to Station, the book traces the influences and motives of Bowie and those around him, and their decision to move to Berlin.

To quote the dust jacket, 'Bowie in Berlin tells the story of that period and those records, exploring Bowie's fascination with the city, unearthing his sources of inspiration, detailing his working methods, and teasing out the elusive meanings of the songs. Painstakingly researched and vividly written, the book casts a new light on the most creative and influential era in David Bowie's career.' You can read more about the book here.

More information:

• A Piece of Monologue: David Bowie in Berlin, 1978
• Golden Years: David Bowie in 1977
• Golden Years: David Bowie in 1978

Portrait of an Invisible Man

On Paul Auster's troubled relationship with his father

'From a bag of loose pictures: a trick photograph taken in an Atlantic City studio sometime during the Forties. There are several of him sitting around a table, each image shot from a different angle, so that at first you think it must be a group of several different men. [...] There are five of him there, and yet the nature of the trick photography denies the possibility of eye contact among the various selves. Each one is condemned to go on staring into space, as if under the gaze of the others, but seeing nothing, never able to see anything. It is a picture of death, a portrait of an invisible man.'

Paul Auster, 'Portrait of an Invisible Man'

One of Paul Auster's earliest works is a stark, autobiographical portrait of his father. It was written in 1979, at a time when Auster had been living a hand-to-mouth existence, struggling to establish a reputation for himself as a poet. In some ways this personal, poignant account of his father provided an impetus for the work that was to follow, and offers its readers a convenient touchstone for the tone and character Auster's work would eventually take.

The account is named 'Portrait of an Invisible Man', a work that forms the first part of 'The Invention of Solitude'. It begins with the sudden, inexplicable death of Auster's father, and attempts to reconcile the seemingly arbitrary nature of the death with the meaning and significance of the man's life: 'for a man to die of no apparent course, for a man to die simply because he is a man, brings us so close to the invisible boundary between life and death that we no longer know which side we are on. Life becomes death, and it is as if this death has owned this life all along.'

Paul Auster recounts the experience of losing his father in a way that is emotionally touching, while attempting to resist sentimentality. The objective style lists fragments of memories and experiences that seek to in some way define the loved one that has been lost, while also finding a way to keep that memory alive. Perhaps even as a way of keeping his father alive, through his text. The book develops on the basis of a fear that his father 'will vanish' from existence, and from memory, and it has a momentum that perpetuates itself throughout the text.

Sam Auster was a quiet, unassuming man. In many ways, he was a mystery to all who knew him. He was married, for awhile, before leading an unremarkable bachelor existence in the house where Paul and his sister had grown up. And yet while the home of Auster's childhood offered a foundation for his memories and his identity, he presents his father as a shadowy figure without the comfort of such stability, 'a perpetual outsider, a tourist of his own life'. It is this indefinability that is fascinating about Sam Auster. His status as a nondescript, mysterious, evasive everyman is exactly the thing that makes him interesting.

Portrait of an Invisible Man is ultimately a selection of canny (and uncanny) recollections, reflected on by a son thinking of his father. But what fascinated me most is the fact that Auster felt so driven to evoke and describe a figure in his life that always managed to evade and escape his attempts. His father was 'Impenetrable. And because of that, at times almost serene.' But it might be said that Auster's experiences with his father, and his inability to capture the essence of a lost loved one, has informed and characterized his subsequent work as an author. From the constant evocation of shadowy, enigmatic characters to the prominence of disappearances within his narratives, there is perhaps an attempt in Auster's novels to recapture a sense of his father, and to comprehend the loss.

Paul Auster's narrative spans a lifetime, and offers more than its fair share of chance surprises and scandals. But most of all it leaves an absence at its heart, a sense of loss and incompletion. Auster hints at the influence of his father in his subsequent work with a quote from Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard: 'he who is willing to work gives birth to his own father.' It occurs to me that every novel and every work could be an attempt to recapture that sense of unity, of presence, that was perhaps never there to begin with.

Looking at the photograph adorning the book's front cover, a trick photograph of Paul Auster's father, it's interesting to observe it as a complete portrait of a man from many angles at once. It appears to offer every possible perspective. But the image is false, a representation that is little more than a trick of the light, and it brings us no closer to knowing anything about him.

From the desk of Franz Kafka

A new collection of writings from Kafka's work for an insurance company

'Days passed in futility, powers wasting away in waiting, and, in spite of all this idleness, throbbing, gnawing pains in my head.'

Franz Kafka's diaries, Friday 19 November 1915

It's easy to see how Kafka fans can become frustrated. On the one hand, he's produced an impressive body of work. On the other, it's surprisingly brief, and very little was published during his lifetime. His professional career developed within an insurance company in Prague, where Kafka worked as a bureaucratic functionary of sorts. His writing life was largely a private one, snatched in moments late at night when he could find time for himself.

It's difficult to tell whether any of the work published since his death in 1924 was how the writer would have intended, as many of the novels and short stories were extensively edited and rearranged by his literary executor, Max Brod.

Brod was the best friend of Kafka since their days at university, and was entrusted with all of his notebooks at the time of his death. Kafka requested that these papers be burnt, but Brod took it upon himself to publish them regardless, seeing their literary potential. As a result, we have at our disposal almost all that Kafka ever put to paper. Publications include fragments of novels, shorter works, diary entries, and even personal love letters tracing the history of his long-term relationships - all made available for the benefit of lofty academic criticism, and curious readers such as myself. As a result, this brilliant and fascinating collection of work comes complete with a sense of heavy, voyeuristic guilt.

And to add to this burden of guilt, an additional collection of his writings has been released. This time, instead of a new translation of The Trial, or a short story that has never been seen before, we have his Office Writings brought together in one volume for the first time. To me, this seems to add an entirely new, almost absurd, element to our understanding of Kafka's writing.

The distinction between a writer's life and his work becomes blurred and fragmented in this latest volume, where an argument is made that the two are in some ways inseparable. There is a strong suggestion in Franz Kafka: The Office Writings that his work as a bureaucratic insurance advocate can somehow broaden and expand our understanding of characters such as Joseph K. or Gregor Samsa.

Among Kafka's 'work' (in the day-job sense) are reports on 'Fixed Rate Insurance Premiums for Small Firms Using Machinery (1909)' and 'Measures for Preventing Accidents from Wood-Planing Machines (1910)'. Both sound fascinating, and come complete with a critical commentary from the editors of the collection. But while taking a peek at the realities of Kafka's office existence could be interesting, it lacks the magic and the charm of its artistic manifestations. An office report, after all, can only be so exciting; and when compared to the lustre of Kafka's prose, the reports are by their very nature dry and functional.

I must admit, I am fascinated by what Kafka might have written during his time at the Worker's Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia. I think it would provide certain insights not only into the day-to-day life of one of literature's most important writers, but also act as a slice-of-life of the early twentieth-century working classes. But I do feel a certain amount of discomfort about it all. Not only have I read the diaries, perused the love-letters, but now I catch myself rifling through Kafka's office desk drawers. Whatever next? Is nothing sacred?

Ultimately, however, I know that these endless forays into a writer's personal and private life will end in anti-climax. Albert Camus once said that the greatness of The Trial rested on the fact that it "offers everything and confirms nothing". Camus has spotted a powerful quality that tempts us toward the book time and again in search of answers; the book can entice us towards its writer's private life for clues to concrete origins and meanings. But Kafka's private life, and his work at the Insurance Institute, bears a similarly frustrating mark: it offers readers everything, but confirms nothing. And I suspect that's how things shall remain.

Solitude and Light

The paintings of Vilhelm Hammershøi

I've been spending a lot of time looking at the work of Vilhelm Hammershøi, a distinctive Danish painter born in 1864. I first encountered his painting on an anthology of Ibsen's dramatic works, and was struck by its starkness and simplicity. Since then, I've discovered that Vilhelm Hammershøi is a painter that continually returns to the same kind of subjects again and again - and it's a compulsion that I find fascinating.

Much like Edward Hopper, Vilhelm Hammershøi often paints solitary figures that appear on the brink of some kind of narrative. There is also a keen attention to light and shade in austere, minimalist spaces that are characteristic of much of Hopper's work. But, for all their similarities, the two painters are of course worlds apart. Edward Hopper is a painter of Americana, of familiar twentieth-century settings and Hollywood everyman archetypes. While Vilhelm Hammershøi often paints faceless solitary women contained within a Victorian domestic space.

What is perhaps a little odd about Hammershøi's paintings is that while they seek to depict a traditional nineteenth century reality, there is something that feels distinctly modern about them. They appear free from the moralizing concerns of other contemporary realist paintings of the time, and instead appear to be making a comment or a social critique on their respective subjects. It's not difficult to understand why Hammershøi has been used on the cover of A Doll's House, or why the composition of his paintings has inspired dramatic productions of Henrik Ibsen's work.

But what appeals to me most about Vilhelm Hammershøi is the simplicity of the composition, and the position of each painting's protagonist. There is something both fascinating and compelling about their solitary nature, and something oddly creepy about their surroundings - which appear to trap them within their confines. Most of all, the silences appeal to me: there are so many mysterious rooms, half-seen corridors and quiet, muted colours.

You can read more about the painter's work at the Royal Academy of Art's website, which recently held a retrospective entitled 'The Poetry of Silence'.