I attended the ‘Lifestyle Trainers’ exhibition at Birrarung Marr on the banks of the Yarra yesterday. It was an exhibition to publicise the health and fitness website I have been writing for as an ‘expert commentator’. It tickles my ego to be billed as a commentator, probably because the implication is that I am currently paid to give my opinion. Thinking about this pricks a small space somewhere inside me, which I suspect if very close to whichever metaphysical organ can be described as my conscience; by way of justification or explanation of the commentator tag, I offer something chanced upon again the other day in one of my most prized possessions, The Collected Works of e.e. cummings. Continue reading
Archive for the Reading Category
Commentator
Posted in Journalism, Reading with tags e.e. cummings, lifestyle trainers on March 21, 2011 by Jarrod Boyle
In Defence of Sam De Brito
Posted in Reading with tags Consider the Lobster, David Foster Wallace, Matthew Johns, Sam De Brito, The Lost Boys novel on February 25, 2011 by Jarrod BoyleIn my last post, it may have appeared as if I attacked Sam De Brito. I described his novel The Lost Boys as a “mediocre horror story for women”. I then went on to say he was part of a new wave of Australian authors working to establish themselves with a predominantly female readership through a peculiar combination of obsequiousness and provocation. While I think both comments are true, he writes some terrific posts for his blog, All Men Are Liars. Continue reading
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Cormac McCarthy's 'The Crossing'.
Posted in Reading with tags Cormac McCarthy on February 19, 2011 by Jarrod Boyle“He woke all night with the cold. He’d rise and mend back the fire and she was always watching him. When the flames came up her eyes burned out there like gatelamps to another world.
“A world burning on the shore of an unknowable void. A world construed out of blood and blood’s alkahest and blood in its core and in its integument because it was that nothing save blood had the power to resonate against the void which threatened hourly to devour it.
“He wrapped himself in the blanket and watched her. When those eyes and the nation to which they bore witness were gone at last with their dignity back into their origins, there would perhaps be other fires and other witnesses and other worlds otherwise beheld. But they would not be this one.”
Cormac McCarthy,
The Crossing
p.73
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"Taking the Pulse of Aussie Masculinity"
Posted in Reading with tags Achilles, Chardonnay sipping socialist, David Malouf, Sam De Brito, Tim Winton on February 13, 2011 by Jarrod BoyleYou know what? There’s an unquiet voice inside me that says I should give up trying to be published. Continue reading
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Madame Bovary Pt II
Posted in Reading with tags Age Newspaper Short Story Prize, Anna Karenina, Being and Nothingness, Gustave Flaubert, Henry Fielding, Jean Paul Sartre, Kath and Kim, Madame Bovary, Patrick White, Summer Heights High, The Tree of Man, Tolstoy, Tom Jones on February 1, 2011 by Jarrod BoyleAccording to my oft-quoted list of ‘Time’s 10 Best Books Ever Written’, Madame Bovary ranks number two, coming in just behind Anna Karenina. Continue reading
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Picking Up Women in 1830s Paris
Posted in Reading with tags Julien Sorrel, Red and the Black, Stendhal on January 16, 2011 by Jarrod BoyleA Genius for a Friend
Posted in Journalism, Reading with tags Jane Austen, Oscar Wilde, Pride and Prejudice, Rodney Hall, Stendhal, The Red and the Black on January 15, 2011 by Jarrod BoyleIt’s great to have a genius for a friend; it guarantees often exhilarating conversations. Continue reading
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Jane Austen's Fight Club
Posted in Reading with tags Fight Club, Jane Austen on November 26, 2010 by Jarrod BoyleNow this, my friends, is more fucking like it.
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My Favorite Book
Posted in Reading with tags Anna Karenina, Dostoyevsky, Leo Tolstoy, The Brothers Karamazov on November 22, 2010 by Jarrod Boyle
I referred to the Time list of the best books ever written some weeks ago. I’ve been thinking about it since, and the list has probably destroyed my interest in ‘best of’ lists for ever after. Which may prove to be a good thing. But what it did raise to my attention was the ludicrous inclusion of The Great Gatsby – I mean, give me a break. I’m not saying Fitzgerald isn’t good, but Dosteyevsky has done turds that dwarf Gatsby. Continue reading
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The Kreutzer Sonata
Posted in Reading with tags Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy, The Kreutzer Sonata on October 29, 2010 by Jarrod Boyle
Holy shit – now this is a frightening book. Continue reading
Theme Park at its Darkest 