Nuttall’s prose works are among the most BURIED materials (not) in existence. I received a bundle of these curiosities from the critic Francis Booth fNuttall’s prose works are among the most BURIED materials (not) in existence. I received a bundle of these curiosities from the critic Francis Booth for research purposes and have been muscling through them with a mix of endearment and bafflement. This handmade book from Canadian publisher Basilike is perhaps the oddest—uncorrected, unedited, poorly bound (several of the pages remain uncut!)—of the lot so far. It contains an illuminating short intro, however, in which Nuttall sings the praises of Finnegans Wake, and alludes to his own attempts to further explore these innovations in his own prose. This explains the seeming nonsense of the narrative, and the inventive small-fonted marginalia inserted around the main text, the comic-strip illustrations and cut-out materials. Nuttall also uses his space to probe into the obscene sexual undercurrent that remained allusive in Joyce’s works, and the bulk of this prose experiment is obscene and lurid in a fitting tribute to the master. ...more
Two novellas. The first, ‘Somewhere Else’, is almost all-dialogue interview between an unnamed woman and a series of interrogators: a fantastic satiriTwo novellas. The first, ‘Somewhere Else’, is almost all-dialogue interview between an unnamed woman and a series of interrogators: a fantastic satirical piece on a par with works like Sorokin’s The Queue or Pinget’s The Inquisitory. The second ‘Flight’, is a more conventional tale featuring a boring Bradford woman who finds a corpse while out walking her dog. The story moves through the tedium of her life, punctuated by visits from a teenage burglar, until her decision to leave at the end. Concise, assured, and steely prose....more
This short novel is hard to pass comment on: a light breeze, a soft squeeze, a cracker with cheese, all these, if you please, I hate to tease, so . . This short novel is hard to pass comment on: a light breeze, a soft squeeze, a cracker with cheese, all these, if you please, I hate to tease, so . . . An attractive woman visits various homes and reads passages from Maupassant, Marx (Karl), Perec, and Pope Clement VII to a wheelchaired teenager, an eccentric Marxist-aristocrat, a sex-starved corporate loon, and a small child deprived of amusement, and attempts to engage her readees in the act of being readed. The novel features no pat lessons on the wondrous transcendence of reading (which might have been welcome), but focuses instead on whimsical comedy, and the heroine’s often smug superiority to everyone else, which proves amusing for the short duration. ...more
I am back again in the actuality of my fragile predicament backtracked into false ambiguities smelling my hands by reflex out of the closet now to affI am back again in the actuality of my fragile predicament backtracked into false ambiguities smelling my hands by reflex out of the closet now to affirm the certainty of how it was annul the hypothesis of my excessiveness on which he postulates his babblings his unqualifiable design as I register the final absence of my mother crying softly in the night my father coughing his blood down the staircase they threw sand in their eyes struck their back kicked them to exterminate them his calculations yes explanations yes the whole story crossed out my whole family parenthetically xxxx into typographic symbols while I endure my survival from its implausible beginning to its unthinkable end yes false balls all balls ejaculating on his machine reducing my life to the verbal rehearsals of a little boy half naked trying to extricate himself as he goes on formulating yet another paradox...more
During the one proper occupation I have held down within an adulthood of shameless bumming about in the name of books, I once considered requesting a During the one proper occupation I have held down within an adulthood of shameless bumming about in the name of books, I once considered requesting a raise. I was writing a novel entitled A Postmodern Belch at the time, large portions of which were completed in the staff room, and the constant interruptions at having to return to work (in an abandoned hotel for bankers who never read novels), forced me into confronting the boss (an inferior) about the ethics of keeping a promising talent in a worthless occupation while he could be writing a novel in which nothing happens four times, and sitting on his keister reading hundreds of novels that will help refine his artistic acumen. I never confronted the boss, but the fact I believed in my marrow that I was a superior being whose artistic efforts should be funded by a national corporation speaks volumes of my arrogance and skewed hold on reality, and explains the subsequent half-decade of blissful unemployment that followed. My advice to emerging writers: never work a day in your life if you can help it. ...more
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