Blue and true
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I read that when I was a teenager and it was the first book that truly changed me, a wonderful story.
Grossly underrated writers
- Thread starter Lovebitesandeveryfing
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BimboBob
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Would have been better if he worked for the Crimson Permanent Insurance.
cucumberman
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Ted Hughes
Criminally underrated, I can't think of any other book it is remotely similar to.
Not sure I agree with that, fantastic writer but not sure he's underrated.
Lovebitesandeveryfing
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I am a huge Ted Hughes fan. I have every volume of his poetry, volume by volume. I was lucky enough to get the last hardback editions in the early seventies, when Faber were still bringing them out (or they had been hanging around unbought for years on the bookshelves of the specialised poetry bookshops in London, which I haunted sometimes for hours; there were also still some in Sherratt and Hughes, in St Anne's Square).
Here's the thing. By those who rate him, he's rated, and very highly. But I've noticed a strong tendency for Larkin fans to decry him. They sneer at him as not being a ‘real’ poet. (Notably, Larkin and Hughes had a wary relationship: they didn't much rate each other as poets. And Geoffrey Hill didn't rate either of them! Not much generosity between living poets, on the whole).
And, to a lesser extent, vice versa. It seems that you can't be both a Larkin fan, and a Hughes fan. Well I'm here to prove the contrary. I have all Larkin's volumes, dating from The North Ship, through to The Less Deceived, Whitsun Weddings.
Obviously, not all volumes are equally successful, in either case. Certainly, not all poems are. There are some duff poems by both of them, in my opinion, and it's strange that they included them in the volumes they chose to publish. But the best ones I read and re-read. Some I know almost by heart.
So I think that what @cucumberman meant, or at least I think so, is that there is a whole camp that likes poetry but doesn't rate Hughes. And my own take is that they're usually Larkin fans.
Of course he might be referring to the constant abuse that Hughes was subjected to by feminists in his lifetime. And beyond. But that's a whole other issue, and I'll keep my opinions (which are strong) on that to myself.
I saw Hughes read many years ago. I think it was at the Roundhouse, in Chalk Farm. A powerful, brooding presence. The best reader of his own work. That gravelly Yorkshire accent was perfect for his poems.
At-Swim-Two-Birds
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James Elroy Flecker. Not so much under-rated as positively forgotten.
ZenHalfTimeCrock
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The Enormous Space is one I particularly like. It can be read here:
The Enormous Space by JG Ballard
sculpture307.blogspot.com
roman totale
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I always liked Droylsden’s own Jeff Noon, but never met anyone who’s heard of him. I don't think he’s written anything for ages, mind.
JRockBlues
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I've read (and enjoyed) several of his older books but not read his newer stuff yet.
ZenHalfTimeCrock
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I would also like to nominate the Japanese poets, diarists and novelists (all female) from the royal court of the medieval Heian period.
For my money, the unfinished Tale of Genji is the greatest novel ever written, as well as being the world's first psychological novel.
Much of the writing is scintillating.
Here's an example. This is a slightly abridged version of The Lady Who Loved Insects, an anonymous 12th Century work of which only a fragment survives. This is most of it (the translation is by Arthur Waley):
'Next door to the lady who loved butterflies was the house of a certain Inspector. He had an only daughter, to whose upbringing he and his wife devoted endless care. She was a strange girl who collected all kinds of reptiles and insects such as most people are frightened to touch, and watched them day by day to see what they would turn into, keeping them in all sorts of little boxes and cages. Among all these creatures her favourite was the common caterpillar. Hour after hour, her hair pushed back from her eyes, she would sit gazing at the furry, black form in the palm of her hand. She found that other girls were frightened of these pets, and her only companions were a number of rather rough little boys, who were not in the least afraid. She got them to carry about the insect boxes, find out the names of the insects or, if this could not be done, help her to give them new names.
She hated anything that was not natural. Consequently, she would not pluck a single hair from her eyebrows nor would she blacken her teeth, saying it was a dirty custom. So morning, noon and night she tended her insects, bending over them with a strange, white, gleaming smile. People on the whole were frightened of her and kept away. And if anyone who did approach her showed the slightest distaste for her pets, she would ask him angrily how he could be so silly, and as she said this she would stare at the visitor under her black bushy eyebrows in a way that made him feel extremely uncomfortable.
Her parents thought all this very peculiar, and would much rather she had been more like other children. But they saw it was no use arguing with her. She for her part took a lot of trouble in explaining her ideas, but this only resulted in making them feel that she was much cleverer than they. ‘No doubt’, they would say, ‘all you tell us is quite true. But people as a rule only make pets of charming and pretty things. If it gets about that you keep hairy caterpillars you will be thought a disgusting girl and no-one will want to know you.’
‘I don’t mind what they think’, she answered. ‘I want to enquire into everything that exists and find out how it began. Nothing else interests me. And it is very silly of them to dislike caterpillars, all of which will soon turn into lovely butterflies.’ To the little boys who followed her around she would give pretty things such as she knew they wanted, and in return they would give her all kinds of terrifying insects. She also said that she was tired of ordinary boy’s names, and began to call them by insect names, such as Kerao (mole-cricket boy), Inago-maro (locust-man), Amabiko (centipede), and the like. All this was thought very queer and stupid.
Presently, a certain captain of Captain of Horse caught sight of one of her letters, and being much struck with it, decided that he simply must try to glimpse the author. Choosing a time when he knew her father would be busy elsewhere, he posted himself at a gate on the women’s side of the house, and peeped in. Eventually, for a moment, he saw her at full length.
She was rather tall and her hair floated out behind her as she moved. It was very thick, but the ends were somewhat wispy, no doubt through lack of trimming. But with a little more looking after it would have made (he thought) a fine crop of hair. Certainly she was no great beauty, but if she dressed and behaved like other people she would, he was sure, be capable of cutting quite a decent figure in Society. What a pity it was! Where had she picked up the distressing opinions that forced her to make such a spectacle of herself?
He felt that he must, at any rate, let her know that he had seen her; and using the juice of a flower stem as ink he wrote the following poem on a piece of thickly folded paper: ‘Forgive me that at your wicker gate so long I stand. But from the caterpillar’s bushy brows I cannot take my eyes’. He tapped with his cane, and at once one of the little boys ran out to ask what he wanted. ‘Take this to your mistress’, he said. But it was intercepted by a maid, to whom the little boy explained that the poem came from the fine gentlemen who had been standing about near the gate.
‘Woe upon us all’, cried the maid, ‘This is the handwriting of a Captain in the Horse Guard. And to think that he has been watching you mess about with your nauseous worms!’ And she went on for some time, complaining about the girl’s off-putting strangeness. At last the insect-lover could bear it no longer and said, ‘If you looked a little more below the surface of things you would not mind so much what other people thought about you. The world in which we live has no reality. It is like a dream. Suppose someone is offended by what we do or, for that matter, is pleased by it. Does his opinion make any difference to us in the end? Before long both he and we shall no longer even exist.’
What happened next will be found in the second chapter.'
For my money, the unfinished Tale of Genji is the greatest novel ever written, as well as being the world's first psychological novel.
Much of the writing is scintillating.
Here's an example. This is a slightly abridged version of The Lady Who Loved Insects, an anonymous 12th Century work of which only a fragment survives. This is most of it (the translation is by Arthur Waley):
'Next door to the lady who loved butterflies was the house of a certain Inspector. He had an only daughter, to whose upbringing he and his wife devoted endless care. She was a strange girl who collected all kinds of reptiles and insects such as most people are frightened to touch, and watched them day by day to see what they would turn into, keeping them in all sorts of little boxes and cages. Among all these creatures her favourite was the common caterpillar. Hour after hour, her hair pushed back from her eyes, she would sit gazing at the furry, black form in the palm of her hand. She found that other girls were frightened of these pets, and her only companions were a number of rather rough little boys, who were not in the least afraid. She got them to carry about the insect boxes, find out the names of the insects or, if this could not be done, help her to give them new names.
She hated anything that was not natural. Consequently, she would not pluck a single hair from her eyebrows nor would she blacken her teeth, saying it was a dirty custom. So morning, noon and night she tended her insects, bending over them with a strange, white, gleaming smile. People on the whole were frightened of her and kept away. And if anyone who did approach her showed the slightest distaste for her pets, she would ask him angrily how he could be so silly, and as she said this she would stare at the visitor under her black bushy eyebrows in a way that made him feel extremely uncomfortable.
Her parents thought all this very peculiar, and would much rather she had been more like other children. But they saw it was no use arguing with her. She for her part took a lot of trouble in explaining her ideas, but this only resulted in making them feel that she was much cleverer than they. ‘No doubt’, they would say, ‘all you tell us is quite true. But people as a rule only make pets of charming and pretty things. If it gets about that you keep hairy caterpillars you will be thought a disgusting girl and no-one will want to know you.’
‘I don’t mind what they think’, she answered. ‘I want to enquire into everything that exists and find out how it began. Nothing else interests me. And it is very silly of them to dislike caterpillars, all of which will soon turn into lovely butterflies.’ To the little boys who followed her around she would give pretty things such as she knew they wanted, and in return they would give her all kinds of terrifying insects. She also said that she was tired of ordinary boy’s names, and began to call them by insect names, such as Kerao (mole-cricket boy), Inago-maro (locust-man), Amabiko (centipede), and the like. All this was thought very queer and stupid.
Presently, a certain captain of Captain of Horse caught sight of one of her letters, and being much struck with it, decided that he simply must try to glimpse the author. Choosing a time when he knew her father would be busy elsewhere, he posted himself at a gate on the women’s side of the house, and peeped in. Eventually, for a moment, he saw her at full length.
She was rather tall and her hair floated out behind her as she moved. It was very thick, but the ends were somewhat wispy, no doubt through lack of trimming. But with a little more looking after it would have made (he thought) a fine crop of hair. Certainly she was no great beauty, but if she dressed and behaved like other people she would, he was sure, be capable of cutting quite a decent figure in Society. What a pity it was! Where had she picked up the distressing opinions that forced her to make such a spectacle of herself?
He felt that he must, at any rate, let her know that he had seen her; and using the juice of a flower stem as ink he wrote the following poem on a piece of thickly folded paper: ‘Forgive me that at your wicker gate so long I stand. But from the caterpillar’s bushy brows I cannot take my eyes’. He tapped with his cane, and at once one of the little boys ran out to ask what he wanted. ‘Take this to your mistress’, he said. But it was intercepted by a maid, to whom the little boy explained that the poem came from the fine gentlemen who had been standing about near the gate.
‘Woe upon us all’, cried the maid, ‘This is the handwriting of a Captain in the Horse Guard. And to think that he has been watching you mess about with your nauseous worms!’ And she went on for some time, complaining about the girl’s off-putting strangeness. At last the insect-lover could bear it no longer and said, ‘If you looked a little more below the surface of things you would not mind so much what other people thought about you. The world in which we live has no reality. It is like a dream. Suppose someone is offended by what we do or, for that matter, is pleased by it. Does his opinion make any difference to us in the end? Before long both he and we shall no longer even exist.’
What happened next will be found in the second chapter.'