The Irresponsible Self

The book I took back to the library today, even though I haven't got round to reading it yet, was:



The Irresponsible Self: On Laughter and the Novel
by
James Wood

My interest was sparked by reading this article in The Guardian (for whom he used to be the chief literary critic) which was distilled from the book's introduction. (You can read an extract from the book itself here.)

Wood seems to be a popular critic (if that's not an oxymoron) judging by the opening paragraph of this (quite critical) review in The Telegraph. (And what do you call critics who critique other critics anyway, my friends?) He was also one of the judges who awarded the 1994 Booker Prize to James Kelman for How Late It Was, How Late, causing some wag to suggest it be renamed the Fooker Prize because of Kelman's excessive use of vulgar vernacular.

I knew Wood from his novel The Book Against God which I read last year. Although I have to say that it wasn't particularly memorable - which is surely the most important aspect of any book. However, The Irresponsible Self is a collection of twenty-odd essays about comedy in literary fiction - and that is a strangely compelling combination, like sweet and sour. So I really would like to get round to reading this one - maybe sometime in the next few months. Then again, maybe I should read a few more of the books he discusses first... Oh, as if.

Cosmos

Where to start? There are hundreds of books that have been patiently waiting for me to get round to reading them, and they are all sitting there on the shelves quietly whispering "me, me, me!"

I think I ought to go right back to the first book I never got round to reading. A book I asked my parents to buy me for Christmas when I was a teenager a quarter of a century ago:


Cosmos
by
Carl Sagan

I'm sure I must have skimmed through it looking at the pictures a few times, but I never actually read it and I always felt guilty about that. Perversely, the only part I definitely did read was Appendix 1 - Reductio ad Absurdum and the Square Root of Two. Science and Maths: that was the kind of boy I was - and, yes, I did collect stamps too. But no, I am not now, nor have I ever been, a trainspotter. So don't panic, this blog isn't going to be full of nerdy stuff. There's a whole shelf full of classic literature in front of me for a start. I doubt if I've read a third of those. And to my left there are two dozen Picador paperbacks, of which I've only read about four. Not to mention all the library books - there are two of those that have to go back tomorrow. Maybe I should go and finish the one that I have actually started...