25 Films That Made a Difference

25 Films That Made a Difference

by R J Dent

 

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Betty Blue

The Shining

Lawrence of Arabia

Apocalypse Now

 

Walkabout

The Singing Detective (TV version)

Frida

The Man Who Fell to Earth

Pulp Fiction

 

A Clockwork Orange

Videodrome

Some Like It Hot

Sunset Boulevard

Lord of the Rings

 

The Wizard of Oz

Gone With the Wind

A History of Violence

The Godfather

A Scanner Darkly

 

Santa Sangre

Mulholland Drive

Cleopatra

Jubilee

Mishima: A Life in 4 Chapters

 

 

 

© R J Dent (200

www.rjdent.com

 

25 Albums That Made a Difference

25 Albums That Made a Difference

by R J Dent

 

 

Dark Side of the Moon – Pink Floyd

Led Zeppelin II – Led Zeppelin

Bitches Brew – Miles Davis

Metal Box – Public Image Ltd

Horses – Patti Smith

 

Freak Out – The Mothers of Invention

Passion – Peter Gabriel

Nevermind – Nirvana

Leftism – Leftfield

Ziggy Stardust – David Bowie

 

Let It Bleed – The Rolling Stones

Jagged Little Pill – Alanis Morissette

Dummy – Portishead

The Wall – Pink Floyd

Station to Station – David Bowie

 

Never Mind the Bollocks – The Sex Pistols

The Velvet Underground & Nico – The Velvet Underground

Electric Ladyland – The Jimi Hendrix Experience

OK Computer – Radiohead

Sketches of Spain – Miles Davis

 

Roxy Music – Roxy Music

After the Goldrush – Neil Young

Wish You Were Here – Pink Floyd

Blood on the Tracks – Bob Dylan

Abbey Road – The Beatles

 

 

© R J Dent (200

www.rjdent.com

 

 

A Library Education

A Library Education

by R J Dent

 

 

When I was 14, I stopped going to school. School was rubbish, boring, pointless. The lessons were in subjects that were uninspiring and irrelevant. The teachers taught – no, delivered monologues – in monotones. Ho hum. So I left school and went to the library instead.

 

Technically, I wasn’t old enough to leave school, so I would go to school, register, then leave the building and head for the town library. There I would find a table to work at, put a folder, pens and papers on that table, and then choose a pile of books to read. The folder and papers were a ruse; the idea was that if anyone saw me sitting at the table, surrounded by books, papers, pens and a folder, the last thing they’d think was that I was playing truant from school. I hoped they’d think I was working on a school project of some kind. The ruse worked. For two years I was never questioned or challenged by anyone who worked at the library.

 

And during that time, I read some wonderful books. One of the best books I read there was The Birds by Tarjei Vesaas. The next best book I read there was More Pricks Than Kicks, a collection of short stories by Samuel Beckett. I also read The Outsider by Albert Camus, The Hermit by Eugene Ionesco, The Bound Man by Ilse Aichinger, The Poems of Tennyson, which I thought were bad, but which I learnt from. I read The Rain Horse by Ted Hughes and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. I wrote my first poem entitled Fear of the Dark. I started to read The White Goddess by Robert Graves, but gave up. I tried The Riddle of the Sands, but found it too boy’s own/nautical for my taste. I read Serpico by Peter Maas, and I, Robot by Isaac Asimov.

 

For two years I educated myself at the library by truanting from school. However, I did get caught once. I was sitting there reading a Beckett play – Endgame, I think it was, when I became aware of someone on my periphery. I looked up and saw the headmaster of my school glaring at me. I was ready to lie; to say I was working on a school project, but he didn’t give me a chance. “Get your things and get back to school now,” he snapped. I didn’t argue.

 

Back at school I stood outside his office for a long time. Then I was called in. I stood in front of his desk, wondering what was in store for me. He told me how bad I was for missing my lessons, then looked at my timetable and announced that Mrs Hopkins was very upset that I’d missed potting the cacti in her gardening lesson. I stared at him in amazement. I found it difficult to believe what I’d just heard this otherwise quite sensible man say. He’d just lied to me – in a very obvious way.

 

Also, I was instantly indignant, because he’d made me stop reading Samuel Beckett – Samuel Beckett, the Nobel prize-winning author, for god’s sake – in order to tell me off for missing gardening. I don’t really like gardening, but even if I did, I would never consider it an adequate substitute for reading. So I argued with him. And I got caned for my behaviour. That was back in the days when teachers could punish students by caning them. Six whacks of the cane, I got, and every one of them hurt, particularly the last one. Then he told me to get out.

 

The next day I registered at school in the morning and went back to the library. Somehow, I knew that what I was doing was right and that what the headmaster had said was wrong. I wouldn’t have been able to articulate the subtleties of the dichotomy, but at the time it was clear enough to me, despite my limited vocabulary.

 

Leaving school and going to the library was one of the best things I ever did. I learned more in those two years of self-directed reading than I at any other time, until I discovered Towcester Bookshop, which I’ve mentioned in my blog Towcester Bookshop.

 

If you have the courage, then do the same as I did: go to the library and educate yourself. The state cannot provide you with the education you need, any more than it could provide me with the education I needed then. Libraries are our real universities. Sinclair Lewis educated himself in a library. Frank Zappa educated himself in a library. Ray Bradbury educated himself in a library. It can be done. Do it. Don’t let others decide what you can and will learn. Decide for yourself. Happy reading.

 

 

A Library Education

© R J Dent (200

www.rjdent.com

 

Growing Up With David Bowie

Growing Up With David Bowie

By R J Dent

 

Like a lot of people, I grew up with the music of David Bowie providing a soundtrack for my life. The first song of his I heard was Starman. Appositely, I heard it leaning back on my radio, in the early hours of the morning, not knowing what time it was. Anne Nightingale played it and I loved it immediately. There was something about Bowie’s voice, the catchy melody and the single note guitar solo that combined so compellingly that I became an instant Bowie fan – and have been one ever since.

 

When a new album came out, I bought it. Ziggy Stardust was my first Bowie album, followed by Aladdin Sane – still one of my favourites, along with Station to Station, David Bowie, Low, David Live, Scary Monsters and 1: Outside.

 

When Aladdin Sane came out, I bought it, loving the music – although Watch That Man had been mixed strangely and always sounded muddy to me – and liking Bowie’s eye-patch/pantomime image change. Pin Ups was okay – one or two good covers, but I thought Sorrow, the single was the weakest track. The next album, the brilliant Diamond Dogs, was excellent, especially Big Brother, When You Rock and Roll With Me and Candidate.

 

Then came Young Americans. Strangely, I liked Across the Universe the most, and the title track next. David Live, despite adverse criticism regarding its sound quality, is a wonderful, powerful live album. During this phase of Bowie’s career, I bought Hunky Dory and David Bowie. On the former, my favourite tracks were (and still are): Oh You Pretty Things, Kooks, The Bewlay Brothers, and Queen Bitch, particularly its opening guitar riffs. On the latter (sometimes called Space Oddity, after the first track) the best track is Cygnet Committee, which is Bowie’s best song.

 

After those came Station to Station, and if there’s a better Bowie album, then I’m not sure which one it is. It rocks. It’s so powerful, it’s amazing. Five long tracks, no real hits, except for the dubious TVC15, but it’s the title track, Wild is the Wind and Word on a Wing that make Station to Station so compelling.

 

And then there was Low and then Heroes. Parts one and two of the so-called Berlin Trilogy. Low is excellent, especially the instrumentals. Heroes, the track, is Bowie’s epic. The instrumentals on Heroes are excellent too. The only thing that spoils Heroes is the last track, which is in the wrong place. It should be put just before the instrumental tracks. Try it. It improves the album no end.

 

Lodger wasn’t like Low or Heroes. The songs are good, but I didn’t – and still don’t – understand what it was or what it was trying to do. I like Look Back in Anger, but that’s about it. Stage was a superb live album, but Scary Monsters was so amazing that Stage got overshadowed. Up the Hill Backwards, Ashes to Ashes, the title track and Fashion, are all brilliant.

 

When the World Falls Down from Labyrinth is excellent, as are: This Is Not America, Baal, Under Pressure, and Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth.

 

And then there was Let’s Dance. An amazing Bowie album. The title track, China Girl, Modern Love and Cat People are the best tracks, although the slower version of Cat People from the film soundtrack album is a much better song. I like Loving the Alien, Blue Jean, Tonight and God Only Knows from Tonight, but it’s not Bowie’s best album. It’s not his worst either. That dubious honour goes to Never Let Me Down, the Bowie album that let everyone down. Bang Bang is okay. Day In Day Out is not as good as everyone says. The album is the one Bowie album to avoid. It’s no good. The three Tin Machine albums are – contrary to popular opinion – very good. The first album is great, the second has some great tracks on it, particularly a souped-up cover of Roxy Music’s If There is Something. The Live Oy Vey Baby is a good live album that showcases a good live band. It works for me.

 

Then there was Black Tie White Noise. It got great reviews and deservedly so. Miracle Goodnight is brilliant, as are I know It’s Gonna Happen Some Day, and the cover of Scott Walker’s Nite Flights.

 

One of Bowie’s best albums is The Buddha of Suburbia. A mix of songs and instrumentals, it’s lovely. It was followed by 1: Outside, another excellent album, with classic tracks such as Heart’s Filthy Lesson and Strangers When We Meet. Earthling was the next album, but I only like Little Wonder from it.

 

Hours is a soft and gentle album, and the last to feature guitarist Reeves Gabrels. There are heavy moments on it, none more so than on The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell, a brilliant track. It was Bowie’s last good studio album. All Saints was a collection of previously-released instrumentals, and is a good album. Heathen is okay, but apart from a great cover of the Pixie’s Cactus, it’s just Bowie being pretty good, but not amazing. He’s a bit less amazing on Reality – not bad, after all, even Bowie couldn’t sink lower than Never Let Me Down, but Reality is not classic Bowie. It’s reasonable Bowie, but that’s all.

 

Finally, a few I’ve missed mentioning are Bowie at the Beeb, an excellent, wonderfully comprehensive live collection from a man at the height of his musical powers. I’ve also skipped Christiana F. and The Man Who Sold the World, which is superb. The title track was covered by Nirvana on their excellent Unplugged album.

 

Okay, that’s my quick guide to the music of David Bowie. I grew up with it and I’m still growing up with it and still listening to it, but I think Bowie’s best music has already been recorded. Not that he needs to write another note; he’s contributed hugely to his culture, and has made many people happy. I’d like to be wrong. I’d like him to bring out a new album as great as Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, David Live, Young Americans, Scary Monsters, 1: Outside, The Buddha of Suburbia or Hours, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. However, I’m happy to wait and be proved wrong.

 

 

Written on 17^th June 2008

© R J Dent (200

www.rjdent.com

Jeremy Reed and a New Poetics

by R J Dent

 

In many ways, Jeremy Reed – one of the most underrated and marginalised poets of the 21st century – is constantly engaged in forging a new poetics. This is particularly evident in his choice of subject matter, which focuses on the gender dichotomy, fashion, art, celebrity, post-apocalyptic, alien and post-human culture, pop music, rock stars, post-millennium angst, digital technology and entropy.

 

However, after reading a few volumes of Reed’s poetry, in particular, Patron Saint of Eyeliner, Red-Haired Android, Nero, Nineties, By The Fisheries, and Kicks, it quickly becomes evident that Reed’s use of such subject matter is a valiant attempt to replace archaic and no-longer-valid subjects with subjects of great contemporary relevance.

 

Reed has been criticised for his subject choices, but his work is a much-needed revamping of what poetry is, what it does and what it can do. Also, to criticise Reed for writing and publishing a poem about Madonna, for example, is slightly ludicrous; an exercise on a par with criticising Walter Raleigh for writing a poem about Queen Elizabeth I.

 

Each generation should write poetry about the things that matter within the prevalent culture. By writing about pop stars or artists, Jeremy Reed is addressing issues that are relevant to the 21st century.

 

Despite his having been prolific since the early 80s, Jeremy Reed’s work is still not that well known. He writes poetry, short stories, novels, essays, and biographies. He has written musical/biographical studies of Scott Walker, Marc Almond, Lou Reed, and Brian Jones. He has written literary/biographical studies of Jean Genet, Anna Kavan, and Arthur Rimbaud. He has also translated works by Cocteau, Genet, Montale, Rimbaud, Baudelaire, and Novalis.

 

In my opinion, Jeremy Reed is one of the most important and innovative poets currently working. He is engaged in an ongoing project to produce 21st century decadent poetry and prose and he is constantly redefining and extending the possibilities of poetry. He is poetry’s gain.

 

Jeremy Reed and a New Poetics

© R J Dent (200

www.rjdent.com

What Ayn Rand Did For Me

What Ayn Rand Did For Me

 

 

Ayn Rand was born Alisa Zinov’yevna Rosenbaum on February 2, 1905. She died on March 6, 1982. She was a Russian-born American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is best known for her novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism. She advocated rational individualism and laissez-faire capitalism, and categorically rejected socialism, altruism, and religion. She left Russia and went to America where she adopted the name Ayn Rand and became a successful writer. 

 

My first contact with Ayn Rand’s writing was when I found, in a tiny bookshop, a second-hand copy of her novella, Anthem. I read it, thought it was wonderful, insightful, inspiring. At the back of the book, there were advertisements for two other books of hers: The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Within the year, I’d bought and read The Fountainhead. It changed my life, my outlook, my views, my method of thinking; it did what books are supposed to do: it changed me. And then I read Atlas Shrugged, followed by We The Living. The cover of We The living was one of the most haunting pictures I had seen for a long time. I have a copy of the original artwork on my wall.

 

I won’t give you a plot synopsis, but if you want to read a great novel with an individual versus the state theme, then The Fountainhead is the book for you. After that you could try Anthem, Atlas Shrugged and We The Living. They’re all excellent.

 

As a writer, I learned a lot from Ayn Rand. I can now see that she’s not a particularly elegant stylist – her prose is quite clunky in places – but she is able to convey some rather large ideas in fairly fast-paced and well-plotted narratives. What Ayn Rand did for me was show me that as a writer I could incorporate philosophical ideas into my stories; that I could anchor them to the plot, to the characters, to the subtext, and the story would gain another layer of meaning.

 

When my novel Myth was published, I dedicated it to Alisa Zinov’yevna Rosenbaum, the young Russian woman who dreamed of going to America and becoming a successful writer. I dedicated it to the memory of the woman who became Ayn Rand.

 

 

 

 

 

Written: 15^th June 2008

© R J Dent (200

www.rjdent.com

25 Books That Made a Difference

25 Books That Made a Difference

 

 

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess.

The Complete Poems by Emily Dickinson.

Crash by J G Ballard.

Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs.

 

The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter.

Patron Saint of Eyeliner by Jeremy Reed.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.

Justine by Marquis de Sade.

Ice by Anna Kavan.

 

The Cornelius Chronicles (2 Vols.) by Michael Moorcock.

The Birds by Tarjei Vesaas.

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein.

Antonin Artaud: Blows and Bombs by Stephen Barber.

The Tempest by William Shakespeare.

 

The Book of Revelation by Rupert Thomson.

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce.

Les Chants de Maldoror by Comte de Lautréamont.

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes.

 

Les Fleurs du Mal by Charles Baudelaire.

A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare.

The Trial by Franz Kafka.

The Other Side by Alfred Kubin.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland/Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll.

(c) R J Dent (200

info@rjdent.com

www.rjdent.com

  

In Praise of Ray Bradbury

As a writer, Ray Bradbury showed me how it was done. As a young boy, I loved his short stories – The Pedestrian, The Fog Horn, The Lake, and The Sound of Thunder in particular. As a teenager I loved his collections that masqueraded as novels, such as The Illustrated Man and The Martian Chronicles. As a man I love his novels: Farenheight 451, Dandelion Wine, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Death is a Lonely Business, A Graveyard For Lunatics, and most recently, Farewell Summer.

 

However, I admire Ray Bradbury for more than just his writing talent. I admire him for having the courage to live as a writer, to spend his time writing, writing, writing – not really bothering about anything else. I also admire him because he abandoned formal education and educated himself in the library. And then became a successful writer.

 

As a writer he was and is prolific – novels, short stories, essays, plays, and film scripts. He has written many of each. As a person, he is a living legend. He was born in 1920, so that makes him 87 – nearly 88 years old as I write this. He is still writing and enjoying his life. He said in an interview that it is his love of writing that keeps him young.

 

Finally, in a strange way, I made Ray Bradbury my surrogate father. He was the father I wanted, a writer, a man who loved life, a gentle man, an interesting man, a man who knew many things. That’s the kind of father I wanted – mine was not like that – so I unofficially adopted Ray Bradbury and made him my new father. Each new book became a letter to me from my American dad. Each story told me a little more about him. When my own father died, I hardly noticed. My American father was still alive, so all was well with the world.

 

Through each new book, I grew up with Ray Bradbury. He has a place in my heart that no other writer has. He is the most important person to me in terms of influence, far more important than J G Ballard, Angela Carter, William S Burroughs, Anna Kavan, or even Ayn Rand, who was so important to me that I dedicated my first novel, Myth, to her.

 

Here are my closing words on Ray Bradbury:

First (for Ray Bradbury)

 

You were the first, so now you are the one
who should be born again for you are young,
but as your days are gone, your days are gone
away into a wash of pale blue nights
that eat your past, your mind, your time, your right
to be exactly who you should have been;
the one with strength, audacity; the one
who invented the invention machine.
Pressed to the bars of interlocking teeth
inside the hot mouth of the black leopard
(the one that models take out on a lead
for walks through dark and sultry city streets)
you look out at a world you comprehend
and wait for that one dark spark to ascend.

© R J Dent (2003)
First (for Ray Bradbury was first published in First Time.

Translations and Interpretations

Well, it’s been a bit of an adventure since the last blog. It’s now 2008 and Les Fleurs is imminent, as are short works by Apollinaire, Aragon, Heine and Masson, which I’ve spent the last six months translating.

 

All in all, it’s been a lot of fun, but also a bit of a challenge. My latest project needs to be completed by the 1^st September of this year. I’m on schedule so far. It’s a big, interesting project, with its own set of challenges. It feels like a journey I’m taking – into a very strange land – but one that makes perfect sense.

 

On a personal note, my younger brother, Robert, died at the age of 42. That’s too young an age for anyone to die at. I never realised the amount of emotional damage that the death of a sibling could do. The death of my father 10 years ago didn’t affect me very much, and for some reason, I thought my brother’s death would feel similar. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Robert’s death knocked me over with its intensity.

 

On a slightly different (but not that much) note, I’m reading The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, and if there’s a more depressing novel in existence, then don’t recommend it to me.

 

Watched Eastern Promises, a film by David Cronenberg that starred Viggo Mortensen and it was one of the most compelling, engaging and interestingly-layered films since Mulholland Drive.

 

Finally, just a brief comment on the film I Am Legend, starring Will Smith and a dog. The film is yet another poor adaptation of Richard Matheson’s wonderful novel of the same name. However, although the film is entertaining in its own way, it’s no more an accurate adaptation of Matheson’s novel than Forest Gump is an accurate adaptation of Winston Groom’s novel. In fact it reverses the novel’s message and changes the whole story of a man slowly turning into a monster into a rather obvious Christian allegory of redemption. The title, message, themes and character are negated, disfigured, and ultimately destroyed.

 

Okay, I’ll be back in September, once I’ve finished the latest project, started the next one and lined up the one after that…

 

 

Written 9^th June 2008

 

Towcester Bookshop

In Memory of Towcester Bookshop

 

Bookshops are important to writers. Towcester Bookshop was important to me. For eight years it provided me with new and second-hand books, most of which I still have. It also provided a lot more.

 

Towcester Bookshop no longer exists. Its proprietors, Peter and Janet Gooding closed the shop a few years ago and retired to Wales. However, for a while, they and their shop became my lifeline to a world of poetry, drama, novels, short stories, essays, translations, classics and non-fiction.

 

Initially I would go in, browse through the second-hand books, and usually find something interesting or challenging to read. Then I started chatting to Peter during the less busy times. Then, as my reading became more refined, I started ordering and buying new books. I followed my instincts, but I also quizzed Peter on various aspects of literature. He knew his stuff. He gave good advice and I bought some wonderful books.

 

I still have my first ever copies of Les Fleurs du Mal, Naked Lunch, Crash, The Bloody Chamber, The Fountainhead, A Clockwork Orange, A Rebours, Ice, Howl, On The Road, A Farewell to Arms, The Catcher in the Rye, Ulysses, The Cantos, The Waste Land, The Tempest, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Stranger In A Strange Land, Frankenstein, The Beckett Trilogy, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Betty Blue, The Birds, Tales of Mystery and Imagination, The Shining, Justine, The Ice Palace, The Singing Detective, Waiting For Godot, The Annotated Lolita, The Annotated Alice, The Chrysalids, Brave New World, The Name of the Rose, Gravity’s Rainbow, 1984, Crime and Punishment, The Trial, The Cement Garden, The Magus, Crow, Amerika, Ariel, as well the Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson, Arthur Rimbaud, Sylvia Plath, Petrarch, Shakespeare, Robert Lowell, Ezra Pound, Anne Sexton, Elizabeth Bishop, Dylan Thomas, etc.

 

Towcester Bookshop was a place where I defined my identity through my reading, reading which informed – and informs – my writing. The books I read then – and sometimes re-read – are still very significant. The words of each of those books are etched into my psyche, and I try my best to reach the heights of those books in my own writing.

 

Every writer needs their own Towcester Bookshop – a place to develop a personal taste in writing, literature, or whatever, in order to define a personal writing style. Thanks to Peter and Janet, I had access to what seemed like my very own Towcester Bookshop for several years – and I consider myself very fortunate to have had that.

 

Written: 5^th June 2008-06-05