Category: British and Irish Literature

• Beckett Without Beckett

  Here’s another double-take. Earlier this week, at Splice, I reviewed Sam Thompson’s new novel, Jott, which depicts a lightly fictionalised version of Samuel Beckett and even includes fragments of pastiche representing the fictionalised Beckett’s outpourings: [But] Jott… is really a novel whose various elements — the characters and their situations, as well as styles of thought and […]

  Daniel Davis Wood

  November 24, 2018

  Author Interviews, Notes and Queries

  Sam Thompson, Samuel Beckett

• Only Language

  Marc Nash’s Three Dreams in the Key of G is a difficult, demanding novel of absolutely virtuosic language. After David Hebblethwaite reviewed the novel for Splice, I put some questions to Nash about his creative ambitions and his process: Let’s kick off with something notable about the title: the assonance, four rounds of “/e/”. This […]

  Daniel Davis Wood

  October 31, 2018

  Author Interviews, Notes and Queries

  Marc Nash

• Obsession and Repetition

  At Splice, I’ve got a brief Q&A with the poet Katharine Kilalea, whose début novel OK, Mr Field is published this month by Faber: You’ve written a novel that has all the basic ingredients for tension, suspense, mystery — a plot to be complicated and resolved — but the tone, and the things you focus on […]

  Daniel Davis Wood

  June 6, 2018

  Author Interviews, Notes and Queries

  Katharine Kilalea

• Jon McGregor’s Pagan Omniscience

  I’ve spent part of this year reading through the work of Jon McGregor, whose latest novel, Reservoir 13, has met with a lot of acclaim here in Britain. It has even become one of those rare beasts longlisted or shortlisted for the more conservative literary prizes (the Booker, the Costa) as well as the Goldsmiths Prize […]

  Daniel Davis Wood

  December 4, 2017

  British and Irish Literature, Notes and Queries

  James Wood, Jon McGregor

• The Songlines and the Songlines

  It’s been thirty years since Bruce Chatwin published The Songlines. That’s the kind of anniversary that usually elicits either a renewed celebration and revival of a work or a fresh attempt to boot the author up the arse, a la Nicolas Rothwell upon the publication of Chatwin’s letters. Intriguingly, with consummate skill and nuance, Richard Cooke has […]

  Daniel Davis Wood

  October 2, 2017

  Book Reviewing, British and Irish Literature, Literary Criticism, Notes and Queries

  Bruce Chatwin, Richard Cooke

• Starlings

  A fragment from Henry Green’s Concluding.

  Daniel Davis Wood

  May 17, 2017

  Fragments

  Henry Green

• The Reverberation of Their Will

  A fragment from Rachel Cusk’s Transit.

  Daniel Davis Wood

  January 19, 2017

  Fragments

  Rachel Cusk

• Precision of Statement

  A fragment from Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim.

  Daniel Davis Wood

  June 6, 2016

  Fragments

  Joseph Conrad

• Feet, Teeth, Dust

  A fragment from J.M. Coetzee’s Life & Times of Michael K.

  Daniel Davis Wood

  March 3, 2016

  Fragments

  J.M. Coetzee

• Halfway Between That and the Other Thing

  Max Porter recently received an unusual honour when his debut novel, Grief Is the Thing With Feathers, was shortlisted for both the Guardian First Book Award and the Goldsmiths Prize. The Guardian, operating in partnership with Waterstones, tends to favour middlebrow literary fiction, eloquent but structurally conventional accounts of individuals in emotional extremis. Goldsmiths, in contrast, seeks to reward […]

  Daniel Davis Wood

  November 18, 2015

  British and Irish Literature

  Max Porter