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Ross Raymond and Johnny McLaughlin are two fanboys dedicated to the Airdrie post-punk scene of the early '80s - the glory years - when anything and everything seemed possible. Looking back on that time - the people, the bands, the underground legends - they piece together a story which has at its core Memorial Device, the greatest band you've never heard of. Featuring a cast of misfits, artists, drop-outs, small-town visionaries and musicians, This Is Memorial Device is a dark, witty novel depicting a moment where art and the demands it makes are as serious as life itself.
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Xstabeth (Hardcover)
David Keenan
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R486
R406
Discovery Miles 4 060
Save R80 (16%)
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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In this major undertaking David Keenan translates and
contextualizes over 100 tales from the Notes from the Hut for
Examining the Subtle, a collection of 1,200 tales and observations
by Chi Yun, one of eighteenth century China's leading
intellectuals. By illuminating neglected aspects of the interaction
between popular and elite cultures in late imperial China, this
study portrays the rich connection between life and letters on the
eve of the Western impact.
In this major undertaking David Keenan translates and
contextualizes over 100 tales from the Notes from the Hut for
Examining the Subtle, a collection of 1,200 tales and observations
by Chi Yun, one of eighteenth century China's leading
intellectuals. By illuminating neglected aspects of the interaction
between popular and elite cultures in late imperial China, this
study portrays the rich connection between life and letters on the
eve of the Western impact.
Industry of Magic & Light is a love letter to the
counterculture of the 1960s and a requiem for its passing. The
much-anticipated prequel to Keenan's cult classic debut, This is
Memorial Device, Industry of Magic & Light is set in the same
mythical Airdrie in the 1960s and early 70s and centres on a group
of hippies running their own psychedelic light show. Told in two
halves - the first in the form of an inventory of the contents of a
caravan abandoned by one of the hippies, the second in the form of
a tarot card reading - it is not so much a book about the 1960s as
a direct channelling of the decade's energies, bringing to life how
even the smallest and dreariest of working class towns felt so full
of possibility in the wake of the psychedelic moment. Via artefacts
from the time - everything from poetry chapbooks, record reviews
and musical instruments through bubblegum wrappers, bicycle repair
kits and mysterious cassette recordings - the book opens out into
adventures along the hippy trail in Afghanistan and behind the Iron
Curtain that leads a cast of new and returning characters - as well
as the authorities - to believe that they are literally making
magic. Simultaneously a forensics of the 1960s, a detective novel,
an occult thriller, a vision quest, and the hallucinatory
exposition of a moment where it felt like anything was possible,
Industry of Magic & Life brings to life the streets of small
working class towns as transformational sites of utopian joy.
Is it possible for books to dream? For books to dream within books?
Is there a literary subterranea that would facilitate ingress and
exit points through these dreams? These are some of the questions
posed by David Keenan's masterly fifth novel, Monument Maker, an
epic romance of eternal summer and a descent, into history, into
the horrors of the past; a novel with a sweep and range that runs
from the siege of Khartoum and the conquest of Africa in the 19th
century through the Second World War and up to the present day,
where the memory of a single summer, and a love affair that took
place across the cathedrals of Ile de France, unravels, as a secret
initiatory cult is uncovered that has its roots in macabre
experiments in cryptozoology in pre-war Europe. MONUMENT MAKER
straddles genres while fully embracing none of them, a book within
a book within a book that runs from hallucinatory historical epics
through future-visioned histories of the world narrated by a
horribly disfigured British soldier made prophetic by depths of
suffering; books that interact with Keenan's earlier novels,
including a return to the mythical post-punk Airdrie landscape of
his now classic debut, THIS IS MEMORIAL DEVICE; whole histories of
art and religion; books that are glorious choral appendices;
bibliographies; imagined films; tape recorded interviews; building
to a jubilant accumulation of registers, voices and rhythms that is
truly Choral. Written over the course of 10 years, MONUMENT MAKER
represents the apex of Keenan's project to create books that
contain uncanny life and feel like living organisms. It is a
meditation on art and religion, and on what it means to make
monument; this great longing for something eternal, something that
could fix moments in time, forever.
WINNER OF THE GORDON BURN PRIZE 2019 SHORTLISTED FOR THE ENCORE
AWARD 2020 From the author of This Is Memorial Device. 'A
gasp-inducing thrill of a ride.' i Independent 'An exhilarating
novel, burning with rage, danger and dark humour.' Literary Review
'Remarkable . . . demented brilliance.' Scotland on Sunday Belfast,
1970s: Sammy and his three friends live in an impoverished area of
the city that has become the epicentre of a country seemingly
intent on cannibalising itself. They love sharp clothes, a good
drink, and the songs of Perry Como, whose commitment to clean
living holds up a dissonant mirror to their own attempts to rise
above their circumstances. They dream of a Free State, and their
methods for achieving this are uncompromising. But For the Good
Times is not just a novel about the IRA. It is about the heartbreak
and devastation that commitment to 'the cause' can bring; of
violence and betrayal, breakdown and rebirth.
A ROUGH TRADE BOOK OF THE YEAR CONCRETE ISLANDS NO. 1 BOOK OF THE
YEAR 'In a dizzying gyroscopic vortex of inner archeology, David
Keenan sifts through spiraling past lives to unearth his
provocative vision of the future. A colossus of imagination' LENNY
KAYE 'Visionary and prismatic, gloriously hallucinatory although
grounded in the material, Monument Maker's grand sweep takes in
distant historical subterrains, a shimmering summer of the present,
the transient, the eternal, the profane, the divine' WENDY ERSKINE
'I sometimes think David Keenan dreams aloud. His prose has the
effortless enigmatic, unsettling quality of dream' EDNA O'BRIEN 'A
masterpiece' WILLIAM BASINSKI Is it possible for books to dream?
For books to dream within books? Is there a literary subterranea
that would facilitate ingress and exit points through these dreams?
These are some of the questions posed by David Keenan's masterly
fifth novel, Monument Maker, an epic romance of eternal summer and
a descent, into history, into the horrors of the past; a novel with
a sweep and range that runs from the siege of Khartoum and the
conquest of Africa in the 19th century through the Second World War
and up to the present day, where the memory of a single summer, and
a love affair that took place across the cathedrals of Ile de
France, unravels, as a secret initiatory cult is uncovered that has
its roots in macabre experiments in cryptozoology in pre-war
Europe. MONUMENT MAKER straddles genres while fully embracing none
of them, a book within a book within a book that runs from
hallucinatory historical epics through future-visioned histories of
the world narrated by a horribly disfigured British soldier made
prophetic by depths of suffering; books that interact with Keenan's
earlier novels, including a return to the mythical post-punk
Airdrie landscape of his now classic debut, THIS IS MEMORIAL
DEVICE; whole histories of art and religion; books that are
glorious choral appendices; bibliographies; imagined films; tape
recorded interviews; building to a jubilant accumulation of
registers, voices and rhythms that is truly Choral. Written over
the course of 10 years, MONUMENT MAKER represents the apex of
Keenan's project to create books that contain uncanny life and feel
like living organisms. It is a meditation on art and religion, and
on what it means to make monument; this great longing for something
eternal, something that could fix moments in time, forever.
In St Petersburg, Russia, Aneliya is torn between the love of her father and her father's best friend. Her father dreams of becoming a great musician but suffers with a naivete that means he will never be taken seriously. Her father's best friend has a penchant for vodka, strip clubs and moral philosophy.
When an angelic presence named Xstabeth enters their lives - a presence who simultaneously fulfils and disappears those she touches - Aneliya and her father's world is transformed.
Moving from Russia to St Andrews, Scotland, Xstabeth tackles the metaphysics of golf, the mindset of classic Russian novels and the power of art and music to re-wire reality. Charged with a consuming intensity and a torrential rhythm that pulses with music, it is an offering of transcendence and a love letter to the books of Chandler, Nabokov and Dostoevsky, by a writer who is rewriting the rulebook of contemporary fiction.
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Xstabeth (Paperback)
David Keenan
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R271
R221
Discovery Miles 2 210
Save R50 (18%)
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Ships in 9 - 15 working days
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INCLUDES 'PREQUEL' THE TOWER THE FIELDS THE TRANSMITTERS 'This book
spoke, it said "read me" from the very first sentence as if it were
alive, it gave me visceral joy' Kim Gordon 'Reading [Xstabeth]
feels like being cut open to the accompanying sound of ecstatic
music' Edna O'Brien 'Prepare for more of that inimitable Keenan
narrative voodoo brilliance' Wendy Erskine In St Petersburg,
Russia, Aneliya is torn between the love of her father and her
father's best friend. Her father dreams of becoming a great
musician but suffers with a naivete that means he will never be
taken seriously. Her father's best friend has a penchant for vodka,
strip clubs and moral philosophy. When an angelic presence named
Xstabeth enters their lives - a presence who simultaneously fulfils
and disappears those she touches - Aneliya and her father's world
is transformed. Moving from Russia to St Andrews, Scotland,
Xstabeth tackles the metaphysics of golf, the mindset of classic
Russian novels and the power of art and music to re-wire reality.
Charged with a consuming intensity and a torrential rhythm that
pulses with music, it is an offering of transcendence and a love
letter to the books of Chandler, Nabokov and Dostoevsky, by a
writer who is rewriting the rulebook of contemporary fiction.
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