I found the Mensheviks kind, intelligent, witty. But everything I saw convinced me that, face to face with the ruthlessness of history, they were wrong.
- Victor Serge
Friday, April 12, 2013
All the Sad Young Literary Men by Keith Gessen (Viking 2008)
Thursday, May 01, 2008
The Case of Comrade Ferguson
I was momentarily taken with the idea of Fergie's alleged Trotskyist-Anarchism but, all in all, Louise Taylor's article in yesterday's Guardian - where she attempts to draw parallels between Alex Ferguson's ever changing line up and tactical formations at Man Utd these past nine years (since they last won the European Cup) and Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution - is a bit of a stretch.
*Man Utd, through to the Champions League final, will be playing Chelski in Moscow. Geddit? Not really. I always associated Trotsky more with St Petersburg/Petrograd.*
The article does however beg one question: which Trot group was Louise once a member of? (Who else would reach into their bag of journalistic tricks and comes up clutching Lev Bronstein and his Perm Rev?)
The conspiracy theorists over at the comments section of the Guardian footie blogs maintain that Louise is a partisan Sunderland fan. That doesn't help me when trying to second guess her former political affiliations. Sunderland has never fertile soil for the generals without armies down the years.
I'll hazard a guess that Louise is ex-SWP, but only if she is graduate of Durham University.
Hat tip to Normblog.
Sunday, September 02, 2007
Do I Even Know How To Read? Do You Even Know Me?
Nothing like a broadsheet reading poll to show one up to be the poorly read dolt that you've always suspected yourself to be.
It's not enough that I don't 'get' the subtle nuances of the handful of books that I have read, it now transpires that there are 48 must-read lost classics out there that I've not even heard of, never mind read.
Snappy Kat can probably guess the one book out of the fifty from that Observer's Forgotten Fifty that I've actually read, and I will put my hand up to having actually heard of 'The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin' by David Nobbs, but I fall into the category of people who thought that the book was a novelisation of the sitcom, and not the other way round.
The fact that none of the fifty "celebrated"* writers feel fit to mention Gordon Legge's 'The Shoe' or Edward Gaitens' 'The Dance of the Apprentices' seems to confirm my long held suspicion that both books are lost classics only within the realm of my ever-diminishing brain.
*Of course they are 'celebrated'. Any time I see Will Self's name in the paper, I do a Mexican Wave in his honour. I'm sure you're the same.