Brit Lit: Stewart Home

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So I just picked up Stewart Home's Things to Do with a Dead Princess. Were I British, I might say something like, "So what is he on about then?" Franctic namedropping of 'subversive' authors -- Kathy Acker, Lynne Tillman, Dennis Cooper, etc. etc. ceaseless namechecking of cultural theorists -- Baudrillard, Deleuze, Lotringer etc etc.; coupled with embarassingly characterized sex orgies (I'm hoping this is the point) and this is all in the first chapter!!!

So, has anyone read this book or any of his other books? Thoughts?

Also, any thoughts about Michael Bracewell (as novelist) who Home references or about Dick Hebdige who apparently wrote Subculture: The Meaning of Style?

And, what can you tell me about Aberdeen?

I may check back in with more questions as I read.

― Mary (Mary), Tuesday, 26 November 2002 17:26 (twenty-three years ago)

we've had a thread on him abt a month as I recall. I've erad some of the stuff on his website. he also wrote a book abt punk. ppl who posted in the previous thread thought that was a dud.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Tuesday, 26 November 2002 17:33 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh sorry, here are the previous threads then:

Stewart Home

Stewart Home: Classic or Dud?

Any more thoughts?

― Mary (Mary), Tuesday, 26 November 2002 18:00 (twenty-three years ago)

from the second thread:

There was a thread about him before but no-one replied to it (apart from me).

with FOUR threads with three or four or less responses, this guy is very close to becoming an ILX running gag!!

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Tuesday, 26 November 2002 19:08 (twenty-three years ago)

yes lets talk abt the idea of stewart home as an ILX running gag instead shall we? (one more post...)

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Tuesday, 26 November 2002 19:11 (twenty-three years ago)

he's like the Royal Tenenbaums of ILX postmodernism!!

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Tuesday, 26 November 2002 19:26 (twenty-three years ago)

Here's an article which appeared in last May's London Review of Books:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v24/n09/turn03_.html

Apparently he's working on a new book entitled Down and Out in Shoreditch and Hoxton...

― Mary (Mary), Tuesday, 26 November 2002 22:12 (twenty-three years ago)

SH = an idiot
MB = a well-meaning buffoon (haha, I am being harsh. I like 'The Crypto-Amnesia Club' and bits of 'England is mine'
DH = out-of-fashion subculturalist whose book 'Hiding in the Light' meant a lot to The Nipper when he was... a nipper.
Aberdeen = a lovely lovely pop groop with a fantastic and charming singer who have a great new lp out.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Tuesday, 26 November 2002 22:50 (twenty-three years ago)

Ah Jerry ever the politic one...yes, the idiot SH was referring to DH in the manner in which you say, you might enjoy it --

"Subculture was Hebdige's first book and it was published in 1979, at a time when students still thought a polytechnic lecturer incredibly hip if he could talk about youth culture."

According to SH, Bracewell is "one of the first style or club novelists, an achievement that should be placed in the context of the long history of fiction aimed at teenagers." And, "The prose style in the Crypto-Amnesia Club and Missing Margate, both dating from 1988, is quite atrocious."

I read Bracewell's latest collection; it wasn't so grebt (ok, Jerry?) but it was mostly just pieces from the Face and stuff...

So then, what exactly is a nipper, any double entendre that I am missing?

― Mary (Mary), Tuesday, 26 November 2002 23:55 (twenty-three years ago)

Oooh how that last Bracewell book grated on me. Don't know him as a novelist, but I can't remember the last non-fiction I've wanted to throw across the room as often as 'When Surface Was Depth.' Bah. (Liked the parts about English "road culture" and business-mgmt books though.)

― Andy, Wednesday, 27 November 2002 05:28 (twenty-three years ago)

A nipper is a small boy, a pickpocket, or the foretooth of a horse.

― B, Wednesday, 27 November 2002 05:34 (twenty-three years ago)

Thank you B. I heart ILE.

― Mary (Mary), Wednesday, 27 November 2002 06:21 (twenty-three years ago)

Anytime....(wink)

― B, Wednesday, 27 November 2002 06:23 (twenty-three years ago)

six months pass...

So I picked up 'Cunt'. On the front it says that he's one of the few ppl in the UK to have read hegel's 'aesthethics' (but how much he actually understand?!).

Basically some sort of leftwing bonkbuster (if that makes any sense) and it can be funny once he stops writing sex scenes etc (as they are meant to be dull that wouldn't work as a criticism). I like the contrast as in him discussing academic theory in between all the sex. its a nice trick. But i guess it would wear thin if every book was like this.

I would like to read his book on punk. if only for a laugh.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Wednesday, 28 May 2003 09:16 (twenty-two years ago)

six months pass...

was bored at work & there was a copy of slow death lying about. I larfed non-stop!!
(haha groovy greil marcus groovy greil marcus groovy greil marcus groovy greil marcus groovy greil marcus, etc (also = the sex scenes))

― etc, Monday, 8 December 2003 02:14 (twenty-two years ago)

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