Reading the 20th Century discussion

Any Ann Quin fans in the house?





Here's some interesting information from a 2007 article in the Guardian...

Berg is a beautiful novel: it is dark, esoteric, haunting - sometimes disturbing. It is saturated with detail, particulars and minutiae. A novel of voices and voice. The best novel ever set in Brighton in my opinion - forget Patrick Hamilton (as splendid as he is), Ann Quin's Berg is the real deal. It cuts through the superfluous like acid and marvels in the seamier mystery all our seaside towns, and especially Brighton, keep hidden. For an insight into what British literary fiction could have been if we'd only have listened, I'd start with Berg by Ann Quin every time.

The whole article is here:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/book...

Another excerpt...

Quin was born in 1936 in Brighton, one of our more interesting seaside towns (she died there too in 1973: swimming out to sea one morning by Brighton Pier never to return to our shores again). Four books were published in her lifetime: Berg (1964), Three (1966), Passages (1969), and finally Tripticks (1972). Berg is her most famous (and possibly my favourite). It is a paean to the Nouveau Roman of writers like Alain Robbe-Grillet, eschewing the literary trends of her day: those angry, realist campus yawns that put the British working-class voice on the literary map. Ann Quin's was a new British working-class voice that had not been heard before: it was artistic, modern, and - dare I say it - ultimately European. It looked beyond the constructs of our society. It was fresh, alarming, and idiosyncratic. It wasn't static; it moved with the times.

I came across her through this Tumblr feed:
http://writersnoonereads.tumblr.com/t...

I was quite excited about reading Berg by Ann Quin back in 2014 but was a little disappointed...





Berg by Ann Quin

Review here....
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Berg by Ann Quin is the latest book under discussion for the Backlisted Podcast

It makes me wonder if I misjudged it slightly, as they were all so positive about its merits

Interestingly Ann Quin was name checked in an article in the Guardian Review section on Saturday that is not online at present. It's by D.J. Taylor (whose work I have enjoyed) and is about 1960s avant garde/experimental writers.

D.J. Taylor has put together a BBC Radio 4 programme called The Advance Guard of the Avant-garde which will be broadcast on Saturday 10 March 2018...

In the 1960s a group of writers set about shaking up the polite conventions of the British realist tradition through a whole range of experimental approaches.

Sound poets created some of the strangest programmes ever broadcast by the BBC, while the likes of BS Johnson cut holes in the pages of his novels - and in the case of his book 'The Unfortunates' published the unbound chapters in a box for the reader to mix up and read in whatever order they wished.

Johnson and similarly minded writers like Ann Quin, Bob Cobbing, Alan Burns and Christine Brooke-Rose were prominent in their day, appearing regularly on TV and radio programmes, but by now they've largely been forgotten.

Using some of the rich archive these writers left behind, D.J. Taylor sets out to tell their story, with the help of Johnson's biographer Jonathan Coe, editor of a new Ann Quin collection Jennifer Hodgson, novelist Eimear McBride and poetry critic Jeremy Noel Tod.

In a programme that borrows some of their techniques Taylor argues that while we may no longer talk about this group of determinedly experimental figures, many of today's most prominent writers, from David Mitchell to Alice Oswald, owe them a debt of gratitude.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09tybwl

I hadn't heard of her before this year but I do have a copy of The Unmapped Country: Stories and Fragments which I am looking forward to reading when I can find the time.

Thanks Hugh.


Jennifer Hodgson, the editor of The Unmapped Country: Stories and Fragments, was the guest on the Backlisted Podcast I mention above. She also appears on the forthcoming D.J. Taylor helmed BBC Radio 4 programme The Advance Guard of the Avant-garde that I also mention above.

Exciting times for the Quin-erati

I am aware that she is often bracketed with writers like B.S. Johnson, and if the one novel by him I read is anything to go by, I may find it hard work...

I did read "Berg" many years ago, but I don't think I was that impressed either. It may deserve a second chance, but some of the avant-garde writers seemed to be experimental just for the sake of it, rather than because the style suited the story they were trying to tell.

I'm quite relieved to discover I am not alone in not wholly enjoying her work.


I will be very interested to discover how she is appraised on The Advance Guard of the Avant-garde.

On Backlisted, Jennifer Hodgson asserts that Ann Quin is enjoying a renaissance and there is significant interest in her work. Her next project is a biography of Ann Quin. It sounds as though she had a fascinating life.

Back to The Advance Guard of the Avant-garde, this final paragraph in the preview intrigues me....

In a programme that borrows some of their techniques D.J. Taylor argues that while we may no longer talk about this group of determinedly experimental figures, many of today's most prominent writers, from David Mitchell to Alice Oswald, owe them a debt of gratitude.

Intriguing eh? I will report back.

Meanwhile, from 2007, here's another Quin article...

Who cares about Ann Quin?

I do, for one, but why does no one else seem to remember this writer from the front rank of Britain's literary avant-garde?

by Lee Rourke

"A man called Berg, who changed his name to Greb, came to a seaside town intending to kill his father . . ."

For me this is the greatest opening first line of any novel I have ever read. It is from Berg by Ann Quin: a debut novel so staggeringly superior to most you'll never forget it - and by one of our greatest ever novelists too. The thing is, though, no one ever seems to have heard of her. It is something that has rankled within me for a long time now: why, I demand to know, does nobody care about Ann Quin?

Rest here....
https://www.theguardian.com/books/boo...

Nigeyb wrote: "I will be very interested to discover how she is appraised on The Advance Guard of the Avant-garde.."


I've listened to over half the programme on iPlayer Radio - very entertainingly put together. Overlapping dialogue and sound effects, mixed in with archive interviews. Also some great points about the possibilities and limitations of writing and literature compared with other art forms. I closed my eyes, lay down and listened to it, and thoroughly enjoyed the somewhat hallucinatory format. Recommended.

Hester wrote:


"I saw all Ann Quin's novels at a bookshop in London at the weekend . I have read Three but none other ....would be up for a buddy read of Berg at some point ,"

Replying over here

There may well be some takers Hester

I'd certainly follow a discussion with interest and maybe then get tempted by a second go

I'd be interested in a buddy read of Ann Quin as I've never read her - but not immediately as I'm a bit overcommitted!

I've read Passages and was impressed by the style and sensibility but the underlying antisemitism was a bit too much for me. I think she's a writer who's worth exploring though.

I also read Quin's Passages and she impressed me as a wholly original and innovative writer. Hers might not be the best reads for a group discussion though, it all depends on a reader's comfort level with her unconventional style of writing. It worked for me after some initial effort.

I agree Vesna her writing's very distinctive. Even the antisemitic elements - iirc - in Passages stood out because they revolved around fetishizing Jewishness rather than the usual forms of prejudice.

Passages sounds like it might be a better first read than Berg and appeals more - appreciate your insights, Vesna and Alwynne. This group is such a great reading resource!

I'm not sure I'm ready to reread Passages but it seems a decent entry point. I'd quite like to try Berg or Tripticks

I'd like to try Passages first - Tripticks looks appealing as a follow-up: I was thinking Kathy Acker and then saw her name-checked in the blurb so I'm definitely interested.

I've got an ARC of Deborah Levy's essay collection, The Position of Spoons: And Other Intimacies and am interested to see that she writes on Ann Quin - I only read the first line which talks about how she influences Levy's own writing. Even more keen to try her now.

Roman Clodia wrote: "I've got an ARC of Deborah Levy's essay collection, The Position of Spoons: And Other Intimacies and am interested to see that she writes on Ann Quin - I only read ..."

I was a bit miffed to be turned down for this on Edelweiss, although the reason given was to do with rights, as the UK edition's from a different publisher and I'm a UK reviewer. I've never worked out how to get around that particular obstacle. I was keen to read it because I loved the trilogy of memoirs and she seems to like a lot of the same things from Francesca Woodman to Colette and Duras. But reading an extract - which was very bitty - and then seeing your review feel much less hard done by.

Yes, it's disappointingly bitty which is frustrating as Levy is so thoughtful and probing and interesting usually but there just isn't the space in many of the essays to do more than skim the surface. The essays on Quin, Duras and Colette are all cases in point, as well as the intro to de Beauvoir's The Inseparables which does way too much storytelling.

Btw, I got it from NetGalley US - there are a few publishers on there who seems to be happy to approve UK reviewers and FSG are one of them.

Roman Clodia wrote: "Yes, it's disappointingly bitty which is frustrating as Levy is so thoughtful and probing and interesting usually but there just isn't the space in many of the essays to do more than skim the surfa..."

From what you've said it sounds like an expanded version of a Sunday article on writers and their cultural likes/dislikes. Maybe she just needs the money?!

Not even the depth of an Observer piece, I'd say. To be fair, though, some of the personal pieces are interesting on past relationships and various living situations - but nothing like the sustained commitment of the Living Autobiography books. I don't regret reading it anyway.