By Jeeves

Hi iRateReaders. Since my last post we have actually had two readings. The first of these was a collection of Japanese myths. These were a lot of fun fun and raw like good sushi in many respects. It made apparent our modern discern for story logic.

Our most recent read was P.G Wodehouse's 'The Inimitable Jeeves' which Wikipedia tells me now is a semi-novel collection of Jeeves based stories that originally appeared in Strand magazine in 1921-22.

The name "Jeeves" comes from Percy Jeeves, a Warwickshire cricketer killed in the First World War. In 1913, mainly a fast-medium bowler, he took 106 wickets in first-class matches, at 20.88, and scored 765 runs at 20.13. In 1914, he took 90 further wickets. In all, he took 199 wickets in his 50 first-class matches at a bowling average of 20.03.

A few months later, after the outbreak of the First World War, Jeeves joined the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. On 22 July 1916 (aged 28), Percy Jeeves was killed in action in France, in High Wood near Montauban, during the Battle of the Somme.

Interstingly (to me), I read that Jeeves and Bertie first appeared in "Extricating Young Gussie", a short story published in September 1915.

In due respect, we shall be meeting at the Windsor Hotel Cricketers (sic) Bar on Wednesday February 17 at 7.30 pm. Suggested evening wear might include a moustache, monogrammed handkerchiefs, a straw boater, an alpine hat, a scarlet cummerbund, spats in the Eton colours, white dinner jacket, and purple socks.

See you all there chaps to exert the old bean and cerebellum. jason.

David Foster Wallace's Oblivion

This month's literary excursion is polymath DF Wallace's brilliant collection of short stories, Oblivion. His genius is a semi-autistic ability to make startlingly unusual connections between ideas, but without autism's attendant social confusion. In his essay on maths and tennis, which isn't in the book, he describes being one of the few to contemplate cycling in his hometown of Philo, Illinois, a mind-bogglingly windy place: He conquered the wind by riding with a large heavy book that he could use as a sail.

Wallace, in his essay on TV and irony, which also isn't in the book, has articulated what it is about Stuff White People Like that unsettles me:

And make no mistake: irony tyrannizes us. The reason why our pervavsive cultural irony is at once so powerful and so unsatisfying is that an ironist is impossible to pin down. All US irony is based on an implicit "I don't really mean what I'm saying." So what does irony as a cultural norm mean to say? That it's impossible to mean what you say? That maybe it's too bad it's impossible, but wake up and smell the coffee already? Most likely, I think today's irony ends up saying: "How totally banal of you to ask what I really mean." Anyone with the heretical gall to ask an ironist what he actually stands for ends up looking like a hysteric and a prig. And herein lies the oppressiveness of institutionalized irony, the too-successful rebel: the ability to interdict the question without attending to its subject is, when exercised, tyranny. It is the new junta, using the very tool that exposed its enemy to insulate itself.

That is why our teleholic friends' use of weary cynicism to try to seem superior to TV is so pathetic.

His fiction is every bit as incisive and clever and fascinating to read as his journalism. So, thumbs up from me.

See here for a description of DF Wallace's sad life: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/09/090309fa_fact_max?yrail

You can download the TV essay, 'E Unibus Pluram: Television and US Fiction', quoted above, here: http://jsomers.net/DFW_TV.pdf

Oblivion is available at both the Moreland and Yarra libraries and at bookshops.

The Dirt

We all embarked upon a reading of the ghost-written autobiographical account of Motley Crue's rise to fame and all that. A fun and interesting read about a pretty average band that made it. Makes me wonder about all the other average bands that didn't. At the 1994 Big Day Out, I can still see in my mind's bleary eye, the lead singer of local Adelaide band The Blood Sucking Freaks crouching down and excreting a hot steaming poo live on stage. Fame seems to have alluded them to date. Perhaps if another band member ate it, or they had tighter brighter pants? You just never know. Rock stardom seems part random, part pathway dependent (to use an economics terms) and part other stuff to me.

The Dirt will not destroy iRateBooks. It will only make us more fashionable somehow I feel.

Also, for those of you who truly love artful hysterically deprecating musical reviews, please have a look at Dr. David Thorpe's Metal overview. His psychological analyses of modern pop tunes is also rather worth a look.

by the mark twain

The Wayward Tourist is our next read. It is a Melbazon University Press release and is actually an excerpt of the Australian portion of a larger travelogue 'Following The Equator'. I got my copy at Hill Of Content. It came signed by Don Watson who wrote a very nice intro. I think I got the last copy there but it should be available at Dymocks in Collins Street. I think we should also consider trying to read a book at some stage by someone with a bigger mo. Thankfully I am quite partial to Nietzsche.

Samuel Clemens was practically bankrupt in 1894 due to a failed investment into a "revolutionary" typesetting machine. In an attempt to extricate himself from debt of $100,000 (equivalent of about $2 million in 2005) he undertook a tour of the British Empire in 1895, a route chosen to provide numerous opportunities for lectures in the English language. Luckily for iRateBooks this included Australia.

We are meeting aboard a paddle steamer, May 9th at Echuca, in our continuing effort to deliver experientially aligned locales. Mark Twain was a riverboat pilot for a few years on the Mississippi. We shall make do with the Murray.

How can one not quote Mark Twain?

“Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.”

I'm going to give this a go.

Hons and Rebels

The dull stolidity and respectability of life in England's upper class is stifling the young Jessica. She's a rebel looking for a cause, and now she finds it.

Current iRate reader is Hons and Rebels by Jessica (Decca) Mitford. Photo above shows her and husband Esmond "nephew of Churchill" Romilly working their Miami bar set up.

I'm currently awaiting suggested dates to discuss ...

Pending Book: Cities of The Red Night

Book 2 has been selected. We have chosen Cities Of The Red Night by William S. Burroughs. After his heroin withdrawal inspired novel, Naked Lunch, was published Mailer declared Burroughs the “only American novelist living today who may conceivably be possessed by genius.”. The Naked Lunch stirred up the longest running correspondence in the Times Literary Supplement as critics and public ranted, raved and did everything but agree on the values and qualities of the work.

Old Bull Lee, as he is often known within Kerouac's novels, was the grandson of the inventor of the Burroughs Adding Machine (forerunner of the cash register) and began his writing career close to the age of 40. He lived into his 80s, recorded songs with Kurt Cobain, did Nike ads and wrote works of incredible genius in my opinion. Strikingly funny as well.


Citites of The Red Night was written in the 1980s as the first part of a trilogy and provides a more narratively driven view of Burrough's world than Naked Lunch. It is also highly regarded by many fans. Carefully researched and based on a rennaisance novel form. I am curious to hear if anyone else thinks Douglas Adams read this before writing the Dirk Gently series.

Wiki Plot: The plot of this novel follows Burroughs' usual, erratic path, through time and space. The novel is based on an alternative history; one in which Libertatia, formed by Captain James Mission lives on. His way of life is based on what are called The Articles, a general freedom to live as you like, without prejudice and preconception. The Novel is narrated from two different standpoints; one set in the 18th century which follows a group of pirate boys lead by Noah Blake, who land in South America to liberate it with The Articles. The other is set near present day; following a detective story and the disappearance of an adolescent boy. Drugs play a major part in the novel, as do homosexuality and control. Burroughs' usual characters all have a part in the novel, including Dr Benway and Clem Snide

We'll be discussing this book on February 12th.

iRate Beginnings - Kafka's Dog

iRateBooks had its inaugural meetin' on Tuesday 13th January, 2009. We discussed out first book, 'Amerika' by Franz Kafka. In the story, Karl Rossman is sent off to Amerika to set about establishing a new life after disgracing himself by 'gettin it on' with a humble maid back in Europe. Kafka never visited Amerika which makes the story all the more interesting in many ways, as it projects a surreal mythical version of the place, perhaps based on the dreamt symbolism of the place in his mind. I rated it 7 out of 7 for style, humour, and psychic aptness. I think I had to give it full marks also for setting the Kafkaesque comical nightmare within capitalism HQ. For those keen on interpreting Kafka's vision so purely in terms of its premonition of stalinist terror, this is a very important counter example of his vision. Actually, if you do like to interpret Kafka in this way I would strongly recommend reading this immediately, or at least just fuck off to some university tute somewhere. Only kidding.
jmc