More on dead tree media

Talking of things that make you re-evaluate your world, I guess the same criterion can be applied to books: bad ones reinforce your existing positions or make no difference at all, good ones make you re-orient yourself, or at least re-examine your beliefs, tastes and attitudes.

I'm currently reading Angus Wilson's Anglo-Saxon Attitudes, and re-reading some Gwyneth Jones. Wilson's book definitely fits into the 'bad' category, for all its status as great twentieth-century literature. It's not a bad read at all - amusing characterisation and all that, but it's yet another smug set of upper-middle-class characters adjusting themselves to the post-war Britain: neither they, nor Wilson, have much to say. Jones, on the other hand, not only tackles the big subjects: political failure, the dark stirrings of the collective unconscious, feminism, science, our social dispositions, but she does so in compelling, confusing, serious but also exciting and often amusing ways. Kairos is perhaps her weirdest attempt to upset our conceptions of what society means (particularly in relation to sex and gender), while the Bold As Love series uses the Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot triangle as the basis to examine the purpose and point of nations and states, amongst other things.

Jones is also gradually posting her earlier books, including Bold As Love, as free (updated) texts on her website - presumably as a response to the gradual death of the book marketing model and as the equivalent of the 'director's cut'.

Court Short

What an appalling waste of a day. Rather than swimming, writing and blogging, I dragged myself out by 8 a.m. to get to Brierley Hill, where Dudley County Court is based. It's a converted office block in the midst of a depressing business estate (mostly To Let) - but at least the legal toffs have to travel through the concrete jungle to get there.

Once inside, the victim, her mother, their (Lithuanian) translator and I were left in an airless, featureless room for 6 hours. We got over the language barrier and chatted a bit: our first meeting was rather fraught and social niceties weren't observed. I've been to Lithuania so we talked about Vilnius, and the translator studied in the Philology department at Vilnius University, where I gave a paper, so we discovered mutual acquaintances, but after a while, boredom, the upcoming confrontation, and the artificiality of the situation intruded on our sunny dispositions.

Turns our there was nothing to anticipate. First the defendant's lawyer and his interpreter (don't know which language) went to the cells to point out that he was guilty as sin and should give up now in exchange for a lighter sentence. Then there were apparently several hours of legal argument. Then we were informed that the defendant had sacked his lawyer and the new one would need a few months to acquaint himself with the case.

So my day was wasted, the victim was left without resolution and still clearly terrified of this bloke, a professional translator had been hired for the day, plus a night in a hotel, plus the very expensive legal teams (all paid for by the state) - what a farce. And it's all going to happen again at some point in the future. At least I got to read the paper in peace, get a long way through Anglo-Saxon Attitudes and avoid a deathly staff discussion day, though the architecture and decor were virtually indistinguishable from the university. There's a joke about incarceration and Kafka in there somewhere, but I'll leave it to you.

Still, I saw a little bit more of the West Midlands and can tick it off the list of places to visit. Dudley was closed and Brierley Hill had clearly recently been used for a post-apocalypse film (although Survivors made the postwar city look livelier and cleaner). There's something rather sweet about listening to Bach's Cello Suites while gazing out on post-industrial decay, the grey relieved only by the occasional splash of vomit on the pavement.

How's your day been?