Iain Sinclair – Page 13 – { feuilleton }

Wyndham Lewis: Portraits

James Joyce by Wyndham Lewis (1921).

Wyndham Lewis: Portraits is an exhibition running at the National Portrait Gallery, London, until October 19, 2008. I’m still slowly reading my way through Ulysses so here’s Lewis’s sketch of Joyce, a drawing I’ve always liked for its curving lines. The exhibition notes mention Joyce as one of the subjects on display so visitors may be able to see the original there.

• Library of the lost | Iain Sinclair on Lewis’s portraiture.
• Banned TS Eliot portrait goes on show

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Picasso-esque
• Books for Bloomsday
• Finnegan begin again

Library of the lost

Library of the lost
| Iain Sinclair on Wyndham Lewis.

City of Spades

Today’s book purchase is a secondhand copy of the first novel in Colin MacInnes’ London trilogy (Absolute Beginners and Mr Love and Justice were the others). City of Spades was first published in 1957 but this is the 1985 reissue with a cover by Neville Brody which is the main reason for my picking it up. The books were reprinted in the mid-Eighties to coincide with the release of Julien Temple’s dreadful musical adaptation of Absolute Beginners, a film that must have done a lot to drive people away from MacInnes’ books; it certainly had that effect on me. Brody supplied all the faux-pulp covers for the reissued series.

MacInnes is remembered now by contemporary writers like Iain Sinclair for his pungent documenting of London lowlife. He was also something of a pioneer in writing about the Fifties’ gay scene in a matter-of-fact manner. You can read more about his works here.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The book covers archive

Nova Swing

The always excellent M John Harrison has a new sf novel out soon, Nova Swing, set in the same future as his masterful Light. You can read a sample of it on his website.

Harrison, along with Moorcock, Ballard, Alan Moore and Iain Sinclair, is one of Britain’s finest living writers. He’s the creator of one of my favourite fantasy cities, Viriconium, and author of a number of intelligent (and often disturbing) novels and short stories. He’s one of the few living writers equally adept at working with the big three genres—sf, fantasy and horror—whilst also being able to write straightforward “literary” fiction with far greater facility than the usual suspects that clog the Booker lists. The novels don’t come very often so a new one is an event, and something worthy of your attention.