The Spoons That Are My Ears!

Another pandemic year. I read a lot, I wrote a lot, and to my delighted surprise I even managed to travel (not a lot but enough). Let's consider my reading first. I read more poetry this year than I normally do, including the vast majority of the poems of Richard Brautigan, who remains one of my favourite poets. But I also finally sampled the work of Philip Larkin and found it remarkable, quite unlike what I was expecting. He too is now one of my favourite poets. Another poet worthy of mention is Ai Ogawa. These three poets I can say I know well because my reading of them was comprehensive. I sought out all their collections.

As for prose books, I finally managed to finish the complete 'Maigret' series of Georges Simenon. I began reading the series back in 2014. Seventy-five novels in total. I am pleased to have read all of them but I must concur with the wisdom of those who claim that Simenon's best work can be found in his non-Maigret books. In 2021 I read The Man Who Watched Trains Go By. Sheer brilliance! I also re-read the five volumes of the first 'Chronicles of Amber' by Roger Zelazny, a series I first read when I was 17 or 18 years old. It held up well but wasn't quite as brilliant as I remembered it to be. I also finished the last volume in the 'Second Ether' series of Michael Moorcock and finished the final book (that has been translated into English) of the 'Captain Alatriste' series of Arturo Perez-Reverte.  It was a year of coming to the end of sequences...

But let's cut to the chase and talk about the best of the best. These are the books I was most delighted to have encountered in the year 2021: Venus on the Half-Shell by Philip Jose Farmer; Immortality by Milan Kundera; The Mournful Demeanour of Lieutenant Boruvka by Josef Škvorecký; The Housing Lark by Sam Selvon; The Innocence of Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton; and The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles. If I had to pick just one from this list it would be the Škvorecký. It might be noted that these works and writers are very 'male' in their outlooks and styles. Too bad. I am very male too.

But if we really have to make a distinction between men and women writers, then I wish to put in a very good word for the novel Sylvia: Distant Avuncular Ends by Maithreyi Karnoor.

Now let me talk about my writing. I finished a novella made up of five connected stories and I will soon be looking for a publisher for it. Clumsy Carnacki, the Ghost Loser relates the misadventures of the incompetent son of the famous occult detective and the first installment can be found here.

I wrote 24 stories in total, 3 short plays, 6 articles, and maybe one hundred poems.

I had eleven books published in 2021, but considering that six of them were self-published I think it is safer to say that I had five books published: a collection of stories, plays and poems called Weirdly Out West; the two novellas Students of Myself and My Rabbit's Shadow Looks like a Hand; another collection called Utopia in Trouble; and the first of my poetry collections to be published by a traditional publisher, Bunny Queue. I believe that the two novellas in this list are among my best ever works.

Maybe I ought to talk about films... In Bruges was the film I saw in 2021 that has remained most strongly in my mind. I was also pleased to finally get into the films produced by Studio Ghibli. No, I don't think I will talk much about films today: I hardly ever do.

Oh, and one other thing: I moved out of Britain and I am now an expat and a glomad. I currently live on a very nice island at a latitude of 6.2 degrees north and a longitude of 80 degrees east. Have a great New Year! :-)