Oh Joy!
I know BB has decreed that we shouldn't be watching him any more, but I thought I'd pass on the latest news from the Bookseller, about Nick's forthcoming books:
Now I do like books with titles that spare you the trouble of reading what's inside.
The first book, Waiting for the Etonians: Reports from the Sickbed of Liberal England, will be published in February 2009. It will be a collection of Cohen's writing which Harvie said will "cover Labour's love affair with the right over the last 10 years". The second book, provisionally titled Traitors, will look at the state of Britain at the end of the first decade of a new century.
Now I do like books with titles that spare you the trouble of reading what's inside.
posted by Captain Cabernet at 10/15/2008 05:08:00 AM
18 Comments:
Decents watching is all fair and proper, but this early?
I still don't understand the word 'Liberal'. It's only ever really referred to the Liberal parties over here. What's Left fell apart as soon as it started with that stupid declaration that he's allowed to conflate the Lib Dems with the SWP because 'all books make assumptions', or something. Looks like this will be no different - and I wonder if Nick's account of a 'left-wing love affair with the right' will cover his own work writing for things like Pajamas and Standpoint?
The resonance of J. M. Coetzee's brilliant novel Waiting for the Barbarians overhangs the first book too. Nick's will have to be a very, very good book to stand the implicit comparison...
"Waiting for the Barbarians" is a poem by Cavafy, which Coetzee borrowed for his title, and which Nick is presumably punning on.
The point of the poem is that the real crisis is caused when the Barbarians fail to arrive -if the Cameronian- Etonians also don't make it, I guess Nick will be unhappy.(but the rest of us slightly relieved)
http://users.hol.gr/~barbanis/cavafy/barbarians.html
I didn't know about Cavafy; thank you. The situation with the Barbarians is a bit different in the Coetzee novel; also I'm not sure how this waiting relates to the 'Liberal British sickbed' either. Surely in both poem and novel, the act of waiting is symptomatic of the opposite of physical weakness...
the more i think about this 'Liberal' thing the more it seems to be pitched squarely at the US market. What's Left at least called it the 'liberal-left'...
Does our Nick really have that much of an American market to pitch at? Horowitz and co didn't seem to be aware that What's Left existed and Hitchens has a far more established presence across the pond.
Von Pseud
When I first read that title, I thought, this must be parody ...
'Waiting for the Etonians' is clearly a reference to Cameron and his Cabinet, and as such it's a clever enough ploy. Published in Feb next year, so the paperback will come out 6 months to a year later (why do they still do this?) pretty much in time for the election campaign, so it'll be on the tables in Waterstone's and Border's etc with all the other political fluff for book junkies to scoop up.
OTOH, surely the natural readership for essays slagging off Cameron won't be keen on the 'Sickbed of Liberal England' bit, and they'd likely be Observer readers and probably unsympathetic to his columns.
I wonder if there's a book in "After the Etonian of the North: notes from the sickbed of the no-longer liberal Scotland."
Unless of course the Etonians are followers of the cult of a Statesman writer who fought in the Spanish Civil War. In that case, I'll send the outline of "En Attendant Orwell: a two-act play in which two hacks discuss the making of tea, pig farming, bicycling old maids, and other pursuits while waiting in 'The Moon Under Water' for the hero of literature to arrive" to Fourth Estate. They seem to buy anything.
I assume the paperback comes out much later in order not to cannibalize sales of the hardback and justify its much more expensive price tag?
As I've observed before, in What's Left? Nick is keen to tell us where Douglas Hurd and Perry Anderson went to school, while remaining silent about George Orwell's education.
He could have Neal Ascherson as well.
John McCain went to the Episcopal High School (Alexandria, Virginia). The comprehensive tuition fee for the 2007-08 school year was $38,200, in addition to the technology fee ($250), cost of books (about $600), and spending money. Student activities are included in the tuition, although there are some exceptions.
Each student is also required to purchase a laptop from a designated vendor before entering the school as part of the school’s laptop program. The computers are frequently used in the classroom.
So: not posh at all.
Clearly the great thing about Eton is the skill in dealing with people it gives its pupils. Craig Brown in true story mode:
A plumber recalls being called out to fix a burst pipe for the novelist Anthony Powell. The plumber rang the doorbell. "An elderly man opened the door and looked at me quizzically. 'Yes,' he said. 'How can I help you?'
'Hello,' I smiled, thinking that my overalls, the toolbox in my hand and my van behind me would make my quest obvious. 'Well?' he said.
'Mr Powell?' I asked. (I pronounced the name Pow-well.) 'There is no one here of that name,' he intoned."
The plumber apologises and drives off, imagining that he has come to the wrong house. After driving around in the snow for 20 minutes, he is directed back to the same house. The same man opened the door. "This time I tried a different tack. 'Does a Mr Powell live here?' 'No,' he said. 'However, do you mean Pole?' I nodded. 'Ah! Then go round to the back door, the leak is in the kitchen.'?"
Yeah, but I'd probably* do that, and I went to a comp.
[* well, conceivably. Not in the snow, perhaps.]
Why, how do you pronounce your surname in a strange, posh way?
Hoer-oone?
Ah, it's not the surname, it's that I have a varying first name.
Ah. I was visualising a kind of literary sitcom, with you still in Spain but Joe Orton living next door... "no, I insist on delivering this parcel to Señor 'Orton!"... Only in Spanish, obviously. It'd be great.
The second book, provisionally titled Traitors...
Presumably None Dare Call It Treason wasn't snappy enough.
Surely a more apt title would be 'Waiting for the Sobriety: Notes From the Sickbed of Nick Cohen'?
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