Wide Sargasso Sea and Jane Eyre

I picked up Jean Ryhs's Wide Sargasso Sea again reaently (I'm going through a rereading phase at the moment) and I got think about how although each time I've read it, I've thought about Jane Eyre, I've never read them in succession.
So I'm going to do it now. It's going to be an odd experience, and a bit like a weird kind of time travel - Rhys wrote her book long after Bronte, but chronologically, it pre-empts Jane Eyre as it writes back in time to it. Also, like most people, I read Wide Sargasso Sea as an adult, long after I first read Jane Eyre - which my grandmother bought it for me and I loved when I was younger. Rhys's novel was also one of the first texts to bring home the concept of the postcolonial to me - perhaps because it made me completely rethink a text that I thought I knew so well. Why had I never thought about 'the madwoman in the attic' before? It's unsettling to have your literary map upset like that, and I suppose I'm wondering if rereading the two texts in succession will do it again.

Blood Relations - Anish Kapoor & Salman Rushdie

I've managed to see some of the Anish Kapoor pieces that we are privileged to have in Brighton at the moment as part of this year's festival. As I've mentioned before, I'm an admirer of Kapoor - I can remember seeing his sand sculptures at a gallery in Liverpool when I was very young. The bold colours, strong shapes and irresistible texture of the sand must have made a big impression on me - Ive never forgotten it.

I could happily talk about all the pieces I saw, but I'm just going to look at Blood Relations - because as a collaboration of sorts with Salman Rushdie, it's got a literary bent, and this is meant to be a blog about books after all.

Situated in the fabulous Fabrica gallery, Blood Relations is a sort of bronze tank, divided into two by a thick band of Kapoor's signature blood-red and engraved all around with text written specifically for Kapoor by Rushdie. To read the text in order and in its entirety you have to walk around the whole piece six times.

Inside, the tank is again divided into two halves, one filled with what looks like either red paint or blood, the other with large, red, fleshy lumps and pile of something that looks suspiciously like entrails.

I found the piece sensual and almost hypnotic, but with a disturbing edge - walking around and around the sculpture to read the text is slightly dizzying and really draws you in. It takes you on a physical journey, perhaps paralleling the mental process that Kapoor and Rushdie hope the experience will inspire.

Rushdie's text - an 'interrogation of the Arabian Nights' - exhibits all his usual characteristics as an author - humorous and insightful, and I noticed other people there half laughing at the words as they read them, before casting a wary, almost guilty, eye back toward the bloody mess lurking inside the tank.

It might seem an overly blunt and clumsy analysis to suggest that Blood Relations muses on the Satanic Verses furore - but as Rushdie's words encircle the bloodbath, in which the viewer/reader comes to be implicated as they slowly circle the tank, taking in the words, this is what came to my mind. There is a sharp contrast between Scheherazade, who tells stories night after night to keep herself alive, and Rushdie, whose storytelling in The Satanic Verses ultimately and tragically became implicated in a number of deaths - which is brought into focus as you orbit the tank, reading the words, delaying the inevitable glance you know you'll make at the gore that lies within.

One line stuck with me from the text engraved on the piece - 'There are no answers. There are only questions. We are alone with our imaginations'. I think these words encapsulate how all great art makes me feel - that more often than not, there is no answer and that it doesn't matter that there isn't - because the questioning is the most important thing.

New Indian writers

As you might have noticed, I read quite a lot of Indian literature, so I was interested to see Amit Chaudari discussing new Indian authors in the Guardian.

I'm not start on the issue of nationality and whether it is birth, ethnicity, language or experience that attaches an author to a particular nation (not now anyway) but it would seem from the article that India is continuing to produce (in one way or another) an incredible wealth of talent and creativity.

'Ones to watch' from other Indian author and publishers etc are also listed - and I don't think any name is repeated, and it's certainly added a lot more names to my book list...in particular I'm on the look out for poetry by Anita Roy's recommendation, a poet called Rokkaiah or Salma, from the Tiruchy district of Tamil Nadu, which I visited a few years ago. She dropped out of school in the 9th grade, and married young, but started writing poetry at the age of 13, and, under a pseudonym (Salma) published two collections of poetry against the wishes of her conservative family.

Incidentally, I finished Manil Suri's The Age of Shiva today - I was disappointed by it to be honest. It's well written, but I struggled with the central character so much that I couldn't enjoy it - it wasn't that I disliked her, it was more that I felt nothing for her, which stopped me from really appreciating the book. I might try and explain myself better later....

Literary events at Brighton festival 2009

I picked up the programme for Brighton Festival today - there are some fantastic events on...not least the literary ones. The whole event is curated by the Indian-born artist, Anish Kapoor - I can remember going to the Tate in Liverpool when I was very young, about 4 or 5 I think and loving his vividly coloured, bold art which reminded me of sand castles. The whole festival seems like a more serious and ambitious endeavour this year, and I can't wait for it to start. Ever since I've lived in Brighton, the coming of the festival has heralded the coming summer, sunny days wandering in the Laines and warm evenings spent on the beach, so in anticipation, I've compiled my book-related Brighton Festival 2009 wishlist....

• City Reads: The Book Thief. I love the idea of this, and I'm going to join in - the concept is to get everyone in Brighton reading Markus Zusak's The Book Thief. the communal reading culminates in the author discussing the project and the book in an event at Brighton Dome on 23rd May. Find out more here.
• Alaa al Aswany. The author of The Yacoubian Building, Alaa al Aswany is one of the most widely-read authors writing in Arabic and will be appearing at the Pavillion theatre on 24th May - more info here.
• Very Hungry Caterpillar Storyplaytime. My favourite book when I was little - this is as good as children's books get and hasn't aged a bit. It's on 10th May at the Jubilee Library, and you can get tickets here.
• Thirteen. So far, to me at least, this is the best sounding event of the festival...based on Thirteen, the cult novel about a tired Brighton taxi driver who experiences an altered state of reality by Sebastian Beaumont, you are picked up by a cabby to experience an adaptation of part of the novel. The event runs hourly during the night of the 10th May and the venue is only revealed when you buy your ticket...but guess what? It's sold out - and I haven't got a ticket.
• Kamila Shamsie & Gavin Esler. Kamila Shamsie, author of Salt & Saffron and Burnt Shadows & Gavin Esler, Newsnight presenter and author of A Scandalous Man, talk about the relationship between history and fiction, reality and storytelling. It's on at the Pavillion Theatre on 17th May - get your tickets here.

Do you remember the first time?

My first post.

I read a lot, and books play a big part in my life, so I wanted to find a way to keep a record of what I feel when I'm reading something.

Some posts will be about what I'm reading now - others will be retrospective, because I find that there are some book that I can remember reading incredibly vividly...and rereading them can almost take me back to that time.