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2010.09.24

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Yay, David "Laughing Boy" Peace! I am quite the fan of Mr. Peace's work myself. Sadly I have to say I found Occupied City appeared for at least a third of its length to be the work of a writer trying to write through writer's block. A bloody good writer.

I'm no stranger to Mr. Peace's device of repitition but in Occupied City the repitition seemed (at times) to merely be repitition without any real purpose. (I was going to cut and paste that bit several times - literary humour! But I wussed out.)

Sometimes I can’t be certain whether it's Mr. Peace's experimentalism that exceeds my feeble faculties or whether his experimentalism is just empty faffing about. Sometimes of course it works like a charm.

The fact that I eagerly follow his stuff despite this speaks to the powerful emotional reaction the work incites in me. Which is the point, really, in the end. So, David Peace wins! Thanks to you for drawing attention to him.

I’d like to see David Peace on Oprah. That would be something.

I enjoyed this post, but have nothing to add beyond that. Figured I'd let you know anyway.

John: you might be onto something there. It all runs together, but I think Peace complained a bit about blockage while writing this one. My personal feeling about it was that he seemed to be working more in a musical vein than Tokyo Year Zero, and since that was what I was feeling, I treated those passages as chorus. (The survivor chapter was where that worked best, I thought.) No matter what, I'm continually struck by how unusual his writing is, how far afield he's willing to go in the service of his own admitted obsessiveness. I hope he's lying about quitting in a few years.

Chad: thank you!

TS: See, the musical thing didn't occur to me, so I'll go along with that one on my next read through. Accentuate the positive! Sorry if I came across as a negative Nelly. I should have found room to mention that the rest of OC was, I think, Peace's best writing to date. Your review was great too, which I forgot to say. How rude of me! Yeah, I hope he was fibbing about stopping too.

I know it's probably bad form but...if you like ambition and experiments in literature have you tried the work of B S Johnson (1933-1973). Just saying.

Thanks again, to all involved here, for the site and your hard work on filling it with interesting and stimulating content.


"...the rest of OC was..."

Don't call it that. TV humor for us philistines in the audience!

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