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Cultural highs (& a low) - January 2010	01/02/2010

Some stuff I liked last month:

Novels:

Ablutions, Patrick deWitt's debut novel published by Granta. I need books like this. They give me hope that contemporary literature's not dying on its feet. It's inventive - written in the second person in the form of notes made by the protagonist for a novel - and is more character- than plot-led. deWitt's book manages to tackle a difficult subject, addiction in a way that creates a similar compulsion in the reader. Not to drink of course, but to keep reading (it's a real page-turner), despite the wanton self-destruction and debauchery being described. deWitt achieves this through humour and the tender, often poetic way he writes about his characters and the detail of their sad lives.

It seemed a given I'd be including Lorrie Moore's A Gate at the Stairs in my January highs. But I'm afraid it's here only because I felt compelled to say just how disappointed I am with it. It has the trademark Moore humour, quirkiness and beautifully penned observations, but it reads like a mainstream American novel written in the style of, say, Anne Tyler. No bad thing in itself - I've read and enjoyed most of Anne Tyler's novels over the years - but based on LM's short fiction and her novel, Anagrams, I expected so much more from A Gate at the Stairs, both in terms of creativity and depth. The political dimension of the book is a case in point - e.g. Moore's depiction of post-9/11 America and the brother joining the military to fight in Afghanistan, plus her take on the treatment of minorities in America etc. It lacked any real intellectual rigour, felt a bit cliched at times and, in the case of the Jihadist boyfriend, wasn't at all believable. Ah well, you win some, you lose some.

Films:

Two films stood out last month. The first, Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll I wrote about in some detail here so I won't repeat myself. Follow the link for commentary and vids. The other film is A Prophet, a classic French thriller from Jacques Audiard. Essentially a prison drama, it's quite involved - you need your wits about you - and a bit long but despite that, it's still very entertaining... although I could've done without the spoon eye-gouging scene. Here's a trailer for Un Prophete.

Music:

Rickie Lee Jones' new album Balm in Gilead is a return to form - the last one wasn't that great to be honest. She seems to have cherry-picked all her favourite genres - soul, country, gospel, folk - and brought 'em together here in one album. And she likes her collaborations, the best one being the song Remember Me with Vic Chestnutt (just before he died) and Alison Krauss on fiddle. Here's a vid of RLJ performing Old Enough with Ben Harper earlier this year. The reason they're sitting 10 feet apart is cos Harper has rank halitosis apparently... okay, I made that up. Note: you'll need a hanky for the track on the album called Bonfires cos it's like those tearjerker ballads RLJ wrote in the 70s when Tom Waits broke her heart.

Also in January, Richmond Fontaine's musical homage to the Pacific Northwest, "We Used to Think the Freeway Sounded Like the River". It had to go some to beat my fave RF album, Thirteen Cities but they've done a pretty good job, I reckon. It's a kind of boozy, rootsy alt-country album that sings its stories to you. Below is a vid of Richmond Fontaine jamming on the street in Vienna... eventually anyway. They take a while to warm-up. Worth the wait though cos The Boyfriends is one of the best tracks on the album.