![]() ![]() What Riviere is good at is showing events and people as they form, the disorientations of thought. Sentences try to fix the appearance and significance of the characters but the view is often oblique and characters are subject to multiple revisions. The novel requires the level of concentration you would need reading Nabokov or Proust. We are thrown into the thoughts of the main character as he attends poetry readings at a Travelodge. His first novel, Dead Souls, has features of his poetry’s ultra-modernity but the short lines of the poetry are replaced by the single paragraph structure and sentences that often twist on into six commas. His poems are often very funny, hence his live appearances with Joe Dunthorne, the Submariner. Think Frank O’Hara’s lunchtime poems for an elective affinity. ![]() ![]() Sam Riviere, the poet, has made a name for himself with the modern twists of prize winning poetry, in volumes such as 81 Austerities, where allusions to Edward Thomas can underpin works that mirror the unrealities of modern communication. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |