Anybody read it?
The author really breaks all the rules of writing and I thought I was going to find it completely unreadable after the first couple of pages, but now I've got into it I'm finding it very very beautiful.
Just wondered what anyone else thought of McGregor's rule-breaking style.
And if you haven't read it, here's a taste. The punctuation is all Mr McGregor's:
The short girl with the painted toenails, next door, she says oh but did you see that guy on the balcony, he was nice, no he was special and she savours the word like a strawberry, you know she says, the one on the balcony, the one who was speeding and kept leaning right over, and they all know exactly who she means, he's in the same place most weeks, pounding out the rhythm like a panelbeater, fists crashing down into the air, sweat splashing from his polished head.
She says once I was there and he got so carried away that he hung from the balcony by his legs, he had his feet hooked under the rail, and she remembers the way his face had stretched into a furious O, going come on let's have some and she remembers his fists still flailing across the void like an astronaut lost in orbit.
A girl sleeps in the back bedroom of number eleven, her hair is pushed out of her eyes by a hairband, her mouth is wide open, the room is warm and beginning to lighten. Bird shadows pass quickly across her face but she does not wake.
A couple in their early thirties sleep in the attic flat of number twenty-one, wrapped loosely in a thin red blanket, he is snoring and she is turned away from him, there is a television on in the corner with the sound turned down, shadows pass through the room but the couple do not wake.
In the back bedroom of number seventeen, the boy with the white shirt and the tie says it was definitely a girl, she didn't have an adam's apple, I swear, it was a girl definitely, and everyone laughs at him and he looks around the room and joins in the laughter and somebody passes him a long cigarette.
The boy with the wide trousers is quiet, he's looking at the girl next to him, a beautifully unslim girl with dark curls of hair falling down over a red velvet dress, he's looking at the laces and straps and buckles and zips of her complicated footwear and says so how long does it take you to get those boots off then? She looks at him, this girl, with lips as red as the fire inside a chilli, she looks at the tight spread of him across the bed and she says
I don't know I've never taken them off myself
and she smiles at the sharpness of his intake of breath, she watches his eyes trickle down from her face and roll down the rich geometry of her body.
-'if nobody speaks of remarkable things' by Jon McGregor (page 15-16)
I mean WOW - I can't believe stuff like this can get published when we're all so uptight and stressed about doing it RIGHT. It's good - really good (haven't finished yet) but it makes you think...
The author really breaks all the rules of writing and I thought I was going to find it completely unreadable after the first couple of pages, but now I've got into it I'm finding it very very beautiful.
Just wondered what anyone else thought of McGregor's rule-breaking style.
And if you haven't read it, here's a taste. The punctuation is all Mr McGregor's:
The short girl with the painted toenails, next door, she says oh but did you see that guy on the balcony, he was nice, no he was special and she savours the word like a strawberry, you know she says, the one on the balcony, the one who was speeding and kept leaning right over, and they all know exactly who she means, he's in the same place most weeks, pounding out the rhythm like a panelbeater, fists crashing down into the air, sweat splashing from his polished head.
She says once I was there and he got so carried away that he hung from the balcony by his legs, he had his feet hooked under the rail, and she remembers the way his face had stretched into a furious O, going come on let's have some and she remembers his fists still flailing across the void like an astronaut lost in orbit.
A girl sleeps in the back bedroom of number eleven, her hair is pushed out of her eyes by a hairband, her mouth is wide open, the room is warm and beginning to lighten. Bird shadows pass quickly across her face but she does not wake.
A couple in their early thirties sleep in the attic flat of number twenty-one, wrapped loosely in a thin red blanket, he is snoring and she is turned away from him, there is a television on in the corner with the sound turned down, shadows pass through the room but the couple do not wake.
In the back bedroom of number seventeen, the boy with the white shirt and the tie says it was definitely a girl, she didn't have an adam's apple, I swear, it was a girl definitely, and everyone laughs at him and he looks around the room and joins in the laughter and somebody passes him a long cigarette.
The boy with the wide trousers is quiet, he's looking at the girl next to him, a beautifully unslim girl with dark curls of hair falling down over a red velvet dress, he's looking at the laces and straps and buckles and zips of her complicated footwear and says so how long does it take you to get those boots off then? She looks at him, this girl, with lips as red as the fire inside a chilli, she looks at the tight spread of him across the bed and she says
I don't know I've never taken them off myself
and she smiles at the sharpness of his intake of breath, she watches his eyes trickle down from her face and roll down the rich geometry of her body.
-'if nobody speaks of remarkable things' by Jon McGregor (page 15-16)
I mean WOW - I can't believe stuff like this can get published when we're all so uptight and stressed about doing it RIGHT. It's good - really good (haven't finished yet) but it makes you think...
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