Street to Street Brian Castro Books
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Street to Street is one of Brian Castro's best books yet, a comic - tragic enactment of the anxieties of the writing life, in which the early twentieth - century Sydney poet Christopher Brennan plays a major role. A legendary figure, with a commanding knowledge of classical and European poetry, Brennan wrote some of the most powerful poems in Australian literature. He died an impoverished alcoholic at the age of sixty - one. Castro's double portrait of the poet and his biographer, the writer - academic Brendan Costa, plays on the disappointment, the guilt, the lack of recognition, which troubles those who live by their imaginations. The novella is the perfect form for Castro's purpose, its compression heightening the wit and energy of his prose, and his remarkable feel for the embarrassments of character.
Street to Street Brian Castro Books
In terms of its structure and setting, Brian Castro's Street To Street calls to mind Nabokov's Pale Fire and Pnin. Castro uses an academic foil by the name of Brendan Costa who is himself writing a biography about poet Christopher Brennan to take on Western Civilization. This enables Castro to skewer modernity - and especially academia - for a full hundred years rather than the usual generation or two.Both Brendan Costa the biographer and Christopher Brennan the subject are on downward spirals. The loops of alcoholism and serial marriages and love affairs start off being concentric in a conventional sense because the poet Brennan is long dead and Costa is very much with us. But as the narrative moves forward, the gap between subject and object disappears and Costa and Brennan find themselves on the same road. They are contemporaries after all.
To get the full Dante effect, it's best to read the book in a single sitting. This is easily done because of the length (151 pages), 16-point type and lack of stops. I read it in two goes and the break felt like one of the vistas on the way down The Inferno.
Street To Street is one of the funniest books I've ever read. In many places, it's laugh-out-loud funny. In terms of its comic inventiveness and love of word play, it reminded me of Flann O'Brien. It's Joycean, too, in parts, but without the labyrinths. The style and tone is all Castro: a curious blend of deft story telling and arch ennui that I'd never encountered before.
Nabokov, Dante, O'Brien, Joyce. Forty years ago, Street To Street would have set the house on fire. Whether it will do so now in a post-post-modern world of star ratings and "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" remains to be seen. Here's hoping Street To Street gets the reception it deserves.
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Tags : Amazon.com: Street to Street (9781459649194): Brian Castro: Books,Brian Castro,Street to Street,ReadHowYouWant,1459649192,Fiction - General,Fiction Literary,Literary,Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)
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Street to Street Brian Castro Books Reviews
a fascinating tour de force of the wanderings of a writer through Europe and Australia, obsessed as he is with the writings of an earlier literary figure, while he fumbles through jobs, marriages, and the obstacles of existence. .
In terms of its structure and setting, Brian Castro's Street To Street calls to mind Nabokov's Pale Fire and Pnin. Castro uses an academic foil by the name of Brendan Costa who is himself writing a biography about poet Christopher Brennan to take on Western Civilization. This enables Castro to skewer modernity - and especially academia - for a full hundred years rather than the usual generation or two.
Both Brendan Costa the biographer and Christopher Brennan the subject are on downward spirals. The loops of alcoholism and serial marriages and love affairs start off being concentric in a conventional sense because the poet Brennan is long dead and Costa is very much with us. But as the narrative moves forward, the gap between subject and object disappears and Costa and Brennan find themselves on the same road. They are contemporaries after all.
To get the full Dante effect, it's best to read the book in a single sitting. This is easily done because of the length (151 pages), 16-point type and lack of stops. I read it in two goes and the break felt like one of the vistas on the way down The Inferno.
Street To Street is one of the funniest books I've ever read. In many places, it's laugh-out-loud funny. In terms of its comic inventiveness and love of word play, it reminded me of Flann O'Brien. It's Joycean, too, in parts, but without the labyrinths. The style and tone is all Castro a curious blend of deft story telling and arch ennui that I'd never encountered before.
Nabokov, Dante, O'Brien, Joyce. Forty years ago, Street To Street would have set the house on fire. Whether it will do so now in a post-post-modern world of star ratings and "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" remains to be seen. Here's hoping Street To Street gets the reception it deserves.
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