the web The Book Club Blog

Sunday, March 28, 2004

Belle writes exclusively for The Sunday Telegraph Magazine now . . .

So the blog thingy is officially old hat - and she has joined the world of the hardcopy printed word (The Sunday Telegraph Magazine piece is not online until lord knows when - they say they don't work on Sundays but are too busy working to answer my questions now - go figure that one out!) presumably to reach a fee-paying (i.e. book buying) audience. What does this say about the power, or rather the limitations of blogs, and the resilience of print newspapers and books - does anyone still bother with that as a debate?

Belle writes:
"I am flattered that anyone thinks my writing so good that I could not be real," (a real person? a real prostitute? or a real writer?) "What does bother me is the presumption that a person's occupation is a reflection of their intelligence or value to society: I have known plumbers who were geniuses and surgeons wh couldn't tie their own shoelaces. But there are thousands of wittier, sharper authors in the world. I'd sooner spend my future as a reader than a writer."

Though she says that "some day (she) wants to have a real job in the subject (she) studied." So a return to academia beckons.

She also says she supports "legalising brothels, hard drugs and other socially awkward habits. If the crime and disease surrounding these activities can be reduced through legalisation and protection, and if the government can collect tax from it, what is the problem."

Anyway, steaming through Belle "the new newspaper exclusive" and the Houellebecq connection is there again. Belle on her childhood:
"My parents fancied themselves 1970s revolutionaries . . . the house was stuffed with books of all kinds. Psychedelic sci-fi disguised as literature: Aldous Huxley."

Halfway through "Atomised," (pp. 186- 192) Houllebecq recounts an episode when Bruno visits his half-brother Michel Djerzinski and the two of them discuss Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" at length. Then Michel goes on to detail Huxley's "large family of English biologists, his brother Julian's "What Dare I Think," (1931) and Aldous Huxley's final book "Island" (1962) (In which "The civilisation is technologically advanced but still at one with nature."!) but concludes that Julian's attempt to "set out the principles of a religion which could dovetail with science," was not terribly convincing:
"In fact, any attempt at fusing science and religion is doomed because of the understanding of morality, so cruelty and egotism have free reign. Its small comfort, but the same goes for love."

Posted by Nick @ 15:00 GMT

|