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Thursday, April 08, 2004

The Book Club Blog literary fact of the day: Number One

Michel Houellebecq's real name is Michel Thomas. He took his grandmother's surname after his mother married a Muslim and converted to Islam.

Salman Rushdie stresses Peter's recent claims for the autonomy of the text:

"In our personality-cultist age, in which a writer's biography is firmly believed to hold the key to the meaning of his novels, in which the fictionality of fiction is routinely called into question and novels are thought of as real life in disguise, this detail of Houellebecq's life will prompt, has prompted, many a loud "ah-ha!"

But, and again but. Anyone who cares about literature should, when such ah-has are heard, at once defend the autonomy of the literary text, its right to be considered on its own terms, as if the author were as anonymous as, well, the authors of the sacred texts."



The Erotic Review Team, the ever elusive Lisa Hilton, and "The Story of O"

With this in mind, should we all now try to forget that Lisa Hilton is quite possibly Belle de Jour? Especially since a recent anonymous (i.e. no email or url) comment by "Martin" informs us that Ms. Hilton's associations with The Erotic Review (Contributers include Stephen Bayley, Anthony Bourdain, Victoria Coren, Alain de Botton, Antonia De Sancha, Michel Faber, AC Grayling, Philip Hensher, Lisa Hilton, Wendy Holden, Jenny Colgan, Harland Miller, India Knight, Ruth Padel and Sarah Waters) - initially suspected of being behind Belle! - have been expunged from google.

However, in spite of Martin's inability to find mentions of Lisa Hilton's contributions to the Erotic Review on Google, The Book Club discovered on a site about "The Story of O" (that classic of French erotica) that:

"In the February 2003 issue of the UK magazine The Erotic Review, a light hearted but entertaining article by "hot young author" Lisa Hilton detailing O's shopping habits in the novel Story of O accompanied Stefan's "The Owl Mask", one of a series of large oil paintings inspired by Story of O."

The people associated with the Belle de Jour phenomenon. The Book Club Blog, 12 March 2004.

How hard-core acquired a soft centre: In a week when nudity once again found its way into the news, Philip French asks whether pornography has now acquired a veneer of respectability (Observer, March 14, 2004)

"Eyebrows have been ironically raised by the announcement that Rowan Pelling, editor of the Erotic Review magazine, is to be a Booker Prize judge."

A rough trade
Belle's favourite author and one time "Barnet Boy" (Well, when he was visiting his dad on the odd weekend) Martin Amis memorably takes a gander at world of the pornography industry way back on 17 March, 2001.

Dating and mating for over-35s

Talk is cheap, but small talk is priceless
Victoria Coren's latest reflections on Peter Ustinov ("So Peter Ustinov was an actor! Who knew? I thought he was a professional raconteur"), the latest Martin Amis, being a crap conversationalist and surfing the net to bolster small talk, and that pron film she directed.

Posted by Nick @ 08:00 GMT

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