the web The Book Club Blog

Monday, January 24, 2005

And the winner is...

Winners of the First Annual Best of Blog (BoB) Awards!

Posted by Nick @ 22:00 GMT

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Norwegian Wood follow up

In light of our discussion at the last meeting, regarding the pros and cons of translating Murakami into English, I thought this article from the weekend might shed some more light.

Close my eyes, Jay Rubin on the difficulties of translating particularly unpleasant passages. Saturday January 22, 2005, The Guardian

TRANSLATING MURAKAMI: an email roundtable - More background on Alfred Birnbaum & Jay Rubin as translators of Murakami's work.
Jay Rubin: "Then, in 1989, I read Haruki Murakami. I had only been vaguely aware of his existence--as some kind of pop writer, mounds of whose stuff were to be seen filling up the front counters in the bookstores, but I hadn't deigned to read what was sure to be silly fluff about teenagers getting drunk and hopping into bed. Some months before A WILD SHEEPCHASE came out in English, an American publisher asked me to read a Murakami novel to see if it was worth translating; they had been evaluating a translation but wanted an opinion on the original. The book turned out to be what was later translated as HARDBOILED WONDERLAND AND THE END OF THE WORLD, and it absolutely blew me away--so much so that I have hardly worked on anything besides Murakami for the past decade."

- Update: Bookslut has just pointed to Knopf's new Haruki Murakami website. As she says "there's commentary by Chip Kidd on Murakami's cover art, excerpts from his books, an interview with Philip Gabriel about his work translating the newest book Kafka on the Shore, and a hell of a lot more." Be warned though - the background music may start your head swirling.

Posted by Nick @ 09:00 GMT

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Tuesday, January 18, 2005

Hey Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland is the Book Club's selected read for the coming month

Posted by Nick @ 14:55 GMT

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Sunday, January 16, 2005

The Sunday Papers Review "The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl" by Belle de Jour

"There are times when you are forced to remind yourself that the author is a prostitute rather than the strait laced leader of a local reading group."

- Craig Brown, The Mail on Sunday, Today

Belle de Jour receives a disparaging mauling from Stephanie Merritt in today's Observer.

Erotic? You're having a laugh, Stephanie Merritt, The Observer, Sunday January 16, 2005.
Stephanie Merritt is Deputy Literary Editor of the Observer and the author of Gaveston (2002) "a journey into the dark heart of obsession and sexual politics - Faber & Faber" and the forthcoming Real (Feb 3, 2005) "the tale of a love affair between a struggling playwright and a fading, older actor - The Independent"

". . . here is a book which proves that, for anyone who believes that some things simply are qualitatively better than others, it really is time to go and live in France, or any other country where publishers take pride in what they produce, rather than lifting badly-executed soft porn off the internet and cynically slapping it between hard covers. . . this book is nothing more than a collection of unsophisticated fantasies played out in language that is a curious hybrid of internet chat rooms and the Mills and Boon Black Lace imprint. . . It's not the content, however, but the style, or lack of it, that offends. . . It's easy to see how this found a large audience online; less easy to see who would pay 13 quid for the hardback edition when you could rent several porn videos for the price and get better dialogue."

Hard on the heels of Rachel Cooke's similarly uninspired review in the new statesman, Jan 15, 2005.

"Sorry to be pompous so early in the new year, but this book illustrates pretty much everything that is wrong with modern publishing. . . Why, I wonder, has no one stopped to consider that what catches fire on the internet will not necessarily combust between two hard covers and a pretty dust jacket? . . . Belle is sparky; she has a voice. Yet her ramblings, for all their occasional sauciness, read like little more than the idle jottings of a girl whose mornings are free. Quotidian is the word that comes to mind. Not only is her narrative repetitious, it lacks any kind of climax, which is rather ironic in the circumstances. Add to this unenticing brew one's inevitable suspicions about the enterprise, and what you are left with is a rather apt feeling of grubbiness; I'm afraid you read this book for one reason, and one reason alone. . . What Belle does best is reveal the scant, prosaic motivations of men who pay for sex; and it is this lack of embellishment that finally convinces you of the authenticity of her strangely banal document. . . Take away the whips and paddles, the lubricants and glass marbles, and what you are left with is an account book. Funny that a publisher wrote her a fat cheque, I presume, without noticing this."

Meanwhile, writing in The Sunday Times, India Knight returns to the questionable authenticity of Belle's claim to be real and suspects that men will believe in Belle and the world she portrays and enjoy the book, but that women will not because they are likely to see through it for the male fantasy she believes it to be.

Autobiography: Belle de Jour, India Knight, The Sunday Times, Jan 16, 2005.

"I’d have thought the point of going to a prostitute was for her to be really fantastic at really outré sex, not for her to sweetly share her thoughts on The Sea, The Sea, but there you go. . . There is a question mark over whether Belle exists at all, and after reading this book . . . I must say I have my doubts: she sounds (and reads) like a by-numbers male construct, or a deliberate female take on the same. . . Consider: very unusually indeed (uniquely, one might say, for someone in her line of work), Belle doesn’t seem overly preoccupied with money. . . Also, Belle discovers early on that she makes a good dominatrix. But then she decides to do the normal jobs, too. This is extremely odd. . . To muddy the waters still further, Belle’s own fantasies, as opposed to the fantasies she is paid to enact, involve being on the receiving end of a quite unusual degree of brutality. . . I was disturbed, in the course of this book, to come across more peddling of the notion that women long to be brutalised. . . But I didn’t like this book, with its spoiled-girl braggadocio . . . There is something about Belle’s relentless me-me-me tone throughout that reminds me of how every woman who gives birth imagines herself to be the first person to experience motherhood, and thus imagines herself to be rather more fascinating than she actually is. . . There is an interesting first-hand book to be written about prostitution. Sadly, this ain’t it. And the sex is unsexy. That’s if you believe a word of it, of course — and I expect believers and nons will divide along gender lines. Male readers might reflect that all that is missing from the book is a story about a punter so talented, so magnificent, that our awed, grateful protagonist waives her fee. Female readers might just roll their eyes. "

However, The Mail on Sunday selects Belle's Intimate Adeventures as its book of the week and chooses to have it reviewed by a man - Craig Brown. Brown does not disappoint India Knight, awarding Belle 4 out of 5 stars, although he justifies this more on the basis of her book's literary merit than its pornographic appeal. Moreover, he draws attention to the behind-the-scenes mystery that surrounds Belle de Jour by focussing upon the novelty of this book being published in the company of more typical Weidenfeld & Nicolson stablemates. One wonders what he might be suggesting. Paul Johnson, Belle de Jour certainly is not. Yet could Craig Brown be hinting that he knows a little more than he's letting on?

Book of the week: Belle de Jour - A Tart with the Heart of a Writer, Craig Brown, The Mail on Sunday, Jan 16, 2005. (No link available yet for this review)

"The firm of Weidenfeld & Nicolson used to be best known for publishing the memoirs of superannuated statesmen and dowager duchesses. That it should now be publishing the memoirs of a prostitute is surely a matter for rejoicing. . . it is highly unusual for a prostitute to become an author. More often than not, it's the other way round. . . There has been some conjecture in the Press that BdJ is not really a call girl at all and that her diary is, in fact, a work of fiction by a jobbing writer such as A. S. Byatt or Lady Antonia Fraser. Well, I may be wrong, but to me it reads like the real thing, largely because it is, for the most part, so deeply unsexy. An amateur would have aped the essential fantasy of pornography, but Belle's sexual descriptions, though frequent, are closer to forensic biology, or to an overcompetitive game of Twister, than to anything pornographic. . . Any job described accurately by an insider is interesting, and she proves that prostitution is no exception. . . it is the peripheral details that make this account so readable. . . (In comparison to The Sexual Life of Catherine M.) the more downmarket BdJ is the better writer, simply because she has an eye for detail. . . Like . . . Cynthia Payne, BdJ has discovered that most of her clients yearn for something quite separate from sexual gratification: they simply want human contact, or what call girls call GFE (Girlfriend Experience) . . . There are times when you are forced to remind yourself that the author is a prostitute rather than the strait laced leader of a local reading group. I suspect that at the back of her mind lurks the hope that prostitution might prove a handy step on the career ladder to being a columnist . . . Belle's diaries certainly show that she can write . . . She also has an ear for dialogue, which should serve her well if she wants to take a crack at a novel. But perhaps I am sounding too like one of those men who says: 'What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this . . ?' To be published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson is not something to be sniffed at, and, unlike so many others, she hasn't had to marry a duke to achieve it."

Does anyone know whether anyone who knows the author is going to review BdJ's book?

Whilst we're on the subject of being published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, without having had to marry a duke to achieve it, it is perhaps worth noting that The Observer's expert on all cultural matters sexual - Lisa Hilton - has her other book "Mistress Peachum's Pleasure," also to be published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, due out on March 10, 2005.

For those who don't know, it's a biography of eighteenth-century actress Lavinia Fenton, who originally played Polly Peachum in The Beggar's Opera and married the Duke of Bolton after being his mistress for 20 years.

For an insight into Lisa Hilton's world, if you've still to read Belle's blog, then I can't think of a better place to start than here: "I'd rather be a mistress" By Lisa Hilton, Evening Standard, 8 January, 2003.

"My husband needed someone who was gentle and restful - not someone who complained about being unfulfilled, laughed at his work and made him feel small because he hadn't read much. . . There was nothing particularly wrong with either of my husbands, but sometimes it felt like everything about marriage - and especially the sex - was just another domestic chore. Pay gas bill, buy pak choi, shag husband, take cat to vet. . . With two doomed marriages behind me, I vowed never to do it again - a fairly radical departure from my traditional family background. My younger sister and I had an idyllic childhood in Cheshire, while my father worked as a lecturer and my mother as a teacher. . . Since I was broke, I started writing a book about Louis XIV's mistress, and was lucky enough to find an agent. I rented a flat in Marble Arch and moved on - determined not to let history repeat itself. . . . While morals have always been the preserve of the wife, it's the bad girls who get the glamour. After all, Nell Gwyn, Helen of Troy and Christine Keeler are still household names, but who can remember the wives they supplanted? Mistresses have changed the face of nations and brought down governments - often while wearing some really good outfits. Adultery and luxury go hand in backless Damaris knickers, and I enjoy the indulgent consumerism of being a mistress tremendously. Proper relationships are for joint excursions to Sainsbury's; adultery is for licking crëme de marrons off your lover in a hotel suite when he's meant to be at a conference in Basingstoke. . . Avoiding emotional intimacy can be very relaxing, and it's something women find difficult to do. I didn't care if he loved me, or found my opinions interesting - I just wanted someone to have fun with. Although being a mistress enabled me to exaggerate my femininity - I had the time to make sure I was always perfectly groomed - it also allowed me to glimpse what it is like to be a man, and it was an education. . . Being a mistress is a quiet and neglected art, and deserves a champion."

- Read what Evening Standard Readers made of Lisa's article. What was that Toby Young was saying about losing friends and alienating people?

It appears that Literary Saloon the literaryweblog at the complete review has decided they're going to pass on Belle's book just in case its worse than what they describe as "the execrable international mega-hit, 100 Strokes of the Brush Before Bed." Following up on this decision the Literary Saloon declare Belle's Intimate Confessions to be a book: "which we can barely believe anyone published -- save for the fact that they possibly might make some money off of it. But the reviews are so savage that even that possibility seems less and less likely." Referring to The Ham & High's opinion that: "it eventually makes for tiresome reading. Billed as a "twenty-first-century Moll Flanders", she is little more than a cut-price, pornographic Bridget Jones." The Literary Saloon suggests that Belle's publishers "could use that as a blurb on the book; there are probably a fair number of readers that would convince to purchase the book." However, they do go on to say "(We do hope this is the last time we mention this book, but it is hard to resist this stuff.)" So perhaps it will get a complete review afterall.

Posted by Nick @ 08:31 GMT

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Friday, January 14, 2005

Ham & High: Hampstead & Highgate Express review of Belle

". . . something about Belle smacks of disingenuousness. Perhaps it's just insecurity, but she seems too insistent about her cleverness: concluding the tale of one steamy liaison she says, "We discussed Iris Murdoch, and I left". And she is often unconvincing when she pretends to shock: "I swear if someone ever got hold of transcripts of my phone calls, they'd probably think I was a - oh wait, I am".More significantly, this is irritating. The debate about Belle's authenticity has already set the papers raging, but what should be considered above all is whether we should care. Belle de Jour is sometimes engaging and it provides a bright insight into a peculiar mindset. It is interesting to learn how she juggles her job with a boyfriend (adeptly), how she feels during transactions (she never reaches orgasm with clients), whom she reveals her secret to and whom she doesn't ("Still beating the streets?" asks her dad). But, as is inevitable with blogs which follow real lives, there is little development and the narrative sinks into self-indulgence. As she searches for love amidst the shagging, Belle seems little different from the rest of us. This might be the point, but it eventually makes for tiresome reading. Billed as a "twenty-first-century Moll Flanders", she is little more than a cut-price, pornographic Bridget Jones."
more>

Posted by Nick @ 13:07 GMT

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Belle mentions in recent blogging articles

New kids on the blog, The Scotsman, Jan 14, 2005
"North London prostitute Belle de Jour used hers to create a media frenzy and secure a publishing deal."

Grassroots journalism in US has much to teach UK, dot journalism, Jan 14, 2005
"Belle de Jour attracted a great deal of interest for her blog about life as a London prostitute, although many people speculated whether the elusive author might be a fictional writer rather than a journalist. Belle was eventually offered a book deal on the strength of her blog."

Posted by Nick @ 13:06 GMT

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Sunday, January 09, 2005

Original Belle suspect Toby Young wonders if he's the only one tiring of the Belle de Jour saga

Belle de Bore, The Mail on Sunday, Jan 9.

Posted by Nick @ 09:15 GMT

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Saturday, January 08, 2005

Tired Times

The Times has apparently grown bored of the Belle de Jour masquerade, less than a year after unsuccessfully despatching a crack team of investigative hacks to reveal her identity.

The Times, Books, Inter alia, January 8, 2005

The invite for Belle de Jour’s book launch is a Venetian ball-style mask with cut-out eyes emblazoned with the question, “Who is Belle de Jour?” Yawn, not that old espadrille. Belle, supposedly a former call girl you may recall, made her name with an explicit online blog. The publishers have apparently invited all those accused of being Belle — Rowan Pelling, Toby Young, Sarah Champion — to the launch on January 20. Will the lady herself be there? “She wants to remain anoynymous. But she may well turn up,” says a Weidenfeld bod. Double yawn. Good for sales, though. But what about the blog? Back in September Belle wrote: “I’m afraid . . . the time has come for me to go.” No doubt because now her blog’s become a book she’s not about to shoot her wad, so to speak, online. This week she’s back, whingeing that she “will probably be forced to purchase a copy of my own book when it is out”, to protect her (zzzzzz) identity.

Internet 'call-girl author' unmasked, By Sam Coates. Investigation by The Times has identified woman who has set literary tongues wagging, The Times, March 18, 2004.

I was branded a call-girl blogger. Media speculation about the identity of the author behind an internet diary of a London prostitute fell upon one woman last week when she was 'unmasked' in the Times. Here writer Sarah Champion gives an exclusive account of how it feels to be mistaken for the notorious 'Belle de Jour.' The Observer, Sunday March 21, 2004.

Mourning glory, The Observer, Letters. March 28, 2004
I deny concluding for the Times that Sarah Champion is 'Belle de Jour' (News, last week). I was able, very quickly, to come up with what the FBI calls 'a person of interest'.
My brief role in the Times investigation was abruptly halted when the reporter, Mr Coates, called me to say that the search was over. On Saturday, following Ms Champion's entirely credible denial [as she wrote in The Observer last week], the Times reported that 'Don Foster, the literary sleuth who identified Joe Klein as the author of Primary Colors, took only 20 minutes to establish to his own satisfaction that 'Belle de Jour [...] is really Sarah Champion, a 33-year-old author from Manchester.'
Never have I said, either on or off the record, that Belle's identity has been established by anything I ever said or contributed. I made perfectly clear, in a series of telephone conversations and email exchanges with the Times, of which I have a complete record, that Champion is a person of interest. Contrary to what the Times has reported, I do not believe that the search for Belle is over. Donald Foster, Poughkeepsie, NY United States

Posted by Nick @ 20:05 GMT

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Friday, January 07, 2005

First sighting of Belle de Jour in public

And here's the picture to prove it. via LinkMachineGo

Posted by Nick @ 17:24 GMT

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Anyone got a question for Belle de Jour?

Jane Perrone at The Guardian's Newsblog is making it possible for anyone with any interest in the matter to ask Belle a question.

Posted by Nick @ 14:50 GMT

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Belle de Jour's book finally goes on sale today

The Scotsman considers Belle's writing in the context of the what it considers "a 21st-century phenomenon: the autobiographical view of female sexuality."

"There is a massive interest now in life-writing. Everyone feels they have a story to tell, it is the extension of an age of democracy. Fifty years ago, we wouldn’t have presumed anyone would be interested, but now we think we’re worth it.
So these works are now not works of the imagination, they are confessional. As the true story of the experienced person, they become even more intriguing precisely because we don’t know who they are.
From the author’s point of view, it makes sense that what can be said explicitly in your own name is quite different from what can be constructed anonymously."
Read more.

Posted by Nick @ 09:12 GMT

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Wednesday, January 05, 2005

Belle de Jour update

Belle's publishers have added an author Q & A to their site.

Some selected snippets:
Who’s your favourite author?
I don't have a single favourite, but currently think Lisa Alther is amazing. I'll always pick up new books by Martin Amis and Margaret Atwood. Art Spiegelman is undoubtedly a genius.
What’s the first book you remember reading?
Le Petit Prince.
Name your favourite literary hero and villain.
Hero – Julien Sorel in Le Rouge et le Noir. Villain – Clare Quilty in Lolita.
How did you write your work of non-fiction?
By stringing words together into sentences, until the golden goal of 80,000 words was achieved.

The Guardian Newsblog team are attending the book launch party in the hope of bumping into you know who - but how will they recognise her if they do?

Posted by Nick @ 09:00 GMT

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Tuesday, January 04, 2005

Wig de Jour

Belle de Jour, once again addicted to blogging it appears, is now off shopping for a wig.

Yet, if none of us know who she is anyway, then why on earth does she need a wig?

Have all the earlier misgivings regarding Belle's identity now disappeared into the ether?

And why has Belle provoked so much sniping from other bloggers?

Posted by Nick @ 15:30 GMT

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Would Dr Johnson have omitted Belle de Jour

Dr Johnson's Dictionary is 250 years old in 2005. Johnson is said to have mocked two women who praised him for leaving vulgar, coarse and obscene words out of the book - as he explained, they "must have been looking for them". Present-day readers will not have to look hard to find the rude bits in Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl, the confessions of an anonymous prostitute known as Belle de Jour, published later this month.
From The Telegraph

Posted by Nick @ 08:45 GMT

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Saturday, January 01, 2005

Belle Blogs Back

Our favourite diarist has broken her three and a half month silence to update the world on her world. She hasn't been invited to her own book release party and is resigned to having to buy her own copy when Belle De Jour: Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl hits the shops on 13 January.

Doesn't sound like she'll be talking about it on Richard and Judy's show or even Oprah's - especially with the US publication having been pushed back towards the end of 2005, by which time she sounds as if she thinks she'll have been upstaged by Wasingtonienne's copycat efforts. She vows this utterance is a one off, but surely she won't miss the immense marketing opportunity provided by her blog for shifting units when the big day comes.

Belle omits Australia from her survey of overseas opportunities yet The Age down there in Melbourne is already looking forward to the publication of her book and doubting whether Belle's anonymity will last. Anticipating forthcoming books in 2005 Michelle Griffin writes:

"There are three memoirs coming out in 2005 by tertiary educated women who have worked as prostitutes, which raises the bar on the question "what's a girl got to do these days to get published?" First up is The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, February), written by pseudonymous blogger Belle du Jour - but don't count on her staying anonymous for much longer. In April, Black Inc publishes Callgirl: Confession of a Double Life by Yale divinity student Jeannette Angell. And in September, Text publishes the sex-industry memoir of Melbourne University classics graduate Kate Holden."

Posted by Nick @ 21:00 GMT

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