What's in Any Old Iron

I recently finished reading Any Old Iron by Anthony Burgess. One of my favourite novels from my favourite writer. I first read it some 25 years ago or so. I had not forgotten how great it was, but I had forgotten a lot about it. It has many great lines, but one near the end struck me in particular. Here, the main character Reginald Morrow Jones sums up his experience with rediscovering in the middle of the XXth century legendary sword Excalibur: "I had to grasp a chunk of the romantic past and find it rusty. I had to fit myself to the modern age." This is, in essence, what nostalgia is all about. So I found it both moving and profound.

My people in Any Old Iron

 I have been rereading Any Old Iron, epic novel by my favourite writer Anthony Burgess. Today is also Saint Jean-Baptiste Day, which is Quebecker's National Day, or Fête nationale. So anyway, happy coincidence, this is what I read in the novel a few days ago: "The pub was crowded with Free French and Québecois and a  few Yanks as well as scrimshanking civilians (...)". So yes, I thought it was kinda cool. I know Anthony Burgess had affection and genuine respect for my people, which I might blog about one day. I will however comment on two slight mistakes Burgess made in this line: 1)Québécois has an accent on the second e, 2)it was not a very used term back in the 1930s/1940s where the scene takes place, thus the narrator is being rather anachronistic. Actually, I'm not even sure the term existed back then. Be that as it may, it's just nice to have us being mentioned and it is fitting that I blog this (re)discovery today.

Any Old Iron

As this week will mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of Anthony Burgess, my favourite writer, I have decided to plug some of his work. Tonight, it is the epic novel Any Old Iron. The old iron of the title and its driving narrative and thematic force is nothing else than the sword Excalibur. If many of his epic works are Apocalyptic, this one is to a degree genetic: it is about the birth and rise as much as the fall of civilizations. You see a lot of them: Britain's dwindling empire, kick-started by the sinking of the Titanic, the end of Czarist Russia and the beginning of the Soviet Union, the turmoils of World War II and the (re)birth of Israel. As for Excalibur itself, it may only be, in the end, a piece of rusting metal. It is funny as a comedy, absurd like an existentialist novel, it is in so many ways a grand novel.

Des livres et des bibliothèques

Photo prise à la Fondation Anthony Burgess, il y a plus de deux ans. À part l'appui-livres, qui est pas mal plus impressionnant que la plupart de ceux que j'ai eus (un lion, c'est l'animal parfait pour orner les appui-livres), ça ressemble pas mal à ce que ma bibliothèque a l'air dans la maison familiale à Chicoutimi ou dans mon ancien appart à Montréal. Ca leur ressemble d'autant plus que j'avais (je les ai encore) des Anthony Burgess qui n'étaient pas dans la langue originale. Je regarde la bibliothèque bordélique que j'ai ici et j'ai franchement honte, avec ses rayons surchargés. Les meubles de l'appart sont fournis, alors la bibliothèque venait avec. Les locataires ici ne lisent peut-être pas assez. Bon, c'était bordélique dans mes bibliothèques avant, mais pas autant que ça et il y avait de la place. Assez de place pour des appui-livres, notamment. Je me suis déjà demandé avec nostalgie ce que mes bibliothèques étaient devenues. Je me le demande encore. Et en regardant ce que j'ai maintenant, il me prend des envies de me procurer une bibliothèque digne de ce nom. Avec des appui-livres qui ont de la classe.