Constellation of Genius: A Review

Kevin Jackson has written a generous and amazingly insightful account of a year that defined a movement, and sets the benchmark for how good academic writing could be

When reviewing books I generally read up on other sites for stylistic guidance. I'm fine with my own pretensions of critique; I occasionally struggle to convey them in approachable English (that might be self-evident of course). I knew after I'd read Constellation of Genius that I wanted to talk about the success Kevin Jackson had achieved in weaving a discourse in modernism through the tapestry of characters, plots, subplots, cultural events and such that the year 1922 presented to the world.

Imagine my displeasure upon discovering Will Self had more or less done the same. What room was there now? A man whose work is itself an ode to the movement that dominated the early 20th century, I guess it now falls to me to pick up the leaves that Self has shaken from the tree. You can find the review here, incidentally.

Razor sharp elucidations aside, Self's essay does (obviously) prove a great jumping-off point for anyone wishing to know more about an era that gave us Ezra Pound, TS Eliot, James Joyce (the unholy trinity of Jackson's diary) and Virginia Woolf as well as those living through it - Ernest Hemingway, Edith Wharton Scott Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker plus dozens more. Comprehension and accessibility are not, per se, terms you typically associate with the movement, particularly if your entry point was Ulysses, discussed by numerous writers and reviewers throughout CoG.

Yet the humility constantly evident in Jackson's writing demolishes preconceptions; his generous, anonymous style has obviously been well honed in the day job (as a journalist for the BBC amongst others for the last twenty years) and although the depth and subtlety of what conjecture there is point to a writer who has thoroughly researched his subject, at no point does he intrude superfluously.

The great unrecognised ego of the academic writer is something Gore Vidal mercilessly ribbed in his heyday (app. the last half century), and if only more subjects were plucked from the dust jacket preserve with such a light touch I feel subjects as inherently interesting as this one would bear out a great deal more inspection. Jackson does have form here - his playful engagement with heavyweights like Dante and Ruskin bear the watermarks of substance through style of a mass media lexicon rather than university texts, and it all points to a lovely ambitious scope. It's also got a really nice cover - classic monochrome colour scheme and all Jazz Age fonts. Random House deserve much credit for doing their bit.

Jackson also recognises the slightly voyeuristic element present in all works documenting the perambulations of really, really famous people and ladles great dollops of backstory on many of his major players, even providing a potted history to those characters in the outer reaches of his 'constellation'. Harry Kessler, the son of an a prosperous Hamburg banker who became a patron to such luminaries of modern art as Edvard Munch was my favourite, but Jackson seasons the pot with delicious tidbits on Raymond Radiguet, Constantin Brâncuși, the former disciples of Dada, and even Charlie Chaplin.

Of equal merit is Jackson's quiet characterisation of the major players - Woolf in particular is done no disservice by the author but mere diligence and preparation of her life over the 12 months dissected lifts her off the page and presents her as a person inhabiting a sphere of intellectualism inhabited by very few, yet her temperament for her position is portrayed as almost snobbish, particularly after she reads Ulysses - or attempts to.

Constellation is a superb example of the right blend of wisdom, research, objective fact and an eye for a story coming together to chronicle a group of incredible individuals in a very human manner. 'Insanely readable' is how Self puts it in his review. He's the writer - who am I to disagree?

Salman Rushdie: Last Action Hero

Am I the only person that wants to see a middle aged author have an argument with Chewbacca?

Just read Shortlist's interview with Sir Salman Rushdie and his possibly not extemporaneous relating of the 'furore' shall we say of that little book he published in 1989 (how can anything that well reported be something he needs to reach back into the recesses of his mind for?).

I have the usual mixture of pity and admiration for the man that no doubt most people do and it must be a trifle unsettling to see your own name running neck and neck in the interest stakes with what's still a pungent and immersive read.

But. It did give me an idea. As I sat freezing on the tram I started thinking of Rushdie as a character in his own narrative; the urgency and sharp practices of his unique situation were so alien they made a seamless transition in fictional territory.

So then I started imagining other writers as characters apart from their work, Rushdie almost coming across as a - dare I say - Bournesque figure (specifically I'm thinking Guardian journalist Paddy Considine in the third one) and I nearly missed my stop. But that was due to the tannoy being totally out of the loop (we stopped at Piccadilly three times in my journey apparently).

The below are simply caricatures; I thought it best to keep them simple but there is possibly a few curveballs in there depending on perspective. With each I have tried to tie them to an outpost in pop culture. I have gone purely for entertainment value; generally where they would be least comfortable, I have placed them. Avant:

Jonathan Franzen as Hooper (played by Richard Dreyfus) in Jaws

This would be a sparkling comedy with Franzen in there - Jaws is one of my all-time faves and there are so many tight scenes between the trio which would probably split my sides if Franzen was in there. Specifically I'm imagining him as a blend of the good doctor and himself - uppity, snappish, warm and empathetic. The cage scene could descend into Marx Brothers-levels of hilarity (I am generally imagining a sped-up scene of the shark chasing a furiously pedalling Franzen around his smashed cage set to trumpets) and the final release post-sharksplosion I would probably finish with a really waspish comment which Scheider just doesn't get before swimming off.

Italo Calvino as Rufus T. Firefly (played by Groucho Marx) in Duck Soup

Calvino always struck me as a guy who had a ball writing his classics. Less so with the headliner If On A Winter's Night... this nevertheless had its quietly farcical moments (the visit to the publishers of the mysterious text is a scream and the relaying of the villainous author seesaws between bright hilarity and black drama). Calvino is one of my faves so I wanted to give him something he could really chew on, and I think he wouldn't have looked out of place in the Marx Brother's classic brouhaha Duck Soup. Imagining the Italian in slapstick mode is easy and in his eager playful style he upends the heaviest of topics, an enduring strength of the best satire and comedy. I may have broken my own rules here but I'm pretty sure this would deliver in spades.

Stephen King as Jack Torrance (played by Jack Nicholson) in The Shining

Yeah OK so we all know Torrance really is King; the raging alcoholism, the desperation for familiarity in his environment that made both authors, real and written, reach out for increasingly weird behaviours as success (and the ever-present fear of failure) manifested. But having read almost all of King's 'good' stuff in my early teens and knowing what he thought of Kubrick's take on his superb tale, I would be generally interested to see King take that role himself. I thought the raving Jack Nicholson did an incendiary job, coming to pieces in a totally 'believable' way and his easy camaraderie with the racist bartender is a scene that regularly flies under the radar but is brilliantly creepy on repeat viewing. Playing devil's advocate, I would of course love to be a fly on the wall for the filming too. King vs Kubrick; and that's definitely the way it would have gone down.

Hunter S Thompson as Kurtz (played by Marlon Brando) in Apocalypse Now

A good friend of mine once described Thompson as the sort of liberal who wants absolutely nothing to do with the state; I think I'd take that one step further and say he wanted nothing to do with society, unless it was on his terms. Principles were, as far as I can tell, there to be tested to the limit. Preferably whilst on drugs.

The heady combination of imported dogma and foreign rule were prevalent in both Conrad and Thompson's day and both have clear disgust for it. There's an ironic tendency for those ideals to twist and warp due to the very fact of their inflexibility however and very occasionally come unmoored, leaving their proponent appearing detached or worse, insane. Thompson was never a man to shy away from debate and controversy and Kurtz, one of the great sociopaths of the 20th century, has floated from the shores of existence through a combination of intellectual loneliness and tyrannical abuse of power. Thompson's wide-eyed mix of fascination, wit and disgust in essaying these nutcases would, in my eyes make for a good role reversal.

 

Will Self as Captain Han Solo (played by Harrison Ford) in Star Wars Ep IV: A New Hope

My goodness. I'm not sure how this might pan out but I'm basically thinking of the almost narcoleptic Self of Shooting Stars fame when I think of this superimposing. Self as the space cowboy of flowing locks, stylish waistcoating and pilot of the Millennium Falcon would probably be a mess but a man whose work was recently described as 'dazlling' trying to crash his way headfirst through the appalling contrivances of Lucas's space soap opera could potentially be the funniest thing on film.

I regularly associate Self with director Christopher Guest for no other reason than both have been known to lampoon modern wants with impervious wit (they have to my knowledge never worked together) and I like imagining Self in Spinal Tap. But Self having to converse -without shedding a tear of despair - with Chewbacca, an aggressive intergalactic Furby, would truly make my day. With apologies to Mr Self.