HAD A WONDERFUL PILGRIMAGE TO MEDJUGORJE...
The Medjugorje visionaries during an apparition in 1981
Marianne and I had an absolutely inspiring pilgrimage to Medjugorje.
I'm a little tired this morning so details will follow in due course.
GENE
(Continued)
So Detterling everyone is wrong? All those scientists who have examined the Medjugorje phenomenon? All those theologians who have studied it? All the millions of pilgrims who have visited Medjugorje? And you are right?
Your arrogance knows no bounds.
I hope you have received your copy of Granny Barkes. However, I have serious doubts about your capability of reviewing such a ground-breaking work. Something such as a new literary form like this needs an outstanding intellect to tackle it. A critic of the stamp of, say, F.R. Leavis.
GENE
Don’t bother, Gene. It will be the usual bogus piffle about visions and apparitions. People gaze soulfully into the middle distance with their hands clasped and then mouth cliches about world peace and please place your contributions in the box provided and yes the Holy Mother does take Mastercard…it’s a racket.
ReplyDeleteAnyway my copy of Granny Barkes is on the way according to Amazon. How did you manage to get the Rattlesnake Press to change the cover photograph so quickly once Detterling blew the whistle on your plagiarism of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica, Gene? Did the BVM fix it for you?
"But if I do, then I will compare this work with your earlier works, in particular your ineffably delicate vignette about your buggering my wife, and your claims that I caused the suicide of a TES poster as examples of your fearless truth-telling and searing honesty."
ReplyDeleteDespicable!
You are adopting this tactic as you are incapable of reviewing 'Granny Barkes Fell in Woolworth's'. The task is intellectually beyond you - and of course you know this.
BUT I WILL OFFER SOME ADVICE TO HELP YOU. BEFORE YOU PUT PEN TO PAPER ON YOUR PROPOSED REVIEW READ SAMUEL BECKETT'S 'ILL SEEN ILL SAID'.
GENE
Gene, you are taking an enormous risk in trying to bully me at this stage in that, should I choose too, I can expose you, your nastiness, your plagiarism, your narcissistic pretensions to literary prowess and your lies about your writing being comparable with that of Joyce. Waugh and Hemingway. As for your claim that “Granny Barkes fell in Woolworths” is a ground breaking and completely new literary form, we both know that such a claim is nonsensical. Your removal last night of the post in which I gave a detailed list of previous scissors and paste/verbal collage experimentalists, from Dada to Burroughs shows that you know this as well.
ReplyDeleteYour problem is this: twelve years of literacy piracy, extravagant boasting and nonsensical lies - praise from Clive James, Christopher Ricks, Richard Dawkins, profiles by Libby “Purvis”, claims to have published three novels - all of this Ivan now be exposed to the Amazon using public because you have published “Granny Barkes” - which makes “Gene - a voice in the wilderness” a legitimate target for critical commentary as your only significant literary output other than Granny Barkes. It would be irresponsible for any conscientious critic not to use that output, just as it would be critically dishonest to ignore your bigotry and virulent nastiness about homosexuality, your hatred of Anglican liberal theology, your boasting about your voyeurism and sexual groping of young colleagues. All of these are components of your creative personality just as surely as is your professed reverence for Beckett, Joyce et al.
It would be easy - and just - to dismiss “Granny Barkes” as six thousand words of a very bad imitation of Finnegans Wake (headlined perhaps “Finnegans Fake”?) spread out to thirty pages and bulked out by eighty pages of random photographs. On the other hand it would be equally just to offer a critique based on an assessment of your literary output on your blog, as outlined above.
I will need to reread Granny Barkes again very carefully before deciding which course to pursue. In the meantime you were best, Gene, to keep a civil tongue in your head and stop trying to throw your weight about.
Watch this space.
BREAKING NEWS...
ReplyDelete"Granny Barkes fell in Woolworths" has done really well in the Christmas market, according to today's Amazon Best Sellers
list: it has sold 236,688 copies in 23 days - 10,000 per day!
Oh, hang on, wait: oops! sorry!
Its sales place it 236, 688th place in the Best Sellers list - just above Sebastian D'Orsai's genre-busting epic Rhyme Royal poem "Five ways to wipe up spilt paraffin", and vying for 236, 687th place with Mary Winterbourne's biographical roman a clef "Groping in the dark - if Gene's stock-cupboard walls could talk..."
Inexplicably, though it is ranked at 1,779 in the Genetic Engineering Science Fiction section. What the actual fuck?
"However, I have serious doubts about your capability of reviewing such a ground-breaking work. Something such as a new literary form like this needs an outstanding intellect to tackle it. A critic of the stamp of, say, F.R. Leavis. you are incapable of reviewing 'Granny Barkes Fell in Woolworth's'. The task is intellectually beyond you - and of course you know this."
ReplyDeleteYou pompous, condescending, demented arsehole.
Read Clive James on that appalling shit F R Leavis and think again. Leavis would have wiped his arse on "Granny Barkes fell in Woolworths".
No, Leavis would not be my first choice. But he had the intellectual equipment for the task. My choice to review this ground-breaking work, Granny Barkes, would be Prof Christopher Ricks.
ReplyDeleteGENE
"My choice to review this ground-breaking work, Granny Barkes, would be Prof Christopher Ricks."
DeleteWhom you have chosen because, although he is still alive at the age of 90, he would not waste his time on trivia like these.
And the notion that Granny Barkes is "ground breaking" is delusional bollocks. It belongs to the long and dismal tradition of experimental writing pioneered over a hundred years ago by Tristan Tzara, Frans Arp, Hugo Ball, Emmy Hennings, Richard Huelsenbeck and Marcel Janko.
"Granny Barkes fell in Woolworths" is derivative claptrap, a 6,000 word gallimaufry, the pickings of a literary waste-paper basket, bulked out to 114 pages with a random selection of out of copyright photographs.
Go on then, Gene - tell us what it means.
"Go on then, Gene - tell us what it means."
ReplyDeleteWould you ask that of James Joyce?
Would you ask that of Samuel Beckett?
Gene
No.
DeleteBut I am asking you.
And you can’t tell me
What does “Granny Barkes fell in Woolworths” mean?
I totally agree Gene. Detterling with his plodding and pedantry is not the man to review a trail-blazing, pioneering literary work like 'Granny Barkes Fell In Woolworth's'.
ReplyDeleteMary Winterbourne
Oh God, Gene, it’s when you come out with demented stuff like this that I fear for your sanity.
ReplyDeleteAll the same, all of this is grist to my review. I have you now claiming parity of prestige with James Joyce and Samuel Beckett, and also worthy of the critical acumen of F R Leavis, Christopher Ricks, Bernard Levin and Clive James.
DeleteClaims rather torpedoed by the fact that as of today, the sales ranking of Granny Barkes fell in Woolworths has fallen to number 302,317, a drop of 65, 630 places since Thursday. Apparently the only book below it is "A Taxonomy of Whaleshit" which, as we all know, belongs at the bottom of the ocean.
Face it, Gene, your book is a total failure - eleven years in the making, seven of them whilst you have been a full time professional writer, and it has bombed, as it deserves to. I could not be more pleased.
Anyway, Gene, I have submitted the first portion of my review of Granny Barkes fell in Woolworth's to Amazon, but I felt it only fair to let you down lightly by publishing it here first.
ReplyDeleteAs you will see, I intend to accord the book the lengthy and detailed treatment it deserves, so this preamble is by way of providing some introductory material and background.
GB.
FINNEGANS FAKE – “GRANNY BARKES FELL IN WOOLWORTHS” – NONSENSE ON STILTS
Mr Gene Vincent, an author new to this reviewer, comes glowingly recommended – not least by himself. The cover of “Granny Barkes fell in Woolworths” says that Mr Vincent’s writing has “drawn comparison with James Joyce, Evelyn Waugh and Ernest Hemingway”. This impressive claim is somewhat vitiated however by its provenance. A reader of Mr Vincent’s blog [Gene – a voice in the wilderness] challenged him to produce evidence that such comparisons had been drawn, to which Mr Vincent made the following reply: “I also distributed various works in progress among my friends. From those who read my work came comparisons with the writing of James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway and Evelyn Waugh.” Mr Vincent’s friends are, perhaps, more to be commended for their tact and kindness than their critical acumen? On the other hand, if Mr Vincent’s writings have drawn comparison with Joyce, Waugh and Hemingway, who is to say, lacking any evidence, that such comparison was favourable? After all, my viola professor at university once compared my playing to that of the incomparable Lionel Tertis: “Bandall”, he said, “your playing, compared to Lionel Tertis’s, stinks”.
More of a puzzle, however, is which writings of Mr Vincent’s have been thus referenced. He claims to have published two novels – “The Man who heard Jenny Lind sing” and “Heartbreak at Hillingdon High”, as well as a devotional, “The Psalms”. None of these works appear in any catalogues, nor are they listed at The British Library. On this showing, it seems as if Mr Vincent’s claims to previous publication are false. One wonders at the mental capacity of a man telling lies of such blatancy as to be disproved by ten minutes' internet research. However.
This has not prevented him from making strikingly ambitious claims for the present work. “Granny Barkes fell in Woolworths” is, says Mr Vincent, a ground-breaking, trail-blazing novel, a work of art in an entirely new format. He bemoans the fact that critics such as F R Leavis, Clive James, Bernard Levin are no longer alive to review his work – for only they, it seems, would have possessed the critical acumen and insight necessary to appreciate his work. His critic of choice to evaluate “Granny Barkes fell in Woolworths” is in fact the doyen of modern literary critics, Professor Christopher Ricks – again, only Professor Ricks’s towering intellect could match Mr Vincent’s. For this reason it is surprising that Mr Vincent has not sent a copy to Professor Ricks who, although now in his tenth decade, still lives and flourishes in Boston, Mass.
All of which meant that, when I opened the Amazon package containing my copy of “Granny Barkes fell in Woolworths”, it was with a lively anticipation of a literary feast, an experience to match that of Keats with Chapman’s Homer, of being dazzled by the white-heat of a towering genius newly ablaze in the literary firmament – “Then felt I like some watcher of the skies/When a new planet swims into his ken;”.
And then I opened the book.
[to be continued]
©Gary Bandall
"Anyway, Gene, I have submitted the first portion of my review of Granny Barkes fell in Woolworth's to Amazon"
ReplyDeleteA word of warning Detterling. If Amazon publishes your review your real name will be published. Just so you know.
And if you are going to review my book stick to the truth. I have never claimed to have published any other book. Excerpts from 'Contemplating the Psalms with Gene Vincent' etc. were published on the TES website.
'...an experience to match that of Keats with Chapman’s Homer'
Funny you should mention that. I have thought exactly so. For many their GBFIW experience will be like Keats and 'On First Looking into Chapman's Homer'.
GENE
"If Amazon publishes your review your real name will be published. Just so you know."
ReplyDeleteDo you think I am as stupid as you, Gene? I post Amazon reviews anonymously and have done for some years, following an incident when I posted an unfavourable review of a book and and received threats and abuse as a result. So I take a leaf out of your book and use a pseudonym. [And just for once, look in the mirror and spare us the bottle-job crap].
And yes, you HAVE claimed to have published - it is on record on various excerpts from your blog, including that dreadful business "Close up on a phenomenon" when "Marianne" discussed how dark became "Heartbreak at Hillingdon High" with Libby "Purvis", and Ms "Purvis" herself discoursed on the ineffable delicacy of "The Man who heard Jenny Lind sing" and the delicate tapestries woven by your writing. So stop wriggling.
And whereas of course publishing on the TES website counts for nothing, I will emend my review accordingly - "Gene's devotional on The Psalms was published on the free resources section of the TES Website many years ago, though of course this was not commercial publication, although that was an impression his blog gave." Something on those lines anyway.
I am going to extract the maximum humiliation for you from this Gene, in revenge for the lies and filth you have visited on me for so long. The second part of my review will consist of an analysis of your orthography as exemplified by the vignette you wrote about my wife, spanking, and a little light buggery - although to be fair I will allow that when you fucked Delia it may have been per tergo rather than per anum.
Brace yourself for a public going over, Gene.
PS the second part of my review will not appear until next week. I have family stuff going on for the next forty eight hours, and I need to hone, polish and prune my review so that every word raises a blister on your skin like fuming nitric acid.
DeleteVindictive? you bet. What goes round comes round, bastard.
Delete"I post Amazon reviews anonymously and have done for some years, following an incident when I posted an unfavourable review of a book and and received threats and abuse as a result."
ReplyDeleteI am pretty certain that Amazon do not allow anonymous reviews - at least Amazon should not do so.
GENE
As so often, Gene you know fuck all of what you speak. It’s going to be fun!
DeleteIf Amazon allow anonymous reviews it is a total disgrace. A bottlejob's charter.
ReplyDeleteGENE
"If Amazon allow anonymous reviews it is a total disgrace. A bottlejob's charter."
DeleteAh, stop bleating and whingeing, you pitiful little sod.
Coming from an utter bastard who posts anonymous filth about buggering other men's wives, and who shits himself and bleats about free speech when he thinks that he might be called out for it, this is RICH.
I have been waiting for years to put the boot in to your balls, Gene, and finally your Achilles heel - your overweening, narcissistic vanity - has put you in my sights. "Granny Barkes fell in Woolworths" is incoherent, pretentious, meaningless shite, but I never for a moment expected that you would have the gall to publish it via KDP and thus place yourself in the public domain to be nailed for it.
That you have, and that you have made such preposterously extravagant claims about it - "ground-breaking, trail-blazing, a new literary format" is the opportunity I have hoped for but never for a moment thought that you would be stupid enough to provide.
Long ago, I once said to you that you would rue the day that you had made an enemy of me.
And now that day has dawned.
WHOOPEE!!!
"WHOOPEE!!!"
ReplyDeleteMy God! This is a man almost eighty years old - and maybe eighty already - whooping like a thirteen year-old schoolgirl at the prospect of carrying out some act of malice.
Detterling you are full of hatred and jealousy.
Remember this: 'Granny Barkes Fell in Woolworth's' is destined for great success and huge acclaim. Nothing you can write will hinder that in any way.
GENE
"Detterling you are full of hatred and jealousy."
ReplyDeleteBalls. I am pleased to have the chance to inflict on you the pain that you have inflicted on me over many many years, as I honestly that it is the only way to make you realise how dreadfully you have abused your privilege of free speech.
"Remember this: 'Granny Barkes Fell in Woolworth's' is destined for great success and huge acclaim. Nothing you can write will hinder that in any way."
Balls again.
Today, "Granny Barkes fell in Woolworths" is showing in the best sellers at number 369,203, a further fall of 63, 986 in the rankings since yesterday, and a fall of 132, 675 since Saturday.
It has BOMBED, Gene: it is an utter failure - and it deserves to be. It is a slipshod mess of words, a midden of mediocrity, Finnegans Wake fifty times watered.
It is attracting no attention whatsoever nor does it deserve to: it's crap.