I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: TINDERSTICKS-can our love… (2001).

After Simple Pleasure, Tindersticks continued in this looser, less chamber-pop vein.  This disc features more organ fueled songs.  And– in something of a departure–they made many of the songs quite long (two are over seven minutes, one is almost nine!).  You could almost say these are jams, but that would give the wrong impression.

The band still sounds like Tindersticks (there’s no mistaking that voice), but they feel looser, less intense.  Yet they’re still passionate.  In fact, “People Keep Coming Round” and “Can Our Love” are two of their best tracks.  “People” has this really long keyboard section that my wife said sounded like the Doors, and she’s quite right about that.  But it’s more than just a Doors-keyboard solo.  It’s a catchy yet haunting single.

It’s easy to be feel disappointed about the latter Tindertsicks discs because they don’t rival the crazed intensity of their earlier ones.  And yet, Tindersticks is now a different band, playing a different kind of music.  It’s still beautiful, still affecting, it’s just different.

“No Man of the World,” the second to last song is a slow, meandering, deceptively simple song.  It features spoken lyrics and gently sung backing vocals.  And on first listen it’s nothing special, but the more you listen, the more elements you notice: strings, horns, sadness.  It’s really quite moving.

The disc ends with “Chiletime” another deceptively simple song that begins with an organ drone and simple strings.  Staples whispers his way through the first few bars.  But then the track builds to a full band with gorgeous vocals.  Then it slows down as if coming to and end, but it builds once more, this time to a beautiful finish.  It’s a perfect ending to this disc.

[READ: November 3, 2009] “The Girt Pike”

De Bernières wrote Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (which I’ve neither read nor seen the film).  In fact, this is the first story by him that I’ve read, and I’m fascinated by his style.  I don’t know if his other works are like this but I’m rather intrigued by this one.

This is a fairly simply story of a boy going fishing.  (I don’t fish myself, and I don’t really care all that much about fishing, but I’ve gotten a great deal of pleasure out of fishing stories (Paul Quarrington’s Fishing with My Old Guy was a surprise treat)).

The story opens with an endearing style that I would consider almost fairy-tale-like.  (The second sentence does indeed open with “Once upon a time”).  But the words are not of fairy-tales, rather, they reflect a somewhat nostalgic past: when boys fished in ponds with sticks and then threw the sticks to their dogs who splashed in the ponds.  Such an idyllic set up is altered somewhat once the “action” starts with the sentence: “On the morning that concerns us, however….”

And here we learn the story of Robert.  Robert was bequeathed his grandfather’s beauty of a fishing pole (coveted by all the boys in town).  And he is using it to reel in some fish at a local pond when a woman approaches and asks what he’s fishing for.

Mrs Rendall is impressed by his skill and knowledge (which he is playing up for her benefit as she is quite striking).  And then she asks that he do the impossible:  Will Robert come to her house to catch and remove the giant pike which lurks in her pond and eats her adorable ducklings when they hatch.  Robert is thrilled at the idea of catching the fabled Girt Pike (as the boys call it, although he doesn’t know why it’s called that).  But he plays it cool and asks for a meal while he’s there: peanut butter (crunchy) sandwiches and tea.  Mrs Rendall agrees to his terms.

The remainder of the story shows Robert prepping for this challenge (the pike is about 3 feet long, but the biggest fish he has caught has been about 8 inches).  We see Robert experimenting with creating a new pole and spending his cash on all the trimmings he’ll need.  There’s wonderful insight into Robert’s character, as well as the attitudes of the few locals that he runs into.

This is an excerpt from a longer story.  I don’t know if sections were cut or if paragraphs that have been trimmed down.  But I was really impressed with the pacing of the story.  There wasn’t a lot of dawdling and dragging things out for suspense.  It was a fast-paced story full of excitement and a bit of intrigue.  I especially appreciated that the ending (which looks into Robert’s future) was introduced without a lot of fuss.

This is the first story I’ve read from Prospect.  If it’s any indication of the quality of writing, then Prospect turns out to be a good source of fiction.  (I’ll be reviewing Prospect magazine tomorrow.)

For ease of searching, I include: De Bernieres