The Far South Project Blog

David Enrique Spellman is the alter-ego of Des Barry, novelist, graphic novelist, nonfiction writer, and Butoh performer. Spellman authored the novel Far South for Serpent's Tail, and is the coordinator of the Far South Project. The Far South Collective, is a group of writers, dancers, photographers and film makers who feature in the short films at https://vimeo.com/farsouthproject. Des Barry is the author of Chivalry of Crime, A Bloody Good Friday, and Cressida's Bed published by Jonathan Cape. He writes Nonfiction at www.3ammagazine.com.

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#Butoh #bushfire #elements #fire #wind #temple #ritual #nature #trees

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TEMPLE LAMENT

Bereep-Bereep is the Indigenous name for Mount Cole. It translates as ‘wild’ in the language of the Beeripmo balug group of the Djab wurrung

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Far South Project

Des Barry is a novelist, graphic novelist, nonfiction writer, performance improvisor, Butoh performer, filmmaker and coordinator of the Far

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A year in Books 2024

January 1st last year I was on train from Sydney to Melbourne in a small three-person first class compartment – at $100 for seniors it was a lot less than an air ticket and far more comfortable. I was reading Merlin Sheldrake’s Entangled Life while being rocked by the tracks or watching the world go by. H and I were accompanied by a Burmese monk who hardly said a word. It was an eventful journey. Electrical storms knocked out the signal system for a while and later on we were delayed by tree branches that had fallen across the tracks. Slow travel. Very restful. With good food from the train’s galley. The New South Wales crew very efficient and business-like, while the new crew when we crossed into Victoria were flamboyant and wildly entertaining during the various delays.

            Back home, I read Alice Munro’s The Runaway. She’s an extraordinarily fine writer. I can’t remember the exact order of the books that followed but here’s an attempt. The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers Guild by Matthias Énard, I found a bit perplexing in some ways. Not as strong for me as his earlier books but clearly a great job of translation by Frank Wynne. Early in the year, I read Kokoro by Natsume Sōseki, translated by Meredith McKinney, an intense story of a student and his mentor and bound up in family intrigues. That’s suitably giving nothing away.

            I was delighted to get Unwords by Andrew Gallix, and it has stayed on the bedside table to dip into regularly for each short gem of literary/social criticism. Nicholas Rombes The Rachel Condition arrived from the United States, a book I’d been looking forward to for a long time to immerse myself in the parallel universe of an apocalyptic Detroit. It’s a punk noir novel of surveillance and shifting identities handled masterfully. A great book,

            Now in no particular order: The Man from London by Georges Simenon (trans. Howard Curtis) led me to rewatch the Béla Tarr movie adaptation. That prompted me to read The Children of Men by P.D. James after rewatching the film by Alfonso Cuaron. The James novel didn’t give me the same visceral reaction that I had from the film. Skeletons in the Closet by Jean-Patrick Manchette (trans. Alyson Waters) arrived from the US. What a great addition to the translations of Manchette’s work. One of the best of his books that I’ve read. In April, I reread DeLillo’s Zero K. I enjoyed it more this time around when I was reading without any expectations or preconceptions. I’m a great admirer of Pascal Qignard but I didn’t find The Unsaddled (trans. John Taylor) kept me as strongly engaged as others in his Last Kingdom series. I found Ten Italian Folktales by Italo Calvino on the street, which was fun to read. I had a John Le Carré mini-jag with Call for the Dead, his first Smiley novel, and Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy which is masterful; and led me into a comparison of the film and TV adaptations. The film with Gary Oldman and Colin Firth stands up better for me. After the Le Carré jag, I searched out a biography of Kim Philby called A Spy Among Friends by Ben Macintyre that points out the Monty-Pythonesque idiocy and blindness of the English ‘upper classes.’

Of other nonfiction: Werner Herzog: A guide for the perplexed. Conversations with Paul Cronin is another book I’ve been dipping into from time to time to enjoy a taste of Herzog’s craziness. Speaking of craziness, I picked up The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky (ed. Joan Acocella, trans. Kyril Fitzlyon). I reread Songs They Never Play on the Radio by James Young after listening to a Backlisted Podcast on the book. I found it a pretty nasty take on Nico that maybe redeems itself in the final pages. That led on to my reading You Are Beautiful and You Are Alone: The Biography of Nico by Jennifer Otter Bickerdike, which is more respectful of such a major 20th century artist. After seeing the composite Eno movie in three of its iterations I picked up his published diary, A Year with Swollen Appendices, for a fascinating look at his creative process. I began reading The Waste Land – biography of a poem by Matthew Hollis. The history of Eliot and Pound and their struggle with creation and publication is interesting. I did find accounts of the gossip and cattiness around the Bloomsbury set particularly irritating. Maybe some people wouldn’t.

Ai Weiwei’s graphic novel Zodiac is a nonlinear memoir of growing up in China and continuing to work there and in the West. I reread Logicomix by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou in preparation for reading Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico Philosophicus translated by Alexander Booth. Reading the graphic novel as preparation fro Wittgenstein is not as crazy as it sounds. Logicomix gives an outline of the development of Logical Postitivism in the early 20th century and a historical context for Wittgenstein’s masterwork. Jan Zwicky’s Introduction to Alex’s translation is a sharp focus on how to read it.

In the middle of the year, The Powers of Horror by Julia Kristeva (trans. Leon S. Rudiez) seemed to jump off the shelf at me for some reason and led to me comparing the translations of Céline’s Journey to the End of the Night, one by Ralph Mannheim and the other by John H.P. Marks. Both of them had their merits. So more Céline. I enjoyed the crazy carnivalesque of Guignol’s Band (trans. Bernard Frechtman and Jack Nile). War – translated by Charlotte Mandel – is such a powerful evocation of war on the front lines, and more particularly behind the lines in a military hospital. It’s one of the best books I’ve read this year.

Books I’ve dipped into which I’ll continue with are Milton’s Paradise Lost; and Miss MacIntosh, My Darling by Marguerite Young. I picked out a number of stories in An Anthology of Chinese Literature from early times to the 14th Century by Cyril Birch

It’s been fascinating to read these particular books of poetry:

19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei by Eliot Weinberger (various translators)

After Nature by W.G. Sebald.

Kantor by Alexander Booth (that also has selections of his visual art.)

Songs for Relinquishing the Earth by Jan Zwicky – a reread

Japanese Death Poems compiled by Yoel Hoffman

The Ink Dark Moon by Ono No Komachi and Shikibu Izumi (trans. Jane Hirshfield with Mariko Aritani). This book made a huge impression on me.

Perhaps the book that made the biggest impression on me this year was The Last Samurai by Helen De Witt.

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From last night's dance, participatory performance, music, sculpture, visual art event at ALPHA60, by Haitian collective Ghetto Biennale. So much energy. #dance #music #performance #sculpture #Haiti #vèvè #vodoun #magic #art

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Here’s a link to the Nonfiction/Poetry work I made @ACCA_melbourne for Writing in the Expanded Field Vol.3. 12 writers interacting with the work of 5 visual artists. Rich creations. 

(Painting by Mimosa Échard. Photo thanks to Autumn Royal) 

https://overlapping.vercel.app/2/3-des

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Books of the Year 2023

Strange, but as usual, I didn’t think I’d read so many books this year. Then I count them up and get to thirty-eight. Not bad. Jon Fosse novels were a stand-out at the beginning of the year.. At the end of 2022 I’d read the first two volumes of Septology and was then was gifted the one volume version. Trilogy and Aliss at the Fire followed. Interesting how trends in my reading continued from the previous year: a couple of Denis Johnson books, one a reread, the other one I’d missed when it came out. Reread Mary Gaitskill. Spent less time with the Beat Reading Group but I joined in with Interzone and Kerouac’s Doctor Sax; in addition I reread Burroughs’ Last Words.  Dipped into Tanizaki again with Seven Japanese Tales that had some great stories – notably The Bridge of Dreams. Pushkin Press put out a short story collection - The Siren’s Song – that showcases three of Tanizaki’s early works. A little poetry in troubled times was welcome in Philip Gross’s Deep Field. On the noir front, The Cage by Kenzo Kitakata gave me a lot of insight into ordinary Japanese supermarket business and a parallel insight into the Yakuza world. I followed up with Ashes, his Yakuza story of a ‘dog’ rising through the ranks of a crime family. Andrew Nette’s Orphan Road was trip into the past with reverberations in the present: an unsolved heist story with a gothic twist. Gary Chance, the main character from his previous novel Gunshine Coast goes on a dangerous peregrination through the Melbourne underworld and beyond.  

O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker was a delight recommended by Val in Seattle. I was deeply impressed by the ambition and prose style of When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut. I was a bit disappointed by his follow-up The Maniac. The final section on AI was excellent, so no complaints. Whenever a Pascal Quignard volume comes out, I’m excited: The Fount of Time was no exception. I was completely absorbed by Jeremy Cooper’s Brian that delved into the mind of a lonely bookkeeper who becomes a film-buff. Cooper has an unsentimental compassion for Brian’s social awkwardness, his ordinariness and a deep respect for his knowledge of Cinema. A masterpiece even? Maybe so.

Septology – Jon Fosse (trans. Damion Searls)

Trilogy – Jon Fosse (trans. May-Brit Akerholt)

Aliss at the Fire – Jon Fosse (trans. Damion Searls)

Interzone – William Burroughs (reread)

Doctor Sax – Jack Kerouac (reread)

Last Words: The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs

Deep Field – Philip Gross reread

Bad Behaviour – Mary Gaitskill reread

The Name of the World – Denis Johnson reread

Angels – Denis Johnson

The Kingdom of this World – Alejo Carpentier (trans. Harriet De Onis)

The Year of Living Dangerously – Christopher Koch – more depth after seeing the movie.

Brian – Jeremy Cooper

When We Cease to Understand the World – Benjamin Labatut (trans. Adrian Nathan West)

The Maniac – Benjamin Labatut

O Caledonia – Elspeth Barker

Selected Poems – George Barker

By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept – Elizabeth Smart

Seven Japanese Tales – Junichiro Tanizaki  (trans. Howard Hibbert)

The Siren’s Lament – Junichiro Tanizaki  (trans. Bryan Karetnyk)

Noir

The Cage – Kenzo Kitakata (trans. Paul Warham) – chance find on the library shelves

Ashes – Kenzo Kitakata (trans. Emi Shimokawa)

The Dark Room – Junnosuke Yoshiyuki (trans. John Bester) – following on from Japanese Film Festival showings of the films of Ko Nakahira.

The Strangers in the House – Georges Simenon (trans. Robert Baldick)

Black Wings has my Angel – Elliot Chaze – chance find on the library shelves

He Died With His Eyes Open – Derek Raymond – recommended by John L Williams

How the Dead Live – Derek Raymond– recommended by my mate John L Williams

Orphan Road – Andrew Nette – a great heist story set in Melbourne

Nonfiction

Kazuo Ohno’s World from Within and Without – Kazuo Ohno and Yoshito Ohno (trans. John Barret with Toshio Mizohata)

Hijikata Tatsumi and Butoh: Dancing in a Pool of Grey Grits – Bruce Baird

Antonin Artaud: Selected Writings – Susan Sontag ed. – (trans. Helen Weaver)

Maya Deren: Choreography for Cinema – Mark Alice Durant – an excellent biography

Getting Carter – Nick Triplow – a great biography of Ted Lewis and the Birth of British Noir

Time Within Time – Andrey Tarkovsky (trans. Kitty Hunter-Blair)

Fassbinder: Thousands of Mirrors – Ian Penman – personal essays time and cinema

Unclassifiable

The Fount of Time – Pascal Quignard (trans. Chris Turner) – Inimitable and Brilliant.

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Far South Project

Des Barry is a novelist, graphic novelist, nonfiction writer, performance improvisor, Butoh performer, filmmaker and coordinator of the Far

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Postcards from the Verge - Butoh/Impro at Dancehouse Friday 20th October 2023 - Photos By Anna White https://www.instagram.com/annnagramme

Anna White painting , Anna White photography, abstract painting, bookface photographs, paintings on acrylic

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From last night's dance, participatory performance, music, sculpture, visual art event at ALPHA60, by Haitian collective Ghetto Biennale. So much energy. #dance #music #performance #sculpture #Haiti #vèvè #vodoun #magic #art

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Book People Sepia-desktop from David Enrique Spellman on Vimeo.

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Books of 2022

Almost forgot, re-read Denis Johnson’s The Stars at Noon after seeing the Claire Denis film.