Category: literature
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‘Mwy o sgwennwrs na darllenwrs’: yr argyfwng geiriau
Yn ei nofel ddeifiol newydd Hunllef Nadolig Eben Parri mae Arwel Vittle yn anelu ei arfau dychanol at dargedau niferus yn y Gymru gyfoes. Un yw pobl sy’n ysgrifennu a chyhoeddi. Mae bron pob grŵp yn ei chael hi’n arw gan ‘Ysbryd Cymru Sydd’: cofiannau (‘gormod ohonyn nhw’), academyddion (‘digon o ddadansoddi a gor-ddadansoddi ôl-drefedigaethol…
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Y llyn a ddiflannodd
Rydyn ni’n hen gyfarwydd yng Nghymru â’r arfer o greu llynnoedd newydd. Cronfeydd dŵr yw’r rhan fwyaf ohonyn nhw, wrth gwrs. Mae eu henwau – Efyrnwy, Clywedog, Elan, Claerwen, Brianne, Tryweryn – yn niferus, ac yn atseinio’n alarus trwy’r degawdau, ynghyd â geiriau cysylltiedig: boddi cymoedd, symud cymunedau, codi argaeau concrit. Ond mae hanes arall…
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Some books I read in 2023
It’s been a writing year rather than a reading one, but as usual I’ve found so much to enjoy in books, many of them happened on by accident, often in charity shops. The book club I belong to also threw up plenty of good reads, including the best novel I’ve read this year, Claire Keegan’s…
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Desperate causes: Tristram’s unorthodox circumcision
The early life of Tristram Shandy is marked by a series of unhappy accidents. His conception is badly planned, thanks to an untimely question asked by his mother. At his birth his nose is broken by Dr Slop, the inept man-midwife. And he’s given the wrong forename, after the name his father has chosen gets…
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Books of poems: gwallter’s top 10
For want of shelf space, I’m having to lay new books horizontally, on top of earlier books. They threaten to warp and then turn solid, like sedimentary rocks. Soon I’ll need to have another cull. I doubt, though, whether the censor will make much of an impression on the three-shelf-long poetry collection. Books of poems…
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Perils of physics
Who would have thought that anyone could write a novel about theoretical physics that it would be impossible to put down till you’d got to its end? But that’s exactly what Benjamin Labatut has done with When we cease to understand the world, published by Pushkin Press in 2020. Labatut is as universalist as his…
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Laurence Sterne in the printer’s shop
Any reader of Tristram Shandy soon appreciates that its author had an unusually strong interest in the physical appearance of his books, and specifically in playing with the conventions of the printed word. The ‘star witnesses’ are the Black Page, inserted to mark the sad death of Parson Yorick, the Marbled Page (unique in each…
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Ar hunangofiannau
Y dydd o’r blaen ces i lyfr ar fenthyg gan gyfaill, sef hunangofiant newydd yn Saesneg gan un o hoelion wyth y byd Cymreig cyhoeddus – cyfrol drwchus, gyda dros bedwar cant o dudalennau, a phrint mân. Mae’r llyfr yn dal i orwedd ar y ford yn y cyntedd; dwi heb ddarllen mwy nag un…
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Anti-metropolitanism, 1759
In Volume I, Chapter XVIII of Laurence Sterne’s great novel, Tristram Shandy’s mother, as soon as she finds out she’s expecting him, absolutely insists that, when the time comes to give birth, she will be attended by no one but the old midwife who lives in the neighbourhood of Shandy Hall – even though within…
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Two walk New York
I’ve been reading Teju Cole’s celebrated novel of 2011, Open city, set mainly in central New York. It’s an unusual piece of writing. The book captures the experience of Julius, a young Nigerian-American (Cole himself being one) who’s in training to be a psychiatrist, as he wanders about in one of the world’s most cosmopolitan…