The TLS in Surf Blogs (Part Seven)

A kindly reader asked me today about a reference I'd made in a recent post to the Times Literary Supplement.

"Do you really read it?" she asked. "Isn't it desperately heavy?"

Not so, said I. The effortless fluency of Hugo Williams' fortnightly column is an exercise in lightness, albeit with a touch of melancholy. As for J.C's NB (of late apparently alternating with L.D), there is little of such understated excellence in contemporary journalism.

My friend was insistent. "But still, it's not exactly an easy read, is it?"

You are wrong, said I. The TLS is as easy as - let's see now - any of Sebald, Kafka, Conrad, Saramago, Joyce, Proust, Tabucchi, Hedayat, Vlad the Impaler of the Viennese Witch-Doctor, Marias and, for those moments when one feels the need to bask in a shower of unadulterated sexual madness, Bataille.

"Your favourite writers?" uttered my inquisitor. "I didn't know you were into Bataille. How far does this obsession extend?"

No further than the page, I replied, though I grant you that if one has in mind Roberto Bolano's articulation of the New Literature in Distant Star, even this could be problematic, but be that as it isn't, my interest in Bataille stops well short of ocular disenfranchisement. In any case, my point is clear: the TLS is for those of us who like our books. And aren't afraid to regard some as better than others.

"Did you know," said my friend, "that the TLS has been running a series on its own appearances in literature?"

Of course, said I: I'm a subscriber, how could I not know?

"I assumed, given that you took some 10 back issues with you to Lanzarote, in the hope that you'd find time to read them, only to fail, only to return to this green and pleasant land with the same number languishing in your bag, as unread as they were before you left these shores, I assumed, given this, that you might have missed J.C's nice little series."

I nearly did, but was cognisant of it nevertheless (said I).

"Do you mean to say that you absorb the TLS by osmosis? That merely by dint of it being in your bag, you are capable of acquainting yourself with its contents?"

Far from it. It's just that, in a rare moment of peace, I sat down with said back issues and read them. I happened upon J.C's series, and had the following thought.

"That the surf blogs of the world should unite and chronicle mentions of the TLS?"

Exactly. There's an audience, I'm sure. Only yesterday, as I surfed better than I had done for a long, long time and resolved that actually, I would not give up surfing (yet), I nevertheless perpetrated The Vile Sin of the Drop In on a gentleman surfing in just boardshorts.

"Was his name Georges?"

As in Bataille?

"Yes."

I don't think so. But when I said: "My good man, I'm terribly sorry, it's just that I've been out of action for rather long time and now, with a metal cage holding my neck together, I have moments of mental lacunae, and so, as I say, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to drop in and ruin your wave, but, if one were to analyse it, is what I did really so bad? Is it, for example, as bad egregious prose? Or a Jeffrey Archer piece of writing? Or even, dare I say, too cute a quatrain?"

"Do you read the TLS?" he asked.

Yes, I said.

"Can you mention it in your surf blog? If you do, all will be forgiven."

And so, super-stoked after a damn fine surf and a nice chat in the line-up with a man who knows a good poem from a bad one (Sam Bleakley's dad, Fuz) I did.

Look out for more mentions of the TLS in the surf blogs of the world. Or here, at least. Pictured by Jon Callahan, meanwhile, is Bleakers, finding a jazzy line on a rhythmic wave. Check out Sam's new book, Surfing Brilliant Corners, for a saner, and yet provocative, take on surfing than you'll find here.

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