Tim Hannigan

Ah, yes - I forgot that it's a not entirely normal part of the world around there. But to be fair, actual proper farming people seem generally to really like him too...

Genuinely interesting! (And curious about the local view - I'm assuming mostly positive...)

Very curious to know in what context!

Thanks Nicholas! (I'm never doing an edited collection ever again - but then people always say that, don't they...)

Academic books don't often have covers worth revealing, but this one is pretty good. Samia Ounoughi & I have been working on this for about 100 years, but we've just sent the final proofs, so here's the cover & contents. Writing on the Move, due out from Berghahn early 2026. #travelwriting studies

There's also something icky about the way they voice up written criticisms of KC - the original Goodreads review and various Tweets: the actors (perhaps under specific direction?) voice them in a particularly shouty, strident way rather than in a neutral tone.

It acknowledges it, and PP gets quizzed on his "ISIS & Taliban" tweet (and makes a further arse if himself in the process). And Monisha agreed to be interviewed (from a damned either way place, I think), and gets to speak very convincingly - but only at a certain place in the narrative hierarchy.

I think it's the narrative structure ("Kate's Story"!) and the framing ("cancellation"! Cancellation's bad, right? Same as "woke"...) that allows for that. But it only works if you are monstrously insensible to the initial problem, and to the unfavorable impression KC can't help but give of herself.

Pointing out racism in books is not an ‘attack’ – it’s a call for industry reform | Monisha Rajesh I was called aggressive for criticising passages in Kate Clanchy’s memoir. But the real problem lies deep in the overwhelmingly white world of publishing

Anyway, Here's a piece from Monisha Rajesh (who has a new book out, BTW...) from back during the middle of things: www.theguardian.com/books/2021/a... 5/5

Did any of them think "I wonder if there's another way we could structure this? Does *who speaks first* matter?" But at least they give both KC & PP airtime to simply be themselves - which was all that was needed for this not to be the resounding victory over the "woke" some would like it to be. 4/

Did anyone on the production team pause to consider the narrative consequences of that? Did they think, "Hey! Wasn't a big part of the original debate here about whether a privileged white author was persistently centering herself and aggressively adopting a victim pose in response to criticism?" 3/

But they literally called the 1st episode "Kate's Story" (and allowed therein some self-serving muddying of the chronology around the beginning of general criticism and a certain Twitter post about a Goodreads review, which is never properly corrected). And then there's the title of the series! 2/

The BBC's "Anatomy of a Cancellation" podcast provokes a terrible weariness for someone who watched the whole business unfold in real-time back in 2021. Yes, they've attempted to give space to some on the receiving end of the worst of the aggressive pushback against criticism of K*te Cl*anchy. 1/

My thoughts exactly. It's wearying that they never paused to consider the impacts of narrative structure, literally called the opening (and thus narrative-defining) episode "Kate's Story". But just allowing KC & PP airtime to be themselves meant it was never going to be that back-of-the-net goal!

My thoughts exactly - though of course, given that the producers allowed the narrative to centre her entirely, those determined to see her as a blameless victim of the woke mob will have an easy time of it.

Heading west. Nice bit of rain overnight...

Homesky

The Granite Kingdom at the edge of winter.

Great evening at Heligan last night chatting about Cornwall, history and more with @matthewmshaw.bsky.social and a lovely audience. Also got to see the spectacular Lowarnes fox sculpture by Sue and Pete Hill, a gargantuan presence leaping through the woods, worth the trip to Heligan just to see it!

Yeah, you're right, fair point! So the correct answer is James Joyce...

Big time gap between Waste Land and Four Quarters - though the jump between Waste Land and something like Journey of the Magi is pretty stark in a much shorter span. Kind of different for poets, I guess. The language thing - yes! Thanks! Pretty instant change with Beckett in the switch to French.

Yeah, I did actually think of Joyce - though as you say, it's more a progression/continuum across the books. Also, Ulysses jumps in style between episodes, so is sort of in "putting on different accents" mode...

Oh, yes! (Though not sure how abrupt the shift is, and I guess it's kind of different for poets...)

Interesting. Have only read The Vegetarian. Am curious about *how* you'd going about doing it deliberately. (This emerges from being at the "Ugh, this is pure sludge; I should write the next one differently" stage of my current edits...)

LOL. I think he had a ghost writer for The Odyssey...

Has any writer radically changed their style in mid career? I don't mean changed *genre*; I mean changed their poetics, the aesthetic of their prose, dramatically, between one book and the next?

Nice - looking very damp and autumnal. These places feel particularly heavy at this season.

Stone circling on a dank October afternoon.

This Wednesday evening I'll be at the Lost Gardens of Heligan chatting about Cornwall-related things, if anyone's in the vicinity...
www.heligan.com/events/event...

Next week peers will vote for or against swift bricks to be incorporated into all new builds. To help please email steve.reed.mp@parliament.uk & james.cleverly.mp@parliament.uk who are crucial to the decision. Ask them to SAVE OUR SWIFTS ‼️put SWIFT BRICKS in the subject line 🙏 Such a small thing.