Uptown Funk

Uptown Funk:

recorded in Memphis at Royal Studios. It's popularity has caused a stir here, and it's getting lots of mention locally. Memphis Daily News says, "The Mark Ronson song “Uptown Funk” featuring Bruno Mars has spent a few weeks now in the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It’s something Memphis producer and Royal Studios owner Boo Mitchell is especially proud to see, since the chart-topping track was recorded in Memphis at his studio." Choose 901 says, "All that Royal Studios has been doing, along with other studios in Memphis, is showing the world that Memphis has maintained its premiere music. “Uptown Funk” is a testament to the immense musical talent that Memphians are producing." Local TV channel WMC closes with this: "The continued success of "Uptown Funk" guarantees that the word is out. Number one hits are still born in Memphis, Tennessee."

Lyrics:

This hit
That ice cold
Michelle Pfeiffer
That white gold
This one, for them hood girls
Them good girls
Straight masterpieces
Stylin', while in
Livin' it up in the city
Got Chucks on with Saint Laurent
Gotta kiss myself I'm so pretty

I'm too hot (hot damn)
Called a police and a fireman
I'm too hot (hot damn)
Make a dragon wanna retire, man
I'm too hot (hot damn)
Say my name you know who I am
I'm too hot (hot damn)
Am I bad 'bout that money
Break it down

Girls hit you hallelujah (woo)
Girls hit you hallelujah (woo)
Girls hit you hallelujah (woo)
'Cause Uptown Funk gon' give it to you
'Cause Uptown Funk gon' give it to you
'Cause Uptown Funk gon' give it to you
Saturday night and we in the spot
Don't believe me, just watch (Come on)

Don't believe me, just watch

Don't believe me, just watch
Don't believe me, just watch
Don't believe me, just watch
Don't believe me, just watch
Hey, hey, hey, oh!

Stop
Wait a minute
Fill my cup put some liquor in it
Take a sip, sign a check
Julio! Get the stretch!
Ride to Harlem, Hollywood, Jackson, Mississippi
If we show up, we gon' show out
Smoother than a fresh jar o' Skippy

I'm too hot (hot damn)
Called a police and a fireman
I'm too hot (hot damn)
Make a dragon wanna retire, man
I'm too hot (hot damn)
Bitch, say my name you know who I am
I'm too hot (hot damn)
Am I bad 'bout that money
Break it down

Girls hit your hallelujah (woo)
Girls hit your hallelujah (woo)
Girls hit your hallelujah (woo)
'Cause Uptown Funk gon' give it to you
'Cause Uptown Funk gon' give it to you
'Cause Uptown Funk gon' give it to you
Saturday night and we in the spot
Don't believe me, just watch (come on)

Don't believe me, just watch

Don't believe me, just watch
Don't believe me, just watch
Don't believe me, just watch
Don't believe me, just watch
Hey, hey, hey, oh!

Before we leave
I'm a tell y'all a lil' something
Uptown Funk you up, Uptown Funk you up
Uptown Funk you up, Uptown Funk you up
I said Uptown Funk you up, Uptown Funk you up
Uptown Funk you up, Uptown Funk you up

Come on, dance
Jump on it
If you sexy then flaunt it
If you freaky then own it
Don't brag about it, come show me
Come on, dance
Jump on it
If you sexy then flaunt it
Well it's Saturday night and we in the spot
Don't believe me, just watch (come on)

Don't believe me, just watch

Don't believe me, just watch
Don't believe me, just watch
Don't believe me, just watch
Don't believe me, just watch
Hey, hey, hey, oh!

Uptown funk you up (come on)
Uptown funk you up (say what?)
Uptown funk you up
Uptown funk you up
Uptown funk you up
Uptown funk you up (say what?)
Uptown funk you up
Uptown funk you up (come on)
Uptown funk you up
Uptown funk you up (say what?)
Uptown funk you up
Uptown funk you up
Uptown funk you up
Uptown funk you up (say what?)
Uptown funk you up
Aaaow!

The Four Feathers

The Four Feathers is a 1939 adventure film. It stars John Clements, June Duprez, and Ralph Richardson. It's based on a 1902 book by the same name, which has been adapted for film several times. This is generally recognized as the best of them. Accused of cowardice, a man seeks to prove himself.

BFI Screen Online says it's "satisfying as a war film, with stirring battle scenes -the jailbreak sequence is spectacular- and a spirit of breathless boy's own adventure throughout". DVD Talk says, "The film presents an intriguingly ambivalent attitude toward military life. Army traditions are exalted, yet the hero is a conscientious individualist unwilling to go to war" and calls it "the perfect film to initiate a discussion of codes of honor." Rotten Tomatoes has a critics score of 100%. TCM has an overview.

50 Best SFF Movies

HiConsumption (via SF Signal) has a list of the 50 best science fiction and fantasy films of all time:

1. STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE
2. THE WIZARD OF OZ
3. MINORITY REPORT
4. THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING
5. E.T.: THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL
6. ALIEN
7. PLANET OF THE APES (1968)
8. INCEPTION (It's on the shelf, waiting.)
9. WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (1971)
10. BACK TO THE FUTURE
11. GODZILLA (1954)
12. 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
13. STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
14. BLADE RUNNER
15. FORBIDDEN PLANET
16. THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS
17. THE MATRIX
18. METROPOLIS (1927)
19. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND
20. AVATAR
21. STAR WARS EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI
22. ALIENS
23. THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL
24. KING KONG (1933)
25. HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS – PART 2
26. WALL-E
27. JURASSIC PARK
28. STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN
29. INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS
30. FLASH GORDON (1980)
31. TOTAL RECALL
32. WAR OF THE WORLDS (2005)
33. TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY
34. ROBOCOP (1987)
35. BRAZIL
36. THE FLY (1986)
37. STAR TREK (2009)
38. STAR WARS EPISODE III – REVENGE OF THE SITH
39. TRON (1982)
40. DARK CITY
41. DISTRICT 9 (I tried to watch this but didn't make it all the way through.)
42. THEM! (1954)
43. THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING
44. A.I.
45. LOOPER
46. 12 MONKEYS
47. MEN IN BLACK
48. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (The dvd is on my shelf.)
49. SOLARIS (1972)
50. THE PRINCESS BRIDE

I've seen the ones in bold print. Of the ones I haven't seen, 2 (Inception and Clockwork Orange) are waiting on my shelf. The Younger Son says I really must see Aliens at some point (so I probably will). Looper... well, I really meant to see that one, but I don't like stories that depend on time travel, and the movie's time has past for me anyway. Chances of me ever seeing it are small.

The Ninth Gate

The Ninth Gate is a 1999 Roman Polanski film starring Johnny Depp and Frank Langella. Slow, predictable and too long, I loved the actors but won't sit through this again. The best thing about it was being reminded of how good Depp was back when he actually acted.

trailer:

Moria says, "While not a bad film by any means, it sits along there with Pirates and Frantic as one of Polanski’s not-quite-rans." The Guardian says, "this really is an exasperatingly boring film, and it is incredible that it is from the man who long ago brought us authentically frightening films in which evil really means something." DVD Talk likes it better than most, calling it a "superior horror hybrid that just misses greatness".

Roger Ebert says,

...only gradually do we realize the movie isn't going to pay off. It has good things in it, and I kept hoping Polanski would take the plot by the neck and shake life into it, but no. After the last scene, I underlined on my note pad: What?

Empire Online says, "A strong first act, stunning cinematography and an appealing performance from Johnny Depp lull you into a false sense of security, before Polanskiís sense of the extremely ridiculous takes over, and, unfortunately, the whole thing rapidly descends into sub-End Of Days nonsense."

Kiss of the Spider Woman

Kiss of the Spider Woman (1976) is the best known novel of Argentinian writer Manuel Puig. This feels like such a tragic tale to me. I'm counting this towards the 2015 Read Harder challenge as "A book by a person whose gender is different from your own".

from the back of the book:

Kiss of the Spider Woman is a graceful, intensely compelling novel about love and victimization. In an Argentine prison, two men share a cell: Molina, a gay window dresser who is self-centered, self-denigrating, yet charming as well; and Valentin, an articulate, fiercely dogmatic revolutionary haunted by a woman he left for the cause. Both are gradually transformed by their guarded but growing friendship and by Molina's obsession with the fantasy and romance of the movies.

List of the films one prisoner re-tells to the other over the course of the book:

• Cat People (1942)
• A Nazi propaganda film with a love story plotline
• A race car film
• I Walked with a Zombie (1943)
• A love story between a newspaper reporter and a gangster moll

favorite quote:

In a man's life, which may be short and may be long, everything is temporary. Nothing is forever. ... It's a question of learning to accept things as they come, and to appreciate the good that comes to you, even if it doesn't last. Because nothing is forever.

The Guardian says,

The novel is primarily written as dialogue, but also uses lengthy footnotes, official reports and stream-of-consciousness internal monologues. This experimental style rejects the use of a narrator, forcing the reader to take on this role. The dry and academic footnotes citing the latest psychological scholarship on homosexual behaviour (including one fictionalised report) are set in sharp contrast to the vibrant and complex character of Molina that they purport to explain. These footnotes have the effect of jolting readers out of the story so that they remain critically engaged.

Kirkus Reviews says it is " it is his richest, least mannered work". The Paris Review has an interview with the author.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is a 2000 novel written by Dai Sijie. I remember this making quite a splash when it first came out, but I am just now getting around to reading it. This story tells of the power of literature and the true universality of story-telling. The classics reach out across cultures and generations to inspire and to change lives.

from the back of the book:

In this enchanting tale about the magic of reading and the wonder of romantic awakening, two hapless city boys are exiled to a remote mountain village for re-education during China's infamous Cultural Revolution. There they meet the daughter of the local tailor and discover a hidden stash of Western classics in Chinese translation. As they flirt with the seamstress and secretly devour the banned works, they find transit from their grim surroundings to worlds they never imagined.

The Guardian says, "Infused with the magic and spark of myth and fable, Sijie reminds us how precious intellectual liberty is." Kirkus Reviews calls it "Literate and moderately engaging".

There's a reading group guide with discussion questions here.

Drink Coffee!

This old ad explains why coffee should be sought out (in ye olde coffee shoppe, of course):

I have Observed that in those Parts where they drink it [coffee] at all times, as at Meals and otherwise, the Inhabitants are not subject to the Stone, Scurvy, Gout, Dropsie, nor many other Diseases which are incident to us here, it being moderately warm, attenuating and dry, so that many crudities and crude Humours by the common use of this Drink are very much Corrected. And I find by Experience, it hath taken also its good Effects in these our parts and Climate; for it being drunk at any time, dryeth up moist and waterish Humors, expelleth Wind, moderately binding and cleansing, it helpeth those who have the Dropsie by its drying quality and is most excellent against the common Distemper: for by the constant drinking thereof it Cured a Learned Bishop of this Kingdom, who had been before left off as Incurable by some of the most ablest Physicians of England (by drinking thereof, as he was advised, with Sugar-candy;) it strengtheneth much the Liver, helpeth the Jaundies, it's good against the Corruption of the Blood, it refresheth the Heart and vitals, it helpeth Swooning, palpitation and weakness of the Heart, and dizziness in the head, it strengtheneth the Stomach, helpeth the want of Appetite, Concoction and pains in the Stomach; in the Brain it helpeth all cold, moist and drowsie distempers, as the Lethargy, Apoplexy, etc. the Steam is good for Rheums in the Eyes, and for pains and noise in the Ears, or dullness of Hearing; it's good against all moist Rheums, if the matter of Phlegm be thick, then sweeten it with Sugar-candy; it's good against Hypochondriack Winds, and the pains of the Spleen; it purgeth by Urine, (a good Drink for those that are troubled with the Stone in the Reins or the Bladder;) it's experimentally good to prevent Miscarriage; it's good against the Gout, Sciatica, and for all Rheums and rheumatick Pains in the whole Body. Are any Surfeited with Drunkenness or Gluttony, let this be their common Drink. Do any eat much Fruit let them drink much of this; in the Spring time when Humors do make good use of this: As to the time of drinking it, at any time of the Day, unless withing two or three Hours of going to Bed, for it hinders Sleep, but its Operation does not last above two or three hours; you may not fear any hurt from the due and moderate Use of it.

Wow! I think I'll have another cup. And then another! Using a huge mug:

And while I thus improve my health with coffee, I'll head over to Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog to see what everybody else is drinking on this T(ea) Tuesday.

Make Me a Pallet on the Floor

Make Me a Pallet on the Floor:

by Sam Chatmon, who was born in Bolton, Mississippi, (about 3 hours south of Memphis) in January, 1897, and who died on this date in 1983.

Best B-Movies

Paste Magazine has a list of "The 100 Best “B Movies” of All Time":

1. Hard Ticket to Hawaii 1987
2. The Room 2003
3. Birdemic 2008
4. Samurai Cop 1989
5. Troll 2 1990
6. Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon 2006
7. Crippled Avengers (aka Return of the 5 Deadly Venoms) 1978
8. Miami Connection 1987
9. Five Element Ninjas (aka Chinese Super Ninjas) 1982
10. She Woke Up Pregnant 1996
11. Plan 9 From Outer Space 1959
12. House on Haunted Hill 1959
13. Return of the Living Dead 1985
14. Thankskilling 2009
15. Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine 1965 (It's on my DVD rack waiting for me to watch it.)
16. To Die is Hard 2010
17. Enter the Ninja 1981
18. Dead Alive (aka Braindead) 1992
19. Moron Movies 1985
20. Chopping Mall 1986
21. I Am Here….Now 2009
22. Night of the Demons 1988
23. Black Samurai 1977
24. The Toxic Avenger 1984
25. Laser Mission 1989
26. Foxy Brown 1974
27. The Roller Blade Seven 1991
28. Undefeatable 1994
29. The Haunted Palace 1963
30. Time Chasers 1994
31. The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra 2001
32. The Incredible Shrinking Man 1967
33. Ben and Arthur 2002
34. Class of Nuke ’Em High 1986
35. FDR: American Badass 2012
36. Space Mutiny 1988
37. Hell Comes to Frogtown 1987
38. Death Race 2000 1975
39. Shark Attack 3: Megalodon 2002
40. Werewolf 1996
41. Masters of the Universe 1987
42. Cyborg 1989
43. Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors 1965
44. It Came From Beneath the Sea 1955
45. Ninja III: The Domination 1984
46. Killer Klowns from Outer Space 1988
47. The Barbarians 1987
48. Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 1987
49. Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! 1965
50. The Magic Sword 1962
51. Mortal Kombat: Annihilation 1997
52. Mac and Me 1988 (I didn't finish it.)
53. Future War 1997
54. C.H.U.D. 1984
55. Showdown in Little Tokyo 1991
56. Dinosaur Island 1994
57. Deadly Prey 1986
58. Master of the Flying Guillotine 1976
59. Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama 1988
60. The Tingler 1959
61. Any Bibleman film 1995-2011
62. Yor, the Hunter from the Future 1982
63. The Final Sacrifice 1990
64. King Kong Escapes 1967
65. The Stuff 1985
66. Megaforce 1982
67. Mr. Sardonicus 1961
68. The Valley of Gwangi 1969
69. Horror Express 1972
70. X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes 1963
71. Feast 2005
72. Cave Dwellers 1984
73. The Gingerdead Man 2005
74. Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead 2006
75. Robot Monster 1953
76. Santo y Blue Demon contra los monstruos (aka Santo and Blue Demon vs. the Monsters) 1969
77. Basket Case 1982
78. Dark and Stormy Night 2009
79. The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms 1953
80. Leprechaun 3 1995
81. Hobgoblins 1988
82. Double Trouble 1992
83. Alone in the Dark 2005
84. Piranha 1978
85. The Vampire Lovers 1970
86. The Blob 1958 and 1978
87. Ninja Terminator 1985
88. It’s Alive 1975
89. Dolemite 1975
90. Sharknado 2013
91. King Kong Lives 1986
92. Death Bed: The Bed That Eats 1977
93. Prophecy 1979
94. Foodfight! 2012
95. Mazes and Monsters 1982
96. Iron Sky 2012
97. I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle 1990
98. The Big Doll House 1971
99. Hercules in New York 1970
100. The Giant Claw 1957

The site says, "...the meaning of “best” here is “most entertaining,” ... If these films are painful, they’re also equally fun."

I've seen 17 of these if you count the one I didn't finish. I haven't even heard of most of them. Sometimes I think obscure films deserve their obscurity.

The Challenge

The Challenge is a 1938 film telling the story of the two climbing teams competing to be the first to reach the top of the Matterhorn. A story of persistence in the face of hardship, a story of bravery and of tragedy.

via Youtube:

TCM has an overview. Rotten Tomatoes has no critics rating but a 100% audience score.

Elephant Boy

Elephant Boy is a 1937 film based on Toomai of the Elephants from Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book. The story can be read online here. The movie stars Sabu in his film debut. It won the Best Director Award at the Venice Film Festival. This has wonderful scenes of colonial-era India and was fun to watch.

via Youtube:

DVD Talk calls it "an appealing colonial adventure with elements of both documentary and fantasy" and says it "enchants audiences from the moment Sabu scrambles atop his beloved friend's enormous head". TCM has an overview. Rotten Tomatoes has a critics score of 100%.

Quartet in Autumn

Quartet in Autumn is a 1977 novel by Barbara Pym. A perfectly ordinary story about perfectly ordinary people. Wouldn't you think it might be a bit boring? But no, it's not at all. It's fascinating, and I'll keep this one on the shelf for re-reading later on.

from the back of the book:

Quartet in Autumn is the first of Barbara Pym's later novels and is considered by many to be her masterpiece. It was written during a time when the author had lost hope of ever being published again, and is drawn from Pym's own confrontation with mortality, but is leavened by her dry wit. This softly compelling story of human dignity in the midst of hopelessness presents s with four elderly single people who work in the same office. When the two women retire, this act threatens the lives of all four. Out of tragicomic themes of old age, Barbara Pym has written a tale of almost musical perfection.

Kirkus Reviews closes by saying, "Pym never loses respect for these put-upon people--more unlucky than unhappy--and, as a result, neither do we. Terribly brisk, but very affecting."

Inspector Imanishi Investigates

Inspector Imanishi Investigates is a 1961 mystery novel by Seicho Matsumoto. It's a Japanese police procedural. The story is told from the point of view of the main investigator, and you are privy to his thought process as he teases out the clues and follows leads. I enjoyed going on this journey and found the book -characters and plot and setting- interesting.

It was adapted for film in 1974 as Castle of Sand.

from the back of the book:

Inspector Imanishi ... Haiku poet, gardener, and the most dogged homicide detective on the Tokyo police force.

The Practical Theorist says, "It’s so intensely atmospheric you really don’t want the book to end." The LA Times says, "In addition to being a good whodunit, "Inspector" offers a vivid portrait of the confused Japanese culture of the early '60s". AustCrimeFiction calls it "incredibly engaging".

Sexy Coffee Pot

Sexy Coffee Pot:

a 1969 song by Tony Alvon and the Belairs. Here's a lively tune to get you jump-started on a cold morning. Between this and the caffeine jolt you ought to be ready for the day! I'm not a morning person, and I need all the help I can get.

Please join the folks at Bluebeard and Elizabeth's link party for T(ea) Tuesday.

Red Cadillac And A Black Moustache

Red Cadillac And A Black Moustache:

by Warren Smith, who died 1/30/1980 of a heart attack at age 47.

lyrics:

Who you been lovin' since I been gone
A long tall man with a red coat on
Good-for-nothing-baby you've been doing me wrong
Who you been lovin' since I been gone
Who you been lovin' since I been gone

Who's been playing around with you
A real cool cat with eyes of blue
Triflin' baby are you being true
Who's been foiling around with you
Who's been fooling around with you

Somebody saw you at the break of day
Dining and a-dancing in the cabaret
He was long and tall, he had plenty of cash
He had a red cadillac and a black moustache
He held your hand and he sang you a song
Who you been lovin' since I been gone
Who you been lovin' since I been gone

SOLO

Somebody saw you at the break of day
Dining and a-dancing in the cabaret
He was long and tall, he had plenty of cash
He had a red cadillac and a black moustache
He held your hand and he sang you a song
Who you been lovin' since I been gone
Who you been lovin' since I been gone

Brain Damage

Brain Damage is a 1988 comedy horror film about a strange parasite named Aylmer that leaves the elderly couple it has been living with to establish itself in the life of our poor young hero. The creature provides an infusion of addictive hallucinogens in exchange for human brains to eat. This is a tragic story, a hard movie to watch.

HorrorNews.net concludes:

“Brain Damage” will entertain you immensely but if you know someone who has a monkey on his/her back that they cannot shake, it will both bother & entertain you in equal amounts, because it will give you a sense of what this person is going through. Either way, you will never forget it. I know I never will for reasons I pray none of you will ever have to experience in your lifetime.

Moria gives it 4 out of 5 stars and calls it "a searing metaphor for drug addiction". Rotten Tomatoes has a critics score of 70%.

The Proud and the Damned

The Proud and the Damned is a 1972 Western starring Chuck Connors and Cesar Romero. Chuck Connors' tv series The Rifleman was a great favorite of my mother, although I was just a tyke while it was on and didn't ever watch it. There's a summary for this movie at Imdb:

A group of five Confederate mercenaries led by Sergeant Will Hansen must choose sides carefully in a small village where they find themselves trapped in the middle of a rebellion. The group is torn as to whether they should honor the powerful military dictator who forces them to spy for him or help the local village fight for its independence. Follow Sergeant Hansen and his men as they make a decision that could cost them their lives. -Written by Michaelj@new.rr.com

I watched it free at Hulu, but it's also at youtube:

Reviews are hard to come by. I find it a bit slow getting started. And then I kept finding it slow. It's filled with corny romance subplots. I just never got interested in it, and I eventually just kept it on in the background while I did other stuff.

The Earth Dies Screaming

The Earth Dies Screaming is a 1964 science fiction film. It's directed by Terence Fisher, who did a lot of work for Hammer Films. This is an alien invasion film, short at just over an hour, where scattered human survivors gather in a small town. There are the squabbles you would expect as they try to find weapons and come up with a strategy to fight the aliens. It's not bad at all, especially if you're not already over-familiar with alien invasion or post-apocalyptic films.

Reviews are scarce. TCM has an overview.

Fountain and Tomb

Having read and loved The Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz, I couldn't pass up Fountain and Tomb (1988) by the same author when I saw it at the book shop. Mahfouz won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1988, the only Arab writer to have won it. He died in 2006 at 94 years of age. The book is almost a collage of 1920s Cairo, a vision shown in parts. He writes beautifully!

from the back of the book:

"I enjoy playing in the small square between the archway and the takiya [monastery] where the Sufis live. Like all the other children, I admire the mulberry trees in the takiya garden, the only bit of green in the whole neighborhood. Our tender hearts yearn for their dark berries. But it stands like a fortress, this takiya, circled by its garden wall. Its stern gate is broken and always, like the windows, shut. Aloof isolation drenches the whole compound. Our hands stretch towards this wall -reaching for the moon."

So begins Naguib Mahfouz's Fountain and Tomb, a kaleidoscopic novel set in Cairo in the 1920s. The narrator -now child, now adult reliving his childhood- tells tales of the street, of separated lovers, childhood games, workers, neighbors, loneliness. In his alley, his small slice of Egypt, he is presented with life's polarities; the excitement and harshness of Cairo at the one end, and the withdrawn but beautiful world of the sanctuary of the other.

The Enigma of Arrival

The Enigma of Arrival is a 1987 autobiographical novel by V. S. Naipaul. This book takes place mostly in the English countryside. Naipaul won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001. I have read a couple of his other novels and enjoy his writing. I feel surrounded by the world he creates, as if I'm a part of it. You can read an excerpt of this book at the Nobel Prize site.

from the back of the book:

The story of a writer's singular journey -from one place to another, from the British colony of Trinidad to the ancient countryside of England, and from one state of mind to another- this is perhaps Naipaul's most autobiographical work. Yet it is also woven through with remarkable invention to make it a rich and complex novel.

favorite quotes:

How quickly his time had passed! How quickly a man's time passed! So quickly, in fact, that it was possible within a normal span to witness, to comprehend, two or three active life cycles in succession.

....

In that unlikely setting, in the ancient heart of England, a place where I was truly an alien, I found I was given a second chance, a new life, richer and fuller than any I had had elsewhere. And in that place, where at the beginning I had looked only for remoteness and a place to hide, I did some of my best work. I traveled, I wrote, I ventured out, brought back experiences to my cottage, and wrote. The years passed. I healed. The life around me changed. I changed.

The book's title comes from this painting by Giorgio de Chirico:

The Guardian calls it "a sad pastoral" and closes with this: "There is one word I can find nowhere in the text of The Enigma of Arrival. That word is 'love', and a life without love, or one in which love has been buried so deep that it can't come out, is very much what this book is about and what makes it so very, very sad." The New York Times has a qualified positive review.

The London Review of Books says, "Naipaul’s ample unfolding book is of great beauty, delicacy and courage." The Telegraph calls Naipaul "an English prose stylist of the old school."

Kirkus Reviews calls it "unique among literary memoirs" and says,

Dense, often slow, it's a book of enormous subtle accretion but also of stripping away of self-pretense. It also offers a different, deeper sense of Naipaul's sensibility than has been seen: plugged as it is into cycles of ruin that are poetic, viscerally sad, yet ultimately beautiful, Naipaul's precious discomfort--that of the dis-cultured--has never seemed more palpable and moving.