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Bamboo
Traduit de l''anglais par Christiane Besse.« Plante une pousse de bambou ― coupe du bambou pour le reste de ta vie. »William Boyd a compris la sagesse de ce proverbe chinois et l’a appliqué en revisitant la masse de ses écrits dits de non-fiction, c’est-à-dire essentiellement de journalisme littéraire.Muni d’un titre tout trouvé, Bambou, et d’un solide sécateur, Boyd a entrepris un grand élagage dans les millions de mots que, parallèlement à dix romans, quatre recueils de nouvelles et autres scenarii, il n’a cessé de s’approprier depuis trente ans, dès sa première recension. Dans la sélection opérée ici, et qui couvre la période 1978-2004, sont regroupés critiques, mémoires, commentaires, portraits de « people » (ceux sournoisement délectables du duc et de la duchesse de Windsor, par exemple), profils de peintres ― Grosz, Bonnard, Braque, Monet, Sutherland, Bacon ―, d’écrivains ― Rousseau, Camus, Carver, et son cher Tchekhov. Esquisses de villes ― Londres, Paris, Montevideo ― qu’il aime ou qui l’ont inspiré, sa vie qui alterne entre la France et l’Angleterre, ses développements sur le genre de la nouvelle qu’il affectionne particulièrement, la photo, son rapport au cinéma ― les scénarii écrits, le film La Tranchée réalisé ―, des articles qui jettent une lumière parfois claire et nette, parfois oblique et brouillée sur ses romans, nouvelles, films.Comme Boyd l’écrit, « la pousse de bambou plantée en 1978 a produit une forêt qui, luxuriante, d’un vert intense, continue de proliférer, de s’étendre et d’épaissir sans remords. »
672 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
31 people are currently reading
164 people want to read
About the author
William Boyd
69 books2,494 followersNote: William^^Boyd
Of Scottish descent, Boyd was born in Accra, Ghana on 7th March, 1952 and spent much of his early life there and in Nigeria where his mother was a teacher and his father, a doctor. Boyd was in Nigeria during the Biafran War, the brutal secessionist conflict which ran from 1967 to 1970 and it had a profound effect on him.
At the age of nine years he attended Gordonstoun school, in Moray, Scotland and then Nice University (Diploma of French Studies) and Glasgow University (MA Hons in English and Philosophy), where he edited the Glasgow University Guardian. He then moved to Jesus College, Oxford in 1975 and completed a PhD thesis on Shelley. For a brief period he worked at the New Statesman magazine as a TV critic, then he returned to Oxford as an English lecturer teaching the contemporary novel at St Hilda's College (1980-83). It was while he was here that his first novel, A Good Man in Africa (1981), was published.
Boyd spent eight years in academia, during which time his first film, Good and Bad at Games, was made. When he was offered a college lecturership, which would mean spending more time teaching, he was forced to choose between teaching and writing.
Boyd was selected in 1983 as one of the 20 'Best of Young British Novelists' in a promotion run by Granta magazine and the Book Marketing Council. He also became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in the same year, and is also an Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He has been presented with honorary doctorates in literature from the universities of St. Andrews, Stirling and Glasgow. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2005.
Boyd has been with his wife Susan since they met as students at Glasgow University and all his books are dedicated to her. His wife is editor-at-large of Harper's Bazaar magazine, and they currently spend about thirty to forty days a year in the US. He and his wife have a house in Chelsea, West London but spend most of the year at their chateau in Bergerac in south west France, where Boyd produces award-winning wines.
Of Scottish descent, Boyd was born in Accra, Ghana on 7th March, 1952 and spent much of his early life there and in Nigeria where his mother was a teacher and his father, a doctor. Boyd was in Nigeria during the Biafran War, the brutal secessionist conflict which ran from 1967 to 1970 and it had a profound effect on him.
At the age of nine years he attended Gordonstoun school, in Moray, Scotland and then Nice University (Diploma of French Studies) and Glasgow University (MA Hons in English and Philosophy), where he edited the Glasgow University Guardian. He then moved to Jesus College, Oxford in 1975 and completed a PhD thesis on Shelley. For a brief period he worked at the New Statesman magazine as a TV critic, then he returned to Oxford as an English lecturer teaching the contemporary novel at St Hilda's College (1980-83). It was while he was here that his first novel, A Good Man in Africa (1981), was published.
Boyd spent eight years in academia, during which time his first film, Good and Bad at Games, was made. When he was offered a college lecturership, which would mean spending more time teaching, he was forced to choose between teaching and writing.
Boyd was selected in 1983 as one of the 20 'Best of Young British Novelists' in a promotion run by Granta magazine and the Book Marketing Council. He also became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in the same year, and is also an Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He has been presented with honorary doctorates in literature from the universities of St. Andrews, Stirling and Glasgow. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2005.
Boyd has been with his wife Susan since they met as students at Glasgow University and all his books are dedicated to her. His wife is editor-at-large of Harper's Bazaar magazine, and they currently spend about thirty to forty days a year in the US. He and his wife have a house in Chelsea, West London but spend most of the year at their chateau in Bergerac in south west France, where Boyd produces award-winning wines.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
March 20, 2008
Updated review - March 20th 2008
There were so many wonderful pieces in this collection that no review can do it justice. I will just mention three which gave particular pleasure:
1. His essay on the short story, in which he provides a useful taxonomy of the form: the event-plot story (everything before Chekhov), the Chekhovian, the "modernist", the cryptic/ludic, the mini-novel, the biographical, and the poetic/mythic.
2. The essay "War in Fiction" in which he pinpoints the central flaw in almost all fictionalized treatment of war with remarkable astuteness:
Any one man's experience of war or battle .... has to be an exclusively subjective, quirky and highly personal affair...... And yet one's reading of any account suggests that the experience is instead fundamentally a common one; a moderately varied but essentially repetitive parade of stock attitudes and conclusions. Furthermore, the basic judgement of nearly all war novels runs along these sort of lines: "war is hell/shocking/depraved/inhuman but it provides intense and compensatory moments of comradeship/joy/vivacity/emotion or excitement."
What appears most damaging is not so much the fatuity of the idea but that this formula represents an orthodoxy in the fictional treatment of war that - with few exceptions - is only paralleled in the pulpier forms of modern romance writing.
3. His thoughts on being translated. An excerpt:
My Norwegian translator, for example, actually concluded one of his letters to me thus: "Hey listen, man, if you're ever in Oslo and short of bread you can crash in my pad anytime". aFter I stopped laughing I started frowning. ... I conjured up images of a superannuated hippie sitting cross-legged on a mattress in an Oslo squat blithely grabbing at the wrong end of every textual stick in my novel.
Or his bemusement that this three novels "A Good Man in Africa", "An Ice-Cream War", and "Stars and Bars" had titles translated respectively as "Gewoon een Beste Kerel", "Gewoon een Oorlogie", and "Sterren, Strepen en een Gewoon Englesman". (Apart from way that Dutch always manages to look ugly, what's with the "Gewoon"?)
Boyd is incredibly erudite, but never condescending, is a shrewd but generous critic, and has led a varied and interesting life. All of which combine to make this a terrific collection.
This just arrived from Amazon, and has managed to displace everything else in the reading queue, for this evening at any rate. It feels like Christmas! 500 pages of essays and reviews by William Boyd, an author I've always liked, ever since I read "An Ice-Cream War", way back in the day.
Can't possibly list the entire contents here. Let's just say that the book contains pieces in the following categories (counts are approximate):
LIFE (10)
LITERATURE (30)
ART (15)
AFRICA (7)
FILM AND TELEVISION (16)
PEOPLE AND PLACES (17)
Boyd is, I think, a more charitable critic than, say, Anthony Lane or Martin Amis, so there are fewer verbal pyrotechnics. But this book has all the marks of a juicy treasury. I assume that his reasons for including 5 different pieces on Evelyn Waugh will become clear in due course.
There were so many wonderful pieces in this collection that no review can do it justice. I will just mention three which gave particular pleasure:
1. His essay on the short story, in which he provides a useful taxonomy of the form: the event-plot story (everything before Chekhov), the Chekhovian, the "modernist", the cryptic/ludic, the mini-novel, the biographical, and the poetic/mythic.
2. The essay "War in Fiction" in which he pinpoints the central flaw in almost all fictionalized treatment of war with remarkable astuteness:
Any one man's experience of war or battle .... has to be an exclusively subjective, quirky and highly personal affair...... And yet one's reading of any account suggests that the experience is instead fundamentally a common one; a moderately varied but essentially repetitive parade of stock attitudes and conclusions. Furthermore, the basic judgement of nearly all war novels runs along these sort of lines: "war is hell/shocking/depraved/inhuman but it provides intense and compensatory moments of comradeship/joy/vivacity/emotion or excitement."
What appears most damaging is not so much the fatuity of the idea but that this formula represents an orthodoxy in the fictional treatment of war that - with few exceptions - is only paralleled in the pulpier forms of modern romance writing.
3. His thoughts on being translated. An excerpt:
My Norwegian translator, for example, actually concluded one of his letters to me thus: "Hey listen, man, if you're ever in Oslo and short of bread you can crash in my pad anytime". aFter I stopped laughing I started frowning. ... I conjured up images of a superannuated hippie sitting cross-legged on a mattress in an Oslo squat blithely grabbing at the wrong end of every textual stick in my novel.
Or his bemusement that this three novels "A Good Man in Africa", "An Ice-Cream War", and "Stars and Bars" had titles translated respectively as "Gewoon een Beste Kerel", "Gewoon een Oorlogie", and "Sterren, Strepen en een Gewoon Englesman". (Apart from way that Dutch always manages to look ugly, what's with the "Gewoon"?)
Boyd is incredibly erudite, but never condescending, is a shrewd but generous critic, and has led a varied and interesting life. All of which combine to make this a terrific collection.
This just arrived from Amazon, and has managed to displace everything else in the reading queue, for this evening at any rate. It feels like Christmas! 500 pages of essays and reviews by William Boyd, an author I've always liked, ever since I read "An Ice-Cream War", way back in the day.
Can't possibly list the entire contents here. Let's just say that the book contains pieces in the following categories (counts are approximate):
LIFE (10)
LITERATURE (30)
ART (15)
AFRICA (7)
FILM AND TELEVISION (16)
PEOPLE AND PLACES (17)
Boyd is, I think, a more charitable critic than, say, Anthony Lane or Martin Amis, so there are fewer verbal pyrotechnics. But this book has all the marks of a juicy treasury. I assume that his reasons for including 5 different pieces on Evelyn Waugh will become clear in due course.
February 10, 2019
This is an interesting book, often in spite of itself. Much of it is workmanlike, competent rather than outstanding. Boyd is a superb short story writer and his piece on the history of the form, which should have been beaten gold, here looks gimcrack.
Despite Boyd's feigned horror at the autobiography, the best pieces all have something personal in them. My favourite, 'The Hothouse', is a memoir of his public school upbringing (reprinted from School Ties).
Boyd likes the early Hemingway but notes, rightly, how quickly his work fell apart once he started believing his own myth. William Golding, Edward Hopper, the early Waugh, and the stories of Carver and Chekhov score highly. He dislikes Jackson Pollock, abstract expressionism, and the cult of art for its own sake so beloved of ponces, phoneys, and Adam Mars-Jones.
I don't agree with Boyd about Katherine Mansfield ('plagiarist', 'vaporous'). I thought Tim O'Brien's Going after Cacciato was the weakest book in his Vietnam trilogy - Boyd gets the name of the first book wrong - but calling it an uninspired rip-off of Catch-22 is like calling Moby Dick 'just a fuckin' fish yarn.'
Boyd's style can be stuffy and cumbersome. (‘This faith in the fixedness and certainty of the phenomenal world need not - again, despite its detractors' cries of parochialism and cramped horizons - be regarded as a weakness. It does not preclude more ideological or abstract flights and really only stipulated that they should begin from the reality of our spatio-temporal world'. Ugh.’
I wish Boyd had written something longer on Anthony Burgess, especially the Enderby books, which he plainly adores.
Despite Boyd's feigned horror at the autobiography, the best pieces all have something personal in them. My favourite, 'The Hothouse', is a memoir of his public school upbringing (reprinted from School Ties).
Boyd likes the early Hemingway but notes, rightly, how quickly his work fell apart once he started believing his own myth. William Golding, Edward Hopper, the early Waugh, and the stories of Carver and Chekhov score highly. He dislikes Jackson Pollock, abstract expressionism, and the cult of art for its own sake so beloved of ponces, phoneys, and Adam Mars-Jones.
I don't agree with Boyd about Katherine Mansfield ('plagiarist', 'vaporous'). I thought Tim O'Brien's Going after Cacciato was the weakest book in his Vietnam trilogy - Boyd gets the name of the first book wrong - but calling it an uninspired rip-off of Catch-22 is like calling Moby Dick 'just a fuckin' fish yarn.'
Boyd's style can be stuffy and cumbersome. (‘This faith in the fixedness and certainty of the phenomenal world need not - again, despite its detractors' cries of parochialism and cramped horizons - be regarded as a weakness. It does not preclude more ideological or abstract flights and really only stipulated that they should begin from the reality of our spatio-temporal world'. Ugh.’
I wish Boyd had written something longer on Anthony Burgess, especially the Enderby books, which he plainly adores.
July 17, 2023
Not up to the cogency and interest of his novels but there are some nuggets here. I am not sure that it is all worth it however but I should have known this as the author titles it Bamboo as a kind of nod to the fact that this is all the outgrowth of writing that resulted in the plating of other projects.
October 13, 2009
A great collection of articles, reviews and essays on an eclectic and diverse range of subjects. It's a big thick book too, so it will entertain for many hours, or is just as good when one selects one piece to read on its own. Splendid!
Read
August 6, 2011Didn't actually realise when I bought the book on Amazon that it was a book of short stories and essays. However, I read most of them, and they were pretty good. Love the title and the Chinese proverb ... 'plant one bamboo shoot - cut bamboo for the rest of your life'.
October 12, 2009
What a gem! I can hardly settle to read any one thing in this box of delights as I've already spotted some other topic I just have to have a quick look at. What a grasshopper brain I have!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews