100 Per Cent Proof: A Reading Diary

Current read: The Beautiful Machine
Where / how acquired: See below - very thoughtful Xmas present from...myself
Vibe: Velo-riffic

Finished the Roger Deakin last week, which forced me to muse upon posthumous works and what responsibilities an author's heir or executor has to publish, or to avoid publication. I mentioned that I feared Penguin, in publishing these notes of Deakins', might have done to him what they did to Sebald, and sullied his reputation by posthumously publishing bits and pieces that really weren't meant to be published, at least not just like that.

The Guardian definitely took the best bits of Notes from Walnut Tree Farm for their extract; clearly some of the notes in Deakins' notebooks were just that - notes, marginalia, destinded to germinate and sprout forth fuller works perhaps but not to be to let out of the greenhouse just yet. Having said that, it was a lovely read: by turns melancholic, learned, modest and poetic. Maybe there should just be some breathing space once an author has died before their unpublished stuff is allowed out. I must read Waterlog again...actually, I must get Waterlog back from whom I lent it...

So now onto, as it says (in quote marks but unattributed, oddly), on the cover, a zen-like paean to the beauty of cycling, Graame Fife's The Beautiful Machine. I really didn't like it when it kicked off - I thought it was sloppy and rather clumsy, like a retired sportsman who'd started writing his memoirs while reading Will Self, and thus started to randomly insert unnecessary verbosity. But, like a cyclist 'getting his legs' it picks up soon enough and lives up to that strapline on the front. It's basically Fife's autobiography, his tales from the handlebars of life, and he does make riding a bike seem (even more) magical, fundamental, earthy, essential and as if it really the vehicle on which true existential peace, happiness and serenity will be found...which it is of course. I'm really enjoying it and will probably finish it soon. And it's likely to prove a pricey read - it makes me even more determined to get down to Condor on Grays Inn Road and place my order for my £1500 2009 Squadra so that's it's built in time for spring...I'll ask for a Fife-related discount, they must get that a lot...