The White Book
Synopsis:
"Brilliant. Alex Grant has a weird and fascinating mind. In The White Book, he combines a glittering sardonic wit with a punch-drunk fatalistic spirituality to produce poems that "swing...on lengths of radiant silk". - Joanna Catherine Scott.
Book Excerpt:
Captain Scott's lost diary
"I'm just going outside, and may be some time"
- Captain Oates
Six weeks in this tent, and we are all close
to breaking-point. Captain Oates masturbates
constantly - even during dinner - he claims
it's simply a mechanism to keep his body temperature
up - though we all have our doubts. I no longer feel
comfortable shaking hands with him, and last night
he told me that he wants me to have his babies.
He insists on calling me "Falcon", though he knows
I detest my middle name. The natural order of things
seems to be breaking down - the men have begun
to question his authority of late, especially since
the unfortunate frozen-yogurt incident. My dear
wife is constantly in my thoughts - though Captain
Oates has taken to wearing a wig he made from
a penguin-skin, and insisting, in a ridiculous
falsetto impersonation of Mary, that I take him
to dinner at Claridge's. This strikes me as conduct
unbecoming of an English hero, but I find myself
strangely attracted by his buffoonish attempts at
humor, and on two occasions, have had to physically
restrain myself from mentioning his efforts
in dispatches. The wind is unrelenting, the cold
bites at every nerve, and Oates has threatened
that if we don't go to dinner soon, he'll go alone -
and that he may be gone for quite some time.
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Original Publish Date:
April 14, 2008
Formats:
Paperback
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