DOGEARS001 - Ian McEwan on Music
Introducing a new, occasional format for A Novel Tribe: Dog Ears.
It’s hardly new or surprising to say that we live in a world of information overload, but that doesn’t make it any less true. The only sensible response, beyond retreating to a cave, is to implement filters - filters for substance, quality, taste, relevance, significance. In that way, I’ve always found that the curated newsletters I read and that have inspired ANT are not sources of more content to consume, but sources of focus. They are what prevent having to wade blindly into infinity and let chance dictate where you spend your time. Or, perhaps worse, relying too heavily on big-tech algorithms. I hope that this newsletter is or can become an effective filter for you.
That being said, I want to make sure it is a source of inspiration and comfort, not overwhelm - more books that there’s no time to read, more links to fill more dormant browser tabs until the number of them becomes anxiety inducing. For that reason, I’m slowing down the pace a bit. Giving you (and me) time to digest, reflect and most of all read the works that are featured here.
A Novel Tribe will still run in its original format (for the newcomers, see the first, last and my personal favourite issues), just every other issue, so once every four weeks. The issues in between will be filled with more free-flowing, loosely connected tidbits - passages from books, loosely relevant essays, perhaps even fiction writing. Most importantly, these in-between issues will be singular in focus and self contained - something you can read in your email client and be done with. Something that hopefully sparks thoughts, inspiration and energy around the reading that the more fully fledged issues encourage, but with a quicker payback. That adds less to the already endless task of just keeping up with the world.
In the spirit of publishing houses and music labels, this child-series will go under the title Dog Ears to make it easily distinguishable. If you have any thoughts on this change, or would like to subscribe to one without the other, just hit reply. I’d love to hear.
“We are continuously challenged to discover new works of culture—and, in the process, we don’t allow any one of them to assume a weight in our minds.”
Alain de Botton
To ramp up towards the next full issue, which will be on books that have music at their core, here’s Ian McEwan with a passage on that very topic from his 2005 literary thriller Saturday. My personal favourite novel from a career full of triumphs, this passage has long stuck with me for how it articulates something I’ve always felt but not been able to put my finger on. For McEwan’s seeming expertise on every topic and the deft touch that allows him to weave in thought-provoking meditations such as this without sacrificing breathtaking plot and tension.
During a day which has already been thrown off course by a demonstration against the Iraq war and a minor car crash with a man who attempts to aggressively extort him, surgeon Henry Perowne is further interrupted from his painstaking preparations for a weekend family dinner by a request from his son to watch a band rehearsal. We join him as he arrives…
Please excuse my wobbly underlining on a busy train! I typed out this passage (a very soothing, meditative way to better engage with other people’s writing) but eventually felt that the experience was stronger reading direct from the page like this.
I’ll be back in two weeks with an original format issue focused on Music, a topic I’m very excited to cover with some powerful books.
If you’re new to A Novel Tribe, I always welcome guest contributors as in ANT001 and ANT004. If you’d like to contribute, just reply to this email. Alternatively, the best thing you could do to help right now is to share it with someone you know. Simply forward this email or link them to the website.
Until next time,
MQ.