Friday 14 August 2009

Le Nautilus and the Nursery


Years ago I read an article in a magazine written by semiotician Roland Barthes. It mentioned the author's little known admiration for the British Carry On films. I thought the article was wonderful and so representative of Barthes work in cultural signification. Then my world fell in. Not long after I discovered the article was a hoax. An April Fool's joke, Un Poisson D'Avril if you will. French cultural reference. I did not know who wrote the article until the other day.

Now I can reveal all. It was written by Gilbert Adair and appeared in an issue of Sight and Sound. Memory played tricks on me in this regard, as memory does - frequently. I had thought the article I read The Nautilus and the Nursery appeared in Cahiers du Cinéma, mais non. It ought to have, I suppose.

Anyway, once I read Adair's (Red Adair - geddit?) biography how could I not like someone who wrote a book called The Postmodernist Always Rings Twice?

I discovered also that he wrote three humorous detective novels with the central character, writer Evadne Mount, being a parody of Miss Marple or perhaps Agatha Christie herself.

I am reading the first one in the series now: The Act of Roger Murgatroyd


2 comments:

Vanda Symon said...

These sound fun!

Hugh Macmillan said...

Yes - most entertaining