Alfie Gallagher answers thirteen questions in a Booker's Dozen.


TPQ: What are you currently reading?

AG: A few weeks ago, I read Leigh Phillips and Michal Rozworski's The People's Republic of Walmart. It's an intriguing introduction to modern economic planning, both in terms of its pervasive role in running the largest multinational corporations of today and its potential role in democratic socialist economies of tomorrow. At the moment though, I'm reading the third book in Frank Herbert's Dune sci-fi saga, Patrick Cockburn's Age of Jihad and also, embarrassing as it is to admit, J. M. Roberts' 1300-page magnum opus History of the World. It's embarrassing because I first began to read the latter about fifteen years ago! Because I suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder, some things in life are more difficult than others. For various reasons, reading can be difficult for me -- this book in particular. I've started and stopped, re-read and re-interpreted parts of it several times over the years. It's been a Sisyphean ordeal, but to paraphrase Camus, it's in the struggle that we find meaning.

TPQ: Best book you have ever read? 

AG: My favourite novel is probably John Rutherford's modern English translation of Don Quixote. When I first came across the book, I was trying to learn more about the nature of fiction and narrative. I found myself totally transported by this roguish and episodic story about stories, this metafictional narrative centuries before its time, this supposed parody of medieval romance that's really more of a joshing homage. Above all, it's just a funny book. It made me laugh and it made me think. I even have a copy of Picasso's sketch of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza hanging in my bedroom! 

As for non-fiction, a personal favourite is Simon Blackburn's Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy. Blackburn has a gift for introducing to the average reader complex discourses on epistemology, free will and the philosophy of the mind with remarkable depth and lucidity. This book helped clarify my sometimes muddled thinking on such issues and provided me with a solid foundation for further reading.

TPQ: A must-read before you die?

AG: In fiction, I'd like to read Joyce's Ulysses, Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, and Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway. In non-fiction, I'd particularly like to tackle Eric Hobsbawm's Ages series.

TPQ: A preference for fact or fiction?

AG: Before I began to better manage my OCD and before I started using the Kindle, I found fiction much harder to read because I had a crippling compulsion to look up words in the dictionary. Non-fiction was easier, but by no means problem-free. Thankfully though, I've managed to reduce these perfectionistic urges greatly and I actually find fiction easier to read now... but that's probably because I over-analyse facts!

TPQ:
Favourite Female author?

AG: That's hard to say because I tend to focus my reading on individual books rather a particular author's body of work. I especially admire Flannery O'Connor spare yet piercing prose and Jane Austen's subtle Victorian wit, but my favourite novel written by a woman is Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. It's one of the few novels I've read twice or more. I love the nested narrative, the weird quasi-incestuous obsessions, the gothic eeriness. 

TPQ: Favourite male author?

AG: Again, that's a difficult question to answer. The authors I find easiest to read would probably be Elmore Leonard and George Orwell. Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is all-time favourite, as is Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. If a gun was put to my head, I'd probably pick Flann O'Brien — though I'm sure you disagree! I think his work is extraordinarily imaginative and gloriously daft.

A Berlin Book Tower in memory of the Nazi book burning.


TPQ: First book you ever read?

AG: I can't recall the first book I ever read, but the first book that made a significant impact on me was the Usborne Illustrated Guide to Greek Myths and Legends. It know this because it was the basis of my first obsessive compulsive episode when I was 8 years old. I became terribly worried that unless I walked through doors in a certain way, the Greek gods and monsters I'd read about would somehow become "real"!

TPQ: Favourite childhood author?

AG: I wasn't much of a bookworm as a child, so I didn't really have a favourite author. I did enjoy encyclopaedias and science/technology books though.

TPQ: Any book you point blank refuse to read?

AG: I'm not sure I'd refuse to read any book as a matter of principle, but I do know I'd be very queasy at the thoughts of tackling PS, I love You or The Da Vinci Code.

TPQ: Any author you point blank refuse to read?

AG: Again, it's not so much a principled rejection of an author as it is a matter of what I can stomach. I think I'd find the dull, self-serving and self-important memoirs of certain politicians very nauseating — Gerry Adams, Tony Blair, the Clintons, etc.

TPQ: Pick a book to give to somebody so that they would more fully understand you.


AG: I'd love to say something cool like A Confederacy of Dunces or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but if I really want people to understand me and the problems I've had, then I'd have to refer them to the following: Jeffrey Schwarz's Brain Lock, Lee Baer's The Imp of the Mind: Exploring the Silent Epidemic of Obsessive Bad Thoughts and Overcoming Obsessive Compulsive Disorder by Dave Veale and Rob Willson.

TPQ: Last book you gave as a present?


AG: Excluding ebooks — lest I incriminate myself! — the last book I gave as a present was The Great Big Book of Irish Wildlife: Through the Seasons. I bought it for my 7-year-old nephew Patrick.

TPQ: Book you would most like to see turned into a movie?

AG: In an ideal world, I'd like to see Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian made into a film, but in reality I'm sure it would be softened and sanitized like the film version of The Road.


⏭ Alfie Gallagher is a Sligo based mathematician.


Booker's Dozen @ Alfie Gallagher

Alfie Gallagher answers thirteen questions in a Booker's Dozen.


TPQ: What are you currently reading?

AG: A few weeks ago, I read Leigh Phillips and Michal Rozworski's The People's Republic of Walmart. It's an intriguing introduction to modern economic planning, both in terms of its pervasive role in running the largest multinational corporations of today and its potential role in democratic socialist economies of tomorrow. At the moment though, I'm reading the third book in Frank Herbert's Dune sci-fi saga, Patrick Cockburn's Age of Jihad and also, embarrassing as it is to admit, J. M. Roberts' 1300-page magnum opus History of the World. It's embarrassing because I first began to read the latter about fifteen years ago! Because I suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder, some things in life are more difficult than others. For various reasons, reading can be difficult for me -- this book in particular. I've started and stopped, re-read and re-interpreted parts of it several times over the years. It's been a Sisyphean ordeal, but to paraphrase Camus, it's in the struggle that we find meaning.

TPQ: Best book you have ever read? 

AG: My favourite novel is probably John Rutherford's modern English translation of Don Quixote. When I first came across the book, I was trying to learn more about the nature of fiction and narrative. I found myself totally transported by this roguish and episodic story about stories, this metafictional narrative centuries before its time, this supposed parody of medieval romance that's really more of a joshing homage. Above all, it's just a funny book. It made me laugh and it made me think. I even have a copy of Picasso's sketch of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza hanging in my bedroom! 

As for non-fiction, a personal favourite is Simon Blackburn's Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy. Blackburn has a gift for introducing to the average reader complex discourses on epistemology, free will and the philosophy of the mind with remarkable depth and lucidity. This book helped clarify my sometimes muddled thinking on such issues and provided me with a solid foundation for further reading.

TPQ: A must-read before you die?

AG: In fiction, I'd like to read Joyce's Ulysses, Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, and Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway. In non-fiction, I'd particularly like to tackle Eric Hobsbawm's Ages series.

TPQ: A preference for fact or fiction?

AG: Before I began to better manage my OCD and before I started using the Kindle, I found fiction much harder to read because I had a crippling compulsion to look up words in the dictionary. Non-fiction was easier, but by no means problem-free. Thankfully though, I've managed to reduce these perfectionistic urges greatly and I actually find fiction easier to read now... but that's probably because I over-analyse facts!

TPQ:
Favourite Female author?

AG: That's hard to say because I tend to focus my reading on individual books rather a particular author's body of work. I especially admire Flannery O'Connor spare yet piercing prose and Jane Austen's subtle Victorian wit, but my favourite novel written by a woman is Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. It's one of the few novels I've read twice or more. I love the nested narrative, the weird quasi-incestuous obsessions, the gothic eeriness. 

TPQ: Favourite male author?

AG: Again, that's a difficult question to answer. The authors I find easiest to read would probably be Elmore Leonard and George Orwell. Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is all-time favourite, as is Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. If a gun was put to my head, I'd probably pick Flann O'Brien — though I'm sure you disagree! I think his work is extraordinarily imaginative and gloriously daft.

A Berlin Book Tower in memory of the Nazi book burning.


TPQ: First book you ever read?

AG: I can't recall the first book I ever read, but the first book that made a significant impact on me was the Usborne Illustrated Guide to Greek Myths and Legends. It know this because it was the basis of my first obsessive compulsive episode when I was 8 years old. I became terribly worried that unless I walked through doors in a certain way, the Greek gods and monsters I'd read about would somehow become "real"!

TPQ: Favourite childhood author?

AG: I wasn't much of a bookworm as a child, so I didn't really have a favourite author. I did enjoy encyclopaedias and science/technology books though.

TPQ: Any book you point blank refuse to read?

AG: I'm not sure I'd refuse to read any book as a matter of principle, but I do know I'd be very queasy at the thoughts of tackling PS, I love You or The Da Vinci Code.

TPQ: Any author you point blank refuse to read?

AG: Again, it's not so much a principled rejection of an author as it is a matter of what I can stomach. I think I'd find the dull, self-serving and self-important memoirs of certain politicians very nauseating — Gerry Adams, Tony Blair, the Clintons, etc.

TPQ: Pick a book to give to somebody so that they would more fully understand you.


AG: I'd love to say something cool like A Confederacy of Dunces or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but if I really want people to understand me and the problems I've had, then I'd have to refer them to the following: Jeffrey Schwarz's Brain Lock, Lee Baer's The Imp of the Mind: Exploring the Silent Epidemic of Obsessive Bad Thoughts and Overcoming Obsessive Compulsive Disorder by Dave Veale and Rob Willson.

TPQ: Last book you gave as a present?


AG: Excluding ebooks — lest I incriminate myself! — the last book I gave as a present was The Great Big Book of Irish Wildlife: Through the Seasons. I bought it for my 7-year-old nephew Patrick.

TPQ: Book you would most like to see turned into a movie?

AG: In an ideal world, I'd like to see Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian made into a film, but in reality I'm sure it would be softened and sanitized like the film version of The Road.


⏭ Alfie Gallagher is a Sligo based mathematician.


3 comments:

  1. Again, a wonderfully biographical addition to the series.

    Just as an aside, Blair’s ‘A Journey’ was a good read, if only for the details on the GFA talks. Even if we can’t trust his recollections, it’s useful to identify what he wants others to believe.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. !a wonderfully biographical addition" - a wonderfully apt description Daithi - I got so much out of this this. Alfie is endlessly engaging and focussed - even when we are on the beer!! - so I very much look forward to hooking up with him again tomorrow.

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  2. I hope to join you when I get my passport sorted!

    ReplyDelete