Yesterday postie delivered From The Atelier Tovar : Selected Writings by Guy Maddin. Readers may recall I enthused about Mr Maddin last year. I am looking forward to reading this collection of journals, journalism and film treatments by the Winnipegite, but for the time being there are two phrases from the back cover blurbs of which I am inordinately envious. How can one not delight in a book of which it is said: “his treatments are deadpan whatsits of the highest order†and “you have arrived there, at the Atelier Tovar. Galoshes recommended�
I look forward to hearing your opinion on Maddin’s book. I used to be envious of the blurb on a translation of Gombrowicz’s ‘Ferdyduke’, namely: ‘A masterpiece… Reading it is as catalysing as putting an umbrella though a meatgrinder’
I was once invited to supply blurb for a novel by Vladimir Dorwindovitch and offered the following ‘I could have spent the time I took reading this doing something truly useful. I’m glad I didn’t’. For reasons unknown, my blurb was rejected.
Who is the behelmeted flapper in the orange circle on the book cover?