I'm a little bewildered by this B&S mole who has burrowed his way into the Guardian's book review staff. Never heard of this Sukhdev Sandhu before. Cracking review. I hope it doesn't lead people to buy the novel and think 'this is pish - the records must be too'. I'm not showing much faith in this book am I? I will give it a try, honest. I just hope it's better than the last Scottish indie scene-related novel I read - 'Morvern Callar' by Alan 'Superstar' Warner. Someone on the list said it was great a while ago, which shocked me, because it isn't. Gosh, I'm getting beligerent in my old age. What will I be like when I reach 16? Tender as a bruise Nalda Said By Stuart David Rating: **** Sukhdev Sandhu Thursday October 21, 1999 Since the release of their first album, Tigermilk, in 1996 the Glaswegian group Belle and Sebastian have acquired a large audience of young and really not so young, boys and (especially) women. They're loved for their soaring, melancholic melodies; their funny, worldly lyrics; and, most of all, because their songs speak to the heart with knee-buckling emotional directness. The group also pursue extra-curricular projects. Most successful has been Stuart David who fronts Looper and has written two ludicrously charming books. The first, Little Ink Polaroids, was a collection of sketches of the pictures he would have liked to have taken. His first full-length novel, Nalda Said, conjures up the same kind of municipal tristesse as Belle and Sebastian. The unnamed narrator is a jewel thief's son brought up by his Aunt Nalda. His father, on the run from both the cops and his fellow crooks, visits him briefly and spoons him a diamond, smothered in milk and moulded bread, for safekeeping. As he grows up Nalda goes mad and he stumbles into an itinerant life, always upping and offing, fearful that his secret will emerge - he still carries the jewel inside him. Eventually he finds gardening work near a hospital. Here, in spite of his taciturn shyness, a nurse called Marie takes a shine to him. She spends most of the day wheeling around loonies who shout "How are your biscuits?" The rest of the time she tries to get "Reynard" to open up a bit and trust other people. Fearful that she's a secret agent, he struggles to break his vow of rhetorical chastity and tell her something about himself. It's an odd story, a care-in-the-community fairy tale. Slow and faltering, it has the artful artlessness of Daren King's recent Boxy an Star. Yet Nalda Said is far more disturbing - reading it I kept recalling the Gibbons twins, two schizophrenic sisters who decided as infants to become self-elective mutes. The novel shows how the stories we tell ourselves to ward off the panicky void can end up disabling us. It also gives a horribly realistic depiction of solitude. There's no teen angst or melodramatic self-flagellation here. Instead we're lured into pitying a narrator who fears human contact, who's unable to believe people might quite like him. David's insight into how easily we can waste our lives, impaled by longing and useless desire, produces passages of rare compassion. This is a deeply unfashionable book - not only in its subject matter but in its reticence, its emotional tactility. No matter. It's the novel Antoine Doinel, the buffeted hero of Truffaut's Les Quatre Cents Coups might have written. Tender as a bruise, it will be a friend indeed for those shivering in needy isolation this autumn. ? Published by IMP, £7.99 Oh, and to anyone who's not met Arantxa, she s talks like that in real life too. How great is that? Nick xxx +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the reborn Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail "sinister@majordomo.net". To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to "majordomo@majordomo.net". WWW: http://www.majordomo.net/sinister +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +-+ "jelly-filled danishes" +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+