Submarine

This afternoon at Chelsea we were given a lecture by a lovely illustrator who's name is Nina Chakrabarti. 

About half way through her talk she showed us this piece of her work which happens to be the illustrations for one of my favourite novels ever. The novel in question is called 'Submarine' by Joe Dunthorne. I first encountered Joe last summer in the poetry arena at Latitude Festival where I spent some considerable listening to him and his band of troubadour poets. I bought his faber booklet there and since then have been really inspired by his poetry and his DIY ethos (he puts on a poetry night called Homework which runs every first wednesday of the month at the working men's club in Bethnal Green).

http://www.aisle16.co.uk/homework-ldn/

Submarine is Joe's first novel and one of my all time favourites since reading it last summer. Last year I learnt that the book had been taken up by I.T. crowd star and Arctic Monkey Video music director Richard Ayoade and was being made into a film. Well that film is now finished and is being released very soon in the UK after taking worldwide film festivals by storm. I have been a massive fan of Ayoade for years after he directed the Arctic Monkeys DVD Live at the Apollo and their more recent music videos. Alex Turner has even completed a 6 track EP for the film's music.

It's weird how cyclical this whole affair has been, I think that the film has the potential to be the British cinema hit of the year but then the equal potential become an indie film classic, unrecognised by the masses who are used to hollywood blockbusters and rom-coms churned out by the apparent same 10 or so actors and actresses, YES Jennifer Anniston and Paul Rudd I am looking at you!

Below is the trailer for Submarine and you can make of it what you wish...