Reading

Professor Harold Bloom

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On its ’10 Questions’ page at the back of Time Magazine, May 11th, there was a series of responses from Harold Bloom, who is a literary critic and Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University.  He comes across as an iconic, contrary, interesting figure, and while he was teaching at Yale while I was there, I never met the man.

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In the ‘interview’ he makes several points about literature which interested me.  (He also discussed students and Yale and Naomi Wolf: of less interest.)

He was asked whether he was ever tempted to write a second novel, after The Flight to Lucifer.  His response was that on re-reading The Flight to Lucifer, he decided that writing fiction was not for him.  He was then asked what qualifies him to be a critic if he isn’t a novelist or a poet.  His answer was that he loves books.  To my mind, that’s a good answer.  To be a competent critic, one does not need to be a writer, but one must be an educated, insightful, voracious reader.  Good writers do not necessarily make good critics, and good critics can be poor writers.  What good writers and critics have in common is a love of reading.

He also says that ‘we live in an age of visual overstimulation’ and that the ‘pernicious screen’ destroys the ability to read well.  I’m not sure that it destroys our ability to read, but it certainly can distract us from reading, and I think this is particularly true of young people.

Bloom says that writers should read ‘only the best and most challenging and traditional’.  I don’t agree with this.  I think writers, as readers, need to experiment.  I find that when I read a book that is not one of the ‘best’ or is not ‘traditional’, my horizons are widened.  I can see mistakes that were made, and I can evaluate new approaches and techniques.  This is part of my learning process; sticking to the best, traditional literature narrows my vision.

Time asked Bloom whether he is familiar with ‘websites that provide reviews by common readers’.  Bloom’s response: “Their effect upon the mind is not good.  They do not enlarge and make the mind more keen and independent.  Reading is not in that sense a democratic process.  It is elitist.  It has to be elitist.”  What a lot of bullshit!  Bloom comes across as a dedicated elitist who wishes to protect his own sublime position as a critic.  While it may be true that many of the reviews posted on, for example, Amazon.com are cursory and less than insightful, it does not follow that such reviews should be deplored. Many readers have a desire to express their views on what they have read; to deny them the opportunity to express those views may take away part of their incentive to read.  Besides, a sophisticated review reader can find the wheat amid the chaff.  Reading is not a democratic process?  That’s a ridiculous statement!  If he meant that literary criticism is not a democratic process, I would agree.

Someday, I would like to meet Professor Bloom.

Review: Nichijo: The Testimony of John Provoo

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As a participant in the Reader’s Favourite book review scheme, I had to select a book from among those that had been submitted for review. Nearly all of the books submitted are in electronic format. I prefer hard copies, so I selected the book I wanted to read and bought it on Amazon.

Nichijo: The Testimony of John Provoo interested me for several reasons: It concerned the Second World War in the Pacific, and there were elements of Buddhism and Japanese culture. (I read much of the book while on a recent trip to Japan.)

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The author is John Oliver who has a Batchelor’s degree in Political Science and Religious Studies from the University of California at Santa Barbara.  He was working in Hawaii when he met John Provoo and decided to tell his story. The book is therefore an autobiography; as it is written in the first person.

According to his ‘testimony’, John Provoo grew up in San Francisco, having been born in 1917. He was attracted to Buddhism and believed in the sanctity of all life. In March 1940, he went to Japan to study for the Buddhist priesthood.   He returned to the US in May 1941 under the threat of imminent war, and enlisted in the US Army. He was sent to the Philippines where he worked as a clerk in Army headquarters in Manila. He was captured by the Japanese in the Battle of Corregidor and became a prisoner of war. Much of the book concerns his time as a Japanese prisoner. Because of his fluency in Japanese and his understanding of Japanese culture he often had to deal directly with his captors. This led simultaneously to somewhat more lenient treatment of fellow prisoners and suspicions by the same fellow prisoners that Provoo was giving aid and comfort to the enemy. When he returned to the US, he was accused of collaboration with the enemy, was acquitted and re-enlisted in 1946. For most of the next ten years, he was pursued by the US Justice Department for treason, and underwent several trials, during which his homosexuality was used against him. Eventually, he was acquitted and went to Japan to complete his Buddhist training and to Hawaii, where, as a high level Buddhist priest he lived the rest of his life, dying in 2001.

One has the sense, in reading the book, of an honest re-counting of history, and, as such, it makes very interesting reading: in particular, the conflicted position in which a Japanese-speaking Provoo found himself as a Japanese prisoner of war; the shameful conduct of the Justice Department in mounting a hugely costly campaign against him and in using his homosexuality against him. It appears that John Oliver undertook a considerable amount of independent research to complete this book, and that he did not rely only on what Provoo told him.

There are several areas that are worth mentioning. John Provoo was clearly a very complex character, but one does not get a full understanding of this complexity in the book. Rather, the emphasis is on the historic (what was done) rather than the psychological (why it was done). Might it have been a more interesting piece of literature if instead of being entirely in the first person, the author had intervened as the narrator now and then? In the latter part of the book, there is too much name dropping (who the various interested parties were), and on exactly what they said. I think it would have been sufficient to summarise the key points, and use footnotes where essential. While the writing is good and effective, there is very little description of the various environments in which Provoo found himself: again the emphasis on history rather than literature.

That said, Nichijo, (Provoo’s name as a Buddhist priest) is quite an interesting read. I enjoyed it.

Review: Do No Harm

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My wife recommended this book to me.  It was written by a neurosurgeon, Henry Marsh, to whom she was referred with back pain.  We both met him in his outpatient clinic, and he impressed us – partly because he said that no surgery would be required.  When Mr Marsh’s book was published and was shortlisted for a 2014 Costa Award, my wife naturally wanted to read it.

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Henry Marsh

The book is subtitled “Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery”, and I found it to be a very engaging read.  The subject matter: brain surgery is quite mysterious, but Mr Marsh explains procedures so that the main points are quite understandable without being technically obscure.  His writing flows pleasantly, and sincerely; one never feels that he is the least bit condescending.  In fact, he lays bare the mistakes he has made in surgery, and reveals the anguish he has felt.  Successful, life-saving procedures are dealt with matter-of-factly.  With twenty-five chapters, each dealing with a different condition, one feels well-exposed to brain surgery.  Mr Marsh tells the reader of his development from nursing aide to med school, through the doctors’ hierarchy to consultant, and includes vignettes of the teaching of junior doctors.  The book is not from a doctor’s perspective only; he reveals the thinking and the feelings of patients, too.  The hospital setting is covered: nurses are caring but over-worked; managers are bureaucratic, unsympathetic and stubborn.  Stories from his voluntary practice in Ukraine are included, as well, and these provide a strong contrast to the state of the art and the clinical and management culture in the UK.

One can’t help but feel, as one reads the book: Why in the world would anyone want to be a neurosurgeon, given the complex opportunities for failure?  Mr Marsh doesn’t answer this question directly, but I think his view would be that the euphoria that one can feel from saving a life or advancing the technology more than offsets the anguish one feels from a mistake that leaves a patient paralysed.  Given, therefore, that a neurosurgeon has control over the life and death of his (or her) patients, Isn’t it tempting for a neurosurgeon to feel like a god?  Again, Mr Marsh does not answer directly.  He seems to say that any pretence at being a god is destroyed in the humility of the learning process.

Do No Harm was one of five books shortlisted in the biography category of a Costa Book Award in 2014.  The winning book was H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald about  her struggle to train a goshawk.  On the face of it, one would think that Marsh’s book would have a leg up: after all, a book about the ramifications of life-saving surgery sounds more important than the difficulty of training a very wild animal.  Perhaps a clue can be found in what the Costa judges said about H is for Hawk: “A unique and beautiful book with a searing emotional honesty, and descriptive language that is unparalleled in modern literature.”  I haven’t read H is for Hawk, but what I think the judges are saying is that Helen Macdonald’s writing is what won the prize for her.  Still, I would recommend putting Do No Harm at the top of your reading list.

Who Defines Quality These Days?

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The following article by Jillian Bergsma, a writer and contributing editor for Independent Publisher, appears in the current issue of the Independent Publisher Newsletter.  I think it’s worth repeating in its entirety.

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Jillian Bergsma

“A few months ago I received an interesting question from an Independent Publisher reader: “Who defines [book] quality these days?” In today’s publishing landscape, we’ve seen a dramatic shift in who owns the power to say a book is good, bad, or just okay. For a long time, a writer had to be vetted by so many people: a literary agent, the editor or publisher, the copyeditor, the proofreader, the reviewer, the bookseller or librarian, and then—finally—the reader.

“But now many self-published authors cut out most or all of those middlemen, going straight to the consumer. . . . So without the horde of literary mavens between an author and a reader, who does define the quality of a book?

“The question has several answers. Let’s start with those aforementioned mavens who are often left out of the equation. Thousands of writers still submit to agents and publishing houses each year. There’s a certain prestige associated with traditional publishing, and for good reason. You get a team of people to get your book into the best shape possible; you don’t have to pay the out-of-pocket costs to get the book on the market; and you have professionals selling your work.

“However, for a lot of aspiring authors, rejections from agents and publishers become the norm. Some folks say it takes scores of queries before you’re likely to find the right match (see Chuck Sambuchino’s article “Don’t Give Up Until You’ve Queried 80 Agents or More”). As harsh as the rejections can sometimes seem, they aren’t usually unfounded. Some rejections are on a taste basis—an agent or publisher just doesn’t connect with the material or think it would be right for their list. To each their own. But sometimes a rejection letter will come back that can give valuable feedback to a writer. Perhaps the level of writing wasn’t strong enough, the characters not fully developed, the plot too similar to a blockbuster book already in the market. In these ways, agents and publishers still serve a vital role in determining the quality of books in the marketplace. They know their stuff, so if you’re lucky enough to get more than a form response back, take the advice they give and put it to use.

“Booksellers and librarians are another group that can fall by the wayside if you’re self-publishing, which may be even more devastating than the loss of agents and publishers. The folks working in your local indie bookshop or at the town library are incredible resources and often have incredible taste. These days especially they must be extremely selective when choosing books for their shelves—books are expensive, shelf space is ever shrinking, and readers may be more likely to download a $0.99 ebook than to spring for the $26.99 hardcover.

“Booksellers and librarians have long been the real touch point for readers—before you could look up the ratings on Amazon, you needed your librarian to give you recommendations on which mystery novel to read next. So if you do have the opportunity to connect with your local library or bookstore, do it. Their responses to a book can be invaluable, even if that response isn’t the one you are looking for.

“The next category of gatekeepers includes bloggers and reviewers—opinions from other readers who aren’t directly in the line of producing or selling books. With the rise in social media, these folks are becoming bigger players in the game. Many of us follow a handful of favorite blogs penned by fellow readers who will tell us if a book is wonderful or a waste of time. For most people, the logo on the spine of the book doesn’t matter nearly as much as the opinion of someone we trust. And of course there are certain established reviewing outlets (think New York Times, etc.) that can turn us on or off a book in a matter of a few sentences. More than ever, these third-party reviews are gaining power in determining the quality of a book.

“And finally: THE READER. I have to say that the reader is the most influential person in determining the quality of a book. And perhaps that is how reading was always meant to be. What does it really matter if your best friend or your boss or a publisher you’ll never meet loves or hates a book? What matters is that you do. In the publishing cycle, the reader is the customer, and how does that age-old adage go? The customer is always right.

“Okay,” you say. “Sure, the reader is the most important. But what power do they really have beyond buying and selling books? How can they influence what gets published in the first place?”

“Having worked in publishing for several years, I can tell you that the reader is more powerful than they know. Editors routinely check Goodreads, Amazon, and blogs to look at what people are responding to in terms of writing style, characters, covers, and genres. Some publishers, like Amazon, are even introducing programs such as Kindle Scout, where readers decide which books are worthy of publication.

“So yes, at the end of the day, the reader holds the best hand. The publishing business wouldn’t be very successful if we didn’t understand how important our end-users really are, but today more than ever we are able to benefit from the thoughts and opinions of readers. Of course, the people I’ve discussed up until now—the agent, the publisher, the bookseller, the librarian, the reviewer, the blogger—are all readers too. And they want you, another reader, to enjoy or despise a book just like they do. At the end of the day, we’re all after the same thing here: a great read. “

Icarus as an Artist

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The myth of Icarus, who, with his father, Daedalus, tried to escape from Crete, using wings that his father made from feathers and wax, is subject to interpretation.  Icarus disobeyed his father’s instructions not to fly too high, because the heat of the sun would melt the wax of his wings.  Icarus flew too high, the wax melted and he fell into the sea.

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The usual interpretation seems to be that it was hubris – over-ambition – which caused Icarus to fall to his death.  The moral being that we should not fly too low in our lives, as that would not do justice to our capabilities, but we should not try to fly higher than or capabilities.

A few days ago, I heard another interpretation: that Icarus is a symbol of the artist, trying always to stretch and improve his art.  This was suggested by Jorg Widman, clarinettist, composer and conductor.  He was conducting the London Chamber Orchestra and introducing his own piece: Icarus’ Lament.  He said that his piece was inspired by Charles Baudelaire’s poem Lament of an Icarus:

Lovers of whores don’t care,
happy, calm and replete:
But my arms are incomplete,
grasping the empty air.
Thanks to stars, incomparable ones,
that blaze in the depths of the skies,
all my destroyed eyes
see, are the memories of suns.
I look, in vain, for beginning and end
of the heavens’ slow revolve:
Under an unknown eye of fire, I ascend
feeling my wings dissolve.
And, scorched by desire for the beautiful,
I will not know the bliss,
of giving my name to that abyss,
that knows my tomb and funeral.

Jorg Widman’s Icarus Lament was an interesting piece – quite unconventional- played only by the string section of the orchestra.  It began with the violins playing a very high note, pausing momentarily and continuing.  One could visualise a winged creature beating its wings laboriously in very high flight.  Then came the cellos, playing a more sombre melody, as a sort of counter-force to the violins.  Finally, the violas joined in playing a more lively melody.  One definitely had the feeling of the creative force (violins) struggling to assert themselves over the force of gravity (cellos), while the world (violas) looked on.

So I suppose that Icarus could stand as a symbol of the artist who is not content with the safe journey, and who yearns to stretch his talents.

For myself, I see it slightly differently: as a learning and development process.  With each novel, I feel well, I’ve done that; what can I do next that’s a little more challenging?  I suppose what I don’t do is to focus on what my readers would like, because that will tend to be ‘more of the same’.  Rather, I think, if I do this new novel well, my readers will probably like it.  And if they don’t?  I hope that they’ll tell me what they didn’t like.  But, if they do like it, and I feel I’ve met my challenge, I’m ready to move on to the next challenge!

Television on Books

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There was an article in yesterdays Daily Telegraph entitled: “BBC must have a show about books”.

The article went on: “The BBC’s lack of books coverage is  ‘an absolute disgrace’ according to Robert Harris, the novelist and chairman of the Costa Book Awards judging panel.

 

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Robert Harris

Announcing Helen Macdonald’s memoir H is for Hawk as the £30,000 Costa Book of the Year, Harris used his speech to criticise the corporation.  He pointed out that in the 1970’s, when the prize was launched, the BBC had two dedicated book programmes on its main channel.  Now it has none.  ‘It is an absolute disgrace that the BBC, a publicly funded organisation shouldn’t do a bit more to help our books business’, he said, to cheers from authors and publishing industry figures.  ‘Come on, Tony Hall, if you’re watching this on BBC news.  Do a little bit more for the books trade, please.’  He added, ‘In the 1970’s there were two book programmes: The Book Programme with Robert Robertson and Read All About It with Melvyn Bragg.  Both were running at the same time when we only had three channels.  We now have 300 channels, but we don’t have any dedicated book programmes.’

The Book Programme was dedicated to ‘books, authors and the literary life’.  From what I can tell it ran on several BBC regional radio stations, as well as on TV.  My search on Google failed to find a reference to Read All About It as a BBC programme or as a reference under Melvyn Bragg.  Perhaps the BBC’s archive does not go back far enough.  The BBC does, however, give full coverage to Robert Harris’ remarks.

As I think about media coverage of books, I tend to agree that more coverage of books and the literary world would be desirable – provided that the coverage is targeted at the right audience, through the right medium.  It seems to me that television is most effective when it presents changing or moving images.  If the programme were to feature books, the images would mostly be of authors talking, presenters commenting or book covers.  Radio could be nearly as effective as TV in presenting literary subjects.  To justify its cost as a medium, television needs to attract a mass audience, but is there a mass audience for literature? Given the many genres, styles, authors, and critics, it seems to me that attracting a large audience to books, in general, would be difficult.

My conclusion is that a weekly radio show of, say half an hour, in the early afternoon, could be quite interesting.  It would feature trends and developments in literature (including writing, publishing, marketing and distribution) as well as brief, stimulating interviews with authors, publishers and critics.  And, of course, the presenter would have to be both knowledgeable and a good entertainer.

What is your view?

Mark Zuckerberg on reading

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James Walton has an article in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph which is entitled: ‘Reading Books is not a duty, Mr Zuckerberg’.

 

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Walton begins by saying:

“Books,” according to the chick-lit author and  former Member of Parliament Louise Mensch, “were what we used to do before the internet.”  Now, though, it seems that these ancient artefacts may be making a comeback.  No less a figure than Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder, has declared 2015 “A Year of Books” and is inviting his website users to join him in his New Year’s resolution of reading and discussing one a fortnight.  His first choice is Moisés Naim’s The End of Power, which explores the growing power of ‘anti-political’ movements such as the Tea Party and Ukip – thanks, as luck wold have it, to their use of Facebook.  Zuckerberg launched his project by announcing, with what sounds almost like surprise, that books are “intellectually fulfilling” and “allow you too explore a topic . . . in a deeper way than most media today”.  For old school book lovers, the literary reference that springs most readily to mind is “no —-, Sherlock”.

Walton continues: You might also be tempted to imagine a world in which there had been 700 years of internet, before, in the Nineties, somebody invented books.  It would surely seem a miracle that, instead of trawling acres of semi-reliable information, you could have a guaranteed, portable and inexpensive source of knowledge from someone who knows both how to write and what they’re talking about.  But it appears that in his shock discovery of books potential, Zuckerberg is not alone.  A recent article in The Wall Street Journal praised a new campaign of “slow reading”, whose members meet once a week in a café, turn off their phones for a whole hour and read in silence.  Such quiet reading, the headline declared, can “benefit your brain” (again, not a revelation that would have startled Sherlock Holmes.)  While today’s bibliophiles might want to pounce on anything that smacks of good news, I can’t help wondering if using books purely as a means of self improvement – with elements of self-congratulation thrown in – misses the point of reading.

Walton goes on to make the point, via Nick Hornby, that people should read books for enjoyment and should not bother to finish the ones they don’t enjoy.  “Every time we pick up a book from a sense of duty, we’re reinforcing the notion that reading is something you should do, but television (or, presumably, surfing the internet) is something that you want to do.”  He makes the further point that Zuckerberg has fallen into the philistine idea that books should be relevant to your life.

I certainly agree with Walton, but I’m surprised that he doesn’t mention that Goodreads is owned by Facebook.  All the more reason for Zuckerberg to promote reading.  And I agree that it’s good for us to expand our intellectual horizons by reading something entirely new to us.  My wife recently finished reading Do No Harm, a book by neurosurgeon Henry Marsh about his life and practice.  She recommends it, and since I know nothing about the subject, it’s at the top of my To Read list.

Review: Favors and Lies

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I decided to buy and read a copy of Mark Gilleo’s novel, Favours and Lies, because it received an award at a recent book festival. (One always wants to understand what other successful writers are doing.)

The brief biography at the back of the book says: “Mark Gilleo holds a graduate degree in international business from the University of South Carolina and an undergraduate degree in business form George Mason University. He enjoys traveling, hiking and biking. He speaks Japanese. A fourth-generation Washingtonian, he currently resides in the DC area. His first two novels, Love thy Neighbor and the national best seller Sweat were recognised as finalist and semi-finalist, respectively, in the William Faulkner-Wisdom creative writing competition.”

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This photo appears on his website.

Favours and Lies concerns Dan Lord, a private investigator with a law degree and a selected list of clients. He works in the DC area on ‘the blurred line between right and wrong’. When his brother’s widowed sister-in-law, Vicky, and her son, Conner, die under very strange circumstances, Dan takes a particular interest. Vicky dies in an apparent suicide and Conner dies of what seems like a drug overdose. Neither of these deaths make sense to Dan. Then the detective who was investigating the deaths of mother and son is killed, as is the son’s girlfriend. Dan finds that the records of several key phone calls have disappeared, and Dan engages a computer wizard to find out what happened to the phone call on-line records. There is a secretive company, the address and phone number of which are unlisted. There is a high class madam, a Russian intelligence officer, a medical doctor, a barber, a martial arts trainer an assistant district attorney, a night club owner, with whom Dan exchanges favors and lies in order to find the killers of his relatives. Some of these people end up dead; Dan, nearly so on several occasions. Toward the conclusion of the novel, we learn the reason for Conner’s death, and of the illegal conspiracy which lay behind it. The motivation for Conner’s death and those responsible is quite a shocking surprise. Fortunately, the favors given to Dan by those friends who remain alive are repaid.

Favors and Lies is a fast-moving book, which is difficult to put down: one wants to find out what happens next. The characters are distinctive and interesting, but they are ‘on stage’ for such short periods, in many cases, and described in terms of their appearance and history more than in terms of their values. One feels little empathy for many of them, the exceptions being Dan and Detective Wallace. The dialogue is clipped and punchy, fully in keeping with a fast-moving detective thriller. The locations of the various scenes are described is such detail that one senses the author’s pride in his familiarity with the streets of the US capital. There is some technology on which the plot for Favors and Lies depends, but it is pretty much understandable. For me – a very literal-minded person – the difficulty I have with Favors and Lies is the credibility of the plot, taken as a rapid-fire whole. But, in the genre of gripping, no-holds-barred detective stories, there are few better.

 

More: Amazon vz Hachette

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My last post mentioned the dispute between Amazon and Hachette (the fourth largest US publisher) in which Hachette has refused Amazon’s insistence on paying Hachette less for its books, and in which Amazon is delaying the shipment of orders for Hachette’s books.  Now 900 authors have entered the fray, as this article in yesterday’s New York Times states, in part:

Douglas Preston, who summers in this coastal hamlet of Round Pond, Maine, is a best-selling writer — or was, until Amazon decided to discourage readers from buying books from his publisher, Hachette, as a way of pressuring it into giving Amazon a better deal on e-books. So he wrote an open letter to his readers asking them to contact Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, demanding that Amazon stop using writers as hostages in its negotiations.

The letter  spread through the literary community. As of earlier this week 909 writers had signed on, including household names like John Grisham and Stephen King. It is scheduled to run as a full-page ad in The New York Times this Sunday.

Amazon, unsettled by the actions of a group that used to be among its biggest fans, is responding by attacking Mr Preston, calling the 58-year-old thriller writer “entitled” and “an opportunist” while simultaneously trying to woo him and his fellow dissenters into silence.

Mr Preston, pictured, right, is un-swayed.

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“Jeff Bezos used books as the cutting edge to help sell everything from computer cables to lawn mowers, and what a good idea that was,” he said. “Now Amazon has turned its back on us. Don’t they value us more than that? Don’t they feel any loyalty? That’s why authors are mad.”

This latest uproar in Amazon’s three-month public battle with Hachette comes at a vulnerable moment for the Internet giant, which is rapidly transforming itself into an empire that not only sells culture but creates it, too.

Amazon does not want to be seen as hostile to content creators, one of the four groups it says on its investor relations web page it is expressly set up to serve. But it also has to price their creations cheaply enough to draw hordes of consumers, while at the same time making enough of a profit to satisfy investors.

It is a complicated balancing act. Some argue it is impossible. Amazon just surprised Wall Street by saying it may lose more than $800 million this quarter, potentially wiping out its profits for the last three years, partly because creating video content is expensive. The prospect of this unexpected loss has raised questions about whether Amazon’s money-losing ways are finally catching up with it — and whether that is the real reason it is making new demands on publishers like Hachette.

Amazon has been forced by the controversy to shed its long-time practice of refusing to comment on anything. Asked about the writers’ rebellion, it issued a statement that put the focus back on Hachette, bringing up the Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuit against Hachette and other publishers in 2012: “First, Hachette was willing to break the law to get higher e-book prices, and now they’re determined to keep their own authors in the line of fire in order to achieve that same end. Amazon has made three separate proposals to take authors out of the middle, all of which Hachette has quickly dismissed.”

Mr Preston pointed out it was Amazon that put the authors in the line of fire in the first place. Russell Grandinetti, Amazon’s vice president for e-books, has called Mr Preston twice in recent weeks, trying to get him to endorse the company’s proposals to settle the dispute, as well as to pipe down. The most recent proposal would have Amazon selling Hachette books again, but with Hachette and Amazon giving their proceeds to charity.

No thanks, Mr Preston said. A proposal that weakens Hachette by cutting its profits was not in the interests of Hachette’s authors. But he took the opportunity to ask Mr Grandinetti why Amazon was squeezing the writers in the first place.

His response, according to Mr Preston: “This was the only leverage we had.” Amazon declined to comment.

“It’s like talking to a 5-year-old,” Mr Preston said. “ ‘She made me hit her!’ No one is making Amazon do anything.”

No one is making Mr Preston do anything, either. He dismisses Amazon’s suggestions that he is a “human shield” for Hachette, one of the Big 5 publishers in the United States. He and the other writers say they are acting independently. Most, in any case, are not published by Hachette.

Mr Preston is not sure how he has found himself in charge of a group calling itself Authors United. “I don’t like fighting,” he said. “I’m a wimp. When the bullies in seventh grade said they would meet me in the parking lot after school, I made sure I was nowhere near it.”

Other writers who signed the letter include Robert A. Caro, Junot Díaz, Malcolm Gladwell, Lemony Snicket (the pen name of Daniel Handler), Michael Chabon, Michael Lewis, Jon Krakauer, Scott Turow, George Saunders, Sebastian Junger, Philip Pullman and Nora Roberts.

“We feel strongly that no bookseller should block the sale of books or otherwise prevent or discourage customers from ordering or receiving the books they want,” the letter states.

Some writers wholeheartedly supported the letter but were afraid to sign, Mr Preston said. A few signed it and then backed out, citing the same reason. The Times ad, which cost $104,000, was paid for by a handful of the more successful writers.

I’m sure there’ll be more to come!

 

Subtlety

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One of my learnings as I’ve been writing and reading other authors’ work is the importance of subtlety.  Rather than spell out what has happened or what is going to happen, it is often better to imply and let the reader draw his/her own conclusions, or guess.  Obviously, there are times when it is necessary to be explicit: for example, when an author wants to elicit strong  feelings in the reader.  But there can be a fine line between developing strong feelings about a character and the reader developing negative feelings about the book.

Sex is one area where I feel, now, that less is sometimes more.  Presently, I feel that the use of explicit words can interrupt the reader’s attention, and force him/her to develop an explicit mental picture of what is happening.  Depending on the reader’s reaction, the explicit picture may or may not be erotic, or enjoyable.

Here is an example of the more explicit approach from my first novel, Fishing in Foreign Seas:

 

He stepped into the shower and closed the door behind him. They embraced, luxuriating in the delicious feel of wet skin against wet skin. He redirected the shower head so that it did not spray into their faces. They began a long, sensuous French kiss, their hands wandering over each other. Caterina’s legs had drifted apart, and his fingers found her black curls and then her secret cleft. “Oh, Jamie, don’t stop.” Her hand found his erection, and began to stroke. They moaned into each others mouths, their hearts racing and their breathing erratic, as they clung more strongly to each other, their eyes closed. She became rigid and stifled a cry of release.

“Oh, yes!” he groaned, and she opened her eyes to see his semen disappear in the streaming water.

They kissed slowly and lovingly, holding each other close.

“Oh, God!”

“What a beautiful way to start the day!”

 

And here’s a sample from my latest novel, which will be sent for final editing next week:

 

“Mary Jo, I must have tried to visualise you as you are now a hundred times.”

There was a slight giggle. “I didn’t try to visualise. I tried to feel your touch and smell your body. Now, it’s so nice to be real.”

He run his hand slowly and repeatedly from her cheek to her knee, pausing at her breast, her navel and her mound. “God, you’re a beautiful woman!”

“Well I’m not, but I’m glad you think so. Let me see your scars.”

She raised herself to a sitting position. She giggled again. “Rob!”

“What?”

“You know perfectly well what.”

“What am I supposed to do about it?”

“Nothing right now. Maybe later. How many stitches do you have here?”

 

Another area where caution is required is in descriptions of violence.  Violent scenes are sometimes necessary: they may represent an essential turning point in the plot; they may shed clarifying light on one or more of the characters, but too much clarity can turn the reader off.

Writing my latest novel, I discovered the importance of the use of ambiguity in the description of what has happened to a character, what she is doing, or what she is thinking.  Sometimes, if one paints too clear picture of these events, we are forced to develop a specific view of the character: strong approval, or disapproval.  What the author may want is a feeling of ambiguity about the character: I like her, but . . .  So,  for example, in my latest novel, one of the main characters may have become pregnant by her brother.  The circumstances and the symptoms are not clear.  What did she (and he) do?