Criticism

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In The Daily Telegraph of 9 October, there was an article in which Sir Peter Stothard argues that discerning readers should pay attention to established critics rather than comments posted on the internet by amateurs.  He went on to say, “There is a general trend – and it’s certainly very prevalent online – for replacing argued literary criticism that allows you to compare books, to put them in context, to analyse how they work.  That kind of traditional criticism is very easily replaced by unargued opinion.  Storytelling is fine but it doesn’t require Man Booker judges to decide what people are going to enjoy taking on holiday and reading on the beach.  What the Man Booker judges can do is apply traditional literary criticism and try to identify what people will still want to read in 20 years’ time.  That was the aim of the prize and it’s important to hold on to it.”

Sir Peter is the editor of The Times Literary Supplement and chairman of this years’ Man Booker Prize judges.

While I would certainly agree that one should respect the opinions of recognised literary critics, Sir Peter’s argument strikes me as somewhat self-serving.  Is he saying that “we recognised literary critics are members of an elite guild, and you readers should pay no attention to anyone who is not a member of the guild”?  I hope not.

Sir Peter told Radio Times that the Man Booker Prize judges were increasingly required to identify books that were mot immediately easy to read because they were the ones that would eventually reward readers most.  Why the correlation between being difficult to read and being ‘eventually most rewarding’?  I think that most of us who have read Ulysses would agree that it is difficult to read, but is it more rewarding for being difficult?  I  think not.  It is a landmark piece of literature, and for that reason it  is interesting, but in what sense is it rewarding?

It seems to me that the guild of recognised literary critics is encouraging the creation of obscure, difficult literature.  But why does a novel have to be obscure and difficult to be valuable?  I would argue that the hallmarks of a really good novel are that it captures both the emotions and the intellect of the reader in a unique and memorable way.

What about ‘argued criticism’ vs. ‘unargued opinion’?  Taking the adjectives first, ‘argue’ – according to my dictionary – means ‘to discuss with reason’.  The implication seems to be that the recognised literary critic gives reasons for his/her views while the internet blogger simply expresses an opinion without reasons.  This is clearly not universally true.  Turning to the nouns, criticism is defined as ‘the art of judging, especially literature and the arts’.  But since criticism is an ‘art’ not a science, in what sense is it different than expressing an opinion?

My question, therefore, is what does it take to become a member of the guild?  Does one have to have the title of ‘Editor’?  What if one had the title of ‘Author’?  “No! No!”  I can hear the members to the guild protesting, “an Author is biased toward his/her style of writing and cannot be an independent judge.”  But if s/he, the Author, is well educated and has read widely, might not s/he be able to appreciate the styles of others?  Besides, the Author, particularly if s/he has enjoyed some success in writing, knows something about the craft of writing, and may be a better judge in some respects than the unpublished, appointed Editor.   

The day after Sir Peter’s views were published, The Daily Telegraph ran a column by Jon Stock entitled “How I survived an online literary mauling” and “Far from throttling serious criticism, internet reviews can be helpful to authors”.  Mr. Stock has written a series of spy thrillers, and one review of his work began, “Stock: misogynist and serial killer”.  He went on to say that he tracked down the reviewer and found that she is a professor of English at the State University of New York.  The professors’ principal objection was to the deaths of three women in four of his novels.  He agreed that perhaps this was a bit lopsided and she mentioned much else that she liked in his writing.

In his conclusion, Mr. Stock says, “For me, the whole exercise was an example of  the internet working as it should, a place where people with wildly differing opinions, in this case about books, can engage in constructive dialogue.  The literary critic, as championed by Sir Peter Stothard, has its place, but so do online reviewers, even the hostile ones.”  I agree.

Plot

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Gustav Freytag was a German novelist and playwright who lived 1816 to 1895.  None of his novels or plays is highly thought of today, except that in 1863 he wrote Die Technik des Dramas (The Technique of Play Writing) in which he explained a system for dramatic structure, which has come to be known as Freytag’s Pyramid.  According to Freytag, there are five acts in a drama: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement.  These can be diagrammed as a horizontal line, a rising line reaching a peak, and falling line and a horizontal line.

Exposition, the first horizontal line, introduces the main characters and their situation.  In Rising Action, represented by the rising line,  the protagonist begins to understand his goal and moves toward it.  The Climax, represented by the peak, is the turning point in the story – the point where a key decision is made.  Falling Action, which is represented by the falling line,  is the stage when the ‘villain has the upper hand’ and things go wrong.  Denouement, which corresponds to the final horizontal line, is the stage when the villain and the protagonist reach an understanding and where the loose ends are tied up.

While I wasn’t familiar with this model at the time, it is fair to say that Fishing in Foreign Seas follows this model.  In the Exposition stage, Jamie, the promising young American, and Caterina, the beautiful daughter of an Italian wine-making family meet, fall in love and are married.  In Rising Action, Jamie takes a job with Ceemans, a manufacturer of heavy electrical equipment, and is promoted to higher levels of responsibility while moving with his young family from Boston to Philadelphia to Atlanta.  Toward the end of this stage he is presented with the opportunity to win a $300 million order, and we watch him overcome obstacles to have the order within reach.  The climax occurs when he loses the order, and is tempted into an affair with his secretary.  Falling Action deals with the outcomes of these decisions, and Denouement is the final chapter, told from the perspective of his children.

The Freytag Pyramid does not fit Sin & Contrition at first glance, because this novel is structured so that each chapter deals with a particular sin committed by one of more of the six characters.  But instead of one pyramid for the entire book, there are a series of pyramids, one for each chapter.  In each chapter, the character and his or her situation is presented.  Then comes the temptation which reaches a climax when the sin is committed.  The results of the sin become apparent, and the character reaches a state of equilibrium.  What is different about Sin & Contrition is that there is a series of chapters at the end of the novel in which I interview each of the characters, and we discuss their feelings and thoughts about the sin(s) they have committed.  So, in this sense some on the Denouement takes place in those interviews.

We may not have been familiar with Freytag’s Pyramid but it is a useful way of considering how a plot is structured.  It seems to me that it is often an accurate picture of the major events in our lives.

 

 

Book Cover

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“You can’t judge a book by its cover”, it is said, and this is true in the ultimate sense that after one reads a book, one likes it more or less than one expected at first glance.  But in practice, when one is browsing in a bookstore or on the Internet, one may think, “this looks interesting” (meaning: I like the feeling that I get about this book from the cover, and having read, on the back cover, what it’s about.)

I’ve agreed three cover illustrations for my novels.  Two of the covers I’m quite pleased with, and one less so.  Starting with my first novel, Fishing in Foreign Seas, I thought I wanted an illustration of a woman fishing in a rather strange place.  I felt this would be appropriate, given that the Sicilian heroine is accused by her mother of “fishing in foreign seas” by falling in love with an American man, instead of an Italian.  I didn’t like the first design the publisher proposed, and I commissioned a freelance illustrator to produce an illustration.  That illustration was what I asked for in terms of subject matter, but it wasn’t appropriate for a book cover: it looked too much like a cartoon.  The publisher produced a second design, which I liked a lot better.  Here it is:

Cover: Fishing in Foreign Seas

What I like about this cover is the drama and mystery implied by it.  But the fisherlady seems rather lonely.  Moreover, she doesn’t seem to be catching very much.  But it’s a love story – not about loneliness – and Caterina catches a pretty good fish.  Moral of the story, I  didn’t think carefully enough about what I wanted to say with the illustration.

My second novel, Sin & Contrition, is, as the title suggests, about human frailty and regret.  I suggested, vaguely, to the publisher that maybe the cover illustration should involve a stylised angel and a devil.  They came back with the photograph of a statue of a fallen angel in shades of green:

Cover: Sin & Contrition

 I thought this was quite eye-catching, and it conveys in one image what the book is about.

Efraim’s Eye is a thriller about a lone terrorist’s attempt to destroy the London Eye, killing all 800 passengers.  His financing for the special explosives he needs is supplied by his half-brother, who is the corrupt chief executive of a Moroccan charity.  The  charity is investigated by a British financial consultant and the operations director of the Moroccan charity’s British parent.  The ops director, a  young, multi-lingual, Israeli female and the consultant begin to untangle the web of deceit, and they discover the terrorist’s plan.  But how can they stop the attack?  Here is the cover of Efraim’s Eye:

 

Cover: Efraim’s Eye

This cover with the title, I think, conveys come of what the book is about.  But there is still the mystery: who is Efraim and why is it his eye?

My fourth novel, The Iranian Scorpion, has now been published.  It is a thriller about Robert Dawson of the Drug Enforcement Agency who is sent to Afghanistan to find ways of reducing the flow of heroin – produced from opium – to the US.  With the help of Kate Conway, a freelance journalist and Vizier Ashraf , a shadowy Taliban leader, Rob is disguised as a field hand.  He learns opium poppy cultivation and  the conversion of opium to heroin.  With his farmer ‘boss’, Azizullah, he enters Iran with 25 kg of heroin which is sold to The Scorpion, a drugs baron and governor of a remote Iranian province.  Rob traces the heroin to New York City, where a bust is made.  Furious, The Scorpion orders Rob to be captured and executed.  Meanwhile Rob’s father, US general David Dawson is in Tehran with the UN agency investigating Iran’s use of nuclear energy.  General Dawson learns of his son’s capture and threatened execution and decides to take action.  (You’ll have to read the book to discover the conclusion.)

 

The Iranian Scorpion

 
The cover is unusual in being largely white.  It identifies the setting of the novel and a major character in the story.  Those who have seen the cover say that it is quite striking.

Freedom of Speech

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Several recent events have come together:

  • The reaction in the Muslim world to the stupid film Innocence of Muslims
  • The publication of topless photographs of the Duchess of Cambridge
  • The renewal of the fatwa against Sir Salman Rushdie

All of these have to do with freedom of speech/publication.  I have a particular interest in this subject as I ‘survived’ an attempt to block the publication of a novel.

Let me deal first with Sir Salman Rushdie and The Satanic Verses.  This novel, first published in 1988, is the fictional story of two men, both steeped in Islam, but distracted by the temptations of the West.  One of the men survives by returning to his roots; the other, caught between his spiritual need to believe in God and his intellectual inability to return to Islam, commits suicide.  It won the Booker prize that year.  In February, 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini issued the fatwa calling for the death of Rushdie.  There were violent protests throughout the Muslim world calling for the death of the author.  Over the following decade, thousands of people were killed, many of them secretly in prisons in Muslim countries.  In the UK , a private prosecutor sought to bring Rushdie to trial for ‘blasphemous libel’.  The magistrate refused, but the prosecutor took his case to the High Court.  Thirteen Muslim barristers tried to get the book banned, and as a consequence, they were forced to specify how the novel was blasphemous.  Geoffrey Robertson, QC, who defended Rushdie and the publisher says that the barristers were able to identify only six blasphemies, but nothing was found to actually vilify God or the Prophet.  The Home Office then announced that it would allow no further blasphemy prosecutions.  It said, “. . . the strength of their own belief is the best armour against mockers and blasphemers.”  For the next decade, Sir Salman Rushdie lived under constant police protection, in hiding and fearful of assassination.  In 1998, the reform-minded president of Iran, Mohammad Katami, declared to the UN General Assembly that the Rushdie matter was “completely finished.” But the fatwa has never been annulled, and now Ayatollah Hassan Sanei, head of an important Iranian foundation, has raised the bounty on Rushdie’s head to $3.3 million.  He said, “If the imam’s order was carried out, the further insults in the form of caricatures, articles and films would not have taken place.  The impertinence of the grudge-filled enemies of Islam, which is occurring under the flag of the Great Satan, America, and the racist Zionists can only be blocked by the administration of this Islamic order.”  (What I would say, in response to the Ayatollah, is that he can only assume that the insults would not have taken place.  It is also possible to assume that if the fatwa had been carried out, the insults against Islam would be even more common than they are now.)

Then we have the 13 minute film, Innocence of Muslims, apparently made by a convicted fraudster, who allegedly misled the cast as to the purpose of the film, and re-dubbed their voices.  The film, which is said to demean the Prophet, was dubbed in Arabic and up loaded onto YouTube.  Immediately, the violent protests and the killings (including an American ambassador) began.  It doesn’t matter that the film was made, unprofessionally, by an Egyptian Coptic, in likely violation of his parole terms, with an underpaid, misled cast.  It matters only that the film was produced on American soil and it demeans the Prophet.  Why this apparently mindless reaction by the Muslim world?  First of all, it has to be said that not all of the Muslim world acted mindlessly.  In an article for the Daily Telegraph, David Blair quotes a friend in Tunisia as saying: “My Prophet would not worry about a video.  He wouldn’t care about that.  My Prophet would care about the state of our societies.  He would want us to be developed, he would want us to be successful.”  It seems to me that there are several answers to the ‘Why?’ question.  First, some elements in the Muslim world stir up sentiments to support their own position.  For example, the Taliban have whipped up violent protests in Afghanistan.  Secondly, some governments seize on any criticism of Islam as a means of distracting the population from the failures of government.  In Sudan, there have been huge demonstrations against the regime of President Omar Al-Bashir.  He has allowed the crowds to attack embassies, rather than him.  Third, I think there is a general misunderstanding in the Muslim world, of what freedom really means in practice.  Certainly, freedom is what the Arab Spring sought to create.  But freedom also must include what Rushdie called the ‘freedom to offend’ (this does not include libel, which is intended to cause measurable injury).  In his article, David Blair quotes Inayat Bunglawala, who at the age of 19 was burning The Satanic Verses, but more  recently wrote, “Our detractors had been right.  The freedom to offend is a necessary freedom.”  Finally, it seems to me that some Muslims – particularly those not well educated – may harbour unconscious feelings of inferiority.  For them, their Islamic faith is a source of consolation.  When their faith is attacked, they take it personally.  They fail to remember that Islam is one of the world’s great faiths, with 1.5 billion followers.  They fail to reason that so great a faith, based on one all-powerful God does not need to be protected by a thousand or a million lowly humans.  They fail to understand that the “Lord of the Worlds, the Lord of Mercy” would want his people to live in harmony, not discord.  That is what I, as a Christian, believe.

So, since I believe in the freedom to offend.  Wasn’t the Duchess of Cambridge offended by the photographs taken of her?  Yes, she probably was.  OK, one might say, if she was offended,  and one  has the freedom to offend, what’s her problem?  The problem is that she has the freedom to be private.  Most of us take our privacy for granted.  But try to imagine what it would be like to have photographers trying to take your photograph during every waking moment.  If they could, they would follow you into the shower and beyond.  I think privacy is a particularly important freedom for the Duchess.  I hope that the paparazzo and the editor both spend a year in jail and have to cough up £36,000.

Anna Karenina: A Review

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My wife and I went to see the film Anna Karenina last night.  It occurred to me that producing and directing a film is, in some respects, like writing a book.

So, what did we think of the film?  First, what we liked.  It is quite a beautiful production: eye-catching costumes, wonderful sets, and some of the characters are handsome/lovely.  The story – as far as I remember – is quite close to Tolstoy, and I’ve had a long admiration for the classical Russian authors, my favourite being Mikhail Sholokhov (And Quiet Flows the Don).

Having said that, we found the film disappointing.  The Daily Telegraph gave it a three star rating.  I guess two stars would be pretty harsh and it certainly doesn’t deserve four stars.

  • Casting: Keira Knightley is lovely, but she seemed one-dimensional as a great aristocratic beauty.  She didn’t convey the powerful erotic lust which Anna felt for Count Vronsky, nor did she capture the emotional degradation of a fallen woman.  Aaron Taylor-Johnson was mis-cast as Count Vronsky: he seemed more like a sallow youth than a dashing, bold cavalry officer and womaniser.  To be fair, his costumes were, I think, poorly chosen: plain white tunics with brass buttons.  Jude Law was excellent as Alexei Karenin, Anna’s emotionally chilly and reserved husband.  Kitty, a pretty young thing who fancies Vronsky, and Levin a wealthy farmer who is crazy about Kitty and finally wins her seem  very real.   These are the same challenges that the writer faces with his characters: how to make them real, and interesting.  I’m afraid with Anna and Vronsky, the director, Joe Wright, didn’t quite make it.
  • The Set: Much of the film is set in a 19th century dilapidated theatre.  This was done to keep the production budget under control.  Fair enough.  But, some of  the scenes are shot in the real world, so there is a back-and-forth between the theatre and the real world.  These abrupt transitions are distracting, and seem to have been selected only because it was difficult to get the desired effect in a theatre setting.  To me this is a cop-out.  If you’re going to choose an unusual setting, stick with it!
  • The Love Scenes: The scenes of Anna and Vronsky making love didn’t work for me.  They were shot as blurry close ups, and they failed to convey the personal, emotional and erotic dimensions.  As the scenes of the ‘love making’ transitioned, I kept wondering, ‘is that an arm or a leg? his or hers?’  There are probably restrictions on what Ms. Knightley will do on film.  Fair enough.  But one doesn’t have so show her off-limits areas to convey the splendid lust that Anna and Vronsky were feeling.  It is difficult to write good sexual prose, and I admit to not having mastered the technique yet, but I’m going to keep trying, because I think sex is an important dimension of being human.
  • Too Many Characters; Too Long: When one is writing a novel, one doesn’t worry to much about too many characters, as long as they are necessary to the story, and eliminating them would seem to short-change the reader.  In a novel, it is easy to introduce new characters: their names and relationships are usually made clear.  In a film, it is much more difficult: the director doesn’t stop the film and announce, “Now this  is Harry’s Aunt Margaret.”  In Joe Wright’s version of Anna Karenina there are characters who just appear, and who say important things, but one doesn’t understand what their relationship to others might be until later the film.  This suggests that Wright expected his audience to read the novel before coming to the film.  I did, but it’s been so long that I didn’t remember the minor characters.  I think that many writers – myself probably included – go on telling the story too long.  At over 800 pages for Anna Karenina, Tolstoy himself may have been guilty of this.  (The novel includes extended descriptions of Levin’s agricultural processes.)  In a book, writers may be able to get away with this: the reader just skips ahead.  For a film (this one has 246 scenes), it’s impossible to fast forward – unless you’re watching it as a DVD.

Stream of Consciousness

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Stream of consciousness is a variation of what is called ‘interior monologue’.  If interior monologue is the presentation of a character’s thoughts completely  and logically without intervention by the narrator, stream of consciousness attempts to represent a character’s feelings and thoughts in a jumbled way, as if the reader were directly connected to the consciousness of the character.  This jumbled presentation tends to violate conventional rules of  logic, grammar and syntax.  In many cases it makes the prose more difficult to read and understand.

James Joyce’s Ulysses is largely written in stream of consciousness, and here is an excerpt from Episode 13: Nausicaa:

Better not stick here all night like a limpet. This weather makes you dull. Must be getting on for nine by the light. Go home. Too late for Leah, Lily of Killarney. No. Might be still up. Call to the hospital to see. Hope she’s over. Long day I’ve had. Martha, the bath, funeral, house of Keyes, museum with those goddesses, Dedalus’ song. Then that bawler in Barney Kiernan’s. Got my own back there. Drunken ranters what I said about his God made him wince. Mistake to hit back. Or? No. Ought to go home and laugh at themselves. Always want to be swilling in company. Afraid to be alone like a child of two. Suppose he hit me. Look at it other way round. Not so bad then. Perhaps not to hurt he meant. Three cheers for Israel. Three cheers for the sister-in-law he hawked about, three fangs in her mouth. Same style of beauty. Particularly nice old party for a cup of tea. The sister of the wife of the wild man of Borneo has just come to town. Imagine that in the early morning at close range. Everyone to his taste as Morris said when he kissed the cow. But Dignam’s put the boots on it. Houses of mourning so depressing because you never know. Anyhow she wants the money. Must call to those Scottish Widows as I promised. Strange name. Takes it for granted we’re going to pop off first. That widow on Monday was it outside Cramer’s that looked at me. Buried the poor husband but progressing favourably on the premium. Her widow’s mite. Well? What do you expect her to do? Must wheedle her way along. Widower I hate to see. Looks so forlorn. Poor man O’Connor wife and five children poisoned by mussels here. The sewage. Hopeless. Some good matronly woman in a porkpie hat to mother him. Take him in tow, platter face and a large apron. Ladies’ grey flannelette bloomers, three shillings a pair, astonishing bargain. Plain and loved, loved for ever, they say. Ugly: no woman thinks she is. Love, lie and be handsome for tomorrow we die. See him sometimes walking about trying to find out who played the trick. U. p: up. Fate that is. He, not me. Also a shop often noticed. Curse seems to dog it. Dreamt last night? Wait. Something confused. She had red slippers on. Turkish. Wore the breeches. Suppose she does? Would I like her in pyjamas? Damned hard to answer. Nannetti’s gone. Mailboat. Near Holyhead by now. Must nail that ad of Keyes’s. Work Hynes and Crawford. Petticoats for Molly. She has something to put in them. What’s that? Might be money.

The above paragraph is taken out of context, which makes it difficult to understand, and yet, there are so many seemingly random references in this paragraph to other characters, places, things and past events that I, for one, have to wonder about the effectiveness of this style of writing.  Certainly, it takes a creative genius (as Joyce undoubtedly was) to write a paragraph – let alone a whole novel – like  this.  But, I can’t help but wonder whether Joyce’s genius is fully appreciated by most well educated readers.  In other words, did Joyce try to take well educated readers to too high a level of sophistication?  For me, it’s a little bit like one of Heston Blumenthal’s exotic recipes: do I really appreciate the delicate concoction of carefully prepared foam that tops one of his desserts?

When I’m writing about a character’s thoughts, I try to keep the description of his/her thoughts clear, focused on what’s important, and brief.  Here is an excerpt from Sin & Contrition.  LaMarr has gone to Cleveland to console the family of his friend, Mason, who was killed in Vietnam:

With the help of the custodian, who looked up Mason’s name in the register, he found the grave.  It was in an open area punctuated by dozens of headstones.  Mason’s headstone was small: it said only ‘Mason Bailey DeWitt’, and in numerals there were his birth and death dates.  Nothing more.  LaMarr gazed at the stone, lost in recollections.  I hope you’re OK now, Mason.  You were a good friend, and you deserved something more.  He stood, and looked once more at the headstone and grave.  Good bye, Mason.  He found a taxi to take him to the central bus station for the rest of his leave in Pittsburgh.  He reflected: What a terrible waste!  His sister sitting there crying on the couch.  Two little ones trying to understand.  His mother lost, and Mason gone.  I guess I’m like the little ones.  I don’t understand, either.

Mystery

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It occurs to me that every novel is a mystery.  I don’t mean in the sense of a ‘who done it?’ or a detective story.  Even a historical novel – if it’s really a novel, and not a true historical account – is a mystery novel.  Because, when we pick the book up, we don’t know exactly what will happen.

For example, I was reading The Volcano Lover, a historical novel by Susan Sontag.  It is based on the lives of Sir William Hamilton, his ‘celebrated wife’, Emma and Admiral Lord Nelson, and it is set during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars which followed.  I knew that Emma was Nelson’s mistress, and that her husband, Sir William, didn’t object publicly, but I didn’t know why he didn’t object.  The reasons that Ms. Sontag gives are that Sir William was a great deal older than Emma – he was about seventy when the affair began, and that Sir William considered himself to be a good friend of the great hero, and chose to turn a blind eye – at least in public – to the relationship.  What I found rather fascinating was Ms. Sontag’s descriptions of the characters of Emma and Nelson.  When we first meet Emma in the book, she is in her late teens, manipulative, very talented and beautiful.  When Nelson first meets her, she is, next to the  Queen of Naples and the Two Sicilies, the most commanding figure in the kingdom.  By the end of the book she has lost her looks, has become dissolute and bitter.  I don’t know how true to life this is.  Certainly, this is plausible, but in doing her research for the novel, did Ms. Sontag read too many of the letters and accounts of people who disliked Emma, and there must have been plenty of them?  I found the portrayal of Nelson to be inconsistent with what I thought I knew about the man from reading a great deal of naval history.  Ms. Sontag portrays his as a small, sickly man, self-absorbed, and somewhat negligent about obeying orders from the Admiralty – also somewhat negligent in keeping his fleet in Naples or Palermo (where Emma was), rather than pursuing the French.  Interesting reading, but to my mind, an overly negative portrayal.  Perhaps Ms. Sontag’s affections lay with Sir William – who comes across as a kindly, loyal, but somewhat inept figure – rather than the great hero.  My point is that we don’t know – in a historical novel – how much the writer may have interpreted history to make the story more interesting.

Setting aside the historical novel, every other genre (including the detective novel) must have some mystery.  Without mystery, we know what will happen, and we lose interest.  And it isn’t just the plot which unwinds mysteriously.  Characters are more interesting when they do the unexpected but plausible.  Settings which are unfamiliar to us and have an air of mystery about them are of interest.  Mysterious times can be quite interesting; this accounts, in part, for the popularity of the historical novel and science fiction.  But apart from these major sources of mystery, I think that a good writer will often introduce small, unexpected events, or reactions by characters to events.  These keep us intellectually engaged with the book, and we think: why did that happen? and I wonder what will happen next!

Should Kids Read?

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I happened on this subject the other day when I was riding on a London bus.  There were two boys sitting in the seats across from me.  One was about ten and the other was probably twelve.  Were they brothers?  I guess so, but it doesn’t really matter.  They were at least friends.  The younger boy was playing with his Gameboy (or whatever it was).  He was concentrating to the extent of  moving his upper body to coax the hero in the game to move in the right direction.  His fingers were flying over the keys, and occasionally, when the hero got in a tight spot, his tongue would dart out to better express his tension.  Now and then, he would emit a groan as – I  suppose – either the hero wasn’t as heroic as he had hoped, or his time was up.  When this happened, he would sigh with frustration, and drop his hands into his lap.  There was one occasion when the boy emitted a shriek of delight, nudged the older boy, and said something triumphant.

The older boy was reading a paperback book.  I have no idea what kind of a book it was, except that I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a text book.  He was reading for pleasure.  He was quite absorbed, paying no attention to his younger companion, to the other passengers on the bus, or indeed to where the bus was going.  (I guessed the boys were going from one familiar place to another.)  Deliberately, he would turn the pages, following the text with complete attention, but he showed none of the emotion of his younger companion.  He did, however, shrug off the attempts of the younger boy to involve him in the electronic game.

The boys reminded me of my own grandchildren.  Several of the older ones are a dedicated readers; some of the younger ones are addicted to electronic games.  Does it matter?  I suppose I have a bias on the subject, which is that by the age of about 12 kids should be into books, and out of hand-held electronics (unless it happens to be an e-book reader).  Why?  I suppose that e-games are great for helping develop hand-eye co-ordination, for improving concentration and dexterity, and for building problem-solving skills.  But, they do nothing for developing language skills (vocabulary, grammar, etc.), nor do they teach much about the real world.  And they have very limited ability to build intellectual skills.

How do we as parents help to stimulate the transition from games to books?  When I was about 10, there were no electronic games.  The games that were available were card games, and games like Parcheesi and Monopoly which you played with other people.  My big distraction was comic books (which I had to read), and serial Western programs on the radio, which I could listen to while I did my homework.  Both my mother and my maternal grandmother liked to read to me.  They read the great children’s classics like Treasure Island, and I remember sitting or lying nearby, with my head full of the imagined action.  I knew that books were good!

I’ve tried the same strategy with my children, with mixed results.  Some like to be read to and others couldn’t be bothered.  Of the five ‘children’ two are readers.  My oldest daughter is a committed reader of fiction.  My son reads mostly business literature, although an interesting bit of non-fiction may catch his eye.  Not a great batting average for me.

But, I’m not sure what I could have done to stimulate more interest in reading.  I’m sure, though, that it’s an important role that every parent has.

Follies to Avoid

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There is an article in the on-line version of The Week – as far as I can tell undated – written by a novelist called Robert Twigger called “Nine Follies to Avoid When Writing Your First Novel.  This caught my eye, and I’d like to comment on them and grade myself, on how well I followed Mr. Twigger’s advice in writing my first novel (not that I had ever heard of Mr. Twigger when I  wrote Fishing in Foreign Seas.)

1 The folly of the unattractive narrator.  Mr. Twigger says that the reader should like the voice of the narrator.  The reader will assume that the author is the narrator, but s/he doesn’t know the author, so s/he should like the voice of the author.  In Fishing in Foreign Seas, the narrator is the adult daughter, Elena, of the principle characters, Jamie and Caterina; Elena is a best-selling author, and I think she tells the story in an un-biased, interesting way.  Mr. Twigger says about the narrator’s voice, “Be likeable, be fascinating, be evil if you like – but don’t be deeply unattractive.”  I think he’s right.

2. The folly of ‘plot’ first.  Mr. Twigger says that when one starts with a plot first, events tend to be contrived and therefore less credible.  He suggests that you leave plot or structure to the last.  When I started writing Fishing in Foreign Seas, I had no idea what was going to happen, and I just let the novel ‘flow’.  But my subsequent novels have had more of a planned structure: generally, what’s going to happen, who the characters are, and what the ‘message’ is.  I don’t see how you can get to where you’re going if you don’t have a plan.

3. The folly of facts before relationships.  Twigger says that the world is about relationships, not facts.  I think he’s right.  Fishing in Foreign Seas is about relationships: some important, some less so; some are productive, some are destructive.

4. The folly of not being heartfelt.  Mr. Twigger says that the characters have to care about what happens.  He says, “You can’t write about the weather and the state of the nation if your main character has a hang up about sex. Sex is his thing, his heartfelt concern, so get that out in the open. Even a clever scene well done will feel thin and containing too much information if it is not heartfelt, if the character doesn’t care that much.”  I agree, and I think that the characters in Fishing in Foreign Seas care quite a lot about what happens.

5. The folly of not leaving things out.  The point is that many writers feel that they have to research something about which they have neither knowledge nor interest just to complete the story.  I think this is a fair point.  While it is not autobiographical, Fishing in Foreign Seas contains events with which I’m quite familiar.  But my forthcoming fourth novel is set in Afghanistan and Iran.  I’ve been to neither country.  But I have a keen interest in both countries, so that doing the necessary extensive research was a pleasure.

6. The folly of excessive detail.  This is a frequent concern for any writer.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, I try to include just enough detail to make the situation or the scene credible.  Probably in Fishing in Foreign Seas, I’ve included too much detail, but I think I’ve become more skilled at including only enough essential detail to hold the reader’s attention.

7. The folly of mistaking linked events for real plot.  Twigger says,”The situation you put the characters in – the world, if you like – must exert sufficient pressure on them to give you something to write about.”  I think  this is a very good point.  The characters in Fishing in Foreign Seas  are under quite a bit of pressure.  He also says (somewhat sarcastically), “One damn thing after another, tied up neatly, is usually called ‘the plot’.

8. The folly of proposals.  He says, “It’s tempting to try to get a deal before you do the hard work but it’s the writing equivalent of a 110 per cent mortgage. You’ll have to write a cracking proposal as well as the first few chapters and it will take as long as the book to do this. You will have to do the book anyway, you will have to solve the problems some time – so why not now?”  I agree.  I’ve never tried to sell a book before I’ve finished it.  Before I’ve finished  it, how do I know what I’m selling?

9. The folly of not having an agent.  Mr. Twigger says, “In Naples a lowly thug stands with his hand over a post box – you pay him to remove his hand so you can post your letter. Many writers feel the same way about agents. Don’t. Getting your novel accepted is a process of serially convincing people. The first person is an agent. They don’t have to be famous. In fact a young gun going all out beats an old lag who thinks life’s a drag anytime. But you need to have convinced one person after your mother that your work deserves a readership of millions.”  OK.  I agree, but I haven’t had any luck with agents.  I’ve had a lot of sales and marketing training so it’s not that I don’t know how to sell.  I’ve written to sixty-some agents in the UK and the US on four occasions.  I’ve followed their suggested formats.  I think what I  send them looks pretty tempting.  But no luck.

Printing

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My third novel, Efraim’s Eye, has finally been released for printing.  (The editing process took entirely too long, and too much effort from the ‘independent professional’ but not very competent, editor, the publisher and me.)

(As of 24 September 2012, Efraim’s Eye has been published.)

The printing stage involves the preparation of front and back covers, the assignment of an ISBN number, the pricing of the book, and the final layout of the manuscript for printing.

My publisher will provide two cover designs for me to choose between.  With my first novel, Fishing in Foreign Seas, I knew exactly what I wanted for a cover design: a girl fishing in a somewhat mysterious sea.  Since I wasn’t particularly happy with the first design, I had an artist prepare scene to my specifications, and while the design was OK, the style of it wasn’t right for a book cover.  I selected the publisher’s second design, which you can see on my website www.williampeace.net.  For the second novel, Sin & Contrition, I asked the publisher’s graphic designer to prepare a graphic suggestive of the title.  The result was the statue of a fallen angel, and most people find it rather striking.  (You can see for yourself on my website.)  For Efraim’s Eye, I’ll probably propose a graphic based on the London Eye.  (Efraim’s Eye is a thriller about a lone terrorist with a plan to destroy the London Eye, killing all 800 riders.)

The back cover is easier.  There is a photograph of a portrait of the author, a brief bio (that can be repeated) and a short synopsis.  There is also the ISBN number which is assigned by the publisher, and which includes some encoded data.  Since 2007, the ISBN has been 13 digits long.  The first three digits identify the industry (987 denotes the book publishing industry), the next two digits identify the language, the following four digits identify the publisher, the next three are assigned to the book’s title, and the last digit is a check sum.  I’ll be talking about the pricing of the book in a later blog.

Before it is printed, the manuscript has to be laid out in separate pages.  A table of contents is added.  Foot notes, if any must be paginated or grouped at the end of the book.  Illustrations, if any, must be inserted.  References, glossaries and appendices, etc, – if any – must be paginated.  For me, a key task at this stage is to check that the right fonts are being used.  In the editing process, the entire manuscript is converted to Times New Roman, while I use Lucida Calligraphy where the language is not English – Arabic – in the case of Efraim’s Eye.

Finally, the book is released for actual printing and binding.  My publisher uses printing on demand, which depends on the use of digital technology, and in which a book can be printed at a fixed cost per copy, regardless of the size of the order.  The cost per copy will be higher than with traditional offset printing, but printing on demand has several advantages over offset printing:

  • for small runs, it is more cost effective than offset printing
  • set up time is shorter
  • inventories can be lower and less costly
  • waste is greatly reduced

The publisher will send me a single copy of the book for final sign off.  That is always an exciting, landmark event!