That Blank Page

And One Hundred And One Ideas.

I can be fairly confident in saying that the process of writing is unique to everyone who calls themselves a writer, I’m not talking about the technical side of things, but the personal, from that first pulse of a neuron to a paperback available for sale, and I know for a fact that for each story the individual writer’s experience is different from the last.

The problem is that from a flash of an idea to a completed novel (or whatever medium you’re going for) there are so many hurdles and a huge amount of time, that to get from one to the other is not a guaranteed process. This is a good thing because the demands of that journey are some form of quality control, the idea or concept might be good, but making a story out of it can be really hard, and it’s here that so many great intentions fall apart. I have many works that I think I started too early, before I had a proper plot for them, and they sit languishing in limbo on my hard drive, a concept in search of a story. Sometimes I have a story but it just peters out. I know the beginning, and the end, but can’t seem to join them up in an interesting way. This is why I believe there is a natural form of quality control going on.

Nothing I’ve written to completion has been easy, but for everything that I’ve got to the end, from my first novel, Humanity, to the third series of Beck’s Game, once I’ve started writing it it just started pouring out of me, the ideas just kept appearing in my head, the scenes, the dialogue, the characters became real enough they took on a life of their own and I just sat and typed it. There’s something satisfying about being awake at one o’clock in the morning working because it’s going so well; at times like that I really do feel like I’m earning my stripes.

It’s not just when sat at the keyboard though. I’d be in the supermarket but my brain would be coming up with back stories, incidents, connections with points I’d not seen before. No matter where I am or what I’m doing there is always some part of my mind mulling over the story and the notepad on my phone becomes full of hastily written points I can not allow myself to forget. It’s a rush, it’s exciting but during that period it’s also exhausting, constantly living in and building this new world line by line in my imagination in no particular order so it can be sculpted into the novel or whatever later. For me it’s a sign things are working, and a self fulfilling prophecy, the satisfaction keeps me going and because I feel achievement I’m satisfied; hence when this isn’t happening I find the story dies.

Regardless I’m finding it’s happening right now. I’ve been needing to write a new blog, it’s been a while since the last one, and time is speeding passed (I’m sure they’re missing out a few days without us noticing) yet I’ve just not found the energy or time to sit and write. Tonight I felt I had to do something and yet sat staring at my screen, switching between a blank document and my list of stored ideas failing to make any of them work (it doesn’t help I’m having a small problem with my eyes at the moment and need to put some drops in every few hours that make seeing quite difficult). But then I noticed I’d a few lines about writer’s block and I knew what to do, and now even the small stops I have to make, to wash the dishes, change the CD, check spelling or pour more whisky, are frustrating and I fear this burst of activity will go bust. I repeat again I understand why the Greeks personified all this as the muses. So tonight, all good for the blog as it turns out, despite the fact you’re getting a somewhat self indulgent one this time, sorry about that.

I say all this as I’m kind of at that point with the bigger things, is this writer’s block? I don’t know. It’s not that I don’t have the ideas… The Greeks would probably blame a lack of muse, I think I might blame the lack of time. I seem to be able to imagine and identify lots of concepts I’m very happy with. I find I have to write them down as soon as they appear, even if I wake at three o’clock in the morning, because if you think you will remember them, you won’t. I have at least two novels in head at the moment, besides some other stuff, and yet that frantic writing phase is not happening. Ironically I know I have a lot of work to do on the things I’ve already written, just general management and administration, maybe the part of me that compartmentalises everything needs to get all that done first before it will allow me something new? I’ve written some short form fiction, not much, but frustratingly that’s been completions of ideas I had a while ago rather than something fresh.

I really want to get something new going, it’s been a while since the writing frenzy has hit me and as exhausting as it is, I need the thrill, I need the ride.

My conclusion? I think novels have to marinate in the mind before they are ready to come out. I think ideas find they die when they are not good enough. I think creating the right environment, of time and mental space, is vital. I think I need to stop thinking so much about the process and more about the stories. I think writing should be hard because if it wasn’t it would devalue the things I’d achieved. Most of all, I know in my bones I’m a writer, so maybe I need to stop worrying because when it’s ready the next one will take control of me once more and I’ll be here at two o’clock with a desperate need to get these new words out of my head on to a page that just can not remain blank.

Follow My Blog

Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.

The North Way: Part Two

The One Time I Made Assumptions!

In December I went to Norway, Tromsø to be exact, and in a frenzy of frozen excitement I launched the first part of two blogs about Norwegian literature. Half inspired by the fact I love Nordic places as a general rule so I am interested in their culture, hence books are an obvious target for me; but secondly going to far locations and bringing back word of writings to possible new readerships is a good thing for me to include in this blog, I think. On top of that I saw good signs of a literary awareness within the city I explored so very far north and so very cold.

At least for me, the visitor, it takes a lot of effort to go outside, anywhere. It’s not just the temperature, or lack of, but also the oppressive dark alongside the footpaths covered in solid ice, I fell over a few times (right in front of a lady who did check to see if I was ok, I was – just a little embarrassed), everything is just so much more work. It is worth it but you need stamina; the locals ski on the pathways, but they also cycle, uphill on the treacherous ice, now that is skill! But I can get why you would want to just stay inside with a good book.

On Grønnegata, that’s the name of a road, is the city library and archive. Alongside the usual blocky style Nordic architecture this stands out, a glass fronted wave amidst the colourful painted wooden homes and shops or the enclosed offices. Of course I went inside to explore, if anything it was warm in there!

Rows of books all in something not English I find fascinating. I’m so used to fact that English gets everywhere that a shelf of books in a language I don’t understand makes me remember there are secrets from me. Whole stories that cultures know and read and love that are not open to me. Successful writers I won’t come across in the general sense. To open books where the page looks alien, is a brilliant thing, I’ll never really understand fully the intricacies of the shapes before me, even if I learn for the rest of my life. Having said that, after exploring I stood happily by the volumes of Shakespeare in Norwegian and then went and found a librarian of whom I demanded they hand over their most prized works, translated into English or course.

In Part One of this blog I discussed two works from the over one hundred years ago and I said I would return with more up to date novels. I had had a few names suggested to me; being a library I hurriedly went elsewhere to purchase paperback copies. When I wrote Part One I was thoroughly enjoying the first book I got, I will come to this, and so was confident I would love at least one of the other two as much; I was therefore clear to promise a blog of two novels… it’s the only time I’ve promised to talk about a book before I’ve read it and well it’s a lesson not to do that again.

One of the two remaining books I didn’t get on with at all, I did finish it and I liked the concept and style in which it was written, but the actual story it told was not one I enjoyed. I only want to use this blog to be positive about people’s work so I won’t name it, just because I didn’t like it doesn’t mean others won’t, in fact all three are very successful books; taste is subjective so you don’t need me telling you negative things, this isn’t a review blog, it’s a place to share what I like.

The other book really is a case of ‘it’s just not my thing’, so I’m happy to comment on it, and to be honest you can’t have a blog on modern Norwegian books and not mention Jo Nesbø. He’s proper famous as a writer in Norway and beyond, he’s had his books translated into many languages, and films and TV dramas have been made of them; you may have already heard of him. I had before the lady in the library instantly invoked his name when I asked the question, but I wasn’t fully conscious of it. I went and got a copy of one of his novels in English, I had to try it. It feels wrong to be giving my opinion on just one work of a writer who’s proven they are good, very good, at what they they do; the problem is I’m just not into gritty crime novels (Agatha is an exception!, don’t laugh) and for the most part it’s in this genre that Nesbø has made his name. I tried but “it’ not you, it’s me”, I’m sorry. However I can say if you are looking for gritty crime novels and you haven’t tried Jo Nesbø you may well get what I missed, many many people love them.

The first book I’d read was very different, quite absurd and exactly brilliant. Doppler by Erlend Loe is a story of a hermit, so immediately I was interested; but this is so much more. On the surface it’s a slightly odd and humorous work about a man, Doppler, who has decided to turn his back on society and now lives in a tent just outside Oslo. The story gets very silly at times, there’s a whole convention of hermits at one point and Doppler despairs as everyone wants to be alone like him, with him. Then there’s the elk… The story opens with the death of an elk, so it’s not a spoiler. Doppler lives in a forest and needs food, a elk is such a thing, but then there is the calf, and so having killed its mother Doppler adopts the child and calls it Bongo, and by doing this, in a very non-sentimental way, he finds some kind of perspective on what he feels he needs his life to be. Under the silly and surreal there is a sadness, under the sadness there is a confidence, not being scared to question what everyone blindly accepts and to do something about it, underneath this there is an ethical dilemma, is he right to? This is so much more than just a book about an elk. If you are going to read one Norwegian novel (or book about an elk) this year make it Doppler by Erlend Loe.

“Bongo is almost beside himself with joy when I come back, and we spend the rest of the day in the tent. We play board games and have a nice time together and I feel some of the old pally feeling I had at school. You just hang out together. Don’t talk about anything special. But Bongo’s hopeless at lotto. He’s really going to have to pull himself together if he wants me to keep on playing. I particularly chose animal lotto so as to give him a fair chance, but while I cover board after board with foxes and beavers and squirrels and wood pigeons, Bongo doesn’t match a single pair. He’s quite incapable of remembering where cards are. I point them out to him and expect him to give me a little sign such as a sound or a nod or something, but nothing. Not a sound. Not a nod. Bongo, Bongo, Bongo, I say. You may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer. But you are a real friend. And a lovely pillow.”
― Erlend Loe, Doppler

I want to read more by Loe, and will, but I’ve probably had my allotment of Nordic books for the immediate while, because there are many other cultures teaming with literature unread by me. I will come back to the North, both in journey and in words, there is still a whole lot more to discover.

It wasn’t just the Tomsø City Library I found a sharing of local literature; in one of the shopping centres there was a “take and leave” library shelf. I thought of taking one, but I had nothing on me to contribute and I decided sometimes it does me good to not know every secret.

Buy Doppler – by Erlend Doe

Follow My Blog

Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.

80 Days When Fiction Became Fact

Definitely Not For The First Time

A lot of what we accept as normal inventions or ideas first came from the mind of a writer. Many have been knowingly been turned into some sort of reality. It’s no coincidence that at the 1976 dedication ceremony for the Space Shuttle Enterprise the cast of Star Trek were present, just don’t tell Orwell what his nightmare world was turned into. Other things were probably where we were headed anyway, so stories set in the future included technology that seemed the obvious progression of the science of the day; and as we are now in the future we have some of these things. Do you want a small pocket sized device on which you can read articles on just about anything and anywhere? You can either have the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or you can have a phone and go to Wikipedia, or even just Google. Of course Douglas Adams didn’t invent the internet or smart phones, but he was smart enough to get the idea down on paper.

Sometimes though an idea deliberately created for a novel is just too good not turn into reality. In the late 80s something happened on BBC Television that changed the way a lot of of us saw travel programmes or indeed travel itself, and it all started almost a century earlier in the Reform Club in France.

Jules Verne was an established writer by the 1870s. He’d already written books we still know to this day: Voyage au centre de la Terre or Journey to the Center of the Earth, De la Terre à la Lune or From the Earth to the Moon and Vingt Mille Lieues sous les mers or Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. However in the 1870s he hit upon his probably most famous work.

Born in 1828 in Nantes, Brittany, France Jules Gabriel Verne was a visionary. His works as a writer generally dealt with the fantastic, so in 1872, when Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours or Around the World in Eighty Days was first published, how realistic was it? By the late 1800s pretty much all of the world had been discovered and transport was making getting about in it easier to the point that even the every day man or woman had opportunities to go places that they’d never of been able to visit before. Train networks were opening up on land and for sea travel more and more faster ships were launching, whilst the opening of the Suez Canal made life a whole lot easier for getting to Asia from Europe. Around The World In 80 Days wasn’t as far fetched as from Earth To the Moon, I mean that was still about 100 years off.

The novel is about a very rich man, Phileas Fogg, who enters a bet to circumnavigate the globe in 80 days; travel was possible and open, physically, but it still would have cost a fortune to do it. The novel tells of the adventures of his epic journey and if he completed his bet. Aside from the concept, it’s a really good read. I knew what happened by the time I got the book, yet I was still on the edge of my seat. Adventure and travel, even today with aeroplanes and Google, these things are what we dream off, well I do. How much more so to someone who’s world was a lot smaller?

“Unhappily for his master, as well as himself, his curiosity drew him unconsciously farther off than he intended to go. At last, having seen the Parsee carnival wind away in the distance, he was turning his steps towards the station, when he happened to espy the splendid pagoda on Malabar Hill, and was seized with an irresistible desire to see its interior. He was quite ignorant that it is forbidden to Christians to enter certain Indian temples, and that even the faithful must not go in without first leaving their shoes outside”
― Jules Verne, Around the World in 80 Days

And so as Around The World in 80 Days became literature almost straight away readers wanted to make it reality. In 1889 American journalist Nellie Bly (Elizabeth Cochran Seaman) set off from New York, rather than the Reform Club in London where Fogg began his journey, and competed the task in just 72 days. She then wrote a book called Around the World in Seventy-Two Days, which to be honest I’m still to read, I’ll keep you posted.

Through the next century, even though travel was becoming more commonplace, Verne’s book still fascinated people. More attempts were made to recreate it or at least a version of it. The story of Fogg transcended the page to become films and television dramas. The first I came across the tale was as the slightly odd cartoon Around the World with Willy Fog, where all the characters are animals, Fog is a lion. As a kid I loved it and would tune in for each episode to watch the cartoon world unfold before me; I can still sing you the theme song. I quickly learnt it was from a book, but at that age I wanted the cartoon lion.

Then in 1988, for broadcast a year later, the BBC decided to have a go at it, for real. The result was Around the World in 80 Days with Michael Palin. Travel was to follow the route Fogg took and, like in the novel, there would be no air travel (which would have made things a whole lot easier). From a broadcasting point of view the team that made it got everything right, starting with it being Michael Palin who accepted the challenge (after others had turned it down). For seven weeks in late 1989 nearly everyone I knew was talking about it. Palin wrote a book based on the journey which became a No. 1 best seller. I was still a child then, but even then I knew this was an event. British audiences had not really seen travel like this before on their screens and it became a template for a lot that followed after.

“8.30. On board the Al Shama Captain Suleyman is beaming. Something must be wrong. It is. We won’t be leaving quite as early as we thought, so plenty of time to settle in to our quarters. These appear to be on top of some boxes of sultanas where a flat space has been cleared and covered in a tarpaulin. The boat looks very spruce. The Captain is proud of the fact that he has cleaned the paintwork, not just with ordinary water, but with drinking water.”
― Michael Palin, Around the World in 80 Days

The strange thing was that when Verne wrote the original book sailing around the world was just beginning, the opportunities were opening up, when Palin did it the there were less ships to work with and the days of shipping were drying up due to air travel. His book is just as a good of a read as the original and if you are going to read just one, you’re probably missing out. Both books have a real heart to their respective adventures, so much so that they really make you feel part of it all.

Already a successful comedian and actor this launched Palin’s career in a whole new direction, as well as TV travel documentaries in general. I once met Michael Palin; it was at an signing of a later travel book. I stood in the queue to get my copy signed but time ran out, there were just too many people there; regardless he told everyone he’d stay and sign our books and he did just that, still joking and happily making time for everyone.

Things from literature do become reality every now and then, but seeing both Verne’s and Palin’s books upon my shelf just makes me smile and feeds my own wanderlust.

Since the late 80s the same story, first thought up by Jules Verne, has be retold many more times, in various ways and to various degrees of quality. Just goes to show, despite the changes in the world, the ease of travel and getting information about distant lands, a great story has power to keep on living.

Buy Around The World In 80 Days – by Jules Verne
Buy Around The World In 80 Days – by Michael Palin

Follow My Blog

Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.

2022 In Reading

My reads, not the books that came out this year…

It’s been a tradition of mine for a long time that at the end of the year I collect together every book I’ve read over the previous twelve months, just to see what they look like. This year I took a photograph!. Every year I think I’ve not read as much as I normally do, but when I see the pile I’ve created I realise it’s generally about the same. This year of course I had two lots of Beck’s Game to read, redraft several times and then edit so I’m quite pleased with what I’d accomplished. I’ve even written some new bits and pieces which may or may not see the light of day at some point. I have plans for next year. Ideas swimming around my head. What happens to them, of course, awaits to be seen.

I do love the clean slate of a new year. This time last year I already owned or had planned to read about half of the books I did get through. The rest I picked up along the way.

In total I read about thirty six books. That’s not a great deal compared to some people, but I’m very pleased with that number. In previous years I’ve done this as two blogs with four books a piece, however I’m noting how fast my Suggested Reads is growing and so to add another eight books in quick succession will being to make the list look unwieldy, I need to do something about that next year. But for this year I’ll write about four books (and it was really hard deciding which four), they ended up being ones that I didn’t already have a mental theme to write about for future blogs.

As for the future we’re fast coming up to a new, empty page, that will fill over the next 365 days. I wonder what books will be in next year’s pile.

The Manchurian Candidate – Richard Condon. This is one of those books that I’d occasionally come across as a reference to something, generally cited as an inspiration (I’m a Doctor Who fan and it comes up every now and then, but also in other places). I was in the brilliant Chapters in Dublin, and there was a pile of copies on a table. I’d never thought about reading it before but I decided on a whim to give it a go.

This is the story of an American solider from the Korean War who had saved his troop and is highly rewarded in his home country. This is just the beginning because unknown to him, planted deep in his conscience, are commands from an enemy agent who can take control of him whenever they please. As this was written in the 1950s it tapped into the paranoia of the age and as a result was soon turned into a film.

To start off with I struggled a bit. I couldn’t place the order of when events were supposed to be taking place in relation to each other, on top of which it seems like Richard Condon had been playing with his thesaurus. As a couple of examples, in the very first paragraph is the word “osculatorium” and on page 23 of my copy it has a sentence that begins, ‘To the extent that wartime zymurgists imperil the norm….’. However once I got my mind in sync with the writing style I soon started enjoying it immensely.

“The apartment was on the sixteenth floor. It was old-fashioned, which meant that the rooms were large and light-filled, the ceilings high enough to permit a constant circulation of air, and the walls thick enough for a man and his loving wife to have a stimulating argument at the top of their lungs without invading the nervous systems of surrounding neighbors. Raymond had rented the apartment furnished and nothing in the place beyond the books, the records, and the phonograph was his.”

― Richard Condon, The Manchurian Candidate

The Hare With The Amber Eyes – Edmund De Wall. About eight years ago I bought my copy of this book in a second hand bookshop. They were running a “Buy two, get a third free” deal. I had two books I really wanted and only noticed the offer at the till and didn’t have time to properly look for a third so just grabbed this. I had no idea what it was about but it was a book so that was fine by me, I’d find out when I read it. It’s sat in my To Be Read box ever since. This summer I decided the time had come.

I’d thought it was fiction, it is not. In the book the author Edmund De Wall writes of his own family’s history through some really interesting times via the device of a collection of Japanese netsuke (small ornaments). The collection has been passed down the generations and when they ended up with him he decided to trace their journey from when they were first bought by his ancestors to the present.

It didn’t sound great, I thought, as I read the opening pages and learnt of the concept. The book is fairly thick and I realised it’d take me a while to get through, however, like with the Manchurian Candidate, I soon got into the swing of it and it became very interesting. Not only is it his family history, but how they fitted into the bigger canvas of real world events. I’d say it was how the ordinary people fared, but these people are far from ordinary, yet they still represent a corner of history that we don’t often see. My favourite section is the one in Vienna from the turn of the last century to the start of the Second World War. In the book you see, almost from a contemporary viewpoint, Vienna being built and a Upper Class family dealing with the fast changing world and its fast changing opinions. In the end I was pleased I’d bought this, despite the fact I had no idea what I’d got at the time. Well worth a read, especially if you like history.

“This is the strange undoing of a collection, of a house and of a family. It is the moment of fissure when grand things are taken and when family objects, known and handled and loved, become stuff.”

― Edmund de Waal, The Hare With Amber Eyes

The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter – Carson McCullers. During a wonderful spring (my favourite season) I took this book away with me on a trip which feels like it was a very long time ago. This was the first time I’d properly gone away to be by myself in a foreign country since my trip to Albania, it was much needed and I think back on it as a chance to clear the cobwebs away; as such anything I read would have had positive memories attached to it.

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter was perfect. It’s written in such a way that you feel properly part of the action. There is a party about two thirds of the way in and it felt like I was on the streets watching events. It’s not the number of words McCullers uses but the ones she chose. I was very jealous and in awe, and she was only twenty three when it was published.

Set in a small town in Georgia, the state not the country, in the 1930s, the novel follows the characters and events that surround John Singer. Singer is deaf and can’t speak. Although he can sign he tends not to, however he has a very amiable personality that draws the locals to him. They begin to open up to him in ways they can’t with anyone else and he soon becomes an important part of their lives. Singer accepts this, but secretly he has worries of his own and he needs to find a way of dealing with them.

It’s a beautifully thought out book which slowly engulfs you as more and more the various personalities develop. I read this in a very warm and far away city that was just waking up to a new Spring and new possibilities. I felt free, completely detached from everything, and with this as my companion I was very happy.

“She wished there was some place where she could go to hum it out loud. Some kind of music was too private to sing in a house cram fall of people. It was funny, too, how lonesome a person could be in a crowded house.”

― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Anxious People – Fredrik Backman. I’ve somehow managed to end the year on a quite a strong Nordic note, as it was I read this Swedish novel in February. Anxious People seems to be one of those books that grabbed a lot of people’s attention at the same time; it’s very good.

The concept is that a flat is for sale and during a showing an armed robber enters and holds everyone hostage. The book explores the various different characters who were there that day and what lead up to this event.

First publish in Sweden, in Swedish, in 2019 it was then released in English in summer 2021. People liked it so much it’s become a Netflix series, which I’ve not seen. It’s a really interesting concept and whilst there are a lot of “whacky” elements, over all the more you read the deeper and more intricate it becomes. I’m sure with just one reading I’ve missed a lot of the subtly. I’m actually finding this a difficult one to write about as there is so much I don’t want to give away, it’s worth you reading/ discovering it all from the novel itself.

As the most modern of the books I’ve read this year, I think, it definitely goes to show good literature is alive and well in our day as much as it’s ever been.

“This story is about a lot of things, but mostly about idiots. So it needs saying from the outset that it’s always very easy to declare that other people are idiots, but only if you forget how idiotically difficult being human is.”

― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People


Buy The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon
Buy The Hare With Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal
Buy The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
Buy Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

Follow My Blog

Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.

The North Way: Part One

Begynner Viktoriansk

Last week I was in Norway. Tromsø to be exact, (I do love that o with the line through it). Tromsø is at the very top of Norway, 217 miles above the Arctic Circle and the third largest settlement in the Arctic. If you’ve read Indoldrum (shameless plug for my novel) you’ll gather I have a bit of a fascination with the area and I’ve always wanted to get as far north as I can, especially at either mid-summer for the Midnight Sun (which I managed in 2005) or the Polar Night. I’ve been various places in winter to the Nordic countries but this trip was the furthest north I’ve ever been, and I loved it!

Norway is an incredible country and on the whole the people are brilliant (with the exception of one incredibly rude lady I came across in a supermarket). Yes, I did manage to see the Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis. On my first night when I got off the bus and headed to my accommodation. I was very fortunate as they didn’t occur for the rest of my visit. However that night I ended up on a frozen lake watching the celestial display, away from the city lights, it was really cool! (In many ways.)

Of course this is a blog about writing and whilst I’m happy to wax lyrical about my holiday here’s an opportunity to feature literature connected to Norway. This can mean either works by locals or by others about the country. In a future part I’ll discuss some more modern books by Norwegian authors, but for now let me tell you about Three In Norway By Two Of Them, by James A. Lees and Walter J. Clutterbuck. Published in 1882 this was a book about three Victorian gentlemen who take a trip together and the humorous events that happen along the way. If all this is starting to sound a little familiar, you’re possibly seeing links to Three Men In A Boat by Jerome K Jerome published in 1889. As mentioned elsewhere I’m a massive fan of Jerome Klapka Jerome and it is generally assumed he drew inspiration from the Lees and Walter J; as it is his novel has enough original elements that it really would have been just a starting point, Jerome was witty and clever enough not to need to take from others.

In Three In Norway we are introduced to Skipper, Esau and John; eccentrics who plan on roughing it in the countryside in southern Norway in the summer (so almost the complete opposite of my trip… how rude! I’m not eccentric… ok maybe a bit). Obviously a Victorian’s idea of roughing it is very different from ours, the amount of provisions needed for a spot of fishing and hunting, in full dress of waistcoats and all, plus more food then I’ve got at home right now I should guess, is probably what we would call Glamping today.

Whilst seemingly popular in its day Three In Norway hasn’t always been so easy to get hold off, these days it’s available on Kindle and Project Gutenberg. The book is amusing and if you like Jerome’s work it’s well worth taking a look at this one, even if for me Jerome beat them hands down at their own game. Whilst JKJ uses his tale as a frame for all sorts of bizarre and extremely funny stories, this has the trip front and centre. It was still early days for the whole travel writing and we’ll probably never know how much of this is based on a real trip to Norway taken by the authors, although there is a lot of unnecessary detail in the text which makes me think there is more truth to this novel than Three Men In A Boat.

“But presently a cloud gathered over the mountain tops, and thunder was heard rolling among the distant hills; a gentle breeze stirred the surface of the water, and every lazy fish woke up to seek his food. The Skipper longed to go and fetch his rod. He hinted at this, and at last became impatient; but, by Jove! Miss Louise would not go. There she sat and prattled on, charming, pleased with herself, and utterly unmindful of the rising fish and the fretting Skipper. Time kept passing on, till at length her father brought relief by appearing on the shore to call her in to dinner; but then the Skipper had to get his food too, and when he had bolted the humble but indigestible crust and cheese, and rushed out again to seize his rod, he found it too late, as the lake was now dark with clouds, and the fish had left off rising.

Soon after lunch it began to rain like a waterfall, and Esau arrived with a lot of fish— spoils from the Leirungen Ocean, and the result of Spartan indifference to the attractions of woman. There is a shining moral in this tale.”

― James A. Lees and Walter J. Clutterbuck, Three In Norway By Two Of Them

Of course you can’t talk about Norwegian literature without mentioning Henrik Ibsen. Well known playwright, born in 1828 he is one of their most, if not the most, celebrated writers and if you don’t know the name he has been directly, or indirectly, responsible for some things you do know very well.

One of his most acclaimed works is the play A Doll’s House. Set in 1879, in what was then the present day, this is the story of Nora a woman who feels she has practically no control over her life, yet intends to do something about it. In the society in which it was premiered this caused a great deal of fuss.

Ibsen also wrote the somewhat surreal Peer Gynt, which premiered in 1879. Roughly based on a Nordic fairy tale this is the story of Peer Gynt who after upsetting his neighbours has some weird experiences, including going to the Hall of the Mountain King – a troll, and then is pretty much exiled to travel about various places, Egypt for example.

Ibsen asked Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg to write the score for the play. The result includes some of the most familiar pieces of music that even today we come across regularly. For instance, In The Hall of the Mountain King has been used in so many places that it has transcended the play. Countless songs have been based on this, to name but one, Let’s Go To War by the Manic Street Preachers. If I were to say “the Alton Tower’s theme’ you may instantly recall the piece. The other section of music that nearly everyone knows from Peer Gynt is Morning Mood; it’s often mistaken for Spring by Vivaldi. Regardless these two pieces of music are ingrained in to many cultures and all because Ibsen decided to write a very popular, if somewhat strange, play about a man who gets into trouble over stealing a bride.

“Someone has said – or is it written somewhere – I don’t remember where, that if you conquer all the world yet lose your Self, all that you gain is a wreath around your broken skull – or words to that effect. That text is by no means poetic nonsense.”

― Henrik Ibsen, Peer Gynt

When I decided to write a blog about Norway and literature these two examples were the first two that came to mind (and one isn’t even by a Norwegian writer), however there are plenty of writers from this country and the modern day who are worth discovering and reading and so I will follow this up with some more recent examples.

Buy Three In Norway By Two Of Them – by James A. Lees and Walter J. Clutterbuck
Buy Peer Gynt – by Henrik Ibsen

Follow My Blog

Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.

Feed My Reads Interview

08 November 2022

Literary Blog Feed My Reads https://timetofeedmyreads.blogspot.com/ , which focuses on indie publishing, has been interviewing authors and it’s now my turn. You can read the interview on the link below, embarrassingly it’s a bit longer than most, sorry!

https://timetofeedmyreads.blogspot.com/2022/11/arthur-hofn-interview.html

It’s well worth it for their other content.

Thank you Feed My Reads

Follow My Blog

Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.

25,000 Beck’s Game downloads! Thank you SO much!

02 November 2022

As you may be aware I am in the middle of releasing the third and final series of Beck’s Game, and I just wanted to share some of the things that have made me very excited and grateful.

Firstly, as per the title, Beck’s Game, across all parts so far released has now passed 25,000 downloads, with each individual part of the first two series having over 1,000 each (Oxford Circus, the first released is way ahead of that). Elephant & Castle the first Part of Series Three is becoming the Part with the fastest download rate. This is more than I ever imagined, how could it be? So for every one of you who is reading it I’m am thankful of your support!

Secondly I have hidden more Beck’s Game cards across London, they only access this website but I find it kind of exciting!

As of now I am putting the final touches to the final versions of the last two parts to be released. Part 5 Perivale is due Friday 4th November, and the following week I have a challenge as the closing instalment is a bumper read! So I’ve started a week early on the final checks. But I promise, all will be answered, but will anyone get a happy ending? The Game is sinking to a whole new level, there will be losses.

It’s not the money, it’s the GAME.

Follow My Blog

Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.

To Barcelona, As It Were

Catalonia From The Past In The Present

Always one from a bit of exploration I decided that having never been to Andorra that I simply must visit. A few weeks ago the time had come and I disappeared off to the Iberian peninsular for the second time this year. To get to Andorra your options are a little limited and so the best solution for me was to fly to Barcelona and get the bus to Andorra-La-Vella. This is not a problem, I love Barcelona, and I quite like long journeys. Of course when planning a trip careful consideration needs to be taken to which books I would be taking with me and it suddenly struck me that for this venture there was one obvious choice. I’ve read all of George Orwell’s novels/ books (although not his essays) with the exception of one, Homage To Catalonia. What better reading material to have as I potter La Rambla and the Gothic Quarter?

I like Orwell as a writer (Eric Arthur Blair – second blog in a row about a literary Arthur, it wasn’t planned). He knows how to develop a concept and get you thinking. His lesser know novels have a real sense of frustration and melancholy. However, I try to keep out of politics as best as possible even if Orwell himself does have strong views on the matter. I state this as I don’t want people assuming I take similar views simply because I read the literature of a certain writer be it Orwell or anyone else.

It’s easy to understand why it wasn’t that popular, I know that sounds harsh, but it is very dry and opinion led. Orwell does his best to separate what he sees as the “facts” from his opinions by putting them in different chapters, but when even he says he gets confused by all the acronyms you wonder how you are supposed not to, although again to be fair he does explain most things as simply as possible. He also humbly admits he misunderstood things at the time.

Homage to Catalonia was published in 1938, a good while before his two really big hitters, and at the time it didn’t do that well. Rather like, at the time the already published, Down And Out In Paris And London and The Road To Wigan Pier, this is not a story but an account of events in the Orwell’s life, with a message. It was published shortly after he and his wife returned from Spain having been involved in the Spanish Civil War. Homage To Catalonia is his version of events, from his observations of serving on the front line to his account of the politics happening within the subsections involved in the conflict as well as the bigger picture.

Hotel Continental

It’s a interesting thing to read a passage of something in the location of which it is it set, especially when it really happened. Off the top of my head I can’t think of an occasion where I have done this before, although I’m sure I must have done. There are sections of the text referring to battles taking place on La Rambla, which I read on La Rambla. Hotel and cafe names are stated, for example Hotel Continental is there at the top of La Rambla with Cafe Moka further down the road. There are walls around the city still showing the results of gunfire or bombs.

Set in the Gothic Quarter is Plaça George Orwell. This square was created in the early 1980s and it was only in 1996 that it got a name, that of the English author. I came here for breakfast one morning, and sat at a cafe drinking tea I read more of Orwell’s book, obvious and cheesy (not my breakfast) but it had to be done. A man working at the cafe was outside watching the square and I got chatting to him about general things, and of course I asked if many people came here looking for a connection with the writer and he didn’t seem to think many did, he said the locals only really knew the square as the “Trip” due to all the drugs that the area was known for. Hmmm… Regardless I made a fuss of photographing my aged copy of Homage To Catalonia with the sign, and annoyingly a woman’s legs who just wouldn’t get them out of shot.

Reading this book was an interesting experience as I became uncomfortable with some of the ideas and statements in the text which as a writer Orwell obviously seem to think were acceptable for print back then. The world has vastly changed, and yes Fascism is still a terrible thing, but I still found it hard to read how openly Orwell said he had wanted to kill at least one person during his time on the front line; in Chapter Five for example: “When I joined the militia I had promised myself to kill one Fascist—after all, if each of us killed one they would soon be extinct—and I had killed nobody yet, had hardly had the chance to do so.” On several other occasions he feels that his need for cigarettes is worth risking his and other people’s lives for; as an example there was a situation where, he lightly says he wanted some to which a friend does bring them to him at a very high risk and he thinks this is great. Elsewhere, at times of severe food shortages leading to the guests at his hotel eating only one sardine each, Orwell comments they were having to drink “older and older wines a higher and higher prices”, and sill complains the lack of cigarettes, priorities seem to have changed a little.

This is a book that has troubled me. Orwell has strong opinions and in his other books, yet they are a record of what some of the world thinking was like back then, and at least nobody was getting hurt. In Down And Out In Paris And London he comes across as someone really willing to put himself in other people’s shoes to understand them, and I respect him for that. However I don’t agree with cruelty regardless of the political colour (no one in their right mind does) but I guess my problem was I was expecting Orwell to be more of an onlooker wishing for, and understanding there needed to be a better way for all sides involved to improve conditions, rather than him becoming a part of the violence itself.

“The whole experience of being hit by a bullet is very interesting and I think worth describing in detail.”
― George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia

This was the last full book I had to read by Orwell and I’m kind of glad it was the last it meant I read the others with a sense of naivety I’ve lost now. It’s still worth reading this book and I’m pleased I did, it puts in context a writer who would adjust his views to degrees over time and go on to create Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty Four, but in the horror that was going on around him in Barcelona it’s just a shame he couldn’t see a better way.

Buy Homage To Catalonia – by George Orwell

Follow My Blog

Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.

It Will Always Be Sherlock

From One Arthur To Another

On my return to this fair isle, after having lived abroad for a while, I discovered the rather bizarre past time of visiting the final resting places of people who I have in some way admired. It’s a strange connection. I’ve blogged about finding where Agatha Christie is buried and even though our lives missed out on overlapping by just a few years to be able to still visit and pay my respects to such a brilliant person (not that I believe in any way life continues) is a fascinating temporal quirk. Of course if you can do it for someone who passed a few years before your birth, if you know where they are, you can go right back in time! (See also Jerome K Jerome)

Arthur Conan Doyle

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 – 1930). The author of the much adored Sherlock Holmes stories. Holmes was many things, but mainly he was brilliant, and of course if you create and write for a character who is a genius you have to have have a large level of intelligence yourself, not as much as your creation as you already know the answers and you put the clues there, but even working from the other side, it takes a lot of the little grey cells, no sorry that’s another other.

Due to the Benedict Cumberbatch series, Sherlock Holmes is once again enjoying and gaining a large degree of fans, and yes I know it’s been over a decade since the first episodes and more than five years since the last episode went out; still it’s very popular and that is mainly due to the fact the the base text is extraordinary. But imagine that, as a writer your works continue to be loved and interpreted in ways by each successive generation across the media, frankly I’d be happy with just one generation.

To go back to the beginning, the first Sherlock Holmes story to be published was in Beeton’s Christmas Annual in 1887. It was the novel A Study In Scarlet and it seems it didn’t quite take off. However it was then published in other formats, including book form, the Victorians seemed to think that you needed to have the story in a newspaper or magazine in parts before it was actually put into a book. There then followed three other full novels and the fifty six short stories which were published in The Strand magazine (and now available in five collections), it became, as we’ve said, a considerable success.

If you’ve not read any of the books or short stories you may be a little overwhelmed as to where to start. Unlike other writers with big cannons this isn’t actually that confusing. There are only really nine actual books you would need to buy and you can get them all in one volume as a Complete Works, it’s what I have and I just dipped into it to start off with before I began at the beginning with A Study In Scarlet and just carried on. This worked for me.

“It’s quite exciting,” said Sherlock Holmes, with a yawn.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet, A Study in Scarlet

Although it’s the first one A Study In Scarlet would become atypical of how to read Sherlock Holmes stories. I found a website that listed the word count for each of the anthologies, added them together and the divided by 56; the average word count for a Sherlock Holmes short story is 8,138 words. A Study In Scarlet is 43, 625 words. It’s also odd in that the format of the novel is in two halves and I don’t want to spoil it by explaining what I mean by that; it’s trick Conan Doyle pulls again elsewhere. Of course read this, but if you are looking to start with the typical short story go for the anthologies.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes was first published in 1892 and contains fourteen cases of intrigue. As with any collection the quality varies, but this is a good read and you start with the well known A Scandal In Bohemia, which I would suggest is the perfect place to begin, from then on you will have hours of happy reading.

To Sherlock Holmes she is always THE woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex.
― Arthur Conan Doyle, A Scandal in Bohemia

Conan Doyle did write other things, including The Lost World, but his name will always be tied to the Detective of Baker Street, and that happened even whilst he was alive. Here is the writer’s dilemma: of course you want success, to dream of the levels Conan Doyle had would lead to disappointment, but imagine then having achieved it with one book and all people are interested in is for you to keep writing sequels. The other ideas you have are ‘yeah ok, sounds good, but when’s the next X book coming out?’; it must get frustrating and I believe it did for Doyle, hey he even killed Holmes off and it wasn’t enough.

We may think, just be grateful, like a singer when the crowd only want to hear one song, because at least they want you and you’ve made enough money you can then do the other things even if it’s for a smaller audience. But even just imagining I can understand the frustration, no wonder the writers of books and songs get sick of their most famous works when the public never do.

On a sunny day a few years ago I found myself in the New Forest and I decided to drop by the village of Minstead where little horses roam freely and occasionally come and ask you for food. In the graveyard is the final resting place of Arthur Conan Doyle and his wife Jean, and at the time, dotted about were a small pipe and other memorabilia connected with the beloved Detective. I guess when you’ve written something so brilliant it will never leave you… and at the end of the day it’s no bad thing, not really.

Buy The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes – by Arthur Conan Doyle
Buy A Study In Scarlet – by Arthur Conan Doyle
Buy The Complete Sherlock Holmes – by Arthur Conan Doyle

Follow My Blog

Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.

So, How Was The Heatwave?

When Fiction Got There First

Heat. It has been hot. I love it, or I would if it wasn’t a sign of the damage done to our planet. But the 40C we experienced in my part of England recently… I could happily bask in it; what is it they say about mad dogs and Englishmen? The sad fact though is that, according the those in the know, this shouldn’t be happening. Predictions of a future of environmental calamity aren’t the just stuff of fiction. Regardless, many a story has been told whilst set in a world experiencing the consequences of the harm done to our planet, or in some cases other worlds.

It’s always been a tool writers use to highlight present issues, that is exaggerating the situation to clearly identify it and then setting it either in the future or off world, ‘This is what it could be like.’ It also allows the author to change the rules to tell a better story and let the imagination flow rather than be stuck trying to keep it as believable as possible. You want to highlight how the ecosystem itself is being damaged? Whilst we have reports of foreign species appearing in Britain and native ones on the decline, at the moment it’s not something the average person tends to worry about. Speed forward in time and tell of a world were all the bees have gone and the waters around our coast are patrolled by thousands of man eating sharks.

It’s hard to accurately predict how the food we grow will be affected, but go one hundred years in the future and you don’t need to worry about being accurate to reports of scientists, readers will be less inclined to disregard your words as being unrealistic.

Probably, to me, one of the most obvious novels dealing with climate change is The Drought by JG Ballard. In fact this was first published in 1964 under the title ‘The Burning World’ and then expanded in 1965 as The Drought. Ballard is brilliant at creating worlds, most of them are depressingly dystopian and this is no exception, but it is also stark. It’s the future and water is scarce, as in it’s all really messed up. Humans are just about surviving and even then it’s an effort. The problem is that the oceans have have been so badly polluted the water cycle is just not working properly. Of course the regular worries of green house gasses that we know all to well were not so strong in the 1960s, despite this the results and warnings of his scenario are the same as we could be fearing.

As a reader you feel the arid nature of the landscape, you can see yourself in the situations the characters, don’t just endure, but take as what life is. Ballard is clever here, it’s not so alien that you can’t imagine yourself doing the things that need to be done. We’ve all seen stagnate water in rivers that should be flowing. We can all imagine what happens to a zoo when the water runs out. The solution is to move to the coast, although even that is not so easy; however we start inland where the rivers have run to trickles if they have survived at all. This isn’t a novel about conspiracy or fighting for the survival of the planet; despite uprisings happening on the on the edge of the story, all that is already lost. This is a character working out how to live in the world, his world.

“Ransom walked across the central promenade of the zoo. Some twenty pink flamingos huddled together in a shallow trough at one end of the rock pool, the water sunk to a pallid slush between their feet. Sheets of matting covered the wire mesh over the pool but the birds fretted nervously, opening their beaks at Ransom.”
― J G Ballard, The Drought

Even though I’ve previously spoken about the other book I think of immediately when it comes to feeling the heat described in the text, I feel I just need to once more mention The Power And The Glory by Graham Greene. Set in Tabasco, Mexico (even if the geography is a little suspect) in the 1930s it’s hard to not fully embrace the dryness of the opening chapter which then leads into the humid swaps of the interior; you can almost see the sweat of the characters.

The fact this is set in the past, and in a landscape where the reader already expected things to be hot, humid and uncomfortable, at the time they probably dint’ see such temperatures coming to British shores. But it’s an interesting contrast to The Drought, because it also shows that in some parts of the world The Drought isn’t the future. Greene probably hadn’t thought of worldwide environmental damage when he penned his story, it was just this was what Mexico was like and he wanted to set his tale there. But how long until the heat in our part of the world is just as common place as the locals in Tabasco experience? How long until, like the people of The Drought, although knowing something is wrong, we just have to find a way to survive it?

“Mr Tench went out to look for his ether cylinder, into the blazing Mexican sun and the bleaching dust. A few vultures looked down from the roof with shabby indifference: he wasn’t carrion yet.”
― Graham Greene, The Power And The Glory

Personally I do like the heat, and to bask with a good novel is a good way to enjoy it, but maybe it shouldn’t be quite this hot?

Buy The Drought – by J G Ballard
Buy The Power And The Glory – by Graham Greene

Follow My Blog

Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.