Children’s Literature

It’s not just for kids.

Generally I’m not a great fan of watching the film/ TV series of a book I’ve read. I don’t like how they miss things out or change parts. I don’t like being told that a character looks nothing like I had them in my head. This hasn’t always been the case, in fact as a child it often went the other way round.

A couple of blogs ago I mentioned a children’s book and it got me thinking; so much of good children’s literature has been adapted for television or for the cinema. Of course as a kid you don’t really realise that some of brilliant things you are watching was a book first. Well I assume that’s the case, I lost touch with children’s television a long long time ago. That’s not to say it doesn’t still hold an important position, I just can’t compare now with what I experienced.

The fact is all those years ago there were so many good adaptions of books on television, and if I enjoyed watching them, as this was before streaming or even (shock!) DVDs, I’d go and get the book. (You didn’t really buy many videos, it was mainly used to tape stuff off the telly which would invariably be taped over later.)

These were the days of CBBC and the broom cupboard (other children’s programming were available… well one other was which was on ITV or “the other side”). Each adaption would generally be six episodes long and you would have to wait the full six weeks to see the whole story… if you missed an episode, well the chances are you would never get to see it again – unless by some chance they repeated it in the next year or so.

Specifically there are two that I think of fondly and I do still have the books on my shelves… well in a box at the moment, but when the shelves come back they will be there.

Firstly in the eighties (Wikipedia tells me it was 1989), there was a very English serial made about a boy who looked at a clock and went back to the Victorian times. This was of course Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce. Published in 1958 this won the Carnegie Medal which is a British award for children’s literature. As a TV programme I found it fascinating and as a book unputdownable, even though I remembered the story. The “current” era of the novel is set in the 1950’s (ish – dates are not stated) which was present when the book was written and only just over thirty years before broadcast, which is horrifying as we’re thirty years from broadcast now, going forward in time!

Set in Cambridgeshire and telling the story of a friendship between Tom from the fifties and Hatty, a girl from Victorian times, it’s a beautifully written tale which, although it plays with the concept of time travel, doesn’t feel sci-fi (because it isn’t). Whilst it has intrigue it keeps things simple enough for an adult to understand and complicated enough for a child not to get bored. There have been other adaptions, but I won’t bother with them (I’m sure they are good) the 1980’s one will always be the definitive for me, and of course the book tops that.

“I meant to ask Hatty questions about the garden,’ Tom wrote to Peter, ‘but somehow I forgot.’ He always forgot. In the daytime, in the Kitsons’ flat, he thought only of the garden, and sometimes he wondered about it: where it came from, what it all meant. Then he planned cunning questions to put to Hatty, that she would have to answer fully and without fancy; but each night, when he walked into the garden, he forgot to be a detective, and instead remembered only that he was a boy and this was the garden for a boy and that Hatty was his playmate.”
― Philippa Pearce, Tom’s Midnight Garden

The other one I that I distinctly remember is almost as different as you can get but still be brilliant (although there are some concepts in the two that cross paths). Set in what was then modern day England this was a story that got increasingly bizarre but still managed to keep to a logical and comprehendible story. This really was thinking outside the box and when I discovered it was a book first I was delighted.

I’m talking about Archer’s Goon by Diana Wynne Jones. I’ve not actually read anything else by her and I feel I should because not only are the ideas in this book very strange, they are written in a way that doesn’t put you off but makes you want to know more, and, as I’ve said, the logic works. Published in 1984 this was adapted in 1992.

This starts when a boy called Howard discovers that someone called Archer has sent a Goon to collect a tax of words his father has to write. As Howard investigates he discovers that within the real world is another more baffling one, one ran by a group of very odd types. And that’s as much as I’ll say, go and read it to discover exactly what is going on.

“You don’t give hired assassins supper, do you?” Quentin smiled. “No, but when a wolf follows your sleigh, you give it meat.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, Archer’s Goon

I still love both these books and recommend them to parents who want a good read for their children. I was never really aware of the expression YA Fiction until years later and I gather it is doing good things getting teenagers reading. I haven’t read a lot of it as there is just so much other stuff to read, but in what I would refer to as “the classic children’s literature” there is still a wealth for them to discover.

Contrary to what adults would tell me about what television was going to do, because of the two examples I’ve mentioned above and others, I was drawn to reading by it and not pulled away from it.

Buy Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce
Buy Archer’s Goon by Diana Wynne Jones

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The Tragedy Of Queen Alexia… Available To Read

In full on The Writers Club

I love listening to Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics on BBC Radio 4. In the episode on Euripides she retells the play Medea and is amazing. Inspired by how miserable it is I decided to see if I could have a go at a short play based on Greek theatre. The Tragedy Of Queen Alexia is the result.

A woman late thirties (ALEXIA) is sitting on the ground centre stage. She has been traveling in difficult conditions for a long while and you can tell by the state of her practical but good quality clothes. She is staring into the distance. Behind her is a white screen.

Masked women (CHORUS) enter from behind the screen, briefly look at ALEXIA then stand beside her and turn to the audience.

CHORUS

The Kingdom is in ruins
It is so nearly rent
A war has broken out
Which the King could not prevent

His family were taken
A wife and his two sons
Only little children
And the woman he so loves

Somehow she escaped their hold
She knows she must return
To a King so enraged
He would let the whole world burn

The CHORUS takes a step back to the right of the screen and sit on a bench. A noise from the right. ALEXIA turns to look offstage to see who is coming.

ALEXIA: Who is that?

A woman late thirties (IRINA) enters from the left. She shows the signs of hardship, her clothes are not the quality of ALEXIA’s. She looks down to ALEXIA putting a cup down next to her.

IRINA: It is a little water, it was all we could spare.

ALEXIA: Where are my children?

IRINA : You will get your answers but first be assured that you are safe here. We are supporters of the King and your face is not one we would take in error Queen Alexia.

ALEXIA: (Relieved) You have my thanks in giving me your hospitality. But please where are my sons Rico and Dya? They are so young…

ALEXIA stands and IRINA follows.

IRINA: They are being looked after. Become calm.

ALEXIA : Who are you?

IRINA: My name is Irina. I no longer know who I am…

ALEXIA: Your answers are not reassuring me. How long have I been here?

IRINA: You have been here for only one day. Our spies found you on the edge of the forest, looking all but dead. You must have all been exhausted beyond your limits. It was a large risk.

ALEXIA: We had to travel at night. We are free now but I know the price on our head and the danger as it will not now be paid.

IRINA: I meant it was a risk for us. This village has been under siege for two years, from just after the war began. We took in your cousins for refuge and the enemy surrounded us. They would have been taken and executed. Our loyalty has cost us.

ALEXIA: When this is over you will be much repaid. My family are still here?

IRINA: We dug a tunnel under the barricade and they fled to other parts three months ago. It was only just in time. Soon after the soldiers made camp at the mouth of the passage, they do not know it is there. If they found it they would come and realise their prize was gone. We would then all be slain.

ALEXIA: Your noble sacrifices…

IRINA: Are more than you could ever comprehend in a nightmare.

Read the full play here at The Writers Club

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A Whole New Logic

It’s a universe in itself.

Each book is a world, thought out and destined by the writer. The author has full control over the lives and the events of the character’s lives. Therefore a bookshelf is many universes sitting side by side. In some we recognise something close to our actual reality; a true story or a book on a historical period for example. Some other books just slightly change the world as we know it to accommodate their tale.

It’s a well-known trope to set the novel in what feels like reality only to be said to be happening in a fictional town or country, but as if it were part of our geography. Of course in Science Fiction we have actuality plus, and in some cases plus plus. In Fantasy it is, of course, the whole point.

There are some books, however, that just throw all the laws of physics out the window and make everything bend to the story.

For example The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster is a universe in itself. While it’s a children’s book, there is a lot of clever devices and intelligent observations that make this enjoyable for any age. The concept is that a young lad finds the eponymous tollbooth in his room with a map to the Lands Beyond. Not realising what will happen he uses his toy car to drive through the tollbooth and soon ends in a completely different reality.

As the novel progresses it becomes clear he has a mission, but this doesn’t stop the tale and the author taking the reader to some pretty strange places (there are The Mountains of Ignorance where people therefore live in Ignorance) and introducing some strange characters (the Princesses Rhyme and Reason who were taken away, hence the land no longer has Rhyme or Reason).

“And illegal barking,” he added, frowning at the watchdog. “It’s against the law to bark without using the barking meter. Are you ready to be sentenced?”
“Only a judge can sentence you,” said Milo, who remembered reading that in one of his schoolbooks.
“Good point,” replied the policeman, taking off his cap and putting on a long black robe. “I am also the judge. Now would you like a long or a short sentence?”
“A short one, if you please,” said Milo.
“Good,” said the judge, rapping his gavel three times. “I always have trouble remembering the long ones. How about ‘I am.’? That’s the shortest sentence I know.”
Everyone agreed that it was a very fair sentence, and the judge continued: “There will also be a small additional penalty of six million years in prison. Case closed,” he pronounced, rapping his gavel again. “Come with me. I’ll take you to the dungeon.
― Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

The whole point is a big wordplay, where idioms are true, and a commentary on our life. Therefore like a lot of stories that at first don’t seem to represent what we know as real, this eventually becomes a reflection of the points about society the author wants to make.

Elsewhere some novels are said to be set in our world but the events are so bizarre that there is no way they can be. Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn is set on an island apparently off the coast of the USA. It is said to be the home of the man who invented the saying “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” The concept is that a statue on the island commemorating this has the phrase on, however a tile falls off and the government decide to ban that letter. As the book goes on more and more letters fall from the monument and the alphabet decreases. Because the story is told as a series of correspondences between characters these letters also disappear from the actual book and the wording and spelling of words gets more inventive as the plot goes on to accommodate the new laws. It’s very strange but also clever and just the right length so the concept doesn’t become tiring.

“U” is gone. I suppose you’re aware. The 1st aeiouy to go. Up until now the other graphemes were not aeiouys. When the aeiouys start to go, Ella, writing to you turns exponentially more grueling. I will not throw in the towel, though. I trust that you won’t either. I truly relish our partnership.”
― Mark Dunn, Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters

The fact is if you are a writer and you have that blank page you can do literally whatever you want, there is no need to stick to our logic if you want to invent your own. “Any story” means whatever your imagination can create, there really are no limits in fiction.

Buy The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
Buy Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn

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The Travel/ Reading Dilemma

Confusing cultures.

One of the things I love about going on holiday is it gives me so much time away from normal life and I have so many more opportunities to read. Especially true is this if I’m flying. I have the bus to the airport, the long wait in departures (the OCD in me can not cope unless I am through security at least two hours before the gate closes), and then the flight. Perfect time for reading if I don’t fall asleep (put me on an aeroplane and I can be out before the safety announcement and probably not wake until we land – at which point I get annoyed about the missed opportunity to read).

I’m not a beach or pool person. I like exploring and wandering so I spend most of my time away drifting down random streets and wishing I was still a photographer (a heart breaking story I’ll put you all through on a blog one day).

A book and a raki after a day exploring.

Then there is the inevitable café time. I love sitting with a cup of tea in a café, if it’s warm I need to be outside; it’s a mixture of people watching, writing my own stories in my head and just being one of those people I am jealous of when I’m running around like a mad thing at home.

There is also travel within the country if I get bored of looking out the window and, because I tend to travel alone, evenings. I don’t go to bars or clubs when I’m away, nightlife to me is sitting reading a book somewhere – maybe with a beer.

But here comes the problem. I love travel; to see new places and experience new things. I’ve just come back from Albania and there is a very rich history and culture there and I loved exploring it.

Albania

The people are so nice! On a few occasions I would ask if I was on the right bus to get to where I wanted and they would come with me to my destination and make sure I didn’t get lost; I didn’t really need them to but it was really nice of them and I got to chat to a lot of locals this way. One of them even paid for my ticket (40 lek = about 25p) when I only had a big note to pay with.

As always I took books with me and so I found myself in the middle of Tirana reading about Yorkshire in the 1940’s or surrounded by old castles but my head was full of 1920’s Oxford. This can be a little jarring.

Last summer I took a road trip through south west England. I was reading about a man who moved to a foreign country and was having difficulty fitting in with the culture and was trying not to let his English mannerisms upset the locals. Eventually I got it into my head because I was in a different place I had to be careful not to let my Englishness upset the locals – regardless of the fact this was my country and we were all English!

One of the most bizarre culture clashes I experienced was when I was reading Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk To Freedom as I was travelled through India. It’s quite an absorbing and intense (though thoroughly enjoyable and informative) read. Mandela goes to some detail explaining the culture and traditions he grew up with as well as the atmosphere in the country he lived in later in life. At times I would look up and expect to be in South Africa and then have the double jolt of realising not only was I not but I was also not at home and in a very different climate. It’s like reading books set in the winter during summertime or the other way round.

I suppose the solution is to make my reading material match the environment of where I am, but this is not so easily done. I was in San Marino last year…

I did take East of Eden to North California with me and had the joys of passing Salinas as I read, with one eye out the window and one in the book. It was a really good experience to see the landscape I was reading about albeit many years later. Just looking at the undulating golden countryside and the farm land made me imagine that these events could be happening just the other side of that hill (although some if not most of them you would hope were not). I love Steinbeck anyway but it did add something special to be there, of course when I went to Cannery Row I then regretted I’d brought the wrong book. Me, I can never be happy.

But for as long as I love immersing myself in different cultures, either in reality or on the written page, there will always be this clash and at the end of the day that’s ok by me.

Buy Long Walk To Freedom by Nelson Mandela
Buy East Of Eden by John Steinbeck

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2019 In Reading Part Two

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

This is the second part of my look back at some of the books I’ve read this year, including the end of the world as we know it and turn of last century Kenya. Again I’m trying not to give too much of the actual plot away as I like it to unfold as I go along so don’t want to spoil it for you, instead here is a general outline and how I felt about it.

The Day Of The Triffids – John Wyndham. I bought this second hand in 1995 and started it then; for some reason I couldn’t get into it and I decided to have a break. Nearly twenty five years later and it was time for the break to be over! When I started it again I failed to understand why I had such difficulty with it the first time. It’s gripping! I had in my head what I thought I remembered happening in it and was amazed to discover that not much of it was in the plot, I’d invented a whole load of other things. I was convinced they went to Paris at one point, where that came from I’ll never know but I was looking out for it for quite some time. I guess it’s set at the time it was written, the very early fifties (nearly seventy years ago!) and tells of that world changed overnight. It’s bleak reading but the narrator takes you through his story in such away you really feel for the characters, and want to know what they make of the various massive issues they now have to contend with. It’s also quite realistic in how they deal with what is happening, with plenty of human faults on display and some good as well as bad choices made by all. There is a logic to a well thought out plot and I really enjoyed this so I’m not annoyed I put it down so long ago as I think I got so much more out of it this time.

“Nobody is going to be muddle-headed enough to confuse ignorance with innocence now – it’s too important. Nor is ignorance going to be cute or funny anymore. It is going to be dangerous, very dangerous.”
― John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids

The Double – Fyodor Dostoevsky. I’ve not much of Dostoevsky’s cannon left to read so I’m savouring what is left as much as possible. However it’s been a while so I allowed myself to read this one now. To be honest I don’t think it’s his best work. It starts of well enough but the style of narration began to get a little wearing. The “Hero” of the piece, as he is called, is somewhat annoying and I can understand why he’s having such a tough time of things. The concept (given in the title of the book so it’s not a spoiler) is that Golyadkin meets a duplicate of himself, the only difference is this one succeeds at everything whereas the original one is failing. This leads to problems. Not just in the actual plot but also as the prose becomes a bit too wordy it’s hard to not lose focus. It’s deliberately vague in places and you only really have the not very pleasant Golyadkin to give us opinions on what is happening. I did get through it and there are some things to enjoy, but it was a bit of a struggle. A further note is that in 2013 Richard Ayoade made a film of the book and it’s brilliant. I watched it after I read the novel, something I rarely do, but because I’d struggled with it I wanted to see what others made of it. There are some changes, it’s not set in mid-19th Century St Petersburg but in a dystopian version of the 1980’s – ish and the main character is very likeable. I’d recommend reading the book if you like Russian literature, but after go and watch the film.

“Sorrow is concealed in gilded palaces, and there’s no escaping it.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Double

The Making Of Modern Britain – Andrew Marr. This is a follow up to the excellent A History Of Modern Britain. Whilst the first book deals with events from after the Second World War finishes (very thoroughly and with insight that helps you see the whole history given in isolation but also as part of the big picture – go and read that as well) this one keeps to the early part of the 20th Century. It’s subtitled “From Queen Victoria to VE Day”. Over all it’s a chronological account of that exact period, first dealing with an overview of each sub era and then breaks it down into the nitty gritty trying to help the reader see what it really would have been like to have been living through these events and the general changes to British culture and politics. There is a huge amount to learn here and the writer’s style is easy to digest, but not lightweight. For lovers of history I’d recommend both this book and its brother.

“My dream is that by returning to our not-so-distant history, I might remind readers why, with all its faults, this is a lucky place to be living in, and one we can be quietly proud of.”
― Andrew Marr, The Making of Modern Britain

Out Of Africa – Karen Blixen. I vaguely remember the very long film and that is love story. This is the real account of Blixen’s life and it’s not remotely about romantic things at all. Well not romantic in the “woman falls for man” kind of way; it does however show some very pleasant sides to what living on a large farm just outside of Nairobi before the First World War would have been like. It sounds brilliant, although I wonder how much of it is seen through rose tinted glasses as I’m sure it was a lot more hard work than Blixen makes out. She seems a very nice person who values the natives and their culture just as much as she does her role as the farm manager. She writes about individual members of the tribes who live on her land and work for her as well as anecdotes that happened during her time there. She is never condescending but shows real interest in differences in their way of life to hers. It’s a dense read, you can’t really get through it quickly but is well worth the effort to see Africa through Blixen’s eyes.

“No domestic animal can be as still as a wild animal. The civilized people have lost the aptitude of stillness, and must take lessons in silence from the wild before they are accepted by it.”
― Karen Blixen, Out of Africa


Buy The Day Of The Triffids by John Wyndham
Buy The Double by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Buy The Making Of Modern Britain by Andrew Marr
Buy Out Of Africa by Karen Blixen

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2019 In Reading Part One

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

At the end of the year I tend to look back on the books I’ve read during that time and feel a nice sense of accomplishment. This year I’ve got through some ones that had been sitting in my reading pile for years – I think the longest one had been sitting there unread since 1995!

In this first of two parts are a few impressions of some of my reads as I’m sure others will come up in later posts. I don’t like knowing too much about a book before I read it therefore I’m limiting myself to my impressions of the books so if you like that type of thing you might want to give them ago yourself. The result is there are some spoilers but I’ve tried to keep them to a minimum.

The Good Terrorist – Doris Lessing. I bought this when I was away and it was one of the few English books available in the bookshop. I’d always wanted to read somethings by Nobel Winner Doris Lessing and as an introduction I’m willing to try more. I didn’t know anything about the plot and I never read the back so I just let the story unfold. Told from the view point of Alice and set in Britain in the 1980s this follows the events of a growing group of people who squat in a house in London and Alice’s relationships with them and torn ambitions as she wants to be a free spirit but also look after the house and its inhabitants. At times this can be grim (especially the graphic depictions of the house when they first move in) but is very readable. It’s a clever piece of work as many opinions of the main character are shocking and some of her actions cruel even if she does try and justify them, but there is something engaging in the character that makes you want things to turn out well for her – hence I guess the title.

“There was a certain struggling fury that went with being jobless, and persevering, and being turned down, that was different from simply being jobless.”
― Doris Lessing, The Good Terrorist

Goodbye To Berlin – Christopher Isherwood. I got this in Hay on Wye last year as I wanted to find something new there that I hadn’t got on my Amazon list. Therefore again I didn’t know much about it before I started, other than I love Berlin and thought it would be interesting to see the tail end of the Weimar Republic from an English eye witness. It is a fictionalised account of his life there and it’s not all cabarets and cocktails, even if the musical based on it is called “Cabaret”. Instead it’s an engaging account of the day to day life of a writer and his friends in the shadow of Nazism. The characters he meets are colourful and as they are based on real citizen of Berlin you wonder their fate in the years that followed. There is little plot here really but, as his style is so engrossing and he is an interesting character to follow, I found I’d flown through it.

“I think’, said Sally, ‘it must be marvellous to be a novelist. You’re frightfully dreamy and unpractical and unbusinesslike, and people imagine they can fairly swindle you as much as they want – and then you sit down and write a book about them which fairly shows them what swine they all are, and it’s the most terrific success and you make pots of money.”
― Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin

The Last Train To Zona Verde – Paul Theroux. I was surprised to learn the travel writer is Louis Theroux’s father, just thought I’d through that in there. This is one of the last travel books by Paul Theroux published in 2013 and in it you see him contemplating the experience of traveling as an older man. The journey is one by public transport from Cape Town up through Namibia and Angola until he’s had enough. It’s a part of the world I don’t know too much about and as I am unlikely to go there myself (although I’ve travelled to some pretty odd locations) I feel I’ve learnt a lot. In the pages of this account I was educated about communities and ways of life in the harsh deserts and poor towns and villages of south east Africa. Theroux’s observations are of real lives, ones that make my own existence look like luxury. There is a wonderful part where the bus he is on breaks down in a small village in south Angola where everyone is stranded for the night. This isn’t on the tourist trail but a clapped out bus full of locals and it’s just a case of make do with everyone else; what’s nice is Theroux doesn’t complain about this but just gets on with it, thriving on the experiences it’s giving him and the chance to meet those he might well not have done if it had not happened.

“Most people come to Africa to see large or outlandish animals in the wild, while some others — “the new gang — the gang of virtue” — make the visit to tell Africans how to improve their lives. And many people do both — animal watching in the early morning, busybodying in the afternoon.”
― Paul Theroux, The Last Train to Zona Verde: Overland from Cape Town to Angola

Claudius The God – Robert Graves. I bought this last year along with I Claudius but only read the first one at the time as I’d enjoyed it so much I wanted to savour the second. Carrying on from the point when Claudius becomes Emperor (if you think that’s a spoiler shame on you) it purports to be his own account of the events that follow up until his death. It’s a very intricate read, but not a hard one as Graves presents this section of ancient history in very accessible text. Admittedly the large chuck at the beginning about Herod is not as compelling as what follows and feels like a hurdle you have to overcome to get to the good bit, but having the experience of reading I Claudius before-hand and roughly knowing what is coming it’s endurable. As plots and counter plots ensue Graves is very good at controlling the story. It’s arguable how much of this is accurate history and how much is creative licence either by Graves or his source texts, but it still is a fascinating slice of Roman history that made me want to learn more.

“On occasions of this sort it was, I must admit, very pleasurable to be a monarch: to be able to get important things done by smothering stupid opposition with a single authoritative word.”
― Robert Graves, Claudius the God


Buy The Good Terrorist by Doris Lessing
Buy Goodbye To Berlin by Christopher Isherwood
Buy The Last Train To Zona Verde by Paul Theroux
Buy Claudius The God by Robert Graves

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And The Winner Is…

Thank you for this award.

This week the laureates of the Nobel Prize For Literature 2018 and 2019 both received their awards. I’m not going to get into the controversy over one of them, instead I’m wondering how many writers have fantasied about winning it for themselves.

The Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded most years since 1901 and it’s always extremely satisfying when one is named to actually know who they are (the latest two? I’ll be honest and say I’ve never heard of them before). The Prize is given for the full collection of a person’s work and not a specific text (or relevant piece), although sometimes a particular work is mentioned.

The point then is; hands up if you’ve ever fantasied about winning an award for your work. Have you imagined them calling out your name? Planning your reaction? Don’t lie. I don’t actually believe I will win a Nobel of course, it’s totally impossible. I don’t have delusional dreams, just dreams of grandeur.

In reality we’d be foolish to take these dreams seriously, but a writer’s job is to imagine and often to imagine the impossible. It’s hard wired into us, so it’s not a major step for imagination to turn to fantasising. Add wanting to do well with your work and again it’s not too far from dreaming about achieving great things because of it.

The interesting thing is some writers who have won the Nobel haven’t dreamed it was possible for them have achieved this.

In 2017 Kazuo Ishiguro won for some brilliant novels, ones I’m pretentious enough to wish I’d read before he won it. (Bob Dylan is the only laureate of whom I had “read” the works of before they were announced… come on Michael Palin.)

On wining Kazuo Ishiguro is quoted as saying “I thought the normal procedure is that the winner is told first, so I didn’t believe it for a long time. When the BBC phoned, I thought it might be true.” Procedure’s of the Academy aside even when the BBC told him, he still doesn’t seem certain. If the BBC told me I’d be on that plane to Stockholm that afternoon, long before I was expected. I’d just loiter outside the Palace looking smug until the actual ceremony. I suppose that’s why the modest and brilliant writer Kazuo Ishiguro is doing so well compared to arrogant old me.

Being a writer, especially one who has tried to go through the official route of submitting to an agency you get so many knock backs, or non-replies you need something positive to aim for. Just after we’ve submitted something, to an agent or for a competition, what is going through our minds? Probably a mixture of outright being accepted or claiming first place right down the spectrum to it being laughed at and put in the bin. But somewhere in there, we have that hope. The fact that we put ourselves through it again and again means this train of thinking is becoming a habit to us; we practically live on the roller-coaster.

The question is does it do any harm to occasionally fantasise about winning something?

I mean how many people who want to be a pop star imagine winning the X Factor or whatever? It’s not just in our field nearly everyone must have daydreamed about their name being read out after hearing “And the winner is…”. I guess for a writer we just dream of a classier prize (see I’m arrogant and smug).

There is an interesting verse in the song L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N by Noah And The Whale (a band so far above that of a reality TV winner) that tells of an artist who manipulates the story of what is actually happening in his life:

“Some people wear their history like a map on their face
And Joey was an artist just living out of case
But his best work was his letters home

Extended works of fiction about imaginary success
When chorus girls in neon were his closest things to friends
But to a writer, the truth is no big deal”

There is so much truth there that I’m sure it’s been experienced by the lyricist and by many many more. The whole issue of how true writing has to be is another subject for another day but should we let the truth get in the way of moments of daydreaming?

When we are so used to planning the lives and the ups and downs of our character’s journeys do we start to do that for ourselves? Of course in a novel or play we want there to be some jeopardy and some greying of how well things turn out. If we could write the rest of our lives, or careers as a writer, I’m sure we’d be a lot kinder to ourselves then we are to our creations.

Instead sometimes the best prizes we can realistically hope to get is some nice words said about what we’ve written.

In the end I don’t think it hurts to imagine too much, but only if we also have our feet firmly in reality at the same time; and I guess the blending of both worlds is what makes us want to write fiction anyway.


Buy The Remains Of The Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Listen L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N

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Thank You Terrance Dicks

Now my life is full of books.

It’s a little bit late, sorry. I’ve had loads of stuff in my personal life to deal with (having Meniere’s is no fun). But I wanted to draw people’s attention to Terrance Dicks. Very sadly he passed away in August. He was one of the big influences that got me interested in reading. The fact is it wasn’t just me, literally thousands of people who love books today, and writing, have been inspired by him; and I only say thousands as there is no way of quantifying the figures, it wouldn’t surprise me if it were millions.

I love Doctor Who. I grew up in the 80’s watching and loving it. However long before I appeared on the scene Target books started publishing novelisations of the TV episodes that had long ago transmitted. Although a handful had been published years previously, in January 1974 Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion was published. This was the book of the on screen TV adventure Spearhead From Space that opened Jon Pertwee’s tenure as the Doctor during the early 70’s. Behind the scenes the Script Editor was Terrance Dicks, as he continued to be for several years. When Target were looking for authors to turn the TV episodes into books they chose Terrance Dicks as their main writer; in all he wrote 67 of them. There had been Doctor Who books before, but these ones created an entire market for them, and one that still exists to this day.

Fast forward to the mid 1980’s and an eight year old me is in the local library. Up until then I’d read books, but they always felt like children’s books (well maybe I over simplify). I didn’t mind reading but it just wasn’t something I was particularly into it. I have no idea why I joined the local library but was just one of those things that happened.

I had recently got it to watching Doctor Who on tv. Colin Baker had just started as the Doctor and I loved every Saturday night (see Series 22 has its fans). One day in the library I encountered the shelf of Target Doctor Who books and immediately I knew I was going to take one out. I flicked through the titles but not really knowing anything about it all (and the fact that the Doctor was a different person to the one I knew) I didn’t know which one to choose, it was all a bit overwhelming… and then I saw Doctor Who and the Loch Ness Monster! Of course this was the one I was going to read!

To me it felt like a proper book, the type that grown ups read, and I was so proud to be reading it, and of course it was brilliant. I got up early every morning and before school and in the peaceful house I would read it, it became my thing. The satisfaction of getting to the end and knowing I’d finished what to me wasn’t a children’s book, but was just a book, made me want to read another. The next one I chose was Doctor Who and the The Brain of Morbius because now I had two reference points. I liked the ones with the Doctor that had been Tom Baker, and I liked books by Terrance Dicks.

I went back to that library shelf again and again. It’s never stopped. I read lots of Target books from that library and then I started buying them and I now have a complete collection! But I kept reading, and it spread to not just Doctor Who books to nearly anything that came my way. It’s true I probably would have got into books regardless but I knew that in the form it turned out to be that initial fire was started because of a book by Terrance Dicks and then lots more books by Terrance Dicks. All the other writes I came to love as a child, and then as an adult, was all started by him.

I suppose what made his writing special to me was the fact that although it was simple and clear, and he knew how to tell a great story, he knew how to write a book that made you the reader feel good. I was a kid but his books never made me feel like a child, they felt like he was taking me seriously. He was stretching me but made me believe I was capable of it all. For a while people wrote his books off as childish, but they never felt that way to me. From that point on I’ve nearly always had a book on the go.

The fact is, as mentioned earlier, I’m not the only one. That story is repeated over and over for adults of my generation, and the one before. Just mention Target and their eyes will glaze over in nostalgia for a moment as they remember the wonderful worlds those books let them in to as they grew up.

It wasn’t just Doctor Who novels, as a writer he created more, much much more. He had his own series of novels as well as lots of scripts he wrote for television. But it will always be what he achieved in making young children want to read by means of his Doctor Who books that will be what he is known for.

I met Terrance Dicks a few times at conventions and he was a lovely man. I would have told him my story but everyone in that autograph queue would have said the same; and how could I have told a story to one of the best story tellers there was?

I’m sad he’s gone, but he has left thousands and thousands of grateful readers behind, the ones he encouraged to read by his brilliant books. His legacy will continue in everything they read and more importantly write. Because he didn’t just create generations of readers, he made them into writers as well. How that man did not get a Nobel Prize for Literature is a massive crime as he contributed more to the writing world than I think we will ever know.

Buy Doctor Who and the Loch Ness Monster
Buy Doctor Who and the Brain of Morbius

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Is Rating A Novel A Good Idea?

What do the stars actually mean?

These days we are asked to rate pretty much everything. From our transactions online and holiday accommodation to books we’ve read and music we listen to. The question is what purpose does this achieve? The answer, to influence others to also buy or not.

I’m writing this now as it’s still early for me and my books have not been rated yet.

I rarely rate things, with the exception of on ebay.  I don’t see why I should leave a track record of everything I’ve done, every place I’ve been and everything I’ve thought about it. For me I like to close the world out when I read and not have to then fill in surveys of what I’ve been doing. I mean it would be a bit like keeping a document online and updating it with my thoughts on books, there for all the world to see… hang on.

I get in some areas it’s important for there to be a track record of how good an experience has been. The afore-mentioned ebay is a case in point; there are scams out there so a list of happy customers helps differentiate good and genuine sellers from bad ones.

But do we need this where the whole experience is subjective?

I don’t really bother reading other people’s ratings too much. I have many reasons for this, one being when I read a book it’s about me and the book, I don’t want other people’s opinions colouring my experience. There is that danger that because everyone says a book is good I will have higher expectations of it. I know there is the whole argument being a strong person won’t let that happen, but if influencing didn’t work why do they have these things? And why does the marketing and advertising world spend so long and so much on doing it?

For me part of the journey of reading is the gamble taken when I take a leap into the unknown with a new author. I’ve read books I’ve loved and read other things by the author that I love as much, or other times the rest of the things I’ve read have disappointed. The fact is this is a conclusion I have reached with no help and I like it like that. It does mean I’ve picked up some rotten books at times but again it’s all part of the joy of reading for me, not knowing what I am going to get.

When I say I don’t like ratings  I’m talking about the numbers out of five or the short reviews “Excellent” or “Rubbish”, because what exactly does this tell me? I’m not a fan of romance novels so if asked to read one and then rate it, the chances are I’ll give it a low rating, if that’s all I do it’s not really fair to the writer as those who will base their opinions on what I have done do not know the reason for this, or they may love romance literature. The same works the other way round I could give ten stars to a book I love, say a massive tome on the history of a small country; but someone with no interest in that country and who is not a fan of history isn’t going to come to the same conclusion.

A case in point is Moby Dick. I’ve read it and… really struggled with it; it was almost painful but the completest in me won’t let me not finish a novel. Honestly is was such hard work. Amazon have it at four out of five stars, I have no idea how it managed that. I just remember pages and pages about the use of whale oil in dry overly complex text and very little action at all.

With four stars it should generally be considered a good book but (and I know I could well be proven wrong here) I’ve not found anyone who started to read it who enjoyed it.

Even then some people are generous and if they quite liked something will give it four or five stars, for others only a very few will ever get their high scores; it’s an uneven playing ground. The same works the other way, for some one star is ok but far from perfect for others it means near on terrible. So put all these together and you have a very odd score. I know people say the Laws of Averages will work it out, but I refer back to my Moby Dick example.

Another example I can think of is a Doctor Who novel called White Darkness. This was released in 1993 and I loved it. It’s set in Haiti in the early 20th century and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I expected it to score well but it’s only got just over two stars. As a reader this might put me off, but then it’s only got two reviews so if I added mine the score would improve. Does this change the nature of the novel and how you might feel if you read it? As a book it’s no way near as well known as Moby Dick, so where that got hundreds of reviews this will never get as many. The Law of Averages is not fair for this in comparison, does that make it a worse book? I know which one I would read again.

I suppose my point being is as a writer, you don’t need to chase scores, just write what you feel is good and do your best to get it to the audience you had in mind who will appreciate it. Of course that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try our best and learn how to improve, but we’d sacrifice so much of what we were capable of if we tried to keep everyone happy to get the scores, but didn’t write what was actually our voice.

If we are looking for commercial success, which we all are really, we do have to pay attention to how a book is doing but there are so many better ways.

I’m all for a like button, if you don’t like it don’t press it. After all the only time I do leave reviews on hotel websites is if I’ve a complaint, if it was good and what I expected I don’t. From conversations I know more people who do that same than review for all outcomes. Therefore these ratings will always be biased by extreme opinions. The other option is the other extreme, reviews giving proper reasons why that reader felt the way they did. But simple 0/5 “That was rubbish” or whatever should not, I feel, influence others on if they read the book.

In conclusion I feel with literature taking that leap into the unknown is a good thing, we don’t need what everyone else thought neatly packaged up in to a couple of words or numbers.

Buy Moby Dick
Buy Doctor Who : White Darkness

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Seeing The Past Through The Eyes Of Those Who Lived It

Whole New Worlds From The Memoirs Of History

One of the wonders of reading is being taken in to a different world. I love history so love a book that can show me the past in a way I can feel what it must have been like to live there. How much better if the book was written in times gone by and was referring to its own near past, which to us is so much further away.

Contemporary fiction that has aged lets us see the real world back then more so than any amount of research done for a novel set in the past. Having just finished reading Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Dog by Dylan Thomas* (published 1940) I’ve had just a glimpse of what growing up in South Wales in the early part of the twentieth century was like. This is a coming of age selection of short stories, or moments from the “young dog’s” life – an actual voice from back then. How true they are, or if anything was added for artistic license I’ll never know. Regardless, sometimes it strikes a chord as boys will always be boys (the making of a friend from a pointless fight is very entertaining), but at other times it paints a picture of a life so much simpler than our own.

*My copy was printed upside down and backwards, which is really cool, but I think a mistake.

Thomas was born in 1914 and the earlier short stories are based in his childhood. Just the simple exploration of his families’ rural land in “The Peaches” lets us amusingly into the mind of a boy who has got the wrong end of the stick as he learns his Uncle is selling the piglets to fund his drinking. Soon he’s convinced it’s not just the pigs that are at stake.

“Where’s Uncle Jim?”
“He’s gone to market,” said Annie.
Gwilym made a small pig’s noise. We knew where uncle was; he was sitting in the public house with a heifer over his shoulder and two pigs nosing out of his pockets.

There is nothing ground breaking in this, but what a wonderful snapshot of rural Wales so long ago.

Later as an early teenager, with a group of lads, he goes hitch hiking to a rural spot to camp; just a handful of young lads in the middle of nowhere with just a tent for a fortnight. How times have changed.

Last year I read The Green Fool, likewise a collection of accounts of growing up, this time from Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh. Where Thomas intersperses obvious short fiction with his childhood memories, Kavanagh tells us a chronological account of growing up in a rural village in County Monaghan. Born in 1904 his book was published in 1938 and recounts his very early days with his family in a small house where his father was a cobbler and for the most part they were happy, through to his becoming a writer. Again there is probably a mix of the artistic licence, faded memories and truth, but it conveys so well what the real people who lived then and there were actually like. Rural living in Ireland (and for most of the Western World) is now so much closer to urban convenience.

Neither works are the stories of the rich and famous as the days recalled are before each author made their mark and so we get both these worlds from the perspective of the everyday people lived them. It’s easy to write a world where you take phones, cars and the internet out. But these are worlds that never had them in the first place. They don’t evoke the past, they are the past and so tell a far more tangible account of the history then anything we can write now.

Buy Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Dog
Buy The Green Fool

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