Leopold Borstinski's Blog, page 34

White House books are colour coded

Always lovely to get any insight into life at the US President’s house – and the great thing is that there are official publicity shots. Now I wouldn’t want to be the one to ridicule the most powerful man in the world but his own actions do that for me. So thanks to The Guardian for foregrounding Trump’s inability to read a book.

Instead White House officials chose the books to appear in the Library Christmas photo on the basis of the colour of their spines: the Xmas colours of green and red of course. Discerning reads indeed. Presumably, if twitter offered a Christmas photo for past tweets, POTUS would have been in a better position to know what he was talking about.

Yeah, right.

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Data is the key to the Written Word

Analysis of how people use audio books and eBooks enables publishers to understand how readers actually read, according to The Guardian.

This is a fabulous state of affairs for those who can access the big data associated with these reading media. For the independent writer, who receives limited slices of data from the major sales platforms, this is cold comfort.

I would love to be able to see how far each reader gets in my books and how long it takes them. I guess the likes of Amazon captures this information on a regular basis otherwise how can it calculate where people start reading the eBooks? This is a necessary requirement as Amazon figures out this location for royalty purposes.

Fundamentally, I suppose my point is simple: open up the data to all writers please – I’d love to have a look.

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Judges Say Bad Sex is Not That Bad

There is something satisfying in discovering how mediocre literary sex is, reflecting the level of mediocrity of real-world sex – according to The Guardian. The piece includes classic lines like “I might get frostbite on my cock.”

The reason I mention the awards is that I am very aware of how hard are sex scenes to write and I am waiting for the day when my writing is sufficiently well known to get a nomination. And believe me, I am aware of the tremendous likelihood of my writing falling into the trap of bad sex writing – irrespective of the quality of the year’s nominations.

All I can say in my defence is that I believe the opposite of all the writing advice: a writer should only include a sex scene if there is some revelation of emotion or a shift in narrative. Instead, I have always been fascinated by the mundane elements of life: sex, doing the washing up, going to the toilet. In an ideal world, all these activities would be included in every one of my books. Thankfully for the readers in the world, I do not follow through on this.

So the sex in my books might reveal the emotional content of my characters but, as an existentialist type, this is demonstrated through action and not thought. This means that in the books with sex in them, the content can appear quite explicit and relentless. I would apologise but somehow I don’t feel like that.

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Genre affects reading expectations. Shock?

Research just out shows that people believe science fiction comprise a bunch of dumbed down stories, according to The Guardian.

Academics have taken the same narrative and presented it in literary and genre forms to test subjects to see how they respond to the same story in a different context. When people read about airlocks and the other paraphernalia of the futuristic genre, they lowered their expectations of the text.

Now let’s be clear: the reason I ask whether it is a shock in the headline is not because I believe science fiction is a dumb-ass genre. Far from it. I’d say some of the greatest writing – Brave New World, 1984, I, Robot – has resided in this genre. The reason I question the shock is whether we should be surprised about people’s expectations. Given the quantity of pulp science fiction pumped out and the dubious quality of some of the more popular modern fiction, should I be surprised? I think not but that’s not the fault of the genre.

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New Chandler story found: social realism

As I hope you have already heard, the last story ever written by Raymond Chandler has been discovered in the archives and is a seering indictment of the US healthcare system – from a 1958, the year before he died.

This was a far cry from his detective series involving the ever-knowing Philip Marlowe. This tale covered what happens to a hobo who needs medical help and the doctors at the hospital don’t want to treat him because they won’t get paid.

Why do I mention this event? Twofold.

First, I think Chandler is great so any writing by him is worthy of note. Second, I am interested in any pulp writer who went beyond the narrative itself and tries to say something more than the sum total of the actions of his characters.

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Male/female writer spat splats onto the page. Shock?

Say what you will, there’s nothing like a totally futile author spat to keep the book pages filled. The times we are living in are peculiar indeed but some things have always been certain.

First, Christopher Hitchens knows how to vex and offend, even if he is right. Second, Deborah Orr should know better than to descend to his level and respond to anything he writes. Third, if you ever find yourself reading the Mail Online, shame on you. Yes I know I haven’t provided a link to that news service. You want: you google it.

Some people believe comments about language as applied to women constitutes “political correctness gone mad”. I am not one of those people. I believe the words we use should be deployed carefully because they change the way we think – and what we ourselves believe.

Both writers are sufficiently skilled to know their words hold power and are old enough to take responsibility for their actions. Hitchens doesn’t sound as though he is taking responsibility – and his defence is pretty ropey. Because he has used the word “sqawking” in a gender neutral manner in the past that he can quote, that means he only ever uses it in a gender neutral way. Clearly false logic. QED.

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Fresh look at seeing

I would like to focus your attention on a review for a new book by Mark Cousins on the act of seeing. While not exactly brimming with positivity, it does embrace the idea that thinking about the act of looking is worth the effort.

This reminded me of a couple of experiences from my past: reading cinematic analysis by Wim Wenders – especially (E)Motion Pictures – and also the commentary he provided to the exhibition of his Polaroid photos from the 1960s and ’70s which are currently available to view at the Photographers’ Gallery in London, UK.

Here is a film maker who embraced new viewing technology and understood the patience required to let it unveil and unravel itself before him.

The other reason I feel like responding to the Cousins book is that as a writer I find myself drawn into a complex relationship with my reader. I reveal moments for the reader to see (in their mind’s eye). Put another way, I force the reader to be a voyeur on either the world I create or, more accurately, on the fictional people they are staring at. The reader might have created the fiction in their heads, but they choose to stare at the violence, sex acts and assaults I put the characters through.

Perhaps it is the nature of crime to constitute the reader in this bizarre dynamic. While everyone may consent to this strange bag of tricks: it is still strange and places the notion of looking in a far from benign place.

Enjoy!

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Punctual punctuation makes a point

Lovely article on the importance – and limitations – of following punctuation rules from The Guardian.

One of the areas I’ve been battling with has been the fact I was born and live in the UK but write with an American audience in mind. I am steeped in the tradition of UK English and have been teaching myself the grammar of US English. Not only are there different rules for where to place commas etc but the phrasing itself is different.

English is a complicated language – like so many others apart from Esperanto – and there is more than one version of it. And I have been working on my novels for several years now, all but one of which I hope has an American accent – but not an entirely US spelling. The reason? While I have my eye on an American audience, I also have an eye on a British audience. Good job I have two eyes.

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Fake news is not fake: news!

Another piece on words, but I feel no sense of shame about that. This time neologisms: new words as announced by a dictionary compiler and reported by The Guardian.

Thanks to a certain US political figure (he’s the politician for whom I dare not speak his name) the phrase at the top of the list is ‘fake news’ and DT claims to have invented it. The irony, of course, is that such a claim counts as fake news because its new meaning preceded his usage. But he is the cause of its renewed popularity.

The next thing to mention is that, yes, language evolves over time and that’s a wonderful thing. Also, language is a vehicle for communication so grammar and spelling are important too – but that’s a conversation for another day…

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JFK ate my hamster. Fiction.

In the wake of the latest pile of papers released about the assassination of JFK, there is an enjoyable round-up of related fiction from The Guardian. To be honest, there are no references to hamster consumption in the entire article, but I wanted an eye-catching headline.

In a similar vein, most of the attempts to write about JFK’s death have had to deal with the “fact” that he was killed by a lone gunman – and everyone knows he it is. This makes weaving fiction about the day quite tricky, but I’m glad that American Tabloid gets a mention because it is such a brilliant read.

Beyond that, we are reminded to seize the opportunity to read the original source code: the Warren Report. It might not be the page turner that James Ellroy delivers but it makes for chilling reading nonetheless.

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