Benjamin Hope's Blog, page 4

On Publishing a Debut

Well it’s taken about 8 years and a lot of blood, sweat and tears, but my debut, The Procurement of Souls, finally went on pre-release this week in anticipation of my official launch on 1st July. It’s a funny mix of excitement and trepidation as one enters into this next phase of the journey but one I’m willing to embrace wholeheartedly. Writing isn’t easy; taking a novel to publication is far from it! Although, anything that is worthwhile seldom is. And yet, when one hits milestones like this on their journey, I think it’s certainly worthy of acknowledgment. That is true for all writers out there but especially, I would suggest, for all those who are willing to develop the tenacity and commitment to self-publish in this heavily saturated and competitive market. It’s true that resilience is key; as is grit and determination. And so, this is a small note where I congratulate myself, if you’ll allow me, in getting this far; but a glass raised too, to all those fellow writers who have and aspire to do the same! And as I salute my fellow scribes, open a bottle of beer, and allow myself a moment to consider this week and 1st July an achievement, wish me luck with what comes next!

Pre-ordering is available through Amazon now.

The Shadow of the Wind

Genre: (Gothic) Mystery

Publisher: Phoenix (Trade Edition 2004)

Barcelona. 1945. Upon taking The Shadow of the Wind by Julián Carax from the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, Daniel is drawn down a dangerous path of discovery to find the truth behind the author’s life. The shadowy backstreets and crumbling mansion settings ooze gothic atmosphere and Zafón’s poetic prose bestow an underlying menace to a mystery which is positively Collinsesque.

More Than Just a Bookshop…

A few weeks ago, I blogged about the dwindling number of independent bookshops in Bookshops Vs. The Internet: Is This the Reality? Though, prior to coming to Berlin, I’d read about a fantastic example of one that would be situated just under my feet, a couple of blocks north of our apartment. I’m pleased to say, that upon finding Dussmann’s, it does not disappoint!

But you’re English, I hear you cry! And you’re in Germany. Isn’t the sight of floors of books, ripe for reading but in another language, a touch frustrating? Well, it’s true, my German is basic and whilst I’m learning, aside from the books I bought for my baby daughter, I’m not sure I’d get through the first sentence of most of the titles on offer. Until… you find the excellent English and international section. And this isn’t just paying lip-service to a good idea; this section is spread across two floors and hosts an excellent array of titles from genre-led, to literary; from non-fiction, to children’s. And although the biggest section is in English (and I’m certainly not complaining about that), they stock titles in languages from French, to Spanish; from Russian, to Arabic. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

The other wonderful thing about this bookshop is the space itself. Spread over four floors, the centre is open from ground to ceiling and so there is a fantastic feeling of openness about it. It’s quiet too and offers a welcome respite from the hubbub of Fredrichstrasse where it is located in the heart of the city. In fact, it manages to be calm and relaxing without being subdued or stilted, and aside perhaps from the beautiful (if slightly staid) café in the basement, you don’t feel like a naughty child in a library. Rather, the space lends itself to the love of the written word and there are areas given over to book browsing with people digging into titles, writing in journals or tapping away at laptops. There’s also a great zone for children, with an enormous picnic-style table for the young to fall head-first into a story, and an inviting play/reading nook for parents to sit with infants and share a tale or two together.

I’ve taken my laptop with me on one or two evenings (it’s open until midnight Mon-Fri, and until 23.30 on Sat) and sat writing in one of the leather chairs on the mezzanine that overlooks the basement café and the four-story-high living wall that trickles with water into a tiled-pool of greenery and fish at the bottom. A thoroughly enjoyable experience it is too!

It’s more than a bookshop, really: Dussmann calls itself a Kulturkaufhaus, or cultural department store. There’s even a small auditorium tucked away in the basement where creatives host events. The wonderful soprano Diana Damrau was performing there only last week. So, when I’m sitting there, quaffing coffee and working hard on my sequel to The Procurement of Souls, I can’t help but daydream about the time when maybe, just maybe, I might find my own name nestled amongst the shelves….

Finding Inspiration in a Foreign City

The demonstrations here in Berlin on Sunday were a feast for the senses. Looking out from the balcony of our 7th floor flat, we could see the gathering crowds the park-side of the Brandenburger Tor as the numbers grew and spilt down toward the American Embassy. Rainbow flags, glittery gold banners and colourful wigs joined the reverberating thrum of Berlin’s techno club scene as they united to ‘bass away’ the hateful Alternative for Germany (AfD) Party. Apparently, Berlin police resorted to using pepper spray in order to stop the crowds down at Leipziger square from breaking the barriers that separated the two sides; two blocks north of us, on the river Spree, they had also closed off the bridges to prevent potential conflict. I’m glad to say that I didn’t see the AfD marching to their myopic calls or the threat of violence; what I did see was a carnival-like fervour of people against the AfD of all ages and backgrounds waving on route to party their opinions out to the world – according to The Guardian, their group statement said ‘the Berlin club culture is everything that Nazis are not; we are progressive, queer, feminist, anti-racist, inclusive, colourful and we have unicorns.’ This made me smile and also summed up some of what I am starting to realise much of Berlin is about. I didn’t see it at first, but I’m starting to understand the importance of freedom of expression here. It’s refreshing especially with the city’s inescapable dark past – and the 25,000 odd revellers who drowned out the fascists on Sunday were testament to that. It’s one of the reasons I think I’m feeling so inspired to write here. We’re two blocks away from where my wife is working at the Komische Oper (I blogged previously about the marvel that is The Nose by Nickolai Gogol) and creativity is in the air. For me, writing is a wonderful form of expressing oneself and, whilst it may sound a little cheesy, there’s nothing like waking in the morning with ideas buzzing and feeling that itch to get to the keyboard and start typing. Long may it last!

When Technology Fails: Pencil & Pen Vs. The Computer

A Microsoft automatic update completely corrupted my computer late last week and I’ve spent the best part of another week trying to reverse the damage. Finally, after a full factory reset I appear to have everything back and yet there was a point when I felt like hurling it from the 7th floor flat we’re renting in Berlin and resorting to chalk and slate. At least that way I wouldn’t be faced with the Blue Screen of Death!

On a serious note, it has made me reflect on the writing process and what we must do to safeguard our work. Thankfully I (almost) always save everything onto an external hard drive and regularly email myself my work as well but I certainly lost some files this week and it scared me how close I could have been to losing everything for good. The idea of writing by hand definitely had its draw (if you’ll pardon the pun) after so much stress, anxiety, and trouble, despite my atrocious hand writing! And yet, whilst I do keep journals of notes and time-lines etc, I just can’t see writing by hand as a viable or efficient option. Would that I had the patience of Roald Dahl, who wrote his stories in HB pencil on yellow legal pads, or the daring of Jack Kerouak, whose first draft of On The Road was penned (albeit on a typewriter) on one continuous roll of stuck-together sheets of tracing paper. It may sound a little soppy, but I also think that there is something particularly romantic about the hand-written word. And in our modern throw-away world, perhaps it speaks of a degree more commitment to one’s thoughts, ideas or messages when there isn’t a delete key to press. Could it be that there is more deliberation in the writing process when words are penned by ink and not the tapping of keys? Is it more involved? I don’t know; I certainly deliberate and take due care when writing on the computer, and even though there is the option to delete whole passages, for me it also facilitates my flow – my handwriting is so slow (and yet perhaps this is also an effect of our technological conditioning).

All things considered, it’s probably just a matter of preference. And whilst I will continue to romanticise the ideal and am in awe of those who do, to this day, hand-scribe their work, I think I’ll continue to use my laptop, exercise as much caution as I can, and save, save, save, save, save…

Dreaming of The Nose: Gogol’s Surreal Short Story

My wife’s work has brought our family out to Berlin for two months as she sings in Die Nase (The Nose) by Shostakovich at the Komische Oper: an opera based on the surrealist Russian short story of the same name by Nikolai Gogol. And so, as I pause from making headway with my sequel to The Procurement of Souls, A New Religion, I thought I’d offer this extraordinary tale up to you. I had never heard of this particular satirical story which follows the exploits of Major Kovalyov as he sets about chasing his detached nose around St Petersburg, desperate to reunite it with his face, but after writing my last post On the Importance of Fairy Tales, parallels to this genre occurred to me.

It isn’t strictly speculative fiction as such but upon watching the opera in London (it is a joint production with The Royal Opera House, London; Sydney Opera House; and Teatro Real, Madrid) the magical fairy-tale quality to the narrative stood out and one might see this nonsensical and mad little tale as an allegorical fable of sorts. There are certainly themes that come through which may be read as a warning against the obsession of outward appearance; of status; and of the poor treatment of women – his nose, in fact, seems to enjoy much greater success in mere days, than the major, and is seen dressed in high-ranking civic uniform much to Kovalyov’s embarrassment and jealousy. Barrie Kosky’s production also makes direct reference to this theme of appearance whereby the severing of the nose is likened to castration – Kovalyov has a pair of Groucho Marx style glasses placed on his head at one point (by my wife!) where the replacement nose attached is an enormous penis – and certainly Kovalyov appears to feel emasculated by his missing nose, such as it threatens his chances with women and enhanced social status.

Regardless of how you choose to relate to the story and whether the social commentary of Russia in the 1830s interests you or not, this unique tale is genius in its absurdity. Literary critics have pointed out the importance of the title itself, the Russian word for nose, (HOC; nos) being the word for dream backwords (COH; son), and this summarises it perfectly for me: it is the strangest dreamscape, at turns absurd, comic and grotesque and I urge everyone to check it out, be it Gogol’s story itself, or the opera.

On the Importance of Fairy Tales

Recommending Angela Carter’s Book of Fairy Tales made me reflect on the sheer brilliance and importance of the traditional tale and why they have endured for so many hundreds of years. Whether you choose to sub-categorise them into allegories, fables, folklore, myth, legend – the list could go on – or approach them as a whole, there’s so much more beneath the surface of these apparently simple narratives, which make them so rich and relevant, even today. There’s a plurality to them: it isn’t just the basic plot structures that make them prime literary fodder for children; they are woven with morals and societal messages (granted to a varying extent) which enriches the learning value for the young but also continues to resonate way into adulthood.

The fact that these tales have their roots in oral story-telling traditions also endows them with an inherent shared ownership and authorship: they are part of one’s heritage; they act as reflections of society; they speak of one’s fears and dreams. In fact, one might say that there is a universal authorship to traditional tales, where the core messages and morals transcend cultural barriers: Hänsel und Gretel by the German Brothers Grimm could be read as Perrault’s French tale Le Petit Poucet (Hop o’ My Thumb) which in turn could be read as one of the Slavic Baba Yaga stories. Whilst these particular examples may well all hail from the Great Famine of the early 14th century (which stretched south to Italy and north east to Russia), the fact is, the themes and life-lessons within the story/ies are relevant to all, no matter the cultural slant.

The Austrian-American psychologist, Bruno Bettelheim, analysed fairy tales through a Freudian lens, arguing that the difficult themes dealt with within these stories, such as death or abandonment (as is the case in Hänsel und Gretel and alike), hold an emotional importance in child development (The Uses of Enchantment, 1976). I mentioned earlier, that these tales speak of our hopes and fears; for Bettelheim, such fears can be engaged with in a form that is remote enough to face and process by children, which in turn leads to a greater emotional intelligence and capacity in adulthood. Actually, posthumously, plagiarism claims were substantiated and some of his qualifications found to be falsified. Though regardless of whose work it was, I think it offers a fascinating insight into one of the reasons as to why traditional tales continue to be so compelling and relevant today.

Added to this, the oral traditions from which these stories come, invite creativity and invention by their very nature: they are fluid and continually evolving and thus provide a wonderful resource for any creative to do with what they will. Today, we see such themes transposed onto the big screen with superheroes and in the ever-darkening narratives in novels, television, and movies alike. And in education, traditional tales of the old-fashioned variety continue to teach language, social and emotional literacy to our next generations. One way or another, the themes, moral messages, and life skills our ancestors sought to impart on us continue to be passed from generation to generation. Fairy tales, traditional tales, whatever you would call them, endure: they are woven deep into our world culture; they are an expression of the human condition. And may they live happily ever after…

(If you fancy a quick fairy tale fix, take a look at my own cautionary traditional tale, The Rookery at Smeaton Abbey.)

Boneshaker

Genre: Steampunk

Publisher: Tor Books

When Leviticus Blue’s Boneshaker devastates 19th century Seattle, swamping it in zombifying blight gas, an enormous wall is built to contain it. Sixteen years later, Blue’s widow, Briar Wilkes, re-enters the toxic, zombie-ridden city in search of her son, Ezekiel, who seeks exoneration for his father. Air pirates, rogues and vigilantes; peril, gore and contraptions galore: it’s rollicking good fun!

Use Correct Punctuation: Save Lives!

This week I’ve been tweeting out punctuation omissions and it’s true: correct punctuation really can save lives. Indeed, without it, we risk cannibalism and murder.

1. B rian wasn’t convinced the sign offered his walking party all that much protection should they be caught in the cross-hairs of a rifle: HUNTERS PLEASE BE CAREFUL SHOOTING RAMBLERS WALKING THROUGH THESE WOODS.

2. She arrived at the temple and read the sign that hung on the door: THIS IS A HOLY BUILDING. PLEASE REMOVE HEADWEAR AND DON’T DRINK OR EAT PEOPLE AT PRAYER. She planned to stay a while so it was lucky she’d had her lunch.

3. She was exhausted and longed to sit down but the notice was clear: PLEASE ONLY SIT HERE IF YOU ARE ELDERLY DISABLED PREGNANT CHILDREN.

4 . He was ill; very ill. He knew it. He had all the symptoms: headaches; stomach pains; unable to eat diarrhoea; dizziness. It wasn’t good.

5. It was typical. He was already late and yet the signage was clear: SLOW CHILDREN CROSSING. If only he’d taken a different route.

You have been warned!

 

 

 

 

 

The Procurement of Souls Chapters 1-3

Check out the first 3 chapters of The Procurement of Souls on my Books page.