Rupert Wolfe-Murray's Blog: Quirky Views of a Travel Writer, page 3
March 12, 2021
Philip Pullman’s storytelling system
Writing about a book of essays is hard because each essay is a complex entity unto itself; each one has a brilliant idea that I'd like to write about – but then I read the next one and I forget what I was so interested in a few pages back.
Suffice to say that this book analyses the writing of stories and is made up of talks the great Mr Pullman gave (I'm not sure why this collection of transcribed talks is described as a book of essays, but that's neither here nor there.) I think this book is mainly of interest to people who write stories, but if you're a Philip Pullman fan and would like to know more about the ideas in His Dark Materials trilogy, then this is the book for you. But it's quite long and pretty heavy at times.
The bit I want to focus on in this review comes from the chapter called I Must Create a System (subtitle: A Moth's-eye view of William Blake). One problem with this book is that Pullman describes himself as being a lowbrow intellectual and yet he's read, and re-read, the likes of Milton and Blake – ancient poets that I'd heard of but certainly never read. If he's a lowbrow then I'm a Neanderthal (one effect of reading this book is that it makes me feel rather ignorant).
I'm not going to go into the ideas of William Blake or this review would go on forever, but I'll give you a relevant quote from Pullman: "William Blake, as we know, had such extraordinary and penetrating insights into the nature of religion, and expressed them with such force and clarity, that it's always worth looking at what he has to say on the matter."
All I want to do here is give you one amazing quote which shows a brilliant way of writing, or "literary device" to the highbrow. The context of this quote is systems; in other words systems for thinking about life and for writing stories. Christianity is a system in that it explains life, as is Marxism, Feminism and – a particularly relevant one today as it describes an ancient form of conspiracy theory – Gnosticism.
This whole discussion comes from the following line by William Blake:
"I must create a system, or be enslav'd by another Mans…"
When I first read that line I thought Pullman would write about how modern man is trapped (enslav'd) in economic systems of work and debt – but he didn't. He's more interested in systems that help people write stories and think about life.
The quote I offer you here makes the idea of systems seem more approachable, in that (unlike religions or ideologies) it doesn't claim to have all the answers.
Here's the quote (by Pullman, not Blake):
"So each one of us has a whole complex of attitudes and experiences which, if they're not as coherent as a worked-out system, function in a similar way. They provide the solid and unquestioned support for all the work we build on top of them…
"It might seem from the outside like a haphazardly acquired combination of prejudice, ignorance, random experience, scraps of cracker-barrel sententiousness, things they were taught before they were seven, superstition, sentimentality, wishful thinking and saloon-bar knowingness; a gimcrack, jerry-built, patchwork thing, crawling with dry rot, with rats in the basement and death-watch beetle in the attic, with staircases that lead nowhere and corridors blocked off by fallen masonry, with broken windows banging in the wind and great holes in the roof letting in the rain." (from Daemon Voices by Philip Pullman, page 391).
What I love about that passage is how beautifully it flows; it's fun to read and each one of the items listed could open up another story.
What's brilliant about this literary device is that you can use it to summarise a large number of complex things. One of the problems I find with writing an article is that I've got too much to say: pages of notes, website links, facts, figures, opinions, and quotes – all of which are clamouring for entry into the promised land (my article).
But, as St Peter might say at the Pearly Gates, only a few are allowed in. Sometimes I get overwhelmed by it all and forget what I was writing about in the first place; I forget that I wanted to make a point and should be using facts, figures, and quotes to back up my point.
A final word to end this article: in case you were wondering that Philip Pullman is some sort of new-age, born-again Christian who writes fiction to peddle religious messages – rest assured. He went through a short religious period when a teenager and has been a sceptic ever since, but an enquiring sceptic who searches through religious texts for a better understanding of how their systems works – some of which is put to work in His Dark Materials.
This quote, from the essay Talents and Virtues, sums up his approach rather well:
"So when I say 'theocracy' in the context of what I'm saying tonight, I'm not limiting the term to those states that base their authority on the existence of a supernatural creator. What I'm talking about is the tendency of human beings to gather power to themselves in the name of something that may not be questioned, and to justify what they do in terms of absolutes: absolute truth; absolute goodness; absolute evil; absolute hatred; if you're not with us you're against us." (from Daemon Voices by Philip Pullman, page 407).
Although Pullman is right to condemn the tendency to use religion to control other people, isn't he throwing the baby out with the bathwater? Don't religions have some spiritual and social value?
A final observation: the final part of this quote shows how the colon and semi colon should be used; it's one of the few things I remember from school; and Pullman uses it here to present a list; this is quite rare as my impression is that people use these punctuation marks in a way that wasn't sanctioned in school, like I am doing here, as a means of separating up sentences; I've been told this is not good practice so I better stop here.
This review was also published on Goodreads: Daemon Voices by Philip Pullman | Goodreads
Suffice to say that this book analyses the writing of stories and is made up of talks the great Mr Pullman gave (I'm not sure why this collection of transcribed talks is described as a book of essays, but that's neither here nor there.) I think this book is mainly of interest to people who write stories, but if you're a Philip Pullman fan and would like to know more about the ideas in His Dark Materials trilogy, then this is the book for you. But it's quite long and pretty heavy at times.
The bit I want to focus on in this review comes from the chapter called I Must Create a System (subtitle: A Moth's-eye view of William Blake). One problem with this book is that Pullman describes himself as being a lowbrow intellectual and yet he's read, and re-read, the likes of Milton and Blake – ancient poets that I'd heard of but certainly never read. If he's a lowbrow then I'm a Neanderthal (one effect of reading this book is that it makes me feel rather ignorant).
I'm not going to go into the ideas of William Blake or this review would go on forever, but I'll give you a relevant quote from Pullman: "William Blake, as we know, had such extraordinary and penetrating insights into the nature of religion, and expressed them with such force and clarity, that it's always worth looking at what he has to say on the matter."
All I want to do here is give you one amazing quote which shows a brilliant way of writing, or "literary device" to the highbrow. The context of this quote is systems; in other words systems for thinking about life and for writing stories. Christianity is a system in that it explains life, as is Marxism, Feminism and – a particularly relevant one today as it describes an ancient form of conspiracy theory – Gnosticism.
This whole discussion comes from the following line by William Blake:
"I must create a system, or be enslav'd by another Mans…"
When I first read that line I thought Pullman would write about how modern man is trapped (enslav'd) in economic systems of work and debt – but he didn't. He's more interested in systems that help people write stories and think about life.
The quote I offer you here makes the idea of systems seem more approachable, in that (unlike religions or ideologies) it doesn't claim to have all the answers.
Here's the quote (by Pullman, not Blake):
"So each one of us has a whole complex of attitudes and experiences which, if they're not as coherent as a worked-out system, function in a similar way. They provide the solid and unquestioned support for all the work we build on top of them…
"It might seem from the outside like a haphazardly acquired combination of prejudice, ignorance, random experience, scraps of cracker-barrel sententiousness, things they were taught before they were seven, superstition, sentimentality, wishful thinking and saloon-bar knowingness; a gimcrack, jerry-built, patchwork thing, crawling with dry rot, with rats in the basement and death-watch beetle in the attic, with staircases that lead nowhere and corridors blocked off by fallen masonry, with broken windows banging in the wind and great holes in the roof letting in the rain." (from Daemon Voices by Philip Pullman, page 391).
What I love about that passage is how beautifully it flows; it's fun to read and each one of the items listed could open up another story.
What's brilliant about this literary device is that you can use it to summarise a large number of complex things. One of the problems I find with writing an article is that I've got too much to say: pages of notes, website links, facts, figures, opinions, and quotes – all of which are clamouring for entry into the promised land (my article).
But, as St Peter might say at the Pearly Gates, only a few are allowed in. Sometimes I get overwhelmed by it all and forget what I was writing about in the first place; I forget that I wanted to make a point and should be using facts, figures, and quotes to back up my point.
A final word to end this article: in case you were wondering that Philip Pullman is some sort of new-age, born-again Christian who writes fiction to peddle religious messages – rest assured. He went through a short religious period when a teenager and has been a sceptic ever since, but an enquiring sceptic who searches through religious texts for a better understanding of how their systems works – some of which is put to work in His Dark Materials.
This quote, from the essay Talents and Virtues, sums up his approach rather well:
"So when I say 'theocracy' in the context of what I'm saying tonight, I'm not limiting the term to those states that base their authority on the existence of a supernatural creator. What I'm talking about is the tendency of human beings to gather power to themselves in the name of something that may not be questioned, and to justify what they do in terms of absolutes: absolute truth; absolute goodness; absolute evil; absolute hatred; if you're not with us you're against us." (from Daemon Voices by Philip Pullman, page 407).
Although Pullman is right to condemn the tendency to use religion to control other people, isn't he throwing the baby out with the bathwater? Don't religions have some spiritual and social value?
A final observation: the final part of this quote shows how the colon and semi colon should be used; it's one of the few things I remember from school; and Pullman uses it here to present a list; this is quite rare as my impression is that people use these punctuation marks in a way that wasn't sanctioned in school, like I am doing here, as a means of separating up sentences; I've been told this is not good practice so I better stop here.
This review was also published on Goodreads: Daemon Voices by Philip Pullman | Goodreads
February 14, 2021
Could Scotland provide the leadership needed to save the planet?
The National newspaper in Scotland just published my comment piece on the hypocrisy of Scotland's leadership when it comes to climate change...You can read it here (without having to subscribe)...
The Scottish government is ignoring a once-in-a-century opportunity: leading the transition to a carbon zero economy. By going along with the business-as-usual model, as perfected by Westminster, Scotland is allowing itself to be led by the charming lobbyists of big business.
The SNP like to talk up their environmental credentials. Their policy says a lot about "ambition", plenty about cutting CO2 emissions (due to the closure of two coal-fired power stations), lots of breathless news about small "pilot" projects, but nothing (that I can find) on changing the status quo.
Scottish news shows a government that lacks the courage to implement its own rhetoric: The Herald reports that North Sea oil "flaring" pumps out 4m tonnes of CO2 a year; and the Climate Change Committee, which advises the UK government, says that Scotland’s targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions are “fantastic” but Holyrood is unlikely to achieve them.
The Scottish government isn't alone in ignoring the problem. A new report found that oil and gas subsidies amount to hundreds of billions of pounds a year: "Fossil fuel production subsidies – such as those used by the US, UK, Russia, China and the EU – make fossil fuel industries more profitable by reducing their costs, boosting the returns to elites and helping sustain their political power."
With a hostile press, political challenges, financial pressures, not to mention the pandemic, is it any surprise that climate change policy is left on the shelf? Surely this can be prioritised when Scotland is independent?
The time for leadership is now!
I would argue that now is the ideal time to stake Scotland's claim as a global leader in climate change transition – especially with the next big climate jamboree (COP26) slated for Glasgow.
Currently there is a vacancy for the top job of "Global Leader in Climate Change Transition". We need a national leader with the courage, conviction, focus and determination of Greta Thunberg. Someone who calls out the greenwash and token gestures of industry and government.
Most citizens of the world now realise that we must change our ways if we are to avoid climate catastrophe, and all governments pay lip service to it. What's missing is one government actively putting it into practice; to demonstrate that it is possible to aggressively take on big industry.
Perhaps the most difficult challenge is for governments to tell its citizens the truth; that our way of heating, eating, dressing, and travelling is killing the planet. The good news is that each carbon cutting alternative – such as renewable energy and vegan food – represents a sector of new business growth.
What do you think? Do you agree there is a huge opportunity for a national leader to take the lead when it comes to climate change? Could it be Scotland? Could it be your national leader? Will it be anyone or will we continue to pay lip service as our future burns?
I'd be most grateful if you left a comment below here.
The Scottish government is ignoring a once-in-a-century opportunity: leading the transition to a carbon zero economy. By going along with the business-as-usual model, as perfected by Westminster, Scotland is allowing itself to be led by the charming lobbyists of big business.
The SNP like to talk up their environmental credentials. Their policy says a lot about "ambition", plenty about cutting CO2 emissions (due to the closure of two coal-fired power stations), lots of breathless news about small "pilot" projects, but nothing (that I can find) on changing the status quo.
Scottish news shows a government that lacks the courage to implement its own rhetoric: The Herald reports that North Sea oil "flaring" pumps out 4m tonnes of CO2 a year; and the Climate Change Committee, which advises the UK government, says that Scotland’s targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions are “fantastic” but Holyrood is unlikely to achieve them.
The Scottish government isn't alone in ignoring the problem. A new report found that oil and gas subsidies amount to hundreds of billions of pounds a year: "Fossil fuel production subsidies – such as those used by the US, UK, Russia, China and the EU – make fossil fuel industries more profitable by reducing their costs, boosting the returns to elites and helping sustain their political power."
With a hostile press, political challenges, financial pressures, not to mention the pandemic, is it any surprise that climate change policy is left on the shelf? Surely this can be prioritised when Scotland is independent?
The time for leadership is now!
I would argue that now is the ideal time to stake Scotland's claim as a global leader in climate change transition – especially with the next big climate jamboree (COP26) slated for Glasgow.
Currently there is a vacancy for the top job of "Global Leader in Climate Change Transition". We need a national leader with the courage, conviction, focus and determination of Greta Thunberg. Someone who calls out the greenwash and token gestures of industry and government.
Most citizens of the world now realise that we must change our ways if we are to avoid climate catastrophe, and all governments pay lip service to it. What's missing is one government actively putting it into practice; to demonstrate that it is possible to aggressively take on big industry.
Perhaps the most difficult challenge is for governments to tell its citizens the truth; that our way of heating, eating, dressing, and travelling is killing the planet. The good news is that each carbon cutting alternative – such as renewable energy and vegan food – represents a sector of new business growth.
What do you think? Do you agree there is a huge opportunity for a national leader to take the lead when it comes to climate change? Could it be Scotland? Could it be your national leader? Will it be anyone or will we continue to pay lip service as our future burns?
I'd be most grateful if you left a comment below here.
January 31, 2021
My view on Scottish independence
Scottish independence is on the cards again and I've just published my view on the issue in The National. You may be wondering why this divisive issue has emerged so soon after the last referendum and this can be explained in one word: BREXIT; a major change to the UK that a majority of Scots voted against.
The original title of my article in The National was: Will I be shot down in flames (again) for questioning independence? The worthy editors at the paper changed the word "independence" into "indy" which I find rather grating, but hey-ho; mustn't grumble.
Here's the article:
During the 2014 referendum I was against independence but now I'm in the unclaimed centre ground, the no-man's land, the "Don't Knows". I'm open to persuasion.
I could have been a Yes voter first time round but two things put me off: Alex Salmond's bulldozing through of Donald Trump's application to destroy a Site of Special Scientific Interest, to create a golf course near Aberdeen; and the fact that my questions about Scottish independence were met with abuse on social media.
For many years I worked on EU-funded projects in Central and Eastern Europe and in 2006 I spent a frantic month helping the Romanian government (successfully) negotiate the most difficult part of EU-accession: the chapter on Justice and Home Affairs. I naively thought this experience would be of interest to Yes supporters, but whenever I asked how Scotland would re-join the EU I got shot down in flames (this comment I wrote in Huffington Post caused outrage on social networks).
New Questions
This time round Brexit and the shambolic way the British government have managed the pandemic has pushed me back into the centre.
But my questions are different now: how will Nicola Sturgeon handle Donald Trump in the future; and can Scotland show genuine leadership regarding climate change?
Although the SNP distanced themselves from Trump after his 2016 presidential election victory, they are currently faced with an embarrassing question: will the Scottish Government seek an Unexplained Wealth Order (UWO)? Where did he get the cash to buy two Scottish golf courses? If they acted on this issue, the SNP would show that they don't tolerate rich crooks.
My biggest concern is the climate emergency which is more serious than Brexit and the Covid 19 pandemic combined. If the SNP could show any real leadership on the issue I would be their biggest fan. But the Scottish government just follow the tired old formula used by Boris Johnson: recognise the problem, set up commissions, agree targets, fund small pilot projects – kick the issue along the road, claim success and, above all, do nothing to upset the status quo.
The Scottish government's web page on climate change claims it is, "winning international respect for our ambition and leadership on climate change. Scotland's greenhouse gas emissions have already been reduced by almost half from the 1990 baseline."
But the latest report by the Climate Change Committee says two thirds of these reductions in carbon emissions were due to closing a few coal-fired power stations, and: "Emissions from all other sectors outside of electricity generation have fallen by just 14%."
The real elephant in the room is Big Oil. As with Trump, it comes down to raw political courage: will the SNP have the guts to stand up to the oil companies and – equally difficult – tell the people of Scotland that we all need to start making plans for a carbon-free future?
Writing in The National, Mark Ruskell says New Zealand recently ended new offshore oil and gas exploration and the government was rewarded at the polls: "Jacinda Ardern won a landslide and her Green Party allies increased their share of the vote while climate-ambivalent parties saw their vote share decrease."
Perhaps the Scottish government could be the first European country that tells its people "Enough! No more oil! No more plastic! No more pollution! On your bikes!" That sort of leadership would inspire the continent and even big business would have to comply.
The one good thing about Covid 19 is that it has shown what governments can do – close down whole economies – if they feel the problem is serious enough. Whichever European leader has the guts to make this call will instantly become a leader in the new green economic revolution.
#
What do you think about Scottish independence? I'd love to know, even if you live on the other side of the world. Please leave a comment below.
The original title of my article in The National was: Will I be shot down in flames (again) for questioning independence? The worthy editors at the paper changed the word "independence" into "indy" which I find rather grating, but hey-ho; mustn't grumble.
Here's the article:
During the 2014 referendum I was against independence but now I'm in the unclaimed centre ground, the no-man's land, the "Don't Knows". I'm open to persuasion.
I could have been a Yes voter first time round but two things put me off: Alex Salmond's bulldozing through of Donald Trump's application to destroy a Site of Special Scientific Interest, to create a golf course near Aberdeen; and the fact that my questions about Scottish independence were met with abuse on social media.
For many years I worked on EU-funded projects in Central and Eastern Europe and in 2006 I spent a frantic month helping the Romanian government (successfully) negotiate the most difficult part of EU-accession: the chapter on Justice and Home Affairs. I naively thought this experience would be of interest to Yes supporters, but whenever I asked how Scotland would re-join the EU I got shot down in flames (this comment I wrote in Huffington Post caused outrage on social networks).
New Questions
This time round Brexit and the shambolic way the British government have managed the pandemic has pushed me back into the centre.
But my questions are different now: how will Nicola Sturgeon handle Donald Trump in the future; and can Scotland show genuine leadership regarding climate change?
Although the SNP distanced themselves from Trump after his 2016 presidential election victory, they are currently faced with an embarrassing question: will the Scottish Government seek an Unexplained Wealth Order (UWO)? Where did he get the cash to buy two Scottish golf courses? If they acted on this issue, the SNP would show that they don't tolerate rich crooks.
My biggest concern is the climate emergency which is more serious than Brexit and the Covid 19 pandemic combined. If the SNP could show any real leadership on the issue I would be their biggest fan. But the Scottish government just follow the tired old formula used by Boris Johnson: recognise the problem, set up commissions, agree targets, fund small pilot projects – kick the issue along the road, claim success and, above all, do nothing to upset the status quo.
The Scottish government's web page on climate change claims it is, "winning international respect for our ambition and leadership on climate change. Scotland's greenhouse gas emissions have already been reduced by almost half from the 1990 baseline."
But the latest report by the Climate Change Committee says two thirds of these reductions in carbon emissions were due to closing a few coal-fired power stations, and: "Emissions from all other sectors outside of electricity generation have fallen by just 14%."
The real elephant in the room is Big Oil. As with Trump, it comes down to raw political courage: will the SNP have the guts to stand up to the oil companies and – equally difficult – tell the people of Scotland that we all need to start making plans for a carbon-free future?
Writing in The National, Mark Ruskell says New Zealand recently ended new offshore oil and gas exploration and the government was rewarded at the polls: "Jacinda Ardern won a landslide and her Green Party allies increased their share of the vote while climate-ambivalent parties saw their vote share decrease."
Perhaps the Scottish government could be the first European country that tells its people "Enough! No more oil! No more plastic! No more pollution! On your bikes!" That sort of leadership would inspire the continent and even big business would have to comply.
The one good thing about Covid 19 is that it has shown what governments can do – close down whole economies – if they feel the problem is serious enough. Whichever European leader has the guts to make this call will instantly become a leader in the new green economic revolution.
#
What do you think about Scottish independence? I'd love to know, even if you live on the other side of the world. Please leave a comment below.
January 23, 2021
I’m not sure about Tessa Dunlop’s book about Romania
I sometimes review* books on this blog -- either because they are totally brilliant or really bad. This one is a bit of both. This is my view of Tessa Dunlop's To Romania with LOVE, which was published in 2012
This is a book that should never have been published -- the author's introverted husband tried to stop it and is probably still cringing -- but I'm glad it was because it's a snapshot of a particular time in Romanian history and the details of an Anglo-Romanian relationship (endless family misunderstandings, Britain's horrendous visa application system pre-Brexit, as well as wildly different attitudes towards money, work, leisure) are fascinating.
Now that we're out of the EU maybe Britain will go back to imposing deliberately opaque immigration rules on people the British tabloids don't approve of. Maybe it's the end of easy cross-border marriages and divorces?
On one level I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone as it's badly edited (why didn't they delete all the Romanian words she uses, without translation, plunging all non-Romanian speakers into confusion?); but on the other hand I'd recommend it to all those having a relationship with a Romanian. It offers an insight into their history of poverty and Communism, and the resulting behavioural patterns.
I almost didn't get past the first few chapters, which are set in Romania, as they really grated. I know the area she describes, and worked in a nearby village at the same time (almost 30 years ago), and while there were no factual errors I didn't like her style, pace and observations. She's much better when describing things in the UK.
This rather breathless book is full of things that wouldn't make sense to anyone who doesn't know the locations. For example, on page 205 she writes "He almost ran down Jules Michelet..." Surely any normal reader would assume that he had almost "run down" someone with a French name with his car? Fortunately I happen to to know that Strada Jules Michelet is the location of the British Embassy in Bucharest.
What are editors and publishers for if not to spot such problems? Isn't it obvious that if things only make sense to people who know the Romanian words that fill the book, not to mention the locations, they are drastically reducing their audience?
When I used to run a charity in Romania many of our volunteers would write reports using Romanian words, words like caruta (cart) that we would use daily; but they were writing for an internal audience in a small charity, not a big publishing house like Quartet.
There are also incidents in the UK that don't make any sense: for example near the end of the book they go to visit her parents in Scotland; they hire a car and then, quite near the parents' house, crash it; not only is there no mention of any detail of the actual accident; but in the next scene they are in Weston Super Mare -- beyond Bristol, 500 miles to the south. Suddenly, in the very next scene, they are arriving at their parents house in the Highlands of Scotland, in a car that has a Tardis-like quality of repairing itself and being in two places at once.
None of this seems to bother the rave reviewers you can see on Goodreads, Amazon and on the back of the book. Toby Clements, of the Daily Telegraph, says "a rare, brave and honest account of finding love and holding on to it."
The common theme running through all this praise is "honesty" and I have to agree with them. Despite my criticisms I liked this book and felt close to all the characters Tessa so lovingly described. Yes, they are all deeply flawed but aren't we all? And, come to mention it, aren't most marriages what the Americans would call "a train wreck"?
Tessa Dunlop not only shows great honesty in writing about a difficult relationship but also a lot of courage. This book should never have been written as one doesn't write (or even Tweet) about relationship difficulties -- it's not the decent thing -- so that bloke Clements from the Telegraph is right in saying that such courage in publishing stories like this is "rare".
Reading this book makes me feel closer to Tessa, who I met a few times in Bucharest, and her introverted Romanian husband (who I never met and probably never will). Tessa clearly loves Romania as she's produced a series of short YouTube videos about Great Romanians which are really very good -- she has something of the delectable Joanna Lumley on screen -- and I'm keen to read her next book which is about Romania's stylish and clever Queen Marie "of Edinburgh", who reigned in the inter-war period.
I've just realised the parallels between Tessa Dunlop and Queen Marie -- both were upper class Scots who married Romanians in difficult circumstances; and I expect that as many people predicted the royal marriage wouldn't work as said that Tessa's love affair was just "another of her projects" and she would soon drop him.
As far as I know Tessa has managed to keep her marriage on the road, unlike me (I also married a Romanian) -- and for this she deserves a lot of praise. Not only is it hard to keep any marriage together in this day and age, when divorce is so easy, but it's especially hard when you marry a foreigner from a country that was put through the mill by the Communists.
A shorter version of this review was first published on Goodreads.
*A word about reviews: I only do them for books that inspire or infuriate me. Some of them are very old; books that I've stumbled across by chance; but books that are worth knowing about. I don't think I've ever reviewed a new book because I don't want to fork out an inflated amount -- and this is my point here: the media only review new books because publishers send them free copies, take them out to lunch (or send them God knows what incentives during lockdown); the whole "review" part of the modern media is built around new things being sponsored, even though most of them are far worse than the classics. "Why not review the classics?" You might ask. You could make a series of in-depth articles out of them. The answer is simple; there's no charming public-school girl persuading you do to so on the phone, or offering to take you out for a drink later on.
The other way author's get reviews is call on their friends. This works particularly well when the friend is a journalist, as they have a lot more reach than my pals who can only post something on Amazon or Goodreads. You can spot this happening every time a journalist writes a book as its cover is plastered with praise from...other journalists.
That's how the cookie crumbles when it comes to promoting books.
This is a book that should never have been published -- the author's introverted husband tried to stop it and is probably still cringing -- but I'm glad it was because it's a snapshot of a particular time in Romanian history and the details of an Anglo-Romanian relationship (endless family misunderstandings, Britain's horrendous visa application system pre-Brexit, as well as wildly different attitudes towards money, work, leisure) are fascinating.
Now that we're out of the EU maybe Britain will go back to imposing deliberately opaque immigration rules on people the British tabloids don't approve of. Maybe it's the end of easy cross-border marriages and divorces?
On one level I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone as it's badly edited (why didn't they delete all the Romanian words she uses, without translation, plunging all non-Romanian speakers into confusion?); but on the other hand I'd recommend it to all those having a relationship with a Romanian. It offers an insight into their history of poverty and Communism, and the resulting behavioural patterns.
I almost didn't get past the first few chapters, which are set in Romania, as they really grated. I know the area she describes, and worked in a nearby village at the same time (almost 30 years ago), and while there were no factual errors I didn't like her style, pace and observations. She's much better when describing things in the UK.
This rather breathless book is full of things that wouldn't make sense to anyone who doesn't know the locations. For example, on page 205 she writes "He almost ran down Jules Michelet..." Surely any normal reader would assume that he had almost "run down" someone with a French name with his car? Fortunately I happen to to know that Strada Jules Michelet is the location of the British Embassy in Bucharest.
What are editors and publishers for if not to spot such problems? Isn't it obvious that if things only make sense to people who know the Romanian words that fill the book, not to mention the locations, they are drastically reducing their audience?
When I used to run a charity in Romania many of our volunteers would write reports using Romanian words, words like caruta (cart) that we would use daily; but they were writing for an internal audience in a small charity, not a big publishing house like Quartet.
There are also incidents in the UK that don't make any sense: for example near the end of the book they go to visit her parents in Scotland; they hire a car and then, quite near the parents' house, crash it; not only is there no mention of any detail of the actual accident; but in the next scene they are in Weston Super Mare -- beyond Bristol, 500 miles to the south. Suddenly, in the very next scene, they are arriving at their parents house in the Highlands of Scotland, in a car that has a Tardis-like quality of repairing itself and being in two places at once.
None of this seems to bother the rave reviewers you can see on Goodreads, Amazon and on the back of the book. Toby Clements, of the Daily Telegraph, says "a rare, brave and honest account of finding love and holding on to it."
The common theme running through all this praise is "honesty" and I have to agree with them. Despite my criticisms I liked this book and felt close to all the characters Tessa so lovingly described. Yes, they are all deeply flawed but aren't we all? And, come to mention it, aren't most marriages what the Americans would call "a train wreck"?
Tessa Dunlop not only shows great honesty in writing about a difficult relationship but also a lot of courage. This book should never have been written as one doesn't write (or even Tweet) about relationship difficulties -- it's not the decent thing -- so that bloke Clements from the Telegraph is right in saying that such courage in publishing stories like this is "rare".
Reading this book makes me feel closer to Tessa, who I met a few times in Bucharest, and her introverted Romanian husband (who I never met and probably never will). Tessa clearly loves Romania as she's produced a series of short YouTube videos about Great Romanians which are really very good -- she has something of the delectable Joanna Lumley on screen -- and I'm keen to read her next book which is about Romania's stylish and clever Queen Marie "of Edinburgh", who reigned in the inter-war period.
I've just realised the parallels between Tessa Dunlop and Queen Marie -- both were upper class Scots who married Romanians in difficult circumstances; and I expect that as many people predicted the royal marriage wouldn't work as said that Tessa's love affair was just "another of her projects" and she would soon drop him.
As far as I know Tessa has managed to keep her marriage on the road, unlike me (I also married a Romanian) -- and for this she deserves a lot of praise. Not only is it hard to keep any marriage together in this day and age, when divorce is so easy, but it's especially hard when you marry a foreigner from a country that was put through the mill by the Communists.
A shorter version of this review was first published on Goodreads.
*A word about reviews: I only do them for books that inspire or infuriate me. Some of them are very old; books that I've stumbled across by chance; but books that are worth knowing about. I don't think I've ever reviewed a new book because I don't want to fork out an inflated amount -- and this is my point here: the media only review new books because publishers send them free copies, take them out to lunch (or send them God knows what incentives during lockdown); the whole "review" part of the modern media is built around new things being sponsored, even though most of them are far worse than the classics. "Why not review the classics?" You might ask. You could make a series of in-depth articles out of them. The answer is simple; there's no charming public-school girl persuading you do to so on the phone, or offering to take you out for a drink later on.
The other way author's get reviews is call on their friends. This works particularly well when the friend is a journalist, as they have a lot more reach than my pals who can only post something on Amazon or Goodreads. You can spot this happening every time a journalist writes a book as its cover is plastered with praise from...other journalists.
That's how the cookie crumbles when it comes to promoting books.
January 14, 2021
Stephanie Wolfe Murray: elfin, beautiful, passionate, courageous
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography just published Timothy Neat's lyrical description of Stephanie Wolfe Murray. This is a draft copy.
The publisher as minstrel. Elfin, beautiful, passionate, courageous, driven by a wish to serve – the life of Stephanie Wolfe Murray reads like a ballad.
She died on Midsummer Day 2017 amongst the hills of Traquair in the Scottish Borders where she was buried in a wicker basket bedecked with wild flowers, close to the grave of Thomas the Rimer.
A war baby, Stephanie was born 27th April 1941, at Blandford Forum, in the heart of Thomas Hardy's Dorset. Her father, Major Hadden Todd (Royal Artillery), was killed in the Allied breakout from Normandy in August 1944. In peacetime he had worked as a solicitor in Liverpool. Her mother, Louisa May Robins (Wendy), came from a wealthy Cheshire/Liverpool family linked to the Bibby Shipping Line.
After remarriage and divorce from New Zealander, Wendy settled into lifelong marriage with Henry George Villiers Greer, a Northern Irishman with family connections to the Far East. Captured at Singapore, in 1942, Greer became a Japanese P.O.W. and worked on the Burma Railway.
Stephanie grew up conscious of the energies and sense of service that drove the British Empire story (the actor Richard Todd who starred in film Rob Roy and played Wing Commander Guy Gibson V.C. in 'The Dam Busters' was a relation). Romance, poetry, steely determination, and self-sacrifice were part of her nature.
With her older sister Virginia, Stephanie grew up in Shropshire. Relations with their stepfather were good. Both were sent to boarding schools. Stephanie, artistic, musical and rebellious gladly left Overstone School (Northampton) at the age of sixteen. Setting out for Paris she immersed herself in the French language: in Florence she studied art; good connections got her secretarial work at the Savoy Hotel, overlooking Brunelleschi's Duomo.
In England, she joined the debutante circuit and was featured on the cover of Queen magazine. A whirlwind romance with Angus Wolfe Murray (a journalist on the Yorkshire Post) saw her sent to New York, to cool her heels. Mother thought 'Gus' under-financed. She returned unbowed; determined to shape her own destiny.
At twenty she married Wolfe Murray, quickly became the mother of four sons, and found herself - living a spartan life - in Highland Invernesshire. Angus published a successful novel, 'The End of Something Nice', and, thrilled by life amidst primaeval nature, Stephanie blossomed as a high-spirited and very Celtic young woman.
Braulen Lodge in Strathfarrar looks out on Sgurr na Lapaich and the Wolfe Murray house became an exotic, bohemian gathering place, a modern Ceilidh house. Privations were real but exhilarating and the boys enjoyed idyllic rural childhoods.
Stephanie now knew her husband's family connections were as good and useful as her own: he carried not just one of the grand names of Scotland but also General Wolfe's: victorious, on the Heights of Abraham, knowing he would die without issue, Wolfe famously asked his dear comrade and Second-in-Command James Murray, to promise to give his children his Name.
Entering her thirties, Stephanie felt impelled to address public as well as domestic issues. At thirty three, her father had given his life in the fight against Nazism: what could she offer her adopted country, Scotland? She had literary interests, a brilliant eye for artistic quality, 'a genius for friendship'...
Suddenly, in 1974, she and Angus decided they would set up a publishing house, in Edinburgh - in partnership with an aspirant American writer Bob Shure. Within days, cheap premises were bought in Jeffrey Street and the company was named: Canongate Books.
The name was old-hat but the trio had a contemporary vision, not just to revive the great tradition of Scottish publishing but to help conjure a new and better Scotland into being. Within a year, Bob Shure was back in America, Angus had returned to journalism, the Wolfe Murray marriage was in tatters - and Stephanie was left holding a very fractious baby! Undaunted, she arranged a new, professional partnership with Charles Wilde and, against the odds, the desert of Scottish publishing burst back into bloom.
For fifty years Hugh MacDiarmid's Scottish Renaissance had rumbled in the wings of Scottish life, now, various unruly step-children leapt centre stage. Hamish Henderson had nurtured an international Scottish Folk Revival, the Edinburgh Festival (plus the Fringe and Richard Demarco) was a becoming many-faceted cultural phenomenon; huge changes were underway in Scottish politics – and Canongate gathered things together in books...
Early success came with Antonia Fraser's anthology 'Scottish Love Poems' but the cultural breakthrough was publication of Sorley MacLean's collected Gaelic poems, “Spring tide and Neap tide (Rethairt is Contraigh)” in 1977. Next came the prison autobiography of Glasgow gangland killer Jimmy Boyle, “A sense of Freedom'. Then, in 1981, Alasdair Grey's novel Lanark was published. Highly original, it was hailed by Antony Burgess as “the best Scottish novel since Sir Walter Scott”.
A level of Scottish Arts Council support was now assured but, financially, things would always remain difficult. Stephanie, however, was soon championing the totally unknown work of Duncan Williamson, a Scots Traveller and oral tradition bearer. Born in a tinker tent in Argyll in 1928, the seventh son of a seventh son of a mother born in a cave, Duncan was barely literate - but custodian of thousands of traditional stories and songs, many of high artistic quality. In 1983, 'Fireside Tales of the Traveller Children' brought Scots Traveller oral tradition to the printed page: it was the stone precipitated an avalanche and stirred education, theatre, film, folk-festivals, storytelling centres and cultural behaviour around the world. Stephanie, as always, enjoyed the process she was now part of - and delighted in going out into the wilds, into tents and caravans from Fife to Argyll, like a vagabond.
Stephanie's work was rarely political but it had political consequences. The Canongate Kelpies – Scottish books for children - remain important. Her support for a generation of younger poets - Tom Pow, Valerie Gillies and Andrew Greig - was generous. Her paperback Canongate Classics series brought a hundred, largely neglected, Scottish books back into circulation. Her close friendship with Alastair Reid (a great Hispanic specialist) saw translation stimulated and his 'New Yorker' short stories were reclaimed as Scottish works. Mairi Hedderwick's diary sketchbooks, 'An Eye on the Hebrides', were popular; William Lorimer's new translation of the New Testament into Scots was recognised as a major scholastic achievement.
Stephanie had 'an instinctive eye'; she was decisive but also gave her designer, Jim Hutcheson, his head. Canongate books are a delight to look at and handle. Many have become collector's pieces: including my own book: 'Part Seen, Part Imagined: Meaning and Symbolism in the Art if Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret Macdonald'.
Stephanie rarely enjoyed administration yet she was a founder member of the Scottish Publishers Association and its first chairwoman. She was on the board that set up the Edinburgh Book Festival and, acknowledged as 'Madame Ecosse' at Book Fairs from Frankfurt to Moscow, to Beijing. She could be an enchanting saleswoman but managerial and financial detail, finally, overwhelmed both her and the company.
In her desperate attempts to keep authors aboard a sinking ship she was known to offer her own 'free-range' eggs as payments - in lieu! When amalgamations with Albany books in Glasgow, and Phaidon in London, coincided with the recession of 1990 an attenuated collapse brought Canongate to its knees. In 1994 the company was resurrected, with serious money and new ideas put forward by Jamie Byng (a former Canongate intern). Subsequently, Hugh Andrew created Birlinn Books, around Stephanie's Scottish titles. Thus the banner was passed, flying, to a new generation.
In retrospect it is clear that neither the market, private patronage, or the Scottish Arts Council were able to provide the finances and structures the company needed. The failure of Canongate was a societal failure but it was Stephanie who felt the blow. She had created 'a living work of art' which put a mirror up to Scotland, impacted millions of lives and raised every kind of human awareness. Suddenly her creation was her's no more. With pride she had stuck to her last, and Alexander McCall Smith (a Canongate author and board member) was right when he summed things up: 'here was a person touched by something we should not hesitate to call greatness.'
After Canongate, Stephanie left the literary scene and flung herself back into the various lives of her children – who, in her footsteps, were working in the service of mankind: Kim was a Buddhist monk, Gavin, Rupert and Moona all writers and frontline Aid-workers. She went out to join them in Romania, Bosnia, Kosovo and Kenya. She worked with Scottish European Aid, the Scottish Charities Kosova Appeal and Connect Humanitarian Aid.
Always an adventurer, moral virtue was now conjoined with physical courage: Toby Gough, an Aid organiser, writes 'Stephanie was the wisdom, the kindness, the conscience, the guru, the spirit of Edinburgh: the reality is - she was a saint...'
Always above false show, growing old, Stephanie was content to live deep in the Border hills, in the Laundry House, in the Glen at Traquair - with her dogs and, on occasion, a chick hidden (warm) in her bonnet. Her husband Angus rejoined her.
Many friends called by. Gardner Molloy noted: 'Total Mother Earth'. Her son Gavin describes her: 'making daisy-chains, picking elderflowers, raspberries, blackcurrants, throwing on a thin cotton dress at the first hint of summer... walking into the Sahara Desert to raise money for the Maggie Centre... singing in the Traquair choir.'
These Pre-Raphaelite images are beautiful but also hint at an underlying tragedy. Scotland's motto, Nemo Me Impune Lacessit, is fierce and, in retirement, Stephanie gathered no Honorary Doctorates and few formal invitations of any kind. She lived like Oscar Wilde's Nightingale - with her breast pressed against the thorn: always the little boy exploring the garden of the Selfish Giant; always a woman seeking service, till the end. True vitality resides in the quest, not the prize – and there are interesting parallels between the lives of the Wolfe Murrays and those of Sir William Hamilton and Lady Emma Hamilton: and, as England failed to honour Nelson's Emma, so Scotland failed to honour Canongate's mistress.
“Regardless of the season, Stephanie's bedroom window was always two inches open',” said her friend Laurentiu Calciu. Always a smoker, Stephanie died of cancer, aged 76 on 24th June 2017. The funeral took place at Old Parish Church in the High Street, Peebles. Family members led a celebratory service.
Many of the quotations above come from 'Stephanie Wolfe Murray: a Life in Books', edited and published by Rupert Wolfe Murray in 2017. Only 500 copies were printed and it was out of print within days. You can download a PDF version here.
By Timothy Neat
The publisher as minstrel. Elfin, beautiful, passionate, courageous, driven by a wish to serve – the life of Stephanie Wolfe Murray reads like a ballad.
She died on Midsummer Day 2017 amongst the hills of Traquair in the Scottish Borders where she was buried in a wicker basket bedecked with wild flowers, close to the grave of Thomas the Rimer.
A war baby, Stephanie was born 27th April 1941, at Blandford Forum, in the heart of Thomas Hardy's Dorset. Her father, Major Hadden Todd (Royal Artillery), was killed in the Allied breakout from Normandy in August 1944. In peacetime he had worked as a solicitor in Liverpool. Her mother, Louisa May Robins (Wendy), came from a wealthy Cheshire/Liverpool family linked to the Bibby Shipping Line.
After remarriage and divorce from New Zealander, Wendy settled into lifelong marriage with Henry George Villiers Greer, a Northern Irishman with family connections to the Far East. Captured at Singapore, in 1942, Greer became a Japanese P.O.W. and worked on the Burma Railway.
Stephanie grew up conscious of the energies and sense of service that drove the British Empire story (the actor Richard Todd who starred in film Rob Roy and played Wing Commander Guy Gibson V.C. in 'The Dam Busters' was a relation). Romance, poetry, steely determination, and self-sacrifice were part of her nature.
With her older sister Virginia, Stephanie grew up in Shropshire. Relations with their stepfather were good. Both were sent to boarding schools. Stephanie, artistic, musical and rebellious gladly left Overstone School (Northampton) at the age of sixteen. Setting out for Paris she immersed herself in the French language: in Florence she studied art; good connections got her secretarial work at the Savoy Hotel, overlooking Brunelleschi's Duomo.
In England, she joined the debutante circuit and was featured on the cover of Queen magazine. A whirlwind romance with Angus Wolfe Murray (a journalist on the Yorkshire Post) saw her sent to New York, to cool her heels. Mother thought 'Gus' under-financed. She returned unbowed; determined to shape her own destiny.
At twenty she married Wolfe Murray, quickly became the mother of four sons, and found herself - living a spartan life - in Highland Invernesshire. Angus published a successful novel, 'The End of Something Nice', and, thrilled by life amidst primaeval nature, Stephanie blossomed as a high-spirited and very Celtic young woman.
Braulen Lodge in Strathfarrar looks out on Sgurr na Lapaich and the Wolfe Murray house became an exotic, bohemian gathering place, a modern Ceilidh house. Privations were real but exhilarating and the boys enjoyed idyllic rural childhoods.
Stephanie now knew her husband's family connections were as good and useful as her own: he carried not just one of the grand names of Scotland but also General Wolfe's: victorious, on the Heights of Abraham, knowing he would die without issue, Wolfe famously asked his dear comrade and Second-in-Command James Murray, to promise to give his children his Name.
Entering her thirties, Stephanie felt impelled to address public as well as domestic issues. At thirty three, her father had given his life in the fight against Nazism: what could she offer her adopted country, Scotland? She had literary interests, a brilliant eye for artistic quality, 'a genius for friendship'...
Suddenly, in 1974, she and Angus decided they would set up a publishing house, in Edinburgh - in partnership with an aspirant American writer Bob Shure. Within days, cheap premises were bought in Jeffrey Street and the company was named: Canongate Books.
The name was old-hat but the trio had a contemporary vision, not just to revive the great tradition of Scottish publishing but to help conjure a new and better Scotland into being. Within a year, Bob Shure was back in America, Angus had returned to journalism, the Wolfe Murray marriage was in tatters - and Stephanie was left holding a very fractious baby! Undaunted, she arranged a new, professional partnership with Charles Wilde and, against the odds, the desert of Scottish publishing burst back into bloom.
For fifty years Hugh MacDiarmid's Scottish Renaissance had rumbled in the wings of Scottish life, now, various unruly step-children leapt centre stage. Hamish Henderson had nurtured an international Scottish Folk Revival, the Edinburgh Festival (plus the Fringe and Richard Demarco) was a becoming many-faceted cultural phenomenon; huge changes were underway in Scottish politics – and Canongate gathered things together in books...
Early success came with Antonia Fraser's anthology 'Scottish Love Poems' but the cultural breakthrough was publication of Sorley MacLean's collected Gaelic poems, “Spring tide and Neap tide (Rethairt is Contraigh)” in 1977. Next came the prison autobiography of Glasgow gangland killer Jimmy Boyle, “A sense of Freedom'. Then, in 1981, Alasdair Grey's novel Lanark was published. Highly original, it was hailed by Antony Burgess as “the best Scottish novel since Sir Walter Scott”.
A level of Scottish Arts Council support was now assured but, financially, things would always remain difficult. Stephanie, however, was soon championing the totally unknown work of Duncan Williamson, a Scots Traveller and oral tradition bearer. Born in a tinker tent in Argyll in 1928, the seventh son of a seventh son of a mother born in a cave, Duncan was barely literate - but custodian of thousands of traditional stories and songs, many of high artistic quality. In 1983, 'Fireside Tales of the Traveller Children' brought Scots Traveller oral tradition to the printed page: it was the stone precipitated an avalanche and stirred education, theatre, film, folk-festivals, storytelling centres and cultural behaviour around the world. Stephanie, as always, enjoyed the process she was now part of - and delighted in going out into the wilds, into tents and caravans from Fife to Argyll, like a vagabond.
Stephanie's work was rarely political but it had political consequences. The Canongate Kelpies – Scottish books for children - remain important. Her support for a generation of younger poets - Tom Pow, Valerie Gillies and Andrew Greig - was generous. Her paperback Canongate Classics series brought a hundred, largely neglected, Scottish books back into circulation. Her close friendship with Alastair Reid (a great Hispanic specialist) saw translation stimulated and his 'New Yorker' short stories were reclaimed as Scottish works. Mairi Hedderwick's diary sketchbooks, 'An Eye on the Hebrides', were popular; William Lorimer's new translation of the New Testament into Scots was recognised as a major scholastic achievement.
Stephanie had 'an instinctive eye'; she was decisive but also gave her designer, Jim Hutcheson, his head. Canongate books are a delight to look at and handle. Many have become collector's pieces: including my own book: 'Part Seen, Part Imagined: Meaning and Symbolism in the Art if Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret Macdonald'.
Stephanie rarely enjoyed administration yet she was a founder member of the Scottish Publishers Association and its first chairwoman. She was on the board that set up the Edinburgh Book Festival and, acknowledged as 'Madame Ecosse' at Book Fairs from Frankfurt to Moscow, to Beijing. She could be an enchanting saleswoman but managerial and financial detail, finally, overwhelmed both her and the company.
In her desperate attempts to keep authors aboard a sinking ship she was known to offer her own 'free-range' eggs as payments - in lieu! When amalgamations with Albany books in Glasgow, and Phaidon in London, coincided with the recession of 1990 an attenuated collapse brought Canongate to its knees. In 1994 the company was resurrected, with serious money and new ideas put forward by Jamie Byng (a former Canongate intern). Subsequently, Hugh Andrew created Birlinn Books, around Stephanie's Scottish titles. Thus the banner was passed, flying, to a new generation.
In retrospect it is clear that neither the market, private patronage, or the Scottish Arts Council were able to provide the finances and structures the company needed. The failure of Canongate was a societal failure but it was Stephanie who felt the blow. She had created 'a living work of art' which put a mirror up to Scotland, impacted millions of lives and raised every kind of human awareness. Suddenly her creation was her's no more. With pride she had stuck to her last, and Alexander McCall Smith (a Canongate author and board member) was right when he summed things up: 'here was a person touched by something we should not hesitate to call greatness.'
After Canongate, Stephanie left the literary scene and flung herself back into the various lives of her children – who, in her footsteps, were working in the service of mankind: Kim was a Buddhist monk, Gavin, Rupert and Moona all writers and frontline Aid-workers. She went out to join them in Romania, Bosnia, Kosovo and Kenya. She worked with Scottish European Aid, the Scottish Charities Kosova Appeal and Connect Humanitarian Aid.
Always an adventurer, moral virtue was now conjoined with physical courage: Toby Gough, an Aid organiser, writes 'Stephanie was the wisdom, the kindness, the conscience, the guru, the spirit of Edinburgh: the reality is - she was a saint...'
Always above false show, growing old, Stephanie was content to live deep in the Border hills, in the Laundry House, in the Glen at Traquair - with her dogs and, on occasion, a chick hidden (warm) in her bonnet. Her husband Angus rejoined her.
Many friends called by. Gardner Molloy noted: 'Total Mother Earth'. Her son Gavin describes her: 'making daisy-chains, picking elderflowers, raspberries, blackcurrants, throwing on a thin cotton dress at the first hint of summer... walking into the Sahara Desert to raise money for the Maggie Centre... singing in the Traquair choir.'
These Pre-Raphaelite images are beautiful but also hint at an underlying tragedy. Scotland's motto, Nemo Me Impune Lacessit, is fierce and, in retirement, Stephanie gathered no Honorary Doctorates and few formal invitations of any kind. She lived like Oscar Wilde's Nightingale - with her breast pressed against the thorn: always the little boy exploring the garden of the Selfish Giant; always a woman seeking service, till the end. True vitality resides in the quest, not the prize – and there are interesting parallels between the lives of the Wolfe Murrays and those of Sir William Hamilton and Lady Emma Hamilton: and, as England failed to honour Nelson's Emma, so Scotland failed to honour Canongate's mistress.
“Regardless of the season, Stephanie's bedroom window was always two inches open',” said her friend Laurentiu Calciu. Always a smoker, Stephanie died of cancer, aged 76 on 24th June 2017. The funeral took place at Old Parish Church in the High Street, Peebles. Family members led a celebratory service.
Many of the quotations above come from 'Stephanie Wolfe Murray: a Life in Books', edited and published by Rupert Wolfe Murray in 2017. Only 500 copies were printed and it was out of print within days. You can download a PDF version here.
By Timothy Neat
April 19, 2020
Travelling in the Time of the Coronavirus
My heart goes out to everyone who's stuck at home feeling bored and worried.
I'm the only person on the train from Brighton to London. Usually you can't find a seat at this time of the morning (10:42 departure).
The only people at the station were railway workers and a lone policemen who took a long look at me and decided I wasn't worth questioning (I was trying hard to look as if I belonged there, hoping he wouldn't ask why I was pushing a bicycle and trailer).
The ticket inspector looked unfriendly but wasn't. He was probably just bored, as most people are in this strange time of the virus. I'm standing in front of the ticket barrier, wondering if he'll open it and let me through without asking for my ticket. He does.
I wonder why the trains are still running if nobody's travelling? I ask the inspector: "Who's using the trains these days?"
"Key workers and fare dodgers," he says. Where did this term "key worker" come from? Sounds like another way of saying Locksmith.
"Fare dodgers?" I asked, "What …?"
"People who don't have any business being on the trains..."
I walk onto a vast empty platform, feeling quite strange, as if I shouldn't be there. I'm expecting the policeman to put his hand on my shoulder at any moment.
The train is eerily empty and spotlessly clean.
We stop at station after station and the disembodied lady's voice comes on and tells me where I am. Nobody gets on. Nobody gets off. There's nobody at any of the stations except Gatwick Airport where I open the door and stare down the platform – and yes, I see someone; about 200 yards away a figure in fluorescent yellow is bending over a bin.
As we go through the London stations – Clapham Junction, London Bridge – where millions of people normally pass through every day, I see more fluorescent jackets; some look officious and others push a brush. The brush pushers look more relaxed.
I'm surprised Gatwick is so empty as I'd read in a paper that about 15,000 people a day fly into Britain, none of whom are checked for signs of the virus. Britain's approach to the virus seems over-reliant on the private sector bailing us out: Boris' hapless government are hoping that Google's new App will save us; apparently it will beep every time you go near someone who's admitted to having had the virus. But isn't that going to make those who've had it into instant pariahs? The former boss of MI6, Sir John Sawers, said in the FT: "What's being envisaged [for contact tracing] would go beyond what we used for security purposes."
But I don't let the ramblings of politicians worry me as there's nothing I can do about the fact that the global economy has been shut down because of our insatiable appetite for meat. All I can do is observe things and, I must confess with a certain amount of guilt (shouldn't I be depressed and worried?), that I find the whole thing absolutely fascinating.
Perhaps the most interesting thing that has happened is that a simple message – don't go out – has been picked up by virtually every nation on earth and over seven billion people are staying at home. It shows the incredible power of the media. Some people worry that it's a plot to control us, but what these people don't see is that it's based on consensus; if an overwhelming majority of people didn't see the point of this lockdown there's no way it could be enforced. Imagine if they tried to do repeat this trick to stop global warming, which is an even bigger threat than this virus, by banning fossil fuels – it wouldn't get anywhere.
St Pancras and Kings Cross
I get off the train at St Pancras and see one or two other passengers emerge from what I thought was "my" train. They all wear masks, as do I, and hurry off. Nobody seems to want to talk or even exchange a glance. Someone checks my ticket at the exit barrier and, as I head along the grand concourse of shops, a policeman approaches me; we're both heading towards each other like in a cowboy movie. I look ahead, going over my cover story in my head ("I'm going home!"), and he walks straight past without even glancing my way. The policeman looks like he's about 16 years old (apparently, when you think the policemen look young it means that you are getting old).
The main road outside St Pancras and Kings Cross isn't as empty as I had expected. A few buses, trucks and Lycra-clad men on bikes. Some sign of life.
There's a bored-looking a guard on the entry to Kings Cross Station but he doesn't ask me anything as I saunter in with as much "purpose" as I can muster up. There are about 20 people in the whole station, a mixture of "key workers" (whatever they are) and worried-looking passengers. None of us passengers speak to each other. The only person who's friendly is an Italian station official who tells me the 13:00 to Edinburgh is leaving at 13:30, and not to worry about my reservation as "there will only be about five people on the train."
The fluorescent clad "key workers" have a gruff banter between themselves. Truncated comments, jokes and gestures are communicated across the station in short bursts. I tried to follow what they were saying but couldn't. They were communicating in a way that was bypassing us ordinary folk; easy enough when you consider that most of us are consumed by worry.
I find the experience of being in this empty station quite stimulating, almost exciting, but I can't understand why. I gradually realise that it reminds me of travelling in foreign locations where everything is different – and therefore of great interest. It's similar to the feeling I get when reading a dystopian novel, when all the things we know about our society have been swept away and a new system has been created.
I remember visiting the Bosnian city of Tuzla during the 1992-95 war; the streets were empty and everyone was hunkered down at home, or in trenches on the front lines. It also reminded me of Tibet in 1986 when there were so few vehicles that people would stand in the middle of the main street and have lengthy conversations. I'm feeling some of that sense of wonder I get when travelling in a place where the normal, western system of life doesn't apply.
But there's something else. How can I describe this modern station with scores of empty shops and all the high-tech lighting still functioning? It's far too well-designed and clean to be in a poor country, or in a post-apocalyptic world, which is what it initially felt like.
Then it struck me; it's like a huge art gallery which has a few bored officials making sure you don't do anything untoward, and a handful of visitors who are staring with deep concentration at … the departures board.
The Italian was right; the Edinburgh train only has about five people on it. We all have our own carriage, and I sprawl out over a big table: laptop, papers, book, phone, charging cables, water, lunch. It was a brand-new trains made by Hitachi, the Japanese company that makes electronics. It has the look and feel of a brand new car, a high-end type. I'm in the lap of luxury. The only thing missing is the drinks-and-snacks trolley but I can live without that and am grateful for not wasting money on bad coffee and junk food.
I read my friend's manuscript about Dracula ("the real story, " he claims), eat yesterday's lentil stew, have a nap and, four hours later, arrive in the capital of Scotland which is eerily empty. The only thing moving in the 1-mile sprawl of Princes Street are a few buses – and they're all empty.
Why am I travelling?
Over the last week I've taken a bit of flak from my Facebook friends after asking what's the best way to get to Edinburgh: train or bike (as in bicycle touring, with trailer and camping gear).
Many of those who responded didn't answer the question but said "don't go!", asking why I plan to break the rules of the lockdown. Some suggested that I just want to go on a jolly. But I did respect their view and didn't do what I really wanted to do – cycle up the east coast of England and camp on empty beaches every night. That would have been a jolly masking a valid reason to travel.
But I can't blame them for giving me a hard time as I should have explained why I came to Edinburgh.
It's quite simple; due to the virus, the flat I own in Edinburgh is now empty and I'm going to live in it for a while as I can't afford to pay rent in Brighton and have an empty flat in Edinburgh (which is a main source of income for me).
The other reason is to live on my own, in other words self-isolate better. In Brighton I was renting a flat from my aunt and she's in her seventies; every time I go to the shops I touch all sorts of surfaces and could bring the virus back.
As soon as the situation changes, and I get new people into my flat, I'm going to hit the road with my touring bike and trailer and do that east-coast route; it will hopefully be mid-summer by then and maybe the beaches will still be empty and there will be nobody to complain about a rogue cyclist putting up a tent where he's not supposed to.
#
Postscript; when looking up the population of the world I came across this compelling website, which shows the minute-by-minute growth of the global population. At the time of writing, a total of 17,688,444 people have died in the world thus far. Two minutes later I checked the figure again and it is now at 17,688,580. If my back-of-the-newspaper maths is correct, 146 people just died.
I find that constantly moving statistic fascinating, but also rather macabre, and wonder if it helps put the corona virus pandemic into some kind of perspective. I think not.
#
If you haven't yet got a copy of my new travel book you can get it here: Himalayan Bus Plunge -- & Other Stories from Nepal
#
Let me know what you think about all this in the comments section below. You can also use this space to share your own corona virus story. How have you been handling it? How are you feeling? What do you think will happen next?
I'm the only person on the train from Brighton to London. Usually you can't find a seat at this time of the morning (10:42 departure).
The only people at the station were railway workers and a lone policemen who took a long look at me and decided I wasn't worth questioning (I was trying hard to look as if I belonged there, hoping he wouldn't ask why I was pushing a bicycle and trailer).
The ticket inspector looked unfriendly but wasn't. He was probably just bored, as most people are in this strange time of the virus. I'm standing in front of the ticket barrier, wondering if he'll open it and let me through without asking for my ticket. He does.
I wonder why the trains are still running if nobody's travelling? I ask the inspector: "Who's using the trains these days?"
"Key workers and fare dodgers," he says. Where did this term "key worker" come from? Sounds like another way of saying Locksmith.
"Fare dodgers?" I asked, "What …?"
"People who don't have any business being on the trains..."
I walk onto a vast empty platform, feeling quite strange, as if I shouldn't be there. I'm expecting the policeman to put his hand on my shoulder at any moment.
The train is eerily empty and spotlessly clean.
We stop at station after station and the disembodied lady's voice comes on and tells me where I am. Nobody gets on. Nobody gets off. There's nobody at any of the stations except Gatwick Airport where I open the door and stare down the platform – and yes, I see someone; about 200 yards away a figure in fluorescent yellow is bending over a bin.
As we go through the London stations – Clapham Junction, London Bridge – where millions of people normally pass through every day, I see more fluorescent jackets; some look officious and others push a brush. The brush pushers look more relaxed.
I'm surprised Gatwick is so empty as I'd read in a paper that about 15,000 people a day fly into Britain, none of whom are checked for signs of the virus. Britain's approach to the virus seems over-reliant on the private sector bailing us out: Boris' hapless government are hoping that Google's new App will save us; apparently it will beep every time you go near someone who's admitted to having had the virus. But isn't that going to make those who've had it into instant pariahs? The former boss of MI6, Sir John Sawers, said in the FT: "What's being envisaged [for contact tracing] would go beyond what we used for security purposes."
But I don't let the ramblings of politicians worry me as there's nothing I can do about the fact that the global economy has been shut down because of our insatiable appetite for meat. All I can do is observe things and, I must confess with a certain amount of guilt (shouldn't I be depressed and worried?), that I find the whole thing absolutely fascinating.
Perhaps the most interesting thing that has happened is that a simple message – don't go out – has been picked up by virtually every nation on earth and over seven billion people are staying at home. It shows the incredible power of the media. Some people worry that it's a plot to control us, but what these people don't see is that it's based on consensus; if an overwhelming majority of people didn't see the point of this lockdown there's no way it could be enforced. Imagine if they tried to do repeat this trick to stop global warming, which is an even bigger threat than this virus, by banning fossil fuels – it wouldn't get anywhere.
St Pancras and Kings Cross
I get off the train at St Pancras and see one or two other passengers emerge from what I thought was "my" train. They all wear masks, as do I, and hurry off. Nobody seems to want to talk or even exchange a glance. Someone checks my ticket at the exit barrier and, as I head along the grand concourse of shops, a policeman approaches me; we're both heading towards each other like in a cowboy movie. I look ahead, going over my cover story in my head ("I'm going home!"), and he walks straight past without even glancing my way. The policeman looks like he's about 16 years old (apparently, when you think the policemen look young it means that you are getting old).
The main road outside St Pancras and Kings Cross isn't as empty as I had expected. A few buses, trucks and Lycra-clad men on bikes. Some sign of life.
There's a bored-looking a guard on the entry to Kings Cross Station but he doesn't ask me anything as I saunter in with as much "purpose" as I can muster up. There are about 20 people in the whole station, a mixture of "key workers" (whatever they are) and worried-looking passengers. None of us passengers speak to each other. The only person who's friendly is an Italian station official who tells me the 13:00 to Edinburgh is leaving at 13:30, and not to worry about my reservation as "there will only be about five people on the train."
The fluorescent clad "key workers" have a gruff banter between themselves. Truncated comments, jokes and gestures are communicated across the station in short bursts. I tried to follow what they were saying but couldn't. They were communicating in a way that was bypassing us ordinary folk; easy enough when you consider that most of us are consumed by worry.
I find the experience of being in this empty station quite stimulating, almost exciting, but I can't understand why. I gradually realise that it reminds me of travelling in foreign locations where everything is different – and therefore of great interest. It's similar to the feeling I get when reading a dystopian novel, when all the things we know about our society have been swept away and a new system has been created.
I remember visiting the Bosnian city of Tuzla during the 1992-95 war; the streets were empty and everyone was hunkered down at home, or in trenches on the front lines. It also reminded me of Tibet in 1986 when there were so few vehicles that people would stand in the middle of the main street and have lengthy conversations. I'm feeling some of that sense of wonder I get when travelling in a place where the normal, western system of life doesn't apply.
But there's something else. How can I describe this modern station with scores of empty shops and all the high-tech lighting still functioning? It's far too well-designed and clean to be in a poor country, or in a post-apocalyptic world, which is what it initially felt like.
Then it struck me; it's like a huge art gallery which has a few bored officials making sure you don't do anything untoward, and a handful of visitors who are staring with deep concentration at … the departures board.
The Italian was right; the Edinburgh train only has about five people on it. We all have our own carriage, and I sprawl out over a big table: laptop, papers, book, phone, charging cables, water, lunch. It was a brand-new trains made by Hitachi, the Japanese company that makes electronics. It has the look and feel of a brand new car, a high-end type. I'm in the lap of luxury. The only thing missing is the drinks-and-snacks trolley but I can live without that and am grateful for not wasting money on bad coffee and junk food.
I read my friend's manuscript about Dracula ("the real story, " he claims), eat yesterday's lentil stew, have a nap and, four hours later, arrive in the capital of Scotland which is eerily empty. The only thing moving in the 1-mile sprawl of Princes Street are a few buses – and they're all empty.
Why am I travelling?
Over the last week I've taken a bit of flak from my Facebook friends after asking what's the best way to get to Edinburgh: train or bike (as in bicycle touring, with trailer and camping gear).
Many of those who responded didn't answer the question but said "don't go!", asking why I plan to break the rules of the lockdown. Some suggested that I just want to go on a jolly. But I did respect their view and didn't do what I really wanted to do – cycle up the east coast of England and camp on empty beaches every night. That would have been a jolly masking a valid reason to travel.
But I can't blame them for giving me a hard time as I should have explained why I came to Edinburgh.
It's quite simple; due to the virus, the flat I own in Edinburgh is now empty and I'm going to live in it for a while as I can't afford to pay rent in Brighton and have an empty flat in Edinburgh (which is a main source of income for me).
The other reason is to live on my own, in other words self-isolate better. In Brighton I was renting a flat from my aunt and she's in her seventies; every time I go to the shops I touch all sorts of surfaces and could bring the virus back.
As soon as the situation changes, and I get new people into my flat, I'm going to hit the road with my touring bike and trailer and do that east-coast route; it will hopefully be mid-summer by then and maybe the beaches will still be empty and there will be nobody to complain about a rogue cyclist putting up a tent where he's not supposed to.
#
Postscript; when looking up the population of the world I came across this compelling website, which shows the minute-by-minute growth of the global population. At the time of writing, a total of 17,688,444 people have died in the world thus far. Two minutes later I checked the figure again and it is now at 17,688,580. If my back-of-the-newspaper maths is correct, 146 people just died.
I find that constantly moving statistic fascinating, but also rather macabre, and wonder if it helps put the corona virus pandemic into some kind of perspective. I think not.
#
If you haven't yet got a copy of my new travel book you can get it here: Himalayan Bus Plunge -- & Other Stories from Nepal
#
Let me know what you think about all this in the comments section below. You can also use this space to share your own corona virus story. How have you been handling it? How are you feeling? What do you think will happen next?
April 6, 2020
My Coronavirus Diary
At first I was like Trump – in denial – but when it became clear, except to the most diehard conspiracy theorists, that this wasn't just another seasonal flu I realised that self-isolation and lockdown were essential.
"Easy," I thought, "I've been here before. I've lived in post-revolution Romania and post-war Bosnia. I can keep calm in a crisis and I've experienced nationwide food shortages. Surely the NHS will value this experience when assembling teams to deal with the crisis."
Then came the call for NHS volunteers and, along with about 700,000 others, I applied. But they only requested minimal information (name, address, driving licence number) and I wasn't surprised that there was no reply. If they'd had a more detailed form they could have worked out our skills, experience and availability and assigned us to nearby hospitals, but now they have over half a million application forms and it will take them until Doomsday to go through them all. I also applied to a private sector ad, for "NHS IT Volunteers", as well as a local charity, – but no response from either of them.
All this has made me face up to reality which is that my aid agency days are over, and they were so long ago (1990 to '95) that any recruiter would think I'm deranged to think I could apply for something similar in this day and age.
In preparation for my heroic career as a "front line" NHS volunteer I set up camp in my aunt's little garden in Brighton (I rent her attic-flat). The idea was that I'd return from a 12 hour shift in the Accident and Emergency department, or driving ambulances at high speed through an empty city, and live in the garden in order to not bring the virus into the house. I dug a compost toilet, eat all my meals outside, sleep in a tipi tent and avoid going inside the house.
But my call from the NHS never came and I've moved on.
I think everyone has time to reflect these days and one of the things I've realised is that my rush to become an NHS volunteer is only partly a desire to help people; it's also an urge to escape the boredom of isolation. It's much more exciting to become part of a team in a crisis than being stuck in a garden for weeks on end.
It was also an attempt to escape my real purpose in life, which I recently told myself was to write books. The truth is that this time of lockdown and isolation is an ideal moment to finish all the books I've written but not yet published. All I have to do is focus on writing, editing and publishing every day, work out the intricacies of self-publishing on Amazon (they're surprisingly simple if you have patience) and avoid distractions.
But when faced with a new creation, a new book, all sorts of fears come to the fore – will it be a failure? – and it's so much easier to give in to procrastination, rush off to an emergency where the action and excitement will suck me in and enable me to postpone doing what I really should be doing.
So here I am, in my aunt's pottery studio, writing this article and about to self-publish the paperback edition of my new travel book on Nepal. Next up is a book on Romania and soon after that I'll dust down and finish off a book about the evils of international adoption.
My intention is to get all the books I've written but not published out there, in the public domain, so that I can forget all about them and move on. I've got so many ideas for new books, and can write them quickly, but the problem is I get bogged down in the Dreaded Swamp of Procrastination – where thousands of great books have met their doom. I don't have Writer's Block, I have what could be called Publisher's Block – I find the production and especially the promotional side really depressing and tend to avoid it, resulting in finished manuscripts sitting around for years.
During this current crisis, and thanks to the NHS for not dragging me into their chaos, I've been able to find the time – and the determination – to overcome this block. Every day this week I've been working on Amazon's Kindle service where all the tools to self-publish and promote a book are available for free. All it takes is a bit of patience and, most importantly, the will to banish the demon of procrastination back to his pit.
A key factor in enabling me to write was the realisation that my books don't need to succeed – this simple truth hit me with the power of a revelation. It really doesn't matter if nobody buys them, if they disappear without trace on Amazon's vast sprawl. That's not the point. My aim is just to share a story and then move onto the next one. Feedback is important but I mustn't let a lack of it hold me back. I imagine comedians and musicians playing to empty halls and carrying on anyway despite the vote of no confidence. They must go on to the next gig or they wouldn't be artists.
The real key to writing is very simple: self-discipline. What this means in practice is sitting down and writing for up to four hours a day. It's really hard to actually do this as there are distractions everywhere and the evil twins of procrastination and complacency can often seem so very attractive; but once you get going it become self-perpetuating; a daily routing gets easier the longer you do it.
Every book I've seen about How to Write mentions this four hour a day rule and I've known about it for about 30 years. But I've allowed myself to get distracted by emergency situations, difficult jobs, complacency and, in recent years, the galaxy of online entertainment that is waiting in my pocket. My whole life nearly went by without having written a word, without having left any stories behind.
Two things have changed all that and enabled me to write, publish, rinse and repeat. First of all this coronavirus pandemic has kept me in the same place for long enough to stop making excuses and face up to my life's purpose.
The second thing that has kicked me into gear is a rather dubious deal I've made with a writer friend, who also struggles with the evil twins and is sitting on a pile of great, unpublished, gems. I told him "If I don't write four hours a day I will pay you £40. If I write one hour a day I'll pay you £30; in other words I'll pay you £10 an hour for every hour I don't write."
The final thing that has turned me from couch-potato into productive writer-cum-self-publisher is turning off the phone, which I do every evening and it only get turned on after I've done my 4 hours a day (usually about lunchtime). Considering how many distractions are in a modern phone, and how easily it sucks you in during a moment of weakness, this really helps me focus. And when it comes to turning the thing back on again I assume there will be a ton of missed calls and unanswered messages but no – during this lockdown, at least in my experience, people are communicating less.
My writer friend probably thinks I'm insane but it's actually working like a dream. The last thing I want to do is give him any money at all, let alone £40 a day – in this time of economic shutdown it would be madness – and it's motivating me more effectively than anything I've tried in the last 30 years. This is the third day I've been doing it and I'm approaching my third hour today; and my last hour will end neatly at 1.20PM which is exactly lunchtime.
If you've read this far I'd really appreciate it if you would buy my new travel book on Amazon: Himalayan Bus Plunge, and other stories from Nepal.
Every time someone buys a copy it's like a vote of confidence, another member of the audience for that struggling musician, and a review is like when a particularly keen fan comes up to the performer afterwards and tells him how much he enjoyed it. Even bad reviews are good because it shows that people are engaging, and that's all we can expect.
I did say I don't really care if people buy the book and that's true – but an equally valid truth is that it would be wonderful if people did.
N.B. The image used with this article was the first cover proposal by the Maria Tanasescu. The trouble with working with great designers like Maria is that one has to choose from a series of great designs and it's difficult and painful. Looking at this image now I'm thinking "this is better than the one I chose..."
"Easy," I thought, "I've been here before. I've lived in post-revolution Romania and post-war Bosnia. I can keep calm in a crisis and I've experienced nationwide food shortages. Surely the NHS will value this experience when assembling teams to deal with the crisis."
Then came the call for NHS volunteers and, along with about 700,000 others, I applied. But they only requested minimal information (name, address, driving licence number) and I wasn't surprised that there was no reply. If they'd had a more detailed form they could have worked out our skills, experience and availability and assigned us to nearby hospitals, but now they have over half a million application forms and it will take them until Doomsday to go through them all. I also applied to a private sector ad, for "NHS IT Volunteers", as well as a local charity, – but no response from either of them.
All this has made me face up to reality which is that my aid agency days are over, and they were so long ago (1990 to '95) that any recruiter would think I'm deranged to think I could apply for something similar in this day and age.
In preparation for my heroic career as a "front line" NHS volunteer I set up camp in my aunt's little garden in Brighton (I rent her attic-flat). The idea was that I'd return from a 12 hour shift in the Accident and Emergency department, or driving ambulances at high speed through an empty city, and live in the garden in order to not bring the virus into the house. I dug a compost toilet, eat all my meals outside, sleep in a tipi tent and avoid going inside the house.
But my call from the NHS never came and I've moved on.
I think everyone has time to reflect these days and one of the things I've realised is that my rush to become an NHS volunteer is only partly a desire to help people; it's also an urge to escape the boredom of isolation. It's much more exciting to become part of a team in a crisis than being stuck in a garden for weeks on end.
It was also an attempt to escape my real purpose in life, which I recently told myself was to write books. The truth is that this time of lockdown and isolation is an ideal moment to finish all the books I've written but not yet published. All I have to do is focus on writing, editing and publishing every day, work out the intricacies of self-publishing on Amazon (they're surprisingly simple if you have patience) and avoid distractions.
But when faced with a new creation, a new book, all sorts of fears come to the fore – will it be a failure? – and it's so much easier to give in to procrastination, rush off to an emergency where the action and excitement will suck me in and enable me to postpone doing what I really should be doing.
So here I am, in my aunt's pottery studio, writing this article and about to self-publish the paperback edition of my new travel book on Nepal. Next up is a book on Romania and soon after that I'll dust down and finish off a book about the evils of international adoption.
My intention is to get all the books I've written but not published out there, in the public domain, so that I can forget all about them and move on. I've got so many ideas for new books, and can write them quickly, but the problem is I get bogged down in the Dreaded Swamp of Procrastination – where thousands of great books have met their doom. I don't have Writer's Block, I have what could be called Publisher's Block – I find the production and especially the promotional side really depressing and tend to avoid it, resulting in finished manuscripts sitting around for years.
During this current crisis, and thanks to the NHS for not dragging me into their chaos, I've been able to find the time – and the determination – to overcome this block. Every day this week I've been working on Amazon's Kindle service where all the tools to self-publish and promote a book are available for free. All it takes is a bit of patience and, most importantly, the will to banish the demon of procrastination back to his pit.
A key factor in enabling me to write was the realisation that my books don't need to succeed – this simple truth hit me with the power of a revelation. It really doesn't matter if nobody buys them, if they disappear without trace on Amazon's vast sprawl. That's not the point. My aim is just to share a story and then move onto the next one. Feedback is important but I mustn't let a lack of it hold me back. I imagine comedians and musicians playing to empty halls and carrying on anyway despite the vote of no confidence. They must go on to the next gig or they wouldn't be artists.
The real key to writing is very simple: self-discipline. What this means in practice is sitting down and writing for up to four hours a day. It's really hard to actually do this as there are distractions everywhere and the evil twins of procrastination and complacency can often seem so very attractive; but once you get going it become self-perpetuating; a daily routing gets easier the longer you do it.
Every book I've seen about How to Write mentions this four hour a day rule and I've known about it for about 30 years. But I've allowed myself to get distracted by emergency situations, difficult jobs, complacency and, in recent years, the galaxy of online entertainment that is waiting in my pocket. My whole life nearly went by without having written a word, without having left any stories behind.
Two things have changed all that and enabled me to write, publish, rinse and repeat. First of all this coronavirus pandemic has kept me in the same place for long enough to stop making excuses and face up to my life's purpose.
The second thing that has kicked me into gear is a rather dubious deal I've made with a writer friend, who also struggles with the evil twins and is sitting on a pile of great, unpublished, gems. I told him "If I don't write four hours a day I will pay you £40. If I write one hour a day I'll pay you £30; in other words I'll pay you £10 an hour for every hour I don't write."
The final thing that has turned me from couch-potato into productive writer-cum-self-publisher is turning off the phone, which I do every evening and it only get turned on after I've done my 4 hours a day (usually about lunchtime). Considering how many distractions are in a modern phone, and how easily it sucks you in during a moment of weakness, this really helps me focus. And when it comes to turning the thing back on again I assume there will be a ton of missed calls and unanswered messages but no – during this lockdown, at least in my experience, people are communicating less.
My writer friend probably thinks I'm insane but it's actually working like a dream. The last thing I want to do is give him any money at all, let alone £40 a day – in this time of economic shutdown it would be madness – and it's motivating me more effectively than anything I've tried in the last 30 years. This is the third day I've been doing it and I'm approaching my third hour today; and my last hour will end neatly at 1.20PM which is exactly lunchtime.
If you've read this far I'd really appreciate it if you would buy my new travel book on Amazon: Himalayan Bus Plunge, and other stories from Nepal.
Every time someone buys a copy it's like a vote of confidence, another member of the audience for that struggling musician, and a review is like when a particularly keen fan comes up to the performer afterwards and tells him how much he enjoyed it. Even bad reviews are good because it shows that people are engaging, and that's all we can expect.
I did say I don't really care if people buy the book and that's true – but an equally valid truth is that it would be wonderful if people did.
N.B. The image used with this article was the first cover proposal by the Maria Tanasescu. The trouble with working with great designers like Maria is that one has to choose from a series of great designs and it's difficult and painful. Looking at this image now I'm thinking "this is better than the one I chose..."
March 20, 2020
My new travel book on Nepal
Here's the press release for my new travel book:
Escape the virus (at least for a few hours) with Rupert Wolfe Murray’s new travel book: Himalayan Bus Plunge -- And other stories from Nepal.
In his introduction to Wolfe Murray’s first travel book, Alexander McCall Smith wrote: "We are there with Mr Wolfe Murray, experiencing his discomfort and anxiety, but sharing, too, his insights.”
Read about the author’s fear of going off a cliff on a rickety Nepalese bus, his horror of going home (“Culture Shock!”), and meet a unusual cast of characters: a gardener who translates for aid agencies; a brain surgeon who drives like a demon; and the Tibetan doctor who diagnosed the author’s fever as “fire in the belly”.
“My original aim was to offer travellers to Nepal a complement to the Lonely Planet type guidebooks,” said Rupert Wolfe Murray, who is currently based in Brighton. “Then along came Coronavirus and I was told now is a terrible time to publish a travel book as nobody is making any travel plans. I’m sure that’s true but I also think this is a good time to publish as people are stuck at home looking for something new to read.”
Pre-publication feedback:
"Stories that are funny and always compelling. Rupert Wolfe Murray is a throwback to an earlier bolder time, like finding Hemingway alive and well on Oxford Street." Chris Stephen, journalist and war reporter
"Your written prose is strong and well crafted. You have a very interesting personal history in the Himalayas and a deeply involved, embedded brother there. This adds rare insight.
"You connect to people but keep an almost third person perspective: unemotional observation of those with whom you interact. I came away with a deeper understanding of the region."
Peter Mair, Retired Federal Prosecutor (USA)
#
If you'd like to get copy of this new book on Nepal just click here.
Escape the virus (at least for a few hours) with Rupert Wolfe Murray’s new travel book: Himalayan Bus Plunge -- And other stories from Nepal.
In his introduction to Wolfe Murray’s first travel book, Alexander McCall Smith wrote: "We are there with Mr Wolfe Murray, experiencing his discomfort and anxiety, but sharing, too, his insights.”
Read about the author’s fear of going off a cliff on a rickety Nepalese bus, his horror of going home (“Culture Shock!”), and meet a unusual cast of characters: a gardener who translates for aid agencies; a brain surgeon who drives like a demon; and the Tibetan doctor who diagnosed the author’s fever as “fire in the belly”.
“My original aim was to offer travellers to Nepal a complement to the Lonely Planet type guidebooks,” said Rupert Wolfe Murray, who is currently based in Brighton. “Then along came Coronavirus and I was told now is a terrible time to publish a travel book as nobody is making any travel plans. I’m sure that’s true but I also think this is a good time to publish as people are stuck at home looking for something new to read.”
Pre-publication feedback:
"Stories that are funny and always compelling. Rupert Wolfe Murray is a throwback to an earlier bolder time, like finding Hemingway alive and well on Oxford Street." Chris Stephen, journalist and war reporter
"Your written prose is strong and well crafted. You have a very interesting personal history in the Himalayas and a deeply involved, embedded brother there. This adds rare insight.
"You connect to people but keep an almost third person perspective: unemotional observation of those with whom you interact. I came away with a deeper understanding of the region."
Peter Mair, Retired Federal Prosecutor (USA)
#
If you'd like to get copy of this new book on Nepal just click here.
Escape coronavirus with a new travel book on Nepal
Here's the press release for my new travel book:
Escape the virus (at least for a few hours) with Rupert Wolfe Murray’s new travel book: Himalayan Bus Plunge -- And other stories from Nepal.
In his introduction to Wolfe Murray’s first travel book, Alexander McCall Smith wrote: "We are there with Mr Wolfe Murray, experiencing his discomfort and anxiety, but sharing, too, his insights.”
Read about the author’s fear of going off a cliff on a rickety Nepalese bus, his horror of going home (“Culture Shock!”), and meet a unusual cast of characters: a gardener who translates for aid agencies; a brain surgeon who drives like a demon; and the Tibetan doctor who diagnosed the author’s fever as “fire in the belly”.
“My original aim was to offer travellers to Nepal a complement to the Lonely Planet type guidebooks,” said Rupert Wolfe Murray, who is currently based in Brighton. “Then along came Coronavirus and I was told now is a terrible time to publish a travel book as nobody is making any travel plans. I’m sure that’s true but I also think this is a good time to publish as people are stuck at home looking for something new to read.”
Pre-publication feedback:
"Stories that are funny and always compelling. Rupert Wolfe Murray is a throwback to an earlier bolder time, like finding Hemingway alive and well on Oxford Street." Chris Stephen, journalist and war reporter
"Your written prose is strong and well crafted. You have a very interesting personal history in the Himalayas and a deeply involved, embedded brother there. This adds rare insight.
"You connect to people but keep an almost third person perspective: unemotional observation of those with whom you interact. I came away with a deeper understanding of the region."
Peter Mair, Retired Federal Prosecutor (USA)
#
If you'd like to get copy of this new book on Nepal just click here.
Escape the virus (at least for a few hours) with Rupert Wolfe Murray’s new travel book: Himalayan Bus Plunge -- And other stories from Nepal.
In his introduction to Wolfe Murray’s first travel book, Alexander McCall Smith wrote: "We are there with Mr Wolfe Murray, experiencing his discomfort and anxiety, but sharing, too, his insights.”
Read about the author’s fear of going off a cliff on a rickety Nepalese bus, his horror of going home (“Culture Shock!”), and meet a unusual cast of characters: a gardener who translates for aid agencies; a brain surgeon who drives like a demon; and the Tibetan doctor who diagnosed the author’s fever as “fire in the belly”.
“My original aim was to offer travellers to Nepal a complement to the Lonely Planet type guidebooks,” said Rupert Wolfe Murray, who is currently based in Brighton. “Then along came Coronavirus and I was told now is a terrible time to publish a travel book as nobody is making any travel plans. I’m sure that’s true but I also think this is a good time to publish as people are stuck at home looking for something new to read.”
Pre-publication feedback:
"Stories that are funny and always compelling. Rupert Wolfe Murray is a throwback to an earlier bolder time, like finding Hemingway alive and well on Oxford Street." Chris Stephen, journalist and war reporter
"Your written prose is strong and well crafted. You have a very interesting personal history in the Himalayas and a deeply involved, embedded brother there. This adds rare insight.
"You connect to people but keep an almost third person perspective: unemotional observation of those with whom you interact. I came away with a deeper understanding of the region."
Peter Mair, Retired Federal Prosecutor (USA)
#
If you'd like to get copy of this new book on Nepal just click here.
Escape coronavirus with new travel book
Here's the press release for my new travel book:
Escape the virus (at least for a few hours) with Rupert Wolfe Murray’s new travel book: Himalayan Bus Plunge -- And other stories from Nepal.
In his introduction to Wolfe Murray’s first travel book, Alexander McCall Smith wrote: "We are there with Mr Wolfe Murray, experiencing his discomfort and anxiety, but sharing, too, his insights.”
Read about the author’s fear of going off a cliff on a rickety Nepalese bus, his horror of going home (“Culture Shock!”), and meet a unusual cast of characters: a gardener who translates for aid agencies; a brain surgeon who drives like a demon; and the Tibetan doctor who diagnosed the author’s fever as “fire in the belly”.
“My original aim was to offer travellers to Nepal a complement to the Lonely Planet type guidebooks,” said Rupert Wolfe Murray, who is currently based in Brighton. “Then along came Coronavirus and I was told now is a terrible time to publish a travel book as nobody is making any travel plans. I’m sure that’s true but I also think this is a good time to publish as people are stuck at home looking for something new to read.”
Pre-publication feedback:
"Stories that are funny and always compelling. Rupert Wolfe Murray is a throwback to an earlier bolder time, like finding Hemingway alive and well on Oxford Street." Chris Stephen, journalist and war reporter
"Your written prose is strong and well crafted. You have a very interesting personal history in the Himalayas and a deeply involved, embedded brother there. This adds rare insight.
"You connect to people but keep an almost third person perspective: unemotional observation of those with whom you interact. I came away with a deeper understanding of the region."
Peter Mair, Retired Federal Prosecutor (USA)
#
If you'd like to see my other articles from Nepal click here: https://wolfemurray.com/category/nepa...
Escape the virus (at least for a few hours) with Rupert Wolfe Murray’s new travel book: Himalayan Bus Plunge -- And other stories from Nepal.
In his introduction to Wolfe Murray’s first travel book, Alexander McCall Smith wrote: "We are there with Mr Wolfe Murray, experiencing his discomfort and anxiety, but sharing, too, his insights.”
Read about the author’s fear of going off a cliff on a rickety Nepalese bus, his horror of going home (“Culture Shock!”), and meet a unusual cast of characters: a gardener who translates for aid agencies; a brain surgeon who drives like a demon; and the Tibetan doctor who diagnosed the author’s fever as “fire in the belly”.
“My original aim was to offer travellers to Nepal a complement to the Lonely Planet type guidebooks,” said Rupert Wolfe Murray, who is currently based in Brighton. “Then along came Coronavirus and I was told now is a terrible time to publish a travel book as nobody is making any travel plans. I’m sure that’s true but I also think this is a good time to publish as people are stuck at home looking for something new to read.”
Pre-publication feedback:
"Stories that are funny and always compelling. Rupert Wolfe Murray is a throwback to an earlier bolder time, like finding Hemingway alive and well on Oxford Street." Chris Stephen, journalist and war reporter
"Your written prose is strong and well crafted. You have a very interesting personal history in the Himalayas and a deeply involved, embedded brother there. This adds rare insight.
"You connect to people but keep an almost third person perspective: unemotional observation of those with whom you interact. I came away with a deeper understanding of the region."
Peter Mair, Retired Federal Prosecutor (USA)
#
If you'd like to see my other articles from Nepal click here: https://wolfemurray.com/category/nepa...
Quirky Views of a Travel Writer
I'm a travel writer with a few books already published and many more to come.
My view on life is unusual and people seem to like my take on things.
This is where I'll share my ideas.
I'd love to be your ...more
My view on life is unusual and people seem to like my take on things.
This is where I'll share my ideas.
I'd love to be your ...more
- Rupert Wolfe-Murray's profile
- 10 followers
