Kit Whitfield's Blog, page 7

Writing exercise

Every now and again I sign up to an adult-ed writing class, one that'll make me do writing exercises, so that I can be in a room with other people working away and have to bend my imagination to solving the short-term problem that's been set me. It's like joining a gym: once you commit to going, you get a work-out, and your health benefits.

So, last Saturday was the first class of term. And since writing exercises can be interesting, I thought I'd share.

The exercise was this: pair off with you...

First sentences: Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller

March 1, 1998
The other night, at dinner, Sheba talked about the first time that she and the Connolly boy kissed.

Notes on a Scandal (or What Was She Thinking? Notes on a Scandal in the US) is a book with a Foreword and a first chapter, but in this instance, I'm going to focus on the Foreword. The narrator, Barbara Covett, is telling us this story with a clear aim in mind: she is in the middle of a national scandal and, without confiding her plans to the woman on whose actions this scandal...

First sentences: Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green.

The landscape outlasts the characters in this book: we begin with a future death scene.

According to his star, John Wayne, the famous Westerns director John Ford used to say (quoted from memory, as I no longer have the video on which he said it), 'Give them the scene then give them the scenery, give them the scenery then give them the scene, but you can't give both at once.' Whether or n...

Mikalogue - happy Christmas Tracy!

First of all, apologies to Tracy and Jolyon: somehow your request for a charity Mikalogue ended up in my spam filter and I've only just come across it. Tracy: Jolyon has bought you a Mikalogue for Christmas!



Mika: ...Is dreamin of a dry Christmas, just like the ones Mika used to know...

Kit: Do you mean a white Christmas, sweetheart?

Mika: Nope. Is rainin and rainin and rainin Christmas. Need to go out and patrol, but world is throwin water! Not fair.

Kit: Do you really need to go patrol, honey?

M...

Mikalogue, courtesy of Tracy S

Many thanks to Tracy S, who has taken advantage of this blog's fundraising scheme to raise money for Xavier's surgery and bought herself a post of choice. Tracy requested a Mikalogue. Anyone else who'd like to get a blog post on any subject of their choosing, just make a £20 donation and e-mail me the receipt, and I'll have at it.



Mika: Out with you! Out!

Kit: Mika, honey, what are you playing at?

Mika: Out, damned squeak!

Kit: Are you playing with Nat's truck, Mika?

Mika: Mousie will succumb to M...

Meet Xavier

This is Xavier.

Once a week, I take my son to a physiotherapy playgroup. For me, it's a peace-of-mind measure, and to him it's just fun: he's a bit of late walker and the physios keep an eye on him. We don't have to worry about anything worse, because with my Nat, it's just one of those variations in development that every child has. Some walk early, some walk late, and Nat is of the latter group. No biggie. He's going to be fine. We're the lucky ones.

Xavier also attends that group. Cheerful a...

First sentences: Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

They say when trouble comes close ranks, and so the white people did. 

Wide Sargasso Sea: the most famous of literary responses. Written with, as Rhys herself put it, 'profound apologies to Charlotte Bronte and a deep curtsey too'*, at a time when she was thinking of calling it The First Mrs Rochester: its very existence, like the apologies and curtsey to Bronte, speaks of passionate ambivalence towards its predecessor Jane Eyre.

There are books like that, often books by women, n...

In defence of Twilight

In discussion on the last post, I found myself mentioning the Twilight books to illustrate one way of reading. It being Halloween, a story about vampires seems appropriate enough ... but on the other hand, while I've written about Twilight before, I find that I actually have more to say.

What I have to say is this: I think it's time people cut those books a break. Online mockery is a major fashion at the moment and Twilight is an easy target; they've become more or less synonymous with 'ghastl...

Human movie monsters

I've been quiet for a few weeks; there's been a family tragedy that's taken up a lot of my time and will probably take up more in future. Just so you know. I'm okay, but very sad.

However, Halloween is coming and it always seems to me a cheerful festival, a chance for pretty orange lights and safe campfire scares. So, with this in mind, here's a Halloween subject:

What are the scariest or most monstrous performances in movies? Not goblins and vampires, but just human beings?

When I started compi...

Brian Cox talking Scotch

Want to know how to pronounce all those different Scotches? Brian Cox knows.

This is not a very literary post and contains no clever insights, but - because of Cox's graceful presence, and perhaps because whisky was always my dad's favourite when I was growing up - I find the whole thing thoroughly soothing. Go enjoy it.