Marius Trevelean's Blog, page 4
February 24, 2012
Tartare - FREE on Amazon 24/02 - 26/02
Willpower will get you so far and then it'll get you killed.
If you like raw meat, cat-hunting, goat-napping, nicotine-deprivation-induced hallucinations, drunken Tourettes, accidental dwarf murder, botched suicide, KC and the Sunshine Band and the most bizarre curry recipe ever? Then you may enjoy Tartare by M Trevelean.
If you don't? You're a normal upstanding member of the human race. Bad luck.
Tartare is available to download free of charge on Amazon from Friday 24 - Sunday 26th February.
http://www.amazon.com/Tartare-ebook/dp/B006F6FKI0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330082136&sr=8-1
If you like raw meat, cat-hunting, goat-napping, nicotine-deprivation-induced hallucinations, drunken Tourettes, accidental dwarf murder, botched suicide, KC and the Sunshine Band and the most bizarre curry recipe ever? Then you may enjoy Tartare by M Trevelean.
If you don't? You're a normal upstanding member of the human race. Bad luck.
Tartare is available to download free of charge on Amazon from Friday 24 - Sunday 26th February.
http://www.amazon.com/Tartare-ebook/dp/B006F6FKI0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330082136&sr=8-1
February 22, 2012
Tartare - First Goodreads review
Here is the first review for my novel 'Tartare' - written and reviewed by Goodreads member Simon Forward.
What a difference a book makes. While my previous read - some lifeless vampire piffle - drained my will to live, this was the kind of book that re-ignites my passion for both reading and writing. Tartare is an inspired tour de farce that takes us on a twisted spiral of a journey through the world of addiction. I originally read a handful of sample chapters back on the HarperCollins authonomy website and it was one of the true standouts then. The impressions endured so as soon as I saw that the author had made it available on Kindle, I leaped at the chance to read it, much like its protagonist, Edgar Ferrol, leaps at - well, that would be spoiling it for you. Fair warning, it's not cosy, it's not cuddly, it'll send more sensitive souls running to the relative comfort of a night of Frankie Boyle stand-up. And yet, despite the popularity of edgier comics, this was never going to appeal to the risk-averse, safety-first publishing industry. Which is a recommendation in itself.
It's often customary to offer some sort of comparison with other authors, but the closest I can come up with is Iain Banks, back before I lost faith in him with The Business. But yeah, maybe if Banks was on his best form and wrote the movie Delicatessen, er, you might be somewhere in the ball park. That aforementioned twisted spiral follows a surprisingly natural progression, firmly rooted in reality, lending a compelling conviction to poor Edgar's descent into a personal hell - largely of his own making. The author does everything in his power to encourage us to dislike Edgar and yet, some bloody how, we're invested in his journey. We care.
There's some complex psychology at its core, with an exquisite line in scathing cynicism interwoven with Edgar's driven, self-obsessive mania. It's captivating, engrossing stuff and - in contrast with the vampire drivel - I devoured it (ahem) in four days.
The one main criticism I can level at it is that for all its clever natural progression, the end is delivered courtesy of a character who seems to come out of left field, spilling over into the outright surreal. And yet the story almost demands this kind of transition from sublime to ridiculous and in some respects fits with the more surreal elements of some of Banks' literary works - Walking On Glass or The Bridge, say.
Beyond that, it deserves five stars for being like nothing else I've read. But I'm knocking off a star for a smattering of typos that slipped through the edit. They're by no means ruinous and they're a common enough feature of mainstream published works these days.
The key difference is this story will leave a lasting mark. While the mainstream washes over us all and flows into an ocean of fast-food packaging.
This has meat.
What a difference a book makes. While my previous read - some lifeless vampire piffle - drained my will to live, this was the kind of book that re-ignites my passion for both reading and writing. Tartare is an inspired tour de farce that takes us on a twisted spiral of a journey through the world of addiction. I originally read a handful of sample chapters back on the HarperCollins authonomy website and it was one of the true standouts then. The impressions endured so as soon as I saw that the author had made it available on Kindle, I leaped at the chance to read it, much like its protagonist, Edgar Ferrol, leaps at - well, that would be spoiling it for you. Fair warning, it's not cosy, it's not cuddly, it'll send more sensitive souls running to the relative comfort of a night of Frankie Boyle stand-up. And yet, despite the popularity of edgier comics, this was never going to appeal to the risk-averse, safety-first publishing industry. Which is a recommendation in itself.
It's often customary to offer some sort of comparison with other authors, but the closest I can come up with is Iain Banks, back before I lost faith in him with The Business. But yeah, maybe if Banks was on his best form and wrote the movie Delicatessen, er, you might be somewhere in the ball park. That aforementioned twisted spiral follows a surprisingly natural progression, firmly rooted in reality, lending a compelling conviction to poor Edgar's descent into a personal hell - largely of his own making. The author does everything in his power to encourage us to dislike Edgar and yet, some bloody how, we're invested in his journey. We care.
There's some complex psychology at its core, with an exquisite line in scathing cynicism interwoven with Edgar's driven, self-obsessive mania. It's captivating, engrossing stuff and - in contrast with the vampire drivel - I devoured it (ahem) in four days.
The one main criticism I can level at it is that for all its clever natural progression, the end is delivered courtesy of a character who seems to come out of left field, spilling over into the outright surreal. And yet the story almost demands this kind of transition from sublime to ridiculous and in some respects fits with the more surreal elements of some of Banks' literary works - Walking On Glass or The Bridge, say.
Beyond that, it deserves five stars for being like nothing else I've read. But I'm knocking off a star for a smattering of typos that slipped through the edit. They're by no means ruinous and they're a common enough feature of mainstream published works these days.
The key difference is this story will leave a lasting mark. While the mainstream washes over us all and flows into an ocean of fast-food packaging.
This has meat.
February 9, 2012
Dreaming the Life
I hate big companies. There, I've said it. They invade your living room and your computer and your phone, your newspapers, magazines, radio. They infiltrate every aspect of your life from what to wear, what to drive, how to eat, where to drink…effectively how to live your life. They bombard you with adverts in every medium, promoting clean living, responsible drinking, being kind to one another. It's all white teeth, sandy beaches, slim women with perfect breasts, hairless men with six-packs, happy pensioners, still in love, enjoying their twilight years…all the same old utopian bullshit.
If companies want to use symbolism then they at least should have the honesty to reflect the world that we live in, rather than an idealised dream where maybe 1% of the total world population can start off the day with a pillow fight with their semi-naked model girlfriend before driving to the beach for lunch followed by the best seats in the house for the World Cup Final and topped off by a pool party on a cliff-top locale. Why? Because while the playboys and millionaires can aspire to these unrealistic of ideals the rest of us are at WORK, in the real world, surrounded by ugly fat people who smell bad rather than of 'Pretension' by Calvin Klein.
Of course we expect corporations to sell the dream, after all images of ugliness and pain don't create the necessary escapism we need. Fair enough but have you ever tried calling the people who are responsible for these modern myths? - those same people that commission the ad with the puppy that brings you toilet roll when in reality it's an uncomfortable jog to the kitchen cupboard with your under-crackers round your ankles. Yes, those bastards.
I do it every day. It's my job and let me tell you something…its all lies. For example when you're on a phone call and the robotic woman on the message says – "Please hold the line your call is important to us." Then when you call through to speak to the Marketing Director and the monosyllabic receptionist in Darfour says that they don't take calls and you'll have to email, the first thing you think is –
"But I thought my call was important to you."
My personal favourite is if you're the lucky lottery winner that manages to get through to them (when they're not at lunch for 3 hours or in their fifteenth meeting of the week or they've gone home at 4 because they only work three days a week and finish early on a Friday – is when they get the hump because they've never spoken to you before and you have the audacity to call them at work. I always respond with – "Well I never gave you permission to invade my living room a dozen times a night selling your rubbish but you do it anyway."
So don't believe the hype, don't buy the products, watch as these businesses fail and get replaced by other businesses promising the same intangible dreams, of lifestyles that you'll never have or women that you'll never fuck. Be happy without things and they'll stop trying to sell you them.
If companies want to use symbolism then they at least should have the honesty to reflect the world that we live in, rather than an idealised dream where maybe 1% of the total world population can start off the day with a pillow fight with their semi-naked model girlfriend before driving to the beach for lunch followed by the best seats in the house for the World Cup Final and topped off by a pool party on a cliff-top locale. Why? Because while the playboys and millionaires can aspire to these unrealistic of ideals the rest of us are at WORK, in the real world, surrounded by ugly fat people who smell bad rather than of 'Pretension' by Calvin Klein.
Of course we expect corporations to sell the dream, after all images of ugliness and pain don't create the necessary escapism we need. Fair enough but have you ever tried calling the people who are responsible for these modern myths? - those same people that commission the ad with the puppy that brings you toilet roll when in reality it's an uncomfortable jog to the kitchen cupboard with your under-crackers round your ankles. Yes, those bastards.
I do it every day. It's my job and let me tell you something…its all lies. For example when you're on a phone call and the robotic woman on the message says – "Please hold the line your call is important to us." Then when you call through to speak to the Marketing Director and the monosyllabic receptionist in Darfour says that they don't take calls and you'll have to email, the first thing you think is –
"But I thought my call was important to you."
My personal favourite is if you're the lucky lottery winner that manages to get through to them (when they're not at lunch for 3 hours or in their fifteenth meeting of the week or they've gone home at 4 because they only work three days a week and finish early on a Friday – is when they get the hump because they've never spoken to you before and you have the audacity to call them at work. I always respond with – "Well I never gave you permission to invade my living room a dozen times a night selling your rubbish but you do it anyway."
So don't believe the hype, don't buy the products, watch as these businesses fail and get replaced by other businesses promising the same intangible dreams, of lifestyles that you'll never have or women that you'll never fuck. Be happy without things and they'll stop trying to sell you them.
January 18, 2012
Plain Pain Packaging - The Smokers Repost
So Australia is going to introduce plain packaging laws from December 2012 to inhibit the promotional packaging power of cigarettes. Hmmm. That was my first reaction. Now I've had a chance to think about it and my reaction is – hmmm. I've been trying to recall when I first started smoking, or rather started buying cigarettes. I've been racking my brains to think if the packaging ever made a difference to which brand I would buy or whether it swayed me into becoming a smoker in the first place and the answer is an unequivocal 'no'.If you were to take a casual look at the design of any cigarette packet, one thing that hits you immediately is how boring they are. Take a pack of Marlboro Lights for example (Marlboro Gold to our younger audience). It's a white box with a kind of faint finger-print design in the background with a gold arrow on it. Now unless you're a magpie or some kind of pan-handling purist, it's not exactly the sexiest image ever. Does it make me want to buy Marlboro Lights? No. Do I still smoke Marlboro Lights? Yes.Quite frankly it could have a horrific bestiality scene on the cover and I'd still buy them. Why? - Because I'm chemically addicted to nicotine. If the warning pictures on the cover don't put people off then nothing will. I've yet to see a person walk into a shop and say – "Wow, what's that packet over there with the moustachioed man with a tumour the size of a grapefruit on his neck? He looks like a cool guy. I'd like a tumour like that, 400 cigarettes please!"If governments want to help smokers quit then why not make nicotine replacement free to all. Instead NR is just as expensive if not more so than smoking (certainly in the UK). Given a choice of quitting at a greater expense or choosing the cheaper option – what do they expect? So it boils down, in these austere times, to a money making exercise again – with the ultimate cost the lives of the smokers. Banning packaging is an Elastoplast on the problem, a conciliatory gesture that ultimately helps no-one. At best it's preventative, as it won't stop those already hooked on nicotine, at worst it's a further slap in the face to smokers.What the Australian government are doing is skirting around the issue again. Ban them in public places, make them really expensive, hide them under the counter, package them in olive green wrapping (one of my favourite colours by the way) - anything but the obvious. Anything to continue the piecemeal gestures that suggest that, they, in some small way care about the health of smokers, because if they did care, if they really were staunch in their convictions, they'd do every smoker in the world a favour – and stop selling them altogether. Next week I'll discuss how the United States intends to stop gun crime by painting smiley faces onto ammunition. Gadzooks! MT.
January 9, 2012
Zer0As Jonathan plunged through the air, storey by storey...
Zer0
As Jonathan plunged through the air, storey by storey rushing past like a flick book of shiny reflective images, he could see his life unravel before him. Bubbles of precious oxygen, trapped in amniotic fluid, became the terrible miracle of birth; emerging from the cavernous dark into a cold world of fingers and scissors. Childhood seamlessly becomes adolescence in a blur of ice cream and party balloons, tantrums and ageing cartoons. The unpleasantness of puberty awkwardly passes in a blink of the secretary's eye, on-looking from the fortieth floor's accountancy firm; a company he had never cared for and whom coincidentally had never cared for him. Exams and GAPS linger longer but never more than an afterthought. University days are lost, as memories can only be recalled where memory exists. His working life stretched out before him, miles of blank road with grey featureless terrain trickling onwards in slow motion. Jon could feel tears in his wind-stung eyes, tears driven by gravity into his ears, intermingling with the screaming rush of suicidal gale. He catches a glimpse through the reflection of his thrashing-limbed body, of a man, bespectacled and be-suited, standing dumbstruck, hot palms against glass watching the end. That was my job and that was me, he thinks as the kiss of concrete looms larger. Ten seconds from inception to interception, by the pavement outside Starbucks, there less than a month, usurpers of thirty years of previous cafe culture, disingenuous to the last. Ten seconds, enough time for reflection and regret. Chances missed, chances snatched away and chances invisible to the naked eye. Jonathan never took a chance in his life. The world grows larger in the twin windows and he feels the brunt of the fall from grace. Hero to.
Distant sirens fade, as someone hands him a voucher for free chilled coffee. Fingers find no grip now and the flimsy slip, slips down the pavement's cracks of impact. People make a fuss and turn away. They shouldn't, he thinks his last. I got what was coming to me.
M. Trevelean 2005 - First published on Writers Billboard February 2009.
As Jonathan plunged through the air, storey by storey rushing past like a flick book of shiny reflective images, he could see his life unravel before him. Bubbles of precious oxygen, trapped in amniotic fluid, became the terrible miracle of birth; emerging from the cavernous dark into a cold world of fingers and scissors. Childhood seamlessly becomes adolescence in a blur of ice cream and party balloons, tantrums and ageing cartoons. The unpleasantness of puberty awkwardly passes in a blink of the secretary's eye, on-looking from the fortieth floor's accountancy firm; a company he had never cared for and whom coincidentally had never cared for him. Exams and GAPS linger longer but never more than an afterthought. University days are lost, as memories can only be recalled where memory exists. His working life stretched out before him, miles of blank road with grey featureless terrain trickling onwards in slow motion. Jon could feel tears in his wind-stung eyes, tears driven by gravity into his ears, intermingling with the screaming rush of suicidal gale. He catches a glimpse through the reflection of his thrashing-limbed body, of a man, bespectacled and be-suited, standing dumbstruck, hot palms against glass watching the end. That was my job and that was me, he thinks as the kiss of concrete looms larger. Ten seconds from inception to interception, by the pavement outside Starbucks, there less than a month, usurpers of thirty years of previous cafe culture, disingenuous to the last. Ten seconds, enough time for reflection and regret. Chances missed, chances snatched away and chances invisible to the naked eye. Jonathan never took a chance in his life. The world grows larger in the twin windows and he feels the brunt of the fall from grace. Hero to.
Distant sirens fade, as someone hands him a voucher for free chilled coffee. Fingers find no grip now and the flimsy slip, slips down the pavement's cracks of impact. People make a fuss and turn away. They shouldn't, he thinks his last. I got what was coming to me.
M. Trevelean 2005 - First published on Writers Billboard February 2009.
Who is this guy?
M. Trevelean at your service. I'm a young (yet of legal age - perverts beware) writer who specialises in, lets call it dark fiction. I write contemporary tales, anything goes, there are no limits to the imagination. I write because I enjoy it - I don't want to be famous, I don't want to be stalked by paparazzi, I don't want my name in lights. I don't want to read about myself getting married to a she-male talent show winner on a cloud made from fairy tears.
I just want to write and have some fun while I do it. That's all.
MT
I just want to write and have some fun while I do it. That's all.
MT
Greetings
Hello and welcome to my blog, written by me - M. Trevelean. Here you will find all manner of distractions, diversions, banter, rants and if you're that way inclined - some new material, old and new. I hope you enjoy what you find, I can be a raving, cantankerous S.O.B but take it with a pinch of salt - rather like life. I like to observe, comment, criticise, poke fun and undermine, for my own amusement most of the time and with a bit of luck to the amusement of others. So welcome, pull up a chair, pour yourself a stiff drink and lets have a giggle together at the broken, weird, contradictory world we live in. Cheers! MT.
