Francis Berger's Blog, page 184

The City of Earthly Desire - Free on Amazon Kindle - Oct. 29 - Nov. 2

Download copy via Amazon today!

Free on Amazon - Oct. 29 to Nov. 2

The Christmas spirit struck me earlier than usual this year.  Hence . . .

The Kindle version of my novel will be available for free through Amazon from October 29 to November 2.  Get your free copy today!

Free Download Until November 2, 2014

Metropolis, Not Now

Like most people, I have spent the majority of my life living in or near big cities.  New York, Toronto, and Budapest are among the cities in which I have resided.  Though I enjoyed living in each of those places, one of my objectives when I moved to England a few weeks ago was to avoid settling down in or near a major urban centre.  Before arriving to the UK, I was offered the opportunity of working and living in London, but I turned down the chance simply because I felt no desire to spend the next few years of my life in another huge, dizzying metropolis.

I do not know why I am so averse to the idea of living in another metropolis at this point in my life.  Perhaps I have been worn down by the physical machinations inherent to big cities - the pollution, the grid-lock, the overcrowding, and the noise that all come together to grind its inhabitants down into submission. Perhaps the machinations I wish to escape are of a more spiritual nature, for the big cities I have lived in were all, each in their own way, veritable hives of dark desires, vulgar materialism and ruthless ambition.  Perhaps I am merely longing for a place where I might experience a genuine sense of community, a place where you are not just a forgotten face in an ocean of forgotten faces.  Whatever it is, one thing is certain - I do not want to live in a metropolis now.  

As much as I wished to avoid large urban centres, I was also reluctant to live in a place that might be to small or too secluded.  If I were alone, I do not think I would mind it, but to place my wife and son in a tiny village cast off from the rest of the world did not seem prudent to me.  Hence, I knew I had to make an acceptable compromise.  

I would need to find a small-to-medium size town far enough away from a bigger city to escape its gravitational pull, yet close enough to be within its orbit.  The town would need to have some of the modern amenities we have become accustomed to - supermarkets, banks, post office, shops, fitness centre and transport links - but could not be a pre-planned, soulless corporate subdivision existing in the countryside like some kind of bizarre and pointless lunar base.  The place would need plenty of green spaces and places for walks and quiet contemplation.  It would need to have architecture that uplifted.  One or many old churches with functional belfries.  An open air market.  Everything would have to be accessible on foot making automobile ownership optional.  

I found all of this in a town called Morpeth in Northumberland and happily rented a three-bedroom terraced house near the town centre.  Now, whether or not I will find whatever experience or feeling I yearn for by choosing to live here rather than a large city like London remains to be seen, but I can tell you this: It has been splendid thus far. 

Some info about Morpeth:

http://www.moreinmorpeth.co.uk/


 

Settling In

We arrived in England a little more than a week ago and are slowly settling into Morpeth, a town in Northumberland north of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne.  Now that I have an internet connection again, I will resume blogging regularly again - most likely tomorrow.    

A Break in Blogging

I am moving to England today and will likely not have much time to blog over the next three weeks.  I hope to return sometime in mid-August.

New Beginnings -The End I Start From

I have not blogged much in the past three or four months because I have been preoccupied with other matters, primarily planning and organizing a move to England.  This move to England was inspired by the rather lackluster job market for teachers in Canada (though I enjoyed the job I did have immensely and will miss it terribly) and other factors with which I will not bore anyone now.  Long story short - we're leaving Canada to begin a new life in England.  

This move has me contemplating the very nature of beginnings and endings; I find myself pondering whether or not they can be considered separately or if they should be thought of as one thing with two distinct sides very much like a coin.  

T.S. Eliot ruminated over this issue and made the following observation: 

What we call the beginning is often the end.  And to make an end is to make a new beginning.  The end is where we start from.  

I have started from many ends in my life.  In fact, I have been averaging a new beginning every three or four years for the past fifteen years.  Now, I am leaving Canada, likely for good. 

Another new beginning.  Another end I start from.     

Why Fidesz Has Been So Successful

Back in April I wrote a post about the most recent election Hungary in which I postulated some of the reasons behind the left's massive loss to Fidesz.  I argued the main reason the left - who have proclaimed themselves the sole guardians of Enlightenment principles, democracy, freedom, true European values, etc., - lost the election was because they did not truly respect nor particularly care about the views and values of the average Hungarian citizen.

I recently came across an article in The Hungarian Review which expands on this idea and goes into considerable detail about the left in Hungary and why they might not see themselves in power for a long, long time.  

For those interested, I have linked the article below.  It's a long piece, but well worth the read:

Hungarian Elections and After

Hungarian Women Trafficked and Exploited in the UK

Human trafficking was a crime I explored in my novel The City Of Earthly Deisre.  A significant portion of the narrative deals with the sex industry that burgeoned in Budapest shortly after the collapse of the communism.  The sudden explosion of strip joints, peep shows, curbside prostitutes, and porn shoots created a seemingly insatiable demand for flesh.  Luckily - for the owners, pimps, entrepreneurs, and assorted riffraff of racketeers who were looking to turn a buck from the sale of flesh - the economic malaise of Hungary after the fall of the Iron Curtain ensured the girls worked cheaply.  But the sex industry is business and business always seeks to maximize profit.  Why pay a young girl a hundred dollars a day to turn tricks when you can get a girl to turn tricks for nothing?  Enter human trafficking and sex slavery.  

In my novel, the protagonist Béla helps establish what he believes to be a legitimate adult entertainment company that deals fairly with its performers, and for the most part, this proves to be the case.  However, as the novel progresses, Béla is horrified to discover that some of the women he had used in his films and magazines had been kidnapped and trafficked from the impoverished Hungarian countryside or from countries whose economies were in even deeper shambles than Hungary's was at the time.  

Sadly, the crime of human trafficking exists outside the pages of fiction.  Not only does it exist, it is thriving, and, ironically enough, Hungarian women and women from other central and eastern European countries, continue to be among its most visible victims.  Below is a link that details the activities of a human trafficking ring based in the United Kingdom that lured women from Hungary with the promise of nanny and cleaner jobs then horrifically exploited the women by forcing them into sex slavery.  Thankfully, the perpetrators all received sentences for their unspeakable crimes, but in my opinion, they deserved at least double the time.  

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-28123869

 

Reviews on Amazon

Securing reviews for The City of Earthly City has been difficult, so I am extremely appreciative of those readers who have taken the time not only to read the novel, but to also share their thoughts about it online.  

So far the novel has 8 reviews on Amazon.  For the sake of honesty and full disclosure, I will mention that 3 of those 8 reviews were written by friends and acquaintances; the other five were written by strangers.  The reviews range from the brief and blurby, to more elaborate and insightful.  I am unsure whether or not these reviews have helped promote the novel as many claim they do, but it always intrigues me to see what others thought of my work.   Hopefully I will have few more reviews in the near future.

Since I am on the subject, I should mention that I would be more than happy to provide a review copy of The City of Earthly Desire to readers of this blog in exchange for a review. You can contact me through this site if interested.  

Reviews on Amazon.com

An Apology To The Porn Addicts

I am going to make a conjecture.

I have a hunch that some people who land on my blog leave disappointed. This disappointment has nothing to do with the quality of my posts, or the perceived quality of my book, or even the subjects discussed in my ramblings.   I have this premonition that some people who visit these pages do not give a damn about me or my novel or any of the topics on this blog - save one.   

It has come to my attention that my blog category Sex draws in the most visitors each month.  When I think about the irony, I cannot help but chuckle. I imagine quite a few members of porn's splintered legions (to borrow an excellent phrase from The Tragically Hip's Gord Downie) stumble upon my blog during one of their perpetual online quests for erotic titillation. I can imagine the letdown they must experience when they are presented with a literature blog rather than the ocean of racy images they had been hoping for.

To all of these sybarite surfers, I offer my deepest apologies.  I am sorry to have inadvertently interrupted your sojourn of self-pleasuring.  Believe me when I tell you that my intent was never to mislead; nor have I misled in the strict sense of the word.  This blog does deal with the topic of sex every now and then.  The novel it promotes deals extensively with sex and pornography. Sadly though, the book is not, in essence, pornographic.  

During the early 1990's, the city of Budapest, Hungary became the unofficial porn capital of the world.  My novel, The City of Earthly Desire, explores this rather turbulent time in the city's history and contemplates the deeper implications of pornography - be they historical, ethical, sociological, or aesthetic - by taking an intimate look at the porn business that flourished in Budapest shortly after the collapse of communism.  If you are a visitor to this blog who is fascinated by pornography, I humbly offer my novel for consideration because  I hate the idea of anyone leaving this blog empty-handed (insinuation very much intended).  

The City of Earthly Desire.