Jonathan Chamberlain's Blog, page 5

Annoying Things

Annoying things, writes Sei Shonagun – "One has sent someone a poem (or a reply to a poem) and after the messenger has left, thinks of a couple of words that ought to be changed."

So true.

So much for the idea of progress. When was the last time you sent someone a poem, or even more esoterically, replied to a poem – with  another poem of course?

Yes, the copy of the Pillow Book plopped through my letter box yesterday, a touch yellowed around the edges but the script is a decent size and the spine still supple and unbroken, which is all you need to enjoy a book.

And here is another annoying thing – this is the kind of delightful detail we want to read:

"A woman is angry with her lover about some trifle and refuses to continue lying next to him. After fidgeting about in bed she decides to get up. The man gently tries to draw her back, but she is still cross. "Very well, then," he says, feeling that she has gone too far. "As you please!" Full of resentment, he buries himself under the bedclothes and settles down for the night. It is a cold night and since the woman is wearing only an unlined robe she soon begins to feel uncomfortable. Everyone else in the house is asleep, and besides it would be most unseemly for her to get up and walk about. As the night wears on, she lies there on her side of the bed feeling very annoyed the quarrel did not take place earlier in the evening when it would have been easy to leave. Then she begins to hear strange sounds in the back of the house and outside. Frightened, she gently moves over in the bed towards her lover, tugging at the bedclothes, whereupon he annoys her further by pretending to be asleep. "Why not be stand-offish a little longer?" he asks her finally."

The detail is so precise this must have happened to her – and you can see she has no sympathy for herself either. She is laughing at herself.

Her Pillow Book is, just as any blog is, a mish-mash of anecdotes, thoughts, observations and of course poems – what blog can hold its head up high if it doesn't contain at least one poem.

I lay my head on the pillow of your words

And dream of a world long gone

Emperors, lovers, mountains of snow

And the annoying things of Sei Shonagon

Hmmm? McGonagall might have phrased it better.

But isn't it the case that blogs are a kind of public diary of private worlds. Sei Shonagon was considered a shameless hussy for writing out "those Chinese writings of hers that she so presumptuously scatters about the place we find they are full of imperfections. Someone who makes such an effort to be different from others is bound to fall in people's esteem." So said her great female contemporary, Murasako Shikibu, author of The Tale of Genji, the world's first novel.

So there you are, fellow bloggers. You have been warned. This blogging business will do you no good. And it seems that – so rumour has it – that Sei Shonagon was eventually dismissed from the court and died a lonely old lady.

But let us reflect – the writer of the first novel and the first blog knew each other a thousand years ago in far off Japan. I'm sure there's a poem there somewhere.

Abrazos

Jonathan Chamberlain is author of Dreams of Gold – the comic novel of the London 2012 Olympics http://amzn.to/zWCAPm

St. Shonagon

I mentioned Sei Shonagon in my last post. The more I think on it, she has a greater claim than anyone to be the pioneer of the blog, and so she should be canonised, elevated to sainthood. Who's in charge here? Get a move on! Saint Shonagon. Where would we build her shrine? Online of course. All blog writers could then ritually 'poke' her in Facebook speak (though it seems intolerably vulgar and rude).

Sei Shonagon lived a thousand years ago and was one of the Ladies who attended on the Empress of that time. She wrote little descriptions – moments in time, memos, instructions, criticisms and so on. These were much admired for the sharpness of her pen and sometime after her death they were collected together in a volume called The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon. I haven't read it in twenty or more years. I went on Amazon (as one does) and saw that I good get a copy of the Penguin classics edition (the one I was familiar with) in used condition for £0.01p – now in terms of pure value that is fantastic. Of course, in order to get it in my grubby hands I need to pay £2.80 – which puts this book at the top end of what I like to pay for a book (I know! The paradoxical conundrum of a writer who expects people to fork out good money to buy a brand new copy of his latest work but begrudges to do the same for other writers. Well, the truth is, I do buy new books too – it's just I love the treasure troves of books of yore that one finds in the discount racks. The Surrealists, I think it was, prized what they called objets trouve – things found accidentally. The accidental (or would it be incidental) conjunction of significance between a mind and an object. The 'Yes!' moment, that in other circumstances is love-at-first-sight. What I prize are the livres trouve – the found books.)

Part of the pleasure of these racks is that there is no categorising. You cannot plan to go and buy any particular book. There can be no intention at all – whatever you find is a surprise. And that goes a long way to explaining the pleasure of this kind of foraging. Anyway, I have purchased Sei Shonagon and I do hope that wherever she is, she does not miss the royalties she is not getting by the act of my buying second hand.

When I started writing this I was assailed by horrendous cravings for what we in Britain call a fag – a smoke. I only recently took up smoking after a 25 year absence – well nearly two years ago. And why did I take it up again? It was a point of honour. When I gave up (having been a smoker for some 15 years and was at the end  puffing away on two packs a day) I did so in the belief that if I didn't give up  I probably wouldn't reach the age of 60. Obviously if I did reach the age of 60 that excuse would no longer be true. So the promise I made to myself was that I would give up until the age of 60. Well, of course I had to have a fag – and I did indeed have a celebratory smoke. No problem. Another year went by and I felt that I needed to celebrate this occasion with another cigarette. This time I bought a pack. Over a few days I smoked this and thought 'how very pleasant this smoking thing is' and bought another – from then on I was hooked. But smoking is a pleasant thing. I have some very creative and interesting thoughts while taking time out to smoke (and since I don't allow myself to smoke indoors it requires me to ritualise the act of having a cigarette by going out solely with the intention of having a cigarette). But there were three things that were making smoking unpleasant – no, it wasn't the fact that it was going to kill me. By the time it killed me I would probably want to be dead anyway – I am completely phlegmatic on that front. I do hope to get to 75 and 80 would be good too – but 85? 86? To be slow and doddery, mind-addled and dependent at 90 (as I am bound to be)? Please God no. But the three unpleasant aspects of smoking were the weather (having to smoke outside in the cold and rain!), the cost and the fact that I was hacking away in the most disgusting way with the most ridiculous cough. So the plan is to give up and then to have only the occasional smokes which I will bum off friends (to their great annoyance). The sin is not smoking, it is having to buy cigarettes and then panicking when you run out. And what was I going to do on long-haul flights? No, it has to be done. I have to give up. And why was I having such cravings? Well it seems I had inadvertently – quite unconsciously removed my nicotine patch. I was tempted to see if I could fight my way through it. Then thought, bugger that. So now re-patched I am feeling almost comfortable again. I must say though, I am really looking forward to finally stopping this silly addiction – then I can have another cigarette!

Abrazos

Jonathan Chamberlain

Author of Dreams of Gold – the comic novel of the London 2012 Olympics http://amzn.to/zWCAPm

P.S. I sent the following tweet to publicise this post:

St. Shonagon #patronsaint of #blogs? I am finally getting the hang of this #hashtag #business http://wp.me/p2fFhc-o via @wordpressdotcom

St. Saroyan

If there is a patron saint of blogs it should be William Saroyan (unless, of course, it is Sei Shonagon)

Now I should explain that William Saroyan is a great favourite of mine – ever since I read his short story 'Seventy Thousand Assyrians" – now I'll tell you how great a writer he is because I went Googling (as one does) for a story called 'A Hundred Thousand Armenians" – that's how much the idea of the story had grown in my mind. I knew Saroyan was an Armenian so why would he write about Assyrians? Now the thing with Saroyan is that he is one of the few writers who could be called great and still be very comfortably published by Readers Digest. And as more than one person has thought "for such a great writer you have written such a lot of tosh." But because he was Armenian, and because he was a drunk and a gambler and a bluff, sentimental, thoughtful, honest man he was very popular – and there is to this day a William Saroyan Society. The things you discover once you start Googling.

Anyway the book I bought was called: Days of Life and Death and Escape to the Moon. It's a small hardback book published by Michael Joseph with one of those hideous covers that is certainly not intended to attract readers. The name of the author is in a lipstick scarlet colour, the title of the book is black and both are set against a background of cursive lettering – black on a white background – that is bold or not bold in a way that results in a man's face emerging.  All in all, very clever but stupid.

The book itself consists of three months of random jottings – a daily blog if you like before the word even existed. The first month is Paris August 1967 – the other two months  are November and December 1968. Now the thing is – the first month (Paris in August 1967) is absolutely charming. You get the feel of a man who is somehow freed from some burden, who delights in the little things of life – stealing sunflowers and so on.  He goes out for long walks, he buys newspapers, he sits in cafes. We are there with him. There is an immediacy and freshness about these entries. The thoughts that he has appear to arrive directly from his activity. Why is this interesting? Because there is an underlying joyful immediacy. And of course because Paris in August is a ghost town – everyone who can leaves for their holidays – everyone who is left feels like a truant.

And Saroyan's genius is for the incidental, the real, the hard-boiled sentimental. His story about the massacre of seventy thousand Assyrians starts with him going into a barber shop (if I remember rightly) and what follows is a musing on man's inhumanity to man. Now the thing is I am certain that this story was, in fact, seeded in a barbershop. In fact there are probably tours organised by the Saroyan Society to that very barber shop -  undoubtedly in Fresno – where they will point out the chair that he sat at and the names of his barbers.  The place will so reek of Saroyan that you will be surprised the face in the mirror is not his but yours.

Then, it seems clear,  a year later, he sees a chance to make a book . What better than to continue doing what he'd done as a lark in Paris and continue it in Fresno. But, and I'm guessing here, it's already well into August by this time and when September rolls along he's still not quite ready so November and December it has to be. Suddenly the joy goes out of the book. Fresno in November or rather Saroyan in Fresno in November is not the same as Saroyan in Paris in August.  Every day there is explanation. There is no doing things, no accidental larking. No long walks. In Fresno, when he mentions going out it is always in a car. There is the difference. So November in Fresno is a bit of a chore frankly. But then comes December and explanation gives way to reminiscence. We (meaning I) still miss the innocent pleasures of Paris but at least Saroyan has become human again – he's not lecturing us.

And the Moon? I'm referring to the title of the book which no doubt you have already forgotten. Well, towards the end of 1968 the Americans sent a rocket to circle the Moon – Here is Saroyan: "There they go, to the Moon. And on television, too. Had there been no television would they have gone? Of course not."

There is an idea that dances – a thought to raise a smile and lodge in some remote crevice of the brain. There is the Saroyan we delight in. It's the shape of his sentences as much as the shape of his thoughts.

And here – in Saroyan's thoughts in December in Fresno – there is too a constant obsession with death – mention of people he knows who have died or are dying.  That's what you do when you've entered the death zone (the day after your 60th birthday – I know, I'm there!)

But what really got me – reading through this jumble sale of great writing and maudlin nonsense – was that here was a writer who was well past his prime who was younger than I am now – and I haven't reached my prime yet (or did it steal by, silently, one night while I slept?).

Abrazos

Jonathan Chamberlain

Author of Dreams of Gold – the comic novel of the London 2012 Olympics http://amzn.to/zWCAPm

Day One (cont'd)

On Saturday I went to a weekend book stall in the street market. The books here are outrageously expensive (£2.95 and up) but the man has an odd selection and sometimes you have to expect to pay a premium. Also, I once gave him a bag of books and so now we have a complex arrangement. It all started because he once gave me a book free of charge. Refused to take any money for it at all.

"You're a regular," he said. And as it was a particularly cheap item, I accepted. Then another time, he did the same. I protested that he was in business but he refused to take any money and waved me away. Now, I always did expect to get a favourable discount of 10-20% of the cover price when I bought from him but to get a book free of charge was intolerable.  This imposed on me a burden that I had to repay so the next time I cleared my bookshelves I filled two bags of books and, passing his stall, I just dropped them off. Now it was his turn to be embarrassed. Good. Then I went back a few weeks later, found a book that interested me and wanted to buy it.

"That's fine!" he said waving me away – and then we got talking about one of the books I had given him that he was very taken with. This happened again a few weeks later. It was all getting very embarrassing. I didn't want to have to stop going there altogether. But if he kept insisting on refusing to take my money I would have to.

Anyway, come Saturday, I went along to see what he had and there it was, a book by William Saroyan, hard cover, wrapped in cellophane and priced at £4. Perfect. Not only did I want the book – absolutely had to have it – but it was obviously a prized item so he wasn't going to let me have it for free. I added two other books and handed them over. I saw his eyes working. We had reached a new stage in our relationship. All told the books came to £10 or £11. "How about £7?" "Fine with me," I said and walked away feeling we had overcome a particularly tricky hurdle.

And William Saroyan is the perfect writer with which to start this blog – which is what I'll do next time

Abrazos

Jonathan Chamberlain

Author of Dreams of Gold – the comic novel of the London 2012 Olympics  http://amzn.to/zWCAPm

 

Got to share this…review

I sent copies of Dreams of Gold to top-rated Amazon reviewers – and just now one came back with this reply:

"Its an embarrassment being sent a book you really do not enjoy…"

Oh dear…back to the drawing board. You can't win all the time – and other comforting cliches went through my mind – and you can't crumple emails and throw them in the wastepaper basket but that's what I felt like doing. But as I was turning away I noted the next word.

"However…"

Whoa! Better read on.

- however, no problems like that here as I read through it yesterday and really enjoyed it!  Good luck in your future publishing career.  I have submitted my review to Amazon: 

"The back cover describes Dreams of Gold as 'P G Wodehouse meets Tom Sharpe with a dash of Spike Milligan'. Personally I would say there was a little Douglas Adams and a smidgen of Terry Pratchett in the mix too. However, this sort of analysis really does not do the author credit for producing a highly entertaining little book.

This very timely tale concerns a plot against the 2012 Olympics, and a group of ill matched characters who for various reasons will not be representing their countries.   When Rowan Jones, a Welsh poet is appointed as poet laureate to the London Olympics, he quickly makes controversial statements which these various misfits find inspirational and head for Rowan and Bronwyn, his wife's, home.

It is one thing to write a page or two of witty and entertaining dialogue, but quite another to keep the ideas flowing for the duration of a book.  This story is entertaining and amusing throughout, and at times extremely funny.  I got through it in a day which reflects both the fact that I enjoyed it so much as well as well as it being quite short.

The characters were eccentric and memorable and anyone who reads this is not going to forget the likes of Anna, Solomon, Yoshi and Toshi and Jeremiah in a hurry.  I do hope the author is able to come up with some more good ideas as I would be very happy to read more in this vein."

Isn't that nice. I know this hasn't been about older books but you know – sometimes you just have to swank a bit, as we used to say derisively when I was at school. "Stop swanking!" – well, as the Bible might have said: There is a time to swank and a time to refrain from swanking – this is definitely one of the former.

 

 

Day one

Today is a new day. It is the first day of the week. It is the first day of my new life as a non-smoker. It is the first day of this blog, which is a blog I have been meaning to start writing for some time but there always seemed to be something else in the way. Mainly my mind not knowing how to do the thing. Now I have an idea of how to do it.

I am known in certain shops – all second hand bookshops I should add – as the man who comes along and picks out a selection of books that added together (perhaps five or six at a time)  cost less than the price of a new book. I am lucky that I live in a town that has perhaps the best second hand bookshops in England. It is a university town (two universities!). It is a town by the sea where educated people go to retire, die and have their books distributed to the wind.

One day, in the outside racks of the very best shop, (where an array of erudite paperbacks shuffle covers with the cheapest sci-fi  and fantasy and where each volume can be bought for anywhere between 80 pence and the almost outrageously expensive rarity for £2. But the majority are for sale at £1 flat) I found, as I always do, a book or two that I know will amuse, interest or educate me. I handed over the five or six books that I had to rescue – for I do think of it as a rescue mission – if I don't buy them who will? – and then, as the man behind the desk totted up the total (which I had already totted up but I didn't tell him) I had a little poke through the little box that is kept at the side of the counter – containing books to replace the ones sold. The man saw me, knew me as a regular, and said: "We've got a whole warehouse of books. I could give you the key and you could look through them if you like." I looked at him horrified. "Don't destroy my life. This is my one pleasure. A few books now and then – well every week or so. That's enough for me. And I don't get round to reading even half of those."

That's how it is with me. And so the bookshelves at home are heaving with books that I have bought in this way. One day a visitor came and said: "Gosh, you've read a lot of books!" But why would I keep books that I have read on my bookshelves? My library is a library of books that have been read by others (for the most part – occasionally I find a proof copy of a book that has not yet been released!) but not by me.

And now this blog is going to give me the opportunity to read them and discuss them in the entirely innocent, raw way that I intend.

Abrazos

Jonathan

Author of Dreams of Gold – the comic novel of the London 2012 Olympics  http://amzn.to/zWCAPm