F.G. Cottam's Blog, page 9

Resolution runners

The Thames towpath along which I run is an attractive and in the week at least, relatively secluded route to pound along. This changes in early January though, when all the New Year's resolution runners turn up, red-faced and chronically short of wind in their brand new shoes. Exercise should be democratic. But it isn't, as the variety of body types and running techniques spectacularly demonstrates.
Oscar Wilde said a resolution is a cheque drawn on a bank where you have no account (I think in the Picture of Dorian Gray). That's a deliberately cynical definition but probably ultimately true for the majority. Running, to some of us, is really addictive. But I still think most of those new pairs of shoes on the towpath will ultimately see very little wear.
Research published last week shows that running boosts the memory, making it the ideal exercise for a fiction writer, regardless of whether what you write is autobiographically based or not. I've only written once autobiographically and would never do it again. You get hung up on getting the detail accurate and in a novel, who's to know or care?

Baddies (two)

That mental shift from The Dome to Bond wasn't totally random. King's protagonist in The Dome is a spy of sorts with a background in military intelligence. He's nothing like Bond, though. He's an intelligent and ethical American liberal and every time I picture him, he looks like George Clooney. Daniel Craig is nothing like Bond in the books, though. Bond in the books is Eton educated and holds the rank of Commander in the Royal Navy. He's a toff who drives a turbo-charged Bentley. Daniel Craig does not in any way resemble a toff. He's got a very proletarian look, to my mind.
I re-read Casino Royale recently. It opens on Bond lghting his 70th cigarette of an admittedly long day.

baddies

Reading Stephen King's The Dome has got me pondering on villains. The novel features a superbly drawn baddie. He's not just insanely evil; he is formidable because he understands hiuman nature and can manipulate people and circumstances. He's also horribly plausible. In my humble view it was what was so wrong with both of the films featuring Daniel Craig as Bond. I liked Daniel Craig before he was Bond and in a way that owes quite a lot to Jason Bourne, he's very convincing in the Bond films. But the baddie in his first outing was a banker and in the second a bogus environmental campaigner. I mean, come on! Where are the cat stroking sadists and megalomaniacs with lazer beams? obviously lazers aren't so scary now that we've all had one in our CD player for twenty years. But Daniel Craig needs someone much tougher to fight than the powder puff protagonsts he's faced so far. Just a thought...

Shirley Jackson

Bought The Haunting of Hill House yesterday. The only thing of hers I've read (I'm embarrassed to say) is the short story, The Lottery. And the only thing I know about her is that she once (allegedly) gave amorous chase to the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas around a sofa on one of his chaotic visits to New York.
I've seen both the Hill House movies; the brilliant and terrifying black and white one and the dreadful, much later, CGI laden effort. But the best way to approach a book is obviously with a completely open mind. I'm looking forward to it.
If the sofa story was true, I can't help thinking she would have caught him, wouldn't she? Dylan Thomas was in terrible shape; an overweight chain-smoker who was almost constantly drunk. Maybe she wasn't really trying ...

Monday

Crimesquad.com have been kind enough to make me their author of the month. They have reviewed The Magdalena Curse and published a Q&A in which I talk about crime fiction and thrillers generally. Their review of Curse was a lot kinder than one I saw where the critic took exception to the length of my paragraphs. I'm hardly Henry James, I thought when I read it. Maybe she is more used to reviewing fiction aimed at children. That's a catty remark, but I'm happy to stand by it. There are lots of nice short paragraphs in the Mr Men books I read to my four year old daughter.
Spent the weekend reading Under the Dome and marveling at the way Stephen King can orchestrate a huge cast of characters and action unfolding on a large scale. He's done it before of course, with the spread of Captain Trips in The Stand and the way the town succumbed to vampirism in Salem's Lot. But his narrative skill is staggering when you step back from the story and think about it analytically.
Bought the book from W.H. Smith, where they were selling it at half price. So I paid ten quid for close to 900 pages of what is so far shaping up to be vintage King. You can hardly complain at that, can you.

envy

If there's one thing I envy in other writers, it is being able to enjoy music while they do their writing. If I listen to a song, the words of the song intrude into what I'm trying to write. If I listen to music without lyrics, the melody interferes with the rhythm and pace of my sentences. So when I do write, I'm stuck with silence. That can be disconcerting, especially late at night or very early in the morning. And by early I do mean early (most of my last novel was written in sessions that began at around four a.m.) Somehow the whole business would seem a lot less solitary if I could listen to the radio, or put on a C.D.
It's a minor complaint, though, in the scheme of things. Writing is mostly a pleasure.
Only two days to go now to the publication of The Magdalena Curse ... a nervous time.

exotic

Got dive-bombed by delinquent parakeets on the towpath running this afternoon. I'm not making this up. I wouldn't dare, it would beggar belief. Apparently the temperate English climate suits these birds of paradise and they have settled on the south-west stretches of the Thames very happily. The theory goes that a pair originally escaped their cage and all the others are their descendants. They are a vivid green in colour, they screech really loudly and I have seen them before, but never in such numbers. Today there were dozens of them and they were buzzing the odd human passing beneath their trees in angry squadrons. Maybe they were grumpy about the wintry turn in the weather.
Obviously they don't talk. If they did, given their mood, they would probably have a pretty choice vocabulary.
Got my hardback copies of The Magdalena Curse delivered today. The cover is a radical departure from what was done with the hardback cover designs for Souls and Echo. I hope people like it.

films

I'm with Mark Kermode on The Exorcist. You really do see something new in that movie every time you watch it. Another great (and massively under-rated) favourite of mine is a horror film titled The Changeling. It starred George C Scott and was made at the beginning of the 1980s and is absolutely terrifying.
My disappointment at Merry Parpins got me pondering on kids' films. I reckon Pinocchio is just about unbeatable. The worst I've seen is Shark Boy and Larva Girl; in which you're meant to root for odious characters (especially Shark Boy) forgiven nothing by their youth.
The big flop I like is Treasure Planet. It could have done without the neurotic robot (based on the neurotic robot in Star Wars) but was otherwise really good, I thought. There are loads of great kids' movies: Toy Story, Grinch, Incredibles, Nemo ... but has anyone really raised the bar since Pinocchio? I don't think so.
It's the same with horror, though. The last really innovative horror film was The Evil Dead about 25 years ago.

Merry

Tried to watch Mary Poppins last night, or as Dick van Dyke would have it, Merry Parpins. Mark Kermode, a critic for whom I have a lot of time, called it one of the great films. I've always resented the fact that I only saw it once as a child (where my little brother was treated to it twice). So maybe last night was an attempt at making up for lost treats. But DVD is a technology too far for this venerable classic. You can see the make-up on the faces of van Dyke and David Tomlinson. The slap is really caked on and Edwardian bankers and chimney sweeps are not supposed to leer through a layer of Max Factor. It gave the film a sinister visual sub-text; the lead male characters seeming about as likeable and wholesome as the Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. After 20 minutes I switched off. Only later did it hit me that Kermode's all-time favourite film is The Exorcist.

running thoughts

Woke up this morning to proper autumnal weather, the weirdly mild and sunny Indian summer apparently over, the day dank and windy. I'll run my familiar towpath run today between the Kingston and Hampton Court bridges and in one important way it won't be familiar at all. Changes in the weather change the atmosphere and mood of the run; the ambient light, the sound of the wind in the trees, the texture of the water as the river surface is smoothed or coarsened. Every day it is different, sometimes subtly, sometimes wildly. I'm incredibly fortunate to have somewhere so beautiful to run more or less on my doorstep. Today it will be wet and gray and because of the weather, quiet too. Aggressive off-road cyclists can be a bit of a towpath hazard at the weekend but the threat of rain generally puts most of them off.
Runners seem to divide into two distinct types. There are those who smile and nod in acknowledgement of shared ritual and pain. And there are those with white buds in their ears, cocooned and oblivious,heads full of whatever music inspires them to keep moving. I'm in the former category. If you are lucky enough to be running somewhere so beautiful, why not engage with what surrounds you?