Getting There First
Does getting there first matter?
Any writer at some point in their career would have experienced the awkward, irritating and sometimes exasperating phenomenon of ‘Darwin-Wallace Syndrome’ (that’s what I’m calling it, anyway – unless someone has got there first!). There you are, slogging away on your magnum opus for years, when you hear of a book/film/TV show, etc, that is coming out which shares your title, or even worse, your concept. The higher profile author with the mainstream publisher has ‘got there first’ – at least in the public perception. When or if (it is never certain – which people who blithely ask ‘So when is it coming out then?’ don’t realize…) your work sees the light of day it’ll be probably perceived as either: 1. Jumping on the bandwagon; 2. Unoriginal; or 3. Blatant plagiarism. Protest too much and folk will just think ‘sour grapes’. Galling to say the least. But don’t worry – you’re in good company! Alfred Wallace arrived independently at his theory of evolution, but because Darwin was the first to publish (The Origin of the Species) popular history remembers him as the ‘man who got there first’. In truth, with a lot of these iconic landmarks of history – the conquering of Mount Everest; the first lunar landing – it was indubitably a team effort. Sir Edmund Hillary could not have made it without his guide, Nepalese Sherpa, Tenzing Norgay; Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first to land on the moon – Neil may have made the ‘one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind’, but he couldn’t have got there without Buzz next to him in the Eagle lander, or their fellow astronaut, Michael Collins, in the orbiter – their ticket to ride back to terra firma. The obsession with ‘getting there first’ is very much a byproduct of Neoliberalism – competition may encourage innovation and excellence, but it also drives rapacious expansionism: the Colonialist mindset (which we are living in the bloodstained, carbon hangover of). And the truth is nothing worthy is achieved in isolation – even the ‘daring’ solo explorers often leave behind a supportive partner looking after the kids, pets, household, business affairs, etc, or rely upon numerous people along the way. Getting there first is a sports ethic (in some sports anyway), not an arts ethic (although competition can no doubt exist in the arts too). It is a race mentality, rather than what could be called a grace mentality. Yet it can be hard to be graceful when you see ‘your’ title appear in the media (but one must still try). Philosophical issues aside (are such instances evidence of something in the zeitgeist, even in a platonic realm, which different artistes have tapped into independently – a case of simultaneous invention?), and discounting the many examples of deliberate ‘copycat’ products (e.g. the frequent Hollywood movie doubles), it is more often than not just a pain in the arse (especially to the ‘little guy’ without the marketing budget).
Recently I reviewed a fabulous book by Robert Macfarlane called Underland: a Deep Time Journey – painfully aware a very good friend of mine had worked years on his novel Deep Time (which at least was published four years ago). And only yesterday I saw that a film has been released called Thunder Road – which is the name of my Viking/Biker mash-up novel, completed last year but actually conceived and started back in 2011. Of course, it’s the name of a classic song by The Boss, from way back in 1975, which I was indirectly homaging (biking and rock’n’roll go fist in glove). There is no copyright on titles, but use anything too recent and it looks derivative. I had reckoned 45 years was a safe enough ‘distance’. I still do, and I don’t intend to change the title. I know I had finished the novel before I heard of this (unrelated) movie. The same with other times this has happened, e.g. when I heard that Philip Pullman had titled the second volume of ‘The Book of Dust’, The Secret Commonwealth, as I approached the completion of my Creative Writing Ph.D., which dramatised the writing of the Rev. Robert Kirk’s monograph, The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns, and Fairies (1691) in novel format (The Knowing – a Fantasy), a project I had been working on since 2012, culminating in the website: www.thesecretcommonwealth.com which shares the bulk of my research and creative output (except the full text of the novel, which awaits to be published). Because I am not a major author with a good agent the journey to publication is often a long uncertain one. Still, one must persist. And bear in mind that unless the ‘rival title’ is in the same genre, about the same subject, the similarity will be cosmetic. Often there can be numerous artefacts sharing the same title. All one can do is make one’s own effort as good as possible, and hope posterity will be kind. As with the runners slogging around the London marathon route today (and in other marathons around the world) it is not getting there first that counts, but taking part, and finishing.
