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A Cleansing of Souls - Stuart Ayris
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Jud
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Mar 19, 2012 07:52AM
Shouldn't you wait to hear what I have to say about it first before thanking me?
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Nope! The fact that you've read it is wonderful! Anything else is your thoughts - doesn't mean you shouldn't be thanked!
Aw bless, aren't you a sweetie :o) I happened to enjoy it immensely anyway...
Some beautiful descriptions, you have an amazing and lovely writing style-
Thank you very much. I wrote it when I was twenty-two and added bits and pieces over the years so it is a little raw in places I think. Tollesbury Time Forever is much more like the style I prefer and the one I'm writing at the moment is even more so - a mixture of increased confidence and having found the right combination of whisky and wine!
No wild, wild women? Or is that a different song? :)
Are you a wild woman magnet?
Finished A Cleansing of Souls late night.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read it Linda. I really appreciate it.
You're welcome Stuart. This is my first time reading a book with the forum, so I'm not sure of the protocol on posting how we feel or what we think of the book, except for no spoilers. Rather than leave you hanging completely I will say this, and please bear in mind I'm an American, we have our heros and our villians and a need for some justice.The first 45% of the book you had me captivated (kindle) and I could not stop reading. The next 40% I started to dislike your characters and the last 15% I felt lost and somewhat disappointed.
Having said that--you have one of the most beautiful, melodic writing styles I have ever experienced. I read a lot and I don't think I've read an author who can rival your style. I would probably read anything you wrote because of that. I'm a visual person, and you created pictures with your words. You gave me a journey into the minds of your characters, as well as into the scenery of their world.
I would give this book 5 stars--the fact that as a reader it did not work for me with the characters is a personal feeling, and does not detract from what I feel is the literary value of the work itself.
I can't say more without giving spoilers. I will read your future work, it's just the characters in this one didn't do it for me.
Thank you so much for your honesty Linda. I fully understand what you mean. I wrote the book when I was twenty-two and have just published my second book - Tollesbury Time Forever at the age of 42! I promise the third one won't take as long.As an author (which I am now considering myself to be!) your sort of feedback is exactly what I need and I can't thank you enough for that. I would really value your opinion on anything I write.
Cheers!
Thank you, Stuart. I just bought Tollesbury Time Forever in the US. Which should tell you how much I enjoy your writing. I think you're going to go a long way as an author, and I look forward to your future books. I'm afraid you may get some bad feedback from Americans on A Cleansing of Souls. If you do--don't let it bother you. Sometimes they look for the bad, and miss the beautiful. It is truly a work of art.
Thank you Linda! Tollesbury Time Forever has had some lovely feedback (from Americans too!) so I hope you enjoy it!Like children, I know you shouldn't have favourites, but I do prefer Tollesbury Time. That's not to say A Cleansing of Souls doesn't have its merits - it clearly does given some of the feedback and having read it again recently I am liking it all over again. But I'll let you make up your own mind!
Criticism? Well that's just someone expressing their point of view. And that's wonderful!
You can post spoilers in the section below this Linda. It's entitled Discussions and Spoilers and and there's a thread for each of the 4 books. It's there so that people who are still reading it don't get spoilers but those who have finished and want to chat can get stuck in!
Being the last day of the discussion I thought I would confirm what parts of the book are based on real life events...
Oh!Come on then! I'm all ears!
Er. Eyes.
Well, I'll do one at a time starting from the beginning.1. I worked at an Insurance company, Commercial Union, in Romford when I was nineteen. The experience Tom has in Chapter 1 is entirely how I experienced it. I was sacked after a year for drinking too much at lunchtimes and for my poor time-keeping. The manager in the book is based on the branch manager in real life. I was twice called down to see him and they were two of the most surreal experiences I had then known!
Go on....I'm going to have to reread the book after this...
2. When I worked in Romford Market from the age of 11 to 17 I saved up to buy a guitar. I was getting £7 a week so it took me a while. I bought the guitar when I was 14 and it is still the guitar I play today - 28 years on! It's only a cheap yamaha really but it never goes out of tune. There is so much of my life in and around it that I'm not sure how I would react if anything happened to it, even now. So, yes, that's The Beautiful Guitar!
Must admit, didn't know any of it was from actual events. Am looking forward to hearing (seeing) the rest too :-)
There's actually more than I realised Em!
Thanks Patti!Last one for now...
3. I used to go busking at Holborn Station in London when I was 21. There was never a greater feeling than walking to Harold Wood Station with my guitar - I could have been absolutely anybody. And walking around the London streets with my guitar felt like stepping out with the most gorgeous woman I could ever then imagine. And what's great is I know I would have the exact same feeling now!
Cheers!Actually I'll do one more for now!
4. My little sister was born when I was 14 - the same age as Tom is when Little Norman was born. My memories are of how precious she was and how she embodied all the joy and hope that I could see fading from my own life - what with the onset of exams and responsibility and that good old adolescent 'nobody understands me but Bob Dylan' angst that so befell me!
So Little Norman was not only based on my sister (who thankfully is alive and well today by the way!) but also has the same effect on Tom as Louise, unknowingly had on me - that being an initial realisation that my own childhood was nearing its end and a feeling of dread for the adult world that was to come.
There you go - more later!
Marvellous!I had exactly the same feeling when my sister had her daughters. :)
I have brothers and sisters a lot younger than me (i am 34, they are 19, 18 and 17) so know exactly what you mean. My lil sister particularly (17) was so precious to me as she is my only sister. At 17 not so precious more diva/princess!! Ah well, love her lots :-)
It really doesn't surprise me Stuart, as it's all told very convincingly. It reads as 'real' if you see what I mean.I still have the 12 string I saved up for 30 years ago. However, the voluptuously female shape of the guitar means it never quite feels the same to a woman as it evidently does to a man!
Ah but guitars can also be highly strung, cumbersome in certain circumstances and at times painful on the ears! ; )
4. There is a small park in Romford at the back of my old school. It has a memorial in the middle which is ringed by a gravel path, benches and flowerbeds. This is the park the Tom and Michael go to. I used to sit there for hours reading or just watching things go by. It's right near the town centre but I was always struck by how peaceful it was. The library in the book is Romford library.
5. The scene where Tom sees the girl that he secretly loves and is then caught by her looking at all the porno films in the shop - that happened to me almost exactly as described in the book! Young love eh?!
Stuart wrote: "Ah but guitars can also be highly strung, cumbersome in certain circumstances and at times painful on the ears! ; )"Does he mean us?!
I just realised that the beginning of the book has alot of references to things that actually happened to me, yet thereafter events, descriptions and thoughts are more tangential. Perhaps I was becoming more confident as a writer, feeling that the world that developed in my mind was as valid as that in which I lived. Saying that, there are three more areas of the book, one scene which is more or less exactly as described, whose connection with reality is most definite. Any ideas?
Okey dokey - the first one:6. I was unemployed for two years (during which I wrote the majority of the book) between the ages of 21 and 23. The feelings George experiences are exactly how I experienced them, from the sense of isolation to the feeling that employers were conspiring against me to keep me out of work. I even, at the time, put it down to the fact that I'd once voted for the Communist Party! The part about lining up at the DSS and one day the mesh from the window being removed - that was true too. As was the interview where the person gets George's name wrong and the part with the little girl asking for 'two ones'. I didn't know what she meant then and I don't know now.
How wonderful Stuart,your book was special before,but so much more so now that we are learning about it's background straight from the same fingers that created it initially.How blessed are we,thank you so much.
Thank you Sarah! Really kind of you!The final main thing that is taken from real life was the scene where Michael hangs himself. I had written part 1 of the novel when I was 22 and part 2 when I was 24. Michael, at this stage had not been admitted to hospital or hung himself. He had last been seen just sitting in the park and that was it. The book finished.
When I was 29, I had just qualified as a psychiatric nurse. One morning I walked on shift and found a man hanging in the shower. Apart from the location (ie the bedroom as opposed to the shower room) what I wrote was what happened. And the CPR bit where the nurse John goes to breathe just as the chest is compressed, that happened too. I truly think my life changed from that moment. The start of that change was writing that extra part in the book where Michael kills himself, the rest just carries on. October 11th 1998 is a day I will never forget and never do forget. I do believe I write because of it and from that came Tollesbury Time Forever and from it will come everything else I ever write - just to try and make sense of why that happened.
I have always believed that great writers write from what comes out of the depths of their souls. That's why just being able to string a decent sentence together or to do a bit of fancy prose doesn't make you a writer. You have to have something to say. I'm lucky to be able to say that I have found a number of Indie writers who I believe really do have a voice of their own and something worth saying in that voice.(Yes, this means you!)
as you say Stuart I recall all the untimely deaths and near misses I have witnessed over the years,each leaves it's mark whether for good or bad.
To be honest I needed to be straightened out and that did it for me - obviously threw me completely the other way for a number of years but I'm back now! People do of course write for different reasons as people read for different reasons. That's why variety is wonderful. Nobody is right and nobody is wrong. It's just words, that's all. I for one though don't know what I'd do without them!
I found my release in my crafts, a different form of creativity.I don't know what we would do without your words now either Stuart.
Ah you'll be fine I'm sure!Just gone by the 30,000 word mark in the latest one so all is good!
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