Readers and Writers

Writing as compulsion

2014-02-28T07:37:00.000-08:00

Writing is a compulsion for me, but where does that force within come from, I wonder. I’ve never tried to explain it before, but perhaps it stems from reading. Librarians and teachers of literacy often express a desire for youngsters to “discover the joys of reading”. I’m guessing that joy of reading is behind my urge to write.

An adventure into another world.

It is not a desire to recreate the great writers (as if) but to recreate the feeling reading those writers gave me, of entering a different world, a subconscious world, an imaginary world . From those earliest days of my own literacy, I was able to enter other lives, whether it be from the simple story lines and characters of school books to my mother’s magazines which seemed always to feature stories about exotic lives lived on tea plantations in Ceylon or India. Reading was mind expanding and other worldly. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, read as a child in Australia, opened a door to the world that has never been shut, as did Heidi, the story of the little girl who lives with her grandfather in the Swiss Alps.

The Swiss mountains were a long
way from the Australian bush.

In retrospect, the revelation of the inner lives of those and other characters, had a profound impact and influences the way I write and what I write about.

Then there is inspiration. When I first read Faulkner’s, The Sound and the Fury, I remember closing the last page and thinking, wow, how did he do that. It was one of those profoundly moving novels that imprint themselves on the psyche; long after you have forgotten the plot details, you remember that moment of revelation; this writer is different to everyone I have read before. I think it inspired me in many ways to want to be a writer. Not so much to “write” like Faulkner, but to recreate the moment. It’s hard to explain.

Writers come fairly quickly to the realisation they will not reach parity with the great writers of literature, but that does not stop them persisting, perhaps in a desire to find “the moment” or in an attempt to clarify their thoughts. As Faulkner said, ”I never know what I think about something until I read what I’ve written on it.”

This post was first published at http://booksbywomen.org/writing-as-compulsion/

Reviews for Place of Many Birds

2013-12-05T22:09:00.001-08:00

The tales are gently unfolding and there is a lazy moodiness which sets the tone and suits the subject matter of the stories.
The characters, wildlife and scenery are all brought vividly and expertly to life. Very enjoyable."

Sophia Gampton

" This is an excellent book, really well done! I don't tend to read short stories all that much and after reading this wonderful book, wonder why? I bought it because Australia interests me. The stories take place there and the reader is transported to a different time and place through them. To be able to create a story with a minimum of words that is compelling, gives the reader a complete sense of people, place and time, I think is sheer genius. If you're a fan of story stories, if you're interested in Australia, or if you simply want a good read, this one delivers. I can't recommend it highly enough!"

Dianne Harman

Discovering an author you admire

2013-07-19T05:33:00.002-07:00

Discovering an author you admire, one you haven’t read before is always a thrill. A door opens to a different world as that new voice and style gets inside your head.

Hans Fallada writing about Berlin during WW2 is my new discovery. Alone in Berlin is the story of Otto, an ordinary German who, after his son is killed at the front, is shocked into a silent campaign attacking Hitler. He drops anonymous postcards around the city in the hope he will spur others into fighting back against the Nazi war machine.

Described as the great novel of German resistance, it’s an terrifying picture of a world in which even law-abiding citizens are helpless, in danger and able to trust no one. Yet it all sounds fairly familiar and you’d think a well worn subject such as the war period between 1938-45 wouldn’t have anything new to offer. But Fallada’s 1947 novel, reads as if it has just been published. There’s an immediacy to his characterisation in the way people struggle with or are destroyed by the world around them and how they might find meaning in their moral integrity and human decency.

A similar experience can be found in Fallada’s Little Man, What Now, written in 1932 in the lead up to the war. Again, it is his characterisation of an ordinary young couple and their struggle to maintain a dignified and decent life in an economically and morally declining Berlin, that drives the plot and brings the novel to life.

“Old” subject matter and an author who died in 1947 doesn’t sound like a serendipitous recipe, but it’s a tribute to Fallada’s skill that his classic novels remain fresh and readable and able to reach new audiences. His ear for dialogue developed when he worked on farms and estates in Mecklenburg, Silesia and West Prussia:

“I was with people almost all the time, I stood behind endless rows of women talking away while they chopped turnips and dug potatoes, and I heard the women and girls talking away. It went on from dawn till dusk...I could not avoid it, I had to listen and I learned how they talk and what they talk about, what their worries are and what problems they have. And as I was only a very minor official and not riding around on horseback - I just had a bike now and then to save time - they had no inhibitions about talking to me and I learned to talk to everybody.”

There’s a lesson for every writer. Fallada’s dialogue is not however, just a simple repetition of the overheard chitchat some modern writers employ. Fallada refines and details his conversations to reveal inner thoughts, fears, aspirations and circumstance. That’s why his novels continue to stand up to scrutiny.

I wonder how many new novels, those we hail as masterpieces, will stand the test of time and be able to reach new audiences in 70 or 80 years.

UK readers:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=hans%20fallada

Australian and US readers:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=hans%20fallada

Visiting the novel's location

2013-06-28T08:54:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the setting is so integral to a novel it becomes one of the characters defining the story. In other words, you could not transport the action to another location and still have the same book. Death in Venice comes to mind, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Steinbeck’s The Chrysanthemums, Burmese Days and so on. Robert Frost’s poems could not be as effective and moving were they removed from rural life in New England. There are many examples.

Yet some of the greatest works of literature are not defined by their locale or period. Shakespeare’s plays can and have been performed far from the setting Shakespeare intended. Coriolanus has recently been transferred to the Balkans, Romeo and Juliet to a Miami-resembling Verona Beach. This has not detracted from their universal themes.

The same is not true though for many a work of literature and the description of the setting leaves as much impression on the reader as the characters or plot.

The Windmills of La Mancha

Have you ever gone on a pilgrimage to a setting because it came to life so clearly between the pages of a book you just had to see it for yourself? I once travelled through Spain in search of the towns and villages on the plains of La Mancha where Don Quixote is set. The journey turned into something of a wild goose chase through this windswept desert like region as the exact locations Cervantes based his story on had eluded historians for four centuries, and although we visited interesting villages, none of them exuded a romantic aura associated with a chivalrous knight. The town of Villanueva de los Infantes has since been designated as The Place in La Mancha referred to at the start of Cervantes’ novel. It’s an unremarkable birthplace, but perhaps that was Cervantes’ intention suggesting a courageous knight was unlikely to emerge from such a place.

Unimpressive with harsh environmental conditions, the dry arid plains of La Mancha and their windmills are nevertheless integral to the story and the ride of the delusional Don Quixote and his sidekick Sancho Panza through the dusty terrain is what makes the story.

Sometimes places live up to expectations and sometimes they don’t. Two things drew me to Tasmania last January. One: the incredible art gallery, MONA, the Museum of Old and New Art. A limestone cavern filled with spectacular works of art, it is an experience and an education that lives up to expectations. Two: the wild bush setting of Matthew Kneale’s English Passengers, a spectacular journey into primeval Tasmanian forest, that is terrifying, dangerous and impenetrable.

Tasmanian Wilderness

The setting takes over as character once the expedition to find the Garden of Eden commences. The landscape plays tricks on the characters and does not give up secrets readily. By observing the terrain, the various parties believe they can find a way through the bush by using geology and logical deduction but they become hopelessly lost to the living, breathing power of the remote setting. The English passengers don’t fit into these powerful surroundings and the physical difficulties the parties encounter even contribute to mental breakdown.

That remote and impenetrable wilderness still exists in vast tracts in southern Tasmania where there are thousands of acres of land without roads and the only access is by foot. The startling thing is, the menace and danger of the English Passengers’ bush setting remains largely unchanged from when the story was set in 1857.

Sidney Nolan's Snake at the Museum of Old and New Art

Place of Many Birds free fiction download this weekend

2013-06-21T23:42:00.000-07:00

Place of Many Birds is short literary fiction set in Australia in the aftermath of the wars and in the shadow of the Great Depression through to the 1960s. Themes are family, love and growing up.

It's available for free download this weekend: Saturday 22 June and Sunday 23 June.

If you don't have a kindle, you can easily download a kindle app for use on PCs.

Australian and USA readers:

http://www.amazon.com/Place-of-Many-Birds-ebook/dp/B00BZ4O9MK/ref=la_B007Y57CWI_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1371558496&sr=1-1

UK readers:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Place-of-Many-Birds-ebook/dp/B00BZ4O9MK/ref=sr_1_fkmr3_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1371559250&sr=8-1-fkmr3&keywords=books+jan+merry+place+of+many+birds

I met the Farangi Girl today

2013-06-12T07:27:00.000-07:00

I met the Farangi Girl today. What a delight she is. Engaging, personable and full of vitality, you’d never guess she was the product of a tumultuous upbringing in pre-revolutionary Iran.

Speaking with knowledge, insight and affection for a country most of us know little about, Dartnell conveys an exotic aura of handsome British father, glamorous American mother and unconventional Iranian upbringing.

Ashley Dartnell’s autobiographical, Farangi Girl, is a deeply personal account of her life and that of her parents and siblings in a foreign land, Farangi being Farsi for foreign. Filled with intimate details of the mother-daughter relationship, bankruptcy, prison and poverty, affairs and neglect, you can’t help wonder how these children emerged from such a childhood to grow up and make successful lives. Their experiences clearly made them strong and Ashley, always trying to prove herself, went on to graduate from Bryn Mawr College, to gain an MBA from Harvard Business School and an MA in Creative and Life Writing from Goldsmiths University.

Ashley with her glamorous but neglectful mother

No one outside the circle really knows what goes on within a family. So the exposure of her and her brothers’ experiences and the descriptions of family dynamics make heart-rending reading for outsiders, and surely for her family too. When asked how her family reacted to her book, she is candid. At first there were objections as painful memories were raked over, but eventually acceptance of the writer’s desire to write won out and Ashley published her book.

So how do writers deal with the delicate issue of recounting experiences shared within a family? Do you have a right to use private details of cherished memories or relate events that have long been buried and forgotten for good reason? Disclosure of private facts is tricky territory and needs to be handled carefully and thoughtfully if it is not to end in tears, recriminations or legal issues.

Does a movie ever live up to the book?

2013-06-10T08:20:00.000-07:00

Critics gave the new film of The Great Gatsby luke warm reviews, disappointed it did not capture the essence of this enduringly popular novel. But weren’t they being a little harsh, after all, it would be just about impossible to please the gate-keepers of this classic America novel,sometimes described as the greatest American novel ever written.

Regarded as Fitzgerald’s masterpiece, it embodies the conflicts between the established sources of economic and cultural power and those like Gatsby of humble origins who make good, becoming wealthy and powerful in the process; in other words, it embodies the American dream that anyone can make it against the odds of class, background and old money, an ideal which is the linchpin of American society from its founding days to the present.

Leonardo DiCaprio shines as Jay Gatsby

Baz Luhrmann’s film captures well the prosperous 1920s era, known for bootlegged liquor, organised crime, the birth of jazz and the garish flapper culture. Fitzgerald’s themes of decadence and idealism are well defined and the film is a sensory feast with glorious settings and costumes which speak clearly of the opulence enjoyed by the wealthy, of which Gatsby so desperately wanted to be a part, to impress and possess the shallow Daisy.

Classic novels set the bar high

I guess this is where the critics have a point. These in your face sights and sounds get in the way of the audience thinking too hard. They distract in a way that doesn’t happen in the silence of the mind when reading a novel. Reading The Great Gatsby is a cerebral, poetic experience, requiring the use of the intellect, watching the film is not. Fitzgerald’s delicate prose is littered with abstract and indirect subtleties impossible to recreate in film. The language of the movie is blunt and to the point. The vagaries of the novel which require input from the reader are spelled out in the movie so there is no opportunity to participate as you might with the novel.

Luhrmann could have taken a different approach and exchanged blatant reality for nuance, but then that’s not what he does best. He doesn’t do subtle. His version is long (142 min) but entertaining and never boring. Could he have kept his trademark shenanigans without losing Fitzgerald’s layers? It would be a fine thing to see Luhrmann exchange style for substance. As it is though, audiences and critics should accept a film will never live up to the novel we place on a pedestal and just enjoy Luhrmann’s artistic style, which does suit the prosperous era in which The Great Gatsby is set.
To understand just how revered The Great Gatsby is, a first printing of an American first edition, with dust jacket, can be valued at up to US$750,000. Treated almost as holy writ, could any film maker do it justice? Luhrmann was brave to try.

What can readers bring to the table?

2013-05-30T04:31:00.000-07:00

Harry Wallop, reporting from the UK’s most prestigious literary gathering, wrote in the Telegraph: "Howard Jacobson, the Booker Prize winning novelist, had said that readers are too often ‘not intelligent’ enough to understand books.

Speaking at the Telegraph Hay Festival, he (Jacobson) said: Sometimes readers are quick to blame the novel that they, the reader, is not enjoying, whereas you have to ask yourself whether the reason that you don’t like the book is that you are just not good enough.

‘You have to be intelligent to like a book. The author has an obligation to please the reader, but the reader has an obligation to be intelligent.’"

Jacobson was commenting on the humiliation and frustration of being a writer, the focus of his recent and amusing prize winning novel, Zoo Time.

It may sound more than a little smug and self delusional to blame the reader for not connecting with your novel, but for me, what he was really asking is, can writers expect readers to bring something to the table.

Rather than ‘intelligence’ per se, it’s the difference between active and passive reading. Although we read for different reasons and purposes, passive readers seek instant gratification in the way of the quick sound bite. What they do read they fail to engage intellectually with so the extent of their understanding is limited to the sentence being read, rather than thinking beyond the text. Is that what Jacobson meant? If there’s no explicit language and action, the passive reader becomes bored.

Visitors to Hay Festival, The Guardian

Active readers engage with the content and see reading as an ongoing process in which they make plentiful connections. They have the patience to wait for the pay-off instead of demanding to be entertained right now! For the passive reader, each book becomes a blind alley whereas the active reader sees an invitation.

Is it down to intelligence? Maybe, maybe not. But at the very least, writers hope readers will not just sit at the table waiting to be fed. Rather, they will bring a willingness (and ability?) to participate in the feast.

Are fiction writers just dirty little liars?

2013-05-04T08:26:00.000-07:00

When do readers expect fiction to be “true”? OK that’s a contradiction in terms. Fiction is about imaginary events and people; invented or fabricated as opposed to fact. So why do we sometimes want to hold writers to account and complain their description of a certain place is inaccurate or an event does not ring true?

I came to this subject through Bruce Chatwin’s Songlines, which I read on first publication in 1986/7. It is not clear which year it first came out. I enjoyed this novel and admired Chatwin. On the Black Hill ranks as an all time favourite. Set in Wales, it evokes rural farm life and the small surrounding community. Chatwin amalgamated real places and people into his storyline but I didn’t think for a moment the story was the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Why then did I feel such disappointment when I read in an interview with Chatwin at the time of Songlines’ publication, that he had never visited Australia. In the novel he describes a trip through the Australian Outback in which he researches Aboriginal song and its influence on nomadic travel. His convincing descriptions led me to believe he was writing from personal experience. Yet he was actually writing from thorough research. Shouldn’t I have been happy that his research was so impressive and detailed it gave flight to the first half of the book.

Over many years it kept niggling whenever I saw the book on my shelves. How could someone write with authenticity about the Outback and Aboriginal culture, without having first-hand experience. Well, writers do that all the time. But perhaps because Chatwin was using Aboriginal culture in his novel the idea he was working purely from research didn’t sit well with me. In 1987, post publication, Chatwin seems to have made a hastily arranged visit to the area north of Adelaide, but so many years after the event, it is hard to verify the actual facts. Does it matter anyway? On reflection, I think I was taking the book too personally. Here was an outsider writing about my country. Just like friends and family who recognise elements of themselves in novels and take umbrage at perceived inaccuracies, I felt there must be something false in Chatwin’s work.

The truth is, out of necessity and creative drive, writers invent, imagine and create. Sadly, not many of us are that interesting, nor do we enjoy lots of interesting encounters or experiences. Many are saddled with dull personalities lacking in intellect etc. You get the picture. So in order to present interesting characters and plots, writers combine a snip from here and a snip from there, shaping their stories through the real and the imagined. Readers need only be concerned if something untrue is intentionally represented as true. It’s fine to fabricate, as long as it’s fiction. Though there have been plenty of non-fiction fabrications too.

Howard Jacobson gives a monkey's about writing

2013-05-02T05:47:00.000-07:00

Reviews of Howard Jacobson’s, Zoo Time were not universally good, but I found it to be one of his most entertaining books and actually snorted with laughter a few times. His comments on Henry Miller, whom he appears to hold up as a role-model, were very funny if offensive to many, I dare say. Yes, it was typical Jacobson me me me, but it included a fair amount of self-criticism (more me me me) and at least he doesn’t take himself too seriously.

What I really like about Jacobson is his easy style and mastery of language. His is prose stripped bare, lacking flowery pretension; clearly he just loves to write. OK, he’s a bit of a smart arse and cretinously patronising at times, but he is colourful, entertaining and literary, if not profound.

Reading and the demise of books is one of his themes and the main character, Jewish novelist Guy Ableman (me me me) despairs fiction might be dead as his book sales dwindle.

In fact, in the UK we are actually reading more. Book sales have gone up and though e-readers are increasing, they have not detracted from book store sales. So that ought to give hope to all the writers out there despairing at low returns or lack of a publishing deal – people are still interested in reading.

The story or plot isn’t the point here. Jacobson is a writer writing about writing and he has a lot to say about both writing and reading in Zoo Time, perhaps best summed up by the following self enlightening moment after his wife (Guy Ableman’s) publishes her own novel: “Now she was just another practitioner. One of thousands, millions even. Hush and you can hear them; listen, on a quiet night anywhere on the planet, and you can hear the scratch of their pens or the dead click of their keyboards, as innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore.”

1 May 2013

British publishers have reported record sales for 2012, despite the recession and the rise of e-readers.

Total spending on printed and digital books rose 4% to £3.3bn last year, the Publishers Association said.

The digital revolution really took hold in 2012 with sales up 66% to £411m, and fiction e-reading growing even faster, up 149%.

Rory Cellan-Jones reports.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22363952

Told by an Idiot

2013-04-04T06:20:00.000-07:00

Faulkner in Paris 1925 by WC Odiorne

I never know what I think about something until I read what I’ve written on it. These humble words of American writer William Faulkner resound with the depth and sensitivity of his novel and short story writing.

It made me wonder, is it because their thoughts are only clarified in writing, that writers feel compelled to write. Maybe that’s why many writers are not good at self-promotion and talking up their novels on promo tours. You need the gift of the gab to be an effective salesperson; do writers have the gift of the written word instead.

When I first read Faulkner’s, The Sound and the Fury, I remember closing the last page and thinking, wow, how did he do that. It was one of those profoundly moving novels that imprint themselves on the psyche; long after you’ve forgotten the plot details, you remember that moment of revelation; this writer is different to everyone I have read before. I think it inspired me in many ways to want to be a writer myself.

The novel is about the Compson family in a fictional southern county of the USA and is told from four different perspectives, each equally convincing. Faulkner’s ability to feel and then relate events from different points of view marked him as a future Nobel in Literature winner. It also indicated a lack of ego, something useful in a writer, but not so useful on a publicity tour. Though having said that, I have met many successful writers with massive egos.

Faulkner also advised to write from the heart about things that matter, like Shakespeare did. That’s why the universal truths in Shakespeare’s plays still resonate. That search for significance and meaning in existence takes time to construct.

As writers weave ideas from heart and mind to the page, shape-shifting thoughts into sentences, rewinding passages and playing them over again, their thoughts eventually clarify and what they really think emerges.

Writers seek more than an instant opinion which is all too often told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Best Australian Books

2013-03-04T07:18:00.000-08:00

Lists of best anything are problematic because tastes and ideals vary so much. First Tuesday Bookclub recently published their 10 Australian Books to Read Before You Die and what a strange compilation it was. Cloudstreet at number one and Picnic at Hanging Rock at number ten. What lay in between was just as erratic, from South African Power of One to The Slap. Norman Lyndsay's Magic Pudding even managed to jump in there! How does that make sense.
Lists are subject to human nature...that might mean voting for a book you read and loved as a child, so you give it a tick, even if you haven't re-read it for many years. The way a child judges a book may not be the same from an adult perspective. I really wonder about the inclusion of The Slap and if it has benefited from the recent television series. And so many brilliant works are missing.
I admire The Secret River and A Fortunate Life,but my vote for number one would have been The Book Thief, skillful, uplifting and original. On watching Tuesday Bookclub, I was amazed to hear some of the panel being a little restrained in their praise for this exceptional novel. There is just no accounting for taste!

Here is the list. What do you think?

The way I remember We of the Never-Never is as a classic
innovation in Australian Literature.
Yet it didn't make the list. Do you agree or disagree?

10. Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay

9. The Secret River by Kate Grenville

8. The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas

7. The Magic Pudding by Norman Lindsay

6. Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey

5. The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay

4. The Harp in the South by Ruth Park

3. A Fortunate Life by Bert Facey

2. The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak

1. Cloudstreet by Tim Winton

Three Day Book Sale

2013-02-19T06:40:00.001-08:00

Make the most of this sensational opportunity to download the books below in the next three days. December 6-8 only. All are greatly reduced to just 99cents. Three days only.

Check time zones to be sure of prices.

Reviews for Place of Many Birds

"Whilst I've never been to Australia I have read many books set there, Nevil Shute and Colleen McCullough both spring to mind and the descriptive language of these short stories, reminded me very much of the mood and sense of place that these authors give.

The tales are gently unfolding and there is a lazy moodiness which sets the tone and suits the subject matter of the stories.

The characters, wildlife and scenery are all brought vividly and expertly to life. Very enjoyable."

Sophia Gampton

Dianne Harman

How writers write

2012-09-25T09:13:00.000-07:00

Vladislav Bajac’s novel, Hamam Balkania, provides a thought provoking introduction on the writing process. ‘The writer’s problem,’ he says, ‘one of countless others, is that they often confuse reality and imagination. That is the source of the famous loss of the boundary between what happened and what was experienced.’
On character he says: ‘That is how I began to temporarily mix my encounters with people close to me; I want to say, I brought those who lived five centuries before me closer to my own time, and transferred myself and my friends (or characters) with ease into lives centuries older than we are.’
That philosophy should be read before commencing to write. It will help to set you on the right path. I would love to hear other writers comments on the writing process.

Which is your favourite book?

2012-06-13T01:28:00.000-07:00

How many times have you been asked that question? I'm always surprised when people name a certain author or novel as their benchmark reading experience because my favourite novel is usually the one I'm reading at the time.
I don't even have a favourite genre as it all depends on how a novel is written and the subject matter which combined, make it enjoyable.

The Blurb

In just the last twelve months, so many books have delighted me with their freshness and cleverness. Marcus Zusak's, The Book Thief, must come as close as any book ever has to being a favourite. The beautiful, simple prose is incredibly moving and like all great literature, it is about what it means to be human. It is also about being a reader and a writer, one of my favourite combos.
But inevitably, once a book is finished I move on to the next experience. So although Zusak will stay with me, I'm now involved in Peter Ackroyd's, The Clerkenwell Tales, a scholarly race through London streets in 1399. These stories of spies, friars, nuns and secret societies are richly imagined and strange, yet so realistic you could be one of their neighbours living in the shadows of St Paul's. I have lived and worked around Clerkenwell, so although the writing is intriguing, my familiarity with the setting also draws me in.
That's often why I find myself scouring the shelves of my London library for Australian writers. Sometimes it is the desire to return to your roots that makes a story particularly enticing. I read Bryce Courtney's, The Potato Factory while here in the UK. I had spurned it when living in Australia but feeling homesick and looking for something familiar, I enjoyed the history and settings of London and Van Dieman's Land.
Many readers heading off on holiday like to take Lorca to Spain, Michener's, South Pacific to Vanuatu, or Lampedusa to Sicily because it gives both their holiday and their reading another dimension in time and place. To take Jane Austen to the Kalahari, for example, would not do justice to either the work itself or to the desert. On a Nile cruise, Agatha Christie may turn into your favourite author.
It takes all sorts to make a book memorable, to have significance for the reader and to make it a favourite. I don't think I could settle for just one.