Imagination at work

Cyriak Harris is a British animator, working in Brighton, with his own unique vision. Have a look at this video for We Got More by Eskmo (be sure to view in Full Screen mode):

cows & cows & cows is even more representative of his stunning talent:

Some of his work is disturbing as well as very clever and funny. If you wish to visit his site, consider yourself warned ...

Food for Indies

I have just set up a new blog, Food for Indies, to keep track of and to share information about independent authorship. Much of this is ephemeral and easily missed, so Food for Indies is organized by topics. If you're an independent author, I hope you find it useful.

The perfect book-trailer

H/T: No Water River

The good and great reader

“We read to know we are not alone,” said C. S. Lewis, which is one widely quoted viewpoint, but readers read for many reasons, including mere diversion, as trivial as watching TV.

Sometimes readers read because they are alone. A book is company. The act of reading invites the reader to participate in the construction of the narrative. He imagines scenes, notices things, wonders where the story is heading, and identifies, perhaps, with one or more of the characters. The book engages him. While he is turning the pages he is less lonely.

Such a reader is already at Base Camp, but above him rises the difficult, intensely rewarding peak which only the good and great reader can hope to attempt.

Of course, no matter how keenly, how admirably, a story, a piece of music, a picture is discussed and analyzed, there will be minds that remain blank and spines that remain unkindled. “To take upon us the mystery of things” – what King Lear so wistfully says for himself and for Cordelia – this is also my suggestion for everyone who takes art seriously. A poor man is robbed of his overcoat (Gogol’s “The Greatcoat”, or more correctly “The Carrick”); another poor fellow is turned into a beetle (Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis”) – so what? There is no rational answer to “so what.” We can take the story apart, we can find out how the bits fit, how one part of the pattern responds to the other; but you have to have in you some cell, some gene, some germ that will vibrate in answer to sensations that you can neither define, nor dismiss. Beauty plus pity – that is the closest we can get to a definition of art. Where there is beauty there is pity for the simple reason that beauty must die: beauty always dies, the manner dies with the matter, the world dies with the individual. If Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” strikes anyone as something more than an entomological fantasy, then I congratulate him on having joined the ranks of good and great readers.

— Vladimir Nabokov

Writing good fiction is difficult. The physical means of producing it are so easily acquired, and self-delusion is so widespread, that many people fancy themselves skilled when they are not. In the same way, reading appears to be simple. You are taught at school how to decipher the marks on a page and fancy yourself a reader, but unless you develop your technique you will never even get near the foothills. That’s fair enough, if diversion is all you seek, if you are prepared to forgo the panorama awaiting you at the summit.

At the core of reading technique is discernment. First you must discern whether what you are reading is sincere. Has it been written from the heart?

Next: does the author know his job? You cannot construct a piece of furniture if you know nothing about carpentry. Watch out for an inadequate vocabulary, an absence of poetry, an ignorance of flow – and by “flow” I mean the ability to present meanings in the correct order, which is the key to storytelling. Does the author have a clear idea of what he’s up to? If he doesn’t, you certainly won’t, and he is wasting unique and precious hours of your life, hours you can never get back.

By practising discernment you improve your taste. You graduate to better work, and as you graduate the act of reading becomes more and more involving. Your mental eyesight becomes keener. You appreciate an artist when you find one and understand what he is doing, and then you begin to plug into his mind.

I have said elsewhere on this blog that writing fiction is primarily a function of the subconscious: the ability to share someone else’s inmost feelings is one of the most exciting rewards for the good and great reader. While reading a good and great book, the good and great reader’s mind merges with that of the author, is exercised, enlarged, and made stronger. The chances are he will read the rest of the author’s oeuvre. He will do this in order to clarify and expand what he has already gained, to check that the experience was authentic, and to see how the author’s sensibilities have changed over the years.

There is, however, more than that to reading a good and great book. The prose itself will be beautiful. Its aptness and rhythm will give you delight. Its vocabulary will enrich your own, allowing you to express yourself more clearly and make closer contact with your fellow humans. That alone is worth the price of admission.

But it gets better. Literature offers an infinity of alternative worlds. The reader inhabits them in complete safety. He can learn from the mistakes the characters make; he can admire and try to emulate their generosity or wisdom. By so doing, he grows spiritually. He takes upon himself “the mystery of things”.

The deepest mystery is an understanding of other people, and that, I feel, is what C. S. Lewis had in mind.

Darling Brenda

I have been rather quiet recently, finishing a 100,000 novel for release in March: Darling Brenda, set in England in 1955. This is another new departure for me, a very black comedy indeed.

Nigel Dodd is 23. Still living at his parents’ home, he is heir to the family business, a thriving estate agency. Unknown to Nigel, his father is embroiled in an ambitious and crooked land deal involving corrupt politicians at the County Council.

Brenda Vale is 26, a nurse, highly intelligent and extremely pretty, with a newly acquired German girlfriend named Grete. One of Brenda’s unrealized ambitions is to “find and marry some pliable man with money”. Circumstances bring her into the Dodd household; Grete’s permission to stay in the UK unexpectedly runs out, and suddenly Brenda is in need of hard cash and plenty of it.

Nigel could hardly be more pliable. Nor could he be more infatuated. The future looks bright for Brenda and Grete: but looks can be deceptive, and when the land deal goes horribly wrong Brenda must use all her wiles to keep her scheme on track.

The text is in the final stages of checking, and publication is slated for the third week of March.

Learning from readers

There are currently 192 reviews of The Penal Colony at amazon.co.uk and 70 at amazon.com: that ebook is less downloaded in the United States, maybe because the cultural references pass American readers by. Many of the reviews, I’m relieved to say, are positive. Some of the exceptions are from readers who either haven’t finished the book or who haven’t understood what it is about.

Failure of comprehension is largely the author’s fault, but reading novels is a skill that must be acquired. The level to which public education has sunk, and the hegemony of the visual as a medium of entertainment, have produced a group of young people who have not been exposed to enough written fiction to know how to react to it. They suppose that if an opinion is expressed on the page, it must be the author’s. They have not learned to take a broad view, to wait and see what happens and form a judgement accordingly, but are instead blown about from scene to scene by every puff of wind. Nor have they any awareness of the resonances and undercurrents which make a piece of writing come alive.

The central driver of The Penal Colony is the change brought about in its protagonist by his experience on the island. He arrives with a fairly complete set of prejudices and loses them all. Thus I have been castigated as a bigot, a racist and a homophobe. Attitudes towards homosexuality, including my own, were less sympathetic in the 1980s (the book was drafted in 1985-6). This was the time of the AIDS scare, and there were controversies about homosexuality in the armed forces which I thought applicable to the social structure of the community in which my hero ends up. The Penal Colony is a story of its time and should be read as such.

Most reviews, however, should by no means be disregarded, even though some of the opinions may seem unreasonable to the author. The act of reading is a collaboration. If it fails in any consistent way there is something wrong with the book. A number of reviewers have expressed their dissatisfaction with the ending. They say it is too abrupt, and would like to know what else happens to the main characters. They accuse me of having got bored with the project, which was not the case.

My take on the story was that it should cover the protagonist’s time on the island. It begins with him waking up there and effectively ends with his departure. The brief final chapter was intended merely to put a cap on things and point the way to the future. Not a single professional reviewer complained about its brevity: but then professionals are expert readers fully versed in the language of fiction.

An author with any sense will take far more notice of the non-professionals – if he wants to be read, they are the people he must please. Disappointment about the ending is flattering, because it suggests that those readers who complain care about the characters. It is also sobering, because it reveals a lack of skill on my part. I am coming to the end of drafting a new book. The closing chapters are more explicit than I’d planned: I have heeded my critics’ advice.

Professional reviewers are part of the gatekeeping apparatus that interposes itself between writer and reader. Their opinions are often partial, and are primarily filler between the ads on the literary pages. Of course, you also have to read amateur reviews with a bit of scepticism, since some of them are planted by shills or the author in person, but by and large the amateur reviewer has no axe to grind. His or her review is likely to be honest, prompted by a sincere desire to share pleasure or warn others of trash.

This is one aspect of the ebook revolution which is not often trumpeted, but it should be. In the past all one got was the odd fan-letter forwarded (or not) by the publisher, and fan-letters are useless as a critical tool. Direct access to the opinions of the reader is an incredible gift for the author, and breaks down yet further the barrier between them. So please don’t hold back if you’re minded to post an opinion about any ebook you’ve read – you’ll be doing everyone an excellent turn!

The Drowning - FREE for a limited period

To prepare the way for a new novel, I have set the price of The Drowning to zero at Smashwords. My thrillers are popular, but I'd like to expose my more literary work to a wider audience.

This is a special promotion for a limited period only, so please grab a copy right away if you want one. It is available in the following formats:

.mobi (for Kindle - just add to your "documents" folder via USB cable)
.epub (most modern ereaders except Kindle)
.pdf (good for reading on a PC)
.rtf (loadable in word-processor)
.lrf (older models of Sony Reader)
.pdb (Palm Doc, for Palm devices)
.txt (plain text, but you lose italics and other formatting)

I hope you like it! If you do, and if you feel so inclined, I would very much appreciate your leaving a review, however brief, at the ebook site of your choice.

UPDATE, 25 February: the Smashwords offer is now closed, but for the next few days you may find the book listed for nothing at other retailers.