Mock Duck

Can't You Sound a Bit More Like Alan Bennett?

This article about my experience at The Unpublished Writers Jam was originally published by Jess Ruston's literary blog: The Book Bar.

“Can’t you sound a bit more like Stephen Fry – he’s funny.”

“No I can’t!”

“Alan Bennett then.”

I stared into my boyfriend’s eyes and wondered, not for the first time, how I had ended up with such an idiot. I could no more sound like Alan Bennett than he could suddenly metamorphose into Pamela Anderson. It was a disaster. I couldn’t do this. What had possessed me to think I could?

It had been a whim really. An idle challenge to myself. If you are serious about this novel-writing lark, you will do it, I said to myself when I found the information about The Debut Authors Festival on the Scottish Book Trust website. Unpublished Writers Jam, it said. Send in your details and you could be one of 14 names to read out your work in front of an expert panel. Personally, I thought, I’d rather eat my own eyeball; I emailed them anyway.

I’d never get it, I thought comfortably. A week later I found out I was in.

Now, here I was, rehearsing my unfinished comic novel for the nth time in front of my stony-faced audience, who was turned away checking his emails. I screwed up my face and tried to imbue my voice with a Bennetian wryness and world-weary resignation.

 

“Any better?”

“What about Kenneth Williams?”

It was no good. I was going to have to pull out.

 

The small theatre of Traverse Two was full. I tiptoed over to the row of reserved seats in the front row and tried to ignore the large podium at the centre of the stage. To its right a PopIdol-style configuration of judges (one novelist, one TV producer and a newspaper Literary Editor) brooded menacingly; I knocked back my complimentary dram in one.

 

Who do you think you are? Said the voice in my head. To think you could be a writer. What do you think you are doing here?

 

At the call of their name, each trembling would-be writer made their way to the podium, blinking under the bright-lights. Not all were polished readers. Not all had the courage to prise their eyeballs from the page to look at the crowd. But it was heartening somehow - heroic even - to see them taking their chance, risking their all.

The panel, after some Cowell-like posturing, settled into an in-depth discussion of each piece – analysing style, genre and offering advice. Even my boyfriend, usually uninterested in anything without a modem attached, was taking notes.

Too soon it was my turn.

Drunk with nerves, I staggered to the podium and indulged in some paper-rustling to hide my shaking hands. I looked up at the audience. That was a bad idea. I looked down again. No, it was important to engage; a sea of blurred faces swam before me. Who do you think you are? Said the voice in my head. They’re going to hate it. I took a deep breath.

“This is an excerpt from my novel, Sadomasochism for Accountants.” I could almost hear the eyebrows hitting hairlines. I started to read.

The first laugh took me by surprise, causing me to stumble over my words. The next I was more prepared for. Growing in confidence, I threw myself into the climax with gusto. Somewhere through the singing in my ears was the sound of the audience roaring with laughter, then the applause. I couldn’t believe it. They liked it. They loved it! I turned towards the panel.

The judges were unanimous: It was funny. Very funny. They all agreed. Who did I think I was? Who did I think I was? I was obviously a complete genius, that’s what I was!

The trouble with adrenalin is that you never know when it is going to run out. After fuelling such megalomaniac delusions of own brilliance, my body, in a sudden about-turn, did the biological equivalent of dumping me at the bottom of a swimming pool.

“So,” said one of the panel. “How would you sum up your book?”

This was the chance to really sell it: the heart-warming tale of one woman’s sufferings in the cruel world of accountancy and her subsequent rescue by a bunch of kindly sadomasochists.

In fact, what I said was. “Umm.” And then. “Err.” And. “Urg.”

“I take it you have a plot?”

I thought about this from my subterranean depths. “Yes.” I offered eventually.

There was a pause.

“And what genre would you say it is?”

What had happened to all those one-liners about appealing to the untapped, yet hopefully lucrative, niche market of sadomasochistic accountants out there?

“Umm. Comedy,” I said, indistinctly.

 

Afterwards, staggering out to the Traverse Bar, with the other writers, the atmosphere was electric. Admittedly, this was partly the electricity of relief: we had faced The Fear together and we had survived. But partly it was due to the unique atmosphere of the festival itself.

Small, intimate and across just one weekend, The Debut Author’s Festival boasts neither the size, nor the Brouhaha, of The Edinburgh Book Festival, say. But these aspects, which should be its weaknesses, turn out to be its strengths.

Focussing specifically on debut authors rather than established literary celebrities, The Debut gives a platform to new writing. It concentrates on discursive issues and actively encourages interactive debate: this year the programme contains discussions on everything from the rise of the creative writing course to the influence upon writers of growing up in multicultural Britain.

This sense of involvement and participation is enhanced by the intimate venue: you are as likely to end up chatting to other audience members, or indeed the speakers themselves, during events, in the ticket queue or in the Traverse Bar afterwards. Even the judges turn out to be human.

And it was in the Traverse Bar where I happened to be when, to my amazement, I was approached by a literary agent. (I couldn’t believe it - a real life agent not just giving me the time of day, but a business card!) Nine months later and she received the finished manuscript, which is now being prepared for submission to publishers.

I am under no illusions. The publishing industry is a tough place and writers have to learn to deal with rejection and disappointment on a regular basis. But it is easy to forget that new writers also need a bit of advice and encouragement now and again.

In just three days The Debut gave me the opportunity to try out my work in front of an audience, advice from experts in the trade as well as the chance to participate in a host of stimulating events.

Who do you think you are, says the voice.

You are a writer, says The Debut Festival. You deserve to be here.

 

 

On the Table: How People Buy Books

Was browsing the book blogs and came across this post from Two Ravens blog, which says that a study undertaken by The Bookseller found:

26% of the population make their buying decisions about books based predominantly on retail displays. The second most influential factor was newspaper and magazine reviews (14%) followed by TV and radio mentions for a book (13%). Recommendations from friends and family were next at 12%, 9% gave internet recommendations as their main reason for buying a book, and 2% relied on the advice of shop assistants or librarians.

Two Ravens' Sharon Blackie seems somewhat despondent about this news - particularly the dominance of instore promotional displays. To be honest, I am surprised the figure is not greater than 25%. I am certainly influenced by 3 for 2 tables - not so much because of the 3 for 2 factor (although that always activates my "bargain" gene) as just the sheer visibility and browsability.

However, my eye couldn't help being drawn to one of those other figures: 9%. At last! The power of internet recommendations is being statistically recognised (although it must be admitted it is unclear how Amazon fits into any of these figures).

Blackie finishes her article with a call for change.

Of course what I’d like to see is a revolution - more and more publishers refusing to accept the huge discounts that big stores demand and the unlimited returns that can put an entire print run into the red … and so refusing to accept this crazy state of affairs where the publishers are the only ones who ever seem to take a significant financial risk at every stage of the business … or maybe a return to the net book agreement

Can this situation carry on interminably? Or will it eventually be a case, as Blackie predicts, of "something's gotta give"?

I would like to thank God, my mother...

I'm proud of this one. Actually I'm pretty proud of everything on Vulpes. Like some sort of obnoxious clucky mother endlessly bragging about the fact their child has learnt to use a potty or something. But still. Vulpes is really quite a lot of hard work and involves a fair amount of organisation and general wrangling about how we do things, so sometimes, when I stand back, I feel really quite proud of everyone involved: a nice group of people altogether.

But that's enough of the sentiment from me this morning. (I have a horrible hangover - don't ask - and STILL haven't got round to putting together my fascinating anecdote about Edinburgh City Council...I know you are on the edge of your seats waiting for that one.)

But, in the meantime, here is my interview with Catherine O'Flynn. As she was being interviewed over email from various departure lounges around the world and across some weeks, I was terrified, when it came to it, that I hadn't asked her enough questions and the thing wouldn't hang together at all. But when I managed to combine all the disparate emails...I think the result is not just interesting about the book, but actually quite inspiring to new writers too. I hope so anyway.

My Love Affair with Forums

I have long meant to write about the ins and outs and peculiar politics of writing forums. It was my sister who first told me about them and the stages they go through. First there is

Love at First Site

You encounter the forum for the first time. Where had it been all your life? You are soul-mates, lovers, you want to get married, have children. It's only been three days but hell, you've never felt like this before. You walk around in a dream. Noone in real life understands you. They don't care. You and your new forum can't take your eyes off each other, or at least off the keyboard.

Ok things are still pretty hot

You and your forum are still full of energy and excitement. It's the best thing ever. Your life will never be the same. You encourage everyone you know to join: friends, relations, complete strangers on the street.

You move in

Did you ever meet more supportive people? People who seem to care about your progress, with whom you can share the highs and lows? Real soul-mates who understand the unique tortures of the writing or submitting process? The relationship seems more level, grown-up, mature. You all know where you are headed and sit down together to draw up lists, share advice, plan for the future...

The cracks begin to show

The cracks begin to show. Small habits start to annoy you. People say the same old things, some have their own agendas, the same old conversations. Threads go round and round without end. Like a irritating partner, you find yourself irrationally irritated by the smallest of things: mentions of The Rules perhaps, someone correcting your grammar. Tiny things start flame-wars of ridiculous proportions. Everyone is being insensitive, unsupportive, uncaring of your aims. No one knows you at all! They don't care. How can they say that??? Again??? When they KNOW how you've been feeling lately...And then there is -

The Breakup

Groups and allegiances form, a huge fight comes out of nowhere like a twister, leading half the populace to be carried off in the whirlwind. Several people storm off in a huff. Scared of being left out you figure you better storm off too...

Having compared notes with other people,this pattern is pretty standard of every forum there is. It is an unavoidable process and perhaps is more about group dynamics and how they work than anything else. The love-ins and the explosions are all inevitable parts of the life-cycle of the forum beast itself.

And perhaps what I love about them most is the window on the ridiculous bloody-mindedness of human beings. Places where science fiction nuts will habitually invade romance to tell them why (factually and statistically) their genre is better. Where men may pretend to be women, where idealists and pragmatists slug it out under the heading "How do I write a Synopsis", the This is How it Ises and the Rebels will get together for a big ole barny about - oh I don't know - semi-colon use - just for the hell of it. (After all, it's no fun arguing with someone who agrees with you, is it?)

The Geek, a member of various vegan forums in his time, tells me the story of one totally overrun by vegan-hating meat-eaters running riot and attacking every thought of value a vegan might hold dear. Ironically, they were taken to task by another set of vegan-hating meat-eaters who started arguing with the first set about the factual accuracy of their statistical evidence. Of course, whilst they were all throwing lawyeristically graduated meat-eating arguments at each other, the vegans - whose forum it had been in the first place -  all slipped quietly out the back door.

I thought the Geek must be exaggerating about this, adding a bit of colour for dramatic effect. But he is a Geek after all. He doesn't know the meaning of the word "dramatic effect". Instead he showed me the site and 5 years after their original invasion, the meateaters were all still there, entrenched in a definition war about the exact meaning of organic milk production...Not a vegan to be seen.

Of course, the vegans had the right idea when they slipped off. For there are few things more embarrassing than storming off a forum. (And I should know, having farcically stormed off one particular forum a ridiculous number of times.) Particularly when you calm down and slink back trying to pretend that a couple of days before you weren't flouncing off, slamming the metaphorical door behind you. "Oh hello" you say, offering your views on plot structures and hoping no one will notice your low-key entrance as you slope in at the back and hang about with your hands in your pockets. What me? Storming off? Over, what was it again? Someone calling me a Literary Nazi, was it? Or was it low-brow populist commercial sell-out? Can't remember now. Ha! Hey I'm cool, man, cool. Anyone want to discuss synopsi? No? Oh well then...What about Science fiction versus Chicklit? (*Ducks for cover*). That's more like it!

Story/Rules OK?

Continuing on from my last post, I want to talk about stories.

Recently my friend Lisa and I interviewed Scott Pack of The Friday Project for Vulpes Libris. If you haven't read it yet, here it is again.

Mr Pack set the cat amongst the pigeons (well, if it is possible to do such a thing amongst the civilised sorts of Vulpes) with the following remark: "I look for a great story from a great storyteller. Haruki Murakami, Charles Baxter and Richard Yates = good. Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie, Zadie Smith = bad."

What did he mean? The civilised sorts cried in polite almost-outrage.

Mr Pack expanded upon his comment thus: "I accept and can see that Amis, Rushdie and Smith are very fine writers but I don’t find them to be very good storytellers."

Whatever your views on the writers he is talking about, this exchange set me thinking about how much, or how little, story and story-telling are valued in books.

It is striking, after my last post on the prevalence of Rules in writing forums, how one of the few things NEVER discussed on writing forums is story. It is almost like a dirty word - as though it were a bit embarrassing, a little bit trashy to talk about story in the same terms you might talk about language or senses or sentence structure. Story isn't about "good writing". Story is...well...irrelevant.

But surely story is the most important thing of all? And surely story IS a language in itself? Story is just as much a conveyor of meaning and nuance as poetic sentences and nice word-smithery. And, at the end of the day, the poetic sentences and nice word-smithery are there - however beautifully, however thoughtfully - to convey the centre of meaning, or entertainment or whatever you are going for, in the form of the story itself.

I am very interested in stories. It is the primary reason I want to write. Listening to Radio Four recently, I was struck by something said by an interviewer to an eminent atheist scientist (no, not Dawkins). "I get the impression you are almost jealous," he said. "Of the power of ideology. "

Stories motivate people. They are looked down on in many ways as fanciful, fictitious, yet are all around us and carry enormous power. With a story people will behave in certain ways, obey certain rules - or not, go to war, kill, maim, be dutiful, be nasty, be kind, sacrifice themselves, sacrifice others, follow a code, feel like a proper man, a proper woman. They rarely are so affected by a "fact". We all have "stories" about ourselves, who we are, what we are like, of what we expect life to have in store.

They work as cultural touch-stones by which to measure behaviour.

Even in terms of men and women - from the earliest age people keep telling you what men and women are like in terms of story.  (And no I'm not talking about pink and shoes here.) It's a real case of the power of Tell not Show.

For, in my experience it is men, on the whole, who are far more emotionally vulnerable and dependent than women (on the whole). It can be argued that this is also borne out by statistics. It is men who are more likely to commit suicide over relationships, take to drink, destroy themselves or their partner if they are rejected or are jealous, more likely not to cope if their partner dies, statistically happier and healthier in marriages or long-term relationships...and yet the male "story", both in fiction and as general hearsay "truth" in our society - from  James Bond to Men are from Mars, Women are From Venus - is that men are emotionally distant, non-committal, un-needy, use-and-abuse, disloyal, independent, cold and just-interested-in-sex.  It's a lie, but one that has become so ingrained - through stories - that we hardly question it. Perhaps it is, after all, what we want to believe.

I want to write because I want to write stories. First and foremost. Like most who write comedy I am, I'm ashamed to say, a moralist. (As I have often been accused of!) I write satire to poke barbs at those that get up my nose. I use the twists and conventions of story - and work with and against those conventions - to say something, to present a view of the world - yes, my view of the world. It seems to me that this is the most exciting thing of all about writing. To be able to play with these structures and conventions. And perhaps the most exciting thing about comedy too.

Which is why I don't understand why those on writing forums seem so disinterested in it. And why no one ever talks about that great big elephant in the room: story.

Painful Past Selves

My parents are moving house.

Yesterday a car-load of stuff arrived. All my childhood things: drawings from when I was five, my first book that I wrote aged 8 - consisting of 11 chapters of pet acquisition with class lines such as: "We bought you a pony for your birthday. We got him cheap. You can keep him in the garden" - along with a Cinderella-type story of two twins, Anna and Annabell, the latter of whom, favoured by her mother, is given a diamond necklace for her birthday and a pekinese called Fluffypoo (eh?), whilst poor Anna receives a half-used crayon...

Later, the themes are more sophisticated. In "My 21st Century" the ten-year-old horror that was me predicts the demise of smoking, the banning of pubs and vast tracts of land fenced off for the use of "only certain people" (myself amongst them)...Slightly less sickeningly, future travel takes the form of one machine that can turn into car, plane or "hellycopter" at the touch of a button.

The bin-bags keep coming. Childhood marches through to adolescence and it starts to get pretty unbearable. To think of all those poor trees slaughtered to feed the excruciating ramblings of my teenage self.

The angst, the self-absorption, the *shudder* poetry.

It's all too close and too raw. You forget. Just how awful you were. But somehow - even though I can't bear to look at it - I can't bear to throw it away. For, once it is gone, so is my teenage self - forever. (Which I have to admit is tempting, but...)

Memory betrays you. Your sense of your past self becomes inextricably mixed with your present. I would never have guessed, for example, that I was such a prude. Such a disapproving decrier of all things drink and drug. (Amazing how art college gets you out of all of that.) A diatribe by a puritanical fifteen-year-old me talks of the "deception" of makeup. Oh god: Ground, swallow me now!

There are other things in amongst the debris. Letters of complaint to Children's BBC, my thoughts on politics. A will outlining (in great detail) what lucky souls should be betrothed various pieces of my artistic juvenalia. I am like the Original Teenage Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells - apart from the Tunbridge Wells bit. I am surprised I don't find letters to Feedback complaining about the pronunciation of "controversy" or the prevalence of swearing on Channel Four.

I come across a "novel" I started writing when I was 17. I reckon it is a sort-of romance. Though all the characters are struggling artists:  could-have-been-contender Van Goghs. Reading it is a strange experience, because there is a certain level of sophistication, a definite brain in operation...and yet so green and gauche it sets my teeth on edge - like unripe gooseberries. And then I turn a page and find out the main character, "me", is 34. 34! Nearly my age now. (Though - let me add, hastily, not yet. I'm a mere 33.)

It is like a letter from the past. So this was my idea of what it was to be 34 - and I had no idea at all. The difference is subtle, hard to put your finger on even, yet hits you between the eyes like a frozen haddock.

But the peculiar thing is, not that I had no real idea of life at 34, but how, at nearly 34, I still have no idea of being 17.  I swore I would never forget. But I have. Even with my past self speaking to me from the page I can no more return to my mind then, than my past self could imagine me now.

Which I should really try and link neatly to books, shouldn't I?

I wondered, briefly, if I could use any of this stuff - an authentic teenage voice - material for some future project. But it wouldn't work.

Because, when it comes to it, our view of how we were at a particular age is ALWAYS filtered through our present, no matter what we do. My real teenage self was too raw, too uncomfortable, too - shit. Yes, that's the word. Too generally shit - to be a credible teenage heroine.

Is this why we need writers - to make it better? More palatable? To bridge the gap...?

Packing away my papers, I ruminate upon this problem and as I do so, a red file falls from one of the binbags.  I feel a shudder of memory. "Programme One" it says. It is my sitcom: a six-part television series written in my last year at school.

Unable to resist, I open the file for the first time in over a decade...

And there, amongst the binbags, time suddenly concertinas, as my 17 year old self and my 34 year old self start laughing together.

Back to the Serious stuff - more reviewing.

In an effort to retrieve my slipping reputation (!) - here's some more serious reviewing stuff.

I have blogged before about Mockduck regular Lisa Glass's powerful debut, Prince Rupert's Teardrop, which already had rave review from DoveGreyReader. Well, the good news is that it is being received rather well, with reviews from Lizzie Siddal and Good Housekeeping ("thought-provoking" and "sublimely-written") and The Guardian which described it as "tough and stomach-turning" with "razor-sharp characterisation". The latest is a recent review from the Writewords website by Anne Brooke.

So far, however, I have not posted one of my own. It is interesting in light of Sarah Stovell's book, Mothernight. Both these books are about mothers, involve deaths - possibly murder. But where I see one as all elegance, the other is strangulated and beautiful-ugly. Rather than the old opposition of head and heart; for me Mothernight is head and Prince Rupert's Teardrop is guts. And where Mothernight was a book I loved and couldn't put down; Prince Rupert's Teardrop was a book I sometimes threw aside in anger and didn't want to pick up again. And yet I did keep picking it up again and I am glad I did as it turned out to be the most extraordinary headfuck of a novel. Pleasant experience, no. But extraordinary and thought-provoking, yes.

So, bearing all this in mind, here - for what it's worth - is my review. I should add quickly that I disagree with Anne Brooke about the already-infamous Chapter Four (a chapter that deals, head-on, with genocide). Anne argues that it is a separate piece that was not necessary to the whole. In contrast, I believe it essential - underpinning all the themes of the book: the catalyst for the readers questions about nature of evil, the nature of fear and imagination and where they reside in human beings. For me, this is not a book about simple otherness, but about multiple truths. At the heart of the book is a psychopath. Chapter Four shows us the atrocities committed by "ordinary people" in genocide: bringing that evil right to our doorstep. What violence underpins us and society? What is at the heart of humanity? Chapter Four transforms this book into an essay on evil and the nature of fear: the nightmares of reality and imagination, rather than just a straightforward slasher novel.  But, enough of that. I'll let you read the review, and the book for that matter, and make your own minds up.

(Anyone wanting to find out more there is an interesting interview about some of the issues in the book on the Vulpes Libris website.)

Prince Rupert's Teardrop

The central character of Prince Rupert's Teardrop is Mary - a 58 year old woman who has recently lost her job and is teased by her neighbours for her eccentric behaviour and unconventional appearance. When her mother - the ninety four year old Meghranoush disappears one day, Mary is unsure whether she has run away after an argument, got lost or been taken.

A serial killer roams the streets of Plymouth, with a prediction for the frail, the vulnerable and the very old. Mary becomes convinced that this psychopath has taken her mother, but she can't tell the authorities because of her own mental history. Who would believe her? Mary undertakes to find this man alone.

What is special about this book is the strong central characterisation. Who cannot relate to Mary as she hides in her neighbours' bushes and dives - semi-naked - into the putrid waters of the boating lake, convinced that she is uncovering clues as to her mother's whereabouts? Despite her mental state, she is resourceful, determined, thoughtful - and takes us to places a more conventional main character could not.

Be warned, however, this book is not for the faint-hearted. A chapter about Meghranoush's past in the Armenian genocide is powerful, raw, horrific. Initially I worried that this obsession with horror was almost exploitative. But this book has a habit of defining things, of expressing things that you know have a distinct, if ugly, truth to them and I began to gain respect for what it is trying to do. It is not afraid to look into the heart of the horror, pull out the entrails and say "look, look at this" until you are forced to acknowledge some of the truth about human beings, our dark capabilities and the nature of fear itself.

It is beautifully written, with a love of and use of language that sets it apart. The language is not just pretty - it is lush, descriptive, coiling around the story with a life of its own - but also providing clues that we can pick up on.

This book is many things: a confrontation with human beings and the violence they are capable of, a dark exploration of the phantoms in our minds, and - what I found most powerful - an exploration of the nature of fear and imagination itself.

As Mary pushes further into the nightmare, we become uncertain as to what is real and what is imagined: the monsters of reality versus the monsters of our minds. In the end, fear itself becomes a monster. Is the psychopath real or Mary's hallucination? Does he exist or is he the product of our collective nightmares?

Lisa Glass handles this delicate balance beautifully - suggesting and giving clues whilst always inviting more questions.

By the time you reach the powerful denouement, you realise this is no ordinary thriller, no ordinary character study, but a work that touches - perhaps uncomfortably - on many troubled truths and questions: beautifully articulated, harrowing, disturbing.

A strong, powerful, beautiful, ugly book: this is a work that dares to look things uncompromisingly in the face, yet can be interpreted in a variety of ways. You may love it, you may hate it, but, whatever, it should shake you up.

Battle of the Blogs: Acknowledgments

I have been partaking in a (civilised, I hasten to add) skirmish on Writewords about acknowledgments on books. One of my noble adversaries, Emma Darwin, has blogged about it here. So I can't resist putting down some thoughts of my own. Some of them address some of Emma's points and some of them are just - well random thoughts and prejudices of mine really and I hope she'll forgive me for mixing it all together in such a haphazard way.

Ok, so here goes...

In writing forums you'll regularly find a lot of wincing over writerly faux-pas. Can't people know that proudly sticking a copyright sign on their ms is not the done thing? Can't they realise that synopses and cover letters should never contain jokes or anything personal? Not to mention the awful ubiquity of blogs. Oh my god - an adjective in their CV! They've used the wrong font - argghhh! - avert your gaze...

To be fair - it can be useful to know how not to really put your foot in it sometimes. But, as far as I am concerned, the importance should lie in the ideas and the expression - not minor details of presentation. Acknowledgments, it seems to me, fall into this territory. They are there to be read if you want them, or not if you are not interested: it's your choice. But why the judgment? The right way of doing it? Surely here is one area at least where the writer can just do what they wish?

And what is so wrong with thanking your family? Your long-suffering partner? Your dog? (Do people not realise how crucial a role pets play?) What's wrong with showing you're a feeling person? A humorous person? An ordinary person?

It seems to me that this squeamishness about acknowledgments is more about the fear of the human, the emotional side of the author than anything else - or perhaps a worry about where that fits. Which may be valid. But no one is forced to do copious acknowledgments. It is up to the individual. If it is who you are - express it. If it isn't - don't. But do books really have to be so po-faced?

Emma mentions in her post an A-level student's relief on finally encountering a poet without a private life. Of course, the great advocate of this sort of thing - that the personal had nothing whatsoever to do with the work - was good old TS Eliot. And, although I love his poetry, I can't help thinking it was disingenuous for him to pretend that his personal beliefs had nothing to do with it. In fact, I believe, in Elliot's case, he tried to duck the issue in order to give his beliefs greater credence - to have them seem to float about, removed from him, like unquestionable universals with no root in his own personal predilections.

Yet, paradoxically, perhaps the modern habit of looking at the personal is what saves him. That some of his beliefs were both snobbish and anti-semitic, means one is forced to view them in context. It is necessary to take his poetry and understand those prejudices both as an expression of the man and an expression of his time. If not? Well then the rest of the poetry - the incredible imagery, the ideas that still speak to us - can become polluted and overtaken by those elements. Yes, it is part of the poetry too. But acknowledging the personal enables us to say simultaneously: great poet, faulted man. To read the poetry as the result of a mixed, complicated, individual with a mixed, problematic set of values working in a particular context rather than some complete ideology that we either take wholesale...or throw aside completely.

When I was in university, students would regularly fail to read books in context - whether personal, historical or political. They would go "this doesn't fit in with what is acceptable now - the writers a reactionary bigot" whereas, that same work read in context might reveal that the writer was in fact relatively forward-looking and libertarian in comparison to the society around.

I don't believe art/writing/whatever exists completely independently from its creator and certainly not from the context of its time and it's somewhat of an affectation to pretend it is so. There are many ways of looking at things and viewing work through different lenses can add to the experience - after all, you are at liberty to choose what lense you prefer. And if a work is any good at all, it should be able to withstand the odd acknowledgment - surely? Surely?

But, all this weighty stuff to one side, what's wrong with a bit of FUN? Laughter? Humanity? Family? Friends? Pets? Muffins?

T'is the stuff of life. And should be celebrated.

And what is actually wrong with just thanking people? Am I am totally nuts or is this not just a nice thing to do?

Mothernight

I've been meaning to write about Mothernight for a while now. I know it is early. And it isn't even out yet. But hell. I am already a fan. And I want to be first to write about it.

OK, first off - what am I on about? Mothernight is Sarah Stovell's first novel. It is published by Snowbooks and will be out next year (but already available to order on Amazon). And it's already made publishing history when Sarah's agent and Snowbooks signed the first ever book contract in Second Life.

Right. So. What is it I like so much about this book?

It's not remotely comedic. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to find a single jokey moment. It is beautifully written - this is incontestable - and there are admirable sentences aplenty to be sighed over if you are into that kind of thing. But I'm not so very into beautiful sentences - at least not enough for beautiful sentences ALONE to be enough to excite me about a book.

So, what is so special? Our emotions are played with, but you begin to feel that is not the point. You want to know what happened, but that is not the point either. It has an impending and accelerating sense of darkness and drama, but that - although compelling - is not the point either.

The point, for me, is rather cooler, rather more humane, rather more practical - For me, what is special about this book is the cool intelligent way it leads the reader to think about an argument; an argument about how to behave in the aftermath of a tragic event.

Schoolgirls Olivia is in love with her room-mate - the beautiful, cool, remote Leila. But Leila has something in her past that keeps her apart from her father and her stepmother, Katherine. They are invited for the summer to Leila's "home". Olivia discovers that Katherine blames her lover for something that happened when Leila was a child. As the summer draws to it's conclusion, Olivia slowly unravels the truth of what happened all those years before.

Mothernight asks a question almost in the manner of a Greek tragedy. This may sound overblown, but in these tragedies what is going to happen is inevitable and usually pretty clear to the audience - if you are left in any doubt there's usually a helpful prophet or blind person to tell us. The plot is not the point, it is the argument itself, the moral argument that is the drama.

How can you compensate for crimes you committed with full reason in ignorance? (Oedipus) How can you fulfil the duty as an individual to one's family and as a patriotic citizen of the state? (Antigone). Sometimes there is not a complete answer or an answer that satisfies us all. Why does Oediupus take out his eyes? Why does Antigone have to die? They are both good people, yes? Yes, yes, they are. And yet there is no other choice. They have to be punished - being good people doesn't really come into it.

This is very different to the tragic heros and heroines we are used to. From Shakespeare, mainly. Shakespeare is the tragedy of wasted potential: the good person being corrupted - whether by circumstances or character flaw - of someone who could have been truly great throwing it aside.

Greek tragedy has people who have achieved that potential, who are noble, who stay admirable, who are forced by the incompatibility of choices: of duties, of moralities, of competing viewpoints - to make a decision that ends in tragedy. We are not used to this sort of idea anymore. We are fed a constant diet of films and television where goodies are goodies who prevail and baddies are clearly baddies and get punished.

Mothernight is closer to the Greek idea (though I'm sure Sarah will not thank me for such a grandiose comparison!) The question is asked: How does one get past tragedy? The surrounding issues are explored with humanity and thoughtfulness - in a cool argument. It plays with our emotions, but - more than that - it plays with our reason. What is the point of punishment? Of guilt? Both are shown as strong emotions  - as dominant and irrational as the love felt by Olivia for Leila. But unavoidable.

All this may give the impression it is not an emotional book - which is misleading. But, again, I think emotionalism is not the point . Although we feel for the characters, there is always a sense of removed objectivity - a good thing with a subject that could so easily have slipped into easy emotionalism which would have revealed little to us but our own responses.

Mothernight asks a question. But it also accepts what many tragedies do not: that the tragic event itself is not a tidy conclusion, but the catalyst for a whole new set of questions. I loved it.

Marina Lewycka at the Book Fringe

I had been trying to get hold of tickets for the Marina Lewycka/Lucy Ellmann event at the Book Festival (and failing) when I got a fevered phonecall 11.30 one weekend morning: "Quick, get yourself out the door as soon as you can - Marina Lewycka is at a free event in the Book Fringe."

The Book Fringe?

Still, no time to question. I bolted in and out of the shower and fled the house to arrive panting and exhausted at Word Press Bookshop on Nicholson Street, which is running a series of interesting free events throughout the festival. Others who had been initiated into this well-kept secret were milling around the shop, next to which a pleasant room had been laid out with wooden chairs. There I was yelled at by a small group of family friends. My mother- who had phoned in the first place - frog-marched us all (me protesting) practically up to the microphone and plonked up down in the front row.

The event was terrific - interesting, lively but with an informality you don't get at the official festival  - no need for chairman or microphones - and therefore the opportunity to really engage with the speaker.

This was all helped by the fact that Marina Lewycka is hugely charming and, as she said, having spent years as a teacher in inadequate classrooms, able to made an instant connection with the audience.

Having achieved huge and - it seemed - unexpected success with her novel "A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian" she said she was thinking of writing a sequel, but was told that was a dangerous route. Write something completely different, she was told, to escape the usual fate of the second novel. So she wrote Two Caravans (extract here), a book about migrant workers that uncovers the inequality and exploitation of the food trade in the UK and the truth behind the two-for-one deals at your local supermarket. In amongst this thorny subject, Lewycka weaves the stories of several of these workers - mainly from Eastern Europe - their voices and experiences little heard, in one way than one.

The extracts she read to us was certainly enough to put me off my lunch and to make the Geek (vegan) crow at this discomfort afterwards. Unfortunately for The Geek, it is not just chickens that have a bad time; vegetables also come packaged with exploitation - gang masters removing the pickers' passports and caring little about their rights.

What do we do about these problems? She urged us to question where our food is coming from and the conditions in which it was produced and packaged. But so much of our industry seems tied up in this, it seems like trying to turn around a tanker. But it certainly made me think I need to investigate some of this more closely and try and find out what can be done. And I don't think I'm going to be eating chicken for a while, that's for sure.

Food for thought, indeed.