50 years a reader |
An exploration of half a century of reading. |
Short and sweet turns long and wordy… BOOK 20: Sir Quixote of the Moors. This is John Buchan’s first attempt at a novel. The 39 Steps it ain’t. Of course he was only 19 when he wrote it and he was still at University, so probably had other things on his mind. I’m not dissing it or him, but it does make me laugh both with this and the next attempt ‘John Burnett of Barns’ that he later criticizes the likes of S.R.Crockett when, writing in a similar style, he can’t come within a country mile. Of course, he’s entitled not to like the style, to want to write differently – though actually if it’s style you’re looking at, The 39 Steps (and other later Buchan novels) don’t seem to be that stylistically different - of course the language is updated but the sort of ‘feel’ of the text, the pacing and the character interplay, do seem remarkably similar. I like Buchan’s pacing in his later novels – it suits his themes and content – but somehow it doesn’t hold water when trying to write historical novels set in Covenanting Times. Well, at least, Crockett just does this so much better (better even than Stevenson and mightily better in my opinion, than Scott) Crockett just lets it flow. Buchan seems to rush it – to be out of sync with the time he’s portraying whereas Crockett seems at home there. So Crockett is more believable – and to boot ‘Men of the Moss Hags’ (written the same year) is an accomplished feat which is both gripping and easy to read, whereas Sir Quixote reads like a novella being tried out by a lad who thinks he ‘can do better’ but actually can’t. Not yet. Does this do much more than show that writing is a craft that has to be learned and that it’s not a good idea for a young writer to be overly critical of a more established one. Am I going to be hoist on my own petard of course. All writers criticize all other writers. I guess it’s how we do it that matters. I just don’t like how Buchan denigrates Crockett - it reeks of the green eyed monster. When what, I suggest, Buchan really had to do was ‘find’ his own voice rather than try to ape anyone else’s. And I think he did that. Not in this novella though. It’s clunky. And to say it ends abruptly… did he have a tutorial to attend in short order which was more pressing? Or did he really (as I’m sure we all did at 19) think he’s written a work of rare genius? Well, it’s worth reading if you like Buchan and (like I have already confessed) me are something of a ‘read one book read them all’ (reeeed not red I mean – present tense –otherwise you’ll think I’m a right arse!) And it is, some might say, mercifully short. BOOK 21: As far as even short novellas go, Mad Sir Uchtred of the Hills wipes Sir Quixote of the Moors off the map. It’s wild, it’s weird, and it’s like reading a prose version of Coleridge or Blake, but it IS well worth a read. I’ve read and re-read it several times over the last few years. It always disturbs me, it always makes me wonder how, what, why Crockett wrote it – and because of that I think I can allow myself to make it number 2 on my books for July. Though that feels a bit like cheating. It is packed with religious allegory, much like medieval paintings. Unless you know the allegorical side of it you are probably missing a lot (as I fear I do) but the sheer Gothic madness of it – yet Gothic Romance taken out of the castle and spread out wild on the Galloway moors – repays the reader more than enough. You take your hat in your hands and have to just give yourself up to it – you can’t sit down critically analysing it (unless, of course you really do get all the allegories, then perhaps you end up having quite a different experience) But for me, it has the passion that Buchan lacks in Sir Quixote, and an originality that is both frightening and impressive. BOOK 22: With those in the ‘bag’ I also determined to finish the Grampian Quartet by Nan Shepherd. I had never finished the one I started first a couple of years ago which was The Living Mountain. It’s another short book. You’ll know when the sun’s come out here because then I will be out in the garden with a BIG book. I’m not sure what to say about The Living Mountain. I come to it with a range of problems and prejudices I suppose. None of which should detract or discourage anyone else from reading it, because I think it’s well worth a read. It’s just perhaps not ‘for me’ at this particular moment. Because I’m not able to get out into the mountains for myself, I tend not to read too many things about the ‘experience’. It just reminds me what I’m missing. I miss being out if not in mountains then in the hills. However, the Cairngorms have never held much interest for me beyond skiing (another curtailed pastime.) I’m not the greatest of fans of natural description – at least not without characters and plot attached – and Shepherd’s ‘descriptions’ of the minutiae of flora/fauna/weather etc didn’t really do much for me. But she does offer something more profound with which I am in agreement. It is that mountains are not just for climbing. The significant ‘living’ part of them is actually that part which connects with ourselves. This I can relate to. Knowing a place well rather than striving to conquer or control is something I am attuned to. It doesn’t need to be a mountain. It doesn’t even need to be that remote. One can see things in depth as well as in breadth. I do this every day myself. I go to places, and see things, and experience them which are of no moment to anyone but myself. And that’s perhaps where I didn’t engage with The Living Mountain. I felt that a lot of it was Shepherd’s life, that personal part of life that cannot (or perhaps is best not) communicated to others. The relationship between words and nature is a strange one, and something, as a writer, I think about a lot. Sometimes even write about – well aware of the irony of the process. However beautiful the prose (or poetry) I find that words are not the best medium through which to experience being one with nature. It’s the moments beyond words that are truly important and, by definition, these are beyond words. For literary people it is something of a jolt to accept that there are things beyond words. My life and my identity are hugely bounded by words – but my most profound (and enjoyable ) experiences in life have not needed them. The desire to communicate experience through words is perhaps essential to a writer – if I could paint, believe me, I’d paint rather than write – but even as we rely for our identity on words, nature (and, in my case, non-literate people – and animals) offer something even more significant with which to engage. Being in nature, be that mountain or any solitude, is about experience beyond words. Words emerge when we try to share or communicate that experience with another person. Some may find The Living Mountain profound. I connected best with Shepherd in ‘A Pass Through the Grampians.’ I didn’t feel a connection with the Cairngorms in ‘The Living Mountain’ but it did make me reflect on the significance of mountains/hills/wild place and ‘nature’ in general on the human body and soul. While I’m not sure I agree with him, personally I prefer Norman Maclean’s view of nature in ‘A River Runs Through It.’ It is also a place I’ve never been, but his prose takes me there in a way Shepherd’s just didn’t. No more than personal preference (and prejudice) I’m sure. In it he says ‘Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.’ He believes that the words are under the rocks – I take it to be that the profound words are hidden to us - they certainly are for me when trying to communicate what I feel about nature. Even when I can walk the walk, I can rarely talk the talk about it. It all makes me wonder whether we can ever really share our experience of nature. Or anything. I’m coming to the conclusion that actually EVERY man is an island and communication is a way we try to build bridges or causeways. But fundamentally we are all alone BOOK 24: Moving on. Having enjoyed Sentimental Tommy, though I did take my time to finish that one as I recall, I finally progressed to the sequel, Tommy and Grizel. It’s given me re-found respect for Barrie. Worried about timing this month, in case I didn’t get round to it, I re-read ‘Better Dead’ first, a sort of warm up if you will, which is basically a short story but boy, it shows you Barrie in a completely different light. Once you’ve seen the way he uses satire in ‘Better Dead’ you are in a much better place to be able to justify that ‘Tommy’ is indeed a satire and can appreciate it as it was intended. ‘Tommy and Grizel’ is, I suggest, a book without precedent. I cannot say I have a proper grasp on it yet, and I will definitely go back and re-read both ‘Tommy’ stories. But even while wading around in it, there are loads of interesting things to point out. Firstly, the playing around with narrative voice, which I really enjoy. And secondly the presaging of Peter Pan as character which is to be found in the novel. Barrie’s notion of ‘flying’ as the natural state of boyhood which is lost when feathers are plucked as one grows to manhood is explored through Tommy. His views on sentiment and love are more complex for me as a modern reader to understand – firstly because the word ‘sentiment’ has now changed almost beyond recognition – though perhaps today when people say (as too often they do) ‘it was emotional’ in the sort of hushed tone that makes you think that they are shocked that people should ever express an emotion, never mind be able to distinguish one from another – all simply classed together as ‘emotional. Secondly because the whole ‘love’ thing is very complex. The problem for a reader with a writer like Barrie, who toys with his role as narrator, is that it’s hard to know how much is ‘real’ and how much is fiction. This indeed I suspect is the whole point of ‘Tommy’ and the problem is that as reader we perhaps derive meaning to suit our own narrative of the author. I can quite see how Barrie became smeared with the term paedophile, how everyone became obsessed with his small stature reflecting his impotence etc etc… he is playing with the second (but not the first) throughout the story. Barrie’s notion that children are cruel and that love is somehow constraining and part of the cruelty is part of his exploration of love. I need to read and re-read and think again about this before making any kind of sense of what I think he really means - and indeed perhaps it’s all just a challenge to get us thinking – a challenge that is slightly more difficult because of the social changes that have taken place in the century or more since the book was written. But it is quite unlike any other book I’ve read – and in a good way! Barrie himself remains something of a mystery, a master of disguise, but a man I very much would have liked to meet. In fact, if I did the ‘dinner party’ thing, I can think of few more entertaining guests to have for the evening than Crockett, Barrie, and Shepherd. John Buchan, I’m not so sure. He told a good story, but I suspect he may have been a wee bit pompous for my liking. That may just be my prejudice though, so we won’t hold it against him. So – for some short books I’ve written rather a lot of words – and I’m about to start a new strand for this project – R&R. Check it out from the beginning of August. I'm about to start something I wish I'd done 50 years ago!
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By the skin of my teeth and reader interrupted… BOOK 11: I’ve got a confession to make. I honestly didn’t think I’d make my quota of books this month. It was busy, busy, busy (but that’s usual) and then, I confess, I went off piste and read a couple of books (for pleasure) that were not on my ‘list’. The first I can’t even remember now – something about a teacher and a crime and… it was compelling but in the kind of way that I imagine gaming is addictive. It made me realise why people read these kind of books and confirmed that I wouldn’t be reading any more of them. It’s perfectly good, but not what I want out of fiction. I was reading it as fast as I could to get to the end to find out what happened, knowing that the ‘red herring’ was taunting me all along. It didn’t have the appeal of ‘The Secret Knowledge.’ Or of another book – the one that saved my bacon this month – more of that later. I then remained off piste and not purely for pleasure (and there was no pleasure in it at all) read a non fiction book about refugees. This is really for research and so I shouldn’t be putting it in here at all, except to explain my distractions. It’s not that I’m not reading (I’m up at 5.30am each day doing so to get some extra time!) it’s just that I’m not getting time to read for pleasure to the tune of a book a week. May went by really quickly and I have a feeling I may have read a book at the beginning of the month that I have totally forgotten about – that uneasy feeling that the pace of life is just too fast. So we’ll ignore that and say that I was ‘tag team’ reading a couple of books. The first was ‘The Lost Glen’ by Neill Gunn – following on from last month’s Highland River –and at the same time I was embarking upon the first of Nan Shepherd’s ‘Grampian Quartet.’ BOOK 12: I got the ebook out of the library. It’s a beast of a book and pretty cheap to buy as an ebook, but I prefer paperback –I ordered that from the library but there’s a queue so I got the ebook while I was waiting. But what with life, and reading it in tandem with ‘The Lost Glen’ all too quickly I found that my 3 week download had GONE and I wasn’t even fully through the first book. Which is annoying. Now I’ll probably have to go back to the beginning and start again when I finally get a hard copy of the book. It’s an interesting thing comparative (or tag team) reading and these two books lent themselves to it quite well. The central characters might well have been right for each other which in itself was entertaining enough. But by the time I had my Nan Shepherd privileges withdrawn I have to say I was kind of overloaded on the sort of modernist Scottish fiction I tend to shy away from. I like the natural description and I liked the sort of Lawrencian aspect to Nan’s heroine (whose name now eludes me!) but I am getting increasingly more resistant to symbolic use of language and natural description – I like my nature to be described just as real nature not as something symbolic. When I was younger, so much younger than today, I really got something out of the ‘levels’ on which symbolism worked but these days I just like to ‘see’ the nature not to have to wonder what it all means. It just reminds me that re-reading books is a valuable thing to do every decade or so, because it shows you how much you have changed if nothing else. Well, with Nan Shepherd only scratched I can’t claim that as a full book read – but the interruption wasn’t really my fault so I won’t feel too bad. But it meant that I had some catching up to do. BOOK 13: My saviour was the Great Gisby. Brendan Gisby finally brought out his new novel (one might say novella actually- I’m not sure how many words you need to call something a novel these days, but it’s Great Gatsby length so it may more accurately be a novella if you want to split hairs) I’m lucky, I’ve been reading drafts of this along the way and it was with great pleasure that I sat down to read the whole thing a couple of days before it was finally published. Not just because it helped me approach my self imposed target, but because I really, really wanted to read it in its entirety. And I was not disappointed. I fully intended to sit and read it in one mammoth session BUT as I got half way through I stopped – I was enjoying it so much I didn’t want it to end and I decided to pace myself and consume it over two sittings. Which I did. Now when I say enjoy I don’t want you to think it’s an ‘enjoyable’ sort of book. It isn’t. What it is, is a book that tells it like it is. Brutal honesty about a bunch of very unpleasant people. And I’ll say people not characters because the lines are clearly blurred. This is fiction but it’s based on fact – and put both together and you are left with a very queasy feeling in your stomach about the way the world is. Brendan Gisby is one of my favourite modern Scots writers – and has become a close virtual friend (because of that) – there’s a directness in with a subtlety and an overall honesty which appeals to me. I can connect to his writing in a way that I can’t to the intellectual symbolic stuff of modernist Scots literature. The Percentages Men is a really cracking story – a car crash of a story – and puts me in mind of The Great Gatsby on more than one level. It’s a story of ‘careless’ people and the devastating effect they have on the lives of others. You know, you could take up the tag team challenge and read The Percentages Men alongside The Great Gatsby and see if you can work out what I mean. This is my version of comparative analysis of text. BOOK 14: With Gisby out of the way I took a quick trip down memory lane to make my total 3 ½ (or is it 4 ½) Scots books in May – I re-read ‘One Man’s Meat’ by Mark Frankland. I first read Mark’s Foot and Mouth book ‘The Cull’ in 2002 and met Mark first that same year. I read ‘One Man’s Meat’ straight after ‘The Cull’ and enjoyed it. Sitting down this month and re-reading it, I felt like I was reading a different book – not that I didn’t enjoy it, I really did, but I didn’t remember it at all like that. Another reason to re-read books – one’s memory can play tricks. Add to this that I’ve read so many of Mark’s other books now over the years (I won’t say all, but definitely most) and it was interesting to see this, his first novel and think about how his style has changed (developed?) over the years. ‘One Man’s Meat’ definitely stands up against all his other work. For me, this time through, I opened it and it seemed like I was reading Ian Fleming mixed up with John Le Carre (now it’s a long time since I read any John Le Carre so I may be off kilter here a bit). I’m still trying to work out what I think has changed in Mark’s writing over the years - I shall need to re-read some more- I want to say maybe he’s gained in confidence in his own voice – certainly the Great Dumfries Food Bank Seige (which is well worth a read) stands out as a man who is no longer giving a damn about ‘how’ he should write a book and it absolutely rocks. I suppose I applaud the fact that as the years have gone on Mark has just kept writing and in the process stopped worrying about whether his books are ‘good enough’ – they are more than good enough – and just got the stories out. And maybe it shows. Or maybe I’m just analysing something that isn’t there. The point of all of the above is to show that when I read there is so much more to it that just enjoying (or not) a story with (or without) a decent plot and some nice imagery and compelling characters. I’m sure some people just plough through books (like the off piste one I read which I can’t even remember the name of – I saw it recommended on ‘Meet the Author’ by the way ) and that’s enough for them. For me there is so much more. Books and reading are a form of communication and a form of inspiration for thought about deep issues and questions about life and our place in our world. I love to see into another person’s mind and heart and think about how they connect to the world. I like to compare people and times and styles and what writers think they are doing (or what I think they think they are doing) as well as just enjoying – or being moved by – the stories. I don’t know if that makes me unusual, but it seems to me there’s so much more to fiction than simple stuffing your face with a story, or cramming plots galore into your brain. There’s a much more active involvement. Maybe that’s why I’m not so keen on the symbolism novels any more – I can make my own connections. In my twenties I was still trying to understand how the world was, now I pretty much know what I think about a lot of things and what I like is to see how other people see them. So. I can make some recommendations of books I’ve read this month. But the above doesn’t constitute any kind of ‘review’ because that’s another animal entirely. And my jury is out on exactly what the nature and purpose of reviewing is these days. That’s my own personal journey though… for the moment I’m just happy to be preparing for another month of Scots books in my 50 Years a Reader project. And still amazed how significant books are to my life. |
AuthorIn 2016 I will have been reading for 50 years. I'm going to celebrate this by reading even more and sharing what I'm reading. Archives
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