Out of ideas

The redoubtable Litlove has actually been reading The Times, and lookie here, but they listed a top 50 of British Writers since 1945. Litlove has some very good points along the lines of ‘who chose these and where the hell is everyone else who should be in here?’, and I am far too, well, frankly, intellectually feeble [Aha! The truth at last! - Ed] to make any such points myself, and so shan’t even try. But as Litlove was sanguine enough to ‘cheerfully state her ignorance’ I saw no reason at all why I shouldn’t cheerfully state mine, so any comments follow each author in brackets.

50. Michael Moorcock (Ah. Well, I have read every single thing of Moorcock’s except that Dancers at the End of Time book everyone else thinks it cool to like.)

49. Rosemary Sutcliff (Yep. Read Eagle of the Ninth. And so should you. Even if it is out of print.)

48. Benjamin Zephaniah (Deeply cool etc., but not really my type of poetry. I got bored. My bad.)

47. Alice Oswald (Errr…)

46. Bruce Chatwin (Have – oh shaming – read him in handfuls while sitting on my mother’s loo, for she keeps The Songlines next to Schott’s Miscellany. )

45. Colin Thubron (At a guess, I could tell you he’s a writer.)

44. Julian Barnes (What the hell is he doing all the way down here?)

43. Philip Pullman (And what in Christ is he doing below Rowling?)

42. J. K. Rowling (Yes, yes, yes, I have read all seven.)

41. Isaiah Berlin (Haven’t touched him since I was an undergrad.)

40. A. J. P. Taylor (At 40? Am I the only one who used to read his books for the sheer pleasure of annoying my History A-Level teachers by quoting him? [Good God yes, you lunatic].)

39. George Mackay Brown (I’m sure I’ve read some of his poetry. Possibly.)

38. Iain Banks (Now, his SF is at least as twice as good as his ‘mainstream’ stuff, so if Iain Banks is here, Iain M. Banks ought to be rather further up. Have read and indeed own a great deal of Banks.)

37. Hanif Kureshi (Yes, tick, done some, good.)

36. Godfrey Hill (even Amazon hasn’t heard of him. Poor bastard.)

35. Ian McEwan (Yes, done, tick, was merely whelmed.)

34. A. S. Byatt (I know she’s not to everyone’s taste, but she’s in my top ten and has been for years, chiefly for Possession, which is wonderful)

33. Anita Brookner (I’ve read Hotel du Lac. I remember very little about it.)

32. Kazuo Ishiguro (Only 32? Yes, well, he’s uneven, but The Remains of the Day really is that good.)

31. Derek Walcott (On my list of People To Read. And. Err. Has been for years.)

30. John Fowles (The Magus, appalling. The French Lieutenant’s Woman, brilliant.)

29. Alasdair Gray (Ah. See Derek Walcott.)

28. Alan Garner (Nod, shrug, indeed, have read, did like.)

27. J. G. Ballard (Well. Too good to rubbish, to unlikeable to re-read.)

26. Beryl Bainbridge (Have only read An Awfully Big Adventure, awfully jolly good.)

25. Barbara Pym (Philip Larkin was a fan. That’s all I know. Very bad.)

24. Philippa Pearce (Have somehow avoided reading any. Very mysterious. There’s even a copy of Tom’s Midnight Garden on the shelf over there.)

23. Penelope Fitzgerald (Read The Blue Flower. Wept. Loved it. Haven’t read anything else, possibly in case it isn’t The Blue Flower.)

22. John le Carré (Yes, done; no, wait, saw on telly. That doesn’t count, does it?)

21. Alan Sillitoe (I haven’t read a single word.)

20. Anthony Powell (Now, I have tried to read Powell.)

19. Martin Amis (Pisses me off.)

18. Mervyn Peake (Duly Gormentghasted. Incidentally, have you seen his illustrations to the Ancient Mariner? Blood so thicked with cold it’d be footling to call them anything short of awe-inspiring. )

17. Anthony Burgess (On my list of ‘Things To Avoid Because People Keep Ordering Me To Read It (or be sneered at thereafter).)

16. Roald Dahl (I think I’ve read most of his children’s books. Very excellent good subversive fun. But why all the way up here?)

15. Jan Morris (On list of people to read properly, damn it, and preferably before the end of the century.)

14. Ian Fleming ([What the fuck?] Yes, have read, and therefore, even louder and more vehemently than the Editor, what the fuck? Who compiled this cockamamy list anyway?)

13. Salman Rushdie (Loved Midnight’s Children. Was mildly impressed, mildly diverted by, and eventually mildly bored by the redux rest. Haroun and the Sea of Stories, utterly fantastic and much adored. Also, is he, technically, British, or are The Times being patronising colonialist bastards?)

12. Iris Murdoch (Always manages to leave me feeling flustered and dissatisfied, and haunted by the characters for weeks afterwards.)

11. C. S. Lewis (While I’d put him very high on my own personal list, it wouldn’t necessarily be because I think he’s that good. He’s, well, that special, like a irascible, ranting uncle who is wonderful with children but who one wouldn’t want to let loose on the dinner guests.)

10. Angela Carter (Fantabulous.)

9. Kingsley Amis (Oh for… No. Look, sorry, jolly good fun and all that, and I’m sure made a deep impression on the sort of clever young man of the 50’s who Wasn’t Getting Any, but no.)

8. Muriel Spark (Have not read, can not say.)

7. V. S. Naipaul (Not my sort of thing. Possibly because everyone keeps telling me how bloody marvelous he is all the time.)

6. J. R. R. Tolkien (I cannot possibly talk about Tolkien, I lack the cool distance from which to judge clearly much in the same way a trout lacks the ability to spot hooks and fishing-lines.)

5. Doris Lessing (Have not read. Keep buying, in order to read. Agh. )

4. Ted Hughes (Ah, now, there’s a man who can write the most intense, living poetry, and also disappear up his own arse on the next page. Must eventually discuss this at more length [if not necessarily depth].)

3. William Golding (Lord of the Flies made me sick to the marrow, anxious, ashamed somehow of being so disturbed by a ‘mere book’, and then I had bad dreams. Somehow inextricably linked in my mind with The Island of Doctor Moreau. Who the hell was letting me read this stuff at the age of eleven? Sadistic bastard.)

2. George Orwell (Fair enough. Very fond of Orwell.)

1. Philip Larkin (What the? Really? Why? I mean, I personally like his poetry very much indeed, but it rather sours it if so does everyone else. I preferred feeling slightly perverse.)

And now I am completely exhausted, and I have to get up at six tomorrow if I want a shower before I set off to work (and yes, I do want a shower, I’m very civilized that way), as I am working, or, rather, hanging about in everyone’s way, ‘on placement’, as they say, and the Placement Place likes to have everyone in, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, a good hour before they open to the panting hordes that thirst at the door for the fountain of knowledge. Me, I always was a devout adherent of Nothing Good Comes of Early Rising.

All Hallows Eve. The surrounding streets were full of tiny vampires as I walked home, being shepherded to each-other’s houses. There were even pumpkins and tiny red fairy-lights decorating the occasional front garden. It was possibly the least unnerving walk of my life. To redress the general cheesy cuteness infesting suburban London, I think I had, finally, do-or-die style, better post my long-delayed Ten Favourite Short Horror Stories post. [She has been writing an essay. Even I have let her off the charge of wilful procrastination this time - Ed].

[Good God, what's wrong with me?]

Now, this is not in any way in any order of preference, and not in any way a literary exploration of the matter. I am being highly personal and subjective and, dare I say it, facile. (I only run to facile these days. Busy. Tired. Sorry). Also, I am only listing stories I have known and loved for a long time. I was tempted, because I am a perfectionist snob like that, but in the end I accidentally decided (by running out of time) against genning up on all the best in Horror, cutting edge or classical.

One major feature of my list, it would seem, is an almost total lack of gore, guts, maggots and dismemberment. Certainly, these things are implied in one or two places, and the first Lovecraft entry is decidedly ooky, but by and large I have always found innards less than enthralling. If I am feeling sick, I am rather too preoccupied to feel thrilled. But I seem to remember having posted about this before, many moons ago.

Oh Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad, by M.R. James, who is the Daddy, the Daddy, I tell you, of cozy Edwardian creepiness. Not only is this a fantastically unpleasant story, but the film of it made by Jonathan Miller is even scarier. And it is very rare that I would ever admit such a thing to be possible.

Berenice, by Edgar Allan Poe. I read this first in Italian, when I was twelve. Teeth freak me the hell out. I could not say if this phobia pre-dates reading ‘Berenice’ or is a result of it, but, in the end, I say Marathon Man can kiss Poe’s drawers.

The Colour Out of Space, by H.P. Lovecraft. Wonderful painfully slow build-up, and the matter-of-fact tone, somewhat unexpected in the author of ‘The Call of Cthulhu’, is very effective. When Nahum’s face caved in, I was upset. Oh, yes.

Negotium Perambulans and And No Bird Sings, by E.F. Benson. These go together because they both concern the same mysterious evil ‘elemental’. Again, like ‘Berenice’, I find these peculiarly horrible because the main demonic evil is the embodiment of one of my worst phobias. Slugs. I don’t think I’m coming across as particularly sane here, but really. Ugh. Though the the desecration of the church in ‘Negotium’, and the silent woods in ‘And No Bird Sings’ are both good bits of creepy mystification even if you don’t have a problem with giant vampire invertebrates.

The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James. Now, one of my favourite ‘motifs’ in horror and/or ghost stories is in fact when you cannot be sure whether the Thing is real or a product of the characters’ imaginations. The delicate, allusive, elusive Henry James has of course built an entire literary giant-hood on atmospheric circumspection and circumlocution. In this story, worrying that the Governess is out of her tree is just as satisfying as worrying that the ghosts are going to ‘get’ the children. Worrying about both together is delicious.

Snow, Glass, Apples, by Neil Gaiman. This bleak, black, twisted version of Snow White has a truly horrible ending. Also, vampires. I’m quite keen on vampires. (Collected in Smoke and Mirrors, which I would recommend whole-heartedly).

Carmilla, by Joseph Sheridan LeFanu. My absolute favourite vampire story of all time, and damn me but isn’t it sexy? The fact I find it sexy does worry me a little, because it is the very quality of langourous Sapphic eroticism which makes it so chilling.

By the River, Fontainebleau, by Stephen Gallagher. I actually heard this quite recently, dramatised on BBC7 as part of their repeat of the ‘Fear on Four’ series. I hadn’t read it for years and years – I think it was part of an anthology of horror stories which I now can’t be arsed to look up. It scared me bloody witless all over again – not a story of the supernatural, but of the utter depths to which a mind can stoop. The twist at the end is particularly subtle and impressive, and makes you look at all the preceeding events in a decidly more unpleasant light. Which is quite a shock, considering how exceedingly unpleasant preceeding events have been.

Canon Alberic’s Scrapbook, by M.R. James – James again. I told you he was The Daddy. This one actually made me jump right up out of my chair and drop the book at a certain point. Rather a victory of cozy Edwardiana over gore-fest, don’t you think?

The Shadow Over Innsmouth, by H.P. Lovecraft. This is rather a seminal piece of Lovecraftiana, and when ‘they’ start battering at the narrator’s bedroom door in the middle of the night… well. Good stuff. But I am sorry to say I also love this story because it inspired Neil Gaiman to write ‘Shoggoth’s Old Peculiar’ (also collected in Smoke and Mirrors), a story that made me laugh so hard I got a double seat all to myself on a very crowded bus.

I read this as part of LK’s Horror Short Story Short Challenge – it being a short challenge, I of course took simply bloody ages to do it. Sorry. I can cheerfully blame it on all that studying I’m supposed to be doing, and no one will gainsay me [Ahem - Ed].

I ought to warn the Gentle Reader that I am but most totally going to fill this with spoilers. Should you wish to go away and read The Horla, please do… full text provided. If you can’t be bothered, well, please don’t be bothered. I’m sure Guy de Maupassant can survive my little attacks on his narrative suspense.

I have always been more frightened by (and therefore, I suppose, more pleased by) horror stories in which the ghosts and demons are like as not figments of the imagination. Insanity is up there in my top three completely horrible things (along with slugs and cramped little dank underground places) [Oh, don't ask. She might stop and tell you]. The Horla is in this respect highly satisfactory. Let me explain:

At the very beginning of the story, a white Brazilian ship sails past the narrator’s house. The narrator says: ‘I saluted it, I hardly know why, except that the sight of the vessel gave me great pleasure.’ Months later, he reads an article about strange happenings in Rio de Janeiro:

‘Ah! Ah! I remember now that fine Brazilian three-master which passed in front of my windows as it was going up the Seine, on the 8th of last May! I thought it looked so pretty, so white and bright! That Being was on board of her, coming from there, where its race sprang from. And it saw me! It saw my house which was also white, and he sprang from the ship onto the land. Oh! Good heavens!’.

What a wonderful back-formation of portents. I am very glad the author refused to allow him a standard shiver of cold fear at the sight. A mysterious thrill of pleasure is so ever so much more interesting.

Alas, a strange presence (no more than a presence, invisible, inaudible) is now haunting him. There are no other corroborrative witnesses – helpfully, the story is in diary form, so even if the narrator were to claim he had a witness, we could cheerfully carry on doubting him. Something is disturbing his sleep, and he finds something has drunk the water out of his bottle in the night. He tries to lay traps to see if he himself is doing this in his sleep, but it would seem not. Something really (really?) is living under his roof.

The narrator flees these unsettling events for Paris. He meets his cousin there – and sees her being hypnotised at a dinner party, inventing all sorts of excuses for her odd behaviour, and on being unhypnotised, denying she ever did anything of the kind. The narrator is exceedingly upset by this incident. His cousin was completely unaware that she was being controlled by someone else, and yet the narrator is morbidly aware, now, when he reaches home again, that the mysterious water-drinker is controlling his actions. See? It could all so easily, so very easily, be in his own mind. It is in his own mind, of course, but what, exactly, is in his mind? Mad as a basket of drunken frogs. Or, afflicted with a Brazilian vampire. Or – whyever the hell not? – both.

And of course, it all goes horribly badly, like all good horror-stories should.

Hello, kittens. How have you all been? Me? Oh, I’m within reason. Not brilliant, but not lying about in untidy whining heaps neither. I have, however, been dragged all over the British Isles, showing my somewhat puffy face to assorted friends and relations, in a kind of irony extravaganza of funerals and weddings. But being ‘unwell’, I had the best get-out clause to spend an awful lot of time not helping in the kitchen (my standard role), and reading instead. And, oh, my word, but I loved it. So, as I did nothing else of interest, I thought I’d bore you all with my somewhat fuzzy-brained opining on the material I got through [Could you sound more pompous? - Ed].

Books I actually finished:

Unweaving the Rainbow by Richard Dawkins. Dear old Richard Dawkins, he does harangue a reader so – slightly tiresome if you agreed with him in the first place. And probably even more so if you didn’t. Dawkins’ basic premise is probably best explained in his own preface:

‘My title is from Keats, who believed that Newton had destroyed all the poetry of the rainbow by reducing it to the prismatic colours. Keats could hardly have been more wrong, and my aim is to guide all who are tempted by a similar view towards the opposite conclusion.’ (p. x).

And in fact, Dawkins’ description of the real working of rainbows, of how we each stand in the very centre of our own personal rainbow that no one else can share, indeed, that our left eye and right eye cannot share, constantly renewing itself as we gaze at it, knocks Keats’ whining into a cocked hat. But Keats spent time as a medical student at the beginning of the 19th Century. If Dawkins had had to endure that great pinnacle of science, complete with blood, suffering, and almost inevitable death, he too might feel a little anti-Newton and pro ‘Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance.’ Less screaming, you see.

Consciousness and the Novel by David Lodge. The sad thing is, I can’t remember much about the contents of this book. This is not David Lodge’s fault, he is a fine and enjoyable writer, and I have a distinct memory of sitting curled up by a window that looked out over a drizzle-cloaked Scottish glen and thinking I was thoroughly enjoying the chapter on Henry James. But what he said about Henry James exactly, I can’t recall, as I have had the attention span of a concussed budgerigar this Easter, and I’ve had to give the book back to the library, and in any case the blasted thing is out of print.

River Out of Eden by Richard Dawkins. Obviously, being scolded for my perceived inability to grasp the true wonder of science is not so very unpleasant after all. Again, Richard, dear heart, I agree with you. And yes, the thought that the maternal line of every single human being can be traced back to one woman from Africa is mind-expandingly wonderful (only the maternal line, don’t get carried away, and pause to consider how few people actually are in your line of matrilineal descent (half your parents, a quarter of your grandparents, an eighth of your great-grandparents, a sixteenth of your great-great-grandparents…)). Also, did you know bees use gravity as a substitute for sunlight, when dancing food maps for each other? How cool is that?

The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susannah Clarke, illustrated by Charles Vess. I read her first novel, the vast and extraordinary Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, several years ago. I adored its combination of genteel, homage-to-Austen comedy of manners and eye-widening depth of fairy strangeness. Probably better spelt ‘faërie’ strangeness, considering just how gothic these very un-winged and un-miniature fairies are. So I have been very much looking forward to any more of the same. The short stories in this collection are inevitably slighter, but Ms Clarke has been more at liberty to exercise her somewhat dry sense of of the ridiculous. The result was thoroughly enjoyable, and the book itself – I own the charming grey and pink illustrated hard-back – is a very pretty thing in and of itself. I am particularly charmed by the picture of Mary Queen of Scots glowering over her needle-work.

Books I got part way through, and am still guddling about in the innards of:

Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman. I was given this for Christmas, and like the good lapsed Catholic that I sometimes am, I have been Saving It For a Special Occasion (my mother does this with toiletries and chocolates until both have congealed into fuzzy beige slurry that smells of ponds). At the moment I am still slowly reading the introduction. Pathetic.

The Practice of Writing by David Lodge. As you can see, I enjoyed the other book enough to give him another go. And this one practically counts as work, as, after all, I am practicing writing, oh yes [and one day you might actually do some]. So far, I am merely being afflicted with the uneasy feeling that I haven’t read enough Graham Greene.

Trillion Year Spree by Brian Aldiss and David Wingrove. Now this I am thoroughly enjoying, huge rambling woolly rhinocerous of a book that it is. Aldiss has earned the right to be gloriously opinionated, but doesn’t let this get in the way of telling the history of Science Fiction as the most rumbunctious adventure. And alas Mount ToBeRead has grown a few more spurs and glaciers. For example, I must read Voyage to Arcturus right now. Which means I will have to buy it, as no library I belong to deigns to stock a copy. Philistinic bastards.

The Norton Anthology of Poetry (4th Edition). When I was an undergraduate, I longed for a copy of this with the passion of a thousand burning suns. But I was poor. I was, in fact, living on textured vegetable protein, ooh, yummy. So I’d stare at it in the bookshop until I’d nearly melted a hole in the cellophane wrap (Yes, it was a campus bookshop. They’re used to students doing their homework next to the Lit Crit shelves). Of course, now there’s a shiny 5th edition, but I got hold of the true desiderata. And do you know what? While I am grateful for the translations of the Anglo-Saxon verse, I would have preferred all the Anglo-Saxon verse as well. Because I am a raving anal-retentive pedant. And I can pronounce Anglo-Saxon. [Understand, not so much]. On the other hand, it has that enviably lovely little thing by the barely-adult AE Houseman: ‘Loveliest of trees, the cherry now/ Is hung with bloom along the bough.’ Have you seen the parks and gardens in London at the moment? Nice find.

So. That’s what I have been up to. [Very tedious, yes?]

I brought up the subject of diaries last night. Tell you what, let’s be madly original and actually stick to the subject. I actually own a book about diary keeping. It’ll suffer the enormity of being the first book I review on this site. I’d always meant to review books, at some point, when I got around to it, and so on. Gosh, this posting every day come hell or high water seems to be working [No comment - Ed].

Leaving a Trace: On Keeping a Journal by Alexandra Johnson

I bought my copy at the British Library. It was actually a sort of panic-buy, an ‘I’m so bored I’m so bored I’m so bored must read book must read book cannot face lunch without one,’ thing. Am I the only person who does that by the way? Thought so. It’s a nice little hard-back, and wonder of wonders, has sewn signatures rather than a perfect binding [We spit on perfect bindings - Ed]. I flicked through it idly, not hugely interested. After all, I’ve been journal keeping since I was eight. What could I need a book about it for? Though, possibly, despite the absence of gin in my system, I was feeling uneasy about the unmitigated blandness of my recent efforts. And I suddenly saw an alarming description of an Editor (though Ms Johnson calls hers a Censor):

It’s that tight muscle of perfectionism. That dark, icy whisper. That confidence thief. I’ve never met a person who didn’t believe theirs was the most demanding on the planet. p. 46

Obviously I had to have it. I was only IN the British Library in the first place because the Editor was running me ragged, forcing me to research corset fastenings of the early 1900s before she’d let me write even so much as a word of the Historical Epistolary. [And does she thank me for it?]

The book is divided into three sections, ‘The Successful Journal: Practical Inspiration’, ‘Transforming a Life: Patterns and Meaning’, and ‘Crossover: Moving a Journal into Creative Work’. Each chapter within these sections is an elegant little collection of anecdotage, examples and suggestions, and ends with a list of exercises to get you started. I haven’t done any of the exercises. I am unbelievably lazy after all. But the very first chapter, on why people write journals at all, inspired me to dig my old ones out. I’m not entirely sure how grateful I am for that – as I said, it was a mildly traumatic experience. On the other hand, here I am, turning it into fodder for the Blog. I feel that this book is sneaking up on me.

The second chapter got stuck in on the subject of inner censors, with a list of ways to hush the bitch up so you can get on and actually write. Now, I am one of the few people I know who thinks this is counterproductive in the long run. I mentioned the ‘Oopsie LOLs’ yesterday. Don’t you wish just a little that their censors had a few more teeth and grammar lessons? I wish it just a lot. Few blogosphere experiences bug me more than following a link to something promising only to sink up to the haunches in a morass of unpunctuated, vowel-free txt-spk. I like my promises kept. Where was I? Oh yes. I read through the list of censor-silencers, feeling vaguely short-changed, until I cam across this suggestion: ‘Give the Censor a voice’ (p. 49). Ah, I thought. Rumbled. And read on:

‘Expose the nonsense. Like a vampire, the voice withers in direct light. Transcribe the whispers. It will read like a bizarre ticker tape.’ Two pages on, she continues: ‘The Censor, fat as a tick with pride, hates not being taken seriously. Humour is the sharpest weapon. Whenever his internal voices make him self-conscious, a man I know transcribes them immediately – but as the Marx brothers. One diarist, parodying how the rules left over from high school creep into a journal, wrote: ‘I (no, not I, never use I)… Well, (Don’t use that either! Too casual. I have to impress with big words.)”

The Editor and I looked at each other. You seem remarkably unwithered, I remarked. [Too busy being fat as a tick, obviously]. Do I take you seriously? [Do I take you seriously?]. Good point. And if I try to ‘impress with big words’, you’re the one who gives me such a spanking. [Natch]. By now I was feeling a little uncomfortable. Because I do suffer from almost paralysing self-consciousness, and it is preventing me from writing, my journal, my novels, letters to friends. And yet here, there would be no blog, and certainly no daily post extravaganza, without the Editor [I think I am deeply misunderstood, you know. Also, we are getting off the subject. Review the book].

There’s not much more to say. There are many, many useful practical suggestions on starting a journal, keeping a journal going, indexing a journal, revising, using a journal as a creative tool, ’single-purpose’ journals such as travelogues or nature logs, using a journal as therapy, sharing a journal, bearing witness to hard times or momentous events. There are even descriptions of new note-book addictions very like my own – I have half a dozen untouched ones, bought, really, because they were all shiny and new and blank. Apparantly, I am not a weirdo at all. And here I am, on this blog, doing a great deal of what Alexandra Johnson has suggested. And, in the process, hotly determined to prove her wrong about censors.