Me And My Big Mouth

Happy Families

In the past week or so I have seen two rather disturbing movies about dysfunctional families. One was, I think, a masterpiece. The other, a disappointment.

Dogtooth is a peculiar Greek movie that was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. A husband and wife raise their children without ever letting them leave the boundaries of their house. They achieve this by feeding them elaborate tales of wild beasts and unspeakable dangers but as the kids become adults the parents go to ever more bizarre lengths to keep their family intact. When the father brings home a co-worker who he pays to 'service' their son, the influence of the outside world finally creeps in.

Imagine if Mike Leigh and David Lynch had a fling while on holiday in Greece. This would be their lovechild. It is incredible. Do try to see it if you can.

We Are What We Are was hailed by critics as Let The Right One In but with cannibals instead of vampires. I can see what they are getting at but this Mexican movie isn't a patch on that modern Swedish classic. When their father dies, the surviving family have to fend for themselves, and seeing as how they've been living on a diet of human flesh you can see how this might present a problem.

There were brief flashes of dark brilliance but most of the movie was flapping around in search of a sense of purpose. It wasn't funny enough to be a black comedy, cutting enough to be a satire or clever enough to be a metaphor for anything else. It ended up a clumsy mess, albeit one with some great scenes of cannibal food preparation.

Royal Reading: The Big Day

Weclome, welcome one and all to our Royal Reading celebrations. We hope you have a wonderful time.

The idea is pretty simple. A bunch of us on Twitter are going to sit down, ignore the TV and try to read a book while everyone else watches the Royal Wedding.

Readers of this blog voted earlier in the week and decided that I should read Tell No One by Harlan Coben. I have already seen the excellent French movie based on the book, so I shan't be surprised by the twist at the end, but I am keen to see how the author originally intended the story to pan out. One obvious difference will be the setting, America instead of Franc, but apart from that, who knows?

Anyway, I will be tweeting all day long using the #RoyalReading hashtag and also posting updates here. I am not sure quite what they will be besides 'I am now on page 54' but I will do my best to make them at least mildly entertaining.

More anon.

10.54. Well, the ladies of the house are watching the wedding and have made cakes, of which I naturally approve, but I have been plodding along nicely with the book. Polished off a chapter before I got out of bed, another in the bath and have been sitting in the garden reading for a bit longer. Just over 40 pages in and it is a jolly good read. It is interesting to read the backstories of various characters, which aren't covered in the film, and have just come across a subplot that isn't in the movie either. Might have to make some tea for the girls on the sofa in a minute though.

12.40. The cakes were lovely. There are some left. So, lunchtime approaches, the royal couple are wed and I am a third of the way through the book. I have seen the movie a few times so I know the plot very well, I am therefore looking for the differences rather than the similarities, and there are quite a few. Obvious things such as names and locations are to be expected but there are some peripheral things that are distinctly different and they are tolerable so far - neither adding nor taking anything away from my enjoyment. It is always a bit odd assessing a book after having seen the film version, rather than the other way round, but all looking good so far.

14.39. Took a break from Tell No One to read my short story of the day. For the uninitiated, I read a different short story every day and blog about them over here. 119 of the buggers so far this year.

16.43. Over half way through now and the core story remains pretty much the same. It is all the extra stuff that is different and having enjoyed the movie so much I find myself not really needing the various cul-de-sacs and dead ends that I already know won't be leading anywhere. That being said, it is still a tight, easy-to-read thriller and I am enjoying it a great deal. 

18.02. Less than 100 pages to go so should be a doddle to finish before bedtime. Our cooker element has just this second gone pop though so it is all hands on deck to sort out dinner. An enforced break until the meatballs, chips and gravy are cooked and eaten.

20.42. I've been out the front of the house hepling my son to unicycle so now have some catching up to do. It was worth it though. Right, on with the final stretch.

22.51. Done. Finished. Complete. A thoroughly enjoyable read although the book got a bit too far-fetched at end. I can report that the movie makers did the book a lot of favours by leaving out the dodgy bits and cleaning up that ending. There is a certain sense of satisfaction when you read an entire book in a single day and this was no exception. I am going to celebrate with a bowl of cereal. Hope your Royal Reading day was just as good. Do let me know in the comments.

Swords & Savagery

Today sees the publication of two Friday Project books (my day job when I am not blogging, tweeting or writing myself), namely In Praise of Savagery and Shadowmagic: Prince of Hazel and Oak.

In Praise of Savagery by Warwick Cairns is a book that defies description but that's not going to stop me having a go. It is the story of the author's brief friendship with legendary explorer Wilfred Thesiger and of the journey he embarked upon to visit the great man in his African home. If that wasn't fascinating enough, Cairns also recounts the tale of Thesiger's first expedition to Ethiopia in the 1930s where he ventured to regions no white man had ever returned from alive.

And just for good measure, the author wanders off on tangents in order to discuss London's underground rivers, the banking system of the 1980s and how he got involved in some bizarre shamanistic rituals.

Imagine a cross between Bill Bryson, Geoff Dyer and Ray Mears. I hope that doesn't make your head hurt too much.

In what we think is a publishing first we released the ebook version of this book six months ago. The idea was to get a bunch of people reading and talking about it prior to publication of the print edition. This seems to have worked. The ebook is currently #2 in the Travel chart at the iBooks store and was a bestselling Kindle title, which means it has been building up a number of Amazon reviews. Several thousand people now have the ebook on their devices and hopefully that will help with that all important word of mouth buzz.

Shadowmagic: Prince of Hazel and Oak by John Lenahan is the follow-up to Shadowmagic, the fantasy novel (aimed at teenagers and young adults but seemingly read by all ages) that has been a bit of a sleeper hit over the past year or two. In the first book, Conor, an American teenager, found himself whisked off to the supposedly mythical land of Tir Na Nog where he discovered that he was actually heir to the throne of the kingdom. Oh, and that everyone wanted to kill him.

In book two, Conor is back in America but winds up arrested for the murder of his father, who he knows is alive and well back in Tir Na Nog. Unable to explain himself to the satisfaction of the cops he calls upon some magical help and is hauled back to The Land, inadvertently dragging a policeman with him.

Suffice to say that he meets up with all of his old mates and they all wind up on a dangerous quest. And thrilling stuff it is too. It is also very funny, Lenahan is a stand-up comedian when he isn't writing fantasy novels.

If you wanted to sample the series but aren't sure if you want to shell out full whack you can currently pick up the ebook of the first book for a mere 49p. You can also listen to both books as free podcasts on iTunes.

I hope at least one of these has tickled your fancy and that you will check them out over the weekend. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Royal Reading: Voting

As you will know if you read this last week, I am not watching the Royal Wedding on Friday. Instead I will be reading a book in a day. Not an amazing feat, I know, but it will keep me off the streets. And I really don't want to be on the streets, what with all the parties.

A bunch of people are doing the same thing and we will be checking in online from time to time to keep each other updated as to our progress. If you are on Twitter you can join in by using the hashtag #RoyalReading (see what we did there?)

That is all well and good but I need to select a book to read. I am a pretty fast reader and should be able to polish off a 300-page book relatively easily but I need to allow for interruptions for meals, toilet breaks, playing with the kids, popping downstairs when the wife calls me to the telly 'just to have a quick look at the dress' and other bits and pieces that are bound to get in the way. So, anything between 200-300 pages long should do the trick.

It would be great to have some of you join us for the day. You don't really have to do anything much apart from letting us know what you are reading and whether or not you are enjoying it. The more the merrier.

In the meantime, I have gone through my piles of unread books and come up with the following candidates for my reading material on the day. Care to vote on which one I should read? I will abide by your decision.

 

poll by twiigs.com

 

 

Dear Seb Coe (the audio version)

Martin Jarvis was unavailable.

Dear Seb Coe,

I have just applied for London 2012 tickets. It was one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life, and this is coming from a man who has had a colonoscopy.

Allow me to elaborate.

Tickets, as you know, will be allocated by a sort of ballot or lottery system. This, at initial glance, seems fair. Rather than first-come-first-served, everyone has an equal chance of getting a ticket. In reality this means I have no idea whether I will actually get the tickets I have applied for.

This leaves me with a dilemma. Do I just apply for one lot of tickets, for an event I really want to see? Or do I hedge my bets and apply for a number of tickets across a range of events and dates in the hope of at least getting one batch?

I have opted for the latter. It would be hugely disappointing to apply for one event and fail, thereby ending my participation in the Olympics a year before they actually start. I am hoping my strategy pays off and that I am able to take my family to at least one event.

Ahh yes, my family. They are a lovely bunch but they are proving to be bloody expensive to bring along with me. I have a wife (at the time of writing that is, she may leave me when she finds out how much I have potentially pissed away on your tickets) and two children - Ethan (12) and Martha (9). None of us are particular sporty - Ethan plays tennis once a week and Martha has a regular gymnastics class - but we are all quite excited about the Olympics and recognise that this is the only chance we will have to see them in our own country.

I have applied for 4 tickets to 5 separate events - two different days of athletics, a day of tennis, one of gymnastics and one of rowing. The rowing is of particular interest as we live in Windsor and it is taking place within walking distance of our house.

The cost for these tickets - and in nearly every case we have gone for the cheapest available option - comes to £723 pounds. That's SEVEN HUNDRED AND TWENTY THREE POUNDS. I cannot actually afford this - and I am not what anyone would describe as badly off - so I bloody well hope we aren't successful in all of our applications but your allocation system means that loads of people are taking a similar approach - apply for loads and pray that you don't actually get them. A bit of a daft situation Seb, old bean, don't you think?

Now, before you start spouting off about all the splendid special offers that are available - kids only pay their age and all that bollocks - such deals were only available for one of the events we have applied for, and our applications are not all for big finals days. I have had to pay full whack for nearly every ticket. One of my group is 9 years old. She doesn't even have to pay full fare on the train and train companies are the biggest lot of thieving toerags out there. Bad show, sir, bad show.

But, you know, an opportunity such as this really does only come round once in a lifetime so perhaps I shouldn't moan so much. I am, after all, quite fortunate. For one thing, I happen to have a Visa card. If I didn't then you wouldn't have let me apply for any tickets at all.

And I am sure I can make a few savings here and there between now and the big event to make sure that we can afford the high cost of actually attending these games that are supposedly going to inspire and delight us. For example, I could take a packed lunch to the events themselves, that will save a few bob. What's that? Sorry? Oh, I see, I am not allowed to take any food or drink into the venues? I have to purchase these items from approved vendors inside? And what will the prices be like? No, no, let me guess, how does FUCKING EXPENSIVE sound to you? I hope I am wrong but if I have to pay £5 for a hot dog I am going to hunt you down and shove it up your failed Tory arsehole. With mustard.

A stupid allocation system which means I have over-applied purely to stand a chance of seeing something, anything. Credit card restrictions that must surely fall foul of EU competition laws. A ban on cheese sandwiches and Kia-Ora. This is supposed to be fun, Lord Coe, fun and exciting, instead it is deflating, demotivating and depressing.

But at least you are aren't charging me £6 to send me my tickets, that would be taking the piss.

What's that? Oh, you complete cunt.

Yours sincerely,

Scott Pack

More Of That Poetry Stuff

What better way to mark this glorious Bank Holiday weather than with a poem about snow?

Once again, this is read by Kat Stephen. Poetry editors, you know where to find me.

snowball assassins

me
and john
and pete
and keith

are pissing
in the snow

writing the names
of our true loves

louise
and molly
and laura
and jo

but with fumbling fingers
and shivering hands
(and only half a can of coke
between us at break-time)
we can only manage

lou
and mol
and la

except for keith
who stands triumphant
with pen in hand

and while we mock him
for having a girlfriend
with only two letters
in her name

we are secretly jealous
of the exclamation mark
he has added to the end

‘i am shouting her name’
he manages to proclaim
before he is cut down
in his prime
by the three evil
snowball assassins
of class 4H

A Song For Sunday

Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft by The Carpenters.

On International Record Shop Day last weekend I picked up a bunch of secondhand vinyl including a 4LP box set of Carpenters hits. I had forgotten quite how mental this song was.

Royal Reading

Before I start I want to make it quite clear that I have nothing against the Royal Wedding. Kate and Wills seem like a genuinely nice couple and if people want to spend all day in front of the telly, throw a street party or purchase loads of pointless tat by way of celebration then I have no problem with that. This may surprise you coming as it does from a cynical old scrote like myself but, you know, I do have a romantic side.

I'll be buggered if I am going to watch the bloody thing though. And seeing as it looks like it will be broadcast on every channel throughout the whole day I need to find something else to do with my time.

I am going to read a book. Care to join me?

The idea is that a bunch of us all start reading a book, any book, on the morning of the Royal Wedding and aim to finish it by the time Kate and Wills are at it like rabbits in their honeymoon suite. I mentioned it in passing last week and @louloulou on Twitter prompted me yesterday to actually follow through with it. She has blogged about it herself here.

So here's the plan. If you want to come aboard then select a book - something you can read in a day - and spread the word. If you are on Twitter then use the hashtag #RoyalReading to share your book choice. Otherwise you can mention it on Facebook or just leave a comment here. Feel free to blog about it or mention it wherever you want.

There is no great agenda or plan, I just thought it might be fun if a bunch of us tried to polish off a book in a day. If we tell each other what we are reading then it could prove to be a nice way to spread the word about some interesting books.

That's it really.

Oh, and ladies, you are allowed to pop the book down for a few moments just to get a peek at her dress, I know you want to.

Mountain Climbing

A poem by me. Read by her.

ascent

in her sleep
she toblerones
the sheets into alps
and himalayas

as i undress
and climb in beside her
i am goosefleshed
and breathless
from the air
at this altitude

and for brief seconds
i know how
hilary and hannibal
must have felt

Faroe Islands Nil

I don't know much about the people of the Faroe Islands - apart from the fact that they eat a lot of fish, aren't very good at football, and knit jumpers for the stars of popular Danish crime dramas - but when it comes to selecting the best Faroese novel of the 20th century I am pretty sure they are the experts. In fact, I wouldn't listen to anybody else on the subject. No point, such is my conviction that they have it covered.

They chose this book.

A whale gets washed up on shore. This is a big deal on the Faroe Islands and reason enough for a massive party. As is traditional, the locals hold an auction for the meat and other tasty parts of the beast. Ketil, usually a reserved and cautious old man, gets a bit carried away and ends up taking home more than he can afford. It isn't until he gets back to his little turf-roofed hut that he realises the magnitude of his error.

And his wife is none too pleased.

The Old Man and His Sons by Heðin Brú was a wonderful lost classic when I first came across an old 1970s hardback a few years ago and I am delighted that it has been rediscovered by the excellent Telegram Books. I cannot recommend it highly enough and I'd love it if some of you were able to seek it out.

At the time of writing Amazon do not seem to have it in stock so I won't point you there despite the commission I get (how very noble of me) but it appears to be available at The Book Depository and I am sure the splendid chaps at the Big Green Bookshop will sort you out if you ask them.

Swap It!

We are only going and doing another of those Book Swaps.

Will we never learn?

Marie is back in the hot seat following her absence last month (she was poorly, I coped admirably) and this will be the first Book Swap without our silent partner Michael Harpur. Michael looked after all the sound, lights, set, props, pretty much everything apart from the actual talking bit. He has gone off to an impressive new job in Belfast and will be greatly missed by us.

I hope whoever is taking over knows the routine or we could be a bit fucked.

Anyway, joining us on the sofa this month will be Jake Wallis Simons and Stuart Evers.

Jake has been selected by Waterstone's as one of their 'next big thing' authors and his latest book is The English German Girl. It is the story of a 15-year-old Jewish girl who flees Germany in the 1930s on a Kindertransport train only for her to lose touch with her parents when the war takes hold.

Stuart's first book is a collection of short stories called Ten Stories About Smoking. I have already reviewed of few of the pieces on my other blog but most of you won't have bothered to pop over there (you lazy bastards) so I will need to inform you here that, as the title suggests, the book contains stories about smoking. And very good they are too.

If you have never been to one of our Book Swaps before then we'd love to see you at this one. It is, we like to think, a refreshing alternative to your regular book event. There is loads of irreverant banter, plenty of cake, somewhat random questions and everyone gets to swap a book.

Full details are here. You can buy tickets in advance but most people pay at the door.

Oh, and it all kicks off this Thursday 21st April at 7.45pm at the Firestation Arts Centre in Windsor.

Rebel MCs

It is always great to see a debut novel from an independent publisher make an awards shortlist and although Coconut Unlimited by Nikesh Shukla, published by Quartet, didn't make the final round of the Costa Book Awards it did create a huge splash with its dayglo orange cover and flurry of positive press coverage when it was selected as one of the four best first novels of 2010 back in November.

Three privately educated Asian kids from Harrow discover hip hop in the early 90s and decide to form a rap group.

They are pretty terrible.

Amit, Anand and Nishant stumble their way through adolescence while trying to keep abreast of the latest hip hop releases and trying, and mostly failing, to get their hands on some breasts. At their posh, mainly white, school they are outsiders because of their skin colour, and the casual racism on show here is uncomfortable to read. On the streets of Harrow they are just as ostracised for their privileged education.

So they gang together and listen to Nas, Public Enemy and a whole host of other seminal hip hop acts - fans of the genre, especially those who discovered it during the 90s will find sparks of recognition on nearly every page - while putting together their own rhymes and beats with their band Coconut Unlimited.

This is a great read that tackles the familiar territory of the coming-of-age novel from an unfamiliar angle - it is certainly the first Asian hip hop Bildungsroman I have ever come across - and is pretty much successful from start to finish. I cannot vouch for how well Shukla captures the Asian culture of 1990s Harrow but he nails the universal uncomfortable nature of the teenage years and is spot on when it comes to writing about how a young man can become obsessed with music.

Coconut Unlimited reminded me at times of Flying Saucer Rock 'n' Roll by Richard Blandford. Both books are splendid evocations of music and youth - one from the world of hip hop, the other from the axe-wielding rock universe - and both focus on growing up bored and disillusioned in suburbia. I would suggest they make fine companion pieces.

I am very interested to see what Shukla does next.

A Song For Sunday

Anni Rossi - The West Coast

Unfinished Novels

I was on Radio 4 this morning talking about the publication of unfinished novels, a discussion prompted by The Pale King by David Foster Wallace.

You can listen to the piece here, I was on with novelist Phillip Hensher.

I didn't go into the London studio, instead I was driven to Reading where I sat alone in a broom cupboard that overlooked the council chambers.

See.

Wait, Kate

A timely new song from the star of BBC1's Little Howard's Big Question and the creative force behind Little Howard's Big Book.

People Watching

This is going to sound like a really wanky book, and I suppose it sort of is, but I urge you to keep an open mind as I think it is a fascinating and largely successful experiment that will make you look at the world a little differently, if only for a short while.

On an overcast weekend in October 1974, novelist and cheeky man of letters (although sometimes not the letter E) George Perec took up position on a street corner in Paris and tried to write down everything he saw.

The result was An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris, which has just been published in English for the first time. It is, effectively, a list of stuff but within that list are moments of brilliance, observations or events that most people would have missed.

He moves position every few hours or so, from the Tabac Saint-Sulpice to the Cafe de la Mairie and on to a bench in the sun. And as he comes back three days running he builds up a cast of characters.

The two meter maids from yesterday pass by again; they seem worried today.

Sometimes his mind wanders off, philosophically:

Why are two nuns more interesting than two other passersby?

But mostly he just lists stuff: the people, cars and buses that go past while he sips at a coffee or nibbles at a pastry. There is no real narrative arc, there are no major revelations, but Perec does manage to capture the essence of a place by recording the ordinary, something that went on to inform his masterpiece, Life: A User's Manual.

I would not for one second recommend that you tackle this short book if you have never read any of Perec's fiction but if you are a fan of his work then this is a fascinating piece of additional reading. It is also something I would guess many writers would enjoy, and is perhaps a challenge some would like to take up.

Isn't It Good?

GOOD THINGS ABOUT THE NORWEGIAN WOOD MOVIE

• It looks great.
• Cinematography and set design are stunning.
• Some strong central performances. Kenichi Matsuyama who plays Toru and Kiko Mizuhara as Midori are particularly good.
• Appears to capture the look and feel of 60s Japan (although what would I know?)

BAD THINGS ABOUT THE NORWEGIAN WOOD MOVIE

• The score, by Johnny Greenwood from Radiohead, just doesn't fit with the images on screen. It is far too invasive. It gets in the way. No score should do that.
• Instead, it would have been great to have used some of the music mentioned in the book - Mantovani, American jazz - but no sight, nor sound, of these. We do get some songs by Can, which sort of work, but they don't actually appear in the book so not sure why they are there.
• The director appears to have ignored all the humour in the novel and focused on the tragic love story at the book's centre.
• Not only that, he stretches that love story out far longer than he needed to, resulting in him rushing through the first third of the book and failing to pick up on the important bits at the end.
• Rinko Kikuchi, Oscar-nominated for her performance in Babel, plays Naoko as a bit too full-on mental. There's a lot of acting going on. Everyone else was a bit more laid back.
• Too many of the book's best bits are left out. This happens a lot in film adaptations, and I shouldn't be surprised, but why do it in a Japanese language version of one of the bestselling books in Japanese history? Everyone knows the story, leave the best bits out - Toru's OCD room mate, the visit to Midori's dad, Midori and Toru watching the fire from the roof - and you are bound to leave people disappointed.
• It is just OK, and when your source material is fucking wonderful then that is a crime.

Guest Blogger: Joe Florez

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO MY GENRE? by Joe Florez (aka John Barlow)

So I thought I was pretty clever... I had a book out with Farrar, Strauss, Giroux. A book about eating pork. Hell, I told myself, if the greatest literary imprint in the US will publish a book of mine about eating pork, I can write anything I damn well like.

Fairy tales, for example. I had this idea to take a handful of Grimm’s fairy tales and rewrite them for adults. GRIMMER, I was going to call the collection. (I thought that was clever, too.)

Snow White was first up. The new setting: a hippy dwarf commune in North Cal, up in the woods near the border with Oregon. The dwarfs have an ‘acid test’ party and a young girl takes the poisoned orange juice. To add interest, I did it as a noir mystery. One of the dwarfs goes missing, and the plot revolves around his disappearance, plus his relationship with the girl at the party.

That’s when the trouble started. Because for some reason I decided that the missing dwarf had to be a porn star, and that the Snow White character should be Grace Kelly. OK, I changed the name, but little else.

Still feeling clever, I got to work. I’ve always loved crime fiction, and writing it for the first time felt good. The first person voice of the PI (in this case, an ex-Berkeley professor and porn-loving thug), the twists and turns, the prime suspects... I’d never enjoyed writing anything so much.

Then I realized that it was a novel, not a story. My PI got a side-kick, and I got a new genre. By this stage the story wasn’t some half-assed attempt at a literary joke, it was pure pulp fiction. And each day I’d ask myself why I hadn’t done this sooner, this switch to a genre that I really loved.

I began to imagine my books on the shelf next to Lawrence Block’s. I got myself a snappy pseudonym (Joe Florez), just like you’re supposed to. I even named a character John Latimer, after the great spoof noirist Jonathan Latimer.

On I went, first draft, second, revisions, the works. And it never occurred to me that: 1) the global recession was hitting book publishers particularly hard; 2) a midget* pornographer is not the most wholesome focus for a light-hearted mystery novel; 3) ‘cuss-filled porno-cosy’ is not a recognised sub-genre; 4) I was an idiot.

* (Yes, I KNOW midgets and dwarfs are different; my erotic actor is in fact a midget, a fully-formed four-eight.)

Guess what? The greatest literary imprint in the US didn’t want to publish a cuss-filled porno-cosy semi-spoof noir fairy tale. Had I made a mistake? Would Grace Kelly fans be offended? Would porn fans be offended? Would differently-sized people be offended?

I dunno. But by chance I bought a Sony e-reader around the same time, and uploaded my manuscript. It *sat* well on the little grey screen. It *read* well, too. Good and pacy, just like noir should be. The e-reader? Is it an answer to the problem of switching genres, a means of trying out things that book marketing departments might balk at?

Again, I dunno. All I do know is that the process of getting it produced as an ebook beats schlepping the MS around dozens of crisis-hit book publishers, only to be told that the subject is a bit...

So, there you have it. What Ever Happened to Jerry Picco? by Joe Florez. Buy it. Help me feel clever again.

John Barlow, writing as Joe Florez.

Buy the ebook here:

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Smashwords

---

John Barlow, when writing under his real name, is the author of Everything But the Squeal: A Year of Pigging Out in Northern Spain, Intoxicated and Eating Mammals: Three Novellas.

A Song For Sunday

The Go-Betweens - Boundary Rider