‘Samson wis a mighty man he fought wi the cuddy’s jaws he fought ten thoosan battles in his crimson flannel drawers’ In the Bible, Samson is conceived by a woman previously thought barren and becomes a notable hero of Israel, smiting the Philistines before falling from grace through his infatuation with Delilah, which leaves him … Continue reading Paxman and the Angels
Category: book-related
SET OUT YOUR STALL (first published in The Author, winter 2012)
The editorial in the autumn issue [of The Author] seemed to me as incoherent and confused in its argument as the image that concluded it: ‘writers must dig their heels in, stick to their knitting, and stick to their guns.’ What, all at once? The gist of what was said is this: times are changing, … Continue reading SET OUT YOUR STALL (first published in The Author, winter 2012)
The Writer’s Task
Trawling through my chaotic file system, I came across this, which I wrote a while back - it has at least the merit of brevity ('Brevity is the soul of wit - if you can't be witty, at least be brief') : 'A character must do, not what I want him or need him to do … Continue reading The Writer’s Task
Accommodating monsters: Books as Doorways
An important property of any doorway is that you can close it, and the same goes for a book. I was prompted to this thought by some interesting observations on Balaclava, the forum of the SAS (no, not the special forces, the Scattered Authors’ Society) regarding the misguided urge some people have (publishers among them) … Continue reading Accommodating monsters: Books as Doorways
Anodyne
Anodyne: it’s an interesting word. Strictly, it means a medicine that allays pain, as its etymology suggests, being from the Greek for ‘painless’, or ‘without pain’. A good thing, then, you would think; so it is interesting to consider how it has come to have a pejorative sense, particularly as applied to literature. Pain and … Continue reading Anodyne
The Hobbit as adult literature
No, not that kind of ‘adult’ - please! I have been trying to pin down the source of my conviction that The Hobbit is, essentially, a book more for adults than children - a conviction that I formed on re-reading it after many years. I think it is because it is about a grand scheme … Continue reading The Hobbit as adult literature
The Cartography of Childhood 2: a recanting
'Blog in haste, repent at leisure.' (old proverb, probably attributed to Albert Einstein/Dr Seuss/Abraham Lincoln) When I said ‘the fantasy element in fantasy literature is the embodiment of the child’s expectations of the grown-up world’ I felt I had pinned down an idea that I have been moving towards for some time - years, in … Continue reading The Cartography of Childhood 2: a recanting
The Cartography of Childhood
The first house I remember clearly is the second I lived in, from when I was not yet three till shortly before my seventh birthday. It occupied the upper right-hand quarter of a council house that stood at one end of a pair of keyhole-shaped cul-de-sacs that faced one another across a main street. To … Continue reading The Cartography of Childhood
My books….
What, my books? (humph, harrumph!) should be over here, somewhere I think...(shuffles, Badger-like, unshaven, in maroon dressing-gown and striped pyjamas to sagging bookshelves)Well there's thisand thisand this...and this, of course.I wish you joy of them.(retires, coughing, amid a haze of dust) [some years later](Re-enters, clad as before, but even more dishevelled. Taps on screen)You're still … Continue reading My books….
The Next Big Thing
The Next Big Thing.
COMPLEAT TROWZER 