Review: A Fucked Up Life in Books

This book has the word ‘fuck’ in the title and its author has the word ‘cunt’ in her pen name. Still with me?

Its a series of snapshots of her life from early childhood to the present day and its settings include her family home, student accommodation, cafes, bars, offices, busses and  tube trains.
It has a supporting cast of family, boyfriends and work colleagues and its written in an engaging and at times conspiratorial tone that draws us in as if we were sitting across the table from her in a cafe or sharing the commute to work.

Where it differs from the legions of other comentators on everyday life is in the fact that situations of wince making awkwardness are conveyed matter of factly alongside white hot fury at everyday acts of betrayal and dishonesty. Here you will find the deepest loathing and the darkest thoughts but also heart warming kindness and unblinking loyalty. Then there is the author's highly developed sense of right and wrong combined with her complex moral flexibility.

Meet Bookcunt, an anti Bridget Jones for the social media generation.  Here are adventures in everyday life, refreshingly devoid of  a need to be loved and admired. There is no false modesty, no unspoken plea for sympathy.

Boyfiends come and go but constant features include the disasterous relationship with her mother, her close bond with her brother and a lifelong love of books, something she wants to share both with her readers and with those around her.

For me, where the book works best, is in the matter of fact, and at times dispassionate, retelling of explosive and life changing situations. This places all the emphasis on the dialogue's grim content, in very much the same way Banks's The Wasp Factory did.

While for many of us, speaking our minds when the situation requires it is an aspiration, for Bookcunt it seems like a lifetime vocation. I

t would be great to think that this is just 'Vol. 1'.

DARK WATERS by Jason Lewis
Part one of The Expedition trilogy


In the summer of 1994 two unemployed twentysomethings set out to complete the first circumnavigation of the globe using only human power. It would involve crossing the Atlantic and Pacific and oceans as well as five continents, a trip they believed would take three years.

Thirteen years and 46,505 miles later, one of them, Jason Lewis, returned. This is his story.

From the outset these were not two clean livin' professional adventurers plastered with corporate sponsor logos, far from it, they were two young guys setting out on the adventure of a lifetime with almost no relevant experience. In fact during the early stages of volume one its touch and go whether they are actually going to be sober enough for long enough to get the journey underway at all.

But as the departure date draws near and the full enormity of the task becomes apparent we realise that the hard drinking and partying are an essential part of their build up because this is an adventure they will be lucky to survive.

With books about a journey, the purpose of which is the journey, there exists the possibility of becoming bogged down in numerous brief descriptions of a great many places. But not with this book. While Lewis keeps us up to speed with where we are the main thrust is the human elements, namely the people he meets along the way and his companion Steve Smith with whom he enjoys an increasingly difficult, but mutually dependant relationship.

The centre piece of volume one is their perilous Atlantic crossing during which we are treated both to the almost unbearable claustrophopia of their tiny craft and vast emptiness of the ocean.
Lewis has a powerful descriptive ability, particularly where nature is concerned, and reveals the sea in all its moods. We also get to share, in vivid detail, his peaceful contemplation of the stars and the full blown fury of an Atlantic storm.

This is a genuine tale of an adventure. It doesn't start with the cliche of a drunken bet and and it wasn't undertaken for the purpose of nailing a book deal. And whilst the whole undertaking appears very ramshackle at times there is no novelty factor, no hitchhiking with a fridge, no search for people called Dave Gorman and no tedious false modesty.

HOW TO SELL A MILLION BOOKS - IN AS MANY YEARS

On sunday I had to make good on an offer to help out at a bric a brac sale. It was being held in the the local masonic lodge, an imposing brown sandstone building with pillars flanking the door and a pair of dividers carved into the masonry above it. Inside, the grandeur has faded and the whole place looks scuffed and drab although the oak panelling, brass fittings and black and white floor tiles must have looked very impressive once. Interestingly the main hall has not a single window.

This morning tables line its walls, weighed down with crockery, dusty glassware, old handbags and brollies, shoes, board games, DVDs and books. The term bric a brac feels very apt, its redolent of of marginal utility and value. Tittle tattle, fiddle faddle, chitter chatter.

Martha, the organiser, puts me on the book table on which sits several tattered boxes of books, many of them old, torn and dusty. They are crammed in any old how and before we officially open the doors I have to try and sort them into some order. It makes me feel like Andy Dufrain in the Shawshank prison library, but he had all the time in the world whereas I only have half an hour before the doors are due to open at 11.00am.

Despite the fact that there are people who have been waiting outside in the rain there is no urgency amongst our first customers, just a sense of optimism as they float between the tables. Maybe they’re looking for a lamp for the hall or the DVD of Dirty Dancing to replace their worn out and redundant video copy. Maybe a coffee pot just old enough to be retro or perhaps a much loved board game from childhood; ‘When I was a kid we loved playing Mousetrap...’

My first customer approaches the table, a heavyset man in his sixties.
‘Have you get any Westerns?’ I don’t, but perhaps here is an opportunity for him to broaden his reading tastes.
‘If you like killings and gunfights, I’ve got a couple of Andy McNabs,’ I offer, remembering Martha’s instructions to smile, but he moves on, unimpressed.

Amongst the books are one or two pleasant surprises but there is little surprise in finding Fifty Shades of Grey, given that there are approximately two hundred books on the table it was almost a mathematical certainty. But even though this is the first copy I’ve actually held, I don’t open it, in fact I lose interest halfway through the back cover.

Then I find Clan of the Cave Bear, an old favourite that did the rounds of all my school friends. This copy does not have convenient dog ears to highlight the sex scenes and I can’t remember where they are now but for a moment I’m lost in happy memories.

‘I’m looking for historical romance,’ says a rain soaked, woman with a baseball cap.
I’m tempted to suggest Clan of the Cave Bear but I’m going to keep it instead, I never got round to reading the whole thing and there’s a better alternative to hand. Its a fairly recent looking paperback but with a cover illustration featuring a red-coated soldier arm in arm with a woman holding a parasol, it reminds me of the old Quality Street tins. She buys it for for fifty pence.

A man tells me his wife likes Jilly Cooper. I’m not familiar with her work and I don’t have any of it here but I did once hear it described as ‘juicy’. I offer him ‘Fifty Shades’ but he looks at me as if I’ve farted and I realise that neither of us will ever read this book albeit for entirely different reasons. Instead I offer him ‘The Family’ by Martina Cole. I read it myself after my wife bought it as a holiday read a year ago but this one is a very handsome hardbacked version.

‘It kept me guessing right til the end,’ I am able to truthfully attest. He nods and buys it. In fact it kept me guessing for some time after that, and as I hand it over I’m still trying to figure out how these three hundred pages of cliche and inconsistency can have sold so many copies. On the other hand it has only taken me twenty seconds to sell this one which makes me think about the importance readers place on genre.

As the day wears on I manage to sell a few more books, and I can see that at other tables steady progress has been made. Not bad considering that this was event was advertised by putting up posters in the high street and flyers through doors. As a form of advertising its as ancient as the town crier but it certainly works because a large collection of previously unwanted items have been exchanged for money in a series of face to face transactions.

What’s more, several hundred people have visited this  dingy hall in a quiet back street on a wet Saturday afternoon, and all without the aid of the internet. However, If we had used the full array of social media it could have been significantly bigger. In fact, if we’d then allied this to an online selling platform we could have extended our reach much further. I’d have been in with a chance of shifting all the books on this table.

But even if I had, I wouldn't have experienced what I did today; placing printed words in the hands of another person and watching them make their decision right there and then. But its not the way to sell a million copies of any book, least of all my own.

Towards the end I notice Martha looking sadly at a large number of items on one of the other tables. Mismatched china stained with tea, sturdy earthenware cups and an assortment of brightly coloured coffee mugs ‘Breaktime’, ‘World’s Greatest Dad’, ‘Nescafe’.

‘Looks like we’re going to have to chuck it all out she says sadly, glancing up at the clock. We have to vacate the hall by 4. 00pm prompt and have been expressly told not to use the big trash bins at the back of the building. But the Lodge kitchen has an even bigger collection of random crockery and with a bit of persuasion I manage to squeeze all ours in amongst it - I doubt if anyone will notice.

Review: The Wrestling, by Simon Garfield

The Wrestling


Say what you like about British Wrestling as seen on TV, I can tell you that as a kid growing up in the seventies and eighties it was entertainment at its best. You might have to sit through quite a bit of a John Wayne movie before the bar room brawl started, but when it did your eyes never the left the screen. Well, World of Sport at 4 00 on saturday afternoons gave you a whole hour of it, only without the obvious distractions of spurious storyline, bowler hatted piano player and smouldering heroine.

There has been so much written about it since; its obvious fakery, its ludicrous characters, grimy venues and rowdy audiences and I’m not ashamed to admit that I’ve enjoyed some of these hilarious retrospective accounts immensely, most recently in the excellent 21st Century Dodos, by Steve Slack. With this in mind I picked up ‘The Wrestling’ without a moments hesitation, already imagining myself on the couch chuckling through the comedy capers of Giant Haystacks, Rollerball Rocco and ‘Wheelbarrow’ Wilson. However, far from being a cynical retrospective on the story of one of my great childhood memories, ‘The Wrestling’ turned out to be something much, much better - a series of frank interviews with its central characters.

There are no cheap shots here, none of the easy cynicism which characterises much of the work on this subject. Instead, Garfield goes to great lengths to acquire all the interviews in this book and having done so, handles each as though it were part of a collection of national treasures. Like a curator he places them carefully to create a seamless unvarnished and compelling first hand account.

Here are the grim untold tales of of Les Kellet’s transport cafe, the pathological lies of Giant Haystacks, the plumber who stumbled on Kendo Nagasaki’s true identity and the questions that still remain about Mick McMannus’s hair. It’s also about the low pay, the constant travel, the injuries, the rivalry and above all the love of the game that kept these guys coming back to entertain us time after time.

Simon Garfield’s book hasn’t changed the way I feel about this subject, it will always have the happiest and fondest memories for me, but its safe to say it has changed pretty much everything I know about it.

The X 15 A vision of the future and still the fastest plane ever flown.

 

A few months ago an article on the BBC New website caught my attention. It featured a computer generated image of a futuristic looking aircraft, all sleek lines against a deep blue sky and it made me think of pictures from the aircraft books I read as a child, the ones that were in the chapter, enticingly labelled  ‘The future’. Even the wording had a familiar ring to it:

‘Work has begun on a Hypersonic passenger aircraft that could go further and faster than Concorde, flying from Europe to Australia in four hours at speeds of up to 4500 mph.’

I read on but was quickly disappointed. The aircraft, designated A2, was not expected to fly until 2040 and the technology required to produce its hydrogen fuel in sufficient quantities doesn’t even exist yet. What’s more it won’t be flying to the US, because the distance isn’t great enough for it reach full speed.

Its hardly a giant leap for mankind, and seems about as likely to be a part of my future as the Hover Car, the Rocket Pack and the Ray Gun. Its not even going to be the first aircraft of its kind.

Over 50 years ago, in a very different era of aviation an organisation called the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) built a rocket plane which could reach speeds of 4500mph and could climb to an altitude of 50 miles – recognised as the edge of space.

NACA would soon to be known as NASA and the plane was the X15, a harpoon shaped aircraft that was launched like a missile from a B52 bomber. Painted black with just slits for windows and made of the most exotic materials it had the first throttle-controlled rocket engine and even today it is still the fastest aircraft ever flown. It was piloted by men who would soon form the cream of NASA’s Astronaut Corps. Among them, was a fresh faced young test pilot called Neil Armstrong.

There were plans to launch the X15 as an orbital spacecraft. The programme ultimately lost out in the race for the moon but if it had continued NASA would have had a sophisticated, reusable aircraft that could fly into space and back - or one that could hop from London to Sydney on a regular basis.The A2, if it ever flies, will simply be a bigger version of the X15 that can fly further.

Then, a few days ago a similar article entitled ‘WaveRider hypersonic jet targets Mach 6’ caught my eye.

I started reading but despite its cool name this is not an aircraft in the traditional sense. Instead it’s a twenty five foot pilotless drone, that, just like the X 15 is launched from the wing of a B-52 bomber. However, unlike its manned hypersonic predecessor, it is designed to break up and fall into the Pacific Ocean at the end of its six minute flight .

According to the US Airforce the data that it collects is going to,

‘pave the way to future hypersonic weapons, hypersonic intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and future access to space.’

Its hard to get too get too excited though because in terms of the actual flying its all been done before only with real men at the controls.

Anti-social behaviour; a one step plan for a better life.

Early morning on the east shore of Loch Lomond. A deserted tent stands at the water’s edge and inside it two sleeping bags lie  peeled open. On the beach two deck chairs gaze out onto the water. Between them the disposable barbecue is still warming two blackened burgers. Buttered rolls are ready on a paper plate and beside each chair, a pile of firmly pinched beer cans.

‘I just don’t understand it,’ says my friend Kenny, a 20 year veteran of the National Parks Ranger service and at first glance it does look a bit strange, it’s as if the occupants of the tent have simply evaporated with the morning mist. But this is not the start of a mystery, the scene of an abduction, or the end of a suicide pact, which leaves only one explanation: whoever spent the night here bought all this gear very cheaply then just left it behind because they couldn’t be bothered to take it home.

Adam is still shaking his head sadly, but not me, all I can feel is a rising sense of envy and admiration for whoever did this. In fact I’m beginning to realise that its more than just  an act of antisocial behaviour, its a metaphor for a whole new way of life, an easier simpler one where I can dump my old wheelbarrow into the hedge with the same level of guilt that goes with tossing an apple core out of the car window. A life where I can let my dog foul the footpath with no more a backward glance than I’d spare for the supper dishes I’ve just left in the sink until morning.

On a recent visit to an iron age village in Kenmore we saw how, with a deal of effort, lovingly crafted and foraged materials can be brought together to create that greatest of all our discoveries – fire. I left just itching to try it, it would certainly be fun for family camping trips.

But now I realise there is no substitute for a disposable lighter, disposable barbecue and disposable food because with practically zero effort these easily acquired, cheap materials can be brought together to create something even better: ready to eat burgers in their buns. What’s more it can be done in less time than it would take to take to get the fire lit in the first place. But best of all, when they’re finished everything that remains can simply be left right here on the beach, then all I have to do is get the kids into the car and we can leave. Easy peasy.

But this lifestyle, the one which I now aspire to, is not just about leaving a mess for someone else to clear up – that’s just one facet of it. Its  about mastering the appropriate level of ambivalence that allows double parking, queue jumping, verbal abuse and putting recyclable materials in the black bin instead of the blue one. For those who can master it the savings in time and effort alone are going to be life changing.

Iron age firelighting? I can just see myself feverishly sawing away with the firebow like a demented cellist , the midges  crawling all over my face and the kids complaining  about being hungry. ‘Any minute now lads and we’ll have the fire roaring,’ comes my tight lipped voice. What the hell was I thinking about?

Looking at this neat little tableau of deck chairs tent and beercans makes me think of Andy Dufrain cruising the coast road in his red Pontiac at the end of The Shawshank Redemption. It's the same feeling of unencumbered freedom and self empowerment. Its time to get antisocial.

WHAT MAKES A HERO?

WHAT MAKES A HERO ? Workshop delivered at Lommond Writer's Gathering 27/03/12

You probably already know this story know  but as writers I hope you’ll bear with me while I share it with you.

On the afternoon of January the 15^th 2009 at 3.25, flight 1549 was leaving la Guardia New York bound for Charlotte North Carolina. At the controls was Captain Chelsey Sullenberger. He had been flying with US Airways for thirty years and in the next six minutes he would become a hero.


Three minutes into the flight, just south of the George Washington Bridge, the plane encountered a flock of Canada Geese.  Loud bangs were heard and there was an immediate and complete loss of thrust from both engines.


While his co-pilot initiated the engine start up procedure Sullenburger radioed La Guardia requesting permission for an emergency landing. Runways were cleared but moments later, Sullenberger, assessing the unpowered aircraft’s rate of descent and airspeed, realised this was now impossible and briefly requested an alternative landing at New Jersey but he quickly realised that this too was now beyond reach and radioed his intention to bring the plane down in the Hudson River.


There were 150 passengers on board and the plane, which was fully fuelled, was gliding without power over one of the most populated cities in the world.


Sullenberger gave instructions to ‘Brace for impact’ and the Airbus, which was travelling  at 150 mph, touched down on the water.  The force of the impact was sufficient to rip open cargo doors at the rear of the plane causing it to take on water rapidly. While river craft came to the rescue the cabin crew supervised the disembarkation of the passengers into life rafts and onto the wings. After the last of them were evacuated Sullenberger twice walked the length of the sinking plane to check that no one remained on board. He was the last to leave.


Not only did he demonstrate breathtaking technical skill in piloting the plane, he remained outwardly calm throughout. Furthermore he risked his life to ensure that everyone had got off safely and finally when he was interviewed he said this:


“Circumstance determined that it was this experienced crew that was scheduled to fly that particular flight on that particular day,” he said.


“And I know I can speak for the entire crew when I tell you we were simply doing the jobs we were trained to do.”


But he wasn’t made of stone. He  acknowledged that he had suffered from  sleeplessness and flashbacks in the weeks following the crash and in a CBS 60 Minutes interview, he was quoted as saying that the moments before the crash were "the worst sickening, pit-of-your-stomach, falling-through-the-floor feeling" that he had ever experienced.


For me Sullenberger is what heroes are made of.


Acts of heroism performed by so called ‘ordinary people’ are often  brief, isolated incidents representing  a ‘blip’ in the life of that person rather than its defining characteristic. By contrast  fictional heroes can depend on a random collision of unrelated events being the precursor to a continuing series of related ones in which they then become embroiled.


Herein lies the problem for the writer of fiction; while an incident like flight 1549 can inspire millions its brief nature and the continuing story of its ordinary central character won’t  necessarily become an international bestseller.  Even though Chelsey Sullenberger became an international hero for saving flight 1549 his own book, on Amazon, currently ranks at 200 422.

THE DILEMMA OF INTERVENTION

While the media helped make the legend of chelsey Sullenberger it could also have destroyed him if he’d made mistakes. This too can be a problem for the ordinary hero because the litigation culture we live in today combined with social media means that a single act can define that person for the rest of their life. It can also have consequences  for people’s willingness to intervene in general.


The Big Man and the fare dodger incident took place on a train filled with commuters travelling between Edinbergh and Perth. Film captured by another of the passengers on his mobile phone shows Alan Pollock forcibly ejecting Sam Main from the carriage after he refused to pay for a ticket. The incident sparked great controversy and both Pollock  and Main faced prosecution although all charges were later dropped. The youtube clip was watched an astonishing two million times even though the train was not out of control, there was no bomb ticking in a mysterious suitcase and all the bridges it would cross were intact. Its anybody’s guess how many times the story was actually read.

It was not strictly speaking an act of heroism but it was most certainly an example of someone demonstrating a willingness to act in difficult circumstances.

ZIMBARDO


This dilemma of intervention  is central to the work of eminent Stanford Psychologist Philip Zimbardo. He believes we focus too much in our hero worship on extraordinary people and not enough on ordinary people taking extraordinary action even though the latter is much more typical of heroes than the former.


Zimbardo claims that the cultivation of what he calls ‘Heroic Imagination’ is crucial. This involves not only being constantly vigilant for circumstances requiring intervention but also imaging how we would react under those circumstances. In effect, this means mentally rehersing in order to develop the personal hardiness necessary to intervene and not to fear interpersonal conflict.


For Zimardo its about resisting the urge to rationalize inaction and to avoid developing justifications that recast evil deeds as acceptable. He notes that there may be only one situation in your life for your heroic imagination to take hold of you and if it doesn’t you may regret it for the rest of your life.

PLAUSIBLE SITUATION

The fictional hero must have a suitable situation for repeating their heroism which is why there are so many detectives, soldiers, rescuers, secret agents and private investigators.


The fictional hero can wait for adventure to find them; the abandoned car with a brief case full of money, the body in the cupboard, or the murderer who leaves calling cards, which is why readers of fiction can take the hero’s intervention for granted.  However, writers of fiction, when describing the events which launch their hero into action, might want to ask themselves what goes through the mind of an ordinary person in the moments before they perform an act of heroism.

THE HERO’S MIND

We are used to both real and fictional heroes down playing their involvement by claiming that ‘Anyone would have done the same.’ Or that they were ‘Only doing what anyone else would have done.’ Yet turning a deaf ear to the pleas of a young woman being attacked on the underground at night, or stepping over a prone human being in the street, are the stories we are more likely to accept as 'human nature'. We even condemn people who ignore the urgent needs of others when we are by no means sure we would have the courage to act ourselves.


Zimbardo says the hero needs a Heroic Imagination but the writer needs it too if they are going to describe heroic acts plausibly. In a market where, thanks to the self publishing revolution, there are a thousand new hero’s every week we have to try and understand what makes a real hero in order to better create a more compelling fictional one.  

QUESTION Whatever their motivation, when ordinary people perform acts of heroism they can inspire millions so why is it that all too often their books do not?


QUESTION If being a hero, whether fictional or real requires a willingness to act, is that willingness more important than the action they take?

QUESTION Would the ‘Big Man’ have done it again knowing that he would become the focus of so much controversy?


QUESTION To what extent does coverage of incidents like these influence people’s readiness to get involved?


QUESTION If Zimbardo’s theory of the heroic Imagination is valid was Walter Mitty potentially the greatest hero of American literature?


QUESTION What went through the mind of the Tank Man of Tianaman Square when he made the decision to step off the curb with his shopping bags and confront a convoy of tanks.


QUESTION How do you write something that can capture people’s attention the way ordinary heroes do?