Operation Reading Room

With my wallpaper stripper at the ready, Operation Reading Room began today. This is the conversion of the games/sleepover room into a TV-free sanctuary with chesterfield chairs and lots and lots of books. When I'm reading I can block out visual distractions. This is a skill honed over six years of study while ignoring the laundry, dirty dishes and general disorder. Noise, on the other hand, is a terrible distraction.

Hence the reading room. This is one of those projects that will be 'worth it in the end'. In the meantime, we've had fun manoeuvring an enormous bookcase around the house. I was coming to the conclusion that I had far too many books. You can see just a few of the books here...

Surely I didn't need all these books? It was time to be ruthless. Time to say goodbye to the half-reads, the worthy-but dulls and the panic-how-on-earth-am-I going-to-write-this-essay buys. How many did I manage to get rid of?

Six.

Well, I tried. And here's hoping it will be worth it in the end.

Trumpet by Jackie Kay

'He was astonishingly handsome, high cheekbones that gave him a sculpted proud look; his eyes darked than any I'd ever seen. Thick black curly hair, the tightest possible curls, sitting on top of his head, like a bed of springy bracken. Neat nails, beautiful hands. I took him all in as if I had a premonition, as I knew what would happen. His skin was the colour of highland toffee.'

Millie is mourning the death of her husband. He was famous jazz trumpeter Joss Moody. He was also a woman.

Joss Moody's true identity had been kept secret for many years, even from their adopted son Colman. It was only with his death that his true identity became known.  In the weeks and months after Joss's death, we learn about this remarkable character mainly through the eyes of a number of his friends and family. Much of the story is told by his widow Millie. She recounts the day Moody revealed his true identity to her. She tells too of their long, loving relationship and her terrible loneliness after his death.

'Each time I come into this room the emptiness of it punches me in the stomach. There is something so repetitive about grief. First the stupid hope, then the violence of remembering. The hope, then the carpet from under your feet. If Joss had lived and I had died. If Joss had seen a doctor. If I had made Joss see a doctor. The same things spinning every day and night. Each night I'm afraid to sleep. I know Joss will find me. I know I will wake up and forget and then remember.'

Millie's grief is compounded by the scandal surrounding the revelation of her husband's true identity. Reeling from the shock of his parents' deception, Colman agrees to work with a tabloid journalist on a book about his father. The journalist Sophie revels in the sordid details, the deception and the search for a 'reason' for Moody's changed identity. Through Kay's skilful interweaving of the different perspectives, the reader appreciates that gender and identity are more complex and subtle than Sophie can ever understand. In this way, the binding of Moody's breasts, for example, becomes an act of great tenderness, rather than deceit.

Kay writes with great passion too on the transformative power of Moody's music:

'The music is his blood. His cells. But the odd bit is that down at the bottom, the blood doesn't matter after all. None of the particulars count for much. True, they are instrumental getting him down there in the first place, but after that they become incidental. All his self collapses - his idiosyncracies, his personality, his ego, his sexuality, even, finally, his memory. All of it falls away like layers of skin unwrapping. He unwraps himself with his trumpet. Down at the bottom, face to face with the fact that he is nobody. The more he can be nobody the more he can play that horn. Playing the horn is not about being somebody coming from something. It is about being nobody coming from nothing. The horn ruthlessly strips him bare till he ends up with no body, no past, nothing.'

The novel was inspired by the true story of Billy Tipton, an American jazz musician and a woman who passed herself off as a man. Like Joss Moody, her true identity was only discovered after her death.

Jackie Kay's novel is as tender and moving a description of grief as you could ever wish to read. She explores nuances of race, gender and identity with great sensitivity. I'd certainly recommend it.

And Other Stories

By rights, I should have been disappointed that Deborah Levy had flu and couldn't attend on Sunday, but in fact the other half of the event was everything I could have hoped for and more.

Happiness is Possible is Book 5 from independent publisher And Other Stories. Its author, Oleg Zaionchkovsky, was born in Samara on the banks of the Volga and until recently worked as a test engineer in the small Russian town of Khotkovo.

The book's translator, Andrew Bromfield, gave the reading. I overheard after the event that it was the first reading he'd done and I wish now that I'd had the opportunity to congratulate him. Nicely understated, he captured perfectly the dark humour of the extract. He made me realise just how intimately a translator must be involved with his text.  I've read many books in translation before and even done a little translating myself. I understand a little of the nuances of language which aren't always so easy to convey in another language. Having lived in Moscow himself, you get the impression Bromfield understands very well the Moscow Zaionchkovsky is describing.

This is what the blurb has to say about the book:

'A writer is late delivering his novel, unable to write anything uplifting since his wife walked out. All he can produce are notes about the happiness of others. But something draws him into the Moscow lives around him - bringing together lonely neighbours, restoring lost love, and helping out with building renovations. And happiness seems determined to catch up with him as well...'

Modern-day Moscow is very much a character in the book and in the course of the story the narrator rediscovers his love for the city. Bromfield suggested that 'cheerful' was too positive a word for contemporary Moscow. Rather, he said, you have to attack each day to get anything done.

Conversation turned to the publisher And Other Stories. Set up by two translators to publish writers in translation, they are probably better known for the coup of Booker-shortlisted Swimming Home by Deborah Levy. Bethan Ellis from AOS described the difficulties of getting publishers to invest in translation. Funding is a big issue. And Other Stories is a not-for-profit organisation, finding financial support in grants and reader subscriptions. With the help of readers, academics, critics and publishers, they have a collaborative approach to discovering new literary fiction from around the world.  Her enthusiasm for the 'hopeful enterprise' of writing and publishing was inspiring.

Happiness is Possible was shortlisted for both the Russian Booker Prize and the Russian Big Book Prize. If first impressions are anything to go by, it should be a very good read.
You can find out more about And Other Stories here.

Any suggestions for book group reading?

I suspect that no matter how far in advance we planned our book group meetings, I'd always be finishing the book at the last minute.

There are so many works in progress at the moment, that I was determined to reach the end of My Cousin Rachel before starting anything else. I'm pleased I did - I'm sure my brain's not as good as holding stories concurrently as it used to be. So now it's a canter through Trumpet before tomorrow evening. I hope that I'm not doing Jackie Kay's wonderful prose a disservice.

Meanwhile, the photography course is progessing slowly. The light was great for photography on Sunday, but if anyone would care to explain f-stops to me, then that would be much appreciated.

So whilst I'm finishing Trumpet and doing some emergency hoovering, can anyone recommend a good read for this month's book group?

Sad it's all over

Phew, what a whirlwind few days we've had at Litfest. It's been tiring enough with the few events we've supported. Imagine what stamina the Litfest staff must have! Ably assisted by my daughter, I've tweeted, blogged, torn tickets, sold books, made cups of tea and chatted to authors. We've had a fabulous time and met some interesting people. I'll talk more about it over the next few days.

In the meantime, I'm curling up with a glass of red wine to browse my new purchases.

Strange stories at Lancaster Litfest 2012

One of the great things about a good short story is that you're never sure where it's going to take you. That was certainly the case listening to David Constantine and Adam Marek at Lancaster Litfest on Thursday.

Just as I enjoyed reading Constantine's prize winning story set up the road at the Midland Hotel in Morecambe, I was equally delighted when he announced that he was to read 'Goat', based in my home town of Durham. Like watching the 'Holiday' programme to see places you've already been, I was looking forward to mentions of the Market Square, the Cathedral and other favourite places.

Picture then, if you can, a tramp called Goat, so called because of two lumps on his forehead that look as though they might be horns. Goat, who suffers from priapism, has made his refuge in the headmaster's study of the ruined Bluecoats school. The school has been transformed into an ice palace by one of the coldest Christmases in memory. A Canon, about to be defrocked, is brought by the kind-hearted Fay to meet Goat. Fay takes out her penny whistle and soon the Canon and Goat are dancing joyfully, faster and faster, by the firelight.

In 'An Industrial Revolution', Marek transported the audience to the less familiar territory of a palm oil plantation in Sumatra. Set in the near future, this is no ordinary plantation, 'manned' as it is by humanised orangutans. We discover that these are no ordinary orangutans; they walk on two legs, handling dangerous tools with great dexterity and communicating in sign language. As the story unfolds, narrated by an investigative journalist revisiting the plantation after twenty years, we realize the shocking part played by his companion Eleanor in the development of the orangutan colony.

Constantine says that he is not a realist writer. Despite the realist settings of his stories, he acknowledges that his characters are often decidedly odd. But then, he argues, all people are odd, and some are odder than others. In Goat, Constantine shows man's urge to feel more alive.  For the Canon this is a utopian moment - only a short-lived escape from mundanity - but remarkable nonetheless.

For Marek too, strangeness is rooted in reality. He spoke of the importance of specificity in story telling. Even when writing about the future, not everything we know will have been abandoned. There will still be, he argues, antique chairs and biscuit tins.

So why do these writers prefer the short story to longer fiction? Constantine confessed to a loathing of the pluperfect tense. In a short story it's easier to experiment with form and not be constrained by novelistic conventions. He's not interested in the preamble or the closure - he wants to get straight to the part that interests him. Marek too enjoys the the freedom to experiment with form and perspective.  Short stories have the added benefit, he suggests, of being easier to abandon than a novel if they're not going well.

All in all, with intriguing stories and interesting debate, it was another entertaining evening at Lancaster Litfest.

Vampires, teenage monsters and what lies beneath

At Lancaster Litfest on Wednesday evening Celia Rees, Chris Priestley and Cliff McNish shared their love of monsters and the thrill of scaring and being scared.

It was Coppola's film Dracula that inspired Rees to write about vampires. She read from Blood Sinister and explained how the idea of a narrative based on found documents helped make her vampire real for a modern audience.

Priestley told the audience how his 'macabre sensibility' shaped his writing. Struck by the similarity between Frankenstein's monster and a needy teenager, he wrote Mister Creecher. Like Frankenstein's creation, the young Billy is shunned by society and Priestley's book tells the story of  the child deprived of a loving family making friends with a monster. As Billy and Mister Creecher look through the window into a cosy family home to what extent, we wonder, is the monster a product of his environment and upbringing?

Another fan of illicit horror film viewing, McNish is 'in it for the monsters'. Fascinated by the 'misunderstood' monster, he considers what makes and restrains the monster. He read the opening pages of Savannah Grey. We followed the monster up the stairs of Savannah's house, anticipating the awful attack, only for McNish to end his reading just before the crucial moment. How the audience groaned!

Apart from a brief spell on the door, my main task for the evening was to tweet about the event. Apologies to Lancaster Litfest for neglecting my job, but the discussion after the break was just too interesting. From nightmares and dark corners to houses that should be safe but aren't, the writers shared their thoughts on what makes a Gothic story. They speculated on the reasons for the recent popularity of the Gothic, particularly amongst young adult readers. Is it that their lives ahead are already mapped out for them, and they want to escape from the mundane? Have physical dangers been replaced by more psychological ones? Are teenagers in that twilight zone between child and adult? Are they 'other' too?

As is the way with these things, as many questions were raised as answered and the time passed far too quickly. Certainly, it has whetted my appetite for the Litfest events ahead.

You can find out more about Lancaster Litfest here.

I promise this is the last time...

I mention graduation. I thought it'd be nice to share one last photo with you.

Grounded

Thankfully this morning's apocalyptic downpour preceded the school run by a good fifteen minutes. I'm starting to wonder if the bleak future envisioned in Sarah Hall's The Carhullan Army is closer than we think.

Laid low by a heavy cold, I've retreated to my bed with a box of man-sized tissues, Olbas oil and an ubiquitous Diet Coke (almost my only vice). The house is still unnaturally tidy after weekend visitors, so I've given myself leave of absence for a self-indulgent day of reading and writing.

With a purple pen, a Moleskine notebook and a beautiful edition of My Cousin Rachel at my side, it's not such a bad way to spend the day after all.

Swimming Home - Deborah Levy

Kitty Finch is trouble. A beautiful young woman, suffering from depression, she interrupts a family holiday in a French villa. They find her swimming naked in their pool. A double booking leaves her with nowhere to stay, so the wife of the family invites her to stay on with them. Having decided to stop taking her medication, Kitty is clearly unstable.  Her presence unsettles everyone, from the troubled poet Jozef and his poised war correspondent wife, to their adolescent daughter and the gluttonous friend with a penchant for guns.

The reader soon senses danger, but is only as the story unfolds that we realize who is most at risk.

Levy's writing disorientates the reader, just as Kitty's presence disturbs the protagonists of the story. From the very first lines Levy's prose is perceptive and unsettling:

'When Kitty Finch took her hand off the steering wheel and told him she loved him, he no longer knew if she was threatening him or having a conversation.'

Although it's hard to imagine anything beating Hilary Mantel's Bring up the Bodies to the Booker Prize, Swimming Home, with its Freudian depths, should be a strong contender.

The book is noteworthy too for its unusual publishing history. Funded by subscriptions from readers, the book is published by And Other Stories. You can find out more about the ways in which the readers influence the choice of books at http://www.andotherstories.org/

Deborah Levy is appearing at Lancaster Litfest on Sunday 21st October. You can book tickets here.

Lancaster Litfest 2012 - Curate's egg picks

In an ideal world, I would immerse myself in books for a whole week, gliding seamlessly from event to event, and talking all things literary with friends old and new over coffee and cake.

Since I can't possibly enjoy it all, here's my selection from a packed program of events:

Wednesday 17th October - Gothic Young Adult Fiction. After last year's excellent talk on pushing the boundaries in YA fiction, my daughter's really looking forward to this one. With Cliff McNish, Chris Priestley and Celia Rees.

Thursday 18th October - David Constantine (winner of the 2010 BBC National Short Story Award) and Adam Marek read from their short fiction collections.

It's so tempting to spend the whole weekend of 20th/21st enjoying the Poetry Shindig (Saturday) and Prose Shindig (Sunday), but I'm rationing myself to a couple of events each day.

Saturday 20th October - Gillian Clarke & Robert Crawford. Two poets, one Welsh and one Scottish. In At the Source, Clarke writes with great passion about the relationship between language and place so I'm hoping for more of the same.

Saturday 20th October - An Evening with John Hegley, poet, comedian and performer. This is the event chosen by our book group. I've never seen Hegley before, but having watched clips on YouTube I'm looking forward to an entertaining evening.

Sunday 21st October - And Other Stories present: Deborah Levy and Oleg Zaionchkovsky I'm intrigued by And Other Stories' unusual publishing route, involving readers in the publishing process through of a series of readers groups, on-line forums and discussions. Deborah Levy's novel Swimming Home has been short-listed for the Booker Prize. It's a disconcerting book, with some great writing. I'll be posting a review soon.

Sunday 21st October - Jo Baker and Zoe Lambert - The Right to Imagine. Two North West writers talk about the role of war in story telling.

There's too much else going on to mention it all here, but you can find the whole programme on the Lancaster Litfest website.

Graduation

The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester. Three hundred and forty one graduands. And Brian Cox.

Having already graduated once, many years ago, I wasn't sure if I needed to go through all the rigmarole once more. I'm very pleased I did.

There's something special about an Open University graduation. With students ranging in age from twenty two to eighty two, everyone had their own story of hard work and dedication, juggling so many more commitments than your average eighteen year old fresh from school. There was the actress, the Olympic medal winner and the partially sighted woman with eleven children. In hindsight the six years it took me to get a First Class Honours Degree in English Literature didn't seem so bad. If I've made sacrifices along the way, I can't remember them any more.

The setting was splendid. Grand and imposing, and with fabulous acoustics. You really had the sense of being part of a tremendous group achievement. The Presiding Officer did a fabulous job of recognising each graduand as an individual, and any suggestion - made by my husband - that he spent more time talking to the young ladies than anyone else, was in my opinion entirely unfounded.

Then there was the added excitement of the presence of Professor Brian Cox, receiving his Honorary Award. My husband, The Mathematician, was delighted to hear him talk. For my part, I was so intent on crossing the dais without falling over, that I didn't give him a second glance.

Autumn reading and other matters

These are busy times. Last week, my Italian exam and my son's grammar school entrance test. This week, a job interview and graduation at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester. It's times like these when reading gets pushed to the edges of my days. Yet it's at these moments when reading can keep me sane. Given all that's going on at the moment, it's good to have some things to dip into. I'm enjoying my Litfest related reading. Gillian Clarke's poetry and her reflections on the relationship between language and places in At the Source are a joy to read. I find myself reciting her lines out loud in the bath. 

Ear to the wall of the night. Listen

to your blood beat in the pulse of your pillow,

the water table rising in your bones,

the future drumming the ground like a train on the track.

I have short stories to entertain me too - Zoe Lambert's collection The War Tour and David Constantine's Tea at the Midland and other stories. The Midland Hotel in Morecambe is one of my favourite places. It was the subject for one of my first posts on this blog. I've always thought it would be a good setting for a short story and I'm rather miffed that Constantine beat me to it. I must admit he made a rather good job of it though, winning the 2010 BBC National Short Story Award.

On the prose front, I'm currently re-reading The Outsider by Camus. This book bowled me over when I was seventeen and I'm curious to see what effect it will have on me now. As you can probably tell, my Classics Club Challenge has taken a back seat over the last few weeks, so I'll be looking forward to getting back in the swing of things with Daphne du Maurier's My Cousin Rachel. Rebecca is the only du Maurier I've read until now, so this will be my literary box of chocolates over the coming weeks.

Finally, thanks to Lizzy's Literary Life I have The Bridge of the Golden Horn by Turkish writer Emine Sevgi Ozdamar. The story of a young Turkish migrant worker who comes to Germany, the review describes it as 'a witty, picaresque account of a precocious teenager refusing to become wise.' This was the second book I have won this year. Perhaps I'm on a lucky streak. I certainly hope so.