Repeat Readings Part Two

I had a friend once who told this story about her Dad. Every Winter, she’d tell us, he read War and Peace. Year in, year out. They were a family without a telly so this was his quiet, studious evening pursuit when the nights drew in. He had an ancient hardback copy from one of those book clubs, and there’d been an error in the binding and printing which meant that the central 100 pages or so were upside down. So my friend – let’s call her Argyle for the purposes of this post – knew when the halfway point was reached because her Dad would calmly and without complaint spin the book around and continue reading. Argyle used to say that this rotating of War and Peace invariably meant Christmas was near.

Argyle could tell a good tale, so I one day expect to find that the War and Peace story was borrowed from elsewhere. But I like the idea of a reader for whom a single text can continue to satisfy again and again. No offence to Tolstoy intended, but I suspect Argyle’s dad had long since stopped reading for the novel’s ability to yield new and interesting meanings. No, I reckon this was about comfort. The chill of winter outside; the warmth of the fireside; the holidays a-comin’; War and Peace.

I mention all of this ‘cause I too have a book I keep comfort-reading. A few, actually – Gatsby, Remains of the Day – but with this particular one I’m on my fifth or sixth iteration; way ahead of the others. And, weirdly, I’m not sure I know why I keep doing it.

Nothing as lofty as a Russian or American heavyweight to brag about here, folks: it’s The Ghost by Robert Harris. That’s right. The political thriller that he briefly halted his Roman trilogy to dash off. The frothy, inconsequential bestseller you see in service stations and airports; the one that Polanski recently filmed. That one. What the hell am I playing at? There are new tales waiting to be told out there; time’s a-wastin’ – and here I am starting the same book again for the fifth time.

And yet. It’s so sparsely written; that artless narrator thing works so well. There’s only a handful of adjectives to clutter the prose in the opening chapters, for example. There’s only one location, one claustrophobic, wind-blown location for the majority of the narrative. There’s a genuinely colourless protagonist; a ghost, almost – the reader substitutes themselves for him. The pace is nigh-on perfect. The political insight is impressive.

I know it’s no War and Peace, but it continues to fascinate me. There’s something in its clarity, coherence, simplicity, that's compelling. Perhaps we’ve all got our comfort reads.

Comfort me by admitting yours!  

Young and Youthful Readers

I suppose this post will be my (humble-ish) contribution to the thousands upon thousands of words written attempting to define the ‘Young Adult’ genre. To spare you the trawl: some definitions hang upon character – the protagonists must be young adults; some define according to issue; the story must deal with the challenges of growing up; for some, theme is important – identity, for example; for others, it’s all about style, register, lexical choice and so on.

None of these work, though. Here’s why. And don’t worry, folks: I’ll be quick.

I was listening to a podcast – at times pretty engaging, at others pretty damn short-sighted – discussing writing for children. In it, a YA author is asked the age-old question and, after some preliminary thoughts, suggests that Great Expectations is effectively YA writing. And according to much of the above, it is. You can do the box-ticking yourself.

Except of course, Great Expectations isn’t a YA novel. For a start, sociologically speaking there weren’t any YA to write for in 1860. But in the main, because it is a bildungsroman novel. (An ‘education’ novel, an ‘apprenticeship’ novel, a ‘coming-of-age’ story; call it what you will.) These, by definition, need a young protagonist at the start, and follow his or her growth. Great Expectations, then, is no more YA than Jane Eyre is.

The poet Simon Armitage was once asked to define poetry. ‘If you scribble a few words down and arrange them, is that a poem?’ was the gist of the question. Armitage understandably struggled for a moment or two with this. Then he concluded: “In the end, if I say it’s a poem – it’s a poem.”

So here’s my definition of YA – stuff written for young adults, by writers writing for young adults. I s'pose that's just glib rather than the weighty beginnings of an academic thesis, though. (And what about The Book Thief? You might ask. Nope, says me. That’s been marketed as YA by a creative publisher with an eye for a profit.)

Why not turn this whole thing on its head. Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s author introduction to his first novel, The Prince of Mist is an interesting place to go, I reckon. “I simply decided to write the kind of novel” he states, “that I would have wanted to read at 13 or 14; but also one that would continue to interest me at the age of 23, or 40.” (i.e. YA R.I.P.) And his final sentence is a lovely one; pertinent too, I think – “To both young and youthful readers, it only remains for me to thank you, and to wish you happy reading.”

A novel written for ‘young and youthful’ readers. Now there’s a definition I could happily live with. Long may we all continue to be youthful readers, whatever that may be.

Two Books About Ideas

Or: “I’ve got a great idea for a novel. No, wait. Seriously, I have.”

There’s a nice story about a fanboy who approaches a games designer at a conference. “I’ve got a great idea for a game!” he enthuses, hoping to make his fortune. The games designer looks at him soberly. “And I’ve got a great idea for a painting” he replies.

I like this tale, whether true or apocryphal, because it gets to the heart of an interesting issue about creativity. As a society, we love the idea of the Eureka moment; the displacement of water in a bath, a falling apple – the ‘suddenly-it-came-to-me-in-a-blinding-flash-of-realisation’ story that we tell and re-tell; the kind of story that paints creativity as an elusive product of genius, accessed only by a chosen few. The fanboy at the conference thinks he’s had one of these rare epiphanies. The games designer, however, knows better. We can all have ideas, says his sarcastic answer, particularly outside our field of expertise. It’s what we do with them that counts – so get to the back of the queue.

Scott Belsky’s organisation 'The 99percent' (you can follow them on Twitter here) focuses its interest and energy not on the ‘1% inspiration’ element of the famous equation, but on the ‘99% perspiration’ bit. The idea is easy; it’s the commitment to completion that matters. “That’s why,” Belsky says in a presentation to an eager crowd of creative types, “there are more unfinished novels in the world than there are novels.” In his book 'Making Ideas Happen', Belsky argues that the feelings of possibility we experience at the point of creation are such powerful and magnetic ones that we yearn to return to them. We would rather, he says, begin creating anew than push our previous idea through to completion. The ‘project plateau’ he says, is littered with the half complete skeletons of millions of unrealised ideas.

Stephen Johnson’s contribution to this field is 'Where Good Ideas Come From'. You can watch an animated lecture summarising his ideas here. His approach is environmental; spaces and interactions are at the root of all good ideas. They can’t develop in isolation, argues Johnson. He is particularly persuasive in his argument that good ideas need a period of incubation – they often take years to develop – and the point of birth tends to be a ‘collision’ with another idea, usually someone else’s.

I was once chairing a session with an Irish poet and some students. He was reading and discussing his stuff; they were keen writers asking for advice. I remember him talking towards the end of the session about an idea he was working on. “I’m going to use this line somewhere” he told us all, flicking through his notebook. “It’s ‘the lie of the land’.” He said it again a few times and we all listened in as he talked about how he felt that phrase had great possibilities. But it wasn’t ready to be used yet. I thought about him again as I read Johnson’s book; he was waiting for it to collide with another line, I suppose.

So – I’ve got this great idea for a novel.

And a film. And the soundtrack to the film. And a line of really cool merchandise. And an acceptance speech at the Booker.

Yeah, right. Get to the back of the queue, Fletcher. The work’s only just beginning.