Yearly Archives: 2012
A year ago ….
I find it almost impossible to believe that just over a year ago, on 19th May to be precise, I had never been to El Refugio, the rescue centre in Spain. It’s called El Refugio for a reason - it truly represents salvation for thousands of abandoned and abused dogs. They come in all shapes and sizes – some are old, some are hardly born, many are damaged physically. From the moment they come into the Refugio or into foster care, every single dog is treated with kindness and care – a visit to the vet, a nice bath, good food, kind words and above all a cuddle. And, soon, very soon we hope, the golden basket – a loving family of their very own and no more sadness and pain.
I’d left England the day before, May 18th, on a very early flight. I settled into my apartment, slept and prepared to go up the next day.That night, around 2a.m., I was woken by the most violent thunderstorm I have ever experienced. The sky was a pulsating electric blue, the rain lashed the windows, the wind howled. It went on for several hours. Next morning the sky was blue, the sun shone, the air was fresh. I phoned for a taxi to take me to El Refugio. I got there at 10. At this point I still had no idea of the enormity of what had happened. I soon found out. As I walked up towards the portakabins I could see it. The place was a sea of mud, the dogs were covered in mud, parts of the hill had slid down in several places. People were busy digging, hosing, sluicing. Marjolijn, a Dutch volunteer, introduced herself, showed me where to find a sluicer and we just got stuck in. A generator was brought in.
May 2011
Everyone worked non-stop. All that day, and the next day and the next. People came from everywhere. The phone never stopped ringing from 7.30 am and into the night. The local radio station appealed for help. Another dog charity brought a van load of food. I hadn’t known it at the time, but over the next days I discovered that the deluge had destroyed all the food stores, all the medicine, all the towels and the blankets and much else beside. The weaker dogs were in danger and some died. From pneumonia, from hypothermia. It was the saddest of times. A time that no one associated with A.C.E. will ever forget.
May 2012
May 19th 2012 – the pictures tell their own story. Bigger, better, stronger. Nevertheless, the demands are great and growing daily. Spain is in a dreadful state, the dogs are under even greater threat. El Refugio is constantly under pressure. But it’s still going, thanks to the immense efforts, love and devotion of the founder of A.C.E. Fabienne and team Spain, of team Holland and of Team Belgium – of every single volunteer, worker, student, supporter, donor, foster parent – everyone and anyone who makes this brilliant organisation what it is today. And the work goes on.
Oh! Death where is thy sting-a-ling-a-ling?
I finally got to the Hayward Gallery to see David Shrigley’s first major show in London. It was every bit as good as I’d hoped it would be. I’d love to cover everything here – but that would be impossible. There was so much to see and so much to think about. Many of the exhibits appear simple, childlike and quirky. And they are indeed simple, childlike and quirky, as well as being deep, a little disturbing and thought provoking. And witty and funny too.
You can’t escape death here, or life either. There’s a gravestone, for instance. It doesn’t say R.I.P. It has no angel nor urn. No inscription states ‘Beloved husband of ….’ or some such traditional phrase. Instead we get a shopping list, carved into the marble, picked out in gold leaf. In the midst of life we are in death. Indeed we are. A little puppy holds up a placard stating ‘I’m dead’. There’s a dead rat, almost hidden under the skirting. A squirrel sits with its own head in its paws.
I don’t want to give the impression that this exhibition is gloomy. Far from it. It’s crazy, weird – in the nicest possible way – and fun. Death, however, has a habit of cropping up throughout, overtly or covertly. Just as it does in the real world. The black and white cartoon of an aeroplane coming in to land has a text that reads ‘I find it hard to concentrate while performing important tasks.’ Yikes! A bus driver states baldly ‘I can’t believe that they would let me drive a bus.’ Oops! It sets your mind spiralling off to dark and dangerous places.
This witty and wonderful artist made me think, smile and laugh out loud. The big bad wolf in hospital, on a drip. A biscuit nailed above the lift with an unnecessarily large nail. A bone serving as the hand of a clock. A door, labelled ‘a door.’ A tiny little wee stick figure out on the enormous terrace. A lost pigeon. A spy hole in the wall concealing a pinky-purple, satiny creature coiled around itself, like an intestinal worm or an elongated carrot. With a face.
If I wrote about everything I’d be here all night. As it was I took about two hours to go round, moving back and forwards, finding things I’d missed the first time. I was there so long I didn’t leave enough time for more than a sprint through the Deller exhibition, which was a pity. Even so, I’m glad I spent so much time at the Shrigley – it was well worth it. Thank you David Shrigley.
The pictures and photos reproduced here come either from the exhibition publicity or from a site, which I believe belongs to David Shrigley. I apologise if I have inadvertently infringed anybody’s copyright. Please let me know if this is the case.
“Into each life some rain must fall.”
From the quotation above, one might surmise that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had a philosophical attitude towards rain. It’s an attitude he shares with my cat, Eric, along with his surname. I should perhaps say ‘shared’ since both Henry and Eric Longfellow are no longer with us.
Eric never actually told me that he liked rain but he didn’t seem to dislike it either. Judging by his propensity to go outside in a downpour, sit in the biggest puddle he could find, then stroll back in, jump on my desk and park his bum. Right on top of the papers I was working on. Making them all nice and smeary. And illegible.
As to Henry Wadsworth. He said ‘some rain’, didn’t he? All very well for him. He wasn’t enduring the wettest April since records began. Oh no. Nor a deluge in a time of drought – ‘Step away from the hosepipe, Ma’am or there’ll be trouble. “ Of course, now I’ve decided to write about this wretched rain, it’s stopped. Sod’s Law.
The forecasters say there’s more to come, lots more. But we know all about them and their promises, don’t we. I’m not getting at that nice Mr. Fish, I hasten to add. Poor man, he got so much stick, and quite wrongly. When he said ‘no hurricanes’ he was answering a question from a woman in the USA. But then, no one ever listens in this blame culture of ours. ‘Oooooh!’ he said there would be no hurricanes.’ ‘Ooooh, it’s all his fault!’ No it isn’t.
Be that as it may, it’s been raining. And whether it stops or whether it continues for forty days (when Is St Swithin’s Day?) I’ve looked up some quotations that fit the bill, in more ways than one. Robert Frost, for instance, could have been talking about our current economic woes.
So here are some rain related quotes – in celebration, commiseration and in the hope that one day soon the sun will shine again. The first two perfectly reflect the situation we are in today. The penultimate one is a lyric from a song that I’ll take to my desert island and finally an extract from one of my favourite poems of all time
Robert Frost – “A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain.”
Dwight Morrow – “Any party, which takes credit for the rain, must not be surprised if its opponents blame it for the drought.”
Douglas William Jerrold - “He was so benevolent, so merciful a man that, in his mistaken passion, he would have held an umbrella over a duck in a shower of rain.”
Katherine Mansfield – “I love the rain. I want the feeling of it on my face. “
Bill Nighy – “I wanted to be a journalist, I thought it was glamorous and that I’d meet beautiful women in the rain.”
Dave Barry – “It always rains on tents. Rainstorms will travel thousands of miles, against prevailing winds for the opportunity to rain on a tent.”
Pablo Neruda - “I grew up in this town, my poetry was born between the hill and the river, it took its voice from the rain, and like the timber, it steeped itself in the forests.”
David Copperfield – “I’m just waiting for people to start asking me to make the rain disappear.”
Jack Dee – “The rain forest has Sting. Now Siberia has Jack Dee. Someone had to draw the short straw. In this case it was the rain forest.”
Johnny Nash – “I can see clearly now, the rain is gone. I can see all obstacles in my way.”
e.e.cummings -
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands
Eric’s Story
A favourite spot
This is the story of my cat, the beloved Eric Longfellow, and of a wonderful organisation called SNIP – The Society for Neutering Islington’s Pussies. I have to admit that the name makes me giggle, but that in no way detracts from the great work they do. I first came across them when I was about to adopt Eric – although that’s not quite the way it was, as you will see.
I hadn’t had a pet of my own as an adult though we’d had family dogs and cats, not to mention Jane, the evil pony. One day, some years ago, I realised I was being watched from the tangle of Forsythia at the end of the garden. Two large golden eyes were staring at me. But when I moved, the cat disappeared. It reappeared a few days later. I played a waiting game, standing perfectly still whenever I was aware of its presence. I put out food, gradually moving it nearer to the house.
Eric became bolder. I dithered. I wasn’t sure I wanted a cat – it’s quite a commitment. He had other ideas and took to spraying my back door. He knew what he wanted. I let him into the house. He took over my bed, sleeping on his back with his legs in the air in a trusting, if inelegant, manner. He wasn’t neutered and he really stank. Which is why, at first, I called him Smelly Cat.
Trusting if Inelegant
One day I came home and he’d gone. I couldn’t find him anywhere and was so upset. Just when I thought he was gone for good I woke up to find him on my bed – with a smashed leg. How he got through the cat flap I’ll never know. This is when SNIP came to the rescue. I’d been talking to them about having him neutered. Now of course my mind was made up for me and I was suddenly responsible for a badly injured cat. It sounds pathetic but I didn’t know what to do.
SNIP found a vet, negotiated the fee and paid most of it. I’d brought in a handsome, if tatty, furry grey cat. I collected a furious little creature who looked more like an alien than a cat; shaved all over with steel bolts protruding from his leg. To cap it all they announced that he had feline AIDS. It wasn’t a great start.
Poor Eric, confined to a small cage in my bedroom, was terrified, furious and in pain. I was horrified to find myself the owner of a howling, smelly cat that tore everything within reach to shreds, including flesh. I had to handle him with gardening gloves. He was really constricted in his cage. I begged the vet to let me take him out; I’d keep him in the bedroom, I promised. ‘As long as he doesn’t jump’ said the vet. ‘He’s a cat’, I thought, ‘he jumps’. But I kept it to myself.
The day I let Eric out of the cage, I was rewarded with his first purr. That night this angry, spitting creature transformed completely. He cuddled up close to me with his paw on my arm. He didn’t move from my side all night and slept on my bed from then on. As to not having to worry about this independent cat – I worried. Of course I worried – until the day my beautiful fellow died of cancer after 7 years with me. I still miss him.
Eric sending an email
And SNIP? Lately it’s been transformed. There are several similar charities doing great work trapping feral cats in Islington and the surrounding area. However, trapping and sterilising them is one thing. What to do next is another. Most of the cats will remain feral. They can’t be returned to where they were found – they are attacked by dogs or poisoned by people who want to get rid of them. It’s a miserable existence.
The great people at SNIP and the other charities have found a solution. They are now devoting their energies to finding kind, responsible homes for ferals in stables and smallholdings across the country. These people love their animals and often have problems with rats and mice. It costs them nothing but some straw and a few tins of Whiskas. The cats are warm and safe and undisturbed. Everybody’s happy.
Photo courtesy of SNIP Facebook page
Like all other charities, SNIP is struggling in these difficult times. If you can help in any way by displaying posters, by spreading the word, by letting them know if there are feral cats in your area – please do get in touch.
If you can volunteer to do some driving or trapping or you want to adopte any ferals or friendly strays, please call their re-homing line on 07557 118 484
Murder in a locked room …
Whatever happened to Isidor Fink?
Criminal Sentences is one of my favourite reference books as well as being a great read and a book you can keep dipping into. Among other things it offers an A-Z of true crimes and criminals, which links them to the plays, films, novels and short stories that they’ve inspired. I opened it again the other day and found that a post-it note, on which I had scribbled ‘Locked Room Mystery’, still marked a page. Why I left it there I no longer remember and why I had marked the page in the first place I’ve long forgotten. It may be because the Isidor Fink Murder still remains officially unsolved. Which intrigues me. I love this sort of stuff.
The scene: New York, 1929. Isidor Fink, a young Polish refugee, runs a laundry from one room in the lower East side. Fearful of burglars, he keeps the doors permanently locked; the windows are nailed shut. On 9th March Fink’s neighbour hears shots. The police break in to find Fink with two bullets in his chest and one in his wrist. Nothing has been stolen. The room is locked from the inside, impregnable. There is no gun, which rules out suicide. The police suspect murder. They get nowhere.
These facts could have come straight out of a John Dickson Carr novel. Surprisingly, the master of locked murder mysteries didn’t fictionalise this one. The person who did is Ben Hecht. His short story, The Laundryman, appears in the collection ‘Actor’s Blood.’ As far as I can tell he is the only one to have used this particular crime, but fiction of this type abounds. My appetite having been whetted, so to speak, I did a bit of research and hardly needed to look beyond Wikipedia for a veritable feast of material. So much that this post can only scratch the surface of the surface.
It’s generally acknowledged that the first complete example of the genre is Edgar Allan Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue, published in 1841. In the following years others, such as Wilkie Collins, included elements but it wasn’t until 1892 that the seminal story made its entrance. The Big Bow Mystery, written by Israel Zangwill, introduces what is said to be the hallmark of every ‘locked room’ mystery. Namely, misdirection.
Since then, everyone from Conan Doyle to G.K. Chesterton to Agatha Christie has joined in. Even Enid Blyton. English writers, while prolific, didn’t have this field to themselves. There were many important French writers of the genre, among them Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac and Noel Vindry. The most prolific writer after the Golden Age was Akimitsu Tagaki, a Japanese. In modern times another Japanese writer, Soji Shimada carries on the tradition along with a French writer, Paul Halter.
So what really happened to poor Isidor Fink? One of the theories at the time was that Fink had been shot outside in the hallway but had managed to escape into the room and bolt the door. The medical examiner scotched that one, saying that his wounds were such that he would have died instantly, where he was shot. However, in 1942, a little more than ten years later, an article in Edinburgh’s police journal, written by the pathologist Sir Sidney Smith, recounts a case that may offer a solution. He tells of a suicide, who shot himself in the head, causing colossal damage, but who somehow managed to live for several hours, only dying after he had made his way from the scene of the shooting back into his own apartment. Perhaps that’s what happened to poor Theodore. Sadly we will never know.
You can’t argue with the dictionary …
…. but you can try
If there’s one word guaranteed to get me shouting at the radio, the TV and even, on occasion, at the computer screen it’s the word impact. Affect I scream. The economy has been affected by the banking crisis. Or, if you must, the banking crisis has had an impact on the current economic downturn. Not, please not, the economy has been impacted by the banking crisis. Of course it would be true to say that our economy is one whopping great car crash, but that’s by the bye.
I think it’s the use of the noun impact as a verb that so annoys me. (Before you start screaming, at me, hold on and all will be revealed.) I’m all for breaking the rules of grammar. I’m guilty of starting sentences with and or but and of splitting infinitives. But (there you see) I do know the rules to start with. However, I’m well aware that I don’t know everything and that I have my blind spots. I’m also a thorough person and conscious that, as a writer, I will be picked up on any inaccuracies. So I turned to the dictionary to check.
At first all was well. As I believed, the noun impact means the action of one object coming forcibly into contact with another as in there was the sound of a third impact. Yay. Just as I thought. Vindicated. I scrolled down. The word also means the effect or influence of one person, thing, or action, on another: our regional measures have had a significant impact on unemployment. So far so good.
I read on. Only to discover that impact can indeed be used both as a transitive and an intransitive verb. The very examples given in the dictionary are the ones that make me tear my hair out. An asteroid impacted the earth. High interest rates have impacted on retail spending. And worse the move is not expected to impact the company’s employees.
Bummer. It’s not nice to find that your favourite prejudices have no grammatical foundation. Bummer, bummer and thrice bummer. However, a chink of light appears. There’s ‘A Note’. This mentions that the phrasal verb impact on has been in the language since the 1960s but that many people disapprove of it despite its relative frequency. More to the point it continues by saying that, as a verb, impact rarely carries the noun’s original sense of forceful collision. Careful writers are advised to use more exact verbs that will leave their readers in no doubt about the intended meaning.
Oh dear! This post hasn’t quite turned out the way I meant it to. I set out to rant against the inaccurate use of impact as a verb, safe in the knowledge that I was right. And I’m not. Not strictly speaking. However, my visceral feelings tell me otherwise. No matter how correct it is, according to the letter of the law, I will always hate the word impact used as a verb. So whether I’m right or wrong, it’s my prejudice and I defend it to the death. As with many of the new shortcuts that have leaked into our language the root cause is both laziness and lack of imagination, coupled with the herd mentality. And just don’t start me off on going forward.
Picture source: creative commons-drweis gerber
L’Odyssée de Cartier – is this the most exquisite commercial ever made?
Maybe it did cost 4 million pounds to make. It could have been 5 million as far as I’m concerned. Much better to spend that sort of money on this stunningly gorgeous film than on a banker’s bonus. I watched it a week ago at the Islington Vue and again the following day. Going to the movies on a weekend morning is one of my great pleasures. Especially as, unless you are very unlucky, there’s no one else there. I do love a sparsely populated cinema. But I digress.
Watching this commercial made me think of others that stand out from the crowd. Like the Smirnoff ads, made during the eighties and nineties. A whole series, press ads as well as TV, presented beautiful and often strange images through the prism of the iconic Smirnoff bottle. There have been many other imaginative and creative ads – some action packed, others crazy or witty. Commercials such as Gap’s ‘Pardon Our Dust’, Sony Bravia’s ‘Bouncing Balls’ or ‘The Chase’ made for Levi 501s by David Fincher. And one of my favourites of all time Vauxhall Corsa’s ‘Hide and Seek’, which inspired many similar commercials. Relatively few, however, come anywhere near L’Odyssée.
Honda’s commercials have been especially impressive and ground breaking. Garrison Keillor’s throaty voice helps too, although they’ve had the intelligence to use it sparingly for the most part. There are of course some exceptions, such as ‘Grrr’ where the whole point was the song. There is no voiceover at all in the sensational ‘Cog’ except for the wonderful line at the very end ‘Isn’t it nice when things just work.’ And although the latest offering ‘Spark’ has rather more, they are again not only perfect but used judiciously.
In its 165-year history, Cartier has created many memorable commercials – ‘Winter Tale’, ‘Calibre’ and ‘Promenade d’un Panthere’ – to name just a few. Of course the famous Cartier panther is actually a leopard. But that’s an observation, not a criticism. I can find no fault with this surreal, spectacular and elegant film, which runs for a full three and a half minutes, a minute longer than Honda’s cog. From the original score by Pierre Adenot and its classic and exotic imagery to the palette of subtle colours it simply oozes class.
Writers on Writing
Where should you write? How often should you write? Is there such a thing as writer’s block? Should you discuss your writing with others, while it’s still in progress? If you’re looking for answers, the best people to ask would be writers themselves. Right? Not necessarily. Writers are a contradictory lot, like people really. Of course they are people too but sometimes we appear to be rather a strange breed.
In a collection spanning over 20 years, Jon Winokur’s little book ‘Writers on Writing’ contains as many varied opinions on the subject as patterns in snowflakes. Well, maybe not that many but still, a lot. The collection was published in 1988 and is now out of print, I believe, but you can still get a copy on Amazon. One reviewer claims ‘this book stopped me from stopping writing’ and I must say that certainly strikes a chord.
When you’re starting to write, you get bombarded with advice. If this is coming from people you perceive as being more knowledgeable than you, who have been writing for ever who are, yikes, already published, it can be most confusing. Especially if you respect them and yet their suggestions don’t seem to work for you. Whenever I was stuck, when felt that the idea of me writing fiction was simply laughable, I’d phone one or two trusted writer friends. And I’d turn to this book.
The great thing about these quotes is that they are contradictory. The lesson? There is no ‘right’ way to write, no ‘right’ time of day, no set hours – no set anything. It’s just a matter of finding out what suits you best and doing it. Of course, at first, you don’t know what that is – so it’s a question of trial and error. I’m not suggesting that you don’t take advice. Of course it’s good to learn from others who have been there before you. Just remember that it’s not set in stone. Pick and choose. Take the bits that fit you and ignore the rest.
Isaac Asimov would write for 18 hours a day. Edward Albee got a splitting headache after only three or four. Samuel Johnson said one should write at any time of day. Henry Millar started after breakfast. Jack Kerouac preferred midnight to dawn (that figures). As to the process, Joyce Cary never wrote to an arranged plot, Dorothy Parker thought it all out first and then wrote sentence by sentence, revising she went. Hemingway also revised over and over again whereas Katherine Anne Porter wrote her stories in one sitting.
There is some consensus – virtually everyone agrees that you shouldn’t discuss a work in progress. Most writers revise and redraft, though some far more than others. On everything else – including motive, readers and reading. Ego, talent, work habits, technique – there’s a wide difference of opinion. Here’s just a few of them. They are chosen at random, except the first one and the last – two statements that I believe in wholeheartedly. And find immensely comforting.
“A writer is someone who writes, that’s all. You can’t stop it; you can’t make yourself do anything else but that.” Gore Vidal
“The first thing you have to consider when writing a novel is your story, then your story – and then your story.” Ford Maddox Ford
“Writing is pretty crummy on the nerves.” Paul Theroux
“If you can’t annoy somebody, there’s little point in writing.” Kingsley Amis
“I write books to find out about things.” Rebecca West
“Every writer I know has trouble writing.” Joseph Heller
“I don’t get writing blocks except from the stationers, but I do feel so sickened by what I write that I don’t want to go on.” Anthony Burgess
“If my books had been any worse I would not have been invited to Hollywood, if they had been any better I would not have come.” Raymond Chandler
“How do I know what I think until I see what I say?” E.M.Forster
“Money to a writer is time to write.” Frank Herbert
A Street Cat named Bob – a Star is Born
Copyright SinaEnglish-http://english.sina.com/life/p/2012/0313/448575.html
The first time I met them, three or four years ago, my attention was caught by this tall man striding along the raised pavement on Upper Street, a ginger cat trotting along at his heels. That was my first sight of James and Bob. I followed them and had a chat with James. I was a little concerned – Bob was so tiny among all those feet rushing headlong along the pavements. James reassured me. And of course there was absolutely no need to fear – James would never allow any harm to come to Bob.
I’d see them from time to time, in the following years, maybe on the bus, sometimes in the street, James playing his guitar, Bob sitting quietly at his feet. Or draped around James’ neck. There was nearly always a small knot of people clustered round them. I’d stop for a quick word and to give Bob a stroke. Seeing them always made my day.
Copyright: SinaFiles http://english.sina.com/life/p/2012/0313/448575.html
A while ago James mentioned something about a book. I remember thinking that I hoped he would get something out of it, that it would really make a difference to him and of course to Bob too. I’m delighted to say that the book is out and it really is going to make a difference. When I met them on the 38 bus, a few weeks ago, James handed me a flyer advertising his book signing saying he hoped I’d come along. Try to keep me away! As soon as I got home I put it in my calendar and last Tuesday, in spite of a wonky foot, I took myself off to Waterstones on Islington Green.
I got there early but the press had already set up outside the store and I could see people being interviewed. I went in, bought the book and hung around chatting to others as we waited. More and more people arrived; before long the queue was out the door. A ripple of excitement. Bob and James appeared on the stairs and made their way down. Before the signing could get under way there was a paws – sorry – for photographs. Bob took it all in his stride, sitting on James’ shoulder, posing beside a pile of books, standing on his hind legs to nibble a treat.
Photo: Islington Gazette
James signed book after book, writing individual and personal messages. Bob, with a little help, added a paw print. Half way through the evening the book was sold out, but there was a promise that they’d be back to sign the many other copies on order. I was one of the lucky ones who got my book signed. I only had time for a quick read during the week but this weekend I sat down and read it from cover to cover. It’s a great story and very moving. It really is true what James says that they rescued each other. I really hope it will help a lot of people be more understanding.
James, a street musician, writes honestly about the life he led when he was a recovering heroin addict, about the battles he’s had to fight, about the loneliness of life on the streets and about how meeting Bob helped him turn his life around. I have nothing but admiration for him – it takes guts to beat an addiction. It takes a special sort of bravery and determination to pull yourself back up when you are alone and down. When one dreary day follows another, when it’s hard to see any future. If he hadn’t had such a big heart, if he hadn’t taken pity on the scruffy, sick street cat things might have been very different.
Copyright @streetcatbob
He wasn’t looking for any reward when he took Bob in, he couldn’t possibly have known what the future would bring. Now, because of his own act of kindness, James has hope and a new life. Man and cat had already rescued each other when agent Mary Pachnos approached them to suggest a book. It’s a lovely book, heartwarming, and they’ve got a great agent who will look after them and I wish them a very happy and contented future together, whatever they’d like it to be.
Post Script. I had talked about the book signing on twitter, and I’m sure many others had too. What I hadn’t expected was the reaction the following day – people were twittering from the USA, the Ukraine, Brazil – everywhere. The story was covered globally including by CBS news and China Today. I’ve never seen anything literally go viral before – it was amazing. Well done to everyone who helped in any way.
This is the link to the lovely video. Word Press will not allow me to embed it …! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdAFjB7AeYA
Catch up with James and Bob on: Twitter @streetcatbob on Facebook and at his publishers Hodder & Stoughton
Buy the book at Waterstones and on Amazon
It’s not about the postal service, it’s about sex …
Source: Boing Boing
James M. Cain tells a great story about his novel The Postman Always Rings Twice. A strange title, you might think, for a book about sex. It appears, though, that the manuscript was rejected so many times that when the rejection letters arrived, the postman rang twice. Now this does rather beg the question as to how the postman knew they were letters of rejection. It’s a great story and who am I to take issue with the likes of James M. Cain.
My information comes from Rotten Rejections, edited by André Bernard. It’s subtitled ‘The letters that publishers wish they’d never sent’ – and to give him his due, he does include rejections he sent out as well as some he received. Of course we all have the benefit of hindsight, even so the book is a great encouragement for those of us who’ve ever been rejected. I particularly dislike the cop-out – ‘it doesn’t fit our list’ but I’m in good company. The great Agatha Christie was subjected to that one for The Mysterious Affair at Styles.
There are so many gems in this book it’s hard to know what to include. So I’m leaving aside manuscripts that were rejected because they were, in their time, considered to be too racy or too sexy. Manuscripts submitted by DH Lawrence, Norman Mailer, W Somerset Maughan, Vladimir Nabokov, Thomas Hardy and Jacqueline Susann among others. Since I haven’t room for all of them I’m listing those that most appeal to me, on all sorts of levels. Some are well know, others less so. Here’s a selection.
Animal Farm, George Orwell. “ It is impossible to sell animal stories in the USA.”
Crash, J.G. Ballard. “The author of this book is beyond psychiatric help.”
The Bridge over the River Quai, Pierre Boulle. “A very bad book.”
Untitled Manuscript, Emily Dickinson. “Queer … the rhymes were all wrong. They are … generally devoid of true poetical qualities.”
Northanger Abbey, 1818. Jane Austen. “We are willing to return the manuscript for the same advance we (paid) for it.”
The Lord of the Flies, William Golding. “It does not seem to us that you have been wholly successful in working out an admittedly promising idea.”
The White Goddess, Robert Graves. “I have to say that it was beyond me and failed to stir any spark of interest …”
Catch-22, Joseph Heller. “I haven’t really the foggiest idea about what the man is trying to say. It is about a group of American Army officers stationed in Italy, sleeping (but not interestingly) with each others’ wives and Italian prostitutes, and talking unintelligibly to one another … constitutes a continual and unmitigated bore.
The Spy who came in from the Cold, – John Le Carré “You’re welcome to le Carré – he hasn’t got any future.”
A Dance to the Music of Time, Antony Powell. “… a 350,000 word monstrosity that may not be any more saleable than its parts have proved.”
Man and Superman – George Bernard Shaw. “ … he will never be popular in the usual sense of the word, and perhaps scarcely remunerative.”
The War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells. “ An endless nightmare. I do not believe it would take … “
Look Homeward Angel, Thomas Wolfe. “Terrible.”
A River runs through it, Norman MacLean. “These stories have trees in them.”
That last one is my absolute favourite, it’s so weird – mad as cheese. Apart from the rejections themselves, the book is full of anecdotes by or about writers such as George Bernard Shaw, Steven King, Emily Dickenson, James Joyce and Beatrix Potter. The Tale of Peter Rabbit was self published in the first instance, though the publisher who’d rejected it later had a change of heart. And knew he was onto a sure thing! Not much change there then! But take heart. There’s no disgrace in being rejected, especially in such illustrious company.
Source – Rotten Rejections, Edited by André Bernard, published by Robson Books 2002
