Contemporary Nomad
W I G N A L L

Chill Your Globe

I’ve seen several newspaper comment pieces this week, bemoaning the people who cite the current cold snap as proof that the whole global warming debate is a load of nonsense. They point out that we can no more use one cold spell as proof against global warming than one warm spell can be used as proof in its favour (even though the “warmists” often do exactly that).

Of course, there’s a delicious irony in this cold spell for most of the Northern Hemisphere (Canada and Alaska are unseasonably warm, and Cyprus has just enjoyed the hottest New Year’s Day on record) coinciding with the Copenhagen Climate Summit. But this is a normal weather experience, and I’m sure there are some who will argue that this kind of weather could actually become more common as a result of global warming (in their defence, the warmist lobby has always stressed that weather could become more erratic rather than simply becoming warmer).

The issue for me is slightly different, and summed up perfectly by the activities of the UK Met Office, one of the key institutions in the global warming debate. The Met Office has been very clear to point out this week that the current events relate to weather rather than climate (a great example of doublespeak if ever there was) and also that its medium term weather predictions are in the realms of probability rather than exact science. The trouble is, the Met Office is rather too keen to promote its predictions as exact science when they appear to support the argument for global warming, as they did when, as recently as early December, they predicted a milder than average winter, as they did when they predicted a barbecue summer in 2009 (thousands decided to holiday at home, and experienced a cool and wet summer instead). The subtext of these predictions is always the same – THIS IS WHAT GLOBAL WARMING IS ALL ABOUT – but when the reality goes the other way, it’s dismissed simply as WEATHER.

So this is my point, and runs to the source of why I’ve become a global warming sceptic…. But before I get to that, let me just point out that my views have flip-flopped on this subject, not least because I’m naturally inclined towards anything that will help to create a cleaner, richer environment. In other words, please don’t assume that I’m a classic Bush-style head in the sand carbon guzzler.

The reason I’ve become a sceptic is that I see too many scientists behaving in not very scientific ways. As we’ve now discovered, data has been manipulated, but that’s hardly more controversial than the propagandist massaging of facts for the media, the shouting down of dissenting voices, even when their arguments are put in reasonable fashion, the label of “climate expert” being attached to scientists from any discipline who choose to support the warmist cause, the barely disguised anti-capitalist tendencies of many campaigners (the people who are bold enough to fly to Africa so that they can lecture Africans on why they shouldn’t have electricity or cars), and so on and so on.

The net result of all this chicanery is that I’m no longer convinced that the planet is warming, and even less convinced that any change that might be taking place is man-made. How can I be convinced when, as a layman, I know I’m being fed propaganda and also know that my day-to-day experience of the suddenly discredited “weather” suggests things are continuing pretty much as usual?

I’m a firm believer in science and its power to improve our lives and the environment we live in (once again, it’s worth pointing out that many “warmists” are anti-science, and while they’re keen to see us retreat to some sort of subsistence economy, they’re remarkably dismissive when technological solutions are put forward). But when scientists stop acting like scientists, when they bend the facts to support beliefs, rather than vice versa, is it any wonder that non-scientists like myself are inclined to dismiss their prophecies of doom and throw another log on the fire?

10 January 2010Politics

W I G N A L L

Snowbound

As my little corner of England grinds almost to a standstill under 8 inches of snow, I’m conscious that much of the Northern Hemisphere is also experiencing an unusually cold winter.

Many of you might have noticed the story of the snowbound train in China, on which passengers were trapped for 30 hours. Of course, it’s reminiscent of Murder on the Orient Express, except rather than a dozen people in first class comfort, this train was carrying 1400.

However, this in turn made me think of how attractive we find being snowbound as an artistic device. I wrote a short story myself late last year which involves characters being briefly snowbound in a Swiss hotel.

The Lady Vanishes also famously opens with the characters snowbound. In one way or another, the same scenario plays a part in The Shining, in Francois Ozon’s 8 femmes, in Groundhog Day and no doubt in countless others.

What’s the appeal? It’s interesting that, as far as I’m aware, it features less in Scandinavian fiction, perhaps because it’s too commonplace for people living in those countries, or because they’re rather too efficient to become snowbound in the first place. Stieg Larsson isolates his characters by having an oil tanker explode, perhaps because he thought Swedes wouldn’t buy the weather as a believable device for creating a locked room mystery.

So, any thoughts? Why are we drawn to stories involving people who are briefly isolated (and this is part of it – the transience of the isolation)? And why are we drawn to the use of snow more than, for example, floods or tropical storms?

Do also feel free to mention any snowbound stories I haven’t thought of, or indeed, to correct me by pointing out the countless flood-related stories that have escaped my notice!

6 January 2010Art, Culture, Literature

S T E I N H A U E R

Kindled

Back in October, as a gift-to-myself for getting the Dagger nomination, I bought a spankin’ new Amazon Kindle. Being a sucker for slick gadgets, I’d had a hankering for one for a while, but living in Europe made it useless until the international version came out. So I pulled out my credit card, choked my way through the exorbitant import fees, and waited for it.

And then my world changed…

No, not really. But I do have to admit that I’m liking it quite a lot. Right now, I’ve got over 200 books on the slender thing, and not just Gutenberg titles. I’m able to toss my own manuscripts on there, as well as friends’, and by using Calibre I’ve set up an automatic newspaper subscription that updates five major papers daily–for free.

Even with the hefty European import fees the economics of the thing work out, because, since I live in Europe (where the few local English-language bookstores can’t seem to track down all the books I want), my main source of books has always been Amazon. The titles I get there always cost more than the average $10 ebook price, and shipping costs more. The basic math is that if I buy 40 or so Kindle books, the Kindle will have paid for itself.

The real question, of course, is whether or not one likes reading on the Kindle. That first week I was unsure, but as the ads say, the Kindle really does quickly disappear in your hands, and you soon forget you’re using a machine. Right now I’m rereading Deighton’s Berlin Game on it for class, and it’s going wonderfully. The note-taking aspect (the chicklet keyboard) works well enough, but I’m not quite a convert to that yet, though the search function is terrific. And of course there’s the central problem of all ebooks: I can’t flip through a book to find something I want to cite. Overall, though, the thing really does its job and does it well.

Do I miss “the book” when I’m reading on this? In some ways, yes, but there’s an interesting effect that occurs, something that I think writers might notice more than others–one loses the fetish of the printed page. What I mean to say is that, while reading an ebook, content is absolute king. Not typography, not binding, not cover design–only the abstract words themselves. In this way, one could argue that it’s reading in its purest sense. I’ll admit that there’s certainly an electronica fetish with these things, but when each book looks exactly the same–since you’re reading them all on one machine–there’s no individuality to separate War and Peace from, say, Bridget Jones. It’s like reading all your novels in Word–without the characteristics of typography and design, text and story are all that matter.

Now, before buying it I heard a lot of opinions about the Kindle from friends, usually those who hadn’t ever touched one. The opinions ranged from skeptical to downright hostile. E-books, some believe, will ruin publishing. I don’t see how that could be true–if the public’s willing to pay $10 for a book that costs pretty much nothing to produce (I could turn a manuscript into an ebook on my laptop in five minutes), then all that publishers, authors and ebook-sellers have to do is figure out how to divide up all that green.

No, the tragedy isn’t for publishing; it’s for bookstores. If I don’t have to leave my house to buy a book, then what’s to happen to your local bookstore? It’s a tough question to answer, but it’s the same question that was posed when Amazon itself rose to prominence with their home-delivered bound books. It’s the same question that was asked when Barnes & Noble started taking over the country with their brick & mortars. In each case independents were hurt. Will ebooks be the thing that finally break the back of the independents completely?

I hope not, but I really don’t know. I do know that, at this point in my life, this is the most convenient, cost-effective, and easy way for me to access a lot of books. Not all books–I often run into the brick wall of a title I want not being available in electronic format–but enough of them so that I’ll be reading for years. For those not available for my machine, I do still have an overflowing bookshelf that could probably take on more titles, and I’ll certainly use it.

Perhaps I can mitigate the damage I’m causing by boycotting Amazon when it comes to those those physical books, and only buy them from my nearest independent. It might not save anybody, but it just might make me feel better…

22 December 2009Literature, Ourselves, Publishing Business

S T E I N H A U E R

Herr Professor

I’ve been out of touch for a hella long time now, up in Leipzig too full of teaching (much more time-consuming than some may have you believe–particularly if you’re raising a 2-year-old at the same time) to write anything here, much less write a word of my next novel. Now, though, in Budapest for the holiday and with a few minutes to spare, I wanted to finally deliver that long-overdue report on how things are going at the University of Leipzig.

Despite some adjustment difficulties, Leipzig has turned out to be a lovely city–a wonderful walkable center, ideal public transport, polite, clean, and chock-full-of culture. I wish I had the time to get to know it better. And the teaching has been going very well. I now see why so many writers do it. That weekly connection to a room full of people carries with it a social exhilaration that the novelist’s life rarely affords. It doesn’t hurt that my students are by and large terrific, and interested in what we’re studying.

The Spy Novel has been interesting. I entered the classroom with pretty much no idea how to communicate my love for these books, but figured that it would become clear soon enough. I was right and wrong. After a few classes varying from successful to, at one point, a dismal failure full of long dreaded silences, a student raised her hand and asked if I’d be open to taking some pointers. Of course I would–anything, please. After class, seven students hung around and shared their wisdom.

The problem, particularly with that failed session, was that I’d assumed the book we’d read was so hot, so entertaining and thought-provoking, that everyone would have something to say (it is, after all, a seminar–not a lecture). The book was Greene’s The Quiet American, and I was completely wrong. The students found it slow and not very entertaining at all. Turns out none of them saw the humor in what I think is a book full of laugh-out-loud lines. Thanks to the students who stayed behind to lecture me, I learned that part of the problem was background–they just didn’t know what was going on when the book was taking place, and I hadn’t bothered to tell them. Whoops. Also, they suggested simple things, like using the board (oh, so that’s the big thing behind me) to write up characters’ names and themes and perhaps even plot outlines.

It wasn’t a long list of suggestions, just a few basics, but I’ve found they make all the difference. Even while reading Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy–a longtime fave of mine that, again, just baffled/bored them (only two out of 35 actually finished it)–I was able to use this small tool-set to work through the entire story, chapter-by-chapter, and (hopefully) shed some light on it.

By far the most appreciated book, interestingly enough, has been Charles McCarry’s brilliant The Miernik Dossier. It’s such a good novel, and it provoked some real discussion and excitement. Right now we’re halfway through Deighton’s Berlin Game, and in January and the first week of February we’ll look at Alan Furst’s Kingdom of Shadows and someone else’s The Tourist. Now, it wasn’t my plan to teach my own book, but on the first day the students told me it was a little disappointing that I wasn’t going to be discussing my own work, so I redrafted the syllabus–kicking out poor Ian Fleming and his From Russia With Love to make room for me and my ego.

The Collaborative Novel has been an entirely different beast. We have a much smaller group–10 students–and from the first day we began to write. Though I have tried a couple times, I don’t really lecture on aspects of writing–I would, but there’s no time. We meet once a week for 90 minutes–in that time we’re supposed to critique 3 chapters and then outline the three next chapters (now we’re up to 6 chapters or more at a time) while pitching ideas for the direction of the whole story. In fact, we’re usually critiquing until nearly the end of class and have no time to plan out the next chapters.

This, again, is my fault for not running things with an iron fist and a stopwatch, but it’s also a reflection of how the students have quickly become engaged in the project. Opinions lead to discussions which sometimes lead to arguments–all this because there’s a certain level of passion in this class, the understanding that this group endeavor means something to them. It’s a wonderful thing to be a part of. I hope they’re getting something out of it.

It’s not easy, of course. Getting ten people to agree on anything is a hassle, and we often resort to a quick vote to make decisions. Ten people means ten ideas of what a good story is and what good writing is. In this latter issue I try to be the tyrant, marking up first drafts with my militant “show don’t tell” and “don’t tell us what the reader already knows” rules. But there’s a deeper issue at work–the fact that a work of art is largely defined by a single person’s view of the world, something we can’t really do in our situation.

The story itself? Well, as I am with my own work, I’ll leave it a secret until it’s done. But it’s an interesting tale that has gradually moved into the realm of mystery/spy fiction (without my prodding, I swear!). We’re deep in the second act now, juggling five POVs (I sort of wish I’d put my foot down at the beginning and insisted on 1 or 2 POVs, but there you go), and with a lot of inconsistencies and loose ends we’re going to be hard-pressed to get straight before the end of the semester (the first week of February)–but I have a sneaking suspicion we’re going to make it.

Some other things have been happening since I last posted in September–I lost the Silver Dagger Award in London (among film & TV stars galore! what a way to lose), got myself a Kindle (which I’m quite digging), and dealt with the copyedits and page proofs of my next book, The Nearest Exit. Busy, busy. If I get a chance I’ll post some words on these other things, but in the meantime I hope you’re all getting revved up for a lovely holiday.

20 December 2009Life, Literature, Ourselves, Places, Writing

W I G N A L L

End of Year Awards

Best New Book

Brodeck’s Report by Philippe ClaudelThe fact that this book hardly featured in the annual “best of” lists is proof that even the literati fall for their own brand of hype. Because Brodeck’s Report is an astonishing book about the horrors mankind perpetrates and the survival of the human spirit. It’s set beyond the boundaries of geography, though in some way it’s set in the border country between France and Germany, and it’s timeless, though we soon learn that it’s actually set just after the second world war – that’s intentional, not only allowing Claudel to trade on the universality of the story, but also to present true horror under the guise of fable. The plot? A colourful stranger has come to the village, transformed the lives of the inhabitants and then been murdered – Brodeck’s job is to write the account of what happened. Sounds simple, but the result is beautiful, moving, disturbing, and will stay with you long after reading.

Runner Up

The Diving Pool by Yoko OgawaThree novellas, all exquisitely drawn and each haunting in its own way.

Best Old Book

The Sword of Honour Trilogy by Evelyn WaughTough category this because I’ve read some fine classics this year, but for sheer scope, for Waugh’s classic ability to mix comedy and drama, for his evocation of a world in flux in the middle of the Twentieth Century, this trilogy of books has to win. The only caveat – if you’ve disliked other Waugh novels, or if you find the world he writes about completely alien, this one won’t win you round.

Runner Up

Winesburg Ohio by Sherwood AndersonThis was recommended to me by two people in a previous thread a couple of years ago. I had mixed feelings about it when I was reading it and not all of the short stories work equally well, but six months on it’s still fresh in my mind and the poignancy of the world Anderson describes – with very little sentimentality, or even affection – lingers on long after the reading of it.

The “What was that all about?” Award

Cloud Atlas by David MitchellI tried to read this when it was first published and gave up. Since then, a couple of friends have told me to persevere with it and it featured in a couple of the lists of the best or most definitive books of the decade, so I read it and finished this time. So, you write six short stories, two of them okay, one borderline okay, three very poor indeed. What do you do with them? I know, cut them all in half, in random fashion, and set them out in the form, A, B, C, D, E, F, E, D, C, B, A. Hmm, but it’s still just a collection of short stories, so… just add some random elements that connect them, a birth mark shared by certain characters, someone reading a diary from one of the other stories. These links are what’s known in the building world as “gob ons” – they serve no purpose but give the appearance of character, and allow literature snobs to convince themselves they’re smart. Shockingly dreadful, like a Russian Doll of stories in which the workmanship gets shoddier as you get closer to the centre.

Runner Up

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg LarssonThis is an odd one because, after persevering through the first 150 pages in which nothing happens, I actually quite enjoyed it. Very old-fashioned, badly in need of an editor, but an amiable enough read. But why a huge international bestseller? Why is Salander talked about as being such an amazing creation? I haven’t got a problem with it, and in terms of literary fads, this is a benign, perhaps even a charming one. But I was still slightly baffled by its success and haven’t felt the need to read the other two.

Okay, over to you. Best new book of the year? Best old book of the year? Most baffling to you? As ever, I treat responses here as a good place for recommendations, so do let me know what you’ve discovered. And as ever, feel free to agree or disagree with all of my choices above.

8 December 2009Literature, Publishing Business, Writing

W I G N A L L

Good Publicity

Every few months I have lunch in London with a small group of fellow authors – Mark Billingham, Simon Kernick, James Twining – and my UK agent, known to followers of Stuart MacBride’s blog as “Agent Phil”. We’re all good friends so we have a lot of laughs and spend time discussing the one thing most non-writer friends don’t care about… the business.

Recently, two of the group have published short interview-type pieces in The Sunday Telegraph. James discussed Geneva HERE, in the My Kind of Town spot (in which Olen once talked about Budapest). Meanwhile, Mark discussed his finances HERE in the Fame and Fortune section.

Both pieces are very interesting and they’re exactly the kind of newspaper and magazine content that publicists desperately try to secure for their authors. They can also be fun to do. What I really wonder is whether they achieve anything tangible, or if they simply serve to comfort the author that the word is getting out there.

At a basic level, I don’t think these features contribute more than a small handful of sales, if that. The argument most people would put forward is that all of this publicity adds to a general background noise which generates greater recognition and greater sales, an increase which conveniently can’t be quantified.

It’s also possible that this sort of publicity provides a sense within the publishing house that the author is creating a buzz, but this will only hold up if the sales are there – buzz without sales will end up creating an even more negative feeling in-house than poor sales on their own.

And then on the flip side, you have Simon. He had the benefit a few years ago of the UK equivalent of Oprah, an appearance on the Richard & Judy book club. It was the catalyst that drove him on to a higher sales plain, but since then his sales momentum has continued almost exclusively on the back of marketing and supermarket sales (and retaining new readers, of course!). I’ve seen very little of Simon in the papers, but I meet a lot of people who’ve read his books.

So there we are, three very successful (and all excellent) writers, demonstrating different approaches to publicity. It’s a perennial question, but still one that’s worth asking, what kind of publicity sells books, what kind of publicity makes you interested enough in an author to check out their books? And being recommended by friends or booksellers doesn’t count – I want to know what publicity works.

Of course, as Kevin H points out in the comments to the post below, we’ve been so absent of late, that there might be very few people reading this. But that in itself ties in with this post. Independently, both Olen and I have been thinking about public profile this year and coming to the vague conclusion that less might be more. We spoke a few months ago about our plans for the blog, and it turned out both of us were becoming less convinced of the benefits of total exposure for authors (this is something that’s more hypothetical for me, but more current for Olen). It doesn’t mean we’ll stop blogging, but you’re probably safe from seeing us on Twitter…

Which leads me to one final question for this post. We all want to know about the authors we like, but can you know too much? Is there a level of knowledge (what an author keeps in the fridge, what they like to eat, what they drive) at which you begin to lose interest in the person and perhaps their work, too?

5 December 2009Culture, Literature, Publishing Business, Writing

S T E I N H A U E R

The New Gig

In about a week and a half, the family and I will be relocating north and west, to Leipzig, where I’ll begin something I’ve never done before: teaching. Two classes, The Collaborative Novel and The Spy Novel.

Given that the idea for The Collaborative Novel–a class in which everyone works together to write a single novel–came from David Liss, as soon as the school said it sounded good I contacted David and asked for his advice: How the hell does one organize such a thing? His answer? “I dunno.”

Well, he did have some ideas, in particular that the first phase would be outlining. This made sense, as David is an outliner. However, I’m not, and I finally decided that my continual interjections of, “Now, this isn’t how I write a novel” would become pretty tedious. So I’m keeping it simple. The first day we throw around ideas until we have some idea of our genre and an opening scene. Then, I go home and write a first chapter. We workshop it and think about the next few scenes. Students receive their chapter assignments. The important thing is that, throughout the semester we’ll continually reassess the story as a whole and leave ourselves open to rewriting anything. The act of reassessing should allow plenty of openings for discussions on the craft.

Though this leaves plenty of room for error, the fact is that the class is an experiment, and as such failure is always a possibility. I find I’m actually more concerned about The Spy Novel, a literature course. Not with the list. It’s not a comprehensive survey of the genre, really, just a collection of things I like that give a vague sense of the genre’s movement:

excerpts from Ashenden: Or the British Agent by W. Somerset Maugham (1928)
A Coffin for Dimitrios/Mask of Dimitrios by Eric Ambler (1939)
The Quiet American by Graham Greene (1955)
From Russia With Love by Ian Fleming (1957)
The Miernik Dossier (1973) by Charles McCarry
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John Le Carre (1974)
Berlin Game by Len Deighton (1983)
Kingdom of Shadows by Alan Furst (2000)

(One thing I noticed was that the 1960s are entirely ignored here. Strange but interesting. I was also working under the restriction of 150pp per week, over 14 weeks, and thus many books & authors were dropped from the longlist.)

No, my problem isn’t with the texts but with myself. Each class lasts an hour and a half–what am I supposed to say for all that time? The plan is that the students will share equal responsibility for conversation, but one never knows if this will work until one’s in the thick of it. I’ll come up with a few themes, give some sociological and biographical background, and hope that we’re able to go on from there.

Any advice from people who’ve actually done this sort of thing?

23 September 2009Literature, Ourselves, Places, Writing