Category Archives: From Life…

Would You Like to Smell Like Your Favourite Author?

27 Monday May 2013

Posted by in Authors, Excerpts, From Life...

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What were the signature scents of famous authors?

Thanks to a post made at Book Riot, I got to thinking about my two favourite things in life: perfumes and books. I have a prodigiously large collection of both; yet it never occurred to me to find out what type of scents my favourite authors actually wore during their lifetime. Amanda Nelson of the irreverent book blog Dead White Guys came up with some cool concoctions of her own; and it inspired me to have a synesthete moment.

This is a bit of a tough mission, but one that yielded surprising results! Here’s what I have come up with so far…

4. ANAIS NIN

Some authors like Anais Nin have already inspired a perfume, so admired were they in their lifetime. Anais Anais was the first perfume produced by Cacharel in 1978. To me, it evokes the scent-memory of France, my mother and the sweet yet deceptive innocence at the heart of all women. I also adore the fresh green smell and the O’Keefe-inspired artwork that has been used for many decades.

Notes
Top: Bergamot, galbanum, hyacinth, honeysuckle, orange blossom
Middle: Lily, lily of the valley, rose, ylang-ylang, tuberose, carnation
Base: Cedarwood, sandalwood, amber, oakmoss, incense, vetiver

3. OSCAR WILDE

What would a notorious super-dandy and aesthete like Oscar Wilde possibly wear as a perfume? Apparently the now discontinued (yet aptly named) Malmaison of Floris of London. It is described by experts as having a linear smell – that of almost purely red carnations. At first I couldn’t imagine a carnation as being Wilde’s smell, yet there is a certain exotic woodsy, clove-like aroma to carnations that does fit in with Wilde’s character. Red is certainly his colour too! The reintroduction of Malmaison Encore by Floris means people can relive the original fragrance in a more modern version.

NOTES

Top notes: bergamot, black pepper, cardamom
Heart notes: clove, nutmeg, rose, ylang ylang
Base notes : amber, cedarwood, frankincense, heliotrope, tonka bean, vanilla

2. F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

Many famous people including F. Scott Fitzgerald and later Marlene Dietrich wore Lieber Gustav #14. The perfume was created by celebrated nose Albert Kriegler and he states that ‘Perfume #14 was chosen by Fitzgerald because of its depth, and the connection between Berlin and Provence.’ I also find that scents hold geographical memories for me, yet even more interesting is that Lieber Gustav #14 was inspired by a love letter between a young girl and her fiancee… Reminds me of The Great Gatsby!

NOTES

Leather, Black tea, Lavender, Musk and Woody notes.

1. SIDONIE-GABRIELLE COLETTE

Colette is another author who is epitomises sensuality and whose work’s forever obsess with the gratification of the flesh and of the soul. She owned her own beauty salon and being something of a perfumer herself used only the petals of white flowers. However, it has been recorded that she had a particular penchant for Coty’s Jasmin de Corse, which is again very hard to find. A 1925 ad described it as, ‘For the Woman of the Dreamy Elusive Type: Jasmine de Corse, La Jacinthe & Lilas Blanc.’ I can only imagine the closest we can ever get to this perfume with it’s heavy, smoky Jasmine undertones would be Lanvin’s Arpege which was created 20 years after.

So, that’s all I could find on authors and their favourite fragrance’s. Is there any I’ve missed out that should be in the list? Let me know.

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Top Ten Most Hated Books

27 Saturday Oct 2012

Posted by in Book Review, BookTalk, From Life..., Quotes

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Recently I stumbled across a comment made by a reader of mine (Caroline Tien) who expressed, quite eloquently, her complete and utter disappointment of Janet Fitch’s ‘White Oleander’ (click here for comment, and scroll to bottom).  Now I love honest reviews of books and find it really refreshing when someone has the guts to say otherwise. I myself being a reader that prides herself on reading what is GOOD, not what is in vogue value that immensely. However I often find some readers simply join the herd and say how damn interesting it was, when it damn well wasn’t (*cough* 50shades *cough*).

Anyway, Caroline made some really valid points which, even though I could see and feel as I was reading it at the time, didn’t really disturb me much. But it obviously had a huge negative impact on her. She explained how Fitch ruined the story with her obsessive use of metaphors and melodrama. Among other things she touched upon the completely unlikable characters that portrayed women as unstable  nympho types (feminists unite!).

I can’t discount any of the above. It does exist in Fitch’s writing, and in huge helpings, but I personally loved all the metaphors and melodrama. But it got me thinking upon the REASONS people may love one book and completely dislike another. Like most bloggers in the blogopshere, I have my little collection of titles I love to loathe, which I simply do not get (regardless of how many times I’ve sat and tried to read) or because something about the thing offends me be it literary boo-boos or otherwise.

One blogger posted about how renowned author’s also have similar problems with certain books. My favourite is Ian Rankin’s rant, as it really struck a chord:

Ian Rankin, novelist

I haven’t ever wanted to hurl it to the floor, but I’ve started Midnight’s Children several times and been unable to get past the first 10 pages. Not sure why; it’s been a few years since I gave it a go . . . maybe time to try again! I loved Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men, but was told by author friends that Blood Meridian is his masterpiece. I tried it and couldn’t get halfway through. Just didn’t find it interesting. Also couldn’t finish The Road. How can a book be harrowing and pedestrian at the same time? Enjoyed The Hobbit as a teenager; gave up on The Lord of the Rings after about 30 pages

It’s so good to know I’m not the only one who HATES McCarthy (he’s so DRY) and that I’m not alone in thinking how inaccessible ‘On The Road’ was. Maybe I need to do a bit of hillbillying around the USA to get what it’s all about. I’m from the UK, we don’t really have coming-of-age-bumpkining-around novels… I fear the subject is all too remote for us.

But the sad thing about it is this; I seriously DO want to get these novels. They’re big and beautiful and highly respected. Being the only one who doesn’t get it makes me feel slightly dumb.

So, here is my inspired response to Caroline’s comment and a list of my top ten most hated books in no particular order and why. Enjoy!

1. Lost Souls – Poppy Z. Brite
Lost Souls

Gratuitous violence, sex and gore; vampiric LGBT incest; characters who act without thinking; a plotless plot and eating of placenta’s… Lost Souls? I damn well think so! On the upside, there are oodles of Chartereuse drinking going on, which is about the only positive thing about this novel of vampire’s who have lived for so long that they don’t know what to do with themselves. If you have still NOT grown out of your teenage-ennui, then you might like this. Otherwise grown-ups stay well away!!

2. My Swordhand is Singing – Marcus Sedgwick
My Swordhand is Singing (My Swordhand is Singing, #1)

What could have been a good vampire novel that began to truly look around the geographical period of the times fell flat on its face with a very clichéd, stereotypical representation of the invading Turkish army. Why does this bother me? I’m sick and tired of writers representing my people as bloodthirsty barbarians who are a blight on the face of the earth. When are we ever going to see a good Turkish guy? Never it seems, because it’s just too easy (and safe) to call us the undesirable ‘other’. Do me a favour. Leave it. It’s been done to death, and I think people are getting the idea that it’s all bullshit anyway. Armies invade, they kill, they conquer. Everybody was doing it back in the day. Deal with it.

3. On Writing – Stephen King
On Writing

… we were prescribed this book as required reading for our creative writing classes. I bought it, read it, and was extremely ANGRY. It was a complete waste of money and time as it was King ranting on about the time when he wiped his arse with nettle leaves when he was a boy, with several chapters thrown in about his near-fatal car accident. Very little to do with actual CRAFT of writing itself. It’s all hot-air and pompous reminiscing guys. Only buy if you truly want to read it for THAT purpose. You have been warned.

4. Free Food for Millionaires – Min Jin Lee
Free Food for Millionaires

Don’t be fooled by the gorgeous cover. It’s a complete shambles. I love Eastern writers and writing, yet this debut novel by Korean author Min Jin Lee left a lot to be desired. Full of over-achieving young Korean characters who have all the opportunities in the world but fritter their time away feeling lost and lonely in the family and sexual relationships. All make characters were portrayed as nasty, and female ones – well, I couldn’t identify with. Avoid like the plague.

5. Woman in Black – Susan Hill
The Woman in Black

Works terrible as a novel, but could see the brilliance of it on the stage! The only scary bit was the moments describing the knocking sound in the nursery. For a more superior experience try Shirley Jackson’s ‘The Haunting of Hill House‘.

6. The Book Thief – Markus Zusak
The Book Thief

Simply. Did. Not. Get. I dislike it when something as serious as WW2 is described in a trite, childish manner. This is the same reason why I didn’t enjoy ‘The Boy in Striped Pyjama’s’ so much either.

7. The Catcher in the Rye
The Catcher in the Rye

One I’m ashamed to say I didn’t get either. Holden Caulfield’s immature rants failed to find a place of recognition in me. I’ve never been as petulant as all that. I think I’m seeing a pattern in my most disliked books. Most are centered around teen angst!

8. The Unbearable Lightness of Being
The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Required reading for our creative writing class (again), and only because our lecturer at the time was such a bloody fan of Kundera. He waxed lyrical about him. I failed to see the greatness of his prose. Very inaccessible. I prefer Borges. Any day.

9. Lost World
Lost World

I disliked this novel so much. And made it very clear WHY. And have had a heated debate about the merits of Melo’s writing. You can read my thoughts about it in my review.

10. Spring Flowers, Spring Frost
Spring Flowers, Spring Frost

So bad that it has put me off reading Kadare for life. I really didn’t know where the story was going, and lack of structure really puts me off. Story-writing is an art of blending ideas, thoughts and language. If after reading halfway through it I still can’t find anything of merit, then I give up. I also suspect that it was victim of a very bad translation. Too bad.

So there it is, my embarrassing list of dead-end novels. But at least now I feel better in knowing that even well-known writers have the same difficulties.

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Top Ten Tuesday | Books That Make You Think ???

11 Tuesday Sep 2012

Posted by in From Life..., Humour, Meme

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Could it be? Could I be getting back into doing meme’s again? Not likely, but here’s another Top Ten Tuesday post hosted by The Broke and the Bookish with this week’s topic as ‘books that make you think’. And would you believe it those are my particular speciality. Here’s my list in no particular order:

Cover of "Lord of the Flies (Penguin Grea...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Lord of the Flies by William Golding – Not all that glitters is gold… This is a really powerful novel I revisited this year about the latent demon in us all. This is the ultimate story about how an island paradise could become hell as a bunch of harmless school children turn native in the true sense of the word. A good follow-up to this would be the more adult-themed ‘The Beach’ by Alex Garland which I also highly recommend.

Cover of "The Poisonwood Bible"

2. Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver – Another gripping novel about how social norms don’t stand a chance in the wilderness, where survival means to conform or else. Nathan Price, a preacher with a will of iron, uproots his family taking them deep into the Belgian Congo where his plans of educating the savages ends in disaster. Told through the eyes of his wife and daughters, it makes one think about how one man’s right can be another man’s wrong.

Holes (novel)

3. Holes by Louis Sachar – An absolute gem; Stanley Yelnats battle with his accumulative ‘bad karma’ is both inspirational, touching and funny all at the same time. After reading this you will DEFINITELY make sure you don’t have any unfinished business, as it might have a way of coming back.

An Inspector Calls

4. An Inspector Calls by J B Priestley – Not everything is as it seems in this detective  play. It explores the dangers of capitalism and raises interesting questions on the concept of ‘guilt’.

The Handmaid's Tale

5. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood – Dystopian fiction that was so powerful I was actually haunted by it. It invaded my dreams at one point. I can’t imagine a society that would treat women as baby-making machines, but nothing is impossible…

English: "Venus in Furs" taken from ...

6. Venus in Furs by Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch – I call this the ‘thinking persons 50 Shades’, as I am convinced that this book is what EL James took her inspiration from, to the point of ‘plagiarism’, so don’t give me all that crap about it being a Twilight fanfic! *snorts* Anyway, here is something with more narrative meat as it explores themes of love, cruelty and both physical and mental slavery to the desires of the flesh.

Toni Morrison, on jacket of her Pulitzer Prize...

7. Beloved by Toni Morrison – To be able to peer into the depths of one mother’s murderous insanity and be able to call it fatal love… that is the high price Morrison asks of you in this novel. Can you do it?

 

Labyrinths

8. Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges – Endlessly and deliriously looping pathways of questions without answers and answers to unknown questions. Borges plumbs the depths of your unconscious and offers it to you in beautifully executed prose. Less is more.

Cover of "The Cellist of Sarajevo"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9. The Cellist of Sarajevo – Novel about the terrible siege of Sarajevo. Told through the eyes of a handful of characters, it allows us to experience life lived in the  crosshairs of a sniper rifle. Powerful examples of humanity and the reason WHY people go to war.

107-365 170410 Ice-Nine

 

 

 

 

10. Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut – You never really knew it before, but after reading this you will certainly realise how our world could (for all we know) be run by absolute madmen.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg (touche to no.10), what’s your top ten ‘thinking’ novels?

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Top Ten Tuesday | Book Confessions

28 Tuesday Aug 2012

Posted by in From Life..., Humour, Meme

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I’ve not written a meme for a LOOONG time, but I came across Shannon’s blog entry Top Ten Tuesday: Book Confessions and liked her responses so much I thought I’d join in. I do have my own queer reading habits that I’ve honed for years – but I think some of you will probably identify with the more common ones that we are all guilty of.

1. I am a consummate library goer – never was to begin with (always liked my books  clean with a sense that they were ‘mine’) but financial circumstances and an awareness for trees/paper have made me one. In fact, I’ve probably bought about 5 books in the last three years. All the rest I have taken out the library or scavenged off friends.

2. I am never without a book. I have them in my bag, on my phone, on my laptop. Everywhere. If I don’t have anything to read I start getting panic-attacks.

3. Sometimes I can get panic attacks/ dizzy spells in book stores just LOOKING at books. Despite being a book lover, I can’t spend more than 15 mins in a library. I start feeling sick. It is strictly ‘go in, give books back/ take books out, quick exit’ with me. It sucks!

4. I read in the toilet, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. So there.

5. I read three books at a time. In fact I usually end up walking away from the library with either 1, 3 or 5 novels. Lately I have realised this comes from my junior school days when I figured out that the only way to progress from the ‘brown’ sticker books to the yellow ones was to read through the entire collection. For those interested I never made it to the yellow section (that’s where the Enid Blyton books lived), but I did get my parents to buy them for me. That’s how readers are born.

6. I don’t use bookmarks. I dog-ear. A terrible habit caught by my mother, another consummate reader who likes to dog-ear from the middle of the page. THE MIDDLE.  Great, big diagonal creases that no amount of folding backwards can erase…

7. Lately I like to read in silence either in the early morning, or late at night. It’s my time to relax/ get ready for whatever is ahead of me.

8. My daily challenge, no matter how many books I have on the go is 50 pages a day. If I have 3 books, then I must read 150 pages. I often dog-ear my daily portions which means I know exactly how many days a book will take to finish.

9. If someone insists that a book is really good, I won’t read it. I am very suspicious of other people’s taste and rarely read what other’s recommend. It’s the only type of snobbery I have.

10. When I’m going through bad/ uncertain times I read to escape and relax. Some books are like my happy zone, I swing by and revisit certain scenes/ chapters to top up on positive thoughts. ‘Anne of Green Gables‘ has had many visits.

So, what are your reading quirks?

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Last Night’s Twitter Find, ‘Japanese Fart Scrolls’… (Prepare Thyself)

21 Tuesday Feb 2012

Posted by in Book News, From Life..., Humour, painting

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Hmm, what may a Japanese Fart Scroll be? That is the question. Well, I never knew either until I spotted Stephen Fry (King of QI) tweet on this rather elusive subject. Two clicks later I was amazed to find… well, these.

And my education was complete 🙂 I confess, I have seen stranger things, but still the mind boggles. Let me assure you that these fine scrolls are actually geniune. They are called the He Gassen (literally The Fart Battle) and a whole bunch of them were once auctioned at Christie’s for a handsome amount. If interested, you may find the full archive at the Waseda University website and the original post of the blogger who has brought them to light. I’d dearly love to know at least the name of the ancient artist who oh-so elegantly took the time to paint these images. The biggest question that remains is ‘what purpose do they serve?’ Is there a secret meaning to the pictures?

All I’m saying is I wish my blogger friend all the luck in the world during his research into the scrolls (yes, a whole new area of academic study people!) and I hope he gets to the bottom of it (no pun intended). In the meantime all that’s left is to admire the scrolls for their comedic worth and marvel at the creativity of the artist, or rather his specific flavour of toilet humour! My favourite out of the lot is below, and it definitely requires some technique!

Part 1: Farting in a bag makes formidable ‘fart-bomb’…

Part 2: Which you can then use to defeat your opponents!

There is a lot of weird literature out there, but I wanted to put the spotlight on this rare, lesser-known side of Japanese culture. Whatever you are doing this week folks, I hope you will remember the fart scrolls and that it will put a smile on your face.

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‘Coral Tiger-Lily’ March 2011 | Acrylic On Canvas

14 Monday Mar 2011

Posted by in Art, From Life..., painting

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Coral Tiger-Lily – Acrylic on Canvas, 16×20
March 2011 

After much cajoling, sweet-talking and at times outright threatening, I have agreed to take up the brush again. This is my first painting of the year which was commissioned by a close friend. She just wanted something to hang on the wall of her new apartment, something that would break up the acres and acres of cream and magnolia that dominates her kitchen/ living room. I hadn’t painted for over a year, so did resist; but she talked me round. She is forever going on about how she really loves the big canvas prints in the shops, but will never shell out £30-40 for something that was spat out of a printer. In my opinion, she is right. Nothing quite beats a hand-made painting. And it’s a lot cheaper (especially if you have a friend who will make one for you for next to nothing!)

When I went to see her apartment I saw the lovely bare walls, which to the artist’s eye looks just like a primed canvas. The smell of fresh paint didn’t help either. I went from complete indifference to ‘hey, can I fresco your house?’ Now I know how Michelangelo felt when he started work on the Sistine Chapel! A project for another time maybe?

But after a chat we decided on something a little more traditional. She wanted strong colours that wouldn’t clash with her furniture (dark, dark brown and cream) so I said why not orange? It’s just a vibrant variant of brown. Next we picked a picture from the internet she liked and I said, ‘ok, see you in a week’s time’. Before I knew it I had the thing finished and now it’s hung up on her wall. It’s gotten quite a few compliments too, thought I think it could have done without the pink swirls.

The only problem now is that she wants more! So I’ve agreed to make this a series of three. I’m currently working on another more orange-hued lily at the moment (in contrast to the pinkish one here). The background is still going to be a nice lemony-green and I’m going to keep the Georgia O’Keefe style that I adore so much.

What do you think? This is the first time I’ve shown any of my artwork outside of friends and family, let alone the internet, so I’d love to hear your views.

Reviews, Resolutions and Remnants… 2010 at a Glance

05 Wednesday Jan 2011

Posted by in 50 Books A Year, Audiobooks, Book Challenges, From Life..., Readalong, Writing

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Happy New Year 2011!

“2010 – The year I thought I lost my colours, but found them again through books… and blogging.”

For me, 2010 was the year I accidentally discovered blogging. Like all good ideas, I happened upon it by chance when I was reading a particularly entertaining review of ‘Lolita’; and it suddenly dawned on me, ‘why don’t I give this a try?’ Truth be told, I was going through some particularly nasty emotional problems (remnants of the evil 2009!) and in a position I call ‘zero gravity’ where I felt like I was floating off into deep space with nothing to anchor me to reality. So without thinking, I opened my first blog account and started to write myself out of my mini-depression. Before this I felt like all the colour in my world had been sucked out, but reading and writing eventually brought those colours back to me again. If you think of ‘The Wizard of Oz’, and the sequence where Dorothy is in Kansas; that’s how it was. For Dorothy, it took a hurricane and some munchkins to do the trick; for me it was a blog. It seems a little silly and a bit strong to say ‘my blog saved my life’, but in this instance it gave me those ‘little steps’ I needed to help find my true self again. And what better way to do it than through the very real and sincere love of books.   

With time I found the world of book blogging to be a particularly special community, because it was here that I realised people like me had a name (bibliophile) and what’s more, they almost always felt the obsessive urge to write down their thoughts on a book; which when you think about it isn’t what your average reader does now is it? Prior to blogging I had about 4 notebooks full of such scribblings and took a funny pride in them. For me, my reading journals are a year-by-year record of book-themed reflections on the world of literature and how this often manifests in real-life. I’m pretty sure most bloggers out there have experienced the phenomenon of the ‘book/ life collision’, when a read deals with the exact same problem that you are facing at that moment in time. It’s a pretty special moment, as it feels like the book has been ‘sent’ to you in some way.

In 2010 those books were ‘Things Fall Apart’ by Chinua Achebe and ‘Disgrace’ by JM Coetzee. The former is the story of a proud and powerful tribal chief who is so strict in his adherence to the ‘old ways’, he is left absolutely powerless when the white man finally comes to town. In ‘Disgrace’, an equally nonchalant college professor learns the value and worth of mankind in ways he never dreamed he could. Both novels struck a deep chord, as we often lose perspective of what we actually are in the scheme of things. In ‘Disgrace’, people like animals are only pawns on a very, very large cosmic chessboard. In ‘Things Fall Apart’, the village chief loses to the white man because he is unyielding and impatient. Like the ancient chinese proverb says: ‘A reed before the wind lives on, while mighty oaks do fall.”

Despite it being a very gloomy year, 2o10 did go pretty fast, and it was a good thing it did! However, I am left with the one thing I was hoping I wouldn’t have: ‘review remnants’; which means there were quite a few books I didn’t get round to writing up about. Here’s my shameful list of laziness:

A Man’s Head – Georges Simenon
The Quiet American – Graham Greene
A Pale View of Hills – Kazuo Ishiguro
In the Miso Soup – Ryu Murakami
A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini
The Good Soldier – Ford Maddox Ford
The Passion of New Eve – Angela Carter
Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World – Haruki Murakami
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles – Haruki Murakami 

It would have been nice to start with a clean slate (and an empty TBR list for that matter), but I suppose I will have to add my rogue review remnants to my ever-growing list of new years resolutions, which brings me onto:

Zee’s 2011 Reading Resolutions!

Yeah, I make one every year, and it usually ends up having things like ‘read x amount of books’, ‘read such and such writer’ etc. But this year I hope to be more realistic (so she says!). So here’s my modest 2011 list:

1. Gather and read ONCE AND FOR ALL all the really hard, thick books that I have lying around that I have ‘claimed’ to have read in the past: a.k.a the ‘Fat Fiction’ Challenge.

2.Renew the ’50 Books A Year’ Challenge for 2011, half of which will consist of the 1001 books challenge.

3. Attempt to be more ‘technologically open’ when it comes to literature. Which means trying out at least more than one audiobook/ ebook this year. It also means making more use of online resources such as Librivox. Even a technophobe like me must adjust a little to the changes around me; even if I have taken an oath to read the written word!

4. Finish reviewing the ‘remnants’ of the last year.

5. Start to review books for authors and publishers (haven’t done this before, but it would be fun!)

6. Continue to take books out of the library and SAVE MONEY! (This was last years resolution, which I did stick to – and broke only on very special occasions!)

7. Join more readalongs! I missed the Midnight’s Children one and would like to make it on time for another book.

8. Complete the rough draft of my novel. It’s been a very exciting time for me as I finally give shape to the story that I’ve been carrying around for the longest time.

and finally 9. Discover more book bloggers and post more often to the people I have subscribed to! I do follow a large number of blogs, but lately real-life has been getting in the way of my blogging and responses to some otherwise great, great topics I have been reading about.

So to wrap things up, I wish everyone in the blogosphere and beyond a very happy, peaceful and fun-filled 2011. I hope it will be a good year as I continue to meet more great people. Happy reading everybody!

Zee.

Literary Blog Hop! | What Are Your Literary Pet Peeves?

10 Friday Dec 2010

Posted by in From Life..., General, Meme

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Don\
Welcome to the ‘Literary Blog Hop’, a meme hosted by The Blue Bookcase for book bloggers who focus on reviewing literary fiction. This weeks’ hop comes with the question:
  
What is one of your literary pet peeves?  Is there something that writers do that really sets your teeth on edge?  Be specific, and give examples if you can.

Unlike some bookaholics, I have no problems with coming across dog-eared pages and random spurts of marginalia. Though there is something that agitates me no end when it comes to taking out books from the library: soiled texts. I can’t STAND them! I never had myself down for a hygiene freak, but when faced with a book that has mysterious yellow puddle-marks here and there on its pages, my hair stands on end and my reading pleasure is totally ruined. My imagination goes haywire because I don’t know where the book has been and how the marks got there in the first place. For all I know, the previous owner might have been perusing it while sitting on the toilet! Come on, wouldn’t it make you wonder, just a little bit?

Also, I have a thing with front covers. I don’t like it if they are messy, peeling, stained, torn, smell funny or are falling apart (which is why I avoid hardbacks altogether!). Luckily, the books in our local library are all covered in plastic wallets, so the books I take out get a thorough disinfection with the Dettol spray. You can call me insane, but the way I see it, the library should thank me for cleaning their wares! I mean, I’m a self-confessed bibliophile, and some of the texts in the library are in desperate need of some TLC. There’s nothing wrong with showing the tomes some respect, right?

Apart from excessively tiny print (something my eyes can’t tolerate that much anymore), typos and extensive footnotes that are always at the BACK of the book and not on the actual page, there is probably little else that irritates me.

Having read this back to myself I think I sound like someone with obsessive-compulsive disorder! What are your pet peeves? They can’t be weirder than mine that’s for sure!

Unauthorised Absences & The Writer’s Bug

20 Wednesday Oct 2010

Posted by in From Life..., General, Writing

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Conquering the blank page is often the hardest task of an aspiring writer…

That’s the way they used to write it in the school register: ‘Unauthorised Absence’. A capital ‘U’ in the margin. That was the shameful mark of a ‘skivver’, a player of ‘hookey’, the class rebel, the tell-tale sign of one who smoked surreptitiously at the back of the bike-sheds. Not that I ever skipped school. Perish the thought! I was a good girl, a model student, teacher’s pet. Really. Honest. Ok, well not quite…

But I’ve been a bit naughty lately, in that I haven’t posted for a while. As you’ll have noticed. To quote Jack Jordon from ’21 Grams’, “The guilt, the guilt will suck you down to the bone”, and that’s exactly how I felt when I realised my transgression. It was only at a friends house last week (when we all got to talking about our respective blogs) that brought on the bone-sucking guilt. So here I am apologising for my unproductive, unforeseen disappearance act. Sharing our blogging experiences made me think about this place and what it really meant to me. It feels like I’ve had it forever, but it’s only been four months since I started blogging here, yet I’ve grown rather fond of it. Before I became a wordpresser (if there is such a word) I had a place on windows live spaces with very little readership. While it was an ideal place to cut my teeth, it didn’t have nearly enough tools that WordPress.com has to offer its bloggers.

However, unlike here, I was blogging more often yet the lack of readers made it feel like I was talking to myself half the time. The final move to a better platform came when Microsoft did away with its mediocre stats page (without warning I might add). Major mistake. As the final straw, I did a toss-up between the book bloggers favourite (blogspot) and it’s more intellectual adversary (wordpress). Now that I’m comfortably settled here and have regular readers, things have become more serious. Suddenly there’s a pressure to produce, to write articles of quality that will generate discussions, questions and hopefully inspire other bloggers too. There is a feeling of responsibility, and that brings with it a learning curve that helps to hone my writing skills and develop an eye for what is a good subject for a blog and what isn’t.

But I digress…While blogging is a whole other kettle of fish among the myriad forms of internet writing, I have been engaged with a totally different, more traditional method which brings me to the reason for my absence: I have begun a novel.

Yes, the writing bug now has me well and truly in its thrall; in a way that I have been praying and praying it eventually would. In the past the muses have not been kind to me and I have learnt that youth is often a disadvantage when it comes to the art of the novel. Coherence, plausibility, experience and of course the all important catalogue of ‘read’ books all go contribute to some aspect of becoming a well-rounded novelist.

As a life-long reader there were times that I’d find myself going through books with a kind of envious longing. As I pass by bookshops I dared to imagine my book, with my name on it filling the shelves. But the daydream would dissolve when I thought of authors like Atwood and Murakami, about how theirs is an inspired genius, a talent that is born not learned. My muses would tell me this, but then they’d also tell me about how half of a writer’s art is his craft, and how at least THAT could be learned through hard work.  

Sometimes a beautiful passage would make me wonder ‘why can’t I write something like this?’ To make matters worse, my family have often said the same thing too, ‘you have imagination, you like books, why don’t you try writing one?’ Or, ‘you read so much, can’t you think up a story?’ But by far the worst is ‘it can’t be that difficult!’ Albeit, its said with all the goodwill in the world, but it’s still irritating. It takes all I’ve got not to turn around and snarl back ‘but it IS that difficult! Can’t you see?’ Writing out of all art forms is the most difficult to understand. In it’s unworked state, without the guidance of an intuitive mentor it is an unruly force that behaves in vastly different ways in different people. 

I think we can agree that some people are naturally gifted. They can just ‘write’ it all out in a coherent manner and be done with it. But for the rest of us, it takes a lot of hard work. Using myself as an example, I can say that for the longest time I carried the ‘idea’ of my novel with me wherever I went. Fully formed as it was, it was my lack of writing skills that stopped me from getting it down on paper the way I wanted it, or more importantly, the way it deserved to be written. After a few unsuccessful, messy attempts, I let it sit at the back of my mind and took the radical decision to allow myself the time to get to know my craft.

After a few years of reading intensively and studying the works of prominent authors, I began to understand that writing is much, much more than merely putting words on paper. It is a way of thinking, a method of Cartesian logic that needs to be re-learned, even though it is, by origin, innate. I set about listening to audiotapes of authors talking about their craft and making notes about how they felt, the difficulties they faced while they set about creating in this loneliest of crafts. The trials and tribulations of each differed, yet the main bugbear of ‘writer’s block’ and performance anxiety (especially after a particularly successful book) were among those that struck a chord with me.  

I began to see many mutual points of suffering between me and authors like Saul Bellow, Katherine Mansfield and Vladimir Nabokov. I was relieved (if relief is such a word) that getting stuck, beating yourself up over a few sentences and the general worry and stress of writing is something that carries on throughout an author’s life and can even be the fuel that drives them to reach their potential best. It was then I decided to make peace with my anxiety, and funnily enough, only then did my story finally come forward and yield itself to me.

It’s been three months now, and my research has gathered a momentum and a logic that is slowly helping me unravel the knots in my narrative. Unlike last time, I’m not in a hurry to get things down as quickly as possible. I take the time to reflect and think calmly on what I have to say and how I want to say it. Needless to say, every now and then the writing bug will take me away from the blog, but it’s all for a good cause.  So there. I’m not playing hookey. When you don’t see any posts for a week or so, it means I’m working hard in finding the meaning of ‘writing’. I’ll be recording my journey as I go along, and if my findings are blogworthy I’ll be sharing them here along with you and my other bookish things.

My First Guest Review | ‘Lavinia’ at The Blue Bookcase

27 Monday Sep 2010

Posted by in Book News, Book Review, From Life...

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I had such an exciting and productive time last week. One great highlight was writing a guest review for IngridLola over at The Blue Bookcase after discovering they were looking for more reviewers. I thought I’d give it a go and see what people think.

The Blue Bookcase is a blog with numerous contributors who read a wide variety of genres. The book I chose to write about was ‘Lavinia’ by Ursula K. Le Guin. It’s an interesting story from an author I hadn’t read up until now that will appeal to many readers. I had a fun time writing about it. If you want to know what I think of it, head over to my guest review at the Blue Bookcase to see what I have to say. It’s a little different to the way I do reviews here, but it was good to try a different format.

Oh and don’t forget to leave your thoughts, as the blogmasters are keen to know how you felt about it (as am I). Thanks for checking it out!