Time to Press 'Pause'

 I'm not quitting, just taking a break

In my natural habitat (photo by Deborah Jaffe)

I started this blog in June 2007. After an uncertain beginning, it pretty soon became a space where I could let my creativity run wild. Unsurprisingly, many of the pieces I wrote here made it to my first book, "Cuban, Immigrant, and Londoner". The experience of blogging and the (mostly) positive feedback I received as a blogger, gave me the confidence to approach publishers.

However, as many of you, fellow bloggers and readers, have noticed, I don't post here often. That's because in between holding two jobs (teaching English as a foreign language and delivering cycling training, in addition to promoting my book when possible) I find it difficult to update this much-cherished space of mine. That's why I have decided to pause for the time being. I won't be idle, though. In fact, I haven't been idle. One of the reasons why I'm taking a break from Blogger is that for the last seven years I have become more established on Medium. As a platform for writers, Medium felt like home as soon as I signed up to it. Becoming a member years later was the next logical step. What that meant was that I suddenly had access to a wide range of contributors, writing on anything from relationships to food. I also loved the sense of community we all created.

You, too, have the chance to access similar content (including my own posts) and become part of the Medium community. By clicking on the link below, you can sign up, become a member, start reading stories on your favourite topics and even write your own posts.

Don't delay. I'll be waiting for you.  Hear that sound? That's the sound of the kettle. I've just put it on.

Become a Medium member today

Four Ways in Which Writers Can Support Independent Bookshops

And why I, as a first-time published author, will be promoting my book at them

Photo by Deborah Jaffe

What have Irish poet Seamus Heaney and African-American novelist Toni Morrison got in common? Their books are amongst many I have bought at independent bookshops over the years.

Newly arrived in Britain more than two decades ago, I remember the excitement of venturing into an indie bookshop on West End Lane, in then chic-becoming West Hampstead. West End Lane Books is still there, its green exterior welcoming book lovers, both local and beyond.

Since then my love affair with these offbeat, unique and occasionally architecturally whimsical buildings has intensified. Some boast neatly arranged shelves. Others are jungles of higgledy-piggledy nooks and crannies. They all, however, offer a friendly hand to the visitor, inviting us to get lost in a volume’s open pages for hours.

It wasn’t long after I’d fallen for independent bookshops’ charm that the first threat appeared on the horizon. Behemoth Amazon arrived in the bookselling world and changed its business model overnight.

I confess that at the time I was as guilty as the next person of moving my custom online and using Amazon as my go-to for cheap music and literature purchases. Yet, at the same time I still frequented independent bookshops. It’s just that I did it less often.

Perhaps it’s because of more maturity on my part or the effects of an eighteen-month-long pandemic and its knock-on effect on socialising, but I have lately felt the urge to visit more indie bookshops. To amble in and ask the staff how they’re faring, how the business is doing and how the current situation is affecting them. As a newly published author whose book, Cuban, Immigrant, and Londoner, is being marketed and sold in all major retailers including Waterstones, WH Smith and, yes, you guessed it, online, on Amazon, I want to focus more on indie bookstores and its eclectic clientele.

An independent sector in such a crowded and commercially-driven world like bookselling is a precious resource to hold dear. Not every author has the backing of a big publishing house. That’s why I’ve come up with four ways (amongst many more. Please, feel free to leave your own suggestions in the comments box) in which we, writers and readers, can help keep indie bookshops afloat.

1-    If you move into an area where you’re planning to stay long, have a look online and check where your local indie bookshop is. Many are difficult to find. High rents and overheads mean that sometimes bookstores have to share the space with other venue users. Hoxton Books sits on a busy thoroughfare in trendy Hoxton, but unless you know where to look, you’ll miss it. Have a walk around. Who knows? It might even inspire your next post, or even book.

2-    Find out if they support other causes. Many independent bookshops link up with other creatives and support them in various ways. I’ve been to nights of poetry and music, where the money collected is split evenly between venue and performers. Again, have a butcher’s* online. That tenner you coughed up for the new edition of Shakespeare’s sonnets and Sujata Bhatt’s Augatora? It goes towards supporting the free performance you’ll attend next time.

3-    Join a book club. Many independent bookshops run them. Part of me feels funny in suggesting this one because when it comes to reading, I’m a lone wolf. But at the same time I understand the importance of analysing certain literary works with a group of like-minded readers, even if they don’t all agree.

4-    Bookshops nowadays double up as cafés, a trend that would have had fictional character Bernard Black (of Black Books notoriety) in a fit. But they do. If you can spare some time (and money) enjoying the homemade cakes on offer and drinking the freshly brewed coffee, you will still be supporting independent bookshops’ survival.

Independent bookstores are more than retailers. Many are community hubs, beating hearts of a neighbourhood, town or village, challenges to readers of all ages to broaden their horizons. Let’s hope these hives of creative power are still kicking around in years to come. Let’s get behind them.

*Cockney rhyming slang: “look”, from “butcher’s hook”

“Cuban, Immigrant, and Londoner”, on sale now.

What Makes a Good Writer? (originally written by Zadie Smith)

Third part now.

What writers know

First things first: writers do not have perfect or even superior knowledge about the quality or otherwise of their own work — God knows, most writers are quite deluded about the nature of their own talent. But writers do have a different kind of knowledge than either professors or critics. Occasionally it’s worth listening to. The insight of the practitioner is, for better or worse, unique.

(Click here to continue reading)

What Makes a Good Writer? (originally written by Zadie Smith)

Still from the archive. 2nd part.

The craft that defies craftsmanship

That is the end of the tale of Clive. Its purpose was to suggest that somewhere between a critic’s necessary superficiality and a writer’s natural dishonesty, the truth of how we judge literary success or failure is lost. It is very hard to get writers to speak frankly about their own work, particularly in a literary market where they are required to be not only writers, but also hucksters selling product. It is always easier to depersonalise the question. In preparation for this essay I emailed many writers (under the promise of anonymity) to ask how they judge their own work. One writer, of a naturally analytical and philosophical bent, replied by refining my simple question into a series of more interesting ones: I’ve often thought it would be fascinating to ask living writers: “Never mind critics, what do you yourself think is wrong with your writing? How did you dream of your book before it was created? What were your best hopes? How have you let yourself down?” A map of disappointments — that would be a revelation.

(Click here to continue reading)

Of Literature and Other Abstract Thoughts

I only did realise after the seventh or eighth day in succession. It was the craving that did it. Window of our office semi-open (just the tiniest of gaps, enough to avoid the heater's steam from misting up the glass) and the sweet aroma of croissant wafting up to the operations department where I worked at the time. The smell awakened a primal instinct inside me and I could not wait until lunchtime to dash downstairs and part with my usual two or three quid for my regular prandial treat. That’s when I knew I was developing a problem. A croissant-and-hot-chocolate addiction by literary proxy.

I was reading Joanne Harris’ Chocolat at the time.

Forgettable plot and clichéd characters but sublime food. This is how I remember this novel. It all came back a few days ago when I read an article about memorable meals in books.

Cuisine can play an important role in literature as the feature states. I still remember Leopold Bloom’s liver slices fried with crustcrumbs in Ulysses. And what to say about that Cuban masterpiece, Paradiso by Lezama Lima? Banana soup (probably plantain), beetroot salad and roast turkey amongst other succulent ingredients.

Feeling peckish?

I imagine that authors are presented with a choice when including food in their narrative: be descriptive or suggestive. If I remember correctly the latter applies to Chocolat, which is probably the reason why every morning and afternoon for less than a fortnight (I read the book very quickly. As I mentioned before, if the plot had been like the food…) I would add an almond croissant and hot chocolate to my breakfast and the butter version and same hot beverage to my lunch after the main course. Descriptive meals tend to leave this madeleine-chaser somewhat cold.

I like my food. I am not afraid to say that. And when it comes to literature, I like “happening” upon food. A good example is in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, when Ugwu arrives at Odenigbo’s house to apply for a position as a houseboy and sees a “a roasted, shimmering chicken” in the kitchen. He touches the chicken and to me that moment even has erotic connotations, bearing in mind that when it comes to epicurean matters, carnal desires can and do often make a cameo.

Talking of eroticism, I have occasionally heard comparisons between sex and food scenes and even a sort of continuum drawn between the two. I do not dispute that. Some writers do use food as a preamble to sexual intercourse between characters. However, sex scenes very often feel “flat” (in my humble opinion), due to a lack of honesty. Either the author is doing too much or too little. Let us not forget that sex is, whether we like it or not, linked to our innermost, primitive selves. Inevitably conclusions about who we are or what we want in bed will be reached, no matter how detached we claim to be from our dramatis personae. With food, on the other hand, it is different. No revelation is necessary. We can disassociate completely from the meal we knock up. I’ve read very precise descriptions of Asian food, including the sourcing of ingredients, the cooking of them and the methods used, from non-Asian writers, as if they had been born in the subcontinent and lived there all their lives. Part of it could be the fact that we live in such an intricately connected, globalised world that geographical barriers count for nothing anymore. Plus, in cosmopolitan cities such as London, Paris or New York, there is always the opportunity of delving into other cultures and getting to know them properly without really being part of them. This, of course, will include food, too. Which is probably why I went through my croissant-binge stage. Chocolat takes place in France and at the time of reading it my office was sandwiched between two French pattiseries. Well, at least the Indian restaurant was a few doors further down, otherwise, well, who knows what would have happened?

© 2015

Next Post: “Saturday Evenings: Stay In, Sit Up and Switch On”, to be published on Saturday 7^th November at 6pm (GMT)

Of Literature and Other Abstract Thoughts

You might think that 28 million quid is a lot of dough these days but apparently it ain’t. Well, even two million quid is not a lot, according to Mylene Klass. You can’t even get a decent garage in London for that kind of money to live in, as she reminded the hapless leader of the opposition, Ed Milliband recently. But £28m is not a lot of money either, especially if you are a female artist like Georgia O’ Keeffe. Her Jimson Weed/White Flower No 1 sold for that figure last week in New York. However, when compared to her male counterparts, O’ Keeffe’s auctioned piece is dwarfed by the prices fetched by works of art by the likes of Picasso and Pollock. In a sort of journalistic hara-kiri piece, The Guardian’s chief arts critic, Jonathan Jones, blamed men like him who have long championed male artists over female ones.

Jonathan’s article made me think that there were parallels here between female artists and female writers. Even as the landscape of publishing has drastically altered in the last ten to fifteen years with the advent of the internet and all technological developments related to it, the field of literature, prizes and recognition remains very male, and I would dare say, very white, middle-class and middle-aged.  “Field of literature” refers in this case mainly to the perception of it, rather than the output. When it comes to output women might actually outnumber men, although I have not got any figures to back that statement up. It just feels that way. The internet and self-publishing, especially, have served well the female of the species. Yet, here is the crux of the matter. Prolific female writers are still judged on the genre in which they write rather on the transcendence of their work, unlike their male compatriots. Occasionally women are given the keys to the club, but on the whole the Picassos and Pollocks of the written word still guard the entrance. An example that comes to mind is the excellent short-story  writer Alice Munro. Profiled everywhere, from The New Yorker, to The London Review of Books, Alice should be seen as a game-changing writer in her own right. Yet the language most critics use when focusing on her work seems to imply that Alice Munro is a niche or even a cult author. Contrast that with Updike, DeLillo and Franzen. The phrase “The Great American Novel” is never far behind.

Does any of this matter? No, it doesn’t, and it probably wouldn’t if writers were judged solely on merit. But that’s not the reality. The knock-on effect of this perception of some male authors as epoch-making and female writers as niche-creators (chick-lit anyone?) is that literature becomes a marketing playground on which readers are easily duped with shiny toys. Not all readers, granted, many of us can still think for ourselves, but gender division and its implications is a dream scenario for a publicity company. If you want proof of this, how about this: you may think you know who I am but you are wrong. In reality I am a 60-year-old woman who has a disposable income of more than £1,000 a month. My favourite food is Vichysoisse soup (I had to look that name up, by the way) and I enjoy going to the theatre. Oh, and I have a cat. Obviously, you probably know that I don’t have any pets and that I am forty-three years old. Oh, and before I forget, I am a bloke. How did we arrive at that description? Through my love of Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell novels and the few short stories by her I have read in other publications. It turns out that fans of Mantel’s fiction fit the category I mentioned first. According to a YouGov Profiles service we, readers, can be labelled according to the writers we follow. The reality is more complex, as we know, but isn’t this “boxing-in” attitude a consequence of the same phenomenon I explained before? Do you think that fans of Ian McEwan have to worry about being stereotyped? Not a bit, because the author they have been identified with is one of those game-changers, who has been trying to write “The Great British Novel” with his mates Amis and Rushdie since the 80s. Meanwhile Sarah Waters gets on with what she does best: writing brilliant, best-selling novels, but apparently, no epoch-making ones.

Hilary Mantel: reading her makes me change my sex and age

Maybe I am just letting off steam. After all, it’s not every day that I open the paper and realise that someone has changed my sex overnight without my permission, adding a few more years in the process. The irony is that the article about the YouGov Profiles service came straight after one about a campaign gaining ground currently in the UK in which readers want to “let books be books”. This means that books should not come with a tag attached to them that says they are either for boys or girls. I quite agree with the campaign. I’m willing to start another campaign called “Let Readers Be Readers”. My gut feeling is that it would probably change the perception we have, not just of readers, but also of writers and their transcendence. Maybe we could start with a donation of 28 million quid. After all, apparently that’s not a lot of money.

© 2014

Photo taken from The Guardian website

Next Post: “Urban Dictionary”, to be published on Thursday 27^th November at 11:59pm (GMT)

Of Literature and Other Abstract Thoughts

There’s a passage in Hisham Matar’s novel In the Country of Men which has stayed with me since I first read the book five or six years ago. In it the protagonist, nine-year-old Suleiman, goes to visit a relative of his and sits on a couch in the lounge. On sitting down he makes a funny noise which sounds more like a fart than anything else. He immediately rearranges himself on the sofa in a way that causes him to make the same noise again, thus stopping his relative from thinking that he’s let one drop.

The scene is very short, just a couple of lines long. It is completely irrelevant to the novel’s plot and yet, in its mundaneness I found magic.

When I read fiction, I seek entertainment but also affinity. I take the place of the main character or characters and buy into their life story. I immerse myself in their surroundings and partake of their conflicts. Along the way I enjoy the author’s prose, his or her use of metaphors and similes and the occasional or regular dollop of experimentation. But from time to time, I do also get carried away by a phenomenon I’ve come to label the “wonderful moments of real-life quotidianness”. These are sentences or phrases that strike me for their prosaicness and make me look up from the page. In the example quoted above, when I read the book, I remember thinking at the time that I’d done the same thing Suleiman had done on a few occasions before. In fact, my son did it a couple of weeks ago when we were watching a movie. He came into the lounge, sat down and made a funny noise. Straight away he shot up and said: “That wasn’t what you think it was, it was the sofa.” As if to convince us he sat back down and made the same noise and we all laughed about it.

I, too, laughed when I read the passage with nine-year-old Suleiman. In a novel about the Qaddafi regime and the brutality of it, you need these light-hearted moments. I don’t think Hisham Matar included that scene with a specific purpose in mind. That scene just happened. In the same way characters breathe, but we don’t notice their inhalation/exhalation processes until one of them “sighs with disappointment”. These mundane moments don’t exist for a particular reason. I even doubt they’re thought through properly. And yet, I notice them for their clarity, ubiquity and, above all, for a reality that mirrors mine. We’re so used to well-crafted and nuanced sentences and paragraphs. We can only hazard a guess at the lengths the writer has gone to in order to produce a fine specimen for us readers to devour. However, a novel or short story is also full of unguarded, non-transcendental moments.

For example, in Zadie Smith’s The Autograph Man, the main character, Alex-Li Tandem travels to New York from London looking for the autograph of erstwhile film star Kitty Alexander. In one passage in the novel Alex is about to cross a busy road in the Big Apple when he is pulled back before stepping off the kerb. The problem? He has looked right instead of looking left. Again, this moment has no significance within the book’s grand narratives: both the search for a father-like figure to fill up the gap left behind by Alex’s dad’s death and the nature of celebrity. Nevertheless, I remember this scene because the same (although the other way around) happened to me when I moved to the Big Smoke from Havana. Even if no one pulled me off the road at the last minute, I do recall feeling confused as to which way to look when crossing a street.

Well-written books trigger off chemical reactions in us through a mix of tropes and reality. Whilst he former continues to be the reason why I read fiction, it is the latter that occasionally gives me a satisfaction that no metaphor, no matter how well-placed, can beat. Even if this “wonderful moment of real-life quotidianness” arrives wrapped up in the sound of what could be (but isn’t) a fart.

© 2013

Next Post: “Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music”, to be published on Sunday 17^th February at 10am (GMT)

Of Literature and Other Abstract Thoughts

Virgin territory. That's where I've been for the last ten days. An unexplored terrain that has allowed me to come into contact with a plethora of life stories and characters deftly brought to life by a very skillful journalist/novelist.


Linda Grant is an author with whom I was only acquainted through the columns she's penned occasionally for The Guardian and The New Statesman. On the strength of her articles and essays, I decided to put one of her books in my Christmas wishlist: The People on the Street: A Writer's View of Israel. It hasn't disappointed me. Linda focuses on the human behind the mask, whether it be Israeli or Palestinian. Judgements are rarely made, assumptions left behind and any attempt to understand the hatred (and love, because that also exists) shared by both sides is based on the experience of those living in Israel first and foremost.

To me, however, it all looks rather new. And that's because when it comes to the decades-long enmity between Arabs and Jews, I'm very ignorant. Involuntarily ignorant, I hasten to add. And there are strong reasons for this into which I will go later.

Non-fiction writing occupies a special place in my books collection. It's the territory to which I decamp when I want a slice of real life, served by an author with an insider's knowledge of the subject. Whether it is a memoir, a biography or an observation, it matters not. I crave this treat especially when I've finished a heavy volume. In my case I had just read Cuba's very own Ulysses, Paradiso, and I longed for a less complicated narrative.

Less complicated shouldn't be understood as "easy" or "banal". Linda is a clever writer, with a very timely sense of humour. Just when you think the book is leading you into dire waters, she rescues you and puts you safely on shore. She is impartial and non-judgemental but also has strong words for both sides. That element appealed to me a great deal, since sometimes non-fiction, especially where politics are involved, can be very boring. More specifically the kind of politics that have an effect on current conflicts (think of the Northern Ireland situation). Some authors bestride the fence so much that occasionally I feel like shouting at them to take a side, for God's sake!

That, luckily, doesn't happen in The People on the Street. Beginning with a short account of Linda's childhood in Liverpool and her confrontation with her Polish-born father in her teenage years and moving swiftly to her brief stay in Israel in 2003, the book is full of portraits of the people who make up this nation. Some passages invite the reader to put him/herself in the shoes of the citizens. Here's an example:

"If you are a Palestinian, the Zionist state must seem to you like a relentless military machine, cold, heartless, inhiman, ruthlessly efficient in its domination."

But then, a couple of pages later she redresses the balance when a pro-Palestinian, Israeli woman declares à propos de a woman suicide bomber who had pretended to be disabled in order to avoid the metal detector at the checkpoint: "That woman did a big disservice to her people and her own gender. It's the same as when they transported military equipment in ambulances."

As a reader, when I choose a non-fiction book as a temporary companion, I find myself unconsciously demanding evidence of the topic written about. Especially when it deals with well-known events. A couple of autobiographies come to mind: The Long Road to Freedom by Nelson Mandela and If This Is a Man/The Truce by Primo Levi. The South African freedom fighter is a great storyteller but sometimes whilst reading his magnum opus I felt as if he were protecting me from something bigger, like a great danger looming large over me. Like the full horror of the apartheid system. I didn't like that. I'm old enough to withstand whatever life throws at me. Also, I wasn't expecting him to be ambivalent about the struggle for which he'd given up so much. And yet, this trait also endeared him to me and made him more human in my eyes. With Primo Levi there was a similar dilemma. Did I want to read yet another book about the Holocaust? But you would be wrong to think that all this ex-chemist from Turin wanted to write about was Auschwitz. If This Is a Man and The Truce are more about human endurance and survival. I confess that I went looking for the average tale of torture, gas chambers and Nazi brutality. Instead I found a beautifully written account of what is like to live through hell. And come out of it alive.

Do we, as readers, sometimes prejudge the content and, above all, the message of a non-fiction book based on what we expect of the author? And is this approach ever right? My ignorance of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict stems from my Cuban upbringing and education. We were never told that Israelis were Jews. And that's for starters. Whenever Israel was in the news, it was usually spoken about in a derogatory way because of its closeness to the US government. I grew up without being able to make any distinction between an Israeli tank knocking down a house belonging to an Arab family, and a Palestinian suicide bomber. Thus, it's through authors like Linda Grant and their unbiased position that I've become more acquainted with the history of this rather controversial and heavily disputed territory. And she seems to share my view. Here's her own opinion on writers' duties (if any): "Contemporary readers make great, perhaps intolerable demands of literature; they require it more and more to bear witness, to conform to the work of journalists, to make a moral case. People are always asking writers if they think that art can change the world..."

Just like it happened to me when I finished Nelson Mandela and Primo Levi's autobiographies, I find myself now trekking through a terrain that, although widely known and discussed, is slowly revealing itself to me. Despite my doubts, The Long Road to Freedom gave me a very good insight into the kind of fight Mandela and the ANC waged against the racist South African government. Primo's book taught me about survival and resistance, also showing me along the way that you needn't be explicit about horrors in order to get the reader to understand them. Linda Grant's The People on the Streets has convinced me that when it comes to political non-fiction, it's better to have an open mind. After all, that'll be the only 4x4 we'll need to explore what for many of us will be virgin territory.

© 2012

Next Post: “Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music”, to be published on Sunday 15th July at 10am (GMT)

Of Literature and Other Abstract Thoughts

One of the complaints I've often heard from fellow readers is that a particular book is heavy-going or that the opening pages are not challenging enough, namely, they're boring.

Whilst I can't vouch for what appeals to other literature enthusiasts (after all, art is subjective), I can certainly sympathise with their feelings. To that reaction described above, disinterest, I can add another one: that of failing to understand an author's motivation to write about a particular subject. Especially when the issue is close to home and it feels too real to digest.

I came across both case scenarios recently with two novels: We Need to Talk About Kevin and Saturday by Lionel Shriver and Ian McEwan respectively. Although miles apart in style and plot, one touches upon a topic that is highly sensitive and the other one takes a while to get going.

Without giving too much away, We Need to Talk About Kevin is an epistolary novel that deals with the aftermath of a high school massacre in the States. The eponymous Kevin is the son of Eva and Franklin and it is her letters to her estranged husband that make up the novel's well-crafted plot.

Saturday, on the other hand, is a study on human nature through the eyes of a neurosurgeon, Dr Perowne. Again, without wishing to reveal the ending, I shall give you a synopsis of the book. On Saturday 15th February, 2003, as hundreds of thousands of protesters gather to march against the impending invasion of Iraq, Dr Perowne rises earlier than usual. From that moment onwards and for the next twenty-four hours, he is witness to and an active agent in a chain of events that takes him through the whole gamut of human emotions.

The subject on which Lionel Shriver focuses in WNTTAK, an "evil" adolescent who wreaks havoc in his local community, is a difficult one to enjoy, especially if, like me, you're a parent, and even harder if, like me, too, you have a teenage son. I'm not implying that my fourteen-year-old harbours any fantasies of annihilating his classmates but there are some tough questions on parenting in the novel for which I, sadly, had no answers and which made me feel uncomfortable.

That means that if I was to take the moral high ground, I could make a case against Ms Shriver's motivations for writing WNTTAK, especially as she is, as some people have remarked, childless. But would that be fair?

Some time ago I came up with a motto for my blog: filming is neutral, editing is political. What I meant by that was that we, as human beings, have a non-discriminatory, unconscious (and subconscious) approach to the information we receive. That's the filming part. It's not so much the use of a camera to capture a particular moment, but the use of our senses to capture data without curtailment. This information is then synthesised, edited and, occasionally, translated (and I don't just mean from one language to another). That's the political part. The outcome of this process is the creation of a model of reality that is plausible enough for us to get by in the world; en brèf, this reality we have built ourselves, suits us.

When a writer sits down to write a book, poem or play, s/he will be making use of their own reality or "borrowing" someone else's. Whatever method they lay their hands on, the fact of the matter is that they will create a different model of the world to which we're used and up to a certain extent, different from theirs, too. Our duty, if duty if the right word, as readers, is to come to that blank page the author's now filled up with sentences, metaphors and dialogues and strip ourselves of our own white noise. Only then, can we dive headfirst into the novel/poem/short story, whilst leaving behind our own synthesised world. The result can be and usually is cathartic.

Which is why I can't judge We Need to Talk About Kevin from a moral or parental point of view, or even from a liberal perspective. Shriver's book exists in a silent space created by the author. By silent I don't mean quiet, I mean free from outside influences; undisturbed.

If WNTTAK is an uncomfortable read because of the subject matter, its nuances and its non-judgemental approach, then, Saturday is one of those novels on which I would have turned my back twenty-five years ago. It has a slow beginning with the first dozen pages full of ruminations and medical lingo. Why on earth did I press on?

The answer is a question. Sometimes when faced with a book like Saturday, I ask myself: am I ready to read this? And then I realise that what I'm doing is replicating the same questions that the author might have posed to themselves: Should I write about this? And, am I ready?

To answer yes to that question as readers is to access that piece of art (novel/poem/tale) as a concept of itself and to furnish it with our sensory system from which we will, hopefully, derive pleasure and joy.

A cursory glance through my bookshelves the other day threw up the titles of two volumes I've started but never completed and a third one I haven't even begun. The two I dived in but gave up on almost at the outset, are The Temple of My Familiar by Alice Walker and Paradiso by José Lezama Lima. The one I've never dared to read is Paula by Isabel Allende. In the case of the The Temple and Paradiso, it's their dense prose that killed off my enthusiasm. With Allende it's the subject matter; she writes about the death of her daughter. Too close to home. However, a couple of weeks ago I found myself gravitating towards Lezama Lima's classic and after hesitating a bit, took the plunge. I thought it was incumbent upon me, as a reader, to suspend all previous judgement and preconceptions and enter the author's world and in the process, acquaint myself with his/her tableau of characters. Who knows, I pondered, I might not even find it heavy-going at all. But I will only find that out by reading the book.

© 2012

Next Post: "Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music", to be published on Sunday 13th May at 10am (GMT)

The Ground Beneath Her Feet (Review)

It's only fitting that one of the most playful contemporary authors gets to write a novel about two rock'n'roll stars and a no less rock'n'roll photographer. The Ground Beneath Her Feet, which originally came out in 1999, finds Salman Rushdie in a mirthful, but still pensive mood.

Spanning forty years, the novel focuses on the relationship between rock star Ormus Cama, the surviving half of twins, music phenomenon Vina Aspara, half-Indian, half American and the "invisible" Rai whose real name is Umeed Merchant.

Through these three main characters and a wild array of supporting ones, Rushdie weaves a tale about love, myths, religion and humankind. There's even time and space for paranormal activity, as exemplified by Ormus's communication with his dead twin brother. Both Ormus and Rai fall for Vina on the same day in 1950s Bombay, whilst on a day out with their families. By then, the teenage girl had had her own share of grief, including a bloodbath in her previous house in the US. Of the three leading characters, Vina's is probably the richest and most interesting. Hers is a mix of iconography - rooted in the ancient Abrahamic traditions -, feminism and femininity. The latter two turn her into a symbol of Diana, the late Princess of Wales, magnitude.

In such a long novel (my copy boasts more than five-hundred and seventy pages), Rushdie cleverly brings real people from the world of rock'n'roll to orbit around his characters. Thus, we get cameos from the likes of Elvis, Dylan and U2. In fact, the Irish band went the extra mile and recorded the song that, in the book, serves as the nexus between Ormus and Vina. The clip appears below at the end of this review. In addition, Salman also scatters these three stars (Rai turns out to be one of the better photographers of his generation) all around the globe, rooting them firmly especially in Bombay, London and New York.

There are parallels between the author's life and the story he tells, although he would probably scoff at notions suggesting that The Ground Beneath Her Feet is autobiographical. However, anyone familiar with Rushdie's social interactions might come to the conclusion that Ormus and Vina's shoulder-rubbing with the rich and famous might be a bit too similar to Salman's love of glamour and glitz. And they wouldn't be completely wrong.

Where to me the two strongest poinst of the novel lie is in its exploration of myths and its meditation on belief. The former reeks heavily of Princess Diana's death and the cult it inspired with the thousands of wreaths adorning the gates and fences of Buckingham Palace and the very public outcry it unleashed. This, in a land famed for its stiff upper lip. It's a similar situation with Vina Aspara when she's swallowed up by an earthquake in Mexico (fret not, I'm not giving the plot away; in fact, that's how the novel starts). The outpouring of grief at her death is so much that a whole industry based on her life and work does not take long to spring up and cash in. In regards to beliefs, Rushdie's always been very vocal against organised religion, especially in the wake of the fatwa issued against him by Ayatollah Khomeini. However, in The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Salman is far from a staunch, dyed-in-the-wool, Richard-Dawkins-style atheist. He is more interested in musing over the relationship between gods and humans, including those artists whom some people worship as semigods. Lennon comes to mind. He uses the imagery of ground-cracking or ground-shifting to show progress, evolution and also backwardness and procrastination, not from a biological or historical point of view, but rather from an artistic and human one. Above all, it's the way he plays (and I use the word in the sense of "toying") with reality and a "parallel world". One that we can only access through Ormus's double vision.

Although The Ground Beneath Our Feet came out twelve years ago, its message of love and humanism is as relevant as ever. Another great read by master Salman which I totally recommend.

© 2011

Next Post: “Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music”, to be published on Sunday 6th November at 10am (GMT)

Of Literature and Other Abstract Thoughts

I don't know how many times I walked, cycled or ran past No. 375 on N St., Vedado, Havana, Cuba. Two of my best mates lived around the corner. I used to play baseball in a - then - disused car park nearby. My cousin got married right across the building, in the same mansion-cum-notary where I used to play hide'n'seek week in, week out.

And yet, it never occurred to me that at No. 375, N St., Flat 7, the landscape of Cuban literature was being changed. For the better.

It was at this abode that Virgilio Piñera, one of Cuba's foremost authors (poet, essayist, journalist, playwright and short-story writer) resided for many years after he moved from Guanabo, a borough in the outskirts of Havana. It was here that he penned plays like Dos Viejos Pánicos, a superb meditation on old age.

Considering that I became infatuated with Piñera's literary output in my teens, I would have probably attempted to turn his erstwhile apartment into a shrine if given half the chance. Or who knows, maybe, one day, when I'm filthily rich (there's still hope, not about the "filthy" bit, though) I'll buy the flat and turn it into a museum. I might even be supported in this enterprise by a group of fellow Piñerians.

And all of us, Virgilio enthusiasts, would be in great company. We would join a select group in which we'll find avid Harry Potter fans venerating the home in which JK Rowling lived for many years, blue-plaque stalkers on the lookout for a new sign bearing names of a Conan Doyle or Keats pedigree and Roald Dahl fans contributing some hard cash towards the half million pounds needed to move the shed, in which he wrote many of his best-selling stories, from Buckinghamshire to the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre.

Sorry, what's that you're saying? Do you want me to run that last item by you again? Don't worry, dear, I shall oblige.

Roald Dahl, he of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Fantastic Mr Fox fame, used a little cabin, built in the 1950s, as his writing retreat to pen his world-renowned children's books. The structure was never intended to last, yet, lasted it has and now it's in danger of collapsing. The Dahl family, along with trusts and foundations, are looking to raise around one million pounds for the renovation but the initial press release triggered a public outcry. Most people were of the opinion that the likes of Sophie Dahl and the rest of her clan should be the ones stumping up the full whack, especially when one takes into account how well the author's books still do and the revenue generated by film adaptations like James and the Giant Peach.

The news, however, did make me wonder how far we, as fans (I'm not referring just to Dahl now, though, for his books were never amongst my favourites), are willing to go to achieve the ultimate literary experience and what it really means. I think that nowadays we've gone beyond venerating places of residence and original drafts, the two usual objects of worship, and moved onto the places where the writing supposedly took place, or where some of the author's fictitious characters hung out.

For example the James Joyce Centre includes a walk entitled "In the Footsteps of Leopold Bloom". On its website the blurb states that "This tour explores the background to Joyce’s Ulysses and to Bloom’s thoughts as he crosses the city in search of something to eat in the ‘Lestrygonians’ episode". This is a positive case study as, in my view, this excursion would complement such a sensorial novel. I hope one day to join the jaunt.

However, I think that there might be also an ulterior - and unconscious - motive behind fans' attempt to get a closer look at their favourite writers' digs. I would call it "literary talent by proxy". The person who bought JK Rowling's flat might not just have wanted to breathe in the same air that inspired Rowling to write her Harry Potter series, but also to exhale, in the process, a character in the same mould as Dumbledore. I'm entering the realm of wild speculation here, but he might have thought that living within the same four walls that housed the author might help him produce a novel focusing on a wizard boy whose life is in danger. He might even attempt to write such tale inside a cupboard. Implausible? Yes. But... Well, when it comes to literature, all bets are off.

This situation of readers worshipping - and occasionally buying - the places where their favourite books were written, brings to mind the only time I ever visited Hemingway's old home, La Finca Vigía in Havana. At the time I was in my teens and had yet to read any of his novels. I remember feeling overwhelmed by the light and space in his former residence. This was, after all, the place where Papa Hemingway (who also left his mark in other spots in Havana such as the Ambos Mundos Hotel and the Floridita restaurant) had lived. Fortunately, I didn't feel the urgency to go out and start battling it out with a marlin.

But I still dream of turning Flat 7 at No. 375 on N St. into a museum or exhibition centre where the works by one of Cuba's literary geniuses can finally be acknowledged. Especially as the centenary of his birth (4th August 2012) is fast approaching. So, expect more columns about this key figure of Cuban letters. His name is Virgilio. Virgilio Piñera.

© 2011

Next Post: “Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music”, to be published on Sunday 30th October at 10am (GMT)

Of Literature and Other Abstract Thoughts

Recently I finally managed to watch director Tim Burton's version of Alice in Wonderland. More than anything else, what I really wanted to know was what the fuss was about and whether the praise heaped on the movie was fairly deserved. What stood out from the word go was that if I hadn't seen the original 1951 film, my feelings towards this recent reworking of Lewis Carroll's classic would have been somewhat ambivalent. Whereas Disney's take on the tale was based on Alice's innocence and curiosity (prevalent in the book), Burton's approach was more adult-minded. As expected, both Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp stole the show with characters who were not that dissimilar from previous wacky and clownish incarnations, especially in the latter's case.

Lately there's been a slew of movies looking to provide a modern take on previous - and occasionally - well-established films. Sometimes the director pulls it off, as in the case of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (though not one belonging to a genre of my preference). There are also instances when the end result fails to satisfy. Above all, when the movie bombs, people often ask themselves why on earth someone would go to the trouble or re-working a classic if they lack the wherewithal to succeed.

However, despite the pros and cons of re-making films, this is part and parcel of the world of celluloid, along with profitable franchises and a frequent formulaic approach to storytelling. But is there any other creative industry where a similar style would be just as easily accepted?

More specifically, would/could we ever conceive of an author re-writing a classic? Including keeping the original title?

With visual arts, for example, the response is swift and simple: plagiarism. But what about literature? Could someone pen a new version of Ulysses, one where the wandering Leopold Bloom, going about his business on that one day, is not just a mere figment in Joyce's imagination, but also a red hot-blooded Jack-Bauer-like figure in charge of an anti-terrorist unit in early 20th century Ireland? With the same Latinised version of the Greek name as its title, of course.

Naturally, we could argue that literature is underpinned by the type of architecture that could well serve as a template for would-be writers. For Alice..., read similar books such as Peter Pan, The Secret Garden and The Jungle Book. Talking animals already made up the bulk of stories in ancient times, with even a moral thrown in at the end for good measure. Woods have rarely shed their image as the ominous sign where "things happened" (sometimes bad ones, ask Hansel and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood, for instance). In fact you could even say that literature is governed by narrative patterns that attempt to pin down our infinite human experience into the equivalent of ready-made meals, therefore creating a limited variety of plots. The city that is in danger and needs a hero to rescue it (The Pied Piper of Hamelin), the woman who is in love with a man her parents disapprove of (Romeo and Juliet) But a verbatim replica like The Italian Job (the original, a 1969 cinematic vehicle with Michael Caine and Noel Coward, the "modern" version from 2003 with Mark Wahlberg and Donald Sutherland, transported to L.A. and minus Caine's iconic "You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!")? No.

Why is that, then? I would say that one of the reasons is that writers, like visual artists (photographers, painters and sculptors, for instance) have a more individual and self-centred approach to their oeuvre. Film-makers, who depend more on a collective, think nothing of re-doing a classic. This could be as a tribute to the original director, or because they think that they can improve on his/her magnum opus. Or simply because there's more money on the table. Which is why we can have Bride and Prejudice, the Bollywood movie, but no Pride and Prejudice, the new version by Danielle Steel. I don't think that I'm alone in thinking that a painter re-painting the Mona Lisa would probably take umbrage at him/herself. Same with a writer penning a second Moby Dick.

Or it might be that literature doesn't need dodgy Doppelgängers because it's self-sufficient. In an excellent essay in The Guardian a couple of years ago the playwright David Edgar referred to Christopher Booker's The Seven Basic Plots: Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, The Quest, Voyage and Return, Comedy, Tragedy and Rebirth. Combine them at your leisure and you needn't look at For Whom the Bell Tolls or The Color Purple as works to reproduce word by word. There's plenty of fish for everyone in the sea of fiction if you can use your imagination effectively enough.

What does happen, as Robert McCrum stated recently, is that certain authors - some of them already famous in their own right - piggyback on the classics and adapt them to their own genre. One of McCrum's example is Lynn Shepherd's Murder at Mansfield Park, which turns the idyllic estate into a crime scene. It's, in my view, literature's own way of doing what cinema did with Psycho (the original, a superb film from 1960 with Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh; its totally unnecessary carbon copy, a disaster made in 1998 with Vince Vaughn and Anne Heche in the leading roles), although with better results. And an excellent way, I would aver, of keeping us, literature lovers, curiouser and curiouser.

© 2011

Next Post: “Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music”, to be published on Sunday 9th October at 10am (GMT)

Of Literature and Other Abstract Thoughts

Back in the summer I attended a classical music concert at a local church. I don't know about you, dear readers, but I love music concerts in churches. Despite my secular nature, I enjoy the air of tranquillity and harmony these gatherings convey, plus the acoustics are much better.

On this occasion we were treated to a short, but intense, programme in which Beethoven's "Clarinet Trio Op 11" was included. I had never heard this piece before so it was a pleasant discovery for me.

I've listened to a fair amount of trio compositions over the years, especially by Mozart but until the pianist at the concert explained what made this specific piece - and genre - so peculiar, all I was looking forward to was to being exposed to yet another facet of the great Beethoven.

I don't normally like artists unveiling the secrets that lie well hidden inside their oeuvres, or those they execute. Craft is craft. I like the mystery, the magic, the je ne sais quoi, mais je ne veux pas savoir, merci. But I didn't mind the exegesis this time. The way the pianist spoke about the combination of different tones in the composition, high, mid-range and low, made a lot of sense and helped me enjoy more the artistry displayed by the performers. It also, unintentionally, sent me on a reverie whose outcome was very surprising.

The presence of the clarinet and cello in the trio is to prevent them from cancelling out the piano, as our impromptu compère informed us. But there's another effect, too. Whereas the first and part of the third movements are joyful, the second (Adagio) is sombre and solemn, if also beautiful. It was this section I enjoyed the most and it made me think of those books I've read in which the author suddenly changes pace, thus throwing the reader off balance.

Depending on the writer's skill, this effect can be highly beneficial or detrimental to the narrative (I'm referring only to works of fiction). If it's the latter, you usually lose an admirer or future follower. If it's the former, as the fragment below shows, then your reader will appreciate your efforts.

A good example of how successful a change in tone can be in a novel is Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale". If you're not familiar with the Canadian's author's masterpiece, this is a book about an imaginary country, the Republic of Gilead, where women's sole function is that of breeding. If they don't, they get hanged or are sent out to die of radiation sickness. The main character, Offred, is still hopeful of fulfilling her reproductive role, but there's one problem she's not able to overcome. She can still remember a time when women were free. Offred has not been totally brainwashed.

Whereas in the first five chapters the novel fluctuates between a descriptive and a mocking tone (and since it's narrated in the first person singular, we're able to sympathise more with the protagonist's woes), it's only in the sixth episode where Atwood gives the reader the harsh reality of what the 'breeding' process entails. A small disclaimer, though. Please, be aware that there's strong language ahead. I saw no point in using asterisks because that would have lessened the effect of the author's words. Thanks for your attention, you have been warned:

"My red skirt is hitched up to my waist, though no higher. Below it the Commander is fucking. What he is fucking is the lower part of my body. I do not say making love, because this is not what he is doing. Copulating too would be inaccurate, because it would imply two people and only one is involved. Nor does raper cover it: nothing is going on here that I haven't signed up for. There wasn't a lot of choice but there was some, and this is what I chose."

I've read "The Handmaid's Tale" a few times now and this passage has always left me speechless. The reasons are manifold: up to this scene, and as far as I can recall, the 'f' word had not been used, the first time it is, it's without an object, as in "Below it the Commander is fucking", yet the verb is a transitive one. That's why the next sentence starts with a "what", that is, the object. The dexterity that goes into that passage shouldn't be underestimated. The fact that the main character cannot find any words to describe what's being done to her is a challenge for the reader: if she can't, can you?

There's another passage in the same chapter, "Household", and on the same page that also manages to combine the horrific with the ludicrous:

"Serena Joy grips my hands as if it is she, not I, who's being fucked, as if she finds it either pleasurable or painful, and the Commander fucks, with a regular two-four marching stroke, on and on like a tap dripping. He is preoccupied, like a man humming to himself in the shower without knowing he's humming; like a man who has other things on his mind."

If in the first episodes the sentences are short and cogent, for this section Atwood makes an exception. Forty-one words in that first phrase. Forty-one words that render the handmaid's ordeal tragicomic in that the name of the woman holding her down is Serena Joy ("serene joy", maybe? is that what the women are supposed to feel?). In addition, the commander's rhythmic thrusts are caricaturesque and followers of Margaret's work will identify her very peculiar sense of humour.

In the same way that the second movement of Beethoven's Clarinet Trio changes the composition's pace from a brisk to a serious tempo, Margaret Atwood uses a similar trick to show us the horror visited on Offred and the rest of the handmaids. In both cases the result is pure virtuosity.

© 2010

Next Post: "National Poetry Day in the UK", to be published on Thursday 7th October at 11:59pm (GMT)

Of Literature and Other Abstract Thoughts

"What's the point of pursuing apparently distorted 'readings' of the novel - i.e. Marxist/feminist?

AO4 expects you to acknowledge the effect the book has on different audiences - especially ones not guided by English teachers. (The teacher's reading is influenced by need for clarity - a key to help write quick fix essays)

Also helps us avoid over-simplifying - there is no need to distinguish between our/my sense & sensibility reading and the intentions/character of the author; the former suggests a fairly dry/conservative figure; but how does this tally with her appetite for humour/nonsense and biographical sources.'

The above words were part of a typed note left in my copy of Jane Austen's 'Emma', sandwiched between the last page and the book's back cover. The text was longer but I've edited it for the purpose of this column. The words were not the only sign that betrayed the novel's second-hand bookshop look. Little scribblings, some less illegible than others, adorned the margins of the pages. The cover was slightly tattered.

Notes in passed-down books tell their own story. Over the years I have been exposed more and more to such tales as I have become a regular user of amazon.co.uk marketplace. Have you ever wondered why the previous owner highlighted that particular section in the book you're now holding? Or why did she or he circle that one specific word?

The note in my copy of 'Emma' did not make any sense to me. But that's because it wasn't intended to be read by me. Like Crusoe's sudden realisation that there was human life on the island he inhabited (even if it was just cannibals visiting his abode on a regular basis to kill and eat their prisoners) the only connection I was able to make with that other person was through a common bond of humanity. Footprints on a page. Speculation was another nexus, too. Reading the little-more-than hieroglyphics on the margins of the book prompted me to make up a mental image of this fellow Austen enthusiast. She was probably a woman, and here I was following the decades-old cliché that dictated that most readers of the Brontë sisters and Austen were female. Shame on me, but let's carry on, shall we? She was probably in her late thirties or early forties, financially independent, liberal-minded and interested in feminist issues. Her age was chiefly determined by linguistic factors. The language she used pointed at someone who was comfortable with the English vocabulary as opposed to those cardigan-tuggers and navel-gazers one encounters nowadays who pepper their conversations with words such as 'so', 'like' and 'kinda/sorta' instead of 'somehow/somewhat'. I pictured her as someone who was not slave to fashion (she probably used charity shops) but who wouldn't mind coughing up a bit for one of this season's apparently must-have items: a Cropped Military Jacket from Selfridges.

It's very likely that one of the reasons why I enjoyed 'Emma' better this time around (I first read it in uni and didn't like it at all) was because there was a subplot running alongside it that brought out the Sherlock Holmes in me. How else to react when you're reading a passage that has been underlined with the caption 'piss-taking' next to it?

That's the beauty of second-hand books as I've learnt over the years. And of second-hand CDs, too. I remember last December that when I ordered a copy of Aziza Mustafa Zadeh's 'Seventh Truth' I received a message from the seller telling me how much he and his girlfriend loved the record and the only reason they were parting with it was that they had an extra copy. I e-mailed him back telling him that I loved Aziza's music and that my two favourite albums by her were ' Dance of Fire' and 'Always'. He then replied to my missive saying that those two were his favourite ones, too. Needless to say I gave him a five-star rating on amazon.co.uk marketplace.

Like a message in a bottle, whose purpose is to reach out to the wider world, a book that has been previously owned carries a history hard to ignore. Those coffee/tea/food stains, telephone numbers scribbled down in a rush on a torn page and then left behind ('I'm sure that I wrote it somewhere, I know, I had my book in one hand and my mobile in the other'), highlighted passages to be re-read and analysed afterwards with the intention of being discussed online (yup, that's me); this is all part of the reading - and writing - experience. It's one of the reasons why I read and why I love buying second-hand books.

© 2010

Next Post: 'Food, Music, Food, Music, Food, Music... Ad Infinitum', to be published on Thursday 16th September at 11:59pm (GMT)