Author: David Hebblethwaite

Paul Rooney, Dust and Other Stories (2012)

26th October 2012 / / 2 Comments

Paul Rooney is an artist who often works with text-based materials. Looking at the publication credits, many of the pieces in Dust first appeared in other forms – as video or sound works, or different kinds of written text. Now they’ve been brought together in this collection, a joint publication by Akerman Daly and Aye-Aye Books.

Voice is a key concern in these stories, and perhaps especially the extent to which the ‘voice’ of a story can be trusted. In ‘Towards the Heavenly Void, a musician with a sideline in mediumship finds himself channelling the voice of Les Dawson – or at least of someone who claims that the comedian we know as Les Dawson was someone with whom he swapped lives, whilst the man who’s ‘talking’ went off to South America in search of Che Guevara. Rooney captures the tone and character of one of Dawson’s monologues, leaving us with layers of voice that – as the tale’s ending symbolises – evaporate when you try to unpick them.

Rooney also makes use of different textual forms in Dust. ‘Transcript’ (a collaboration with Will Rose) purports to document a Q&A session between Rooney, Rose, and a film-maker. The talk soon gets maddeningly and entertainingly out of hand with audience interruptions, which dissolve the text into a clamour of voices – all overlaid with the interventions of the anonymous transcriber. It’s typical of Rooney’s playful approach that, as a character, the author says nothing; though of course his words are all over this piece.

Other stories have more conventional structures but come at the author’s concerns in equally effective ways. ‘Words and Silence’ tells of a call centre worker who creates elaborate personas for herself when making calls; eventually her imaginings threaten to swamp her view of reality. ‘The Kendal Iconoclasm’ turns a spy thriller into a tale of existential horror: its characters know they’re in a story – they can see it being typed out in front of their eyes – but not who the writer (or writers) are. Rooney’s protagonist tries to exert some control as he heads up the motorway, but he seems not to realise just how deeply enmeshed he is in the story – there’s no escaping from this escapist fiction. It’s just one example of the treachery of stories and words, as seen in so many ways throughout this collection.

Any Cop? Yes – taken together, the stories of Dust are an interesting exploration of voice and text. And Rooney’s diverse approaches means that there’ll always be something different on the next page.

(This review also appears at Bookmunch.)

Still: ‘Noise’ by James Higgerson

25th October 2012 / / 1 Comment

The photograph: an enclosed roof space, viewed through a series of triangular support frames, with lamps hanging above. You can almost hear the harsh echoes that would result from any loud noise here.

The story: Higgerson’s protagonist tries to explain to his counsellor/therapist how everything ‘got too loud’ for him. What follows is a snappy, rhythmic jaunt through the cacophony of modern life.

Links: James Higgerson’s website / interview with Higgerson on his story

This is one of a series of posts on the anthology Still. Click here to read the rest.

Harry Karlinsky, The Evolution of Inanimate Objects (2012): Strange Horizons review

24th October 2012 / / 0 Comments

Strange Horizons have published my review of The Evolution of Inanimate Objects by Harry Karlinsky. I was talking yesterday about creative approaches to the material of sf, and here’s one — a pseudo-historical biography of Charles Darwin’s (fictional) son Thomas, who applies his father’s theories of evolution to the development and classification of everyday items.

This is a playful concept, but Karlinsky’s novel is more than a diversion: it’s also an effective character study, and a reflection on science and how it progresses (see Alan Bowden for more on that point).

Click here to read my review in full.

The art of science fiction

23rd October 2012 / / 6 Comments

Martin Lewis has been wondering just how many (or how few) contemporary science fiction writers are really stretching with their art – not just writing well, but going further to create works which are uniquely their own, rather than cleaving too closely to the well-worn paths of the genre. People like M. John Harrison, Christopher Priest, Adam Roberts… I joined in with the comments, which concluded that it’s hard to think of many such authors.

This discussion comes in the wake of a review by the science fiction critic Paul Kincaid of three ‘best of the year’ anthologies, in which he argued that many of the stories in those books felt tired, carried a sense of going through the motions. Responses to Kincaid’s review included Martin Lewis’s one about aesthetics, and Jonathan McCalmont‘s more political take, where he suggested that sf authors were shying away from serious engagement with the issues facing us now and in the future.

I recognise the problem McCalmont highlights, but I’m closer to Lewis’s view here. Partly this is because, by inclination, I’m more interested in the artistry of fiction than its politics. But it’s also because I think there are many valid ways of using the tropes of sf to create fiction with substance – and that it’s substance in general that is most lacking from contemporary sf  (to be clear, by ‘substance’ I mean the kind of artistry for which Lewis is calling).

There’s a clear reluctance in the published genre right now to write across established conventions rather than within them. Martin Lewis comes up against some of the problems inherent in this when he sees ‘resource sf’ take contemporary issues of scarcity and consumption and then fall back on traditional narrative patterns, thereby losing its edge. Fiction can’t engage fully with the specifics of issues unless it develops specific approaches to writing about them. This is why Adam Roberts’ By Light Alone speaks so loudly to the present: not just because its concerns are current, but because there’s also a freshness to how it treats them.

But the tropes and tools of science fiction don’t belong solely in the box marked ‘science fiction’, and haven’t for some time. I would go so far as to say that you are more likely to find creative approaches to sf (however successful) in works published as mainstream. It’s there where writers seem to feel most inclined to go their own way with sf tropes. However successful you consider (say) Girl Reading, A Visit from the Goon Squad, or How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, all present a distinctive vision; their authors shape the material of sf in ways that others wouldn’t. The field is richer because of that.

This is not to say that genre sf couldn’t also show the mainstream a thing or two. A couple of months ago, Max Cairnduff argued in a blog post that contemporary Anglo-American literature wasn’t doing enough to engage with the contemporary world. It’s not all that different from the challenge Jonathan McCalmont makes towards sf. I could see mainstream realist literature drawing usefully on the techniques science fiction has for making arguments about the world (the question of whether genre sf needs to draw more on those techniques notwithstanding). But I also think genre sf could do with taking notes from its mainstream cousins on how to strengthen its own art.

The Confidant blog tour: day 1

22nd October 2012 / / 6 Comments

Welcome to the first stop on a blog tour for The Confidant by Hélène Grémillon. Hélène will be taking part in different features on various blogs this week, starting right here. To get things going, I’ll repost my review of The Confidant from earlier in the month.

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Hélène Grémillon’s first novel begins in Paris of 1975, where Camille Werner is sorting through the letters of condolence she has received on the death of her mother. One of the letters stands out: an account from someone named Louis of his childhood attraction to Annie, a girl from his village. Not knowing anyone named Louis or Annie, Camille thinks no more of this – until she starts receiving regular letters from Louis, telling more of his story.

Camille learns that Annie became friends with one Madame M., a rich young woman who came to the village with her husband, eventually (as Annie told Louis when they met again a few years later, during the war) agreeing to act as a surrogate mother for the infertile Madame M.  Events would subsequently take a tragic turn, and prove to be far more relevant to Camille than she had thought.

The full story of The Confidant takes shape only gradually, as we view the past from the perspectives of different characters. Madame M. kept Alice indoors during her pregnancy, and didn’t tell her about the Nazi invasion of France – but we’re forced to re-evaluate what we think of these individuals when we read Madame M.’s testimony. The final revelations come as Grémillon’s novel turns to poetry, as though prose is no longer sufficient (or can no longer be trusted) to tell this story. All in all, The Confidant is an intriguing piece of work.

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Hélène has kindly answered a few questions about her novel:

Can you tell me about some of the non-literary influences on The Confidant?

I love the theatre. Living in Paris, I’m lucky enough to be able to take advantage of a huge and beautiful range of shows, there’s always something to see. I often go to concerts as well, classical or otherwise. I love musical theatre, in London or Broadway, as sadly, it’s not a very “French” genre. I never say no to an exhibition, but I’m very careful about when I visit them, as I don’t like it when the rooms are too busy, and even less the queues. Finally, I watch a lot of films on DVD!

 What was the seed of the novel? Which came first, the decision to set The Confidant in its particular time periods, the idea of someone receiving letters about the past – or something else entirely?

The first thing I wanted to write about was a conflict between two women. That was really the starting point for The Confidant. Afterwards came the idea of a family secret, and from there came the letters and at last, the historical context. It all had to work well with my plot.

You use a number of different formats in the book – the short alternating chapters when Camille is reading Louis’s letters about Annie; the long monologue of Madame M.’s testimony; poetry at the end. How did you arrive at this technique?

I wanted the story to show different points of view. I therefore started by distributing the body of the story amongst the letters, and then I wrote the long monologue which sheds a new light on things. As for the end, the format imposed itself as I was writing the passage, and I kept it!

Who are some of your favourite writers?

There are many of them, and they depend on the time period. Shakespeare, Proust, Victor Hugo, Jean Anouilh, Stefan Sweig, Maupassant, Fred Vargas, John Irving, and I’ve recently discovered Jonathan Safran Foer, whose writing style I admire.

***

Thanks to Hélène for taking the time to respond. The Confidant blog tour continues tomorrow at Novelicious, which will feature Hélène’s writing room. Then, on Wednesday, Stu at Winston’s Dad will be reviewing The Confidant and asking Hélène about her favourite books.

Still: ‘Odd Job’ by Preeta Samarasan

22nd October 2012 / / 1 Comment

The photograph: a close-up of a metal stag.

The story: while waiting for their exam results, two girls volunteer to do odd jobs at some of the local posh houses – and uncover a dark secret in one of them. This is a nicely paced story, with an effective sting in its ending.

Link: Preeta Samarasan’s website

This is one of a series of posts on the anthology Still. Click here to read the rest.

Sunday Story Society hiatus

21st October 2012 / / 1 Comment

We’re only in the middle of the run I had planned, but I am putting the Sunday Story Society on hold temporarily. The reason is that I’m in the process of moving house, so my internet access will be disrupted; but I can’t be sure at the moment when or for how long that will happen. As I don’t want to be organising a regular blog event if I can’t guarantee to be available to host it, I’m suspending the feature for now, and will bring it back when I’m in a position to run it regularly.

You can visit the Sunday Story Society page on this blog to access our previous discussions and sign up for an email alert when the Society is back up and running. In the meantime, thanks to everyone who has taken part – I hope you’ve enjoyed it.

Book notes: Richard Weihe and Robert Jackson Bennett

20th October 2012 / / 3 Comments

Richard Weihe, Sea of Ink (2003/12)
Translated from the German by Jamie Bulloch

Peirene Press’s Year of the Small Epic has so far brought us a grand domestic drama and a study of bereavement. The series takes a lighter turn in its final instalment, with Swiss writer Richard Weihe’s fictionalised biography of the Chinese painter Bada Shanren. He is born Zhu Da, a scion of the Ming dynasty; but political change and his father’s death lead him to join a monastery and devote his life to art, going through many names before settling on Bada Shanren, ‘man on the mountain of the eight compass points’.

Sea of Ink has eleven illustrations of Bada’s beautiful paintings, and Weihe includes descriptions of how the artist worked, his brush strokes and hand movements. This has the striking effect of creating a detailed impression which remains just that – an impression. Even though we can see the final paintings, there’s room for our subjective interpretation of Weihe’s words. The novella itself works in a similar way, its short chapters acting like brush strokes to create a portrait of Bada’s life which is necessarily a fiction, a construct.

The ultimate story told in Sea of Ink seems to me one of a man finding peace in life through finding (or accepting) his place – finding the world in the marks of ink and brush. The tone of the writing is quiet and reflective; I’d say this is ideal reading for an autumn night.

Robert Jackson Bennett, The Troupe (2012)

Over the last few years, Robert Jackson Bennett has been crafting his own distinctive visions of the American fantastic’s iconic tropes. For his third novel, he turns his attention to the magical travelling show. We meet George Carole, a sixteen-year-old vaudeville pianist as he leaves his current job to visit the troupe of Hieronomo Silenius, whom George believes to be his father. Silenius’s reputation precedes him, but no one ever remembers the details of his show. When George watches a performance, he finds out why: the Silenius troupe plays an extraordinary song that make those who hear it forget what they’ve seen – but it doesn’t work on George.

Falling in with the troupe, George discovers that this music is pat of the ‘First Song’, the one that brought Creation into being; peforming it is the only thing that holds back the ‘wolves’ who would seek to devour reality. Silenius’s band go from place to place in search of fragments of the First Song, which only those of the Silenius blood-line can carry (the song didn’t work on George because he is of that line). So begins a journey into the world’s mythic spaces, with reality itself at stake.

Bennett achieves a nice balance between the personal and cosmic focus. All the members of Silenius’s troupe are pretending to be something they’re not, and the theme of escape runs through the novel – escaping the past, and escaping the inevitable. The ending makes use of a risky technique (I appreciate this is vague, but want to avoid a spoiler), but Bennett pulls it off. His body of work continues to intrigue, and I look forward to seeing what comes next.

Still: ‘Lift Under Inspection Do Not Touch’ by Richard Beard

19th October 2012 / / 1 Comment

The photograph: a closed door with a ‘Lift Under Inspection’ sign hanging from the handle.

The story: a series of anecdotes about lifts – possibly true, possibly not. Just as Beard’s piece blurs the line between fact and fiction, so it effectively portrays lifts as simultaneously useful and threatening spaces.

Link: Richard Beard’s website

This is one of a series of posts on the anthology Still. Click here to read the rest.

The Clarke Award asked for suggestions…

17th October 2012 / / 8 Comments

Tom Hunter from the Arthur C. Clarke Award has been asking for possible contenders that may not have been submitted so far. I take an interest in the fringes of sf and mainstream fiction, and was able to suggest quite a few. “These really all need to be in a blog post,” said Niall Harrison; so here they are, along with three that Niall suggested to Tom.

To be clear, I haven’t read all of these myself, and some of them will turn out in the reading not to be  classifiable as science fiction. But they all sound to me like books that should be on the Clarke’s radar at this stage, so the judges can have the opportunity to make that call.

(EDIT 18/10 — two more books, by Peter Carey and Ben Marcus, added to the list)

Alex Adams, White Horse (Simon & Schuster)

A post-apocalyptic tale of a pregnant woman journeying through a disease-ravaged world.

Juliana Baggott, Pure (Headline)

Another dystopian novel, this one for a YA audience.

Adrian Barnes, Nod (Bluemoose)

A third story of society transformed, this time as a result of near-total insomnia.

Peter Carey, The Chemistry of Tears (Faber & Faber)

A museum conservator explores the story of an extraordinary 19th century automaton.

Jennifer Cryer, Breathing on Glass (Little, Brown)

The personal and professional dramas of two scientists aiming to grow pure stem cells in the lab.

Carlos Gamerro, The Islands (And Other Stories)

One of their titles was shortlisted for the Booker; could And Other Stories also have a Clarke contender in this novel of the Falklands War and virtual reality?

Harry Karlinsky, The Evolution of Inanimate Objects (The Friday Project)

The biography of the fictitious Thomas Darwin, who applied his father’s theories to the development of everyday objects. Recently longlisted for the Wellcome Trust Book Prize.

Torsten Krol, The Secret Book of Sacred Things (Atlantic)

More post-disaster fiction (the moon knocked out of orbit), set amongst a religious community.

Liz Jensen, The Uninvited (Bloomsbury Circus)

Children begin to attack their families at the same time as a spate of bizarre suicides occurs worldwide; an anthropologist tries to spot the patterns beneath it all. Reviewed by me here.

Russell Kane, The Humorist (Simon & Schuster)

A comedy critic with an intuitive understanding of humour, but no sense of empathy, discovers a formula for the ultimate joke – one that can make people laugh to death…

Alan Lightman, Mr g (Corsair)

Mr g creates the Universe – then has to grapple with the philosophical implications.

Evan Mandery, Q: A Love Story (Fourth Estate)

A man meets his ideal woman – and is then visited by his future self, ordering him to end the relationship. Reviewed by me here.

Ben Marcus, The Flame Alphabet (Granta)

A new epidemic – children’s speech becomes literally toxic to their parents.

Lydia Netzer, Shine Shine Shine (Simon & Schuster)

A woman faces the demands of domestic life while her astronaut husband is stranded in space after his ship is struck by a meteor.

Simona Sparaco, About Time (Pushkin)

A rich playboy without a care has to adjust when time begins to speed up for him.

Karen Thompson Walker, The Age of Miracles (Simon & Schuster)

A coming-of-age novel set at a time when the Earth’s rotation begins (and continues) to slow.

Juli Zeh, The Method (Harvill Secker)

A young woman seeks justice for her brother in a place where good health is enforced by law.

EDIT, 25/10 — More suggestions, from the comments:

Ned Beauman, The Teleportation Accident (Sceptre)
Peter Heller, The Dog Stars (Headline)
Lauren Groff, Arcadia (William Heinemann)
Mez Packer, The Game Is Altered (Tindal Street Press)
C.J. Sansom, Dominion (Mantle)
Sam Thompson, Communion Town (Fourth Estate)

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