William Golding, Rapunzel And Me

One of my favourite quotes about writing comes from William Golding, in an interview in which he was asked about his writing schedule was like. “Well,” he said, “when I’m writing …”
  Whoa! ‘When I’m writing …’? You’re saying you don’t beat yourself up for not putting down 500 words minimum every day? Nice one, sir.
  I’m not writing right now. Haven’t written a single sentence of fiction in weeks. Took a break for the Christmas holidays and haven’t gone back since. It’s marvellous.
  There’s a few reasons for such sluggardly laziness. One is that I’m a lazy sluggard. Another is that I’m torn between a couple of stories I’d like to write, and I can’t decide which one I’d prefer to follow through on - although that suggests that maybe neither one has sufficient gravity to pull me in. Another reason is that I have a book under consideration at the moment, and it’s getting past the point where a decision will be made, and I find it very difficult to write with the guillotine blade creaking overhead. There’s also the fact that (actual paying) work is keeping me quite busy, and that we’ve turned the last bend into the final furlong on the DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS project, and it’s sapping all the spare energy I have to pretend I’m not a carthorse among thoroughbreds.
  There’s also the fact that I have been busy telling stories, to a captive audience, and revelling in the feedback, and if there’s anything more likely to undermine your drive to write, I really don’t know what it is. These stories tend to get told around about 8pm every night, to a sleepy little girl who demands one last story before she’ll close her eyes, and feature princesses, dragons, castles, dark forests, pink magic (pink magic is good, green magic bad), trolls, witches, fairy godmothers, mermaids, et al, although the most crucial element tends to be a feisty heroine called ‘Lily’, who is invariably to be found wearing a ‘bootiful swirly-twirly dress’. Last night it was Rapunzel’s turn to get an outing, and the little girl listened in wide-eyed silence, only interrupting to correct her daft old dad when he got a detail or six wrong, as he generally does; and then, once everyone was living happily ever after, the sleepy little girl announced, as she generally does, “My turn.” For the 55-second, stripped down, all-you-need-to-know version of Rapunzel, roll it there, Collette …

  I’m biased, obviously. But if Ray Chandler himself were to rise from the grave and read one of my stories, and declare it a third-rate knock-off but not bad, all things considered, it still wouldn’t be a patch on the buzz I get from telling Lily stories and hearing her version in return. A bit of a closed feedback loop, it’s true, and highly unlikely to set me on the path to fame, riches and glory. Still, when it all boils down, the whole point of this writing malarkey is for the pure joy of telling stories. Right?
  Apologies for the sentimental interlude. Normal cynical service will be resumed as soon as possible …

The Curious Case Of The Non-Meme Meme

Memes being the interweb’s version of pesky chain-letters, I’m not going to tag anyone in particular for the meme-ish notion below. But feel free to run with it, and link back here if you like. For simplicity’s sake I’ve kept it to one book per author, and the idea is that the last book on your list is the book you’d most like to die reading, if you had to die reading. To wit:

A long, long time in the future, in a galaxy far away, the doctor says, “Sorry, but you’ve only got a month to live.” What ten books would you re-read in your last month?
  My choices runneth thusly:

THE MAGUS – John Fowles
THE LONG GOODBYE – Raymond Chandler
THE CATCHER IN THE RYE (and ‘Teddy’ from NINE STORIES) – JD Salinger
SLAUGHTERHOUSE 5 – Kurt Vonnegut
THE GREEK MYTHS – Robert Graves
PROSPERO’S CELL – Lawrence Durrell
THE DOUBLE TONGUE – William Golding
THE ODYSSEY – Homer
STARDUST – John and Mary Gribbin
PETER PAN – JM Barrie

  For anyone interested, I'd like the theme music from ‘Match of the Day’ played as they carry the coffin out. Cheers.

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY by John Boyne

At first glance it seems strange that John Boyne should choose to re-tell the well known tale of the mutiny aboard The Bounty for his follow-up to THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS. Those familiar with the tale courtesy of its various film versions will be surprised by what unfolds here, however: as recounted by Captain Bligh’s servant boy, John Jacob Turnstile, the villain of the piece is Fletcher Christian, while Bligh emerges as a brilliant, complex and benevolent character who perhaps erred on the side of caution in his approach to enforcing on-board discipline.
  Boyne includes a bibliography of reference sources to underpin his claim to be telling a story based on historical truth but he wears his learning lightly and the tale is very much an adventure yarn. This is partly due to the irrepressible spirit of its narrator, 14-year-old John Jacob Turnstile, an earthy and occasionally coarse but humorous and thoughtful Jim Hawkins, who, as the captain’s servant, has the perfect excuse to be present at all the crucial moments that lead to the mutiny and beyond. Comparisons to Joseph Conrad and William Golding’s RITES OF PASSAGE trilogy are not outrageous, and Boyne has clearly paid attention to TREASURE ISLAND. Throw in the exotic setting of Otaheite, the mutiny, and one of nautical history’s most impressive feats of endurance, and MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY is well-nigh irresistible.
  It’s not simply a boy’s own adventure, either. Turnstile is as complex a character as his master, a reluctant sailor forced to chose, at the outset, between a year in gaol and taking service aboard The Bounty. Once he comes to terms with seasickness and the rigidly hierarchical system aboard ship, Turnstile finds himself conflicted about the mission, which is to transport breadfruit trees from the island of Otaheite to the West Indies as a cheap food source for plantation slaves.

“‘It’s an adventure of great merit we are engaged in, Turnstile,’ [Captain Bligh] told me then, wagging his finger at me as if I was a babe in arms. ‘Some day, when you are an old man, you will look back and tell your grandchildren of it. Perhaps their own slaves will be fed on breadfruit then too, and you will feel enormous pride at our achievements.’
  I nodded but wasn’t sure that I would.”

  Turnstile, an orphan press-ganged into male prostitution as a young boy, empathises with the slaves rather than his master and peers. Observes the boy:

“He was not the type to follow my line of thinking; he was too well educated and of too high a social class to have respect for the rights of man.”

  The rights of women, too, are important to Turnstile when the shipload of sex-starved sailors finally reach Otaheite. Concerned that the women are only faking their delight, as he himself has had to do so many times, Turnstile is among a minority of two who refrain from indulging in carnal delights, the other being Captain Bligh. That the young boy eventually allows himself to be seduced by a Polynesian beauty in an idyllic glade may seem the stuff of stereotypical male fantasy, but Turnstile’s painfully slow progress towards the point where he finally allows himself to consent to what had been previously been a painful intimacy stands in stark contrast to the posturing and preening of Fletcher Christian’s alpha male, and his physical and emotional fulfilment is well-earned.
  That Christian is caricatured as a self-serving narcissist is this novel’s one real weakness, incidentally, particularly when he is compared to the multi-faceted Bligh; and while Boyne’s ambition to reverse the roles of hero and villain is laudable, it was unnecessary to bludgeon the point home with so blunt an instrument.
  That’s a minor caveat, however, and in truth the real conflict of MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY is not that of Bligh versus Christian, but Turnstile’s instinctive Christian responses to the repressive Christianity of the Empire’s establishment caste (Christ, where His name is invoked, is invariably referred to as ‘Saviour’). God-botherers and Bible-thumpers are given as short a shrift as those who denigrate their island hosts as ‘savages’ and loot their natural resources; Turnstile, the outcast, social pariah and former sex slave, naively and subversively and with no little humour preaches a sermon of equality, tolerance and respect for all, regardless of class, religion or race. It’s a relevant subtext for the contemporary reader, albeit one that’s bound up in a stirring tale of heroism and derring-do, and the result is a truly terrific novel. To paraphrase Robert Louis Stevenson on the publication of TREASURE ISLAND: “If this don’t fetch the kids, then they’ve gone rotten since I knew ’em.”

Master And Demander

MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY author John Boyne (right) rarely makes it easy for himself when blending crime tropes to his epic narratives: THE THIEF OF TIME concerns itself with a man who has stopped ageing, CRIPPEN is self-explanatory, while THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS plays out against the backdrop of the greatest crime of the 20th century. MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY (aka THE KING’S SHILLING) is due in May, with the blurb elves pontificating thusly:

December 23, 1787, Portsmouth: A 14-year-old boy, John Jacob Turnstile, has got into trouble with the police on one too many occasions and is on his way to prison when an offer is put to him – a ship has been refitted over the last few months and is about to set sail with an important mission. The boy who was expected to serve as the captain’s personal valet has been injured and a replacement must be found immediately. The deal is struck and he finds himself onboard, meeting the captain, just as the ship sets sail. The ship is HMS Bounty, the captain is William Bligh, and their destination is Tahiti. MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY is the first novel to explore all the events relating to the Bounty’s voyage, from their long journey across the ocean to their adventures on the island of Tahiti and the subsequent 48-day expedition towards Timor. A vivid recreation of the famous mutiny, the story is packed with humour, violence and historical detail, while presenting a very different portrait of Captain Bligh and Mr Christian than has ever been shown before.

A mouth-watering prospect, indeed – expect something akin to William Golding’s RITES OF PASSAGE, people. The big question to be resolved, of course, is who actually commits the most heinous crime: Bligh, Christian or the moron who decided to yank the coconut-flavoured Bounty bar off US shelves all those years ago?