Sweeping up

So, now that we have that dreaded catch-up question post out of the way, what else is new?

Well, there’s all the various scandals, storms and tempests that have been going on in the corners of blogland that I used to frequent, and occasionally lurk in. Here is a totally scientific and accurate statistical assessment.

1. 1,394 internet squabbles over who has the right to review books.

2. 2,587.6 arguments about the fairness of “mean” reviews, and whether the only criticism permitted should be constructive, helpful, and gently eased by the presence of fluffy chubby cupids and rainbow unicorns.

3. 982.92 monologues about why Bad Reviews Are Good For You and should be swallowed by authors, preferably whole and before breakfast, rather like castor oil.

4. 1,187.3 monologues about why Bad Reviews Are Not Your Business If You Are An Author. If Bad Reviews did not exist, tender, delicate and easily-led readers would otherwise fall for the seductive wiles of Harriet Klausner & co. These fiendish producers of uniformly sunshiny reviews have but one foul aim. They are trying to convince Poor Innocent Readers that Every Book in the World is Brilliant, Wonderful and Amazing.

This is of course, all part of a plot to ensure that Poor Innocent Readers lose significant chunks of their lives lurching from one ill-penned book to the next, constantly lured on by yet another review promising, “The greatest Secret Virgin Doctor Billionaire’s Sheikh’s Secretary’s Love Child in the Magically-Endowed Camper Van novel to ever exist, both now and in the hereafter.” The sunshiny review producers are doing this because

a) they lack critical faculties

b) they aren't actually reading the books they review

c) they are in it for the free books, even if they are crap

d) they are succumbing to the dominating cultural norms inculcated by the patriarchy that women must always be kind, sweet and nice and never say anything nasty to anyone.

e) they are a bit odd

f) all of the above

5. Some stuff that I mainly skimmed about why ebooks rule. See 2 posts below for the why of the skimming. Anyhow, death to paper. Death to paper publishers. Death to the old model of publishing. Oh, but it must be CHEAPER. Blabla long tail, blabla wisdom of crowds. And stuff.

6. A frustrating number of competitions, largely useless to me as I live outside shipping distances. That said, I tend to regard said competitions with a largely unbothered eye, since I don’t particularly worry if the book I’m reading carries the signature of the author (unless maybe the author is Eric Hobsbawm). The frustrating part is more the way the frenzied posts clutter up the more entertaining blogs.

7. Breath by breathless tweeting and live-blogging from assorted conferences and whatnot. Again, geography.

8. 35,843 arguments about what constitutes either acceptable romance, or acceptable tools of romance marketing. They kind of blur after a while, presumably due to shock value.

9. Some people who write blogs now have published, or will be publishing books (paper or otherwise). Good on them. More importantly, does this mean they are allowed to blog any more? Or only on certain posts? Discuss, or just pull it out as an ad hominem argument in the middle of any of the kerfuffles of your choice.

10. The thrills and excitement about a hot new YA author making the rounds and everyone writing about how they are so much MORE than just YA, and why YA is the bestest ever and we should not be ashamed to read YA because really it’s better than some of the other things that are published. It probably is, but I don’t see how this becomes a moral question.

11. Jean M. Auel has published a new Clan of the Cave Bear Book. Suppressing my suspicion that we have another Virginia Andrews on our hands, I am compelled to cry out with unmitigated prehistoric pleasure. Long Live Ayla, the Mother of All, the Creator of Everything, the Inventor of the Bra! She who will invent the internet and dining-table centerpieces of ochre-glazed pinecones! After she tames the dinosaurs and turns them into ostriches! Long Live Dongelar! Long Live his most significant asset! Long live the improbably-named cave lion, Baby!

12. Fan Fiction. Le Scandal. Le Kerfuffle. Le Distress. Les up-mixeds wacky relationships that ruin your reading of the original text forEVAH. Never more can I read the Big Book of Dinosaurs. I am forever plagued by the memory of that disturbing piece of fanfic involving the pachycephalosaurus and the procompsognathus. And the velociraptors. Oh the humanity.

The story of last month (mostly)

Look! Ebook
Look! Ebook
Ebook! look!

This nice e-book!
This nice e-book!
I cannot read
This nice e-book!

Do you like,
E-ink displays?

I do not like this,
Ebook haze!
I do not like
This ebook maze!

Would you like it
PDF?

I would not like it
PDF.
I’ve said this to you,
Are you deaf?
I do not like
This ebook maze
Although I like
E-ink displays.

You can buy A
or PM.
Would you like it
DRM?

I cannot shop A
And PM
I do not like this
DRM
I do not want it
PDF
I’ve said this to you
Are you deaf?
I do not like this ebook maze
Despite their nice e-ink displays.

Please download our
Free software.
A table here lets
You compare.

No free software.
No questionnaire.
A or P M
No DRM
I do not want it PDF
I said before, are you quite deaf?
I do not like this ebook maze
Despite their nice e-ink displays.

Would you? Could you?
On a MAC?
Encrypted files,
Ever hack?

I would not
Could not,
On a MAC.

You must find your
PID.
Then plug in the
USB.

I cannot find my USB!
Nor anywhere my PID!

I clicked the link for free software
But these devices cannot share.
Why can’t it read acsm?
Sod this bloody DRM.
I’ve lost all these old PDFs
Why did I change IP address?
I’m lost inside an ebook maze
Seduced by nice e-ink displays.

A Palm! A Palm!
A Palm! A Palm!
Could you, would you,
On a Palm?

Not on a Palm! I cannot see!
Not on a MAC! No! Not for me!

I downloaded the new firmware
No memory! None left to spare!
I like to read things now and then -
Reboot connection, yet again.
The plastic case does not impress -
I click and wait for its refresh.
I fear how fast my temper frays,
Sharp shocks can harm e-ink displays.

Hey!
In this shop!
Here in this shop!
Would you, could you, in this shop?

I would not, could not,
In this shop.

Would you, could you,
Amazon?

I can not, CAN not Amazon!
Geography bars tech’s new dawn.
Interest here may start to dwindle
In the distant light of Kindle.
Not in this state. Not with this card.
Two years to wait. Why is this hard?
E-hopes have turned to e-dismay
Dust forms on my e-ink display.

You do not like
This nice ebook?

I do not
Want this
Ebook pain.

Could you, would you
Join th’e-club?

I would not
Could not
Join your club.

Why not try out
With ePub?

I will not, still not, join th’e-club
I want to read books in the tub.
My favourite books I pass along
In ebook world, this would be wrong.
I’m geographically constrained
The books I want, I can’t obtain.
I do not want to tweak software
Converting files makes me despair.
I do not have a shiny MAC
Encrypted files, refuse to hack.
I do not like this ebook maze
No love left for e-ink displays.

I do not like
This strain.
Ebook.

I will no longer
Take a look.

You do not like them
So you say
Read here! Click there!
And you may.
Click here and you may, I say.

Look!
If you will let me be
Once more I’ll try
You will see.

…
…
…
Beep
…
…
Whirr
Whirr
…
…
Boop.
...
...
Grrreee-
-oop
…
…
Bing!

Hey!
The download worked. Take a look!
I’ve found and filed my first ebook!
And I can read it in my bed
And it can bookmark what I’ve read.

And I can read it on the train
And in the dark, but not the rain.
And I can buy, A or PM
Although I still hate DRM.

So I will read it in my flat
And I must stick to this format
And I must read on my PC
Until I find my PID
And I still hope one of these days
Won’t just admire e-ink displays

At last I've read
My nice e-book!
IT
Degree
I should’ve took.

(with apologies to Dr. Seuss)

Hunk mail

I found this letter while I was clearing out the recycling. Could have sworn I asked these guys to take me off their mailing list.

Dear Beautiful, Wonderful Ladies

Outside today the sun is shining, the flowers are blooming, and the birds are singing. It’s a beautiful day, and one that we treasure, just like we treasure all of you. We treasure your beautiful souls and your beautiful womanly natures, just like we know you treasure our souls and our beautiful manly natures.

This treasuring of each other is especially important in these difficult times. The world is experiencing a global economic crisis. Times are hard for everyone, even those gifted with natural panther-like grace and hard-edged masculine lines.

And because we are deep, and our hearts are as big as our manly chests (they would be bigger, probably, except that because of biology our hearts have to be inside our chests), we feel. We feel with every sinewy fibre of our beings the feelings of others. This is called empathy, and it’s a beautiful, wonderful gift because it means we share your joys, we share your laughter, and we share your beautiful sparkling tears.

But this gift, like the six-foot bejewelled sword that Loynz wields as he strides manfully through the lush grass, has two edges. It can cut us, and when it does, we bleed.

We feel so deeply the deep pain and anguish of anyone who is not blessed with the personal resources we are blessed with. We are choked with unspoken, yet deeply-felt, emotion when we hear of beautiful, wonderful ladies forced to downgrade their habitual choice of personal grooming aids. We clench our fists with barely concealed rage at the thought that out there, there are ladies, some already sadly cursed with a taste for ill-fitting leisurewear, who must compromise themselves (but never their shining integrity) in order to finance their dry-cleaning bills.

Remember, dear beautiful wonderful ladies, WE CARE.

One of the deepest griefs we feel is that there are so few of us, and so very many of you. If we could, we would reach out and personally help every single one of you at this difficult time. But to do this, we would have to be many more than we are now. And that would make us less unique and special, which would mean that somehow, the magic would be gone. And that would be a great tragedy, because as Abz said only the other day, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love,” and our love is the greatest gift we can give to the world.

But it’s so hard for us because we know how much you need us at this difficult time. And because we love you all, and want to show you our love, we have decided to help by sharing with you knowledge from the immense store of wisdom we have learned over the years. Wisdom that will help you to weather the storms of life. And this way, with every step you take in this magical journey called life, you will think of us, and how much we love you, and this will make your life better, too, in strange and beautiful ways.

To begin our journey of knowledge, it seemed right, at this difficult time, to share with you some of the secret wisdom that we have learned over the years spent as millionaires, billionaires, magnates, tycoons and otherwise extremely wealthy individuals.

1. Acquiring start-up capital is difficult. A good option is to force your irresponsible (step)mother with the gambling problem that led to your current financial predicament to donate the jewels that she acquired in an ill-advised affaire with a French marquis.

2. When these turn out to be fake, acquire a run-down gambling hell in a high stakes card game and turn it into a fashionable venue by playing on its (and your) seedy reputation.

3. Alternatively you may choose to find your fortune in India or another exotic locale. Once acquired, it is acceptable to refrain from any mention of the exploitation of the local population as the basis of your wealth. “Trade” is nicely vague.

4. If you are a vampire, the fine print of your contract with the Lords of Hell contains a clause that requires you to open a Goth-themed nightclub or casino.

5. Do not worry. Your innate sense of style will ensure that it never becomes tacky or unfashionable. Black is always in.

6. It is also worthwhile spending some time trying to understand compound interest. But not all your time. Accountancy is not for those staring down the barrel of immortality.

7. Do not worry too much about reading books on management theory. Not only do they lack attractive covers, but they will have no bearing on your success. “Lean” is only ever relevant if it is associated with the words “whipcord” and refers to your physique.

8. Do not worry about a slightly shady background if it gives you an air of ruthlessness and danger. By now, however, you should be rich enough to refrain from stealing toilet rolls from motorway service stations unless it serves a higher justice.

9. Accents are sexy. And an excellent way to avoid awkward explanations.

10. All of this advice relates to heroes only. But it should help you dear beautiful ladies in your quest to find your own hero. It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that a single woman in possession of a good fortune and a high-powered job must be concealing her desperate longing for babies and an alpha male beneath either her icy or adorably ditsy exterior and the excessive consumption of dessert. Check out the way her eyes shine with unshed tears at "baby panda bear" screensavers if you don't believe us.

Until next time, dear ladies, we send you all of our deepest, sincerest love…

It’s like buses. Part 1: The bit about the book.

Nothing for aaaaages, and then four come along at once.

(A brief explanation: This was originally intended to be a single post, but rapidly veered into frighteningly long territory. So I’ve separated it into chunks, which hopefully make sense on their own, but are all part of a beautiful whole. For one thing, it gives me four posts out of one, and consequently a warm glow of satisfaction. Btw, I’m posting in reverse order so that it’s easier to read them in sequence, which is why they’re all appearing at once. Who knows? If this works, maybe next time, I’ll post sentence by sentence…)

So onto the book I just finished: Paul Lawrence’s The Sweet Smell of Decay, a whodunit set in Restoration London. Which does what it says on the tin. If the title doesn’t give enough of a hint, the first paragraph pretty much nails it for the casual browser.

"As I gazed upon her face a small black beetle emerged from the ruins of her right eye. It stood uncertainly upon the crest of her cheekbone as if suddenly reluctant to step out further. Though I looked upon the beetle as if it was something unutterably revolting – still I felt like we two had something in common. The butcher reached over, picked it up gently between his thumb and stubby forefinger then crushed it. I could hardly protest. He wiped its remains upon his shirt.”

In short, not for the squeamish. I could go on about imagery and metaphor, the plot and machinations uncovered by the narrator, but I don’t really feel like dissecting the book like this. For one thing, I don’t know if it’s robust enough to take it. Suffice it to say that the book doth wallow in the muckety muckmuck mire. Mud splashes, corpses are disinterred, people are killed horribly and putrefy even more horribly, rats eat unmentionably horrible things chopped off people, and everything rots.

Kind of reminiscent of Perfume. Although the latter is a much better book. But this one’s not bad – my biggest issue is that the human characters are a bit thin or self-consciously weird, (aka. “wyrd”) crude or twisted. The most well-rounded character, if you will, is the squalor.

ETA: sorry, blockquote went really screwy...

It's like buses. Part 2: Add another book...

...and then some more books

The Sweet Smell of Decay’s unbridled revelling in the sheer ickiness of 17th century life is interesting for me, since it makes two connections with other recent reading. Connection the first: innumerable romance-novels-with-history-scrubuffed-trimmed-and-in-possession-of-their-very-own-olde-worlde-hande-sanityzer-bretthe-ffreshyner-and-rustick-yet-effectivve-plumbingge.

And connection the second: Clean: An Unsanitised History of Washing, by Katherine Ashenburg*, which I read a couple of months ago, and which also does what it says on the tin, and very entertainingly too.

There is a certain rather pungent side-branch of historical novels which takes the question, “But weren’t they quite dirty in those days?” and runs with it - mainly literature and crime/thrillers, probably because the theme provides a wealth of atmospheric tropes that suit these genres’ darker world-views.

By contrast, my experience of the majority of (modern) romantic fiction is that this particular seam of seaminess** is not one that is well-mined. There are generally three possible takes on the thorny issue of historical hygiene in romance novels.

Take the first:
The “If I don’t mention it, it’s because no one would have noticed it at the time” line that allows both writer and reader to gloss over all manner of historical sordidness.

Take the next:
It’s dirty, but over there, in that squalid tavern/dark alley/dockside slum where the heroine ventures (possibly disguised as a boy, possibly as a tavern wench, possibly as both in certain sub-sub-genres) to:
a) Track down the MacGuffin.
b) Create a Big Misunderstanding.
c) Stage a rescue (her own or some other worthy victim’s, possibly leading to b).
d) Kick off a subtly saucy scene intended to either 1) set the sensual suspense between h/h on simmer with a bit of playful badinage and body contact in low-cut and/or snug-fitting tops, or 2) lead to everyone all ending up back at the (remarkably clean) pirate’s lair for a spot of hide the yardarm in the yo-ho-ho. It all depends on what chapter and who’s publishing.
e) All of the above. Sometimes behaviour in Romanceland can be remarkably confusing.

Take the last:
The “If it’s a fantasy, I don’t want to be put off by my vague recall about all that authentick historical dirt and once-upon-an-icky-time stuff,” line. This usually leads to some convoluted explanation of why the heroine is defiantly battling the odds and surly retainers to have her daily hot bath, shave her legs, and squirt the rim of her chamberpot with bleach made from special herbs. Usually she’s a healer.

*A sidenote for anyone who enjoys those "divided by a common language" stories. In the News section of her website, Ashenburg notes that "'Clean', as 'The Dirt on Clean' is called in Britain, has just been released in paperback with a charming new cover of a flapper drying her fanny." *koff.*

Must confess that after reading this, I had to double-check the cover of my own copy, in case I'd missed something rather startling. If you're not aware of this particular bit of lexical divergence, let's just say that in my dialect of English, the word "fanny"*** is used (especially by children, or with a sort of childish undertone) to refer to a part of the body slightly further forward than the one Ashenburg means...

**apologies – couldn’t resist it

***cannot believe I've just written this word twice in a single post. I feel about 3 years old. teehee.

It's like buses. Part 3: A pondery bit...

...with some context, a list of books and a MEGA largely irrelevent, but quite interesting footnote

The thing is, I’m perpetually intrigued by what is justified in historical romance novels on the grounds of historical “authenticity” (eg. rape, abuse, swordsticks, Fabio in a Viking helmet) and what is extracted on grounds that it would put off the sensitive reader (eg. slavery, blatant racism, poor oral health, body hair). It’s not the removal of all ick. It’s selective historical sanitisation – and it’s not only in ye olde Romancelande that this takes place.

This isn’t a cry for more historical accuracy on the hygiene front in romance novels either. The way that grime can be fetishised in other genres is something I think is equally worth digging into. It’s another side of the phenomenon. But there’s not enough room to go into that here, and I wanted to write about this topic in relation to romance novels in particular.

It’s a truism that historical novels (or indeed almost any writing) reflect more about the time of writing than the time being written about. So in my view, claims of “historical authenticity” (or claims of a lack thereof) are often more of a figleaf than a valid line of argument. I’d argue that it’s more a question of, “Yes, this did or didn’t happen then, but I want to think about why this is included, but not that, and what does it say about us/our society now?”

Ashenburg discusses the modern obsession with hygiene: the way we erase all traces of our own bodily odour and try to smell “like an exotic fruit…or a cookie” (p.8) instead. She links this to a “confluence of reasons” (p.201) including: distrust of our bodies and the need to control them (p.283); the modern concern for privacy (p.282); and the connection of hygiene with morality** (p.190), civility and advancement (p.201).

(Just a bit more on theoretical background – can be skipped. In the context of historical novels, I'm also intrigued by some of the ideas brought up in studies of the relationship between colonialism and hygiene. There are quite a few recent books on this – the one that introduced me to the topic is Kristin Ross’ Fast Cars, Clean Bodies, but since it was published I’ve also come across a few others: Bashford’s Imperial Hygiene, Jennings’ Curing the Colonizers, and Anderson’s, Colonial Pathologies.)

The inherently optimistic outlook of modern romantic fiction (I'd say that most readers insist that a happy ending is a fundamental requirement of any book in this genre) means that they are often tagged as fantasies, which can be either a pejorative or a positive label depending on the position of the labeller. As fantasies, they are separated from real life and can therefore discard aspects of “real life” as required to meet the needs of the fantasy.

That said, I think this distance from reality is a mark of all writing. Writing is in part a selective process – a writer chooses to dispense with, include or exaggerate aspects of reality. Writing guides the reader’s imagination along a particular path, and to be most effective when dealing with the messiness of reality, it filters things out, just as our perception filters out much of the world around us so that our brains don’t explode. But I don't think it's just the writer in isolation doing all the choosing, all the time, either.

**Ashenburg also argues that one of the reasons for the odoriferousness that permeates European history was that in contrast to the Jewish and Muslim faiths, where sanitary laws are part of doctrine, the Christian faith has no such teaching (p.49-55).

So for medieval Christians, dirtiness was often seen as next to godliness since it meant that the dirty individual was a) above such trivial earthly matters as soap and water and prepared to suffer lice, itchiness and scabs for good of his or her immortal soul (p.58-63), and b) clearly not Jewish or Muslim (p.54, 69-72), whose sanitary laws were viewed with deep suspicion by the majority of medieval Christians (p.71-2, 103, 111).

This was also why the Inquisition took an interest in the bathing habits of any individual unfortunate enough to attract their attention. And yes, being “known to bathe” was enough to damn a person in their eyes. (p.111)

It's like buses. Part 4: A bit more pondering...

...but unfortunately, not very much concluding.

So I guess the question of hygiene in historical romance seems to come down to this messy intersection between a) empathy with the hero and heroine (h/h) which is usually seen as grounded in some level of identification with the characters, b) the conflict between the way that we view the past either in evolutionary terms or as a mirror, and c) the big pay-off of romance: the HEA. And the area of debate centres on the question of personal happiness.

After all, how can h/h be happy if they live in what seems like uncomfortable, unsanitary conditions? The argument goes: a modern reader (this means me) would find it harder to empathise, because they personally wouldn’t be comfortable in these conditions. And readers have to believe the HEA, or the satisfaction they get from the book is diminished.

So the h/h must face a clean and hygienic future for the HEA to be believed because:

• Cleanliness = healthiness. Readers need to believe that h/h won’t be struck down by cholera or galloping typhus immediately after the book finishes, or the HEA doesn't pack enough punch.

• Cleanliness = morality. H/H are good people. Disease, dirt and bad breath only happens to deserving villains or ex-partners (possibly tragically if its backstory, possibly because they are villains).

• Cleanliness = civility, and in the modern world, personal cleanliness is a mark of personal status. These days, instead of finding more expensive ways to smell awful (Ashenburg’s book has some great stuff about this, btw), rich, cultured people don’t smell of anything unless they choose to.

• Cleanliness = wealth. Wealthy, or even well-to-do people can afford to be clean, and wealth itself, while not guaranteeing happiness, probably helps – at least in the mind.

• Cleanliness = comfort. Dirt isn’t glamorous, it’s itchy.

• Cleanliness = neutral. Dirt is a distraction – if it’s mentioned, people think about it, so it distracts from the story unless it’s part of it.

And I could just leave it at that, and go away whistling songs from South Pacific except it doesn’t really deal with one question, and one thorny issue. The question is simply this: how do I know unless I've tried it? After all, I can accept all manner of grubbiness in other genres, so why not romance? And wouldn't a reaaally good writer be able to make it work?

The thorny issue is more worrying to me, though, and it seems to take me right back to my starting point. Although historical dirt only shows up in ye olde Romancelande in controlled conditions, if at all; all manner of other historickiness* is either selectively included in, or selectively removed from the landscape. And what does this say about readers/perceptions of readers? But this is probably a post (or six) for another day.

*thanks (probably should be apologies) to Stephen Colbert for the inspiration.

ETA: Hey, cool. I forgot I could do bullets.

SpiegelimspiegellegeipsmilegeipS

Might be better to pretend that I published this about two days ago - it will be easier all round, and make me appear organised and consistent. Ahem

The Athenian Murders - Jose Carlos Somoza

I find it hard to believe that I have never unleashed the chains on my abiding and unspeakable desire for this book here before. But that's what the mighty power of the search engine shows. Shock. Horror. Smothered yawn. Be afraid. However, I re-read it recently, which makes it count in this mini festival of bookstravaganzic delights, allowing it (the mini-fest, that is) to live another day.

But enough of this introductory flimflam, I hear my inner monkey editor cry, speak more of this unspeakable love. For yes, this book contains innumerable shades of the love that dare not speak its name. Inter-textual love. Academic twistiness and japery of the driest kind. Philosophical shadow puppetry. Flagrant abuse of literary meta-jiggery. Tricksiness a go-go. I love it all with the unholy passion of a thousand geeky monkeys. The ones that are otherwise busily making rude shadow animals, sun-bathing and short-sheeting the Platonic bed.

For verily, these are Ancient Greeks of whom I write, or rather of whom the author writes and from whom I steal jokes. Smart koulourakia to a man, right down to their dusty ankles (except the one in the bath).

Well, actually, it is more that these are Ancient Greeks upon whom the author uses the character of the Translator to write or comment. Or their ideas. Except these might be copies of the original copy of the ideal first idea. And anyhow, what about those lions? See what I mean? This is book which defies anyone, least of all a lowly blogger armed only with the dubious merits of the English relative clause to shove its translated-from-the-original-Spanish-self into a halfway decent summary. It's a tricksy book about Ideas, lightly glazed with a few corpses, a sinister subplot (or is it?) and finished off with an anti-sleuth. I think the Salon article explained it best, and the Guardian review is more entertaining, which leaves me to only do my worst.

Basically it features:
Death
Murder
Poison
Bodies
Wolves (or lions)
Greeks (ancient)
Academics (ancient and modern)
Philosophy (mostly Greek and ancient)
Ideas-with-a-big-I. Bigger I. No, a really big I.
Texts. (not the SMS kind)
Budding insanity
Reality. (Jim)
Footnotes. Le sigh. Les bambi eyes. Le sigh.

A quick scan of the Amazon and Salon reviews, which are proper reviews with plot synopses and everything a prospective reader could desire, indicates that this book is of the love-it-or-hate-it Marmite type. I'd agree, although I'd add to my review overview that despite the inclusion of footnotes and such it's closer to Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next (not Nursery Crimes) books than Terry Pratchett, but not at all as cheerfully bonkers and far more menacing and introverted. Thursday Next's rather disturbing great-uncle professor who lost tenure under the darkest of clouds as written by Borges (he comes back later), perhaps.

A scan of the the reviews of the "urrggh, Marmite, blech"-type shows that this isn't the book for readers who just can't abide Umberto Eco and writers of his ilk. But I think that if it's just Eco's prose style that puts you off, rather than his content, it's worth looking at this book, purely on the grounds that Eco can leave the unwary reader feeling trapped in the coils of his rococco prose. Somoza's style (and oh, how I long to write Samosa's style) is less elaborated than Eco's and more lucid. The disorientating, clever twistiness remains, but I didn't feel as if I were also being showered with the shredded contents of a gilded thesaurus by a million pudgy putti.

The other thing to add to the review overview is that I wouldn't read this book looking for the next historical whodunnit à la grecque. Thither lies disappointment. There's a murder, but that's not really the whole point, and the ending isn't exactly Christie.

On the other hand if deep-down, you secretly rather enjoy following digs and snide asides as academics wrangle over obscure points and interpretations via cross-references and footnotes, even though you know this means you are turning into your father (hairy ears and all) you will probably enjoy this. Besides, it's a book about books, playing with other books.* If you like it when an author constantly pulls the rug out from under your feet, even if it's technically cheating (or at least, making up the rules as he goes along) read on.

For me, the best part of the book is sitting back, relaxing and letting the the author, or narrator, or translator or whoever mess with my mind. He or she or it or whoever might make things up. He might even take the piss a few times. But even though I've read it a few times now, this book invariably leaves me with the oddest combination of two very distinct, and yet long-winded feelings:

1.I get the buzz that normally happens when the stars align and somehow I'm able to work out a series of clues for a cryptic crossword.
2.But at the same time, it leaves me genuinely unsettled. Not in the the "AAa! Whatwasthatnoise? AAAaa!" way, though. Instead, it's in the "But what if I go to sleep and it turns out that this life is really something/one dreaming and then who/whatever is dreaming wakes up while I'm asleep and what happens then????aaaahhhh!!! No wait! What about what we see in the mirrors!!! aaah!!!!" kind of way.

Best to put it like this - it's one of the few books that actually made me think it might be a good idea to read some more Borges. One of these days. As long as there's enough coffee.

*Except they didn't really have books in those days. Or novels, as Salon points out. Probably they didn't have philosopher-detectives too, but at least there were libraries and monkeys. There were no monk-how do you know? you were too busy contemplating the exercise non-outfits of those ancient greek athletes. I WAS NO-- And anyhow, My mind was SO COMPLETELY on higher thin- do you know what people think when you stick a footnote like this at the end of this kind of review? Especially one where you name-drop Borges, TWICE. I'll tell you what they think. They think, "What a pretentious tw--"

Bishbashbosh

…aka brief impressionist sketches of some recent (in the last year) book encounters. Still not reviewing them properly, I might add, and will likely be annoyingly nonspecific or focus on minutiae to the exclusion of all else.

The Privilege of the Sword - Ellen Kushner

I almost don't want to write anything about this book and why I love it with the unholy passion of thousand raging monkeys. Partly because I'd never heard of the writer or the book, and picked it up at random, unhyped, undusted and lonely off a "recent releases" bookshelf in a sci-fi/fantasy bookstore. Then I forgot about it completely for 6 months. So I started it with no expectations.

The course of true love went something along these lines: p.1, "ehh?" p.2, "er… not…so...su..." p.3 "re?...about thisoneohmygodmustkeepreadingohwowohwowAndAMadDuke!ooohwowohwowiloovveeyooouuboookyoulovelyboookdon'tennddmustn'tfinishnevereverenddddoohnnooopleeeaaassse! Swoon."

In other (real) words, it's the sort of YA fantasy novel that gets it somehow perfect. Perfect in that impossible, magical way that adult books simply cannot manage. I just want to hug it to myself and read it over and over. Talking might spoil it. The thought of breaking up the magic into digestible chunks of detail and peeling away at plot and character analysis makes me want to cry. That's how my Grade 5 English teacher killed My Family and Other Animals.

So I don't want to hype or vaunt or trumpet the praises of this book at all. I just want to leave it lying battered and well-loved in the corner of a bookcase at a friend's house so that you can pick it up at random on a rainy day. So that you can curl up with it in a warm, quiet corner at the top of the house. So that your flannel-clad and fuzzy-socked self can look out the window and see the rain-washed day outside when the world taking shape in your head becomes too bright to bear. So that you end up eating all the stale nuts and the squashed half-packet of digestives that were left out from yesterday's tea because absolutely the last thing you want to do is stop reading, get up, prepare and eat a proper meal. So that you can fall in love, too.

If you want to know what it's really about, there are proper reviews to read at Amazon, and also chez ames. As for me, I've managed to track down and acquire two other books by the same author. The only problem is that I can't yet bring myself to read them because I'm so worried that they won't have the same effect as this one.

Oooohhhh, ye'll take the high road...

Warning: This post is also going to be another one of those definitely-not-a-book-review-picky-harridan-spouting-bad-puns rants. Not a review, 'cos then I'd be adding my 2p/80 hellers to Amazon instead, and talking about characterisation and plot and whatnot, but 42 others have done this, with the average rating coming out pretty… average. Which would be my opinion, except for, well, what follows. Bear (hurhur) with me.

There's an episode in one of the Paddington Bear books (and I googled until I was getting very red-faced from some of the sites that did appear, but couldn't find the name) where the marmalade-munching bundle of good-yet-furry intentions goes to Scotland Yard to report a crime. Confusion, mishaps and hard stares ensue, followed by a swift resolution and a warming mug of hot cocoa. Awww...

But there's a clue to my dismay at my latest commute book here, because Paddington Bear lives with the Greens at 32 Windsor Gardens. This is located in Notting Hill. That would be Notting Hill, London, England. Like the film and the carnival. It's quite posh, actually. But the key point? Is the "England" bit. Note how it's not "Scotland". Scotland is a long way on paws (although not as far as Peru).

But of course, Paddington is anthropomorphosized bear, so perhaps we shouldn't rely on his sense of orientation. After all, who knows what kind of funny practices he might have picked up in Darkest Peru? That supra-cranial stash marmalade sandwiches is definitely suspicious.

So take the case of the most famous dope-addled detective of them all, Sherlock Holmes, who famously puffed on his pipe at 221b Baker Street. Again, in London, England. Where he would periodically show up his rival in detecting, Inspector Lestrade, who worked for Scotland Yard. Presumably also in London unless he had a very fast horse.

But shockingly (perhaps it's a cunning ruse to lull local criminal masterminds into a false sense of security by convincing them that the police have moved and are busy looking for nefarious deeds elsewhere) the Metropolitan Police Force, who police Greater London, have an HQ called, "New Scotland Yard". In England. Not Scotland. There's a big triangular sign in front that goes round and round and round and round... I've gone past it on the bus (yes, a red double-decker one).

Or perhaps it's just that 180 years ago, the public entrance of the police HQ was in Great Scotland Yard, and London being London, the name stuck, even after it moved few times (but only within London). What this says about Londoners, I'm not sure. It's probably not flattering. At least they stuck the "New" on at the beginning. Anyhow, keeping the name wasn't so much about foiling dastardly villains, but dastardly villainous filing. (oh help)

So if, say, a writer of contemporary romantic suspense were to feature a psychotic serial killer going on a mad rampage through the modern-day Highlands, I'm pretty damn sure that the local laird (uuurrgggh) wouldn't be calling for and/or dodging the attention of Inspector MacTypecast from Scotland Yard. There's that whole 12-plus hours journey on a very dull motorway with nothing but boiled sweets and local radio for sustenance for one.

Instead, Laird MacTitebreeks o' Leathern (uuuurrggh) would be enjoying a visit by representatives of the Northern Constabulary CID. Probably a whole bunch of them with forensic investigators and everything. Maybe a task force in fluorescent vests. Maybe even a secret subdivision of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency staffed by a brotherhood of vampires. Ian Rankin probably knows best.

Someone, somewhere is very glad I dumped that business about UK police ranks and how they're referred to in the vernacular.

Have now reached chapter 13

In the below?

I was wrong. First of all, I've worked out that it's not a book. It's a character spec and storyboard for an RPG.

Secondly, my comparison with Boney M was a terrible injustice to one of the most notable jangly-pop-reggae collectives of the last century. They rhymed better, and had fewer annoying hobbies.

Finally, in a last-ditch attempt to lift the cloud of vwamphyrric gloom that was yesterday's post, and in the interests of fairness, some points of sweetness and light.:
1.The words are generally spelled correctly.
2.None of the character's names or hair colours (apart from a certain vagueness about the eyes) have changed midstream. I am very clear on the details of their physique. Man, big. Lady, small. Got it.
3.Same for the horses. Except there aren't any yet (werelynx, yes. horses, no) which is probably a relief.

Dilemma

Once again, I have fallen for the Kyrse of the Vwampyr (mwhahaha)™. Alas, all down to Robin McKinley's Sunshine, which I finally got around to reading. Hooray! A book that lived up to the hype that I have been oh-so-studiously avoiding. For once, the Buffy comparison was not unwarranted. It filled me with yeasty confidence in the possibility of other interesting-yet-unlikely-sounding books from the sub-genre in question.

Oh how wrong I was.

How wrong.

How very very very wrong.

Dufdufdufdufdufduf. Duf.

Mr. Lestat and J-C, (famed artistic creations of the vwamphyrrically bonkers kind, somewhat long-in-the-tooth, but that's muses for you) have a hell of a lot to answer for. Oh those… Carpathians, to paraphrase Boney M.

In fact, this latest book (for want of a better word, I mean, there are pages and a cover and actual printed words and such) reads to me like a Boney M version of "The Funky History of Drakula with lots of Russky-type-boinking and guns", sometimes set in Romania. Only with Italian subtitles. Featuring a nubile chorus of Egyptian gods wearing sparkly eyeliner and a ghostly, well let's call it a "tambourine", although that would be the wrong shape.

The only problem with that comparison is that I don't think Boney M took themselves quite as seriously as this book (or its heroine) does. No campy fun for us in our flowing pantaloons, oh no.

Still, there is hope. I'm only on chapter 7 (pages are turning quite slowly) and it's entirely possible that the heroine may smack her head against a convenient low-hanging tree branch, get amnesia and forget all the info she must dump along the way. Not sure what to do about every other character's single-minded determination to adore and worship every single fibre of her being, though.

Inadequately-researched digression into Romanian taste in popular music.

It was the chorus of happy Romanian peasants singing Peter, Paul and Mary songs in the pub, accompanied by the heroine on the guitar that pushed me to my current underpants-on-the-head level of despair and befuddlement. Actually, I asked the Romanians in the other office how they felt about Peter, Paul and Mary, or possibly, Petru, Pawel and Maria songs. But apparently, they like Shakira better. Hips don't lie.

End digression.

Since I'm now adament that I will finish this bloody book, I can only hope that there may be a cunning twist in the tail. Perhaps the heroine will whip out (maybe skip the whipping, though, because my imagination has enough to cope with, thankyouverymuch) the trusty, "main-character-as-evil-machinator" plot device (thank you, Dame Aggie).

She can then reveal that the entire preceding storyline is the result of a nefarious plot on her part to lobotomise every character with whom she comes into contact, turning them into brainless lumps of hunky man-jelly, who will be hers… (assume Truman Capote voice here) hers... to toy with... (a loony hand-washing gesture would not go amiss at this point).

Sigh.

Anyone else notice the dearth of decent female secondary characters when a heroine like this flounces, bitches and sweats perspires ahem, glows, her way across a few hundred pages of print?

Ddduf.

In which things take a sinister turn… (including Blogger's inexplicable refusal to let me add a title. Which would be - if I could add it - Part Secundex)

Reader, I bought the book. Gripped by a fatal combination of nostalgia and pity, I shelled out 40 (£1/US $2) crowns for the x-actoed x-Lindsey. I couldn't help but think that almost any prospective buyer flicking through the mangled pages would have likely immediately returned it to the shelf. And then? Landfill.

Having bought it, it seemed only fair (and economical) to take it for a trip down memory lane. Which was when I discovered the full horror of the situation. Not the "of its time thing, either", although yes, I blush. (See below for details).

Anyhow, all that neatly excised early-80s "preliminaries-to-the-dance-as-old-as-time" malarkey? All those heaving, swelling metaphors sliced off and scattered to the (wild) wind? All those prurient gazes forever poked out with a big stick? All gone? Not ezackly. The unseen wielder of the blade missed a bit.

Quite a big bit actually. In fact something like 3 and a bit pages. And then another 2 page chunk. There are probably another few lurking to stumble up the unwary (somehow, nostalgia could only take me so far). The only difference between these scenes and the expurgated ones before and after were that the intact ones involved the heroine and her (eventual) wun twue wuv. Not the heroine and the villain most eeeeevillle. Or the heroine and admirers A, B or C. That's a Boolean "OR" by the way. It's not that kind of book.

But, yeah. Heroine, hewo and surprised-while-bathing-in-the-stream-leading-to-the-obvious scene? Well, that's okay, it appears.

Whaaaaaaat???

Yep. It seems the mad axe editor had more nuanced views than I expected. It's not so much a blanket ban on smut, as a crocheted (matrimonial?) shawl. With some FLIPPING BIG HOLES in it. For the unseen hands that wielded the x-acto knife, it ain’t what you do, it’s who you do it with.

I repeat. Whaaaaattt???

And let me just point out for the record, that in certain cases, only a few words were chopped out. As in:

The first time she met him, even while he was demanding payment on the note he had won from her father, rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb Jessie’s body. ("Him" = unwashed mass of filthy-minded eeeeviiilllle villain. Jessie is the feisty rancher-girl heroine with a nice line in frocks. Hairoine too, looking at the cover. But seriously, how offensive can a master of eeeevilll be in roughly half a line? In her father's presence? When she has all that hair?)

Or: …Rodrigo, (not the hairo, as discerning readers will immediately realise on account of - Look! Cowboyspeak! - the slightly deflated nature of his mullete d'amor. Except I think Rodrigo's hair preceded his entry. Sorry.)

Rodrigo, standing at the window overlooking the courtyard, turned and saw her (or hair). The (dunno, but context dictates that it be about four words of window-based dodginess. Even in Amsterdam this takes longer. Maybe the pelmets cast shadows that looked like amusingly-shaped root vegetables on the hacienda floor.) but there was only one light, across the room, and it was impossible to see inside the curtains. (Wow. Impossible to see. As if he were night blind. That's almost as if he were actually blind. BLIND, I tell you. And EVERYone knows what makes people go BLIND. Cataracts.)

Or the missing 2 1/2 words (the first starts with "o", but it's a tricky one) and then second line when Jessie is chit-chatting to a wandering brave (not in the wild wind, it would seem, given the rather dull and stationary nature of their hair) who approaches her starlit campsite.:

"No o(oohhh? oooouuu? oowwwwu? oooobuggerit) the Cheyenne tongue?"
(Do NOT think that. Jessie is pure. She is good. She is innocent. She is...err...)
”I am Looks Like Woman, friend of the Cheyenne. I have a fire to share and food…”
(She is dumb. Sigh.)

And yes, I blush.

Would you? Could you?

I am somewhat perturbed…

Possibly even disturbed. Nay, even distrubed. And distroubled too. All of them. Because some unknown person, possibly not a million miles away from me may be all of this and more. Some individual who not inconceivably shares this city with me, who tromps over the same cobbles, rides in the same trams and patronises the same bookshops as me is a mutilater of book(s).

Last weekend I discovered a second-hand Johanna Lindsay novel with a full smutectomy. A surgical boob-removal of the printed kind.

Ladies (and gentlefolk who haven't turned away at the signs of an impending girlie froufrou rant) I am speaking of Brave the Wild Wind here. By Johanna Lindsay. Published in 1984. I read this book when I was fourteen. I may have ended up with some slightly peculiar ideas about ranching in late 19th century Wyoming, but I was not scarred for life. I knew breasts existed by then, even if they were but a distant dream. Heaving or not, they didn't do much sullying that I noticed. I still offer my seat to old people and pregnant women in crowded buses. I floss and eat a fibre-rich diet.

But the copy of this book that I picked up over the weekend to flick through in a wavelet of aqua-and-tangerine-tinged nostalgia has been altered by nameless hands. A knife has been used to carefully cut out lines of thund'rous passion. Or even just the odd thund'rously passionate word or two on certain pages.

Now these days, I might take issue with some aspects of the book that didn't particularly bother me when I first unearthed it in the stacks of a local library many, many moons ago. Lets just say it's "of its time". And in certain ways this actually makes it kind of interesting to revisit 20-odd years later.

But as for the slice and dice operation? A couple of possibilities occur to me.

1. Censorship (boo!hiss!). I can't imagine someone making lace from lasciviousness like this for their own personal reading pleasure. It makes the pages too hard to turn. It is far, far easier to just skim over the bothersome parts or even grab a handy marker pen if motes offend the eye to the point of blurred vision. At least this has the advantage of leaving the non-trashy, possibly plot-related passages on the reverse side intact.

I can't help but think that if gaps are the aim of the exercise, then this level of effort to excise squidgy bits from reading material indicates the determination to Make A Point. Look! Look at the gaps! Look at the emptiness where once was badness! Gentle readers, see how you too can save your fragile minds from this pollution! Seize your x-acto knives and free yourselves from the chains of overly-wrought passion!

So this leaves me with at least one possible alternative.

2. You know those notes created by cutting words out of printed material favoured by many old-skool whodunnits? After enough coffee I can imagine at least a few occasions when life in Prahahaha would require that someone communicate anonymously and yet amateurishly the need to press mounds, skim curves, and pebble all manner of things. It's that kinda place. Sticky glue, print-stained fingers and all.

But I do worry about what they did to the mule.

Some like it...

Prague is still here, but it is hot, thundery and I am using a Czech keyboard which frustrates me far too much to type for very long.

For one thing, I cannot find the apostrophe key and hunting for it using combinations of Alt+letter has only produced a string of Polish letters and made me post this unfinished by accident. Three times. Besides, the novelty of typing đ, Ł, ř, ý ś & co. rapidly wears thin, to saz nothing of the annozance caused bz the waz that the "y" and "z" kezs are swapped around.

To fill in a very necessary gap which would otherwise be postless, here is a list of reasons why I picked up and bought or cruelly spurned certain books in a recent fleeting visit to Charing Cross Rd. It is of course absolutely nothing like a list I did a while back which may at first glance bear a striking resemblance to this list. It's a different bookstore. They are different books. In the interest of discretion, some of these are lies. And of course it's written on a Czech keyboard. Aka a Cyech kezboard. Backwards.

1. Back blurb refers to "magick". I have an unreasonable prejudice against this sort of spelling. It gives me hives.

2. Front blurb states perkily, "Fans of Laurell K. Hamilton and Jim Butcher will enjoy this fascinating tale..." I am conflicted, but eventually the other bit of blurb which mentions "biting wit" persuades me to take the glass half-full approach. I decide that the reviewer in question has probably not read an LKH book since Circus of the Damned.

(Upon reflection, a small quaking part of my mind now wonders whether the reviewer perhaps saw the more recent LKH efforts as mining an ironic vein of hitherto unsuspected profundity. And that "biting" pun? On a book with a vampire in it? That scares me witless.)

3. Front blurb states proto-perkily, "I adored this wonderful book! - Connie Mason." Eeek.

4. Hardcover copy of All Together Dead. Half-price because some of the pages are a bit damaged. I'm not picky. Woohoo!

5. Blurb states, "Fans of..." This means that the reviewer hated the book, and is desperately seeking a sub-genre to despise. (see 2)

6. No reviews, but 4 pages of extracts from gushing fans' letters. The more generous view might be that a cult is forming. I look terrible in robes.

7. Author was tragically eaten by crocodiles while researching/writing this book. It has been pieced together from bits of paper found in the dissected animals' digestive tracts. I wish.

8. How does author X find time to review all these books by authors A - Z? Ambivalence about author X teeters a bit more towards the maybe.

9. Cover. Aaak. Nobly, I rise above this, because the writer? She is da bomb.

10. Tom Waits.

I just called to say...

I haven't capsized and bumped my head on a rock while escaping from a team of crazed mad-axe murderers in a canoe, and then washed up in my artistically-dripping state and fetchingly-bedraggled (maybe some discreet skin showing) state on some exotic shore.

Nor has my charmingly amnesiac self then been discovered by a brooding, darkly handsome hero with a tortured past and secrets of his own which may uncannily eventually be revealed to bear some relation to my own problems, either directly, in the form of a common link with my own slavering mad-axe murderers (they killed his hamster) or in a burst of artistic inspiration, something on a more emotional-healing-type plane. For example, a dread fear of two-man canoes originally caused by a tragic accident which was by no means his fault, but for which he blames himself, and a consequent hatred and poor opinion of women who associate with canoes (the hussies).

In any case, said hero has not been mesmerized by my unearthly beauty, and carried me to his secret island paradise, far from from the madding-axe-murderer crowd. I have not looked adorably feminine in his only dress shirt and bare feet, nor have I warmed his tortured soul with a fantastic meal concoted from a packet of instant minestrone, some stale prunes and two tins of cheap lager. Alternatively, I have not been sweetly incompetent in the kitchen either: accidentally burning his only saucepan and thus forcing him to cook freshly-caught fish on a rock which I then refuse to eat on the grounds that I can't bear to eat the sweet iddle fishy-wishies.

I did knock over the sausage of a man of mature years in army surplus and a cowboy hat with a very long tail of some furry animal, though.

Life is hard.

The Clue in the Capering Caper

When I was a young, goggle-eyed stripling, brainwashed by the works of Carolyn Keene, I became slightly obsessed with mystery books. I probably spent a good three weeks one summer scouring my neighbourhood for signs of a shifty-eyed man in a trenchcoat, or peculiar old box in an antique shop which the owner refused to sell.

Sadly, the closest I ever got to genuine pre-teen mysterydom was pretending that some secret hollow in the tree stump in the back garden contained a clue to hidden treasure. Unfortunately, it rained overnight and the watch I cunningly concealed in order to "discover" it the next morning was covered in mysterious grubslime that seized up the works and gave the strap an unwearable gloopy texture.

A few days later, I discovered a taste for Sherlock Holmes and gave up my patient scouring of border of the living room carpet to discover a "clue" in the "mysteriously"-knotted fringe (forever after hopelessly tangled) in favour of stealing my father's magnifying glass to look for telltale traces of Turkish ash and raspberry jam smears left on the back fence by an eagle-eyed detective dressed as a simple-minded clergyman disguised as a costermonger. Not that I knew what a costermonger was, but I was convinced that if I looked hard enough I would find evidence of costers thoroughly mongered at 5 times magnification.

But in all of the mystery books I read during the glorious haze of childhood, explanatory chunks were always dumped wholesale into the first few chapters. As a consequence, the phrases "titian-haired girl sleuth" and "motherly housekeeper" are forever emblazoned on my memory. I know how many steps go up to 221B, and the meaning of "???" on a business card.

Anyhow, since I assumed that this sort of thing was meant as a quick catch-up for readers, I tended to skim those bits and just jump into the story. But what on earth does it mean when the same unvarying information about a character is littered through all the chapters of a book? I mean, I read more than one chapter at a time. I can retain simple information in the rapid-access bit of my memory for a good... oh...

Gone to Budapest...

...in a train and everything. Back soon.

I think I need intensive hydrotherapy of a Hungarian kind. The almost uncontrollable urge to write something that while definitely not a book review,* might contain an actual opinion about something related to the contents of said book is just about killing me.

In the meantime, sitting on my hands while my mind does the boggling thing and my mouse does the link-surfing thing seems the safest option, since I have no time. Dammit.

*As opposed to yet another nail in the cherub-bedecked coffin of civilized discourse and a crushing blow with an unflatteringly large, spiked mace to the spiritual welfare of the world as we know it. Probably it also eats grubs, wears a smelly dressing-gown all day long and neglects its monthly waxing appointment.

Brief with pictures

Ahhhh… spring. In the immortal words of the bookseller who flogged me a less-than-fragrant bouquet of second-hand paperbacks last weekend, "Now that the weather's nice, there's lots of beautiful, sunny places in this town to hang out for a few hours reading a good book."

Of course, that loud-voiced and defiant tweaker-of-the-noses-of-the-stern-and-unyielding-lords-of-literary-irony thereby trigged the immediate execution of sod's law. The git. Probably worked out that it's an easy way to bump up sales.

But at least the weather's still hanging in there. *touchwood*

Run for your lives! The Mercians are coming!

I no longer believe in the Saxon invasions.

Okay, it's hardly something that has reduced the bedrock of my life to fine powder, or will bring about the downfall of civilization as we know it. But it is one of those beliefs that I picked up as a child and never really questioned. I've studied history a fair bit, but not that particular time and place, and the books I read tended to take Bede's line. Never underestimate the power of an ecclesiastical-sounding title, wise-looking beard and funny hat.

Then archaeological evidence (in book form) came along last week and wobbled a tiny corner of my worldview. It reminded me that histories are written by people who are ultimately fallible and biased, especially a hundred or so years after the events.

I wouldn't go so far as to call the Venerable Bede a propagandist (if I did, a certain relative would probably take me out in the dead of night, and that would be that), but let's just say that he had an Angle (heheh). Of course, archeaological evidence is itself subject to interpretation by similarly flawed humans. But for the moment, I'm quite enjoying trying on their reconstructed early Briton shoes, despite the blisters from the centre seam and undressed oxhide.

It also reminded me that writing always leaves out more than it keeps in. Even the most real-seeming, detailed book in the world is more like a map than reality. It leaves spaces for the imagination to fill - this is where the book comes alive in the reader's mind. These fragments of emptiness create places for interaction and dialogue between the reader and writer, uncluttered by words and filled with imagination. Maybe a writer's skill lies not only in her writing, but her not-writing - the way she carves out space in her work.