If not now, when?

Primo Levi's 1982 novel If Not Now, When? chronicles the adventures of a group of Russian and Polish refugees caught behind German-occupied lines in World War II. I read this remarkable book several years ago and expected it to be a rather worthy account of tragic events, since Levi himself was survivor of Auschwitz. Instead, I found it to be a compelling, fast-moving adventure, full of drama and beautifully-written.

I was immediately reminded of Levi's novel when we were presented with Annie's short story, based loosely on her Estonian father’s wartime experience. In Annie's story, the protagonist -- a young man called Olev -- admits, at the time of the Russian invasion, he 'wasn't even the man of the house, let alone a man of the world'. He is confronted with a choice: to fight for those who have invaded his country and taken his freedom ... or to flee. The ensuing events follow Olev and his younger brother as they leave the family farm and head north, dodging Russian troops. Annie's story cleverly shows how Olev's obsessive-compulsive difficulties in later life are a direct result of his wartime experiences. Thus, not only is this a convincing slice of history but also a realistic psychological portrait.

As we were reunited for our first meeting of 2012, Linda observed that the story was quite a departure from Annie's usual subject matter. Several of us were confused by what exactly became of Olev’s brother. We all presumed he must have been drowned in the river-crossing but this was ambiguous, perhaps highlighting the difficulty of making meaning clear, particularly when describing an action-packed scene. Clive liked the verisimilitude of the formal language used in the dialogue, suggesting the 1940s setting and creating the illusion of characters speaking a foreign language. Everyone agreed that the ending could be strengthened by deleting the two final sentences, proving once again that, sometimes, less is more.

In our news roundup, several of us have taken up the challenge to submit an entry for a Reader's Digest competition to write an ultra-short story of a mere 100 words. Whether or not any of us win, we plan to post all of our entries on the SVA blog in the future. Clive is working on a very dark short story about Ireland. Rob has entered the Birmingham Book Festival Short Story competition. Linda continues to receive lots of positive feedback from her writing mentor on her novel-in-progress, as she assiduously produces 10,000 words per month. Chris is currently working nights in his day job (so to speak) and -- as a former night worker myself -- I sympathised with the disruption this causes to life in general and any attempt at a writing routine in particular. I'm not sure if it's any consolation to Chris that William Faulkner is said to have written As I Lay Dying while working nights as a powerhouse.

And so, the powerhouse of creativity that is the SVA saw in a new year of writing activity. It's well-known that writers need to be a bit selfish and single-minded and to avoid procrastination. In the words of The Song of the Partisan:

If I'm not for myself, who will be for me?

If not this way, how? If not now, when?

Aunt Cecily's Electric Kettle

Mince pies and mulled wine greeted us at Rob’s house, where we met on Tuesday, December 13^th, to listen to Tony’s story ‘Visiting Aunt Cecily’. Quite how we found ourselves discussing the origins, use and pronunciation of the word ‘chagrin’ within five minutes of our arrival is not clear from my notes, but it may have had something to do with the wine. Annie added to the merriment with a demonstration of her uncanny ability to ferret out a double entendre from unlikely material.

When we’d settled down again, Tony read his 1500-word story in which the narrator, Aunt Cecily’s nephew, recalls his relationship with her, his visits to her house both as a child and as an adult, and a meeting at which he was coincidentally present, between Auntie C and her old friend, Dorothy Morton. The story enchanted us all: Tony had succeeded in creating a ‘sense of an era’ (Chris), and feeling of nostalgia. The microscopic detailing and imagery, especially the ‘dying rose’, attracted plaudits from us all. The piece was variously described as ‘warm’, ‘touching’, ‘moving’ and ‘quirky’ and no critique of a Gillam work is complete with at least one mention of Garrison Keillor and ‘whimsy’ and, sure enough… There was, however, a significant caveat which inhibited unalloyed approbation.

When Cecily’s old friend Dorothy unexpectedly arrived, Cecily displayed considerable disquiet – her demeanour was ‘different’, ‘slightly nervous’, ‘embarrassed’, ‘uncomfortable’, ‘irritated’ – and we all wanted to know why. Tony couldn’t tell us. He was only a compere introducing his guests – whatever they had been up to backstage was none of his business: like Manuel in Fawlty Towers, he knew nothing. He actually started to say “My best guess is…” but was silenced by disbelieving howls of outrage. Chris in particular found this all this most unsatisfactory and, had Chris remembered to bring his Inquisition kit, Tony would undoubtedly have ended the evening an inch or two taller (than he was when he arrived) . A rowdy debate ensued, involving a Greek island, a poet called Sappho and Margaret Rutherford’s tweed jacket: yes, it was that kind of evening! After Rob somehow managed to drag Ngaio Marsh into this quagmire, he remarked that ‘it’s always a pleasure to read Tony Gillam’ and we whole-heartedly agreed.

The eventual conclusion was that, yes, the two old dears had probably shared a mutual affection that may conceivably have ventured beyond the Platonic: they had, after all, shared a flat in Birmingham (that notorious centre of lust and carnal venality), both been members of the arcane and possibly esoteric Elektra Club, and, to cap it all, had bought each other electrical appliances – for water, the boiling of. The kettle, a Premier Quickset, may indeed have somehow symbolised their relationship: the mind can only boggle. But how was Tony subtlely to convey this to his mystified readers – Annie had the answer. Old friend Dorothy would be introduced to the nephew as ‘Miss’ Dorothy Morton, thereby dispelling any lingering doubts (as the cliché has it). And that was that. One point of possible merit elicited by the discussion was that a short story can be compared with peering though a gap in a fence, insofar as the views to left and right of the gap are understood to exist but are invisible and cannot therefore be portrayed and whatever is happening there can only be guessed at, as Tony tried to point out. Short stories are fragments and a resolution is by no means a sine qua non.

The news, as can easily be imagined, proved somewhat anti-climactic. Rob had none, except that he is knocking out 2000 words a day, with which he’s unhappy (the quality, not the quantity) on ‘The Sting Inside’; Tony reminded him to contact Radio Scotland. Tony described how to write a dash, using ALT+0+151 (that’ll be the dash also known as a ‘Scouse accent’); this led to a confusing and desultory discussion which was too boring to merit description here. Chris handed out for distribution some leaflets advertising his talk at the Rose Theatre Kidderminster on Saturday, February 11^th at 2 p.m. and Linda advised us to desist from employing the past continuous tense. (Filthy habit!) I had no news, and if Annie did, I failed to make a note of it: sorry Annie! She did, however, suggest that we instigate a Round Robin of 100-word stories for the Reader’s Digest competition, which closes on January 31^st, 2012.

We agreed to meet next on January 3^rd at Chris and Linda’s when Annie will read and Tony will blog, exchanged season’s greetings and stepped out into the night.

Gastronomie Française

Dancing 'widdershins'.

It seems appropriate that in our first meeting since we reversed the order of our unwritten table d'hôte we also enjoyed a digressive discussion on the word 'widdershins'*.  Annie, acting as maître d' led us through the hors d'oeuvres, in which we made the menu choices for our forthcoming  festive dinner.

Moving into the plat principal Linda read an extract from Chapter Ten of her novel A Headful of Budgerigars. This tickled our taste buds on so many levels – the humour, the tempo and the dazzling special effects in her prose . Linda's flair for descriptive writing was shown au bon effet in her filmic account of a Gallic Hunter's Feast where the gourmandise of the natives was contraposed against pithy observations from and between a small group of British parvenues.

Pour dessert, we moved into what has previously been our entrée (in the European more literal sense rather than the American) and shared news of our literary successes:

• Linda is shortly to endure/enjoy (delete as appropriate) her first mentoring  session under the Gold Dust programme. 
• Chris is reworking his article for inclusion in a New Zealand-based denunciation of flying as a sustainable means of travel and continuing his successful British tour of the Why don't you fly? talk. (I know this sounds contradictory but it isn't.) 
• Clive has been a very busy bee, although he denies it. In addition to penning his regular  'Grumpy' columns he has written an article on hops, is working on a piece on the part music plays in memory and is writing for a start-up Internet radio station. 
•  Tony has entered the BBC 'Opening Lines' story competition with The Idea of Marmalade and has had an article called Readers Turned Writers printed in the Malcolm Saville Society's magazine. 
•  Rob has entered the same BBC competition as Tony and is not writing his novel as quickly as he should. 
•  Annie under pressure of school commitments is working on the piece she is going to read in our first meeting in the New Year.

So SVA moves into la fin de l'année 2011. With only one more meeting in December, now is the time to wish Bon Chance and Joyeux Noël to all our readers.

*Widdershins: Moving in an anticlockwise direction, contrary to the apparent course of the sun (considered as unlucky or sinister); unlucky, ill-fated, relating to the occult.” (OED, see also withershins.)

Madness or Sanity

The Reader:

This week we met at Annie's house to critique Chris's 'Madness or Sanity', and we concluded that anyone who cycled 16,500 miles to China has got to be mad. However using a bicycle as your main method of transport surely displays a degree of sanity in an insane world where planes, trains and automobiles choke our planet with pollution and are contributing to the problems of climate change. Chris's article was intended for a book about long distance travel and reducing our dependence on flying. He certainly demonstrated the benefits of sustainable travel, but wouldn't argue that the bike could be a serious alternative to the plane.

I thought this was a well written and inspirational article, but probably not quite right for the book in question. Tony suggested submitting it to the 'slow travel' section of Resurgence magazine.We all agreed that he had made us think about our future travel options, and Annie said that she might consider a more fitness themed holiday next year such as walking or cycling. Rob suggested sending the article to a health and fitness/lifestyle publication for men.

The News:

Annie's delicious Victoria sponge took centre stage. She also submitted to a short story competition for children.

Tony had an article published in the British Journal of Wellbeing.

Clive has had an article printed in B: magazine and he has written another successful 'Mr Grumpy' column.

Both Rob and Tony gave very accomplished and enjoyable presentations about their work, at Bewdley library. Rob received 18 feedback cards from the audience saying that they would like to buy his book when it is published, and Tony sold 10 books, one to a little girl who took pity on him and helped him to spell her name: f,r,e,y,a.

Comment:

I have just received my copy of The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White. Although Strunk and White are Americans and have a few dodgy spellings, this is a fabulous book. I loved Dorothy Parker's (Esquire) comment: 'If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they're happy.'

I was interested to see that White is the author of Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little.

Next Meeting:

Monday, November 21 at Tony's house.

A Sprinkling of Gold Dust

Rather unusually I am reading and blogging this time. I had already interfered with Rob’s blogging algorithm by going out of turn and so I thought I would offer to blog as I am on half-term.

The news this week came thick and fast.
Clive: A magazine called Britain at War are interested in an article about a metal case made for Monty by Clive’s father during World War Two.
Chris: Has given another successful talk that was well attended.
Rob and Tony: Are preparing for their talks at Bewdley Library during half term.
Linda: Hold on everyone! This is big news! Linda has been accepted on to the Gold Dust mentoring programme. After attending the Arvon Course Linda was invited to submit her work for specialist mentoring and has been accepted. Linda has an Australian tutor and they keep in contact by skyping. Congratulations Linda, well done.

We also discussed my story that I wish to submit to a competition to write a children’s story. Everyone engaged well with my main character, Thomas. Linda did suggest a few more mannerisms to be included to give insight into his character, which I have done. Also the group were in agreement with the age range that I plan to submit the story for.

The other news of the night was that Chris failed to notice I had missed a vocative comma, leaving it to Rob and Tony to pick this up.

Clive was concerned that the ending of the story was too predictable. Often when I am reading with children at school it is easy to predict what will happen in the book so I am not sure if it is a problem that an adult can predict an ending. Tony thought that the ending did not have enough of a comeuppance whereas Rob thought that the pay back was good.

Eagle-Eyes Gillam noticed some typos: coupe instead of couple and conversions rather than conversations. I was also picked up a number of times for missing out the second set of speech marks.

Thank you all for your valuable contributions. The story is now ready and I will be posting it tomorrow.

An Englishman in Berlin

Given that there were a couple of sparkly bits, The News On Tuesday was like the curate’s egg. Chris attracted sympathy for his Dorset venture where, of five events, two were well-attended and three were not, for which sole responsibility apparently rests with his sister-in-law (do not enquire). Perhaps people in that part of the world are insufficiently  proletarian in outlook to appreciate the finer points of cycling – I’ll bet they wouldn’t recognise a whippet if they saw one – though the prospect of meeting a man who cycled from the UK to Peking might have been expected to provoke at least the merely curious. Odd that Wessex, having produced one of England’s finest writers, failed so miserably to support a contemporary author.

Tony is undertaking a new course at Worcester University which will, amongst other things, require him to produce a pair of two and a half thousand-word pieces before the end of the year, but he was cheered by the sale of some of his books on a market stall (not his, someone else’s – the stall, not the books) and, with Rob, looks forward to the Bewdley Authors’ Reading Week for which Rob provided some leaflets. Tony reads on Wednesday 26^th at one o’clock and Rob on Friday 28^th at two thirty. I reported a tie: one rejection and one acceptance (unpaid) in Mensa magazine’s December edition (and Rob liked my new website). Annie failed to report anything, having at the time a mouthful of Mrs E’s finest home-made ginger biscuits and being too polite to attempt to speak.

The highlight was Rob’s success in the 31^st Winchester Writers’ Conference competition into which he had entered a synopsis and the first three pages of his novel ‘The Sting Inside’, of which we later heard an extract. Rob received a Certificate of Commendation which he intends to frame and to which he will give deserved prominence.

Once the decks had been cleared of news, Rob read an extract from a discovered manuscript for a memoir called 'My Cabaret Years' (sub-titled ‘In Isherwood’s Footsteps’), written by one of the characters from his work in progress, ‘The Sting Inside’. The memoir found unanimous favour, attracting such epithets as ‘engaging’, ‘convincing’, ‘crisp’, ‘well-researched’ and ‘authentic’. It is written in the first person by Cameron Mortimer, a gay Englishman visiting Berlin in 1932 and looked after by his Jewish friend Leo. Apart from those too young to know, of whom Tony claimed to be one[1], it was felt that the era and the place were extremely well-drawn, realistic and authentic, but anyway, Tony trusts Rob’s research. Chris enjoyed the contrast between the superficial gaiety and innocence on the one hand and the underlying menace on the other, while Annie was entertained by the homosexual passage towards the end. The writing was of a consistently high quality, and although I disagreed with Rob’s choice of word in a couple of places this was balanced by my admiration for some well-chosen verbs. This served to illustrate one of the benefits of first-person fiction: the author takes the credit for the good bits and blames his character for the rest. Towards the end, Rob moved into the present tense, creating tension and a sense of immediacy, pointing up the climax when Cameron becomes instantaneously infatuated with a young, blond, blue-eyed Nazi. The physical description of Cameron’s burgeoning lust was felt to be surprisingly authentic, by those in a position to judge.  We look forward very much to reading more of ‘The Sting Inside’; in the meantime, Chris wondered whether we might have sight of a synopsis.

We were able, sadly only momentarily, to relish the prospect of a debate on whether the ‘s’ of the verb ‘focus’ should be doubled when forming the past participle. To everyone’s regret, Tony averred that as he frequently found reason to use the word, he’d taken the trouble to ascertain that both forms are correct. We took out our disappointment on Rob who claimed to have forgotten the algorithm again; the rumour that he’s lost the original and can’t now remember how he did it is gaining ground. We meet next to critique work by Annie at Chris and Linda’s on October 18^th.

---

[1]. Rob alluded in the memoir to “a Sally Bowles character”: a reference lost on the ‘youth’ party who claimed never to have heard of her. She was, of course, the character upon whom Lisa Minelli’s role in the film ‘Cabaret’ was based. Now there’s a thing . . . Rob’s piece could easily have been entitled ‘An Englishman in Berlin’, as in ‘An American in Paris’, which was a 1952 film starring Gene Kelly and directed by . . . Vincente Minelli – Lisa’s dad!

A 21st century equivalent to Somerset Maugham

We gathered at Rob’s for new member Clive's debut reading - a short story called Old Friends. Both Linda and I were initially put off by the golf club lounge setting of the opening scene but still the story managed to engage and everybody admired Clive’s acute ear for dialogue, much of which sounded completely natural, as if it were real conversation overheard. Annie was very taken with the character of the annoying waiter, commenting he was ‘annoying in a really good way '. She wanted the waiter to go away so she could continue eavesdropping on the other characters’ conversation - proof of the compelling nature of Clive’s storytelling. But it was Rob who really hit the nail on the head when he observed how Old Friends - a rather old-fashioned, highly moralistic tale in which the good are rewarded and the reprehensible get their comeuppance - could have come straight from the pen of Somerset Maugham.

Now I didn't let on about this at the meeting but Somerset Maugham and I have something in common. Last year I wrote an article for the British Journal of Wellbeing called Time to write the next book. I don't mean to cause a distraction here so I'll put a link to the article at the end of this blog entry and you can click on it and read it at your leisure. The point is, Clive is anxious to break out of his rather old-fashioned style but, as there are probably few people writing in the tradition of Somerset Maugham these days, why shouldn't Clive be the one who picks up that particular baton?

There is an apocryphal story that Thomas Hardy (one of the greatest of English novelists and also one of England’s finest poets) wanted nothing more than to be remembered as an outstanding dramatist like his friend JM Barrie (one of Scotland's most successful novelists and playwrights in his time) who in turn berated himself for not being able to write poetry like Hardy. The moral of this story is that, if you’re brilliant enough to create a Far from the Madding Crowd or a Peter Pan, you should be pleased with your achievements. And if my Severn Valley Author friends insist on my being Wyre Forest’s answer to Garrison Keillor then I think Clive might settle for being the 21st century’s Somerset Maugham.

Click here to read Time to write the next book by Tony Gillam as published in the British Journal of Wellbeing, August 2010 – Vol 1 No 5.