London's Underworld, by Fergus Linnane, is a book which could only have been written by an enthusiast.
The author had a long career in journalism and his final post was that of executive editor of the European. London's Underworld was written post retirement and reflects a lifelong interest in the darker side of our beloved capital.
Subtitled 'Three centuries of vice and crime', the book gives us a chapter by chapter survey of the wickedness of the big city, of which there is more than a little. Each chapter deals with a particular aspect of crime, such as highwaymen or hit men, drugs, prisons, and so forth.
Particularly interesting, to me, was the chapter on bent coppers. It is all too easy to forget, but well within living memory the Metropolitan police force was thoroughly corrupt. And it still may be.
In the 1960s and '70s it was the Soho porn business which was the chief source of trouble, because men will insist on being interested in sex. It's really most remiss of them. This meant that there was (and is) lots of money sloshing around in Soho.
By the 1970s, the Obscene Publications Squad was thoroughly corrupt. A Judge who jailed twelve members of Scotland Yard’s ‘dirty squad’ in the 1970s said that they were involved in an ‘evil conspiracy which turned the Obscene Publications Act into a vast protection racket.’ In other words, if a porn broker paid up, he could sell whatever pleased. ‘We bought our own justice,’ said one operator. ‘And the more we paid, the better justice we got.’
In 1972 Sir Robert Mark, a former Chief Constable of Leicester, was appointed as Commissioner to clear up the mess. He was given a less than enthusiastic reception by the men under his command. Mark responded by telling a meeting of the CID, to their faces, that they were members of the most routinely corrupt organisation in London, and that if necessary he would put the whole lot of them back in uniform and make a fresh start.
It is hard to know how much effect Mark actually had. Evidence, of a sort, was assembled against scores of officers, but there were few prosecutions and fewer convictions. Out of 74 officers investigated, 12 resigned, 28 retired, 8 were dismissed, and 13 were jailed.
If you want to read about this problem at length, you can consult The Fall of Scotland Yard, by Barry Cox and others (Penguin, 1977), a book which is listed in Linnane's extensive bibliography.
The problem, it seems, continues. Sir Paul Condon, another Met chief, said in the late 1990s that there were 250 corrupt officers in the CID.
Linnane's book is long (372 pages), well researched, and detailed. It will be invaluable to anyone who wants to write about crime in London, whether fiction or non-fiction. But not many people, I suspect, will have bought the hardback at £16.95. Neither will all that many libraries have selected it. Wiltshire County Council, for instance, bought two copies for the entire county.
Let's be generous and estimate that the hardback sold 1,000 copies, though 500 is more likely. There is a paperback version to come in August this year: let's be generous again and say 5,000 copies sold. The book is available in the US, through a distribution arrangement with Parkwest Publications, but I can't see it doing much over there. So, if we do the arithmetic on the royalties, the author's earnings are likely to be in the region of £5,000 or £6,000. At best. This probably doesn't even cover his expenses.
As I said at the beginning, a book which could only have been written by an enthusiast.
Friday, June 11, 2004
Thursday, June 10, 2004
Men and books
My son kindly sent me an article from last Sunday's Observer -- 'You couldn't make it up', by Jonathan Heawood -- which contains some interesting data about book readership.
The article is really prompted by a slightly wearisome promotion by Penguin Books, which is intended 'to get more young men reading, thereby releasing a huge reservoir of marketing opportunities.' But we won't bother about that.
Neither will we dwell on the fact, or alleged fact, which Penguin's research purports to show, namely that men who are seen reading a book are more attractive to the opposite sex. I have spent my entire life reading books, and I have seldom had to beat the ladies off with a club, so I am not too impressed by that finding.
No, instead we will look at the issues and the data, such as they are, which are associated with the Penguin initiative. First, Heawood points out that, whatever the success or otherwise of Penguin's cunning wheeze (known as 'Good Booking', by the way), there's 'a serious issue at stake. Why don't men read books?'
Well, to begin with, of course, they do. I seem to remember, a few years ago, reading an article by a couple of ladies who were running a 'women's bookshop'. They made the point that, loyalty to the sisters notwithstanding, they would have gone bust had it not been for the blokes popping in for the books on football and classic cars et cetera.
According to research by Book Marketing Ltd, sales of books divide virtually 50/50 between the genders, but the same source claims that only 44% of men read novels, compared with 77% of women. So the question is this -- how can writers, publishers, and booksellers persuade more of those blokes to read novels, and thus release lots of cash into the system?
Well, I wouldn't have thought there was any great secret about it. You just arrange for lots more first-class thrillers to be available. Men have always read 'thrillers' (however defined) and I suspect they always will. You can go back to Fergus Hume's Mystery of a Hansom Cab (the smash hit of 1886), through the pulp magazines of the 1920s and '30s, to the world of Mickey Spillane (for the not so bright), Ian Fleming (for the fairly bright) and Len Deighton (for the awesomely bright -- particularly in relation to the early books, where it was one hell of a job to figure out what was going on). So, the answer to getting men to read books is to produce lots more first-class thrillers. 'T'ain't no secret. All you have to do is find the writers who can do the job.
Ah, well now, that's the bit tricky, that is. Though the methodology itself is not a secret either. You just find someone who is interested in doing the job, and who shows some aptitude for it, and then you train 'em up, and you allow their talent to develop over half a dozen books, and with a bit of luck you eventually end up, one time out of ten or so, with a professional series of books which will sell and sell.
But do our friends the publishers have sufficient wit and wisdom to do that?
How many guesses do you need to answer that one?
In the first place, the people capable of training up said thriller writers are few and far between. But they do exist. I myself, for example, am available for consultancy on this issue for a modest £500 a day. Whether any publisher is prepared to make such an investment is open to question (just about), but the answer to the question is normally No.
Then there's the question of allowing the talent time and space to develop. Not to mention the question of how the poor devil is to support himself (or herself) while mastering the art of writing. Modern publishers just don't have the patience to do this. (I suspect that they don't have the resources either, for all their massive and much publicised advances.) Years ago, Simon Raven's publisher paid him a weekly wage to produce books, and my guess is that lots of writers might be interested in such a scheme today. But publishers -- or their accountants -- just can't bring themselves to do that.
Only last night, for instance, I attended a talk by a local writer, Stan Hey. Stan has written three books about a private eye who is based in the author's home town, Bradford on Avon. The audience was naturally interested to know when the next book would appear. Ah well, said Stan, the publisher isn't interested in doing any more unless the TV people want to turn it into a series. And the TV people aren't interested unless there are more books.
You see, Stan's books are perfectly professional, but they haven't 'caught fire', 'taken off', 'broken out' or done any of the other fancy things that publishers prattle about. If they gave him time (and money) to do 10 or 20 of the things, everyone might get somewhere. But no. If it doesn't happen now, they just aren't interested. Try someone else. You never know, a new and unknown writer might turn out to have the magic formula. They might know how to sacrifice frogs at the crossroads at midnight, or do whatever it takes.
It was not always thus. Some publishers used to have a rather better understanding of the writer's art. In 1981 I had breakfast (as you do) with a crime fiction editor at Dell, the American paperback company which was then publishing some of my own crime fiction. Who on their list had I been reading, he asked me.
I mentioned the name (now forgotten) of an American woman who had written four or five whodunits set in small towns, with domestic cookery as the common theme. She was, I said, a pretty entertaining writer.
Yes, said the editor, she was. But unfortunately she had recently died. Which was a pity, he added, because after four or five books she was 'just beginning to learn how to plot.'
The old guys at least understood how things work, you see. The new ones either don't or won't.
The article is really prompted by a slightly wearisome promotion by Penguin Books, which is intended 'to get more young men reading, thereby releasing a huge reservoir of marketing opportunities.' But we won't bother about that.
Neither will we dwell on the fact, or alleged fact, which Penguin's research purports to show, namely that men who are seen reading a book are more attractive to the opposite sex. I have spent my entire life reading books, and I have seldom had to beat the ladies off with a club, so I am not too impressed by that finding.
No, instead we will look at the issues and the data, such as they are, which are associated with the Penguin initiative. First, Heawood points out that, whatever the success or otherwise of Penguin's cunning wheeze (known as 'Good Booking', by the way), there's 'a serious issue at stake. Why don't men read books?'
Well, to begin with, of course, they do. I seem to remember, a few years ago, reading an article by a couple of ladies who were running a 'women's bookshop'. They made the point that, loyalty to the sisters notwithstanding, they would have gone bust had it not been for the blokes popping in for the books on football and classic cars et cetera.
According to research by Book Marketing Ltd, sales of books divide virtually 50/50 between the genders, but the same source claims that only 44% of men read novels, compared with 77% of women. So the question is this -- how can writers, publishers, and booksellers persuade more of those blokes to read novels, and thus release lots of cash into the system?
Well, I wouldn't have thought there was any great secret about it. You just arrange for lots more first-class thrillers to be available. Men have always read 'thrillers' (however defined) and I suspect they always will. You can go back to Fergus Hume's Mystery of a Hansom Cab (the smash hit of 1886), through the pulp magazines of the 1920s and '30s, to the world of Mickey Spillane (for the not so bright), Ian Fleming (for the fairly bright) and Len Deighton (for the awesomely bright -- particularly in relation to the early books, where it was one hell of a job to figure out what was going on). So, the answer to getting men to read books is to produce lots more first-class thrillers. 'T'ain't no secret. All you have to do is find the writers who can do the job.
Ah, well now, that's the bit tricky, that is. Though the methodology itself is not a secret either. You just find someone who is interested in doing the job, and who shows some aptitude for it, and then you train 'em up, and you allow their talent to develop over half a dozen books, and with a bit of luck you eventually end up, one time out of ten or so, with a professional series of books which will sell and sell.
But do our friends the publishers have sufficient wit and wisdom to do that?
How many guesses do you need to answer that one?
In the first place, the people capable of training up said thriller writers are few and far between. But they do exist. I myself, for example, am available for consultancy on this issue for a modest £500 a day. Whether any publisher is prepared to make such an investment is open to question (just about), but the answer to the question is normally No.
Then there's the question of allowing the talent time and space to develop. Not to mention the question of how the poor devil is to support himself (or herself) while mastering the art of writing. Modern publishers just don't have the patience to do this. (I suspect that they don't have the resources either, for all their massive and much publicised advances.) Years ago, Simon Raven's publisher paid him a weekly wage to produce books, and my guess is that lots of writers might be interested in such a scheme today. But publishers -- or their accountants -- just can't bring themselves to do that.
Only last night, for instance, I attended a talk by a local writer, Stan Hey. Stan has written three books about a private eye who is based in the author's home town, Bradford on Avon. The audience was naturally interested to know when the next book would appear. Ah well, said Stan, the publisher isn't interested in doing any more unless the TV people want to turn it into a series. And the TV people aren't interested unless there are more books.
You see, Stan's books are perfectly professional, but they haven't 'caught fire', 'taken off', 'broken out' or done any of the other fancy things that publishers prattle about. If they gave him time (and money) to do 10 or 20 of the things, everyone might get somewhere. But no. If it doesn't happen now, they just aren't interested. Try someone else. You never know, a new and unknown writer might turn out to have the magic formula. They might know how to sacrifice frogs at the crossroads at midnight, or do whatever it takes.
It was not always thus. Some publishers used to have a rather better understanding of the writer's art. In 1981 I had breakfast (as you do) with a crime fiction editor at Dell, the American paperback company which was then publishing some of my own crime fiction. Who on their list had I been reading, he asked me.
I mentioned the name (now forgotten) of an American woman who had written four or five whodunits set in small towns, with domestic cookery as the common theme. She was, I said, a pretty entertaining writer.
Yes, said the editor, she was. But unfortunately she had recently died. Which was a pity, he added, because after four or five books she was 'just beginning to learn how to plot.'
The old guys at least understood how things work, you see. The new ones either don't or won't.
Wednesday, June 09, 2004
Early One Morning
Early One Morning, by Robert Ryan, is in many ways an excellent novel. I just wish I liked it more.
The book is inspired by the real-life exploits of Robert Benoist, William Grover, and Eve Aubicq. These three were young in the 1930s: the two men were racing-car drivers, and in the second world war all three were involved in the French Resistance movement. Ryan has used this background as the basis for a thriller.
The author's note, at the back of the book, and the bibliography, reveal that Ryan did a significant amount of research. And not just reading, either; he also interviewed some of the Special Operations Executive staff from that era. This is a background which I have used myself in more than one novel, so I can see immediately how much work Ryan has done to get things right. Although, as the author rightly insists, the novel is very much a novel; it is a work of fiction suggested by the historical facts.
Ryan has written three previous novels, which seem to have garnered some enthusiastic reviews. 'Wonderfully exhilarating,' said the Sunday Times of one; 'I doubt whether there will be a better novel this year,' said the Independent.
So, given that the background is of great interest to me, and given that Ryan is so obviously a competent writer, why didn't I really enjoy this book?
Well, it may just be the weather (hot), or perhaps it is my grumpy temperament, as usual; but I suspect that there are technical reasons.
First, the book moves back and forth from 2001 to the 1930s, and then on to war time, 1942/43. Yes, I have used this kind of chronological structure myself, but flashbacks and flashforwards really don't help. The best way to involve a reader is to start at the beginning of a story and go on to the end, and not whizz back and forth.
It is no accident, for instance, that Margery Allingham's novel Hide My Eyes (which I have also just finished reading) confines all its action to twenty-four hours. Allingham knew that keeping things tight pays dividends. Neither is it an accident that when James Grady's book Six Days of the Condor was filmed, the title was changed to Three Days of the Condor. A short time-frame is better than a long one, OK?
The next problem is that, as usual, the book is just too damn long. It runs to 335 pages, which is what publishers these days want, of course. It gives the reader the impression of value for money. But is writing at that length the best way to grab and hold your reader? I take leave to doubt it.
Finally we have the technical question of viewpoint. Really powerful and effective novels view the action solely from the viewpoint of a small number of characters. See Ken Follett's The Key to Rebecca if you want a well-nigh perfect example. (That is another book, incidentally, which is set in the second world war.) And for my money Ryan's use of viewpoint is too diffuse.
However.... Having said all that, I have to say that the reviewers on Amazon take a different view of Early One Morning, and I don't think those particular readers' reports are fakes. The average punter seems to have enjoyed the book. So, if you're looking for a good wartime thriller, give this a go.
Finally, I find myself, as usual, wondering about the economics of all this, and asking myself whether it is likely that Mr Ryan will continue to write novels. He has not been taken up by an American publisher, so his income is presumably dependent on the UK market. Furthermore, good reviews (as I can testify) do not necessarily result in big sales. And Mr Ryan has a wife and three children. So the question is this: Is writing novels a cost-effective use of his time?
Knowing what I do about how long it takes to research and write a novel of this kind, and knowing what I do about the financial return on a not particularly big seller in the UK market, I think the answer is surely No.
A little aside to end with. In the author's note, Mr Ryan relates how he was fortunate enough to interview Vera Atkins, shortly before her death. Atkins was a major figure in the SOE, which parachuted several hundred brave men and women into German-occupied France. These volunteers were, of course, treated as spies, and many of them were shot, tortured, or starved to death. (Robert Benoist, for instance, was hanged by piano wire in Buchenwald, along with 36 other Allied officers, on 12 September 1944.)
During the course of a dinner at the Special Forces Club, Mr Ryan's friend Jack Bond asked Vera Atkins how she viewed the Germans, sixty years after the end of the war.
There was a long pause while she drew on a cigarette, and she eventually said, very softly, but with great feeling: 'As disagreeable as ever, really.'
Couldn't put it better myself.
The book is inspired by the real-life exploits of Robert Benoist, William Grover, and Eve Aubicq. These three were young in the 1930s: the two men were racing-car drivers, and in the second world war all three were involved in the French Resistance movement. Ryan has used this background as the basis for a thriller.
The author's note, at the back of the book, and the bibliography, reveal that Ryan did a significant amount of research. And not just reading, either; he also interviewed some of the Special Operations Executive staff from that era. This is a background which I have used myself in more than one novel, so I can see immediately how much work Ryan has done to get things right. Although, as the author rightly insists, the novel is very much a novel; it is a work of fiction suggested by the historical facts.
Ryan has written three previous novels, which seem to have garnered some enthusiastic reviews. 'Wonderfully exhilarating,' said the Sunday Times of one; 'I doubt whether there will be a better novel this year,' said the Independent.
So, given that the background is of great interest to me, and given that Ryan is so obviously a competent writer, why didn't I really enjoy this book?
Well, it may just be the weather (hot), or perhaps it is my grumpy temperament, as usual; but I suspect that there are technical reasons.
First, the book moves back and forth from 2001 to the 1930s, and then on to war time, 1942/43. Yes, I have used this kind of chronological structure myself, but flashbacks and flashforwards really don't help. The best way to involve a reader is to start at the beginning of a story and go on to the end, and not whizz back and forth.
It is no accident, for instance, that Margery Allingham's novel Hide My Eyes (which I have also just finished reading) confines all its action to twenty-four hours. Allingham knew that keeping things tight pays dividends. Neither is it an accident that when James Grady's book Six Days of the Condor was filmed, the title was changed to Three Days of the Condor. A short time-frame is better than a long one, OK?
The next problem is that, as usual, the book is just too damn long. It runs to 335 pages, which is what publishers these days want, of course. It gives the reader the impression of value for money. But is writing at that length the best way to grab and hold your reader? I take leave to doubt it.
Finally we have the technical question of viewpoint. Really powerful and effective novels view the action solely from the viewpoint of a small number of characters. See Ken Follett's The Key to Rebecca if you want a well-nigh perfect example. (That is another book, incidentally, which is set in the second world war.) And for my money Ryan's use of viewpoint is too diffuse.
However.... Having said all that, I have to say that the reviewers on Amazon take a different view of Early One Morning, and I don't think those particular readers' reports are fakes. The average punter seems to have enjoyed the book. So, if you're looking for a good wartime thriller, give this a go.
Finally, I find myself, as usual, wondering about the economics of all this, and asking myself whether it is likely that Mr Ryan will continue to write novels. He has not been taken up by an American publisher, so his income is presumably dependent on the UK market. Furthermore, good reviews (as I can testify) do not necessarily result in big sales. And Mr Ryan has a wife and three children. So the question is this: Is writing novels a cost-effective use of his time?
Knowing what I do about how long it takes to research and write a novel of this kind, and knowing what I do about the financial return on a not particularly big seller in the UK market, I think the answer is surely No.
A little aside to end with. In the author's note, Mr Ryan relates how he was fortunate enough to interview Vera Atkins, shortly before her death. Atkins was a major figure in the SOE, which parachuted several hundred brave men and women into German-occupied France. These volunteers were, of course, treated as spies, and many of them were shot, tortured, or starved to death. (Robert Benoist, for instance, was hanged by piano wire in Buchenwald, along with 36 other Allied officers, on 12 September 1944.)
During the course of a dinner at the Special Forces Club, Mr Ryan's friend Jack Bond asked Vera Atkins how she viewed the Germans, sixty years after the end of the war.
There was a long pause while she drew on a cigarette, and she eventually said, very softly, but with great feeling: 'As disagreeable as ever, really.'
Couldn't put it better myself.
Monday, June 07, 2004
A timely offer
Last Saturday's Times came with an A5 pamphlet which was labelled 20 Modern Classics. The cover illustration clearly indicated that the classics in question were books.
At first sight, this pamphlet might have been taken for a product of the Times's noble aim of educating its readership. Was it, I wondered, a list of essential reading prepared and approved by the greatest literary minds of our time -- a list which all right-minded individuals would instantly read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest?
Well no, actually, it wasn't. What it was was a desperate attempt to sell a few books on behalf of (a) the Times, which will doubtless take its cut, (b) HarperCollins, which seems to have published the books, and (c) W.H. Smith (or WHSmith, as it now appears to style itself). Far from having noble motives relating to education, this turns out to be a marketing exercise, pure and simple. Well, simple, anyway.
The deal appears to be this. You wander into WHS on any Monday for the next 20 weeks, you buy a copy of the Times, and you also get the right to buy, for a mere 99p, the 'modern classic' which the three sponsors of this exercise have decided will be on offer. Different book each week. Full details of the offer can be found on the Times web site.
Hmm. Pardon me for being suspicious, but it looks to me as if HarperCollins is just trying to shift some stagnant stock which they have lying around the warehouse. So what of these 'modern classics'? Who are the authors, and how classic can the books reasonably be said to be?
Erica Wagner, Literary Editor of the Times, says in a foreword to the booklet that the list 'is a good one. It's full of books you should have on your shelves.' Oh? Why so? Well, every author is allegedly a prize-winner of sorts. But then there are prizes and prizes. As far as I am concerned, the most prestigious prizes (Nobel, Pulitzer, Booker) are usually a pretty good indication that the books involved are not going to be of any interest to me.
For the record, I have heard of 16 of the 20 authors involved in this 'modern classics' offer, and I have actually read a couple of the books -- the crime fiction ones, you won't be surprised to hear. Reginald Hill and Robert Wilson are both former winners of the Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger award, which is usually a guarantee of high professional quality, if nothing else. As for the remaining books, they are a mixture of highbrow fiction and non-fiction, with all the usual suspects featured: Arundhati Roy, Penelope Fitzgerald, Any Tan, Tony Parsons, et al.
By a curious coincidence, the Times and HarperCollins are both News Corp. companies, which means that they are run (I understand) by a chap called Murdoch. I seem to have read somewhere that he has a young family to support -- or a young wife, anyway -- so I assume you will all rally round and pass over your 99p on a weekly basis.
The only one of the 20 books which looks as if it might tempt me is Sabriel, by Garth Nix. Never heard of him or his book before, but he comes with an endorsement from Philip Pullman; and Pullman doesn't strike me as a man who would give a plug just because his publisher asked him to do so -- certainly not without actually reading the book. (As so many do, you know. It's a wicked world.)
Final thought. What of the poor bloody authors? How much are they going to get out of a book selling at 99p?
My guess is that such sales will be covered by the small print of the contract, and the author's income is likely to be 10% of the money received by the publisher. At best. So, let's say 10% of 50p = 5p a copy. Or, to take the worst-case scenario, the sales might be dealt with under the 'remainders and disposal of surplus stock' clause. In which case the following sentence might apply: 'On disposal of stock at or below the cost of production, no royalty shall be payable.'
Still, the authors get all that free publicity, don't they? I'm sure they'll be happy with that.
At first sight, this pamphlet might have been taken for a product of the Times's noble aim of educating its readership. Was it, I wondered, a list of essential reading prepared and approved by the greatest literary minds of our time -- a list which all right-minded individuals would instantly read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest?
Well no, actually, it wasn't. What it was was a desperate attempt to sell a few books on behalf of (a) the Times, which will doubtless take its cut, (b) HarperCollins, which seems to have published the books, and (c) W.H. Smith (or WHSmith, as it now appears to style itself). Far from having noble motives relating to education, this turns out to be a marketing exercise, pure and simple. Well, simple, anyway.
The deal appears to be this. You wander into WHS on any Monday for the next 20 weeks, you buy a copy of the Times, and you also get the right to buy, for a mere 99p, the 'modern classic' which the three sponsors of this exercise have decided will be on offer. Different book each week. Full details of the offer can be found on the Times web site.
Hmm. Pardon me for being suspicious, but it looks to me as if HarperCollins is just trying to shift some stagnant stock which they have lying around the warehouse. So what of these 'modern classics'? Who are the authors, and how classic can the books reasonably be said to be?
Erica Wagner, Literary Editor of the Times, says in a foreword to the booklet that the list 'is a good one. It's full of books you should have on your shelves.' Oh? Why so? Well, every author is allegedly a prize-winner of sorts. But then there are prizes and prizes. As far as I am concerned, the most prestigious prizes (Nobel, Pulitzer, Booker) are usually a pretty good indication that the books involved are not going to be of any interest to me.
For the record, I have heard of 16 of the 20 authors involved in this 'modern classics' offer, and I have actually read a couple of the books -- the crime fiction ones, you won't be surprised to hear. Reginald Hill and Robert Wilson are both former winners of the Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger award, which is usually a guarantee of high professional quality, if nothing else. As for the remaining books, they are a mixture of highbrow fiction and non-fiction, with all the usual suspects featured: Arundhati Roy, Penelope Fitzgerald, Any Tan, Tony Parsons, et al.
By a curious coincidence, the Times and HarperCollins are both News Corp. companies, which means that they are run (I understand) by a chap called Murdoch. I seem to have read somewhere that he has a young family to support -- or a young wife, anyway -- so I assume you will all rally round and pass over your 99p on a weekly basis.
The only one of the 20 books which looks as if it might tempt me is Sabriel, by Garth Nix. Never heard of him or his book before, but he comes with an endorsement from Philip Pullman; and Pullman doesn't strike me as a man who would give a plug just because his publisher asked him to do so -- certainly not without actually reading the book. (As so many do, you know. It's a wicked world.)
Final thought. What of the poor bloody authors? How much are they going to get out of a book selling at 99p?
My guess is that such sales will be covered by the small print of the contract, and the author's income is likely to be 10% of the money received by the publisher. At best. So, let's say 10% of 50p = 5p a copy. Or, to take the worst-case scenario, the sales might be dealt with under the 'remainders and disposal of surplus stock' clause. In which case the following sentence might apply: 'On disposal of stock at or below the cost of production, no royalty shall be payable.'
Still, the authors get all that free publicity, don't they? I'm sure they'll be happy with that.
A Hat Full of Sky
By any rational assessment, Terry Pratchett is England's 'best' living author. I put the word 'best' in inverted commas because you can substitute your own preferred superlative and the statement will nearly always remain true. The only thing that isn't true is to say that Pratchett is the author 'most widely admired by the literary establishment'. But since no one in full possession of their senses gives a tinker's cuss what the literary establishment thinks about anything, that need hardly detain us.
It may be, however, that you are not one of Mr Pratchett's admirers. If that is because you've never read any of his books, then kindly read on because you will be encouraged, I hope, to do so. If it's because you've read a couple of said works and they didn't 'take', well that's a pity. But, as I have doubtless remarked before, we all have different frames of reference, and what works for one reader will not necessarily work for another. This circumstance does not, please note, tell us anything whatever about the absolute value of the underlying work. And, for the benefit of those who have only just joined us, the reason why it doesn't tell us anything about the absolute value of the underlying novel is because there is no such thing as an absolute value for a work of fiction. There is no such thing as a Great Novel, divorced from its readers, or an absolute stinker of a novel either, for that matter. There are only novels, and readers; and sometimes the two form a happy pair, and sometimes they don't.
But back to Mr Pratchett. I myself was put off reading him for some years, because I didn't like the cover illustrations on those early books. Yes, I know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover -- and I do remember hearing that before, somewhere -- but with so much to choose from I put the books on one side for while. Eventually, however, I saw the light of day.
For the record, Pratchett writes what might, perhaps, be called science fiction or fantasy novels about a place called the Discworld. The Discworld is best thought of as a parallel universe in which things don't happen in quite the same way as they do here. In particular, the Discworld is a place of magic, witchcraft, and a pleasing lack of technology.
Pratchett has an official web site, set up by his publishers. And I should bloody well hope so too, because he makes enough money for them. On that site, the author tells us that the Discworld 'started out as a parody of all the fantasy that was around in the big boom of the early '80s, then turned into a satire on just about everything, and even I don't know what it is now. I do know that in that time there's been at least four people promoted as "new Terry Pratchetts" so for all I know I may not even still be me.'
This is no place to tell you more about the Discworld than that. But this is the place to tell you that Pratchett has so far written more than 30 novels about his imaginary world, and that the latest is called A Hat Full of Sky. I hope and believe that I have read all Pratchett's books, some of them twice, and I have just finished this one.
Sky, to abbreviate it, is about Tiffany Aching, an 11-year-old trainee witch who goes off to begin her apprenticeship in magic. She is accompanied by a number of Nac Mac Feegles, who are men (mostly) about six inches high. The Feegles are extremely aggressive, so they're good to have on your side, and they speak, oddly enough, with a pronounced Scottish accent.
Which is as much as you need to know, really. It may not sound very interesting, but it certainly entertained me.
Most of the Discworld books are aimed at adult readers (not that there is anything remotely 'adult' about them), but Sky is technically a YA, or young adult book. It is hard to say quite how it differs from the other ones, but there is, admittedly, a slightly different tone to it.
Before reading Sky you might, perhaps, wish to read The Wee Free Men, which is about the same characters but comes first in the series.
You can also, if you wish, read an interview with Pratchett on the Locus magazine site.
Pratchett's next book is to be entitled Going Postal. 'Folk myth believes,' says the author, 'that there’s something about working for the post office that drives people around the bend.' Well yes, quite, quite. I well remember working in the post office at Christmas, all those years ago. Not sure I ever recovered. It could account for quite a lot, now that I come to think about it.
It may be, however, that you are not one of Mr Pratchett's admirers. If that is because you've never read any of his books, then kindly read on because you will be encouraged, I hope, to do so. If it's because you've read a couple of said works and they didn't 'take', well that's a pity. But, as I have doubtless remarked before, we all have different frames of reference, and what works for one reader will not necessarily work for another. This circumstance does not, please note, tell us anything whatever about the absolute value of the underlying work. And, for the benefit of those who have only just joined us, the reason why it doesn't tell us anything about the absolute value of the underlying novel is because there is no such thing as an absolute value for a work of fiction. There is no such thing as a Great Novel, divorced from its readers, or an absolute stinker of a novel either, for that matter. There are only novels, and readers; and sometimes the two form a happy pair, and sometimes they don't.
But back to Mr Pratchett. I myself was put off reading him for some years, because I didn't like the cover illustrations on those early books. Yes, I know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover -- and I do remember hearing that before, somewhere -- but with so much to choose from I put the books on one side for while. Eventually, however, I saw the light of day.
For the record, Pratchett writes what might, perhaps, be called science fiction or fantasy novels about a place called the Discworld. The Discworld is best thought of as a parallel universe in which things don't happen in quite the same way as they do here. In particular, the Discworld is a place of magic, witchcraft, and a pleasing lack of technology.
Pratchett has an official web site, set up by his publishers. And I should bloody well hope so too, because he makes enough money for them. On that site, the author tells us that the Discworld 'started out as a parody of all the fantasy that was around in the big boom of the early '80s, then turned into a satire on just about everything, and even I don't know what it is now. I do know that in that time there's been at least four people promoted as "new Terry Pratchetts" so for all I know I may not even still be me.'
This is no place to tell you more about the Discworld than that. But this is the place to tell you that Pratchett has so far written more than 30 novels about his imaginary world, and that the latest is called A Hat Full of Sky. I hope and believe that I have read all Pratchett's books, some of them twice, and I have just finished this one.
Sky, to abbreviate it, is about Tiffany Aching, an 11-year-old trainee witch who goes off to begin her apprenticeship in magic. She is accompanied by a number of Nac Mac Feegles, who are men (mostly) about six inches high. The Feegles are extremely aggressive, so they're good to have on your side, and they speak, oddly enough, with a pronounced Scottish accent.
Which is as much as you need to know, really. It may not sound very interesting, but it certainly entertained me.
Most of the Discworld books are aimed at adult readers (not that there is anything remotely 'adult' about them), but Sky is technically a YA, or young adult book. It is hard to say quite how it differs from the other ones, but there is, admittedly, a slightly different tone to it.
Before reading Sky you might, perhaps, wish to read The Wee Free Men, which is about the same characters but comes first in the series.
You can also, if you wish, read an interview with Pratchett on the Locus magazine site.
Pratchett's next book is to be entitled Going Postal. 'Folk myth believes,' says the author, 'that there’s something about working for the post office that drives people around the bend.' Well yes, quite, quite. I well remember working in the post office at Christmas, all those years ago. Not sure I ever recovered. It could account for quite a lot, now that I come to think about it.
Friday, June 04, 2004
Allingham centenary
It has long been obvious to anyone with any taste for English crime fiction that Margery Allingham is a giant of the genre. And although I'm a week or two late, it is worth reporting that 20 May 2004 was the hundredth anniversary of her birth.
Publishing News reported last week that, to mark the occasion, Sara Paretsky travelled to London to unveil a plaque at 1 Westbourne Crescent, London W2, Allingham's former home. Ms Paretsky declared that Margery Allingham was one of her own inspirations.
There is a very active Margery Allingham Society, which is dedicated to celebrating the life and work of a great 'Queen of Crime'. She wasn't as famous as Agatha Christie, but was every bit her equal in terms of plotting; and, although Agatha was no slouch, Margery was the better writer, I think. The Society's web site contains lots more information about exhibitions, past and forthcoming publications, et cetera. There is also a bibliography.
I myself have been reading Allingham for decades. I read many of her novels back in the 1950s, and in recent years have bought secondhand copies of her books whenever I came across them. Earlier this year, without realising that 2004 marked the centenary of her birth, I decided to re-read the whole canon, from beginning to end, and am now on the last two or three. I shall have more to say when I've finished.
For the moment, if the name is new to you, just be aware that here was a most capable professional writer. Even though the books are between 40 and 75 years old, and very much of their time, they are remarkably entertaining and exceptionally well written. If you can find anything to equal them today you are one lucky reader.
Publishing News reported last week that, to mark the occasion, Sara Paretsky travelled to London to unveil a plaque at 1 Westbourne Crescent, London W2, Allingham's former home. Ms Paretsky declared that Margery Allingham was one of her own inspirations.
There is a very active Margery Allingham Society, which is dedicated to celebrating the life and work of a great 'Queen of Crime'. She wasn't as famous as Agatha Christie, but was every bit her equal in terms of plotting; and, although Agatha was no slouch, Margery was the better writer, I think. The Society's web site contains lots more information about exhibitions, past and forthcoming publications, et cetera. There is also a bibliography.
I myself have been reading Allingham for decades. I read many of her novels back in the 1950s, and in recent years have bought secondhand copies of her books whenever I came across them. Earlier this year, without realising that 2004 marked the centenary of her birth, I decided to re-read the whole canon, from beginning to end, and am now on the last two or three. I shall have more to say when I've finished.
For the moment, if the name is new to you, just be aware that here was a most capable professional writer. Even though the books are between 40 and 75 years old, and very much of their time, they are remarkably entertaining and exceptionally well written. If you can find anything to equal them today you are one lucky reader.
Wednesday, June 02, 2004
One constant in an ever-changing world
Yesterday's Times carried an obituary of Roger Straus, one of the founders of what became Farrar, Straus and Giroux, a famous New York publisher. It was mentioned in the course of this obit that Giroux joined the firm when he grew sick of working at Harcourt Brace, under the command of one Eugene Reynal. The latter had distinguished himself by turning down Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye.
Well, ole Eugene was in pretty damn good company, in the sense that publishers have a long and distinguished history of turning down books which went on to become smash hits or distinguished literary masterpieces. Or even, occasionally, both. There have been so many of these bloopers that a whole book has been written about them -- Rotten Rejections by Andre Bernard. Not a new book, but it keeps appearing in new editions.
Typical rejection letters quoted by Bernard include the following:'
Toole’s mother then took on the task of trying to find a publisher for her son's book. She finally managed it, and A Confederacy of Dunces was hailed by the New York Times as a ‘masterwork of comedy.' In 1981 the novel was awarded the Pulitzer prize. But that was a bit late in the day for its author.
Of course, editors not only overlook potentially successful books, but they also pay more than good money -- huge sums of money in fact -- for books which prove to be flops in the marketplace.
In the 2002 edition of the Writer’s Handbook, Barry Turner gave a couple of examples. I will omit the authors’ names here, because they have suffered enough already. One minute they were told, by publishers, that they were geniuses whose books were going to be big hits, and the next they were told, by the public, that actually they weren’t very interesting at all.
Author A was paid £300,000 by Faber for two novels. The first came out in 2001 and sold less than 4,000 copies. Author B was paid £250,000 for one book, by a different publisher, and this one generated sales of 1,500 copies.
All of which reminds me to mention, before it becomes hopelessly out of date, a point made by Nicholas Clee in his Guardian column on 22 May. He pointed out that book buyers continue to surprise publishers by what takes their fancy. Katie Price's Being Jordan, for instance, which was turned down by several firms, became the second-bestselling biography of the year after only three days on the market. And Transworld paid only a modest advance for Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, the success of which was reportedly unexpected.
So, it's kind of comforting really, isn't it, to know that in an ever-changing world, full of hustle and bustle, hurly and burly, one thing remains absolutely constant and eternally the same: whether it's 1945, 1963, 1981 or 2004, the unfailing ability of publishers to back the wrong horse while simultaneously turning down a winner remains gloriously unimpaired.
Well, ole Eugene was in pretty damn good company, in the sense that publishers have a long and distinguished history of turning down books which went on to become smash hits or distinguished literary masterpieces. Or even, occasionally, both. There have been so many of these bloopers that a whole book has been written about them -- Rotten Rejections by Andre Bernard. Not a new book, but it keeps appearing in new editions.
Typical rejection letters quoted by Bernard include the following:'
'It is impossible to sell animal stories.' (Animal Farm, George Orwell, 1945.)
'You're welcome to John le Carre -- he hasn't got any future.' (The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, 1963.)Perhaps the most famous and I suppose tragic case of author rejection is that of the American novelist, John Kennedy Toole. In the early 1960s Toole became deeply disturbed by the frequent rejection of his book A Confederacy of Dunces, and in 1969 he committed suicide as a result.
Toole’s mother then took on the task of trying to find a publisher for her son's book. She finally managed it, and A Confederacy of Dunces was hailed by the New York Times as a ‘masterwork of comedy.' In 1981 the novel was awarded the Pulitzer prize. But that was a bit late in the day for its author.
Of course, editors not only overlook potentially successful books, but they also pay more than good money -- huge sums of money in fact -- for books which prove to be flops in the marketplace.
In the 2002 edition of the Writer’s Handbook, Barry Turner gave a couple of examples. I will omit the authors’ names here, because they have suffered enough already. One minute they were told, by publishers, that they were geniuses whose books were going to be big hits, and the next they were told, by the public, that actually they weren’t very interesting at all.
Author A was paid £300,000 by Faber for two novels. The first came out in 2001 and sold less than 4,000 copies. Author B was paid £250,000 for one book, by a different publisher, and this one generated sales of 1,500 copies.
All of which reminds me to mention, before it becomes hopelessly out of date, a point made by Nicholas Clee in his Guardian column on 22 May. He pointed out that book buyers continue to surprise publishers by what takes their fancy. Katie Price's Being Jordan, for instance, which was turned down by several firms, became the second-bestselling biography of the year after only three days on the market. And Transworld paid only a modest advance for Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, the success of which was reportedly unexpected.
So, it's kind of comforting really, isn't it, to know that in an ever-changing world, full of hustle and bustle, hurly and burly, one thing remains absolutely constant and eternally the same: whether it's 1945, 1963, 1981 or 2004, the unfailing ability of publishers to back the wrong horse while simultaneously turning down a winner remains gloriously unimpaired.
Further to the point
I fear this topic may be getting tedious, not to say pompous, so let's round it off as quickly as we can.
Yesterday I asked a rhetorical question. If it is true, I said, that art -- and for 'art' read 'books' on this occasion -- is valued mainly insofar as it gives pleasure, then what are the implications for the working writer?
The implications are surely obvious, at any rate if you're a writer who wants to get read. You have to write a book which people will enjoy reading. And how do you do that, precisely?
Well, it isn't a secret, at least in principle. Edgar Allan Poe put his finger on it over 150 years ago. In 1842, Poe used his review of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Twice-Told Tales to set out his views on the most effective way to write a short story. And what Poe had to say about the short story applies equally well to novels and, for that matter, to paintings and any other art form. Here is an extract from Poe's argument:
Poe says that, if the literary artist (writer) is wise, he will not ‘fashion his thoughts to accommodate his incidents’. What this means is that you should not simply write a story based on whatever ‘incidents’ happen to come into your head. What you should do is decide upon ‘a certain unique or single effect’ -- in other words, you must decide what precise emotion it is that you wish to generate in the reader. You then invent such events, or incidents, as will best bring about ‘this preconceived effect.’
To paraphrase Poe in more modern English: The writer’s job is to decide what emotion to create in the reader, and then to invent a series of events -- otherwise known as a plot -- which will generate that emotion.
This is, of course, much easier said than done. But if you understand what you are trying to do -- or what you should be trying to do, if you have any sense -- then at least you have a fighting chance of achieving it. If you are dumb enough to believe in the inspiration theory of literature, and if you are naive enough to believe that everything you write must be marvellous, simply because it flows from the tip of your pen, then you deserve all the trouble you get. And believe me, you will have trouble in abundance.
Even if you have a correct understanding of the purpose of fiction, it is likely to take you ten years and a million or so words before you acquire much fluency and facility. And even then you still have to find a publisher who can actually recognise a book that works when it's still a pile of manuscript. Which is not too difficult. There must be at least one in every hundred.
Yesterday I asked a rhetorical question. If it is true, I said, that art -- and for 'art' read 'books' on this occasion -- is valued mainly insofar as it gives pleasure, then what are the implications for the working writer?
The implications are surely obvious, at any rate if you're a writer who wants to get read. You have to write a book which people will enjoy reading. And how do you do that, precisely?
Well, it isn't a secret, at least in principle. Edgar Allan Poe put his finger on it over 150 years ago. In 1842, Poe used his review of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Twice-Told Tales to set out his views on the most effective way to write a short story. And what Poe had to say about the short story applies equally well to novels and, for that matter, to paintings and any other art form. Here is an extract from Poe's argument:
A skilful literary artist has constructed a tale. If he is wise, he has not fashioned his thoughts to accommodate his incidents; but having conceived, with deliberate care, a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out, he then invents such incidents -- he then combines such events as may best aid him in establishing this preconceived effect. If his very initial sentence tends not to the outbringing of this effect, then he has failed in his first step. In the whole composition there should be no word written of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one pre-established design. As by such means, with such care and skill, a picture is at length painted which leaves in the mind of him who contemplates it with a kindred art a sense of the fullest satisfaction.In this one paragraph Poe has condensed almost every important truth about the writer’s task and the role of emotion in art generally.
Poe says that, if the literary artist (writer) is wise, he will not ‘fashion his thoughts to accommodate his incidents’. What this means is that you should not simply write a story based on whatever ‘incidents’ happen to come into your head. What you should do is decide upon ‘a certain unique or single effect’ -- in other words, you must decide what precise emotion it is that you wish to generate in the reader. You then invent such events, or incidents, as will best bring about ‘this preconceived effect.’
To paraphrase Poe in more modern English: The writer’s job is to decide what emotion to create in the reader, and then to invent a series of events -- otherwise known as a plot -- which will generate that emotion.
This is, of course, much easier said than done. But if you understand what you are trying to do -- or what you should be trying to do, if you have any sense -- then at least you have a fighting chance of achieving it. If you are dumb enough to believe in the inspiration theory of literature, and if you are naive enough to believe that everything you write must be marvellous, simply because it flows from the tip of your pen, then you deserve all the trouble you get. And believe me, you will have trouble in abundance.
Even if you have a correct understanding of the purpose of fiction, it is likely to take you ten years and a million or so words before you acquire much fluency and facility. And even then you still have to find a publisher who can actually recognise a book that works when it's still a pile of manuscript. Which is not too difficult. There must be at least one in every hundred.
Tuesday, June 01, 2004
Everyone who's anyone again
A while back I mentioned one Gerard Jones, who has a web site called Everyone Who's Anyone. This site celebrates the fact that Gerard has tried to sell his memoir, Ginny Good, to almost every agent and publisher in the entire universe. Well, it turns out that eventually he did get it into print; and what's more, he has a fan.
Nicholas Clee is the editor of the Bookseller, and every week or two he writes a column in the Guardian, outlining the latest news from the world publishing industry. In his latest column Nicholas notes that he not only read Gerard's web site but he also made a donation to it, and got a copy of Ginny Good by way of thanks.
Nicholas describes the book as 'a rather wonderful memoir'. It is, he says, 'direct, funny and touching.' But he cannot, he adds, condemn the hundreds of literary agents and publishers who declined to take it on. Such books are hard to market. And for what it's worth, I can testify to that from my own publishing experience. No matter how 'good' such a book is, in the abstract, nobody wants it. Despite the odd exception -- Angela's Ashes, Wild Swans, et cetera -- such books do not normally sell.
Nicholas Clee is the editor of the Bookseller, and every week or two he writes a column in the Guardian, outlining the latest news from the world publishing industry. In his latest column Nicholas notes that he not only read Gerard's web site but he also made a donation to it, and got a copy of Ginny Good by way of thanks.
Nicholas describes the book as 'a rather wonderful memoir'. It is, he says, 'direct, funny and touching.' But he cannot, he adds, condemn the hundreds of literary agents and publishers who declined to take it on. Such books are hard to market. And for what it's worth, I can testify to that from my own publishing experience. No matter how 'good' such a book is, in the abstract, nobody wants it. Despite the odd exception -- Angela's Ashes, Wild Swans, et cetera -- such books do not normally sell.
More to the point
Yesterday I drew attention to two young men who, in 1927, had come to certain conclusions about the purpose and value of art. Oddly enough, on another continent another young person was expressing much the same point of view at much the same time.
I have on my bookshelf a collection of essays first published in America in 1928 and entitled The Art of Playwriting. One of the contributors to this book had an acquaintance called Jennie, who worked long hours in a beauty parlour. Jennie had this to say:
My friends, art is all about alienation, and the alleviation of same. Marx was right (Karl, that is, not Groucho): in industrial society, man lives in a state of alienation. (Feminists please note: man, as the old joke has it, embraces woman.)
We need go back no further than 1750 to find that lives then were lived quite differently. At that time, most people lived in the country, and worked in agriculture. They were, literally, close to nature -- ever conscious of the weather, the changing seasons, the progress of the crops. And the novel, please notice, had barely been invented. Cinema, radio, television, recorded music, all of these were not even science fiction.
Move on to 1900, and you find that most people now live in cities. They frequently work in factories, undertaking repetitive work for long hours. They may very well go to work before dawn, spend all day with barely a glimpse of daylight, and stagger home in the dark. Office workers and those in the service industries don’t fare much better.
If that isn’t a state of alienation I don’t know what is.
Today, many of us no longer work in factories which concentrate on mass production. But we travel long distances to work; once there, we rush from meeting to meeting, grabbing a sandwich at lunch, answering the mobile phone as we go. We develop headaches, ulcers, and back problems, and we have what used to be called nervous breakdowns.
In my judgement, it is no coincidence that the process of industrialisation and its associated alienation led, simultaneously, to a tremendous growth in the entertainment media.
Over the 250 years since 1750 we have seen the development of radio, various formats for recorded music which can be played at will, cinema, television, and of course the print media. We have hundreds of satellite channels, computer games, video-recorders, DVDs. The average person spends over 20 hours a week watching television alone.
The output of the entertainment media is hungrily consumed because such consumption helps to combat our sense of alienation. I think we have to accept that most of us simply cannot do without the constant doses of emotion which the media provide. Judging by our behaviour, most of us can no more survive without such intake of entertainment than we can survive without water. Thus the purpose of ‘art’, as young Theo pointed out yesterday, is primarily to provide pleasure. It is valued in direct proportion to its capacity to perform this function.
What are the implications of this for the working writer (or artist in any other medium)? Of that, more, perhaps, tomorrow.
I have on my bookshelf a collection of essays first published in America in 1928 and entitled The Art of Playwriting. One of the contributors to this book had an acquaintance called Jennie, who worked long hours in a beauty parlour. Jennie had this to say:
‘When I go home at night I’m too tired for anything. I can’t sleep, I can’t read, I can’t speak, and I don’t want nobody to speak to me. But for five cents I can go to the movies and sit and rest and see things I never could see any other way -- grand people, wild animals, foreign cities, wonderful houses and strange beautiful things. And I forget about myself and go home all made over. And the things I have to stand from him [her husband] don’t seem half so hard.’Now that’s not very difficult to understand, is it?
My friends, art is all about alienation, and the alleviation of same. Marx was right (Karl, that is, not Groucho): in industrial society, man lives in a state of alienation. (Feminists please note: man, as the old joke has it, embraces woman.)
We need go back no further than 1750 to find that lives then were lived quite differently. At that time, most people lived in the country, and worked in agriculture. They were, literally, close to nature -- ever conscious of the weather, the changing seasons, the progress of the crops. And the novel, please notice, had barely been invented. Cinema, radio, television, recorded music, all of these were not even science fiction.
Move on to 1900, and you find that most people now live in cities. They frequently work in factories, undertaking repetitive work for long hours. They may very well go to work before dawn, spend all day with barely a glimpse of daylight, and stagger home in the dark. Office workers and those in the service industries don’t fare much better.
If that isn’t a state of alienation I don’t know what is.
Today, many of us no longer work in factories which concentrate on mass production. But we travel long distances to work; once there, we rush from meeting to meeting, grabbing a sandwich at lunch, answering the mobile phone as we go. We develop headaches, ulcers, and back problems, and we have what used to be called nervous breakdowns.
In my judgement, it is no coincidence that the process of industrialisation and its associated alienation led, simultaneously, to a tremendous growth in the entertainment media.
Over the 250 years since 1750 we have seen the development of radio, various formats for recorded music which can be played at will, cinema, television, and of course the print media. We have hundreds of satellite channels, computer games, video-recorders, DVDs. The average person spends over 20 hours a week watching television alone.
The output of the entertainment media is hungrily consumed because such consumption helps to combat our sense of alienation. I think we have to accept that most of us simply cannot do without the constant doses of emotion which the media provide. Judging by our behaviour, most of us can no more survive without such intake of entertainment than we can survive without water. Thus the purpose of ‘art’, as young Theo pointed out yesterday, is primarily to provide pleasure. It is valued in direct proportion to its capacity to perform this function.
What are the implications of this for the working writer (or artist in any other medium)? Of that, more, perhaps, tomorrow.
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