Don't mess with my prose, man

By pure coincidence, yesterday brought two reminders that writers are, in some areas at least, sensitive souls.

First, I was reading (still) the Oxford Book of Literary Anecdotes, and came across an item on Wilkie Collins. In 1875 The Graphic was serialising his novel The Law and the Lady, and the editor saw fit to delete a few lines from one paragraph. The paragraph in question described an incident in which -- steady now, steady -- a young woman was kissed on the hand. Worse yet, the dastardly fellow who had pressed his lips to her flesh also put his arm round her waist, and she was forced to cry out for help.

Well, I think you will agree that the editor had little choice but to curtail this paragraph, on the obvious grounds that it was objectionable.

Unfortunately, Wilkie Collins found the amended paragraph to be more than objectionable: he considered it actionable. He sent in the heavy mob, in the shape of his lawyers, who reminded the editor that the terms of The Graphic's contract with Collins required that the great man's prose had to be printed as it stood. And not as the editor thought it ought to stand.

In the next edition of The Graphic, therefore, the editor was obliged to print a grovelling statement in which he drew the readers' attention to what he had done, and what he was now forced to do, namely print the paragraph, all on its own, as the author had originally written it.

This had the effect, of course, of highlighting in the public eye something which otherwise would probably have passed unnoticed in 99% of households. As is usually the way with attempted censorship, sales of the book almost certainly went up as a result.

And here is another such incident, from more or less the present day.

Following the recent death of the once-famous newspaper columnist Bernard Levin, yesterday's Times carried a letter describing how Levin too had once objected to even a tiny alteration in his copy. Somebody on the staff of The Times, it seems, had had the temerity to change the phrase 'giants in the earth' to 'giants on the earth.' A small change but one which, I am sure you will agree, entirely distorted the sense of what Mr Levin had to say.

Levin wrote a note to the management of The Times, outlining this hideous crime, and saying that he had three comments to make to the person responsible:

1. I would rather he didn't.
2. He has involved me in the greatest crime in my calendar, to wit, misquotation (the phrase is from Genesis, generally attributed to God, who should know).
3. Same as 1, above.

Yep, like I say, writers are sensitive souls, at least in some areas. You may, possibly, seduce their wives, embezzle their money, and steal their parking space, without so much as a murmur of reproof. But start tinkering with their punctuation, man, and you better watch out. They may just come looking for you with a sawn-off shotgun and blow your goddamn head off.

The art of self-publicity

Yesterday we noted how a modicum of qualifications can be transformed into a reputation as a world leader in a particular field of endeavour. And that reminds me of a few other examples of the same thing which may, perhaps, be useful to the ambitious writers amongst you.

About 25 years ago I was involved in organising a series of lunchtime concerts in the classical music mode. These were intended to inject a little culture into relatively unsophisticated students of engineering. There wasn’t much budget for these concerts, which could be attended free of charge, so for the most part we used solo performers, rather than quartets et cetera. Most of these performers were either just beginning their professional careers or were women who had given up the touring circuit in order to have children but still wanted to keep their hand in.

One of these keen young professionals was a pianist. I forget his name so we’ll call him John Smith. He was talented (up to a point), ambitious and clever. But John had realised that there is a hell of a lot of competition in the music business (as in writing) and he had decided to help himself along a bit.

John had noticed that the small-town newspapers in England (and, I dare say, everywhere else in the world) are keen to find material to fill up the white space. He had also noticed that, if you send such papers a short and snappy press release, they will often print it pretty much verbatim.

So, what John did was this. He would get himself booked for a very modest tour of very modest venues in various parts of the country. And then he would send a press release to any daily or evening papers in the first of these towns. The press release included a statement something like this: ‘John Smith is quickly acquiring a reputation as the most brilliant pianist of his generation.’ And – ahem – who, precisely, took the view that John was the most brilliant and so forth? Well, it was his Mum, actually, but John didn’t mention that.

Newspaper number one generally printed John’s press release without changing a word. So for town number two, and newspaper number two, John could quite legitimately put out a press release which included the following: ‘John recently gave a successful concert in Smalltown, and the Smalltown Chronicle described him as ‘one of the most brilliant pianists of his generation.’ And for this press release John would add bit more. ‘John Smith is acknowledged as possessing a dazzling technique.’ Who had acknowledged this? Well, once again Mum proved to be an excellent judge of such matters.

Ten or twelve towns, and ten or twelve concerts later, John had assembled a dazzling array of quotes, something like this:

'The most brilliant pianist of his generation’ Smalltown Chronicle
‘A dazzling technique’ Hicksville Gazette
‘A fabulous performer’ Nowhere Herald
‘A thrilling bravura performance’ Crapsville Argus

And so on. All of these quotes were perfectly genuine and he could flourish a handful of press cuttings to prove it.

I don’t know what became of this young man because I don’t keep up with the world of classical music but he may well have gone far. Modesty, it is said, is the enemy of talent, and it doesn’t do to be backward about coming forward.

How does this technique impact upon writers? Well, you will have to work out similar dodges for yourself. But if you want a few hints, the best source of these is the indefatigable M.J. Rose, who has turned herself into something of an internet legend and now has several books to her name. Ms Rose has written at least one ebook on how to make yourself famous, and also offers online courses too; but they ain’t cheap.

Gillian McKeith: You are what you say

Gillian McKeith is the star of a recent television series, You Are What You Eat. You may well have seen it. If not, I have to say that the programme is something of a freak show, exhibiting for our entertainment some enormously fat and unhealthy people. These monstrously unfit and unattractive souls have their health dramatically improved by the star of the show as a result of her persuading them to eat something sensible instead of the incredibly fat-soaked, early-death-inducing processed junk food that they have been greedily stuffing into themselves at every conceivable opportunity. And even at a few opportunities which were not conceivable.

There is, of course, a book to accompany the series. I haven’t read it, but I have read one of McKeith’s earlier books, Living Foods for Health.

First, what of the author? Well, her book mentions ‘qualifications, degrees and a doctorate (PhD)’, and also lists such institutions as the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Edinburgh, and the American College of Nutrition, amongst others. The wording was suspiciously vague to my eye (I have a most cynical turn of mind), particularly in that it failed to tell us where she got her PhD. So I googled the lady to see if I could find out what came from where.

Turns out that someone has been there before me. A website called Precautionary Tales has a contribution on McKeith from ‘Robert’, dated 27 July 2004. According to Robert, McKeith’s management – he provides a link to NCI Management – claim that she has a first degree from Edinburgh, which is a university of some standing; the subject was reportedly Neuroscience Linguistics and Language. She has an MA in Health Systems Management from the University of Pennsylvania. And the PhD is from the American College of Nutrition.

So, as Robert points out, McKeith’s first two degrees, though awarded by excellent universities, are not wonderfully relevant to her website’s claim that she is ‘the World’s Top Nutritionist’. (He reproduces the claim from the home page of the site.) And the PhD turns out, on the basis of her own management’s evidence, to come from one of those places which, to put it as tactfully as possible, have an extremely modest academic reputation. ‘Could it be,’ asks Robert, that the “World’s Leading Nutritionist” got her PhD from a postal course? And what is the value of such a course?’

Robert’s criticisms seem to have struck home. As of today, 10 August, the NCI Management page on ‘Dr’ McKeith contains none of the details of McKeith’s qualifications which Robert evidently found there. Neither does the page claim, as it apparently once did, that she is the world’s leading nutritionist. Today she is a ‘world-renowned nutritionist.’ Similarly, McKeith’s own website today provides no details at all of her qualifications, and contents itself with quoting the Daily Mail, which described her as ‘the World's most acclaimed nutritionist.’ (Note to American readers: the UK Daily Mail is not widely regarded as the journal best placed to assess the value of scientists' achievements.)

Incidentally, there is further discussion of McKeith's ideas etc on later editions of the Precautionary Tales site, 3, 4 and 5 August.

All of which is a shame, because for a minute there I thought we had a genuine high-class academic in the field of nutrition writing a book for the illumination of the masses. But it turns out not.

Never mind, the question at issue is this: does Living Food for Health contain any useful information? And I rather think it does. For example, McKeith explains clearly the theory about potentially clashing food groups. I have often heard about this in the past but never previously understood it. (One suggested rule is, don’t eat protein at the same time as carbohydrates.)

As for the rest of it – well, I doubt whether most people will want to eat seaweed, as McKeith advocates, and the lady doubts it herself. But as she says in the book, it is her job to set before you what she has learnt and what she believes. The rest is up to you. You can either take it or leave it. As for me, I shall use bits of it and see how I get on. At my age I need all the help I can get.

The strange case of Dr John Bodkin Adams

A letter from some relatives who live in Eastbourne reminds me that on a recent trip there we were shown the premises once occupied by Dr John Bodkin Adams, who is regarded in some quarters as a forerunner of the medical mass murderer Dr Harold Shipman.

Eastbourne has for many decades been a favourite retirement town. Set in Sussex, beside the sea, it is where you go to spend the last years of your life – especially if you have money. It is a genteel, relatively quiet place, the very opposite of a rough-arsed northern holiday resort such as Blackpool.

It was here that, in the 1950s, Dr John Bodkin Adams practised medicine. And, because the population of the town was then, as now, heavily skewed towards the elderly and the well-to-do, his patients included a large number of wealthy widows.

What happened to Bodkin Adams is a longish story, and it is well told in The Strange Case of Dr. Bodkin Adams, by John Surtees. The subtitle is ‘The life and murder trial of Eastbourne's infamous Doctor and the views of those who knew him.’ The author, it seems, is an Eastbourne man, and he has traced and interviewed many of those who knew the doctor. I was not too impressed by the production values of the book; but never mind, the story carries one along.

In the 1950s, the gossip in Eastbourne was that Bodkin Adams’s technique was to persuade a wealthy widow to write a will which left him her money, and then to do her in with an injection of powerful drugs. This gossip eventually reached such a crescendo that the police seem to have felt forced to launch an investigation. While the investigation continued, the press took over the role of spreading the word – ‘Inquiry into 400 wills’ was one gleeful headline. Bodkin Adams was eventually arrested and was prosecuted for the murder of just one rich old lady: Mrs Edith Morell. He was put on trial at the Old Bailey in 1957.

Every aspect of the criminal investigation and the trial is fascinating, and perhaps the most interesting aspect of all is the brilliant cross-examination of some of those who gave evidence against the doctor. Mrs Morell had been cared for on a 24-hour basis by a team of four nurses, and they had all been closely questioned by the police. They had testified that yes, it had been Dr Bodkin Adams’s practice to inject his patients with grossly excessive doses of pain-killing drugs such as morphine. They, the nurses, had been deeply shocked and suspicious, of course. But they were mere nurses; what could they do? That was the general tenor of their evidence.

As the trial proceeded, the outcome looked increasingly bleak for the Doctor. But then the defence counsel rose to cross-examine the first of the nurses who had given such apparently devastating evidence. Questioning her in the mildest of manners, he elicited the information that, during Mrs Morell’s last illness, all injections given to her had been carefully recorded in a notebook, together with details of her condition at any given time. This was standard practice for any terminally ill patient. Would this book, defence counsel casually inquired, support every detail of what the nurse claimed to remember? Oh yes, was the confident, and foolish, answer.

Whereupon defence counsel produced the actual notebook. There were eight of them all told, and they proved, on examination, to contain every detail of Mrs Morell’s treatment for several years before her death. The police had overlooked them, but Bodkin Adams’s solicitor had found them bundled behind a desk at the doctor’s home. And guess what – when the court came to examine these carefully maintained records, the nurses who had written them found, to their deep embarrassment, that their memories were all too fallible. The truth was, of course, that they had allowed themselves to be infected by the rabid dog of Eastbourne gossip. At least one of the nurses was shown to have told an outright lie.

In the end, the jury took only 45 minutes to find Bodkin Adams not guilty, and a number of legal reputations were made and lost as a result.

What was the truth of the matter? Was Bodkin Adams a mass murderer or not? You will have to read the record and make your own judgement. The police certainly thought he was guilty of many murders, as did the press. I had a friend at the time whose father was a Fleet Street journalist, and he told me that the word on the Street was that Adams had killed so many, and seemed so likely to kill so many more, that the police had been obliged to prosecute even though their case was ‘not quite ready’.

My own view is that Bodkin Adams was not a mass murderer at all. But he was, I would say, very definitely a mercy killer.

Remember the circumstances of the time. Bodkin Adams had been trained in the 1920s, when doctors really had very few effective remedies in their bags. What good they did was mostly achieved through a confident bedside manner, reassuring the patient that all would be well. By the 1950s doctors had acquired the early antibiotics, but for many terminal diseases they still had little that was of much use, apart from pain-killers.

And consider the nature of the Doctor’s practice. He was largely concerned with elderly patients who had led very comfortable lives. What did these patients fear most? They feared an agonising and prolonged death. So they would have talked to the Doctor about this possibility, over and over again, urging him to promise that he would not let them suffer. And he, I am quite sure, would have promised. It was how he earned his fee.

When the time came, it seems more than probable that Bodkin Adams did ease his patients’ passing into the next world. And if they, in anticipation of their gratitude, had left him something generous in their will, what was he supposed to do? Send it back?

The practice of mercy killing is seldom discussed in public, but it is a problem which faces every doctor. And it is not as if Bodkin Adams had no precedents. There is, for example, the well-documented case of King George V.

In January 1936, after several months of ill health, the King contracted bronchitis. It soon became obvious that the end was inevitable, and on the evening of 19 January the King drifted into a coma. The court officials realised that, if he lived past midnight, the announcement of his death could not be included in the next morning’s edition of The Times. And so, in view of the old man’s suffering, and in view of the passing time, the King’s doctor (Lord Dawson) decided to inject three-quarters of a grain of morphine and one grain of cocaine into the jugular vein. It was obvious what effect this would have, and the nurse in attendance refused to do it. Lord Dawson did it himself, and within fifteen minutes the King had died.

I do not suggest that Bodkin Adams knew about the death of George V. I merely point out that many a doctor has given a similar injection to patients in a similar position, without any publicity and without being prosecuted for it.

Mr Surtees is not the first author to write about this case of Bodkin Adams, of course. Sybille Bedford wrote an account of the trial in 1958: The Best We Can Do (Collins). And after the Doctor died, in 1983, we had a little flurry of books: Where There’s a Will, by Rodney Hallworth and Mark Williams (Capstan Press, 1983); Two Men Were Acquitted, by Percy Hoskins (Secker and Warburg, 1984); and Easing the Passing, by Patrick Devlin (Bodley Head, 1985). Perhaps it is a measure of the fascination of the case that all of these books appear to be readily available from Amazon.co.uk, even today.

You can also read an account of the affair online.

Gerard Jones's farewell -- or au revoir

Gerard Jones, of Everyone Who’s Anyone fame, sent me an email directing me to the update of his site.

It turns out that Gerard has had enough. For the time being at any rate. Instead of regularly updating his site he’s going to do something different, though what it is he’s not yet sure.

Before leaving, however, he makes an exit speech, in which he tells the book world exactly what he thinks of it. And, as you would expect if you’ve ever read any Gerard, he is not too impressed. Here is just a sample of what he has to say about publishers:

These guys have no clue what a good book even is anymore. They're schlock peddlers, first, foremost, last, always and only...and that they pass themselves off as the guardians of great literature makes it almost funny in a sad, sickening sort of way. They're the guardians of schlock. Schlock sells. They're the guardians of superficiality and stupidity. Superficiality and stupidity sells. Whose fault is that? Not mine. I don't read their stupid books. I write good books, instead, and even if I just read them myself and nobody else ever reads them I'm way better off in the long run, in the grand scheme of things, than I would be if I tried to please these useless, heartless, brainless,shameless, moneygrubbing morons.

He writes rather well when he gets up a head of steam, don’t you think so? I really like ole Gerard. He at least is not likely to get ulcers from repressing his emotions.

Meanwhile he links us to an article in the Christian Science Monitor, which, he claims, says much the same things as he is saying, except in politer language. And he’s right, broadly speaking.

The article is written by one Gail Vida Hamburg who evidently has a ‘political novel’ coming out next year. Meanwhile she berates the publishers of this world for putting out ‘too many books of questionable literary quality.’

Well, stap me vitals. I never thought that I would be cast in the role of defender of the publishing establishment, but I have to say that I disagree with both Gerard and the lovely Gida over this one. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to criticise commercial firms for acting in a commercial way. And God forbid – please, please forbid – that anyone should succeed in persuading the Governments of either the USA or the UK to put out subsidised literary fiction, on the entirely spurious grounds that it is somehow good for people’s souls. We already have far too much of that sort of thing as it is.

Gail Vida Hamburg goes on to heap praise on the UK book world, which, she says, promotes its young writers and encourages reading. She quotes Booktrust and the Book Marketing Council as examples of UK organisations which do this noble work. Well, up to a point, yes. These organisations do ‘encourage young writers’, but only if you belong to the literary genre. I don’t see many arty-farty bodies supporting, say, writers of romantic fiction. Neither would I expect the Arts Council to give you a grant if you’re working on a detective novel.

Gail Vida Hamburg seems to be yet another example of the literary fiction fan who seems to think that the rest of us have a moral duty to share their rather odd enthusiasms, and that we are somehow demonstrating our intellectual inferiority if we happen to prefer, say, crime fiction or science fiction. Well, sorry, but I find the intellectual case for that wholly unconvincing.

Literary anecdotes

Another book which is suitable for bathroom reading is The Oxford Book of Literary Anecdotes. First published in 1975, it is edited by James Sutherland.

The book is arranged chronologically, and it consists, fairly obviously, of stories about literary figures from the past.

The first thing one notices is that literature is evidently a fairly new invention. We begin with Caedmon, from the seventh century, but by page 6 we are already up to the sixteenth century. We end with Dylan Thomas, who died in 1953.

I am currently about two thirds of the way through, but here are a few thoughts on the sections read so far.

During the English civil war, George Wither fought on the side of Parliament. But when he was captured by the royalists, Sir John Denham asked the King not to hang him, because 'as long as Wither lived, Denham would not be accounted the worst poet in England.'

Now there was a character called Denham in fiction. He was, of course, the small boy's sadistic tutor in Algernon Swinburne's unfinished (and deeply scandalous) novel, Lesbia Brandon. Swinburne, who was said to have read everything ever written in five languages, may well have known this story. Do you think it was a little conceit of his, to name his villain after the self-confessed second-worst poet in England?

When I was a small boy myself, oh, vast numbers of years ago, it was the practice to respond to any bully's insult with a bold yell of 'Same to you, with knobs on!' Followed by a determined run for safety. Now I discover, I think, the origin of this witty piece of repartee. It was John Milton, no less. Dryden requested something from Milton which he was not keen on, and in his 'gently ironic' response Milton made 'an apposite reference to the then fashionable metal knobs worn at the end of laces.'

The book of anecdotes also sheds light on the the origin of the claim that someone has stolen one's thunder. In the early eighteenth century there was a playwright called John Dennis, and he seems to have invented a piece of machinery which reproduced, rather convincingly, the sound of a heavy storm. (The book does not tell us, but I believe it involved rolling cannonballs in a metal drum.) Dennis used this device in one of his own plays, which was produced at Drury Lane in 1709. The play was not a success and was taken off after a few performances. Later, Dennis went to see the play which had replaced his own, and to his fury the management made free use of his thunder machine. Dennis was incensed, and cried out in a transport of resentment, 'That is my thunder, by God! The villains will play my thunder but not my plays!'

Well, that's theatrical managements for you. Always the same, darling.

More bits and thoughts may follow.

Colin Watson -- crime writer extraordinaire

There are at least three reasons for recommending the crime novels of Colin Watson. As detective stories they provide a respectable puzzle; they are written in wonderfully elegant prose; and they are funny. If that isn’t enough for you, you’re in the wrong blog.

Biographical details about Watson are sparse; the books themselves seldom tell us much about the author. But he seems to have been born in 1920, and he worked as a journalist. He produced the first of twelve crime novels (plus one other) in 1958; the last book appeared in 1982. And he died far too young in 1983. Along the way (1967) he picked up a Crime Writers Association silver-dagger award for the quality of his output.

Almost all of Watson’s novels are based in the fictional town of Flaxborough, the location of which is always left vague. If forced to guess its position, from the evidence in the books, I would have said Norfolk, but Watson apparently worked in Lincolnshire. In any event, he chose to be imprecise; the explanation, I feel sure, is that much of what he wrote about was based on his experiences as a small-town newspaperman.

Watson usually has the same cast of policemen: Inspector Purbright, Sergeant Love, and of course, the Chief Constable, Mr Chubb. Some of the villains appear more than once, too -- Miss Lucilla Teatime, for instance. But Miss Teatime almost counts as an honorary police person: she is utterly criminal in both intent and action, but she nevertheless sometimes sees it in her interests to provide the Inspector with a little assistance. (Mr Pratchett, you will recall, also has a character called Teatime -- a young man from the Assassins Guild. Though in his case the name is pronounced Tay-atty-may; he is from the Italian branch of the family no doubt.)

It has often been suggested that the names of Watson’s characters alone, like those of Wodehouse, suggest the generally humorous tone of things. Through these pages stalk such stalwart characters as Harold Carobleat, Stanley Biggadyke, Mrs Flora Pentatuke, and the Fleet Street journalist, Clive Grail. But do not be misled by the labelling; these are serious people, and the villains among them are capable of very nasty acts indeed.

As for the elegant prose – well, it would be invidious to give too many examples as they always look rather feeble when removed from context. But, taken from a book opened at random, I rather like this: ‘Anderton grinned and made a rapid chewing motion. Bradley, fearful of impending expectoration, drew back a little.’ All right, so I’m easily pleased.

The BBC wisely bought the television rights to Watson’s books, and they made an entertaining seven-part series in 1977; Anton Rodgers played Inspector Purbright and Brenda Bruce was Miss Teatime.

I read all of Watson’s Flaxborough series as and when they first came out, and I have recently re-read them in chronological order. They remain a rare treat, and are much recommended to anyone with an affection for the crime-fiction genre or for English eccentricity and humour.

Finally, let it not be forgotten that Watson wrote a scholarly and entertaining study of the crime-fiction genre itself, entitled Snobbery with Violence.

If you would like to see a bibliography of Watson’s work, you can find one here. And there is a longer essay on the man and his work written by Jeffrey Ewener.

Graham Greene: The Confidential Agent

In July I spent some time discussing The Third Man, a film scripted by the English novelist Graham Greene. This reminded me that I hadn’t actually read a lot of Greene’s work, so when the opportunity arose to buy a battered secondhand copy of The Confidential Agent, I took it.

The Confidential Agent was first published in 1939, when the Spanish civil war (1936-39) was fresh in everyone’s mind. Quite a number of idealistic (and left-wing) young Englishmen had travelled to Spain and fought there against what they regarded as Fascist forces.

Greene was, I suppose we must say, an essentially serious writer, but he divided his work into what he called novels, on the one hand, and entertainments, on the other. On the title page, The Confidential Agent is firmly labelled an entertainment, but it is, I suspect, quite serious enough for most people.

The story is told entirely from the viewpoint of the protagonist, who is known to us only as D. He is a citizen of a country, never identified, which is deep in civil war, and he has been sent to England to negotiate a contract for coal with the English mine-owners. If D.’s side get the coal, they will probably win the war; without it, they will certainly be defeated.

The plot is built entirely around the dangers and difficulties which D. encounters in trying to carry out his mission; for there are, of course, enemies all around him. He is watched, chased, and attacked by everyone: the other side in the war, his own side (because they don’t trust him), and, before long, the English police. And there is, what a surprise, a love story built in.

The Confidential Agent struck me as being literate, intelligent, and thoughtful; given the author, it could hardly be otherwise. But it does show its age. Had I not been stuck on a vastly overheated train, which was an hour late, I might not have persevered with it. Overall it is an interesting piece of literary history, but not perhaps a book which I would urge you to add to your must-read list.

Subsequently I read Greene’s account of how the book came to be written. In 1938 he was in the middle of a ‘proper’ novel, The Power and the Glory, which was not going well. Furthermore, it seemed unlikely to earn him any significant money. So, dosing himself with Benzedrine, he wrote The Confidential Agent at the rate of 2,000 words a day, in the mornings, and carried on with his ‘serious’ work in the afternoon.

Greene claims that, when he began the book, he had no real idea of where it would end, but I can’t say that I noticed this improvisatory element as I went along. I did, however, feel that some of the plot devices were decidedly dodgy. Coincidence plays too large a part for my taste; D. will keep bumping into the same people, for no apparent reason. And, since the book covers only a few days, I did find it quite hard to believe that a young, rich, and beautiful English girl would (a) fall in love with him and (b) walk off hand in hand with him into a most uncertain sunset. None of that, however, seems to have bothered the reviewers or readers of the day, and I suppose, when one compares it with what else was available in the thriller line in 1939, one has to admit that it was a classy piece of work.

The Confidential Agent was later filmed, in 1945, starring Charles Boyer, Lauren Bacall, and Peter Lorre. No doubt the plot and the characters were fiddled with to suit Hollywood purposes. I can’t imagine Lauren Bacall playing a debby young English gel, can you?

Andrew Crumey: Mobius Dick

A few weeks ago I read a half-page review in the Sunday Times (I think it was) of a book called Mobius Dick, by Andrew Crumey. The review was an enthusiastic one, and it gave a warm recommendation of a book which had every appearance of being a work of science fiction – for want of a better description – so I made it my business to get hold of a copy.

Well, sadly the novel didn’t turn out to be as interesting as I’d hoped. But I learnt a little in the process of reading it.

To begin with I learnt something which hadn’t been mentioned in the review that I read, namely that Crumey is the literary editor of The Scotsman. Well, that explains a good deal. You remember that last week I pointed out that a writer will benefit greatly from being a member of one or other of the various mafias. And, when it comes to getting favourable reviews from newspapers, there is one small but perfectly formed mafia which packs a punch like no other: it is the literary editors’ mafia.

Let us suppose, for the sake of example, that you are the literary editor of the Daily Globe, and you have written a book. The one thing that can be guaranteed, and is an even safer bet than that the sun will rise in the east tomorrow morning, is that every newspaper in what used to be called Fleet Street will review your book.

This is true for others in the newspaper business too, even if you have not quite reached the vertigo-inducing heights of a literary editorship. Being a mere junior reporter will do the trick. In fact, you can probably be the third cousin twice removed of the lady who cleans the editor’s office, and your chances of getting your book reviewed will be much improved.

Why is this so? Well because sooner or later every literary editor is going to write a book himself; or herself. And when that day comes he is naturally going to want to be reviewed, so that he can sell lots of books. So, obviously, he makes sure that he reviews the books written by everybody else in the newspaper racket, just to ensure that he gets a favourable reception when it comes round to his own book-plugging time.

And in case you are sniffing in a somewhat superior way, and thinking how shocking this is, let me point out very sharply that there is nothing immoral or improper in this practice. Goodness me, no. What is the golden rule of morality? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. So, naturally, every literary editor in Fleet Street will ensure that a book by another literary editor gets at least a half-page review, because that’s the way he himself wants to be treated, next year or the year after. When he finally gets around to writing that novel or whatever. And it follows, therefore, that the fact that Crumey got a big write-up in whatever paper it was that I happened to be reading is not an example of corruption and mutual back-scratching of a dubious kind. Dear me, no. Not at all. It is an example of morality at work. And we would all be better off if there was more of it. I’m sure you agree.

Not everyone does agree, however. This being the world of writers and publishers, there is always someone who grumbles. And shortly before his death, the literary agent Giles Cooper wrote an article about the Fleet Street mafia, criticising it in fairly outspoken terms. He drew attention to the fact that a recent novel by, I think, a reporter on the Evening Standard, had been given lots of column inches, while a much better book (naturally) by one of his own clients (also naturally) had found it hard to get any sort of a mention at all. Was this fair, he asked. And he made it clear that, as far as he was concerned, it was not.

This Times article was, as you will appreciate, a total waste of time. Giles Cooper knew perfectly well how the world works, and he was just taking the opportunity (a) to get his clients mentioned, and (b) to earn a few guineas.

Back to Mobius Dick. If you want to have a really good laugh, try reading the sycophantic and gushing review of the book which appeared in the very newspaper for which Andrew Crumey is the literary editor, namely The Scotsman. ‘Andrew Crumey writes like a dream,’ it begins. Yup, folks, but it could be a nightmare. I nearly fell off my chair laughing. I believe Private Eye has an award for this kind of thing.

Mobius Dick is a hard book to summarise, but briefly it seems to be about the possibility of parallel universes in which things do not happen in quite the same way as they do in the universe with which you and I are familiar. A number of ‘real-life’ historical figures make their appearance, among them Erwin Schrodinger, Robert Schumann, and Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche again, you see. That son of a bitch gets everywhere; he was in a play by George Bernard Shaw a few days ago.

If I read Mobius Dick correctly, these real-life personages do not have quite the same characteristics and history in the novel as you and I are led to believe they had in the ‘real’ world. Always assuming that we can tell the difference between the real world and an imagined, or parallel one. There is always at least the possibility that we, the readers, or perhaps the characters, are victim to the False Memory Syndrome. What we think we remember as true may just be an idea which somebody has planted in our brains to see how we react.

If that sounds confusing, it is, at least for me, which is one of the reasons why I didn’t like the book all that much. Andrew Crumey, however, has a PhD in theoretical physics, so he probably finds it easier to follow than the rest of us.

One of the redeeming features of Mobius Dick, which kept me reading a little longer than I otherwise might, is Crumey’s sense of humour. At one point he portrays one of his characters, Harry Dick, as receiving ‘writing therapy’ from a woman who has had no less than 17 short stories published. ‘So you see,’ she says, ‘I really am a genuine writer.' One of her stories, she explains, was a three-page tale (Gash magazine, Issue 4) in which an old woman looks out of her kitchen window. ‘That woman was me, really,’ she explains to Harry. ‘But the whole point, do you see, is the moment when she notices the wilting hydrangeas and it brings everything back. We call that sort of thing an epiphany.’ Well, that’s the polite word for it.

Of course there is nothing desperately new, or of itself interesting, in writing a story about shifts in time and space. It is a practice which goes back at least as far as H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine of 1895. But if such a story is to become really involving for the reader, you have to care about the fate of the characters, and I’m afraid that, in this instance, I for one did not care. For a much better treatment of similar ideas, try Alfred Bester’s Tiger, Tiger (aka The Stars My Destination).

Final thought. Mobius Dick is, by any reasonable interpretation, a work of science fiction. But the author, I remind you, is one of the literary elite, and his publisher is Picador, a stronghold of lit’ry stuff. And, my dears, the lit’ry elite would rather cut off its right hand than admit that it has anything to do with that sordid, grubby and downmarket stuff called science fiction. So you will look for this phrase in vain in any of the publisher’s publicity for the book. Instead we are told that it is ‘an homage to classic literature and an indictment of cultural relativism.’ Makes it sound really inviting, doesn't it?

John Lawton and the English past

Last week I promised to write about a novelist who uses the past history of England, as a backdrop to his books, to rather better advantage (in my opinion) than Jake Arnott. His name is John Lawton, and he writes books which are in the crime fiction/thriller category. Comparators: Alan Furst, Philip Kerr, perhaps.

Lawton is reportedly a retired TV producer who has turned to writing fiction; and he does it extremely well. In 1995 he began with Black Out, which, as the title suggests, is set in the second world war -- 1944 to be precise. We are immediately introduced to his lead character, a policeman called Frederick Troy. At this stage of his career Troy is a mere Sergeant, but he has an intriguing background, being the son of a distinguished Russian emigre. Lawton provides us with not just a good thriller, but an intriguing set of insights into what wartime conditions were really like -- as opposed to many of the myths.

In 1996 Lawton produced Old Flames, which is set in 1956. Here Lawton again develops his plot against the background of real events, in this case chiefly the visit to London by the two Russian leaders, Bulganin and Krushchev. A real-life embarrassing incident, when British intelligence seem to have lost one of their operatives while trying to spy on the Russian duo, features heavily. And Troy, you will remember, is the son of a Russian and so speaks the language.

Third in the series (1998) is A Little White Death, set in 1963. Amazon lists a non-fiction book called 1963: Five Hundred Days, which is also by one John Lawton, and I think it must be the same author. The year 1963 was a big one in English history, being flanked by the unmasking of a Russian spy at the end of 1962 and the Beatles first trip to America in early 1964. In between we had a few things like the Profumo scandal and the resignation of a Prime Minister. It is against this background that we see Troy in action yet again.

Fourth in the Troy series is Riptide, in which Lawton takes us back to 1941, but still with the same lead character. And a fifth book, Blue Rondo, is due for publication in March next year. That one is to be set in the late 1950s.

Lawton seems to have spent some considerable time in the US, because he has also published a novel with an American background in much the same style as his Troy series. This is Sweet Sunday. The lead character here is Tudor Raines, a New York private eye, and the date is 1969: Vietnam, Woodstock, et cetera. I did not personally find this as interesting as the books set in England, but US readers would probably hold the reverse view.

All in all, Lawton is a literate, thoughtful and skilled writer in a genre which is often regarded as inferior to the literary novel. The latter view is complete balls, of course, and most people, fortunately, have the good sense to ignore it.