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“‘The Spy Who Came in from the Cold’, my third book, changed my life and put me on bare-knuckle terms with my abilities. Until its publication I had written literally in secret, from inside the walls of the secret world, under another name, and free of serious critical attention. Once this book hit the stands, my time of quiet and gradual development was over for good, however much I tried to recreate it by, for example, fleeing with my family to a remote Greek island. Therefore, ‘The Spy Who Came in from the Cold’ is the last book of my period of innocence, and after it, for better or worse, my experimentations would have to take place in public. For years to come there would be no such thing, for the publishing industry, as a ‘small’ le Carre book — a distortion both longed for and abhorred by any artist worth his salt.”

– John le Carre, December 1989, introduction to THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD, Sceptre, 2009

There’s more. le Carre talks about writing the novel in a rush over 5 weeks, he talks about watching the Berlin wall go up. And he says — and at this point I bought the book — “I had been poor too long, I was drinking a lot, I was beginning to doubt, in the deepest of ways, the wisdom of my choice of job.”

I had been poor too long. I was drinking a lot. I was beginning to doubt…

Well, if that’s part of the formula for success, then raise a cheer, my friends, I swear I’m part way there!

I’ve been reading THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD (John LeCarre) for the past month now — or so Goodreads tells me — because I’m spending a lot of time staring out the train window instead. This has nothing to do with the book. More to do with my aging eyes.

Anyhoo, I’ve been thinking about this book and you know? It really shouldn’t work. I mean, really. It’s a spy drama but the most action that’s happened so far is that one guy was riding a bike. Riding a bike while being shot at, sure, but still what it boils down to is a dude on a bike. Oh, and then there was one guy who got punched in the face, but really that’s **it**!!

Apart from that it’s all men in cars, men in rooms, men back in their cars on their ways to other rooms. Men talking. Mostly men, but my point isn’t about gender. It’s about activity. There isn’t much of it. It’s a book about talking. Talking about spying, sure. But mostly, it’s just a book with men sitting across the room from one another, talking. And I picture all of them in neat brown suits and narrow ties, perched on chairs in British drawing rooms, talking like Hugh Laurie used to talk back when he was British.

So, all this talking about spying and this driving around and the drawing rooms and the ‘I say, old chap!’ (this from the German guy) AND THEN there’s a couple of paragraphs telling the reader — not showing the reader — how difficult it is to be a spy, living a lie and trying to keep the lie straight in your head, oh how terribly wretched, fie! And so on.

See? This damn book breaks all the rules.

It shouldn’t work.

So why am I enjoying it so much?

Next post I will contrast this book with a recent Neil Cross novel I read. THEN we’ll talk about action.

There are few drawbacks to living ‘in the future’ (i.e. in a city which is 10 hrs in advance of GMT), but one of them is not realising until reading it on BoingBoing that today was (or, is, for some of you) Towel Day, in honour of the great, late Douglas Adams.

I always figured if there was a day in honour of Douglas Adams, it’d be a Thursday. Never could get the hang of Thursdays.

Yes, I actually have blogging time today! Because I am home sick. It is a bittersweet kind of deal, eh?

Lately I’ve been working full-time, alas, but one of the silver linings of full-time work (apart from cold hard cash) is commuting. But only because commuting grants reading time. Here’s some of what I’ve been reading:

Identity, Milan Kundera: heartbreaking. The story of a couple who go away for the weekend. I know, doesn’t sound heartbreaking. But the gentle exploration of self & other, about isolation in the midst of togetherness, was haunting. So much so that I immediately ordered The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. I’m too scared to read it right now, though. There’s only so much loneliness I can bear in my prose. From here I moved onto:

Carmen Dog, Carol Emshwiller. Is this the perfect, funny, sweet, accepting, feminist book ever written? I think it might be. ‘Difference with equality’ *can* be done, that’s what this book showed me. Randomly, then, I moved from this book to:

The Clocks, Agatha Christie. Christie really is a master of the finely-observed character study. This is a wonderful book, though I admit I find Hercule Poirot oddly overblown compared to the subtle reality of the other characters. I suspect he was always this discordant & I just never noticed it when I was reading my way through all the Christies as a teenager. It was such a satisfying read I took a gamble & picked up a book I bought at City Lights in San Francisco last year:

Beauty Salon, Mario Bellatin. I didn’t love this. Actually, I didn’t even get this. But on the plus side: it’s short. I needed a much more narrative-driven book after this one, so I turned to:

The Straw Men, Michael Marshall. A great romp with a disturbing serial killer and weird, spooky clues on video tapes. Modern, energetic & creepy. Just the way I like ‘em. Almost as good as:

Bad Things, Michael Marshall. Now *this* was brilliant. I thought this was an almost-perfect book. The friend I pressed it upon didn’t quite agree & he instead made me read:

Last Man Standing, David Baldacci. Very well-plotted book from the author of Absolute Power. Occasionally a bit obvious, occasionally surprising, & very thick. Not as thick, though, as:

A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin. OK, THIS was thick. I was told in no uncertain terms I had to read it. *Obviously* I was never going to enjoy it. The book’s about 800 pages long & it has a dragon on the cover. The bf asked me once how I was going reading such a thick book & I said, ‘The dwarf-type character has just mentioned that dragons don’t exist anymore. Which, of course, means this book is going to have dragons in it.’ The bf looked at me. “Well, that & the fact it has a DRAGON on the COVER.” Thereafter he would occasionally recite, “It has a DRAGON on the COVER” whenever he caught me reading it.

This is a bloody good book. GRRM is such a master of character and plot and event that I rushed through this book, surrendering entire weekends to it. And then I bought the second one. Which is only 600 pages long, but printed in a font so tiny as to be illegal in some countries.

Next time I’m off sick, I’ll go check the bookshelves & let you know what ELSE I’ve been reading.

Yes, yes, we all love David Mitchell. How can we not? The man’s a bloody genius. For proof: a story about a rat and a divorce. Thank-you, Guardian. I love you.

Today is typically Sydney: both overcast AND muggy.

To compensate I am watching In Treatment Season 2, which is frikking awesome. Maybe more awesome than Season 1, I’m not sure. Only 1 ‘week’ in. Also there’ll be novel revision & roast chicken later today.

I am getting really good at this ‘time off’ thing.

And I have bought my very first moleskin notebook. I couldn’t resist — they now come in pink. Sriously, r they as good as the fans claim they are? I need to know. Two pink notebooks cost me twenty-five bucks!

Hmmm, now what shall I write in them?

I was gonna say, my stars are warning me that I’ll be very happy this year, provided I’m not too prescriptive in what I want.

Man. I only just got through setting those goals.

In other news, I went into Dymocks today to spend some of my Xmas book voucher on CM Priest’s BONESHAKER, & they were sold out. They were sold out in most of the Dymocks stores in Sydney, I was told. So then I tried to find some Michael Marshall. They were also sold out of Marshall’s books.

If this keeps up, I’m gonna have to read that Atwood book I bought — right before I instantly began regretting buying another Atwood book. It better be good, people-who-told-me-to-read-it. It soooooo better be good.

If you asked me how I feel about 2009 being over & I started with “WooooooHOOOOOOO” and ended with “thankgod, thankgod, thankgod”, then you’d probably have a pretty clear idea of your answer. No?

There were some highlights, of course. Apparently my name is now on the cover of a book (that really happened, right?) & I did get a new job (well, 2 new jobs, but the second one actually looks pretty good) & I did make a bunch of excellent new friends from all the workplace-alterations I undertook. And the house is now painted. Yay! I waited 12 years for that, I kid you not. Sometimes the issue was money, sometimes the issue was my poor choice of living partner (something else I’ve rectified in recent years). Also 2009 marked the return of healthiness post-gallbladder. Yes, the gallbladder thing took longer than expected — & longer than it should’ve, I’m sure. Slowed down as it was by other committments & general chaos. And apart from a lingering inability to drink anywhere near the way I used to be able to (actually, I never WAS able to drink the way I used to be able to), it seems to be working out fine.

We spent the New Year bit of 2009-10 in the Blue Mountains, holed up all cosy & snug in the drizzling weather. I love rainstorms. I love the smell of rain & I love being away from the tropical Sydney heat. Man, I hate the heat. But 2010 is starting off kinda cool & wet in Sydney, which is my favourite kinda weather. So I can’t complain.

So, what will I remember of 2009? Heck, I’m not even sure I WILL remember 2009. But according to the Guardian, it was the year of the short story. Which is nice. And although it’s apparently not technically the end of a decade, it’s surely the end of the ‘noughties’ — which is leading a lot of people to make ‘best of’ lists not only for the year but also the last ten years.

Here in no particular order is my List of Top Five Lists (Inspired by December 2009). Lemme know of others you’ve enjoyed:

The Book Maven’s Top 20 Books of the Decade
NY Times’ Favourite Book Covers of 2009
PublishingPerspectives’ Best Publishers of 09
About.com’s Best Books of the 2000s
Flashlight Worthy’s Best Graphic Novels of 2009

And for entirely unrelated reasons, 100 Extraordinary Examples of Paper Art.

Excelsior!

… turns out you can still buy Redsine #7, edited by Trent Jamieson & Garry Nurrish, from about 2002.

I loved Redsine and always wished it had continued for longer. It was a classy zine, and short (a good characteristic for a zine, imho: one-sitting-reading always scores well with me).

And I love it not only because it was the home of my second-ever published (and first-ever completed) story, Silicon Cast — which is, ahem, *also* still available thanks to GoogleBooks. Well, in part.

Not sure how I feel about that. *pauses to reflect* Well, pretty relaxed.

Silicon Cast feels very young to me now, but still has a relatively straight-forward horror narrative that makes me grin. I do love a bit of ‘ew’ in my reading. Terry Dowling, my first teacher, read this over for me when I was struggling and it was certainly in part because of his encouragement that I ever continued with writing. And yes, you can read a hardcopy version in A Book of Endings if you’re so inclined.

Anyhow. If you read the full version, let me know what you think of the story!

I made it. With the emailing of the full draft of my 21st Century Gothic essay on NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, I’m done. That’s it. I’ve met my deadlines for 2009. Which is remarkable because for a while there I thought I wasn’t going to make it.

(I think I made it by going a little crazy for a while.)

Of course, a lot of those deadlines were for A BOOK OF ENDINGS (six new stories, yours now via Twelfth Planet Press!), but the timetable of 2009 work made it all the way into December. Now I’ve got to start thinking about my timetable for (*gulp*) 2010. Something a little calmer, I hope, though I maybe have just signed up for another Gilgamesh project. And there’s editing for the contemporary Ishtar story soon, most likely.

Anyhoooo, the essay. It’s in & it may or may not coherently argue that the battle of good (Sheriff Bell) and evil (Anton Chigurh) for the soul of one man (Llewellyn Moss), the elements of the supernatural, the voice of despair, the struggle to believe in a God who seems less involved in the world than Satan are all Gothic elements of this modern novel. There’s other stuff, too. I refer to Anne Radcliffe and Terminator in about equal measures, and naturally I mention MELMOTH THE WANDERER more than once.

But here’s the thing: I thought I was pretty knowledgeable about gothic literature. Turns out I’m not that knowledgeable at all. It impresses me how much trust esteemed editor Danel Olson has placed in his extensive contributor list (2 volumes!).

Plus, essays. Wow, I’d forgotten how hard they can be.

For now, though, the next steps are to return to the fun stuff. My stuff. The BROKEN novel. I’d left off with John Eiger about to — well, let’s just say he could be making a big mistake.

Man, I love when characters make big mistakes. I love sitting alongside them thinking, ‘oooooohhh, buddy, you’re in trouble now….’.

But tonight some rest and something new to read that *isn’t* NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. I’m thinking it’s time to return to some Michael Robotham.

Taking a breather from trying to come up with finish an essay on why I consider No Country for Old Men gothic, to close some browser windows.

So, then.

If this is the future of storytelling, I don’t think I mind it at all.

Also, some reading for 2010. Could come in handy, particularly if you’re thinking of doing the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge like driftwoodyak. I’m really keen on this, but I don’t think I can both read more AND write more all in the same 52-week period.

I’ve just added New Model Army and Death of the Author to my (already too-long) list. Man, I’m sick of reading boring books.

But if all that reading’s too much, maybe just skip to the end.

Last but not — well, just last — I came across the National Library’s page for A Book of Endings. Kinda cool.

Well, I didn’t have to go very far to find my welcome-back-to-the-blogosphere deathknell. Fictionbitch calls this the end for writers, but I wonder if it’s more about the end for readers. The end of a nice sit down in a bookstore, that is, heralded by Waterstones — a British bookchain, from the sounds of it. I don’t think we have Waterstones, but I doubt that gives us much of an evolutionary advantage.

Still, the article ends on a high note by suggesting Waterstones may end up killing *itself*. Selling eReaders will wipe out the need for bookshops of any kind, apparently. (Unless someone comes up with a Red Room for eBooks, I suppose.)

I found one of the Waterstone article comments interesting: a parent who tells their child, ‘we don’t care what you read, just read something!’ Much as I want to encourage reading, I’ve always found this idea of the mystically transformative powers of reading kinda … short-sighted. My neighbour’s kid took to reading at the age of about eight. He read & read. What he was reading was the Harry Potter books, over & over again. Not sure if he ever did take to reading anything else.

Quite apart from that, he was one weird little kid.

The point is read, sure, and read widely. But be aware when reading that you may still come across garbage. And reading garbage is just as bad as watching garbage, listening to garbage or, indeed, eating garbage. Strictly, y’know, in my opinion.

Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.
– Kurt Vonnegut

Oh, all right, I admit I’ve laughed along with the best of ‘em at Dan Brown’s prose (the famous silhouette with the pink eyes is my favourite), but I do have to wonder: where in heck was the EDITOR in all of this? Could you GET another editing gig after that?

“Hi, I’m looking for a job, my previous experience was as editor of Dan Brown’s –” *click* “… hello?”

Yer have to hand it to Brown: he’s found something that millions of people can enjoy. More than one commenter over at this column even states it specifically: Brown gives good story (even if he doesn’t give good prose).

(Yes, yes, I know, story is in the eye of the beholder. Yes, what? Oh, well, I’ve not really read any … or, okay, I read one, but I skim-read it, & I don’t know if I really thought it was a good story. I’m just a Knights Templar-obsessive. It seemed to roll along, though. What’s that you say? Characters? Oh, well, I’m not sure there were any…)

Still and all, Brown would find a lot to laugh about with MY thwarted novel attempts. And I couldn’t blame him for that. Hats off to him for his runaway success, after all. Not many authors get that level of buzz around their next novel, that many people excited by & looking forward to their next work. Good on him, I say! And I actually mean that, though the flippant nature of the rest of this post is probably undermining my attempts to be sincere on that front. Good on him, so few of us break through, how can we begrudge the ones that do?

But if you ARE looking for a rollicking good story where the prose may not pain you so much, there’s an excellent-looking list here. Onto the wishlist with these!

The lurgy is finally lifting, thankfully. For a while there it was impossible to sleep AND breathe simultaneously. Which can add a layer of difficulty to, oh, everything.

From the weekend surfing:

* Rebecca Solnit, “You know, a lot of my work has been based on the field of disaster sociology, which emerged after the World War II, when the US government decided it wanted to know how human beings would behave in the aftermath of an all-out nuclear war. The assumption, as it often is, is that we would become childlike and sheepish and panic and be helpless, or that we’d become sort of venal and savage and barbaric. And the disaster scholars started to look at this and eventually dismantled almost every stereotype we have and found that people are actually, as I’ve been saying, resourceful, altruistic, brave, innovative and often oddly joyful, because a lot of the alienation and isolation of everyday life is removed. [snip] What you also see is that because the authorities think that we’re monsters, they themselves panic and become the monsters in disaster.” Elite panic, it’s called. Solnit’s book, A Paradise Built in Hell, has gone into the shopping cart.

* How to Innovate Like Apple: this includes nurturing talent, flattening hierarchies, and ignoring market research.

* Relatedly, an article on why big business isn’t bothered about helping you find your stolen iPhone.

* Follow the Reader: a blog for readers

* The Short Review: a review site for short story collections (I so wish I’d known about this a year back when I was putting together my own short story collection — think of all the brilliant ideas I could’ve stolen learned from!

* And finally, via catsparx: if architects had to work like web designers (so. very. true.)

And the even better news is that the brain is working well enough again for me to be pushing forward on the writing schedule. Over the past few days I’m managed to get halfway through my Ishtar contemporary novella (currently being brought down from 23K to the requisite 20K) & I am having a blast with this project.

Ah, Ishtar. Putting the FUN! back into love & war.

OK, so I’m getting a little obsessed with cover art (ever since Nick Stathopoulos turned in the fabulous A Book of Endings cover!). Yesterday I spent a couple hours staring at these sites:

http://www.thebookdesignreview.com
http://shelvedbooks.blogspot.com
http://henryseneyee.blogspot.com

I also followed various links, finding myself in a world of cover debate. Including a link to a rant by Stuart Evers on the good side of bad books:

After a promising first page, which actually made me laugh, Low Alcohol descended into the kind of literary hell most readers would hesitate to enter, even led by a Dickens or an Austen, let alone a debut novelist sniffing like a mangy dog around the arse end of Martin Amis. Derivative, unfunny, nasty and puerile, the whole shabby affair – concerning the life and loves of Doug Down – was an ill-conceived disaster. And I’m glad I read it before it fell out of print.

See, I’m not convinced there’s a value in that. Surely life is too short for bad books in the same way it’s too short for bad coffee, bad food and bad love affairs…?

Over at The Guardian, Alison Flood asks the question “are we really going to admit to judging books by their covers?” To which the answer must be ‘yes’. Even in an age when more & more of us are looking at electronic solutions for our libraries, it’s probably useful not to stray TOO far from your content with a misleading cover.

(This presented a particular problem for the cover of my own antho, as I find myself moving further away from genre into just a kind of ‘weird urban’ storytelling. Which — I hope! — the Stathopoulos cover captured rather brilliantly!)

Please-god, spare me from ever having a chicklit cover! Or from finding myself in the ‘chicklit’ section of Barnes & Noble (seriously, does that exist?). Somewhere I’ve seen chicklit referred to as the ‘buying shoes in the big city’ genre. Which reminds me, I think I *did* write a story about buying shoes in a big city once. But I like to think it was only because I needed shoes. And live in a city.

I digress. Let’s leave the final word on that one to author Janelle Brown, ““Chick lit” is a catch all for everything that’s not “hard” literature written by a woman. It implies that the male experience is universal, while the female experience is something only other women would be interested in.””

BUT lots of interesting reading suggested at SF Signal. In this case, non-genre titles for genre readers.

And there’s also recommendations on literary fiction for people who hate literary fiction at Emerald City.