books

Book review: Bopper’s Progress by John Manderino

/ professorwu / Leave a comment

boppers progress .jpg

It is a remarkable feat to read a book that follows a day in the life of a would-be Zen Buddhist, in essentially real-time, and come away feeling refreshed, lighter, hopeful and – perhaps – more zen. Yet this is precisely what John Manderino’s latest book, Bopper’s Progess, does.

Written in a fragmentary form, with our first person narrator setting an informal tone, we follow the trials and tribulations of the titular protagonist, Bopper, in his quest for enlightenment (though it turns out enlightenment may just be a stand in for getting over an ex).

The humour is excellent, the writing succinct, full of flavour and character – and the overall effect is rather like spending an evening with a very close friend talking casually as the sun sets about life, love, people you hate, people you miss, the furtive feelings that keep you up at night and the existential crises we try to ignore.

The simple tactic Manderino employs of writing in the present tense of course reflects one of Zen’s main teachings: that the present moment is what matters more than anything else. In our western relationship with time, in which we compulsively pick over the past in order to learn lessons from it, and then project into a hypothetical future in which those lessons can be applied, the present moment has been compressed to a tiny sliver on the clock face between a vast past and an infinite future.

Bopper, we see, is entirely consumed by this western approach to time: of pouring over the past so that it consumes his present. Yet in reading the book in our own present, a strange thing happens – our consciousness drifts (as should be the case when reading good fiction), and suddenly we are unaware of ourselves in the relationship between book and reader. Our empathy with Bopper transcends time and space – as well as our own egos.

It’s a brilliant thing – until, of course, you realise you are thinking about how you have just transcended the self (perhaps moving to the edge of enlightenment) and now you are thinking about thinking about that, and the whole thing collapses into an overdose of self-awareness.

At its heart, this is a book about trying to make sense of the world and in that way it truly is a book for our times, since we find ourselves living as we do in an era of political polarisation; with tyrants and despots in the highest echelons of world power, where previously firmly-held ‘truths’ or assumptions have been challenged or proven to be false. In a world of fake news and both traditional and social or disruptive media bias, it is increasingly difficult to tell fact from fiction.

Of course, the search for meaning in life is not new. Human beings have likely been searching for it since the dawn of consciousness. Though it likely remains true that the only thing that anyone really can know for sure is that nobody can ever know everything. What’s more, the more you study life and the world around you, the more you realise that everything is contradiction and paradox, and no one really knows much for sure, however loudly they profess to the contrary.

In both these ways, Boppers Progress speaks to something inseparable from ourselves and connects directly to our human spirit. We are all of us striving, in one way or another, for answers, perhaps to questions we don’t yet know we are asking.

Buy Bopper’s Progress from publisher Wundor Editions here https://wundor-store.myshopify.com/products/boppers-progress-by-john-manderino 

 

 

 

 

 

Advertisements

Ernest Hemingway’s letter of advice to F. Scott Fitzgerald

/ professorwu / Leave a comment

Fitzgerald Hemingway.png

Even the greatest writers need a little help and advice from time to time.

In 1934, shortly before noting his famed list of books every aspiring writer should read, Ernest Hemingway received a request for feedback and writerly advice from his long-time friend and fellow literary great, F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Following a nine-year period in the literary wilderness, after struggling with severe addiction problems, Fitzgerald had just written Tender is the night, and turned to his old friend for feedback. Upon reading the work, Hemingway responded with detail, vigour, and no shortage of tough love.

Just as new writers can often need a little bit of timely counselling from their peers and mentors, so too, as Hemingway’s letter shows, can some of the finest and most established authors.

Full of sage and sobering advice, Hemingway’s letter offers fine writing tips and advice to writers of all ages and stages of their literary careers. You can read it here below.*

Key West
28 May 1934

Dear Scott:

I liked it and I didn’t. It started off with that marvelous description of Sara and Gerald (goddamn it Dos took it with him so I can’t refer to it. So if I make any mistakes—). Then you started fooling with them, making them come from things they didn’t come from, changing them into other people and you can’t do that, Scott. If you take real people and write about them you cannot give them other parents than they have (they are made by their parents and what happens to them) you cannot make them do anything they would not do. You can take you or me or Zelda or Pauline or Hadley or Sara or Gerald but you have to keep them the same and you can only make them do what they would do. You can’t make one be another. Invention is the finest thing but you cannot invent anything that would not actually happen.

That is what we are supposed to do when we are at our best—make it all up—but make it up so truly that later it will happen that way.

Goddamn it you took liberties with peoples’ pasts and futures that produced not people but damned marvellously faked case histories. You, who can write better than anybody can, who are so lousy with talent that you have to—the hell with it. Scott for gods sake write and write truly no matter who or what it hurts but do not make these silly compromises. You could write a fine book about Gerald and Sara for instance if you knew enough about them and they would not have any feeling, except passing, if it were true.

There were wonderful places and nobody else nor none of the boys can write a good one half as good reading as one that doesn’t come out by you, but you cheated too damned much in this one. And you don’t need to.

In the first place I’ve always claimed that you can’t think. All right, we’ll admit you can think. But say you couldn’t think; then you ought to write, invent, out of what you know and keep the people’s antecedants straight. Second place, a long time ago you stopped listening except to the answers to your own questions. You had good stuff in too that it didn’t need. That’s what dries a writer up (we all dry up. That’s no insult to you in person) not listening. That is where it all comes from. Seeing, listening. You see well enough. But you stop listening.

It’s a lot better than I say. But it’s not as good as you can do.

You can study Clausewitz in the field and economics and psychology and nothing else will do you any bloody good once you are writing. We are like lousy damned acrobats but we make some mighty fine jumps, bo, and they have all these other acrobats that won’t jump.

For Christ sake write and don’t worry about what the boys will say nor whether it will be a masterpiece nor what. I write one page of masterpiece to ninety one pages of shit. I try to put the shit in the wastebasket. You feel you have to publish crap to make money to live and let live. All write but if you write enough and as well as you can there will be the same amount of masterpiece material (as we say at Yale). You can’t think well enough to sit down and write a deliberate masterpiece and if you could get rid of Seldes and those guys that nearly ruined you and turn them out as well as you can and let the spectators yell when it is good and hoot when it is not you would be all right.

Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt use it—don’t cheat with it. Be as faithful to it as a scientist—but don’t think anything is of any importance because it happens to you or anyone belonging to you.

About this time I wouldn’t blame you if you gave me a burst. Jesus it’s marvellous to tell other people how to write, live, die etc.

I’d like to see you and talk about things with you sober. You were so damned stinking in N.Y. we didn’t get anywhere. You see, Bo, you’re not a tragic character. Neither am I. All we are is writers and what we should do is write. Of all people on earth you needed discipline in your work and instead you marry someone who is jealous of your work, wants to compete with you and ruins you. It’s not as simple as that and I thought Zelda was crazy the first time I met her and you complicated it even more by being in love with her and, of course you’re a rummy. But you’re no more of a rummy than Joyce is and most good writers are. But Scott, good writers always come back. Always. You are twice as good now as you were at the time you think you were so marvellous. You know I never thought so much of Gatsby at the time. You can write twice as well now as you ever could. All you need to do is write truly and not care about what the fate of it is.

Go on and write.

Anyway I’m damned fond of you and I’d like to have a chance to talk sometimes. We had good times talking. Remember that guy we went out to see dying in Neuilly? He was down here this winter. Damned nice guy Canby Chambers. Saw a lot of Dos. He’s in good shape now and he was plenty sick this time last year. How is Scotty and Zelda? Pauline sends her love. We’re all fine. She’s going up to Piggott for a couple of weeks with Patrick. Then bring Bumby back. We have a fine boat. Am going good on a very long story. Hard one to write.

Always your friend

Ernest

  • Please note: Hemingway’s spelling is shown accurately. For example, he twice wrote “write” where, presumably, he meant “right.”

Ever wanted to run your own bookstore by the sea? Now you can!

/ professorwu / Leave a comment
2016-04-05_09-36-01

Bookshelf catering: your chance to run your own bookstore by the sea. Photograph by Mike Dodson/Vagabond Images.

For many litterateurs and book lovers, the prospect of running your own book store may sound a little bit like a far-fetched fantasy. Yet, thanks to the disruptive influence of AirBnB and a clever marketing gimmick, those who long to while away days amongst the bookshelves of a small independent book store can now do just that.

Founded by American Jessica Fox in the small Scottish town of Wigtown, ‘the Open Book’ offers holiday makers the chance to run their own bookshop during stints of up to two weeks.

Described as Scotland’s ‘Book town’, Wigtown has a population of just 900; but is served by 16 different bookshops. The perfect location, then, for such those looking for a “bookshelf” catering retreat.

“The bookshop residency’s aim is to celebrate bookshops, encourage education in running independent bookshops and welcome people around the world to Scotland’s national book town,” says the AirBnB listing.

Guests staying at The Open Book will be expected to sell books for 40 hours a week while living in the flat above the shop. Given training in bookselling from Wigtown’s community of booksellers, they will also have the opportunity to put their “own stamp” on the store while they’re there – arranging new window displays, as well as organising book readings and events.

You can follow the adventures of The Open Book’s residents via the bookshop’s Tumblr page.

 

Creatives in profile: interview with Michael Caines, co-editor of the Brixton Review of Books

/ professorwu / Leave a comment

MC mugshot 1.jpg

It increasingly appears as though we live in an era where the biggest publishing companies and media organisations are only concerned with stabilising profits for shareholders – and are prioritising making money over supporting originality and new creative ideas.

With the largest corporations influencing so much of the culture we consume, this has the potential to limit us to a devastating cycle of reboots, sequels, prequels and franchises; where the only novels we read are copies of novels that are themselves copies of commercially successful novels. This risk-averse and profit-focussed approach in turn risks homogenising our culture; and limiting our exposure to new ways of thinking.

Yet there are reasons to hope. Across the world, new creative ideas are being put to seed – supported by groups of energetic and enthusiastic individuals.

We caught up with the team behind one such creative endeavour: the Brixton Review of Books, a new literary quarterly magazine – published by a team of creative volunteers who help ensure the magazine remains completely free to readers (though you can also have four copies delivered straight to your door for a tenner).

It’s an honour to bring you this detailed interview with Michael Caines, co-editor of the Brixton Review of Books. Caines also works at the Times Literary Supplement, and is the author of Shakespeare and the Eighteenth Century and a founder member of the Liars League.

INTERVIEWER

Tell us about yourself, your background and ethos.

CAINES

I’m an editor on the Times Literary Supplement by day and a layabout by night. I write the odd review, and the odder poem as a private distraction, and have made limited forays into academia, such as writing a book about Shakespeare and the eighteenth century, and editing some plays by female dramatists of the same period. Brigid Brophy and T. F. Powys are among my more recherché hobbyhorses, although I’d argue, of course, with the tedious fervor of the true acolyte, that both should be more widely known that they are at present.

INTERVIEWER

Who inspires you?

CAINES

Brigid Brophy and T. F. Powys. Jane Austen. William Makepeace Thackeray. Anne Thackeray Ritchie. Vernon Lee. Sylvia Townsend Warner. Ronald Firbank. Italo Calvino. Alberto Moravia. Christine Brooke-Rose. The Oulipians. Marguerite Youcenar. Penelope Fitzgerald. Michael Haslam. Lorrie Moore. Peter Reading. Weldon Kees. Elizabeth Bowen. Elizabeth Bishop. Henry Green. Nicholas Mosley. Stewart Home. It’s an incoherent set of influences, I grant you. Yes, they are, some of them, names off the top of my head. There are others who will come to me later. More seriously, there are others who are mainly TLS editors, of infernally greater mental powers than me – damn their eyes.

INTERVIEWER

Can you tell us a bit about Brixton Review of Books – how was it borne into existence?

CAINES

It’s an experiment, you might say:  people take all kinds of free newspapers and magazines at tube stations around London, but might some of them take a free literary paper made up of long reads rather than short ones? There are some obvious and quite brilliant models – such as the New York Review of Books, the London Review of Books and the TLS itself – to which I suppose the BRB pays the impudent homage of imitation, while paradoxically trying to do its own thing at the same time. I hope for some readers the BRB will serve merely as a suggestion of what’s to come if they aren’t already readers of one of those other, infinitely more prestigious publications. This particular literary newspaper is free, though, and available to all who pass a tube station at the right time, or spots it in a café, bar, bookshop, library, gallery, waiting room etc (the kind of places to which we’re also distributing it).

Hand grabs BRB[1275].jpg

The Brixton Review of Books – look out for a copy at tube stations around London.

INTERVIEWER

It’s no easy feat to bring a new independent literary magazine into existence. What are some of the main challenges you faced in establishing Brixton Review of Books?

CAINES

Well, for the most part, I put together the first issue by myself, and I enjoyed that a great deal. But it’s a relief to have a small team working on the paper from here on.

Then there’s the money. This “experiment” wouldn’t be happening at all if it weren’t for the generosity of the Literature Matters awards established by the Royal Society of Literature. They gave the BRB the funds and the endorsement to get things going.

Thirdly, there’s usually some agony with the administrative side of these things, such as subscriber copies going astray in the post.

And I also worried for a time that the first issue would be universally despised and scorned and laughed out of existence. That hasn’t happened . . . yet . . . that I know of.

INTERVIEWER

What, do you think, are the biggest opportunities for independent writers and artists within the publishing sector?

CAINES

I suppose there’s a sense in which all writers and artists are (or ought to be) independent, assuming that all trade on some inalienable, intrinsic idiosyncratic approach to their work. Some are just more obviously amenable to the established trade publishers than others, perhaps, and therefore able to cut some kind of a deal. It depends on what a writer or artist truly wants. Publication can mean many things – this airport novel or that pentagonal limited edition with unique perfumes embedded in every leaf – but maybe there’s a mode of publication to suit all tastes. So I suppose the opportunity is out there, and the challenge is finding the right one.

INTERVIEWER

In an era of digital content and e-zines, as well as ‘fake news’ and social media; what role do printed publications like Brixton Review of Books have to play?

CAINES

I’m one of those people – it’s not just me, I hope – who stare at screens for a large portion of the working day but love print. I think I even mean that I can love the material book as a work of art, and reading online, necessary though it often is, forms an instructive contrast to that art. But, er, in less hilfalutin terms, I hope that reading the BRB, or any newspaper or printed work on paper, is simply a change from reading on a screen, and being continuously poked in the eye by electric light.

INTERVIEWER

As editors, do you feel any ethical responsibility for the content you publish?

CAINES

Absolutely – although I tend to mistake ethical responsibility, in this context, for aesthetic responsibility. The two are so easily confused, don’t you think?

INTERVIEWER

Julian Barnes has stated that the problem with the big publishing companies is that they are too risk averse: they are only willing to “publish novels that are copies of other successful novels”. Do you think that independent magazines have a duty to champion independent voices of authors and essayists whose writing may never be given a chance by the bigger companies in the sector?

CAINES

Perhaps, unfortunately, the indie economy as a whole doesn’t have much say in the matter. But either way, I guess that there are plenty of writers temperamentally too rich for the mainstream, and who flourish in indie magazines and in the literary communities to which those magazines belong. But it depends on the magazine’s character. There seem to be some indies that seem to embrace underground-ness, and others that nurture more commercially lofty ambitions. There’s room in the world for both, I hope.

Regarding an aversion to risk: beyond the world of books, some big companies run (what I think they call) “accelerators”, designed to promote and invest in innovation, because innovation is precisely what big companies, for the most part, don’t do well. It’s interesting that so many big publishers, for their part, now run nimble, pseudo-indie imprints, which are arguably meant to play a similar role. The real indies, meanwhile, don’t necessarily receive the recognition and remuneration they deserve – but that inability to er realize an investment may be a further mark of their indie-ness.

INTERVIEWER

The future of literature; of writing – and indeed the future of publishing – are all frequently discussed at great lengths. What are your thoughts on current industry trends – where are we heading?

CAINES

I’m no industry guru. So rather than second-guess the future, may I instead offer you a naïve wish-list?

1) That the books business gets over its daft dependency on the insipid drug that is literary prize culture.

2) That the indie scene flourishes in perpetuity.

4) (3 was unprintable, even online, and was basically a curse on reviewers who think their duty is to their pals in the business rather than their readers.) That somebody in television works out how to make a show about books again.

5) That Amazon mends its ways.

(Well, I did say “naïve” . . . .)

INTERVIEWER

How would you define creativity?

CAINES

A terrible problem we all have to deal with, but some of us are more successful at banishing it than others, poor souls, who have to slog out their guts over “novels” and “villanelles” and the like. Pity them in their enslavement to the myth of art!

Sorry, what was the question again?

INTERVIEWER

Can you tell us a little about your editorial and submissions process? How can aspiring writers get involved?

CAINES

For the most part, we’re commissioning reviews, and trying to come up with an eclectic mixture of voices: younger writers and worn-hoarse-by-time-but-very-much-still-worth-hearing, from different backgrounds, with varying interests. We have three months between issues, and it’s the middle month when things start to get serious – when deadlines becoming more deadly serious/merely deadening etc. I hope we’ll be trying out new writers (writers new to us at least) in every issue, albeit probably not as many as we’d like. The budget isn’t limitless, and dependent to an extent on advertising. Aspiring writers are welcome to get their moneybags mates to take out full-page ads in every issue.

INTERVIEWER

What advice would you give to authors thinking of submitting their work to BRoB – or other publications?

CAINES

We’re only publishing four issues a year, and most of those issues will be full of reviews. We’re planning to run poetry in every issue, and maybe some fiction from time to time. So with expectations suitably lowered, I hope, I suggest that anybody who’s still interested check out our website, then drop us a line and declare some area of especial expertise or even enthusiasm.

I’m not so interested in “pitches” for particular books, incidentally. I’m not ruling them out altogether, but pitches can sometimes seem a little intellectually suspect: it’s not that I sense outright cronyism in every e-mail; rather that I wonder if the would-be reviewer has already made up their mind about the book, whether they’ve read it yet or not. So the result may be fine, terrific even, but can also feel shop-bought and stale rather than nattily bespoke.

INTERVIEWER

What’s next for Brixton Review of Books? What should we look out for?

CAINES

In the not-too-distant future, we’ll do the decent thing and expand the website to look proper n all. We’re hoping to put on a few bookish events around town. (Go on, guess which part of town. Go on!) And there are going to be some good things in the paper itself later in the year. I’m very much hoping, for example, that a few writers with Brixton connections are going to give us little stories about their personal experiences here. That’d be an acceptably educational digression from reviewing books, I hope.

INTERVIEWER

Could you write us a story in six words?

CAINES

Joan arrived, kicked ass – and left.

INTERVIEWER

What are your 5 – 10 top tips for aspiring writers and artists?

CAINES

I’m still aspiring myself, and must stock up on gnomic tips for these occasions. Revise until it looks like you haven’t. Remember style is the ultimate expression of substance. Read New Grub Street. Um. Don’t automatically “um” in the presence of uncertainty? And I’ll get back to you when I’ve thought of a fifth. . . .

 

Dr Chuck Tingle’s writing tips for writers

/ professorwu / Leave a comment

tCmsPu8u_400x400

Good writing advice is hard to find. We’ve previously compiled various collections of writing tips from some of literature’s greatest minds; but we’re always looking to go one step further. As writers and creatives, our learning is built on the mentoring and advice of our peers and our mentors. The imparted knowledge they can share with us part of a long-standing tradition within the arts of helping one another to express ourselves.

Of course, the best type of writing advice is that which transcends the topic and becomes advice not just to inspire our best creative work; but also becomes advice by which we can live by, day-to-day.

Where can one find such advice, we hear you ask? Well, right here in this article, friendos!

In April 2018, we were honoured to interview Dr Chuck Tingle as part of our ‘Creatives in Profile’ series. The Hugo Award-shortlisted author of Space Raptor Butt Invasion and My Billionaire Triceratops Craves Gay Ass, and self-proclaimed as the “greatest author in the world” during one of the most incredible Reddit AMAs to date,  Dr Chuck Tingle provided some tip-top advice to keep in mind when writing a book (and it doesn’t have anything to do with word counts). He explained:

“most important thing to keep in mind when making all things as ARTISTIC BUCKAROO is to prove love that is only thing that matters really everything else is just decoration. there are so many ways to prove love so there are lots of options, but it is very important to REMEMBER that only rule for all layers of the tingleverse is that love is real this is consistant across all timelines.”

On the subject of creativity, and what it means to be creative, Tingle opines:

“being creative is just being yourself and trotting with YOUR OWN unique way. just waking up in the morning and stetching your bones is creative because every moment is making infinate timelines. you are so powerful in your way because for every decision there are so many new worlds spinning off and if that isnt dang creative i dont know what is thanks”

 

10 writing tips from Dr Chuck Tingle

Alongside his other timeless advice for writers, creatives, and just all-round human beings – Tingle also provided us with a short list of more prescriptive pieces of advice for writers. Read them below:

  1. drink chocolate milk buddy not that sick water throw that out
  2. you are important and so is your way. this is already a story that can be told
  3. the void is not worth your curiostiy
  4. listen to your buds
  5. there is something to learn from traditional horseplay and there is something to be learned from modern trots. respect both
  6. dont try to tell people what art is you will always be wrong
  7. there is not very much that separates you from a big timers sometimes it is hard work and sometimes it is luck but its almost never talent
  8. spend time with your family
  9. have gratitude if you dont youll look like a goofball and youll feel like one too
  10. prove love always

Book Review: ‘Scratch’ by Steve Himmer

/ nitrbcontributor / Leave a comment

Wundor_Fiction_Paperback_Design_-_Scratch_grande

A forest can be a spooky place. It may seem lush and inviting to an urban dweller, but it’s not as welcoming as it seems. It’s easy to imagine that there might be things in the thickest part of the forest that are quite beyond our knowledge, watching and waiting.

This novella begins uncannily enough, with the narrator urging the reader to join him in the shape of a coyote. Afterwards the reader is present in the narrative as you press your coyote nose against the windows of the human characters.

The lead character is a big city property developer building a housing estate in rural New England. Martin dreams of building the suburban home that he never had during his rootless childhood, living in a trailer on site and planning to settle in one of the houses he builds. One morning, our hero wonders into the new England forest on a whim, straight into a revenant style bear attack. After staggering back to civilisation relatively unscathed, he hears the local legend of Scratch. Scratch is a local bogeyman and shapeshifter that the locals blame for various small misfortunes. A series of strange events occur around the town and it seems Scratch may be more than a myth.

Himmer’s writing is conversational and effortless, picking out the rhythms of small town life, Martin’s yearnings and the timeless patterns of the forest with equal ease.

It’s literary fiction with a supernatural edge. It starts slowly, but it comes to life gradually and by the end I was reading hungrily up until the chilling final sequence. The narrator’s strange presence in the story creates a feeling of being watched and of inevitable disaster. It become clear from the way they address the reader knowingly that they aren’t quite human.

This attractive volume from Wundor editions is Steve Himmer’s third book, all of which have links to nature and the outdoors. This is an intriguing and unsettling little novel, worth reading.

To purchase a copy of ‘Scratch’ visit Wundor Editions https://wundor-store.myshopify.com/products/scratch-by-steve-himmer

About the reviewer

tandrewsTom Andrews is a Genetics graduate and book lover based in Somerset. He has previously attempted music and game reviews. He tweets at @jerevendrai 

‘The last taboo’ – Elif Shafak contributes manuscript to the ‘Future Library’ project

/ professorwu / 1 Comment

image001.jpg

Mayor of Oslo Marianne Borgen, artist Katie Paterson and novelist Elif Shafak at the Future Library handover ceremony. Photo by Kristin von Hirsch

Turkish novelist Elif Shafak has joined Margaret Atwood and David Mitchell in committing a manuscript of her writing to the Future Library project – a 100 year artwork that will see her work unpublished until 2114.

Shafak’s text, The last taboo, was handed over in a ceremony in the Future Library Forest in Oslo, Norway. During the ceremony, the award-winning novelist, public intellectual and political commentator said:

“It’s been incredible moving for me to be part of this project, and I feel very honoured.

I think it is incredible important its happening at a time, when the world is going mad in many ways. Time and history is moving backwards. Countries doesn’t learn from their mistakes. They slide into egalitarianism, populism, nationalism and religious fanaticism. And essential, it is this tribalism that divides us into tribes and forces us into singular identities. So for me, the Future Library is an act of resistance. It is the way we swim against the tide. And I am very honoured to be part of it.”

Future Library is a public artwork by Scottish artist Katie Paterson that will unfold over 100 years in the city of Oslo, Norway.

In an interview with Nothing in the Rulebook, Paterson explained how the idea for a library spanning generations was important in our current age:

“I love the idea that you need to plan hundreds of years ahead for something to last or exist; it seems the antithesis of the current mode. Instead we live in a ‘one click’ world.

The planet is being destroyed right now and it’s affecting all of our lives. In that sense nature feels really close – you can’t help but think how even the rain falling on our heads is connected to the changing climate and the way the planet is trying to survive.

I think appreciating our natural environment is something Norway does exceptionally well. Our forest is a tiny patch inside the larger forest that surrounds the whole city of Oslo, which is protected under law so developers aren’t allowed to encroach on it. Oslo’s citizens deeply appreciate the forest too, and I think in a way this cultural link with the forest is why the city have been so supportive of Future Library.”

The forest planted near Oslo will, in 100 years’ time, supply paper for a special anthology of books written by authors from across the globe. The manuscripts donated by authors will be held in trust until 2114 – meaning that no adult alive today will ever know what is inside the books.

Speaking at the ceremony, Paterson said:

“Elif, your words have activated the future library. They are now stored inside the rings of this tiny unfolding trees. And these trees are like a bridge from here and into the future.”

Salt Publishing facing fight for survival

/ professorwu / 1 Comment
Salt books

Photo credit: Salt Publishing

Acclaimed independent book publishers Salt Publishing are facing a fight for survival, as a challenging time for the publishing sector continues.

In a tweet, Salt addressed its readers directly, asking for their support through the #JustOneBook initiative:

Dear readers, we need your help. Sadly, we’re facing a very challenging time and need your custom to get our publishing back on track. Please buy #JustOneBook from our shop right now https://www.saltpublishing.com/ 

Salt Publishing.png

Salt is one of UK’s foremost independent publishers, committed to the discovery and publication of contemporary British literature. Advocates for writers at all stages of their careers, the company help ensure that diverse voices can be heard in an abundant, global marketplace.

While first founded as a poetry publishing house in 1991, Salt’s publishing has expanded to include children’s poetry, Native American poetry, Latin American poetry in translation, poetry criticism, essays, literary companions, biography, theatre studies, writers’ guides and poetry chapbooks as well as a ground-breaking series of eBook novellas.

Salt’s fiction list has also received critical acclaim. Books published by Salt have twice been nominated for the Man Booker Prize and shortlisted in the Costa Book Awards.

Speaking about the plight of Salt Publishing, Nothing in the Rulebook’s Professor Wu said:

“We live in an era where the biggest publishing companies and media organisations are only concerned with stabilising profits for shareholders – and are prioritising making money over supporting originality and new creative ideas. This is strangling our modern culture – limiting us to a devastating cycle of reboots, sequels, prequels and franchises; where the only novels we read are copies of novels that are themselves copies of commercially successful novels. This risk-averse and profit-focussed approach in turn risks homogenising our culture; and limiting our exposure to new ways of thinking.

At a time when we need new ideas and voices to counter the prevailing cultural winds, which tell us creativity is only of value if it sells, we need independent publishers like Salt to continue their fine work. We need diversity and originality in our publishing; not ceaseless imitation and repetition in pursuit of a fast buck. We need books that experiment and take risks; not those that seem afraid to be different. We need independent publishers; not corporate monopolies. We need Salt Publishing, in short.”

Readers can support Salt Publishing by purchasing #JustOneBook through their online store or via your local bookstores.

Short stories by Philip Roth you can read for free right now

/ professorwu / Leave a comment

220px-Philip_Roth_-_1973

Celebrated as “the last of the great white male” American authors of the 20th Century, Philip Roth has died at the age of 85.

Rather than devote pages (or pixels, as may more accurately be the case) to an obituary recounting the same great feats of an author who has towered over the US literary scene for decades, we have endeavoured to find and bring to you short stories, as well as one excellent piece of non-fiction, written by the man himself.

All the following texts are available online for free.

Conversion of the Jews

Extract:

If one should compare the light of day to the life of man: sunrise to birth; sunset—the dropping down over the edge— to death; then as Ozzie Freedman wiggled through the trapdoor of the synagogue roof, his feet kicking backwards bronco-style at Rabbi Binder’s outstretched arms-at that moment the day was fifty years old. As a rule, fifty or fifty-five reflects accurately the age of late afternoons in
November, for it is in that month, during those hours, that one’s awareness of light seems no longer a matter of seeing, but of hearing: light begins clicking away. In fact, as Ozzie locked shut the trapdoor in the rabbi’s face, the sharp click of the bolt into the lock might momentarily have been mistaken for the sound of the heavier gray that had just throbbed through the sky.

Defender of the faith

Extract:

Long ago, someone had taught Grossbart the sad rule that only lies can get the truth. Not that I couldn’t believe in the fact of Halpern’s crying; his eyes alwaysseemed red-rimmed. But, fact or not, it became a lie when Grossbart uttered it. He was entirely strategic. But then—it came with the force of indictment—so was I! There are strategies of aggression, but there are strategies of retreat as well. And so, recognizing that I myself had not been without craft and guile, I told him what I knew. “It is the Pacific.”

He let out a small gasp, which was not a lie. “I’ll tell him. I wish it was otherwise.”

“So do I.”

He jumped on my words. “You mean you think you could do something? A change, maybe?”

“No, I couldn’t do a thing.”

“Don’t you know anybody over at C. and A.?”

“Grossbart, there’s nothing I can do,” I said. “If your orders are for the Pacific, then it’s the Pacific.”

“But Mickey—”

“Mickey, you, me—everybody, Grossbart. There’s nothing to be done. Maybe the war’ll end before you go. Pray for a miracle.”

“But—”

“Good night, Grossbart.” I settled back, and was relieved to feel the springs unbend as Grossbart rose to leave. I could see him clearly now; his jaw had dropped, and he looked like a dazed prizefighter. I noticed for the first time a little paper bag in his hand.

“Grossbart.” I smiled. “My gift?”

“Oh, yes, Sergeant. Here—from all of us.” He handed me the bag. “It’s egg roll.”

“Egg roll?” I accepted the bag and felt a damp grease spot on the bottom. I opened it, sure that Grossbart was joking.

“We thought you’d probably like it. You know—Chinese egg roll. We thought you’d probably have a taste for—”

“Your aunt served egg roll?”

“She wasn’t home.”

“Grossbart, she invited you. You told me she invited you and your friends.”

“I know,” he said. “I just reread the letter. Next week.”

I got out of bed and walked to the window. “Grossbart,” I said. But I was not calling to him.

“What?”

“What are you, Grossbart? Honest to God, what are you?”

I think it was the first time I’d asked him a question for which he didn’t have an immediate answer.

“How can you do this to people?” I went on.

“Sergeant, the day away did us all a world of good. Fishbein, you should see him, he loves Chinese food.”

“But the Seder,” I said.

“We took second best, Sergeant.”

Rage came charging at me. I didn’t sidestep. “Grossbart, you’re a liar!” I said. “You’re a schemer and a crook. You’ve got no respect for anything. Nothing at all. Not for me, for the truth—not even for poor Halpern! You use us all—”

“Sergeant, Sergeant, I feel for Mickey. Honest to God, I do. I love Mickey. I try—”

“You try! You feel!” I lurched toward him and grabbed his shirt front. I shook him furiously. “Grossbart, get out! Get out and stay the hell away from me. Because if I see you, I’ll make your life miserable You understand that?”

“Yes.”

I let him free, and when he walked from the room, I wanted to spit on the floor where he had stood. I couldn’t stop the fury. It engulfed me, owned me, till it seemed I could only rid myself of it with tears or an act of violence. I snatched from the bed the bag Grossbart had given me and, with all my strength, threw it out the window. And the next morning, as the men policed the area around the barracks, I heard a great cry go up from one of the trainees, who had been anticipating only his morning handful of cigarette butts and candy wrappers. “Egg roll!” he shouted. “Holy Christ, Chinese goddam egg roll!”

An open letter to Wikipedia 

Extract:

Novel writing is for the novelist a game of let’s pretend. Like most every other novelist I know, once I had what Henry James called “the germ”—in this case, Mel Tumin’s story of muddleheadedness at Princeton—I proceeded to pretend and to invent Faunia Farley; Les Farley; Coleman Silk; Coleman’s family background; the girlfriends of his youth; his brief professional career as a boxer; the college where he rises to be a dean; his colleagues both hostile and sympathetic; his field of study; his bedeviled wife; his children both hostile and sympathetic; his schoolteacher sister, Ernestine, who is his strongest judge at the conclusion of the book; his angry, disapproving brother; and five thousand more of those biographical bits and pieces that taken together form the fictional character at the center of a novel.

 

Creatives in profile – interview with Katie Paterson

/ professorwu / 3 Comments
Katie Paterson1.JPG

Katie Paterson. Photo by Giorgia Polizzi. 

In 2114, 1,000 trees planted a century previously in the Nordmarka forest in Norway will be cut down. From their wood, the pages of 100 texts from 100 authors will be made and published.

How can we make such predictions? Well, this is the end-goal of a generation-defying artistic project called the Future Library. Conceived by Scottish artist Katie Paterson, and supported by library curator and entrepreneur Anne Beate Hovind, it is an idea that has captured global imaginations.

Celebrated authors Margaret Atwood, David Mitchell, and Sjón have already committed works to the project, with Turkish novelist Elif Shafak set to add her manuscript to the project at a handover ceremony in early June 2018.

This is a living, breathing, organic artwork that spans time, literature, ecology and human mortality.

So how does one first conceive of such a project? The Nothing in the Rulebook team were honoured to catch up with Paterson – widely regarded as one of the leading artists of her generation – to find out.

It is an honour to bring you this detailed interview…

INTERVIEWER

Could you tell us about yourself, where you live, and your background?

PATERSON

I’ve recently moved back to Scotland, I live in Fife, before that I was in Berlin for about 6 years and before that I lived in London. I studied at Edinburgh College of Art and then the Slade School of Fine Art. I graduated nearly 10 years ago, which is frightening!

INTERVIEWER

Is art your first love, or do you have another passion?

PATERSON

It definitely is; it was the most obvious direction I was going to go in. I knew that from a young age – I was always a daydreamer and spent time lost in other worlds. Of course, it’s difficult when you’re at that age to have any sort of clear vision of what the future is going to hold. I would never have predicted or been able to visualise what has happened in the years that have followed.

INTERVIEWER

Could you tell us a bit about your journey from making that decision – to pursue art – to where you ultimately are now, particularly with the Future Library project?

PATERSON

Throughout my career I’ve remained open to different disciplines. At art school I was wondering around and changing between sculpture and fine art and fashion – and later astronomy and geophysics – and I couldn’t settle on a discipline. It makes sense now because I still don’t really settle when it comes to any disciplines.

I’ve always been quite resourceful when it comes to trying to make projects happen – it was quite clear to me from early on that the kind of ideas I have are complicated and they were never going to happen unless I worked really hard to make them happen – they were going to need willpower and dedication; not just from me but also from other people who would need to be invested in the projects.

INTERVIEWER

It’s interesting you mention the need to rely on others and pitch them often quite complicated ideas; because, as Anne Beate says in her interview with us, when you first get approached with the idea for a project that is for 100 years in the future, it can be quite crazy. But you were quite aware of that?

PATERSON

Oh absolutely – I am so lucky that I met her! She is an absolutely remarkable woman – it takes a lot of dedication for somebody to take on one of my projects; they’re not simple by any means! And especially Future Library. It’s the sort of project that you throw your life into.

INTERVIEWER

With a project of such scale, how did you first conceive of the Future Library?

PATERSON

It was simple I’ve got to say. As these things often can be at the beginning – or at least, it seemed simple. I was drawing tree rings, and as I was doing that I very quickly made a visual connection between tree rings and chapters in a book and paper and trees and time. And I had a vision of a forest that was growing a book, and that the book was made of chapters of tree rings – and it would evolve and grow over time.

That all happened in a snippet of time and then, from there, it grew. I met Anne Beate and it became a stronger concept once I realised that it could happen in reality – even though in my mind it had been one of the wilder ideas that I’ve had.

FL_KP_5.JPG

Tree rings. Future chapters. Photo by Giorgia Polizzi.

INTERVIEWER

In terms of just the practicalities of actually making an idea like that a reality – what steps did you both have to take at that point?

PATERSON

The very first step was proposing it to BI, the producers: ‘I’ve got this idea to grow a forest over 100 years’!  Incredibly, they said yes – and then we built the idea slowly, ‘brick by brick’.

I called Anne Beate when I got back to Berlin a few days after the proposal and asked if I could come back to Norway immediately and go to a forest and stay for a while. She was quite surprised, then set it up and I stayed in her relative’s cabin deep in the woods where there was no electricity, no running water.

INTERVIEWER

How did it feel to get really back to basics in that way?

PATERSON

It was a remarkable experience – until then the idea for Future Library was so abstract, I felt I had to go and be in a Norwegian forest for some time to visualise it becoming a reality. There, it became a more solidified idea, imagining the authors and the time scales and how we might build in a ritual every year with the ‘handing over’ ceremonies.

 

From there, there were several different stages, including finding the forest. Anne Beate liaised with the City of Oslo, who donated us the land and the trees. And then there is the library aspect; we’re creating a silent room inside the new Oslo public library that will open in 2020. It’s going to house the manuscripts for the future, I’m designing it with the architects of the library.

KP_library.JPG

Designing the silent room in the Oslo public library where the manuscripts will be stored for the next one hundred years. Photo credit: Atelier Oslo and Lund Hagem

Many aspects were in place before we started inviting the authors. We didn’t approach Margaret Atwood until we felt like this was really happening.

INTERVIEWER

Until it felt more real and tangible.

PATERSON

Exactly. The trees had taken root.

INTERVIEWER

Did you have any expectations for the project at all? Did you realise it was something authors would want to get involved in, or were you sort of cautious when you first approached Margaret Atwood?

PATERSON

Oh sure we were so shocked and amazed and delighted. It was such a wonderful moment when she said yes, it was a huge seal of approval. Margaret Atwood was a remarkable writer to open the project. Even though we’d planted the forest it was at that moment when I realised ‘this is it; this is something that is going to continue for the rest of our lives’.

katie_paterson_MG_0183.jpg

Margaret Atwood was the first author to donate a manuscript to the Future Library. Photo by Giorgia Polizzi

From there, it just grew and grew; it’s gone from a project that was quite theoretical to a living artwork that is really taking form. We’re now on year four – the handover with Elif Shafak is next week (2 June) and we’re working with next year’s author too. Future Library is a major part of our lives; it’s intertwined with daily life, and the ritual that repeats each year is a defining moment.

INTERVIEWER

There’s something striking about the rituals built into the project and how they are set to carry on for a hundred years. We live in this age where everything is so focused on the present and the here and now, that we have lost track of ideas that span across generations. Was the idea of longer term, ‘cathedral’ thinking specific in your mind when you first came up with the idea? Or is it something that solidified more as the project progressed?

PATERSON

It wasn’t specific at the beginning; the initial idea appeared in a flash, the repercussions of the idea were unclear. Future Library is evolving into something far more complex than I could have imagined.

The ‘cathedral thinking’ you mention is really interesting. I continue to be inspired by a place I’ve visited called Ise Jinju in Japan, a Shinto shrine near Kyoto. Here shrines have been built and rebuilt in exactly the same form every 20 years, for a few thousand years. And the community have been growing the wood for the shrines in a special forest, over this vast expanse of time.

I love the idea that you need to plan hundreds of years ahead for something to last or exist; it seems the antithesis of the current mode. Instead we live in a ‘one click’ world.

INTERVIEWER

Do you think it feels there’s a certain ‘unreal’ element to our lives in that respect? As you say we spend all this time clicking on social media; but not actually participating in our social lives. It definitely seems to stand in contrast to those things that are real – a forest and nature, but also an actual physical printed book.

PATERSON

Exactly. Of course, I’m absolutely part of this technologically driven culture, too. Though when I am inside the forest there are moments when I am acutely aware of the timelessness nature of trees. It could be any era on earth there, just about! You could be standing thousands of years in the past in the same forest or you could be standing there thousands of years into the future and it could almost be the same place.

I love that feeling to be sort of outside of time or inside of time – to be somewhere, where time is drawn out, and to not have this ‘instant-ness’ feeling that seems to be there in many other aspects of life.

INTERVIEWER

How do you feel that sensation of time slowing down – especially during the handover ceremonies or when you’re in the forest – affects you at all? Is there a spirituality to it?

PATERSON

Last year, we had a golden harp brought in for the ceremony and the musicians were warming up with us there early in the morning – there was such quietude, a serene moment that’s hard to define, when everybody was gearing up amongst the trees – time slows down and it’s just precious. Then the authors arrive and walk in the footsteps of the previous authors and those of the future and it’s all part of this rite we’ve created that will continue for the next 96 years. Elif Shafak uses the term ‘secular acts of faith’ and I believe Future Library is one of these acts.

7_KP_FL_harpe-future library-kristin von hirsch-6538.jpg

A golden harp for the 2017 handover ceremony. Photo by Kristin von Hirsch

INTERVIEWER

The relationship with nature is clearly so bound up with the project – do you think that the project speaks to people partly because we live in an age where we are also suffering the effects of environmental break down?

PATERSON

I think so. The planet is being destroyed and it’s affecting all of our lives. In that sense nature feels really close – you can’t help but think how even the rain falling on our heads is connected to the changing climate and the way the planet is trying to survive.

I think appreciating our natural environment is something Norway does exceptionally well. Our forest is a tiny patch inside the larger forest that surrounds the whole city of Oslo, which is protected under law so developers aren’t allowed to encroach on it. Oslo’s citizens deeply appreciate the forest too, and I think in a way this cultural link with the forest is why the city have been so supportive of Future Library.

INTERVIEWER

It seems really appropriate in that sense how links up the timeless nature of writing – you think of Shakespeare, Shelly, Austen, Joyce – and how writing and literature can stretch across centuries; just as trees and forests do, too. How do you think authors today can write for the readers of tomorrow?

PATERSON

A book is an object that survives time and passes voices through time.

It’s so easy to forget that books come from trees! I am an e-reader and use technology all the time; but how can we improve on the printed book? It’s not possible! Who knows what the methods of reading will be like in a hundred years’ time. The form of reading may be something that’s so far beyond our imagination right now.

If you jump back a century – that generation would never have guessed the authors that are writing now – it’s unimaginable – it’s too long a gap to perceive of. I find it odd that the authors right now will be authors from the past, many will be dead. And then the authors at the end of this project will still be alive and be read by their contemporaries.

INTERVIEWER

There’s a certain sense of mortality tied up in the project. Do you think about that or dwell on that at all?

PATERSON

I do; and it can be disconcerting. Of course, I did conceive this project so that it would be going on beyond my lifetime so I was always aware that I wasn’t going to be around to see it through – it’s about getting everything set up to ensure it keeps going after we’re gone.

The question of mortality is there – even the legalities of artist’s contracts have to contain clauses relating to death. I had a child this year and so he’ll be coming with me to the handover ceremony. He won’t quite be one years old at that point; I’ve thought how I deeply hope he will be around to read these books.

INTERVIEWER

Thinking about the future, do you have an idea or ideal in your head about what the final ceremony will be like. Or are you very prepared to let it go?

PATERSON

My greatest hope is that it’s still there at that point and that there is a ceremony and that the world hasn’t collapsed in on itself! It’s an emotional thought, the final ceremony, and the idea of those vast trees we know so well, being cut.

We’re always troubleshooting with Future Library and thinking what could happen that we need to prepare for –  but it’s the unpredictable things that worry me. But ultimately you have to have trust and hope and I think those are key concepts within the project.

INTERVIEWER

Do you ever think about the authors and what they’re actually writing and the stories they are going to produce – is there anything you are hoping for?

PATERSON

We leave it entirely up to the authors, it’s important that they have free reign to write whatever they chose. The only rule we have is that there are no illustrations – just the written word. I like to imagine what is hidden within their manuscripts, but it’s more satisfying to not know because in some ways that’s the key to it all – that none of us know and it’s going to be a complete surprise to those in the future.

Each author brings a completely different perspective to the project, and that’s important, it doesn’t concern one set theme – it’s about bringing people together.

INTERVIEWER

Do you feel there’s a certain sense that each author brings something different but complementary to the project, in that case?

PATERSON

Yes, I think there is a thread that connects all the authors together. There is this almost familial bond that we create with them. Like a family tree, and each author follows in the footsteps of the one before and through the annual ceremony we do create a chain of people who are connected through time and through the trees.

15_Katie_Paterson_Future_Library

A path through the Nordmarka forest – where the footsteps of authors past, present and future will follow. Photo by  Kristin von Hirsch

INTERVIEWER

Isn’t that the truth of so many artists and writers in general; we’re all in conversation with one another.

PATERSON

Absolutely. And here they are each having a conversation with the authors that have come before; but also those who are still to come.

INTERVIEWER

And what’s still to come from you – could you tell us a little about some of the future projects you’re working on?

PATERSON

I’m actually working on a book myself at the moment – called ‘A place that exists only in moonlight’. It’s a collection of over 100 short texts that are similar to haiku; they are ideas for artworks to exist in the imagination. I have a lot of ideas for artworks but not all of them turn into real forests! So I’ve been writing them as text works, they come alive in the reader’s minds.

INTERVIEWER

There’s a certain lightness there it sounds like to be able to note down these ideas without necessarily having to worry about putting them into reality. And it’s interesting to consider what you mentioned earlier about not ever committing to an artistic discipline and possibly pigeon holing yourself into that. Do you think that creativity is something that can be defined or is it something we can pursue in many different ways?

PATERSON

I’m so open when it comes to creativity – that’s what creativity is; it’s about being as open and curious as you possibly can be. For me creativity flourishes most when I don’t pay attention to boundaries or limits. It doesn’t matter whether an idea exists as something real or not – it’s about letting the imagination go as far as it possibly can – even to the point of absurdity.

INTERVIEWER

If you had one piece of advice for people – artists and writers – what would it be?

PATERSON

The imagination needs tending to. Take good care of it.

KP_FL_2017_Photo_Kristin von Hirsch-7278

Tending trees as you must tend to your imagination. Photo by  Kristin von Hirsch