One Man's Opinion: The Diving Bell And The Butterfly

When I bought my copy of The Diving Bell And The Butterfly it was for research purposes. I intended to write about (and am writing about) someone with locked-in syndrome. 

To help me decide that this was the book for me, the publishers had generously placed on the cover the recommendation from someone at the FT  who had said it was 'one of the great books of the century'.

It's certainly a very moving book and, should you want to dig into what is said, a profound one.  Reading about someone who can't move their body, has hearing issues and can only use one eye (for seeing and for blinking out the story) it's difficult not to think about life and it's many facets.

The story is a surprisingly light read in many ways, a very easy and gentle passage from beginning to end.  The style is descriptive and personal, yet slightly removed from real anguish and joy.  Hard not to be impressed by Bauby's philosophical stance.

Here's a quote about when he first sees his reflection after the massive stroke that left him in his condition:

'Not only was I exiled, paralysed, mute, half deaf, deprived of all pleasures and reduced to a jelly-fish existence, but I was also horrible to behold.'

There's a rather dry humour in the statement and it's a humour than runs right through the piece.

My favourite chapter is about Bauby and a colleague of his who spend a day at the races.  The newspaper they run has a sports reporter who knows his horses and the whole of the office is relying on the duo to get their bets down for the big event.  The section tells a lot about who Bauby was before the stroke as well as much about how he was afterwards.

I was struck by the tenderness and also by the absolute frustration of a man who has young children and how the love they share is tested and stretched.  Not to mention that he knows he shan't see his father again - young Bauby is in his prison and his dad is too frail to leave his apartment.

There's a reminder right through this that whoever we may be, it's likely that there'll be a time when all our memories are distilled into short measures.  The people we have been will have faded and we'll have to manage to make the most of what we are left with and what we remember.  It's a reminder that when a person is wheeled passed us that however misshapen or twisted the body might be, the mind might be sharp and active on the inside.  And if we need to treat the most vulnerable members of our world with respect, shouldn't we also try and apply such principles to everyone?

I work in a school with an 'Exceptional Needs' unit and try to be smiley and positive every time I see the kids there.  What I feel I need to do from now is to take that a little further in terms of the communications I offer.

Another thing occurred to me as I was reading.  It provided an excellent mirror to hold up to Stona Fitch's excellent 'Senseless', highlighting just what a well-written tale that is.

It took only a couple of hours to complete and is broken into very neat chapters (I guess the act of blinking out a story is exhausting), but I'd recommend it to anyone who's feeling a little sorry for themselves, anyone who likes descriptions that border on the poetic and anyone who has ever wondered just how bad a Sunday can get.

It's not even close to being the greatest book of the century.  Maybe not even that close to being the best book of its year, or even month.  Still, I think you might benefit from a read of it.  Digest it and go out there and try and make the most of your day.  I for one will be trying.

One Man's Opinion: THE CRIME INTERVIEWS (volume 1) by LEN WANNER

Though it doesn't say anything about the book, this was the first I'd chosen to read entirely on my android phone.  It seemed perfect for such an experiment given the natural breaks and I must say I enjoyed using the device much more than I expected. 

'The Crime Interviews 1' is such a good idea and it's very well executed.

Len Wanner has interviewed some of the heavyweights of Scottish Crime fiction and presented them in a very engaging way.

It's clear that Wanner knows his subject and he has done a huge amount of research before each one.

The interviews seem very fluid, linking questions together very smoothly as Wanner dances around making sure he exposes all openings without being pushy.  There are core questions that he broaches with all those involved (Ian Rankin, Stuart MacBride, Alice Thompson, Neil Forsyth, Allan Guthrie, Christopher Brookmyre, Karen Campbell, Paul Johnstone and Louise Welsh) which reveal Wanner's academic leanings and perspectives and there are those designed for the individual which reveal the human touch.

We get to consider writing from the point of view of the auteur as well as from being given the opportunity to think about how the individual work is a reflection of society and where it fits in to a scheme of literature with a substantial history.

I felt like the interviews took place in relaxed settings and that the interviewees have utterly trusted their interrogator.  I suspect that the quality and the nature of the answers also demonstrates the respect that the subjects have for Len Wanner and his understanding and knowledge of and about the genre.

As with collections of any kind, some of these I enjoyed more than others.

Rankin and MacBride are great choices to open the book.  I'd like to offer a special word for Alice Thompson's which was a very pleasing surprise.  Icing on the cake though, was always going to be Allan Guthrie for me and I was delighted by what I found.

No matter which author you prefer, each interview is long and detailed enough that you'll feel you got your money's worth and more besides.

If you're a fan of crime fiction, you're a student of the genre or a writer hoping to pick up some tips on your craft, this is a book you'll get a lot from.

One Man's Opinion: HIT AND RUN by DOUG JOHNSTONE

Billy’s driving home, a gut full of beetroot vodka and of the pills his brother nicks from the hospital.  Course he shouldn’t be doing it.  No wonder then, that when he knocks over a pedestrian in the early hours of the morning he feels responsible.  A lump rises on his head and the guilt rises just about everywhere else.

They move the body, go home, take more pills and sleep it off.

Next day, Billy is called to the scene of a suspicious death, a possible jumper from Edinburgh’s Crags.  It’s not a jumper though, it’s the victim of Billy’s driving who managed to get to the bottom of the cliff before his body gave up on him.

Billy’s there in his role as a newspaper’s novice crime reporter.  His mentor, a seen-it-all-before kind of woman called Rose, finds out the name of the dead man; it’s one Frank Whitehouse, Edinburgh’s big, bad wolf.

From this point on the story is simply thrilling.

Johnstone writes with a fairly spare style, yet manages to explore a range of issues to the full.

It’s a very visceral book. 

I was reminded many times as I read of the pleasures of being young and of alcohol and drugs, and I’d like to thank the author for some of the flashbacks he induced.

All the experiences are through the mind and body of Billy, the man who earns the nickname ‘Scoop’ from his older hack partner due to his success in getting incredibly close to the case.  There are shades of pain I don’t think I’ve even contemplated before.  The smells and sights of the city bring the scenes to life.  It’s so well written that at times I felt I was inside Billy’s skin, and inside Billy’s skin was rarely a good place to be.

This book is fast-paced, yet thoughtful.  Everything happens in a short space of time within a small area of the city.  The world outside is full of pressure and, on the inside, the pressure inside Billy’s head builds to a crescendo.

I came out of the end of the ride fully satisfied. 

I’d suggest it’s a kind of Hard-Boiled ‘Crime And Punishment’ for the post-ecstasy generation, the love-child of a Dostoevsky/James M Cain/ Allan Guthrie triangle.

The characters are brilliantly drawn and explored.  What I like about the way they are brought to life is that it’s not because of the wedging in of detail that we come to know them, rather it’s through their interactions.   The ways they bounce off each other.  Boss and underling; boyfriend and girlfriend; two brothers; one man and his dog; lovers; feuding gangsters; dead and living; car and driver...

In particular, I think Billy and Rose are a brilliant pairing.  Either of them would make ideal characters for future books and I’d certainly rush to read any story Doug writes where they’re present (if sequels aren’t your bag, how about a short story or a novella, sir?).  In fact, this is such a great pleasure of a read that I’ll be rushing to read anything Doug Johnstone put out.

Superb.

Amazon US

Amazon UK

"The BRIT GRIT mob is coming to kick down your door with hobnailed boots. Kitchen-sink noir; petty-thief-louts; lives of quiet desperation; sharp, blood-stained slices of life; booze-sodden brawls from the bottom of the barrel and comedy that’s as black as it’s bitter—this is Brit Grit!"

45 British writers, 45 short stories. All coming together to produce an anthology, benefiting two charities...

Children 1st - http://www.children1st.org.uk/

and

Francesca Bimpson Foundation - http://www.francescabimpsonfoundation.org

The line up...

Introduction by Maxim Jakubowski

1. Two Fingers of Noir by Alan Griffiths
2. Eat Shit by Tony Black
3. Baby Face And Irn Bru by Allan Guthrie
4. Pretty Hot T’Ing by Adrian Magson
5. Black Betty by Sheila Quigley
6. Payback: With Interest by Matt Hilton
7. Looking for Jamie by Iain Rowan
8. Stones in Me Pocket by Nigel Bird
9. The Catch and The Fall by Luke Block
10. A Long Time Coming by Paul Grzegorzek
11. Loose Ends by Gary Dobbs
12. Graduation Day by Malcolm Holt
13. Cry Baby by Victoria Watson
14. The Savage World of Men by Richard Godwin
15. Hard Boiled Poem (a mystery) by Alan Savage
16. A Dirty Job by Sue Harding
17. Stay Free by Nick Quantrill
18. The Best Days of My Life by Steven Porter
19. Hanging Stanley by Jason Michel
20. The Wrong Place to Die by Nick Triplow
21. Coffin Boy by Nick Mott
22. Meat Is Murder by Colin Graham
23. Adult Education by Graham Smith
24. A Public Service by Col Bury
25. Hero by Pete Sortwell
26. Snapshots by Paul D Brazill
27. Smoked by Luca Veste
28. Geraldine by Andy Rivers
29. A Minimum of Reason by Nick Boldock
30. Dope on a Rope by Darren Sant
31. A Speck of Dust by David Barber
32. Hard Times by Ian Ayris
33. Never Ending by McDroll
34. Imagining by Ben Cheetham
35. Escalator by Jim Hilton
36. Faces by Frank Duffy
37. A Day In The Death Of Stafford Plank by Stuart Ayris
38. The Plebitarian by Danny Hogan
39. King Edward by Gerard Brennan
40. This Is Glasgow by Steven Miscandlon
41. Brit Grit by Charlie Wade
42. Five Bags Of Billy by Charlie Williams
43. It Could Be You by Julie Morrigan
44. No Shortcuts by Howard Linskey
45. The Great Pretender by Ray Banks

5-2 Blog Tour - ARTICULATING SPACE

I've deliberately avoided going over to the other posts on the  5-2 tour in case this poem was already chosen.  It made more sense for me to just do this and find out later.

By way of an introduction, I'd like to highlight my own favourite 'crime poet'.  I doubt he's been called that before, but he writes about injustice and injustice is a crime.  In his words he tells stories that can be violent and very hard-hitting, but it's the rhythm that I love - that dub bass line pattern, the holes and the resonance mixing with the staccato.  Try this link to Linton Kwesi Johnson and I hope you'll hear what I mean.  Or try this one here, or even this one here.  Brilliant.

Now over to the 5-2. 

I've chosen this poem to think about.  It's from The Lineup:  Poems On Crime 3

Articulating Space

by Patricia Abbott

The winter after the assault she made
A series of small quilts patterned on Paul Klee
paintings there were difficulties of course
since the books she used for sources
varied in the precise tint of all those little squares
that sometimes looked like bandages strung end to end
also the squares lost their plumb perfection like
a face pummelled out of it's natural symmetry
and other times the squares seemed rigidly square just
the way he liked things and she felt calm
sitting on the floor amongst the pieces for a minute
before she grew frantic that she could ever
get it right with all the piecing dependent
on what seemed to be but weren't random
choices once finished the quilts were different
from her image of the Klees unframed
they seemed bulky and primitive on the white walls
he insisted on and if she framed the quilts they floated
like fragile fiber sailboats on a chintz black sea.

There are so many things to think about when looking at a poem, but for me the first reaction is usually arrived at without much thought at all.  It's all about discerning the patterns and the flow and the way it feels as it reads.  How the words fit together.  Bounce off each other.  Hold hands or kick hell out of those near.  Architecture with words.

Patricia Abbot gives plenty to savour on a first reading.  It has that flow, like the tide, like the sailboats that finish it off bobbing up and down on the waves.

The opening line tells all we need to know about the back-story, the reasons the quilts are being made.  It's the winter after the assault.  No need to embellish.

Then we come to Paul Klee. 

I imagine the author in a gallery one day looking at one of his paintings and experiencing a reaction, logging it for the day a poem might work.  What I think she might have seen is the contradictions I feel when I look myself.  On the face of things there is order.  Neat shapes.  Symmetry.  Pattern.

Stand there long enough and those initial moments of observation are turned on their head. 

What seemed still begins to move, the kind of movement that you can never actually catch.  It's a confused movement that almost creates sea-sickness.  There is only the illusion of symmetry.  An odd shape or choice of colour might single one piece out from the rest.  Stability at first becomes unreliability, a bit like I imagine a life might imitate after an assault.

And there's the act of quilt making itself.  It would be hard to imagine a more suitable analogy for the reconstruction of a life.

As she works, the assault continually haunts her.  There are the shapes 'like bandages'.  A 'face pummelled out of its natural symmetry'. There are moments of calm shattered by anxieties about her pieces and the choices that have been made, and with them the responsibilities of choice and maybe the choices of her assailant.

So who was the attacker?  The man (?) who shattered this lady's world?  I'm not sure, but I'm going for the partner, the man who insists upon the clean white walls and maybe the squares being perfect the way he likes them, as if pleasing him is not just satisfying but essential.

All the time she's put in and they're not quite right.  They didn't help her to glue her life back together just the way it was before.  They're bulky.  Bloated.  Her life is as fragile as the sailboats on the sea.  For her, the sea might be the eggshells upon she has to walk.

That's what I see as the story and, because I'm not an academic, it doesn't matter if I'm right or wrong.  It's the way it looks to me.

The other factors about this piece which I enjoy relate to the choice of words themselves. 

You have a lovely flow, gentle for most of the piece.  When it comes to the disturbance the words get a little harder and sharper - frantic, dependent, random.  To help it along, the smoothing 's' starts and ends and the more bumpy plosives from 'b' and 'p' (almost 10% of the words begin with a 'b' or a 'p', 25% have a strong 's' or 'sh' sound).

There are those slick alliterations: Paul Klee paintings; plumb perfection like a face pummelled; she made a series of small quilts; after the assault she made a; framed the quilts they floated like fragile fiber.

All of these things point to the skill of the writer.

My feeling?

I enter feeling sad that there was an assault.  I wish it hadn't happened.

I leave with that same feeling of sadness that life will never be the same, no matter how many quilts are made, sensing that the hidden frailties of being human will forever be within the vision of this woman.

Which is why I like to read poetry - to have my senses and feelings played about with without from a tiny dose of reading. 

You can find more poems in The Lineup: Poems On Crime 4

Karo Hämäläinen: Dancing with myself

Piles of papers have crowded the table. Somewhere in between is a glass full of tap water, some dozens of pens, a couple of unread books (and some read ones), chewing gum, an empty Pepsi Max bottle and a laptop. It looks like Karo Hämäläinen has forgotten the interview. The photographer and I hesitate at the door.

"Just come in, just come in," he says. "It took me hours to build an impression of working hard and paying no attention to what my room looks like."

As we sit – I on a chair, the photographer on the saddle of an exercise bike standing in the corner – Hämäläinen checks the latest events in the stock market. It's well known that the author is an eager small investor.

"Ok, Karo, at first..."

"Wouldn't you like to say 'Mr. Hämäläinen'?"

"Oh yes, I'm so sorry. I mean... Don't we know each other well enough?"


"Was that your first question? No, we don't."

"No."

"Yes. That was my answer."

"I mean, it wasn't question number one."
"It was. Go on, please."

"Mr. Hämäläinen, you wrote many books before you made your break-through with a financial thriller,

The Buyout. How did you come up with the idea of writing a financial thriller?"

"To be honest,

The Buyout as well as The Bailout are wretched thrillers, because the reader doesn't get what he wants, i.e. fire arms, piles of dead bodies and a happy ending. I call them thrillers as I have heard that thrillers sell better than so called literary fiction."

"But they..."

"Yes, yes, I know. They are very good novels, and yes, I know, I have written them in the form of a thriller. Why is that? Because I love books you can’t put down. I have written many dull books. And read even more. I'm already 35 years old, so I don't have time to write any more of those. In my opinion, you don't have to say good-bye to literary standards even though you write entertaining books. Some might think it's even more challenging to write books that are both deep and entertaining."

"You write literary social novels that are highly entertaining."


"I like your formulation. Although it's mine."

"So what is a financial thriller? How does it differ from an action thriller?"
"Just guess how many times I have answered those questions."

"Fifty-seven?"


"Not bad. Well, in a financial thriller, the things the characters do and the suspense are fundamentally motivated by the investment world. Financial events aren’t just the milieu like in some action thrillers set in the world of high finance; instead, everything in the thriller starts from the logic of money. The characters’ greatest fear is not dying – they’re afraid of something even more important: losing their reputation and their money."

"Your latest novel The Bailout is set in the economic crisis in the Euro-zone. Isn't that a boring theme?"

"Yes, it is. And finance as a whole is boring. You have to be paid at least one million before you start working. For example, gardening is far more interesting. People are willing to do garden jobs for an annual salary of €20,000."

"One of the three main characters in The Bailout is a hedge fund salesman. Have you invested in hedge funds?"

"Oh yes, once. I got mine back. After that, I have steered clear of algorithm miracles."

"You don't believe in hedge funds?"

"I do. They are fantastic instruments that generate piles of bucks to hedge fund managers. But they are disastrous for the investor's wallet. Hedge funds are just speculation and therefore have nothing to do with investing."

"However, investing and the euro crisis are not the main themes in your newest novel."

"That’s true. The Bailout is about people's tendency to behave like the stock market. They pretend to be something they are not. Like you. You act the role of a literary journalist with your pen and your A5 writing block. You try to ask challenging questions. You haven't read any of my books but you give plausible statements about them, because you have eyed some articles and book reviews."

"It's impossible. The Bailout isn't out yet."

"Okay, I think we are finished now. Thank you for your visit. You don't have to send the article to me before publishing it. I'm not interested in what you write. I am hardly interested in what I write myself."

nb

Karo Hämäläinen

(b. 1976) has two

passions: literature and the stock

market. The first combination of his

passions,

The Buyout, came out in

2011. Nominated for the Savonia

Prize, it was loved by readers and

critics alike. http://karohamolainen.wordpress.com/in-english/

The Bailout

Kolmikulma

(WSOY 2012, 380 pp.)

A topical, timely novel delving into the core of

the European debt crisis.

The socialist opposition leader of Hellenia is ready

to do his last favour to his fatherland: to sign – and

to resign. A young and eager hedge fund salesman

has his once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to

show his boss what he is capable of. When the

politician is kidnapped, billions of dollars are at

risk (as well as some secondary matters, such as

human lives).

In

The Bailout, people and countries behave like

the stock market: they pretend to be something

they are not.

Critics have compared The Buyout to Tom Wolfe’s

Bonfire of the Vanities!

An intense 23-hour

novel in the triangle

of politics, crime

and hard finance


Rights enquiries: Elina Ahlback Literary Agency | elina.ahlback@ahlbackagency.com | www.ahlbackagency.com

One Man's Opinion: RAMPART AND TOULOUSE by KIRSTIN FOUQUET

I found out about this book thanks to a writer friend on mine, one whose taste I respect without reservation.  He'd picked it as one of his top 5 recommendations of last year, so I had to have a copy.

I'm delighted that I ended up with one.

The core of the book is the novella 'Rampart And Toulouse'.

Rampart and Toulouse it the corner at which a fine old building stands.  It holds the charm of its age and is showing signs of wear, a little like a number of its inhabitants. 

Into the building moves a young lady, finding the place appealing to her finer instincts as well as to her purse.

Once there, she mingles within the mini-Bohemia in which she finds herself and takes the next step of her journey into growing up.

The story meanders from one new experience to the next, gentle and touching like a warm spring sun.

Not that it's all light. 

There's a beautiful photograph on the cover of the book, splendid in its black and white print and in it you can see many aspects of the story which I enjoyed - the subtlety and the clever shades and contrasts that are present throughout and the use of space as an impliment.

The protagonist, Vivienne, is a painter and there is a sense that the author of this book has neatly and carefully stroked all the words onto the page with a careful eye.

I really enjoyed the play between the characters, the sense of nostalgia and of hope and the three-dimensional creation of a New Orleans I'm now even more keen to visit than ever.

It's not one for lovers of hard, fast action, but for anyone who enjoys the shifts that happen in a life when the person isn't looking, this might well be for you.  If in doubt, give it a try.  After all, you've nothing to lose, have you?