A backward step
This is, as the Veggie Soc says, “incomprehensible”. It does mean, though, that I won’t be tempted to have a Twix with my morning coffee, so thanks Mars for helping my weight loss drive.
Oh for an editor
Over at Patternings, Ann Darnton points out how her reading of Chesil Beach was spoilt by Ian McEwan’s failure to get a contemporary detail right – he has his protagonist playing Beatles and Rolling Stones covers of Chuck Berry before they were recorded. On one level it’s a minor detail, but on another, as Ann points out, it goes to the heart of the novel, which is, presumably quite deliberately, considering its subject matter, set in the year before, as Larkin has it,
“Sexual intercourse began / In nineteen sixty three/ (which was rather late for me)/ Between the end of the Chatterley ban/ And the Beatles’ first LP.” The whole atmosphere of the novel depends on its pre-beat group era setting.
I’ve observed a similar problem in the novels of Elizabeth George. This American anglophile gets lots of detail about England wrong. Despite apparently spending half her life over here, she still doesn’t know that we don’t say “candy bar”; she thinks that cricketers all have personal coaches; in a novel set in Lancashire, she consistently refers to the police HQ as being located in “Hutton-Preston”: it’s in Hutton, a suburb of Preston. If you were outside, you’d say Preston. If you were in Preston, you’d say Hutton. No-one would ever say “Hutton-Preston”. Again, you might think, well, does it really matter, and obviously, the answer is probably “not much”. But since Ms George prides herself on the accuracy of her portrayal of English life, you’d think these details would matter to her, or to her English editor, who received lavish praise in the acknowledgments.
In the latest novel I’ve come across, her hero’s somewhat down-to-earth female sidekick has to question a suspect called Barry. She attempts to be matey with him, and addresses him as “Bar”. Has any English person ever used “Bar” as a short form of “Barry”? I think not. He’s Baz, innit?
Of course, the most laughably inaccurate feature of Ms George’s oeuvre is the fact that her hero is a titled member of the nobility with a stately home, who just happens, for entirely altruistic reasons, to be a serving policeman. He’s not exactly Lord Peter Wimsey, but he ain’t Rebus either. I’m reminded that in America, the editors obviously feel that the US readership couldn’t possibly cope with a few culturally specific words, so they edit Rankin to make all his British idioms American ones, thus making Rebus refer to sidewalks and car trunks. Wasn’t it Sam Goldwyn, who, when informed that it would be unwise to film Lilian Hellman’s The Little Foxes because the major characters were lesbians, replied “That’s OK – we’ll make ’em Albanians”!
“Sexual intercourse began / In nineteen sixty three/ (which was rather late for me)/ Between the end of the Chatterley ban/ And the Beatles’ first LP.” The whole atmosphere of the novel depends on its pre-beat group era setting.
I’ve observed a similar problem in the novels of Elizabeth George. This American anglophile gets lots of detail about England wrong. Despite apparently spending half her life over here, she still doesn’t know that we don’t say “candy bar”; she thinks that cricketers all have personal coaches; in a novel set in Lancashire, she consistently refers to the police HQ as being located in “Hutton-Preston”: it’s in Hutton, a suburb of Preston. If you were outside, you’d say Preston. If you were in Preston, you’d say Hutton. No-one would ever say “Hutton-Preston”. Again, you might think, well, does it really matter, and obviously, the answer is probably “not much”. But since Ms George prides herself on the accuracy of her portrayal of English life, you’d think these details would matter to her, or to her English editor, who received lavish praise in the acknowledgments.
In the latest novel I’ve come across, her hero’s somewhat down-to-earth female sidekick has to question a suspect called Barry. She attempts to be matey with him, and addresses him as “Bar”. Has any English person ever used “Bar” as a short form of “Barry”? I think not. He’s Baz, innit?
Of course, the most laughably inaccurate feature of Ms George’s oeuvre is the fact that her hero is a titled member of the nobility with a stately home, who just happens, for entirely altruistic reasons, to be a serving policeman. He’s not exactly Lord Peter Wimsey, but he ain’t Rebus either. I’m reminded that in America, the editors obviously feel that the US readership couldn’t possibly cope with a few culturally specific words, so they edit Rankin to make all his British idioms American ones, thus making Rebus refer to sidewalks and car trunks. Wasn’t it Sam Goldwyn, who, when informed that it would be unwise to film Lilian Hellman’s The Little Foxes because the major characters were lesbians, replied “That’s OK – we’ll make ’em Albanians”!
Geography professors perform the YMCA
I can’t see my English colleagues doing this somehow…
These guys from Manchester’s Geography Dept performed for their Christmas do. I wonder what would be appropriate for other departments?
Man breaks up with girlfriend: a nation mourns
Just wanted to get this in before Private Eye. Obviously worthy of the first spot on today’s BBC news broadcasts…
Not all about you
Novels are not all about you, Natasha | The Guardian | Guardian Unlimited
Lovely letter from Ian McEwan in reply to the review of his new book. His point is, as he says, one which you would hardly think needs to be made, but clearly it does. I’m always amused when people cite John of Gaunt’s “sceptred isle” speech in Richard II as evidence of Shakespeare’s patriotism. First, it’s the character’s view, not the playwright’s; more importantly, in the context of the play, the speech is a lament for an England that is lost. John of Gaunt finishes his dying speech by condemning the decline of the country he loved. It doesn’t stop people (often politicians) using the speech as if it were an uncritical celebration of the nation.
Schools ‘avoid Holocaust lessons’
BBC NEWS | Education | Schools ‘avoid Holocaust lessons’
Who do they think they’d offend? The local Nazi children?
Writing for profit?
Recent analyses of what writers earn confirm pretty much what we all knew anyway, which is that, unless you are JK, or Salman, don’t give up the day job. That is, unless you can live on four grand a year.
In that financial climate, the claims of the mail-order writing schools look a bit dubious. But they must do good business, or they wouldn’t be able to afford the extensive advertising that promotes their services. And, of course, the proof of the pudding is in the eating isn’t it, so the successful authors they feature in their ads will prove how good they are, won’t they?
Well, up to a point. In the ad featured here, a prominent success story is Jon Eagle and his novel Red. Jon apparently received £25000 as an advance – pretty impressive for a first novel, eh? – and has sold the film rights. He tells us he’s working on the script. All very interesting, if true. I did a little research.
Jon Eagle did publish a book called Red– but he published it in 1996, which makes you wonder why The Writers Bureau is using it as an example. Surely, they have more recent success stories? What’s more, according to the details on Amazon, it was published by Minerva. This notorious company was a shady vanity publishing outfit, and thus far more likely to charge the author than to fork out 25 grand as an advance. The BBC investigated this company, and the consequent publicity led to their downfall. Two anonymous Amazon reviewers in 1998 said how great the novel was (that’s handy!), but it remains out of print, and only available second hand for a trifling £246.73 – but hurry, there’s only one. At least there’s the film, eh? Well, no, actually. The IMDB doesn’t list the author as a scriptwriter, and none of the various films called Red seem to relate to his book. One of those anonymous reviewers says it’s to be turned into a TV drama, but I can’t find any reference to it.
OK – but what about the others? Keith Gregson claims to have earned £10,000 for writing lots of articles in a year. This one seems pretty kosher. He has his own website, has published a lot of articles on local history themes, and has clearly got himself a nice little niche. He’s one of the Bureau’s Writers of the Year in fact. Ten grand will supplement his pension – he’s a retired teacher – but it’s hardly the “very good money” mentioned in the ad.
The third star pupil is Christina Jones who breathlessly announces that her first three novels are bestsellers. Hmmm… funny that her name doesn’t appear in any list of bestsellers I’ve seen. Anyway, she’s happy – writing has changed her life. Odd then, that on her website, she attributes her success to meeting an agent at a Romantic Novelists Association event. She says she did the Writers Bureau non-fiction course a year later – so here’s someone who was already a published writer of fiction before doing the course, which wasn’t about fiction anyway…She also reveals here that she’s still working as a barmaid at weekends. You’d think a bestseller would be beyond that, wouldn’t you?
In sum, then, the ad is at best disingenuous, and at worst downright misleading. If you are tempted to enrol, I’m sure you could do better.
Like, you know
More from Taylor Mali. Once again, he’s absolutely on the button with this demolition of vagueness in speech.
Hat tip: anonymous.
Taylor Mali on what teachers make
The perfect riposte to the old “those who can, do…” canard.
Jane Aus
Classic FM tell me that, to mark Mothering Sunday, they are podcasting Jane Austen novels, or, as they put it “complete abridged re-telling of these romantic classics”. That’s got to be better than the shortened abridged version, hasn’t it?