Just reading the newest Susan Hill, The Shadows In The Street. It’s her fifth detective novel, all featuring a police, Simon Serrailler. Forget the Ian Rankins and Peter Robinsons or whoever else. She is simply the very best in the field. All of the novels are so superbly textured, with characters who are totally, utterly alive and three-dimensional. It’s what I aspired to in The Broken Token and also in the new one, but reading her makes me realise just how far I have to go. These are books about characters with full lives – even the confirmed bachelor Serrailler – where the mystery comes second. You feel these people, you know them you’re sorry to feel them go when the book ends.
I’d just re-read The Pure in Heart, the second in the series, and even there it’s note-perfect. She’s an acclaimed writer, of course, although the other books of hers I’ve tried haven’t touched me like these. With these, it seems, she’s opened up a beautifully rich vein, and she deserves to be celebrated for them. If Richard Nottingham and my other creations can come close to this level I’ll feel I’ve done something. The mystery novel is all too often derided as genre fiction (albeit less than used to be the case) but Susan Hill creates literature of the highest order.
Saturday 31 July 2010
Friday 30 July 2010
Why Leeds?
One question I’ve often been asked is why do I set my books in Leeds? After all, I haven’t lived there since 1975 and marginally spent more time in Seattle than in Leeds itself.
There might not be a simple answer, but as close as I can come is that Leeds is in my heart and my genes. My family has been there since around 1800. I feel it in my blood. Every time I’m there my blood moves faster, there’s a sense of home in the place.
Today, sadly, much of Leeds is a generic city. Those that governed the place during the 20th century gave little thought to history. No one thought to conserve the Red House (although I’m told that some of the layout of it was preserved in Schofield’s), for instance, or hold on to the heritage of the few ancient houses that remained off Lower Briggate. That’s shameful, but it’s happened, it can’t be changed. Leeds wanted to be the city of the future, and did it by largely turning its back on the past.
Small fragments of the history do remain, but they’re few and fair between. The most obvious examples are Holy Trinity and St. John’s churches (the Parish Church was rebuilt in the 1800s).
But this is by the bye. Leeds is in me in a way no other city could be. I’ve written about other places in (thankfully) unpublished novels. But once I began writing about Leeds, it all clicked, it felt right. In The Broken Token, Leeds is as much a character as any person. The same is true in the new one, currently being revised, called Drive the Cruel Winter Away.
I’m toying with the subtitle “A Leeds Novel,” even if it sounds pretentious. The main characters will come and go, but Leeds will be the constant. There are other books I have in my head, set in different time periods, but all in Leeds. In other words, Leeds is essentially the main character.
None of which answers the question, why Leeds? The answer, maybe, is that deep down inside it can’t be anywhere else than the place that shaped and formed me.
There might not be a simple answer, but as close as I can come is that Leeds is in my heart and my genes. My family has been there since around 1800. I feel it in my blood. Every time I’m there my blood moves faster, there’s a sense of home in the place.
Today, sadly, much of Leeds is a generic city. Those that governed the place during the 20th century gave little thought to history. No one thought to conserve the Red House (although I’m told that some of the layout of it was preserved in Schofield’s), for instance, or hold on to the heritage of the few ancient houses that remained off Lower Briggate. That’s shameful, but it’s happened, it can’t be changed. Leeds wanted to be the city of the future, and did it by largely turning its back on the past.
Small fragments of the history do remain, but they’re few and fair between. The most obvious examples are Holy Trinity and St. John’s churches (the Parish Church was rebuilt in the 1800s).
But this is by the bye. Leeds is in me in a way no other city could be. I’ve written about other places in (thankfully) unpublished novels. But once I began writing about Leeds, it all clicked, it felt right. In The Broken Token, Leeds is as much a character as any person. The same is true in the new one, currently being revised, called Drive the Cruel Winter Away.
I’m toying with the subtitle “A Leeds Novel,” even if it sounds pretentious. The main characters will come and go, but Leeds will be the constant. There are other books I have in my head, set in different time periods, but all in Leeds. In other words, Leeds is essentially the main character.
None of which answers the question, why Leeds? The answer, maybe, is that deep down inside it can’t be anywhere else than the place that shaped and formed me.
Agora
Went to see Agora yesterday, knowing nothing about Hypatia or Alexandria in the 4th century AD. Impressive CGI, a movie grappling with big ideas and putting out all sorts of allegories for today. But as it focused on ideas rather than people, and too many of them, it was a failure, albeit one that sparked debate.
I came out knowing no more about the main characters than when I’d entered, never a good sign, as you have to care about people to get to the heart. A poor, wooden script. And, after some checking, seemingly incorrect in some important areas. The movie showed the Christians sacking the library of Alexandria, although there seems to be no evidence the library even still existed at this point. I’m no apologist for any organised religion, but this seemed gratuitous. Also, the real death of Hypatia was far more gruesome than the one shown – although that wouldn’t play with film audiences. Instead she received the Vaseline lens, soft core death.
So, in attempting to show how the Christians had twisted and perverted the tenets of their own bible, the film seemingly choose to bend the truth a great deal. Do two wrongs make a right? Not really.
As someone who likes historical mysteries, this obviously resonates. I use time and place as the framework for my books. But as far as possible I try to keep the history correct, rather than trimming and altering facts for my own ends. The massive sleights of hand the filmmakers attempted in Agora rankle. If they’d gone for a much smaller film, one that revolved around characters, they could have made their point far more effectively and created a tragedy worthy of Shakespeare. But then there’s the lure of the epic and the chance of all those Hollywood dollars. A shame, as there was real potential there.
I came out knowing no more about the main characters than when I’d entered, never a good sign, as you have to care about people to get to the heart. A poor, wooden script. And, after some checking, seemingly incorrect in some important areas. The movie showed the Christians sacking the library of Alexandria, although there seems to be no evidence the library even still existed at this point. I’m no apologist for any organised religion, but this seemed gratuitous. Also, the real death of Hypatia was far more gruesome than the one shown – although that wouldn’t play with film audiences. Instead she received the Vaseline lens, soft core death.
So, in attempting to show how the Christians had twisted and perverted the tenets of their own bible, the film seemingly choose to bend the truth a great deal. Do two wrongs make a right? Not really.
As someone who likes historical mysteries, this obviously resonates. I use time and place as the framework for my books. But as far as possible I try to keep the history correct, rather than trimming and altering facts for my own ends. The massive sleights of hand the filmmakers attempted in Agora rankle. If they’d gone for a much smaller film, one that revolved around characters, they could have made their point far more effectively and created a tragedy worthy of Shakespeare. But then there’s the lure of the epic and the chance of all those Hollywood dollars. A shame, as there was real potential there.
Thursday 29 July 2010
The Words of Life 1
There’s great joy in being a writer. Even more so when you hold your first novel in your hand. For most writers this is the Grail, what we all dream about, what turns us into writers on the first place.
Even after around 30 non-fiction books, holding The Broken Token was a profoundly moving experience. Now, after almost 3 months, the trick is still to sell the damn thing, to see those copies flying out of bookstores.
But now it becomes just one part of the problem. I’m almost one-third of the way through the second novel to feature Richard Nottingham, and the challenge is not just to come up with a good mystery element (always the lesser part to me) than to make the characters grow, to make them, and the Leeds of March 1732 even more real.
Even after around 30 non-fiction books, holding The Broken Token was a profoundly moving experience. Now, after almost 3 months, the trick is still to sell the damn thing, to see those copies flying out of bookstores.
But now it becomes just one part of the problem. I’m almost one-third of the way through the second novel to feature Richard Nottingham, and the challenge is not just to come up with a good mystery element (always the lesser part to me) than to make the characters grow, to make them, and the Leeds of March 1732 even more real.
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