The Baby with the Bathtub

I have Another Theory. This one is called the Baby with the Bathtub. Have you ever had a favourite author whose writing style suddenly, and frustratingly, changes? My theory is that the author has received so much negative feedback (fools!) that it has eclipsed the positive reviews. The author is shaken; they rethink their entire writing process and, whoops, out goes the baby with the bathtub.

I have evidence to support my claim. Of course. Who do you think you're dealing with here? Do you think I just start writing without any idea of where I am going? (Don't answer that.)

First, there is David Mitchell, who penned number9dream, Ghostwritten and of course Cloud Atlas, one of my favourite novels, and then switched tempo by writing The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. Every time I read a 'Mitchell', I'm consumed by jealousy; he plays with genre and convention, and he does it in a way that doesn't make me roll my eyes because I know what he's doing and he knows I know what he's doing and it's all so meta. (David Eggers, I'm deliberately not looking at you.)

Jacob de Zoet is also, according to the experts, a masterpiece of genre -- but it's just one genre and it's possibly the most boring one: historical fiction. To add insult to injury, the entire story is told in chronological order, with no literary sleight of hand. Like, at all. It may be a 'masterpiece', but it's no CloudAtlas.

Second, there is Jonathan Safran Foer. I could hear the sigh as I typed his name, but give me a chance. Is his writing a bit sanctimonious? Yes. Is it meta and eyeroll-inducing? Yes and yes. But does he also have a way with words that is like real magic? The answer is obviously yes. Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close are both beautifully written masterpieces woven from words and they stick with me still. 

And then he wrote Here I Am. It's longer than his other books -- perhaps three times longer -- and rather than focusing on one character, tells the story of a Jewish family living in contemporary Washington, DC. It's mundane, rather than magic, although there are moments that sparkle; unrelentingly so. Some reviews suggest that the book is semi-autobiographical and perhaps that's why the magic's missing. It's not terrible, but the bathtub's empty.

So I only have two authors in my arsenal of evidence, but I think I've proven my point. While terribly named, my Baby with the Bathtub theory holds water (har har). Case closed.

Confessing my first crime

Once upon a time, I thought that not finishing a book you had started was a crime. A social crime on par with stealing, only justified in the most dire of circumstances. Who leaves a story stranded like that? I wondered. What kind of degenerate abandons characters they haven't even met yet?! 

(You probably think I am exaggerating, and I understand that, but I am not. I still do not fully trust People Who Do Not Finish Books On the Regular.) 

I ploughed through Michel Houellebecq's Atomised on this principle -- come to think of it, that may have been the book that broke me (go read some of the reviews and you'll see what I mean. Whatever you do, do not read it.). A short time later, I picked up a book by Richard Powers, the first pages of which had the vaguest scent of Houellbecq's horrifying imagination, and I noped right out of that first chapter. 

So it began.

Next was The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton, which I just kind of forgot to continue reading. I was about a quarter of the way through and then I started reading something else, with the intention of coming back to it, and I just never did. This was more a case of neglect than abandonment, but that's still a crime.

Since then, there have been many -- oh so many -- books that I have cracked open and left cracked, with no intention of ever trying to undo my crime, and a small contingent that I plan to visit again. I'm making my way through Hilary Mantel's The Mirror and the Light again (although I confess to taking a quick break to read The Wild Things).

Two of Roberto Bolano's books -- 2666 and The Savage Detectives -- have fallen victim to my Houellebecq-inspired crime spree, as well as The Biographer's Tale by AS Byatt, The Golden House by Salman Rushdie, Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer, Save Me the Waltz by Zelda Fitzgerald, The Birds Fall Down by Rebecca West and the second book in the Last Policeman series.

All, according to the critics, good books, but not enough to hold my attention. See, I'm an editor, which means I spend the whole day reading and rereading content, focusing on words and phrases to try to make them as functional as possible. After a solid eight or ten hours of this, it's hard to get out of that mindset. Truly great books lull that part of my brain to sleep, but good or almost great books leave room for that part of my brain to kick.

So, in the meantime, I have reread a few books, looking for that feeling you get when you read a truly beautiful book. I'm a literary junkie looking for a fix. And finding it in works like The People's Act of Love by James Meek, Marissa Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics and Night Film, Margaret Atwood's MaddAdam trilogy, and most recently, Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.

Do not judge a book by its movie, folks. Even on a second reading, Cloud Atlas is the kind of book I wish I could write, but since I can't, I'll just read it over and over again, finding something new each time.

I am confessing my crime partly because I hope to stop doing it. But, really, I'm just assuaging my guilty conscience so I can sin anew.

V: on hold

The real world has me in its claws but I promise not to let this become a habit. Granted, a mole can't do much against the eagle attached to the claws except become a very unpleasant meal. All this really proves is that this metaphor has limits. The real world has me surrounded but the Law of Cowboy Films says that the fewer the men, the craftier they have to be to survive. In this case, I intend to go down in a blaze of words and few inappropriate pranks.

For instance, is it safe to put a goldfish in a bowl in the fridge for long enough for someone to find it?

I haven't abandoned words in this stake-out - that would be just ridiculous. At the moment, all I really have brain real estate for is crosswords. Yep. You, stop sniggering. Quit - lay off - end - halt - cease - terminate - desist from snickering - simpering - sneering - laughing.

Really, I rarely finish a crossword without cheating: using dictionaries, thesauruses, and an app that allows you to match words and reveal blocks. But I can live with this because I get bored when I reach an impasse and rules are flexible.

Before my two-week hiatus from blogging, I was still ploughing my way through V and 1Q84. Ok, don't look at me like that - that's not exactly true because the latter has been kicked under my bed, behind my hairdryer. I had reached the point where one character's married girlfriend is pregnant and the other is recovering (in uncomfortable detail) from a night of debauchery she doesn't remember. I stepped on it as I got up out of bed and slipped.

V is on my Kindle, which is less slippery. However, it does not have a solution to being distracted. Every time I pick it up to read it, I have to flip back to find something I recognise. The novel is made up of stories that branch off from the main story. These branches usually handstand back in time, pulling certain characters with it. The point being that you have to pay attention otherwise you may find yourself unwittingly a soldier without a past on Namibia's Skeleton Coast.

The chapter set in Namibia is gruelling, as is another set close by, in an estate that houses one continuous party a la The Great Gatsby. Not only do events depict the brutal violations of human rights that were colonialism, but the protagonists experience a flux of emotions, from bravery to insipidness, activism to self-preservation, care to the need for care.

The main story is set in post-World War II America and follows an ex-naval officer. Although Wikipedia says he was discharged, I remember vividly that he went AWOL, although perhaps this insert is the reverse of my loss of memory. He is part of the Whole Sick Crew, an incestuous bunch of naval officers and some women. He describes himself as the most popular man among the women but also the most virginal, even though he and Rachel have something destructive going on.

Now we reach My Point - congratulations, pick up 50 000 Air Miles when next you visit your local bookshop.

V reminds me of Cloud Atlas, but only in the sense that Mercury and Jupiter orbit the same star. Cloud Atlas depicts several stories set in several genres, with no main narrative except that forced on it by the movie. Instead, it is the themes that bind them - themes that range from esoteric (producers of the movie) to literary and semiotic (me).

Having said this, certain elements recur, just as they occur in other novels written by the same author. Mostly, these elements are characters. They recur as actual characters, or just references or blurry pasts.

In V, the stories are more interbred, with a single protagonist, and more consistent voice and genre. I am twisting myself into contradictions now, which is fitting, because the author also experiments with genre, particularly historical drama. His prose is consistently highbrow, even when he is slinging slang between the Sick Crew and rival gangs.

Am I recommending fans of Cloud Atlas to read V? a) I can't because I haven't finished and who knows what asteroid could be hiding in the last few pages. b) These are two different but similar books, and it depends on whether you enjoyed the games the first played with genre (different) or that they played games with genre (similar).

Don't quote me on it. My opinion can only be trustworthy once I have finished the book and I haven't. I also cannot promise to finish anytime soon, since isolated synonyms and antonyms comprise the sum total of my attention right now, as I figurre out how to twist myself to bite the claws that hold me, or crawl out of the frontier cottage I am crouched in, in the hopes that my attackers will wait there until their toes chafe.