Sharon Wheeler
Coooo-eeeeee! *Sidles in and has a look around*. Ooh, I might have guessed that standing in for a bookseller would be very civilised – comfy chairs to slob out on, and books everywhere . . . I could get used to this.
So how have you all been since I last saw you? Me, I've had a rollercoaster few months. My mum died in February, so I'm still dealing with the aftermath. I finished my playwriting course and got a good grade, so I'm happy with that and currently trying to shape a full-length play out of the extract I submitted for assessment. My PhD pootles along and I'm hoping to get to London over the summer to see lots of plays. And the deadline for my journalism book is the end of September . . . Ahem, yes, moving swiftly on . . .
It's that time of the year again when I criss-cross the UK by train and when I spend longer choosing the books to take with me that I do selecting smart(ish) clothes to wear to meetings!
As per usual at this time of year, I had new offerings from Peter Robinson, Mark Billingham and Peter James to accompany me on my way. I also took a handful of new faces along. David Barrie's rather classy Night-Scented, set in Paris, is well worth tracking down if you can from a small UK indie publisher. One of the others, though, which will remain nameless until I decide how much of a hatchet job to do in the review (suffice it to say it's a cosy set in the Cotswolds), was very lucky not be heaved out of a train window somewhere around Nuneaton. Damn good job some of these trains are sealed units with air conditioning and non-opening windows these days! So I contented myself with imagining the pleasing smack the book would make as it connected with the head of the 'too cool to care' wanker opposite, who blathered loudly into his mobile phone all the way from Birmingham to Leicester.
The book brought to mind that old chestnut of murdering your darlings. The moment a writer falls in love with their creation, that's when I bunk for the door. Oh, OK, PD James put Adam Dalgliesh on a pedestal aeons back, but she can write – and she makes me care about him.
Our cosy writer, though, was so besotted with her lead character, a woman of a certain age who was supposed, I think, to be the sort we all want as a friend, but was in fact a tactless and simpering bore who any sane person would run a mile to avoid. Sadly said writer didn't take the murdering your darlings maxim to heart and bump her off for good. I was attracting some strange looks from fellow passengers as I chuntered under my breath at the character's breathtaking stupidity. At least it guaranteed no one sat next to me!
I then came home and started on the new Susan Hill – and wondered if anyone would notice if I recycled my review of her previous book, with just the title changed. I find it increasingly difficult to care very much about Simon Serrailler and his sister Cat, particularly when the whole thing appears to be based around how saintly they both are and with Hill sighing loudly about how vulgar these low church sorts are and how Fings Ain't Wot They Used To Be.
I'm endlessly fascinated by how different readers interpret characters differently. I wonder sometimes if I'm just being contrary – OK, so I can hear my friend Linda saying yes, but then she is still looking smug at the fact she can obey instructions and count bricks in a wall better than I can… The more perfect and saintly a character is, the less likely I am to believe in them. In fact, it reminded me just why one of the most compelling characters in crime fiction is Patricia Highsmith's murderous Ripley . . . And he's hardly on the side of the angels.
PS: For those of you who adored the Stieg Larsson trilogy, take a look at The Girl Who Fixed the Umlaut in the New Yorker. Spot-on!
Coooo-eeeeee! *Sidles in and has a look around*. Ooh, I might have guessed that standing in for a bookseller would be very civilised – comfy chairs to slob out on, and books everywhere . . . I could get used to this.
So how have you all been since I last saw you? Me, I've had a rollercoaster few months. My mum died in February, so I'm still dealing with the aftermath. I finished my playwriting course and got a good grade, so I'm happy with that and currently trying to shape a full-length play out of the extract I submitted for assessment. My PhD pootles along and I'm hoping to get to London over the summer to see lots of plays. And the deadline for my journalism book is the end of September . . . Ahem, yes, moving swiftly on . . .
It's that time of the year again when I criss-cross the UK by train and when I spend longer choosing the books to take with me that I do selecting smart(ish) clothes to wear to meetings!
As per usual at this time of year, I had new offerings from Peter Robinson, Mark Billingham and Peter James to accompany me on my way. I also took a handful of new faces along. David Barrie's rather classy Night-Scented, set in Paris, is well worth tracking down if you can from a small UK indie publisher. One of the others, though, which will remain nameless until I decide how much of a hatchet job to do in the review (suffice it to say it's a cosy set in the Cotswolds), was very lucky not be heaved out of a train window somewhere around Nuneaton. Damn good job some of these trains are sealed units with air conditioning and non-opening windows these days! So I contented myself with imagining the pleasing smack the book would make as it connected with the head of the 'too cool to care' wanker opposite, who blathered loudly into his mobile phone all the way from Birmingham to Leicester.
The book brought to mind that old chestnut of murdering your darlings. The moment a writer falls in love with their creation, that's when I bunk for the door. Oh, OK, PD James put Adam Dalgliesh on a pedestal aeons back, but she can write – and she makes me care about him.
Our cosy writer, though, was so besotted with her lead character, a woman of a certain age who was supposed, I think, to be the sort we all want as a friend, but was in fact a tactless and simpering bore who any sane person would run a mile to avoid. Sadly said writer didn't take the murdering your darlings maxim to heart and bump her off for good. I was attracting some strange looks from fellow passengers as I chuntered under my breath at the character's breathtaking stupidity. At least it guaranteed no one sat next to me!
I then came home and started on the new Susan Hill – and wondered if anyone would notice if I recycled my review of her previous book, with just the title changed. I find it increasingly difficult to care very much about Simon Serrailler and his sister Cat, particularly when the whole thing appears to be based around how saintly they both are and with Hill sighing loudly about how vulgar these low church sorts are and how Fings Ain't Wot They Used To Be.
I'm endlessly fascinated by how different readers interpret characters differently. I wonder sometimes if I'm just being contrary – OK, so I can hear my friend Linda saying yes, but then she is still looking smug at the fact she can obey instructions and count bricks in a wall better than I can… The more perfect and saintly a character is, the less likely I am to believe in them. In fact, it reminded me just why one of the most compelling characters in crime fiction is Patricia Highsmith's murderous Ripley . . . And he's hardly on the side of the angels.
PS: For those of you who adored the Stieg Larsson trilogy, take a look at The Girl Who Fixed the Umlaut in the New Yorker. Spot-on!
Welcome back, Sharon, even if it is only a brief stop between train rides. And thanks for the New Yorker tip. Fun to read a reviewer who has the nerve to take a poke at the latest greatest.
Posted by: Roy Innes | July 03, 2010 at 11:09 AM
Thanks, Roy! Nice to make a flying visit. And the New Yorker article really made me laugh.
Posted by: Lartonmedia | July 03, 2010 at 02:41 PM
I dunno, sounds like the sort of soulmate I DO want to sit next to on the train. Thanks for the guffaws
Posted by: Kim Malo | July 04, 2010 at 12:16 AM
I was on the Birmingham to Leicester train the other day. Hope it's Ms Raisin you're talking about. Maybe not. I lasted a whole chapter.
Posted by: bookwitch | July 04, 2010 at 05:23 AM
Thanks, Kim! I always wish on long train journeys that I had someone to sit next to and to discuss books with! It's happened once, when I went to France by train with a friend . . .
Posted by: Lartonmedia | July 04, 2010 at 05:55 PM
Damn, we should have had carnations in our buttonholes! Not Ms Raisin -- I've never even tried that. Sod it, I don't know why I'm protecting the guilty. It was Rebecca Tope's new one.
Posted by: Lartonmedia | July 04, 2010 at 05:56 PM
HI, Sharon
Good to hear from you again. Don't forget to give me a call if you're still on your travels and passing close.
Didn't the new Maureen Carter arrive in time to go with you this time? Sorry!
Posted by: Lynne Patrick | July 08, 2010 at 07:13 AM
Hi Lynne! Haven't been up your way for ages, but hoping to get out and about over the summer, so will give you a shout!
Oddly enough, I was wondering where Maureen's new one was! Haven't seen it yet, but then there are apparently some review books in the post room for me at work, so I'm hoping it's there.
Posted by: Lartonmedia | July 08, 2010 at 04:19 PM
Dear Sharon
I so enjoyed the article in the New Yorker I read it aloud to my wife, who laughed out loud at the very clever send-up on Stieg Larsson. I enjoyed the first book enormously but by the time time I got half way through the second I was a little done in!
Did you go to HHH in South Africa oh so many years ago?
Michael Williams
Posted by: Michael Williams | July 22, 2010 at 08:32 AM