Reading | Seymour Writes

More Books from my Recently Read List

Posted on June 28, 2012 by Seymour

This collection of tales by Lord Dunsany is romantic, fantastical and somewhat macabre, each having a fitful dreaming quality to them. The reader eavesdrops on conversations between souls and bodies at the point of death and travels to some very strangely named places. This was my first taste of the author’s work and has compelled me to explore further.

The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A brutally visceral and mind-bending psychotic trip that nevertheless sounds a triumphant note for the common man or woman … or, dare I say, the 99%

Clarinet by Jack Brymer

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a thorough book on the clarinet from a world class player and expert on the instrument. Brymer is excellent on the history of the clarinet and also very much focused on the technical side of note production. He very quickly encourages the reader/player to begin thinking acoustically about their instrument in terms of a tube of vibrating air and to move away from a mere inputs (covering holes and blowing) and outputs (notes) approach. In order to progress to mastery of the clarinet the very quirks and compromises that are inherent in its design must be mitigated throughout the registers. It covers every aspect of clarinet playing and technique from a specifically classical orchestral and soloist point of view (i.e. don’t expect much insight on jazz or other styles of playing).

Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I want so badly to understand the appeal of this “classic” work. I will return to it repeatedly in the hope that on some reading in the future it will break open for me and I’ll come to love it as so many do. Until now, however, I have found that its 36 pages of overblown metaphysicality leaves me cold and unstirred, with the notable exception of the closing lines of “Little Gidding”, which really do blow me away.

Collected Poems, 1978 1999 by Craig Raine

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When I first encountered Craig Raine’s poetry it was like a homecoming, one of the most exciting moments in my literary youth. Here was someone who seemed to write about the same world that I saw through my eyes – the most commonplace things having a breathless mystery about them. I have since discovered that his approach spawned an entire school of “Martian Poetry” that takes his “A Martian Sends a Postcard Home” as its point of departure into a tour of the most familiar things seen through alien eyes: “There are tiddlywinks / of light in the summer woods. /Play with them. The ironing-board / has permanent lumbago. Pity it.” In “Scrap”, “The [petrol] pump held a gun to its head an empty theatrical gesture”. “Enquiry into Two Inches of Ivory”, “A Cemetery in Co.Durham” and “The Behaviour of Dogs” are the poems that stand out the most for me from this collection and are always with me.

The Shangri-La Diet: The No Hunger Eat Anything Weight-Loss Plan by Seth Roberts

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Obviously there has been a buzz about this book on the back of Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. Like other reviewers I found it a very quick read and interesting enough to read in one sitting. Yes, the basics could fit on three pages but the “padding” is lightly engaging although repetitive at times. I did skim the chapter on the problems of global obesity because that’s not something I need convincing about. Like other reviewers I was impressed with Seth’s audacious self-experimentation and willingness to connect concepts in unorthodox ways.

So what about the “diet”? The concept at the core has this intuitive ring about it and resonates with some of the other bits and bobs that have crossed my radar recently, such as Michael Dowd‘s stuff on evolutionary psychology. The author is careful to include some examples of negative feedback he has had on the “diet” not working for some people. If it works for me, it will be astounding, and it could be the answer I’m looking for – but the proof will be in the eating …

It costs nothing to try and seems harmless so I’ll be giving it a go and reporting back.

View all my reviews

Filed under: Books | Tagged: Books, Reading | 5 Comments »

C.S. Lewis’ Advice on Writing

Posted on June 19, 2012 by Seymour

I’m currently reading C.S. Lewis’ Letters to Children – a collection of the personal letters he wrote in reply to numerous young fans who wrote to him between 1944 and 1963. It’s an uncut little gem of a book. I’m struck by the trouble Lewis took over his correspondence. It was a daily discipline that took a few hours every morning after her rose at 7.15. The other thing that strikes me (with my copy editor’s hat on) is Lewis fast and loose approach to grammar. Of course, in letters, one is less careful of grammatical niceties, but these words to a young fan are revealing, too:

… Don’t take any notice of teachers and textbooks in such matters. Nor of logic. It is good to say “more than one passenger was hurt,” although more than one equals at least two and therefore logically the verb ought to be plural were not singular was! What really matters is:–

1. Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean and make sure your sentence couldn’t mean anything else.

2. Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don’t implement promises, but keep them.

3. Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean “More people died” don’t say “Mortality rose.”

4. In writing. Don’t use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us a thing was “terrible,” describe it so that we’ll be terrified. Don’t say it was “delightful”; make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers, “Please will you do my job for me.”

5. Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say “infinitely” when you mean “very”; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.

c.s. lewis’ advice on reading (jimmydsmith.typepad.com)

Filed under: Books, Inspiration, Writing | Tagged: Advice, Books, Creative Writing, Creativity, Fiction, Reading, Writing | 6 Comments »

Messing About with Poetry Again

Posted on May 31, 2012 by Seymour

I have had a long absence from both reading and writing poetry. It is hard to identify when or why it began but it has been a chunk of my life rather than a couple of years out. The why, I suspect, does not reflect me in a pleasant light and probably has something to do with me turning into some sort of snob.

Lately I have started to creep back, though, gently prodded by other bloggers who are unashamed to post poetry of their own and of other people (namely Barbara Lane and Robert Rife) and by others who advocate enthusiastically for poetry (Xe Sands and Marly Youmans). So I have been listening and reading again, and writing a tiny bit.

When I was younger and more prolific in the poetry department, it was one of the main ways I made sense of the world around me because it enables us to capture and hold something in a cage of words without destroying it, defining it or curtailing its mystery. The kind of poetry that I really connect with is the stuff that brings elusive, ephemeral, intimated truths into focus and holds them for a moment, leaving the afterglow of an impression rather than the proof of a fact. Some things in life are like that – they will never stay still long enough for us to get them under a microscope, but that doesn’t make them any less real.

I need to recapture some of that stuff. Then, there’s the other thing I had forgotten: Poetry is fun. It is safe to experiment. It is a sandbox of words. So I don’t need to be so uptight about it. In the past, I have always written stuff that needs to be read aloud to be put in its best light, but this one probably only has any chance of making sense when seen on paper:

Six Years

Six years passed the grass has grown and been cut
Over this house although it never was this long before
Six seasons of spring mornings the same dew has perspired
Just like this one upwards still the relentlessness
But the thing that of laundry and dishes on the
I awakened to under today’s sideboard has been
Sun was that one day was all I can manage these
Too much like the others rhythms this cycle pinioned
What has happened to this house
What has changed for six years?
I cannot say.

Filed under: Poems, Poetry, Writing | Tagged: Creative Writing, Creativity, Poetry, Reading, Writing | 7 Comments »

Linguistic Peeves: “A Big Thank You”

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Seymour

I like well modulated grammar. I appreciate the clarity and accuracy that comes from applying the rules. I also enjoy seeing those rules creatively and consciously broken. Language lives; usage comes and goes and I embrace innovation. But (and, yes, these days it is fine to start a sentence with “but”), there are some things up with which I will not put:

A BIG THANK YOU

“A big thank you” what? It hangs there like “a wrinkly elephant”.

Okay so, “A big thank you to all our supporters …” from whom? What are people trying to do with this phrase? It is so passive that the wonderful verb of thanking someone has become a wrinkly elephant of a noun that nobody will claim to own.

Fine, then, “We would like to say a big thank you to all our supporters.” Better, but that’s still a bit like saying, “we’d like to say a wrinkly elephant to all our supporters.” And why the conditional? Is there a problem?

“We would like to say a big thank you to all our supporters, but it sounds silly.” I agree with that.

Maybe if the big thank you is what you want to say then it should be in quotation marks? “We would like to say ‘a big thank you‘ to all our supporters.” That doesn’t make sense either, it just adds a dollop of sarcasm.

I’m reminded of the parson in church, “Lord, we pray for all the people in the world and we especially pray for the widows and orphans.” That’s not praying, that’s just telling God that you are praying – WHAT do you pray for the orphans?

Maybe expressing the wish to issue “a big thank you” is a way of avoiding actually thanking anyone in the same way that the parson who prays for widows and orphans never actually prays for them.

Well, I just want to say “a big wrinkly elephant” to all who read this blog.

Thank you for reading it, thank you for commenting and interacting with me. I’m grateful to you all and I just wanted to express that somehow.

Grammar Pet Peeves Part II (robincoyle.wordpress.com)
Literary Pet Peeves (goldenbookwyrm.wordpress.com)

Filed under: Blogging, Contemporary Culture, Writing | Tagged: Advice, Grammar, Humour, Reading, Writing | 12 Comments »

Review: Then They Came for Me by Maziar Bahari

Posted on April 14, 2012 by Seymour

Then They Came for Me: A Story of Injustice and Survival in Iran’s Most Notorious Prison by Maziar Bahari

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I think everyone needs to read this book in order to get a better understanding of what is behind that tiny word, “Iran”, when the newsreader says it.

Maziar Bahari, a Newsweek journalist, was arrested following the Iranian election in 2009. Beatings and solitary confinement ensued as the regime attempted to extract a confession from him that he was a spy.

In spite of the agonising circumstances, he had been expecting to return to the side of his pregnant fiancée in London in a matter of days, Maziar writes with warmth and flashes of humour that betray enormous strength of soul. He comes from a family of dissidents whose love for their nation has forced them to defy three generations of tyranny. His father and his sister and numerous friends were incarcerated and tortured under successive regimes and Maziar uniquely weaves their story into an account of the recent history of Iran since the times of the last Shah.

This is not just a book about his imprisonment and eventual release, it is an insightful and authoritative analysis of the tensions within Iran and a snapshot of a generation that is ready for a change that was quite brutally denied them in the last election.

The author is at pains to bring a journalistic fairness to bear even on his captors and tormentors and the human elements of his relationship with his interrogator are poignantly told with a sense that the man who beats him is, himself, a puppet of the regime. This objectivity gives the author the moral high ground at every turn. The paranoia and ignorance of the authorities is starkly contrasted with his attempts to speak the truth. At one point he is interrogated about his relationship with the dead playwright Anton Checkhov, who they are convinced is another zionist spy.

The Iranians have a beautiful and ancient culture and many of the kindest and most well mannered people I have ever met are from Iran. It is tragic that this is not reflected in all the “bad news” that comes from that part of the globe and it is important that we do not respond with the same blindness that grips the current regime. Please read this book.

“Then They Came for Me” is published by Oneworld.

View all my reviews

Iran orders retrial for ‘CIA spy’ (bbc.co.uk)
Former Iran detainees: Publicity helped their case (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

Filed under: Books, Contemporary Culture, Reviews | Tagged: Books, Reading | Leave a Comment »

Lucky Seven Meme: I got tagged …

Posted on April 11, 2012 by Seymour

Photo credit: El Chupacabrito

So I got tagged by Gillian of skybluepinkish …

She’s posted 7 sentences from her current manuscript, “The Dorothy Summer” (check it out), and now it’s my turn:

Go to page 7 or 77 in your current manuscript
Go to line 7
Post on your blog the next 7 lines, or sentences, as they are – no cheating!
Tag 7 other authors to do the same

Most of my stuff is less than seven pages (I put up a fresh short story nearly every week at “Stories from the Borders of Sleep“). However, with minimal preamble, here are the seven sentences beginning from the seventh line from the seventh page of my most advanced work-in-progress, a phantasy novelette entitled, “The Coat and Ring”.

Like a man who has been in the sun all day and who through the night gives off the radiance of what he has absorbed, I felt a strong glow from him. It was impossible to tell his age for his skin was well weathered by the elements rather than age, and he gave off an air of rude health. As he looked at me, I also had the impression that he was about to pounce on me and overpower me in a playful attack, like a young cub intent on tussling one of his brothers into submission.

I introduced myself and asked how he came to be there at Terence’s table on this particular night. I wished to discover if Terence had a continuous traffic of guests to whom the same attentive hospitality was shown or if I had stumbled into some sort of occasional celebration.

Selwyn looked at me with slight amusement under his moustache once again and took a few moments to answer me, as if he was weighing whether to play a joke on me or not.

Delightfully random …

So I’m handing the baton on to a few of my favourite writer bloggers (who may or may not appreciate being tagged), but I recommend you check them out anyway:

Valerie Storey at http://valeriestorey.blogspot.co.uk

James Tallet at http://thefourpartland.com

Rolando Garcia at http://phantomimic.weebly.com

Mandy Eve Barnett at http://mandyevebarnett.wordpress.com

Curtiss Ann Matlock at http://curtissannmatlock.com

Marly Youmans at http://thepalaceat2.blogspot.co.uk

Lisa Wright at http://wrightales.com

Amberr Meadows at http://www.amberrisme.com