LP Hartley, Graham Greene, de Maupassant & Ammianus go into a bar

October 31, 2017 by Tim Robson in Literature, Novel

“Libraries gave us power...”

— A Design for Life, Manic Street Preachers

So, LP Hartley, Graham Greene, Guy de Maupassant and Ammianus Marcellinus go into a pub one night to discuss which Tim Robson article, short story, or er, novel, they like best.

LPH: I like his early stuff. It's different - almost a different country.

GG: Bollocks mates, I love all of it. As a writer, I measure my love by the extent of my jealousy. And I'm really jealous of Tim.

GdM: J'aime ses articles francais.

GG: In English mate.

GdM: I love it when he swears a lot and talks about getting pissed and failing with girls.

AM: Rather reminds me of a young Julian.

LPH: No Spear of Destiny in this one I'm afraid.

GG: What? The shite 80's band?

AM: No. Anyway, I like his stuff about the 4th Century Roman Empire.

GdM: Talking your own book again?

Etc etc. Yes, I used to write like this once. When I edited the school magazine. Well, sans les filles, something had to amuse me.

So this rather long preamble is my annoying way to mention that I've started to read again. As a literary autodidact I range freely within self imposed barriers. I'm not really a fan of the latest literature - maybe because I want to read what history has determined is worth reading rather follow the latest trend. Classics, in fact. And yes, I also distrust gatekeepers (in life, in knowledge) but I'll let this pass. The judgement of history - over time - tends to be validated.

So, recently I've been reading:-

- LP Hartley - The Go-Between

- Graham Greene - The End of the Affair

- Guy de Maupassant - Bel Ami

- Ammianus - Roman History

Three fiction and one non fiction which is a pretty good balance, I think. For too long I've been reading history, history, history so it's nice to refresh my love of literature. I devour these books with the eye of a writer; hoarding phrases, constructions, unusual words for later adaption and use myself. Yeah, I borrow from the best. If I'm struck by a phrase, I'll write it down and try to adapt it for my needs. The Bible's good for this too! I'm not proud.

And where do I get this treasure trove of endless literature?

Battersea Library, Lavender Hill. Yeah, unfashionable and dusty, the good old library. Like a good bookshop, I go in with no preconceptions and end up borrowing something I didn't intend. That's the beauty of it - challenging myself to read new authors, new books and push beyond quotidian Hardy, Austin, Balzac, Wilde, Zola (fuck, I'm well read! In the 19th century.).

Libraries. Another great 19th Century invention along with the Rochdale co-operative movement. Self help. Knowledge. Confronting the world as it is not as it should be. One hundred and fifty years ago I would have been a Radical Liberal or a Socialist.

I don't preach. But a house with books is better than a house with a large TV. I stick with this prejudice though often it hurts. Rousseau beats Hobbes every time. Eventually.

I Am the Resurrection.

November 01, 2015 by Tim Robson in Words, Fashion, Novel

"I was saying something. Oh yes. Maria and English literature. We argue about its relevance, English Lit. As an academic subject as opposed to a leisure activity. I write, she reads. I read, she deconstructs. What annoys me is the way they (as in ‘They’ – those buggers who populate an ill informed argument. Yes, ‘Them’.) er, yes, the way they take something that's for everyone and raise it above the heads of the people for whom it was originally meant. Alienation I believe it’s called. Yes, you can see I’m better read than I let on. However, it's all bollocks, your honour."

Tim Robson - Neil Diamond's Beard (early 90's)

I've been reading some of my stuff from the early 90's. The superbly titled unpublished novel - Neil Diamond's Beard. Was it any good? Was I a literary enfant terrible tearing up Brighton in my 20's? It's an attractive image but I'm perhaps not best placed to answer. However, what I would say is that lifting the lid on your younger self is sometimes a wondrous thing, sometimes a shocking thing. You forget so much, the passage of time smooths the edges off the anger, laughingly points out your conceits and can make a mockery of your juvenile attempts at a deeper truth, a coherent worldview.

But - and it is a big but - there's a vibrancy in the writing, no doubt about that. I know my brain had then been captured by Martin Amis, Jack Kerouac, by a cinéma vérité confessional style that confused reality for readability, and yet... It's a two fisted brawl of a novel, no punches left in the locker, no attitude unexplored. There's also a willingness to be honest and truthful which, however polished and skilled my writing has now become, and however much the self-edit red pen excises the wilder prose, I still endeavour to retain. Not for me plastic emotions and gossamer thin characterisations. It's all, or it is nothing.

So - what are the major differences I notice in my writings of the early 90's?

1) Smoking in pubs and restaurants (see picture above, Aug 1989). It seems like ancient history now. How we all accepted cigarettes in an indoor environment. How every table had an ashtray. How your clothes and hair would stink when you got home. Strangely I miss it - but only as a sensory shortcut to my youth, not as a going concern.

2) Lack of mobile phones. How the hell did we communicate back in the day? I seem to remember a lot of confusion and hanging around and detailed planning. Now we all just go out and kind of navigate to each other when we feel appropriate. Our 2015 ability to track each other would have been perceived as phenomenal, and perhaps sinister, in those pre mobile phone days. Conversations were more intense however without a constant distraction bleeping on the table, calling you to wonders elsewhere.

3) Political correctness. Strangely I found this worked both ways - both more and less at the same time. This was Brighton at the dawn of the 90's, not a Northern working men's club in the 70's. But some casual incorrectness creeps in. Words, phrases that I would be uncomfortable to use these days pepper the narrative. But perhaps that was youth. There's also a suspicion of the corrosive chilling effect of thought-crime in the writing. PC was both stronger but less prevalent. The war hadn't been won so the PC army wore combat fatigues.

4) How my world-view had more passion but less depth. An assertion is not an argument. Experience moderates the fires of youth. There's nothing like reality to piss on a dreamer's parade. Certainty is the preserve of youth.

5) I'm a better writer now. Fact. The work is littered with errors and stylistic howlers that poke the reader in the eye. I wouldn't publish what I wrote back then. There again, a decent and sympathetic editor (like me 25 years later) would have done wonders.

6) Despite that, I am very definitely - and distinctly - me. The themes, patterns, style, worldview are there, in infant form perhaps, but there nonetheless. It's reassuring isn't it, that stripping away temporary conventions and fashions, forgiving naivety, lack of experience, undeveloped skill, your voice and passions remain constant.

And rather frightening too.

Cheers,

Tim

Hit and Run Lover

February 25, 2015 by Tim Robson in Novel

First it was a song.

Then a recording.

Then a book.

Then a script.

It is coming here. Soon. To this website.

Check out the first couple of chapters on YouWriteOn.

http://www.youwriteon.com/books/bookdetail.aspx?bookguid=05185d1d-43eb-4f89-a5b5-e8d036236883

Cheers

Tim