Word I’ve Known For Quite Some Time, But Am Yet To Hear Anyone Else Say

Bouleversement n.:
Complete overthrow; a reversal; a turning upside down.
(Literal French translation: ball rolling over)

How you might use this word in a sentence if you were F. Scott Fitzgerald:

For the second time in his life Amory had had a complete bouleversement and was hurrying into line with his generation. (This Side of Paradise)

Modern equivalent: backflip (I guess).

But backflip (the sound and the manoeuvre) is too angular for the process of gradual but significant overturning. Bouleversement (\bool-vair-suh-MAWN\) is more rounded; the image of a ball (or planet) rolling over more apt for what I touched on in last Sunday’s Status Report. My bouleversement on Novel A.

In that post I discussed my waning enthusiasm for Novel B and alluded to my preference for the kind of fiction Novel A aspires to, but I omitted one important, specific point.

Here’s that point:

The book I had been listening to on my iPod was Haruki Murakami’s A Wild Sheep Chase (1982), as read by Rupert Degas. In January/February this year I listened to Murakami’s The Wind-up Bird Chronicle (1997), which I blogged about here.

From the first words of A Wild Sheep Chase the similarities to the later novel started to spring forth. Both novels have a male, late 20’s/early 30’s, passive, detatched (etc etc) first person narrator. The voice of narrator—his way with words, the way he manoeuvres through a story—was almost identical in these early passages. I thought perhaps this was due to the same person, Rupert Degas, reading both audiobooks. This may have alerted me to the similarities sooner, and underlined them, but it was not the ultimate source of the similarities. Perhaps, if it were just the voice of the narrator, I could also point a finger at the translator, Jay Rubin, but it was not just the voice of the narrator, it was his character. And the similarities between the books did not end with the narrator. Oh no. That was only the beginning.

Structure: Sheep Chase evolves into a quest for a) a strange looking sheep with a star on its backside, b) understanding what lies behind the quest itself and c) understanding what lies behind life itself. Wind-up Bird is a series of quests (finding a lost cat, discovering why his wife left him…), each one supplanting by something bigger, until the quest is, once again, to attain understanding.

Characters: the narrator’s unnamed girlfriend with the magic ears is split in two in Wind-up Bird to become Malta and Creta Kano; the boss with psychic/supernatural powers becomes the Okada’s brother-in-law Noboru Wataya.

Style: There are chapters in both books in the form of letters from other characters to the narrator (the Rat, Mei Kasahara); historical information/anecdote is crowbarred into both contemporary narratives (both books feature the Manchukuo episode in WWII).

Minutiae: in Sheep Chase the narrator describes a bird’s call as being like the winding of a watch spring, and darkness as like “the bottom of a well”.

…

It was sort of fun to find these parallels, but a ‘sort of fun’ game is not enough to usher me towards a bouleversement.

Wind-up Bird is more than twice as long as Sheep Chase, and is more than twice as good… No surprise given Murakami had fifteen or so years to think about the re-imagined passive divorcee on a reluctant quest story, and the lessons learnt writing four more novels before Wind-up Bird (one of which, Dance Dance Dance, was a non-contiguous sequel to Sheep Chase).

This was the important thing for me. That Murakami essentially rewrote a story because he knew it could be done better. No matter that the first book was already out there and people could accuse him over going over the same ground.

Perhaps it was all the similarities I was finding while listening to Sheep Chase, but it only seemed natural to look at what Murakami did and compare that with my situation. I had a manuscript which garnered me praise from agents and publishers like, “I really like Craig Cliff’s brain” and “terrific set pieces”, but these were the blow-softeners for the inevitable, “Who would buy this book?”, “I don’t know how to cope with this book”, “it never quite came to life for me as a novel.”

[These are all exact quotations. I’m not one to burn a rejection letter.]

When I tried rewriting in late 2007, I changed the setting and re-focused the narrative, but it there was still something off. I had that sinking feeling that I was throwing bad money after good (or should that be the other way around?): the changes I was making would not make it a sellable proposition.

So I stopped working on it.

The more time that passed, the better I was able to align the flaws I saw in the novel with the problems important publishing people had with it.

Then I had an idea for a story that bore some striking resemblances to my shelved, semi-butchered, manuscript. It was the same, but different. But I was afraid to go back there because I had roped that whole mental area off with Danger Keep Out tape.

Seeing Murakami write the same novel, but different, gave me the kick up the bum I needed to return to Novel A. I haven’t left it fifteen years and written four novels in between like Murakami, but I think I’m a smarter writer now than I was fifteen months ago.

And my other learnings from the last few months (my heart isn’t in cut-and-dry realism; I can write 3,000 words a day if the planets align) help set the ball rolling over.

So here I am. At the beginning of a new Novel A. I have the advantage that my Wild Sheep Chase was not published, so I can borrow liberally from it and no one (except my gran and my girlfriend) will call me out for being a dried up hack.

But I am changing most of the character’s names, if only to convince myself that they are different and this is a different story.

And I’m on the look out for a snazzy working title. It doesn’t need to have anything to do with the book. Just something I can name the folder in which I save everything related to the novel.

I can’t believe I said “snazzy”. I sound like a drunk version of my mum. It must be time for bed.

Word I Didn’t Understand Until I Looked It Up #5

Thrawn, adj. chiefly Scots

1. Crooked, twisted

2. Contrary

[Full Definition]

Word I didn’t know existed until I moved to Scotland, and I think should not exist, but exists nonetheless...

...and I’m probably playing a small part in prolonging its existence by even mentioning it.

Timeously adv.
1. (Scotland) In a timely manner.

I’ve yet to hear it in conversation, but I’ve seen it in emails twice this week. At first I thought the writer had overstretched for a word… but no, several sources consider timeous/timeously worthy of an entry.

A Disgraceful Non Sequitur

After my problems listening to J.G. Ballard’s Millennium People, I’m now listening to J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace (I must have been in an acronym-y mood at the library). I studied Foe at university and I remember seeing Disgrace on the shelves with the other "textbooks", which I think is why it’s taken me until now to dive into one of the favourites to take the Booker of Bookers when it is announced later this year.

I haven’t finished the book yet, so I’m not going to comment on its worthiness, but I will say I found the number of qualifiers in title Disgrace already holds: The Greatest Novel Of The Last 25 Years Written In English Outside The United States*** (according to The Observer).

This is all a lead in to another entry in my Words I Did Not Quite Understand Until Today. Except this isn’t quite the case with non sequitur, because I didn’t need to look it up when I heard it as I walked to work this morning. I had to think a bit, but I got the meaning (a reply that has no relevance to what preceded it) spot on. The thing is, I’ve been through this before with non sequitur. A better heading for the list in which non sequitur belongs is: Words Whose Meanings Never Seem To Sink In But Can Be Deduced From The Context.

As with Words I Did Not Quite Understand…, I can’t come up with any more examples off the top of my head, but I know they’re out there. Words (or phrases) which are familiar to the eyes and/or ears, but not the mind. Imagine if every second word was like non sequitur or bespoke—I think you just imagined being dyslexic.

I’m not dyslexic, though based on the number of transposition errors I’ve made at work this past week, my superiors could be forgiven for wondering. Clumsy fingers, that’s the culprit in my case.

All this talk of audiobooks lately is giving a skewed impression of my reading habits. I'm not going to list everything I've read (actually read) in the year of a million words -- partly because I don't want to sound like I'm name-checking, partly because I don't want to admit I didn't read Kafka's Metamorphisis until after I bought the t-shirt in Prague... But I will say Marisa and I have both been devouring the written work of Kurt Vonnegut Jr, and there may just be an appreciation appearing on this blog in the coming weeks...

***Coincidentally, #2 on this list was Martin Amis’ Money, which I listened to before Millennium People. What did I think of it? Well, there’s a reason I never reviewed it, let’s just say that. *coughs*

A Young Man Writes About Writing

I have, amongst other things (understatement), been working on a longer shorter story which I intended to submit to the BBC National Short Story Award. I had read the fine print, which stated that writers need to have been previously published. Turns out, I needed to read read the fine print, because entrants must be published in the U.K.

Drat. There goes my shot at £15,000.

On one level, I can see why the competition has this clause. It’s the biggest short story prize in the U.K., established with the express purpose of helping raise the status of the short story. (I’m not sure I entirely agree with some of the people behind the scheme’s arguments about the health and importance of short stories, but I think anyone who puts up money for writers has their wallet in the right place.) By rigging the draw so that only published authors can win, it means they will have someone with a track record to spruik, rather than doing the Pop Idol thing and launching someone to the top of the list without the experience behind them to keep them there.

But then there’s the purist in me who says it should be a competition for the best short story, not the best short story by a writer of XYZ description. If a story is great, it deserves £15,000 and the wide exposure a competition like the BBCNSSA would bring, even if the author doesn’t.

Huh?

I know it seems difficult in today’s age of author events at literature festivals, full page author photos on back covers and celebrities-turned-paperback-writers to conceive of books without their authors. Even harder when you consider this proposition for other media. Praising a movie without considering the actors behind the characters or the director behind the camera. Talking about a song without talking about the performer. (I plan to write about cover versions in the near future, so take note).

I believe all literature prizes should be judged on the work and the work alone. This shouldn’t be a problem. As the novelist Jim Crace said, “If a novel's any good, it will be more interesting than its author.” Based on his wikipedia page looks like he’s lived by that maxim. Anyway, I agree with what the man said. It may be naïve and suboptimal, but if I was giving away £15,000 I’d want to give it to the best story possible, meaning no criteria at all. No word limits, no entry fee, online or paper submissions accepted, published or unpublished, UK citizen, transient, terrorist or alien authors: come one, come all.

But instead every competition has to have an angle, and every book needs a photogenic author.

Meh. That’s life I guess.

When I realised I could no longer submit my 6,000 word story I was a bit bummed, because there aren’t many journals or competitions which accept pieces of this length. I really want something in the Edinburgh Review or Chapman before I leave Scotland, but they both have word limits around the 2,500 mark. D’oh.

BUT... I’m glad to be in the situation of having a longer story which, had I not misread the rules of the competition, I may not have completed. The sudden revocation of my BBC eligibility also presented the opportunity to stop and consider what factors had influenced the beast my story became.

Like most stories, it began life as an idea. The first night I spent in Zanzibar, there was a strange ticking noise which I couldn’t place. I thought this could be a good metaphor for something, but didn’t know what, filed it away in a notebook and continued travelling.

Then, in about November, I was looking at all the stories I’ve ever written to see if I had enough to cobble together a short story collection. In collating the stories, I wrote a little summary sentence along side each, like so:

A young boy tries to figure out if his grandfather really stutters in another language

A young university tutor becomes obsessed with one of his female students

A young man tries to reconcile memories of his father and his own looming fatherhood

The misadventures of an ambitious but limited man who becomes mayor of a fishing town

A courier loses his licence and his job and must rely on his grandfather for transport and conversation

A day in the life of a single sex (male) high school

A young man returns to home for the holidays and plunges into depression

…& so on…

It wasn’t all “young man” fiction, but there was certainly a distinct lack of female characters. So, when it came time to turn the mystery sound in Zanzibar idea into a story, I thought, Why not make the main character female?

Was this a cynical decision? I don’t think so. Perhaps if I’d said: Having a female lead will give me a great chance of winning the BBC comp, but I didn’t know about the competition at this time.

When I did discover the competition, mid-November, it may, however, have encouraged me to write the female in Zanzibar story over, say, a young man who builds a shrine in his department’s men’s room story. And the 8,000 word limit definitely gave me the freedom and imprimatur (Word I Couldn’t Define Until I Looked it Up #2) to make it a long short story.

To go into any further detail about this story which you won’t see until it finds a home is a bit mean. I will say that I don’t think my decisions were any better or worse intended than those I make when writing fiction with no specific competition or publication in mind. The great thing about fiction is, if you’re doing it right, it’s all you in the end, regardless of word limits, themes, format or trends. Even the best need boundaries to work within or goals to work towards.

Speaking of which, I just cracked the magical 3,000 for today. Boom Tho!

Footnote to self: define, then sing the praises of the word 'spruik' one day.

Word I Didn’t Understand Completely Until I Looked It Up #1

Bespoke adj.

Made to individual order.