In these times of austerity I am saddened to hear that another blow to literacy is coming, and approaching fast. The library system in the UK is under threat [like in many other countries] as reported today in The Bookseller –
Library campaigner Tim Coates has warned between 600 and 1,000 libraries could close over the next 18 months amid a media blitz on last week's declining library visit numbers.Last week The Bookseller reported figures from the Department of Culture Media and Sport that revealed the proportion of adults visiting a library decreased from 48.2% in 2005/06 to 39.4% in 2009/10.The story has been picked up by the mainstream press over the past 24 hours with them also reporting on Ed Vaizey's library support initiative, which proposes cutting costs by giving libraries to communities to run amid other measures.
This is very sad, in these days of anxiety the need for a refugee [such as only a library can provide] for enquiring minds – has never been so important.
The BBC reports that maybe the solution is that the library system needs to evolve –
Meanwhile, Culture Minister Ed Vaizey has announced plans to help the library service take a more central role within local communities.
Ten submissions have been chosen from proposals put forward by local authorities.
"A strong library service, based around the needs of local people, can play a key role in our ambitions to build the Big Society by providing safe and inclusive spaces for people to read, learn and access a range of community services," Mr Vaizey said.
He said he wants people to think "imaginatively about where libraries could be" as there are a number of closures being threatened across the UK. A pub in the Yorkshire Dales is currently being used as a library after the villagers of Hudswell bought it to save it from closing.
The books are from North Yorkshire County Council but the lending is run by the volunteers.
Other suggestions that are about to be trialled in parts of the country are to have library services in supermarkets, shops or run by volunteers.
In Doncaster three libraries have been earmarked for closure and five are under threat in Lewisham.
The whole library closure issue is close to my heart, as my memory reminds me of the little boy who sought refuge and enlightenment in the 1960’s and 1970’s sitting in the library, and having the same access to knowledge as the kids from wealthy families. I recall my parents being bemused by my weekly trips to the library [returning with carrier bags filled with knowledge, and enlightenment about the confusing and dangerous world that surrounded me]. My library card was my access point to the world, and at that time my most treasured possession.
Call me Cassandra, but everyday, the drip, drip, drip of bad economic news is worrying me; especially what is happening within publishing and literacy. I understand the need to make fiscal cuts to reduce the borrowings in the UK, but cuts of > 25% and more in UK library budgets are worrying. As a child, our family lived on a very tight budget and the library was a refuge for me, a place of escape and a place to help a developing mind understand the world.
"I'm a writer because of libraries," asserted best-selling author Dennis Lehane. "Libraries say to working-class and poor kids that they matter, that they can read the same books as the children of the hedge fund managers."
The author of Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, speaking in Edinburgh at an event to celebrate the 25th birthday of the publication of her most famous book, said she is worried about future young readers, who, unlike her when she was growing up in Accrington, Lancashire, may not have access to literary classics such as Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters.
Winterson said that as a child her one escape from her oppressive home life was to go to her local library.
Yesterday she said she would “start at A and read Jane Austen and move to B and read the Brontes and go on from there”.
Winterson, 50, said she had been dismayed to visit her old library in Accrington to find it stocked with DVDs rather than books, and said that the less well off, less well-cared for children would not have the same experiences as she did. She said she also feared for libraries under the “Cameron cuts” in Government expenditure and the future of literature as it changes in the digital age.
I know I ‘bang the drum’ about the importance of reading, and how oppressive regimes use illiteracy to control populations – but in these days where the march of technology combined with the economic woes we face, form a perfect pincer-movement against literacy.
We need people of influence, who understand the importance of reading to speak out, like Jason Pinter pointed out in his recent article at The Huffington Post –
As Lev Grossman states in his TIME profile of Franzen, the quotes were taken somewhat out of context, and Franzen did in fact thank Oprah during his acceptance speech at the National Book Awards. Because after all, in our sound bite, knee-jerk culture it was easier to cherry pick the juicy quotes rather than try to understand that, at the time, Franzen was a relatively obscure writer coming to terms with suddenly being a literary post-Titanic Leonardo DiCaprio. And so now Franzen appears on the cover of TIME, is profiled in Vogue, and has riled up the literary community in a way that would make you think he'd spent the last nine years GTL'ing on the Jersey Shore rather than penning his next novel.
So why the animosity? Why the jealousness? Why are people taking potshots at Franzen rather than celebrating the recognition of a writer who is being put out there, front and center, to represent the importance of the written word, to tell people that his profession is worthy of recognition alongside the most important issues of our time?
The sad truth is, with few exceptions, writers are not recognized by the mainstream population or media. My guess is one hundred people could identify Snooki over every one who could identify Toni Morrison. The celebration of being famous for being loud and sloppy has usurped being famous for the act of actually creating. For once, someone who has created something, who is one of us, who not only knows the value of a book but has devoted his life to them, is being presented to society at large as our representative. And some people scorn this, as though they would prefer writers as a whole to remain anonymous, who seem to believe there is some odd nobility in remaining chained to the same desk chair in which you write your books. Or they would rather feud over who deserves what and why until the whole literary culture is fragmented into tiny crumbs that can be ignored and swept under the carpet.
When the written word is only available in digital platforms, and our libraries closed, bricks and mortar bookstores closed, then the gap between the “haves” and “have nots” will become a chasm that no one can traverse.
Then it will be too late, but we’ll all be singing this song below – Unless you do something!
Talk about books to your friends, colleagues, contacts, be seen reading a book, always have a book on you, pass books to friends - Reading is important in making people think for themselves, not be 'directed' by forces beyond our control.
It’s amusing how patterns form around the paths that our conscious, as well as our subconscious mind weaves when we think about specific things in detail. I spend a huge amount of my day ‘thinking’ as well as ‘reading’. Recently I spent time with my friend Roger Jon Ellory at the Harrogate Crime-Writing Festival. At one point we discussed why we [and many others] read so many books, be it fiction, fact or combinations of both, such as Roger’s CIA / Serial Killer conspiracy thriller A Simple Act of Violence. Roger’s answer was “Because in the inquisitive, is a need to try and understand what reality is actually about?” Good answer I thought – because at my core I am an analytical chemist, and someone who just loves detective stories, so that would explain the inquisitive part of my nature. The problem then is something that has bothered me for sometime, and something that Martin Rees [Lord Rees of Ludlow, astronomer royal and master of Trinity College, Cambridge] summed up disturbingly at his stint presenting the 2010 BBC Reith Lectures –
Some of the greatest mysteries of the universe may never be resolved because they are beyond human comprehension, according to Lord Rees, president of the Royal Society.
Rees suggests that the inherent intellectual limitations of humanity mean we may never resolve questions such as the existence of parallel universes, the cause of the big bang, or the nature of our own consciousness.
He even compares humanity to fish, which swim through the oceans without any idea of the properties of the water in which they spend their lives.
“Just as a fish may be barely aware of the medium in which it lives and swims, so the microstructure of empty space could be far too complex for unaided human brains.”
Rees’s thesis could prove highly provocative to other scientists, especially those who have devoted their careers to understanding such mysteries.
That is a depressing thought, that perhaps we will never truly comprehend what existence is actually all about, but then again the more you read, the more mysterious existence becomes. It still does not put me off trying to decipher what I see around me. I know at times I can get obsessed when an idea, piece of art, or an image engages. And that neatly sits right at the core of a film that has lead me along a surreal path this week.
With my family away in Dublin, I took some time on Saturday to spend with my elderly parents. Later that day, I took myself off to the cinema to view Christopher Nolan’s INCEPTION. To say that the film blew my socks off is an understatement.
If you peruse my Facebook page you can see exactly how deep this particular rabbit hole of mine really is. While viewing INCEPTION, I was reminded of the imagery of the 1961 Alain Resnais and Alain Robbe-Grillet’s impenetrable French New Wave Existentialist classic ‘Last Year at Marienbad’. When I got home and searched the internet, I found I was not alone to see the connection –
Like Alain Resnais’ aggressive mind loop, “Last Year at Marienbad,” “Inception” revolves around memories of a past love, which may or may not be “true.” Memory is fallible, dreams are malleable. Charmingly, Nolan has said he’d only ever seen that feat of bold parallel editing after completing this James Bond-scaled movie, but he felt all the other films that had been influenced by “Marienbad” had influenced him. What other influences rest lightly on Nolan’s shoulders?
"Everyone was accusing me of ripping it off, but I actually never got around to seeing it. Funnily enough, I saw it and I’m like, Oh, wow. There are bits of “Inception” that people are going to think I ripped that straight out of 'Last Year at Marienbad.' Basically, what it means is, I’m ripping off the movies that ripped off “Last Year at Marienbad,” without having seen the original. It’s that much a source of ideas, really, about the relationships between dream and memory and so forth, which is very much what 'Inception' deals with. But we have way more explosions."
The idea had been seeded in my mind, and so I followed it back in time. The curious thing was that [apart from ‘Last Year at Marienbad’] I had also admired Alain Resnais’ startling documentary ‘Night and Fog’ [original title ‘Nuit et brouillard’] due to my interest in modern history and my curiosity about the [limitless] depths of man’s inhumanity to man. While tracking back Resnais’ writer on Marienbad - Alain Robbe-Grillet, I soon discovered that Grillet appears to have been influenced [or even inspired] by an obscure quasi-SF novel ‘The Invention of Morel’ by Adolfo Bioy Casares. This little known novel has been referenced by the writers of the TV Series ‘Lost’. I quickly found this slim novella / novel remains in print and is available, so I quickly ordered it. If you want to follow me down this rabbit hole - the introduction can be downloaded as a .pdf here. I strongly recommend this slim mind-flipping little book.
Then the really weird coincidence appeared, considering my enthusiasm from Inception, Last Year at Marienbad, The Invention of Morel, Lost – while researching I discovered that Alain Resnais directed a film with Marienbad star Delphine Seyrig, entitled “Muriel ou le temps d'un retour”, literally translated as “Muriel, or the Time of a Return”. This film was released in 1963 as ‘Muriel’ in the UK and US. The peculiar aspect is that my wife of 20 years is named Muriel; and I was born in 1963, the same year that Resnais’ film ‘Muriel’ was released – spooky!
OK – I admit I have read far too much Philip K Dick but when one gets trapped in the riddle that is Marienbad, perhaps it does things to one’s mind, but then again, like Leonardo DiCaprio’s screen wives in Shutter Island and Inception, perhaps reality is more mysterious than the alarming views of existence that these films present.
But to prove that I haven’t lost my sense of humour and that my sanity remains intact – click here for an amusing spoiler from Inception that has done the rounds on Twitter – Warning click if you’ve seen Inception [especially the last frame].
I stumbled upon this interesting piece from John Meacham at Newsweek, which opens with this interesting observation about books and friends –
A friend I thought I knew well startled me the other evening with a sweeping literary judgment that led me, for the first time, to question how much I truly understand him. The subject was mysteries and thrillers. “Oh, I can’t stand books like that,” he said, flatly, leaving no room for argument.
My failure to detect such a colossal character flaw before that moment bothered me, but then—reminding myself that we are always to look outward, toward others, focusing not on the devices and desires of our own hearts—I realized that I should reach out constructively rather than simmer silently.
And since argument from example is often the most effective means of persuasion, I thought I would offer a summertime defense of the mystery-thriller genre.
Now like Meacham, I’ve attended many dinner parties and encountered people [mainly men], who discount reading fiction as “….a waste of time as it is all made-up….” I usually counter the argument by explaining that reading fiction helps us in our daily lives –
[a] In work by enhancing the imagination, which in turn helps resolve the constant flow of business problems that many of us have to confront and overcome.
While some people [who read novels] use the old chestnut of dismissing reading thrillers as ‘down-market’ and ‘irrelevant’ compared to reading ‘literary fiction, however Meacham makes some interesting points -
Mysteries and thrillers are not the same things, though they are literary siblings. Roughly put, I would say the distinction is that mysteries emphasize motive and psychology whereas thrillers rely more heavily on action and plot. Some mysteries are thrillers and some thrillers are mysteries, but not all mysteries are thrillers, nor are all thrillers mysteries.
It has long been intellectually fashionable to dismiss such books as inconsequential. Thomas Jefferson once joked that he defeated insomnia by trying to write such a tale.
The appeal of both genres for me is precisely the appeal of any other piece of fiction, from Jane Austen to Peter Taylor, or George Eliot to John Cheever. The narratives give us a glimpse, however fleeting, of what William Faulkner called the “old verities and truths of the heart…?love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice.” Nero Wolfe is no Elizabeth Bennet, nor is Miss Marple another Dorothea Brooke. But Wolfe and Marple—and James Bond and Lee Child’s Jack Reacher—are characters at work in a dark and confusing and fallen world, a world in which murder and betrayal and treason are constant threats and frequent foes. One would like to think of such novels as fantasy, but the fundamental forces with which they deal are all too real.
As dangerous and arbitrary as lists are, here is what I am going to suggest that my agnostic friend (note I forbore referring to him as heretical, or faithless) explore: Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe series (Archie Goodwin, who is forever “hot-footing” it up or downtown, is worth the price of admission); anything by P. D. James (her poet-detective Adam Dalgliesh is a model for all repressed men). I am indebted to my friend and colleague Anna Quindlen for recently putting me onto Denise Mina, who writes tough novels about Glasgow; next door in the British Isles, Benjamin Black, a pseudonym of John Banville’s, writes about a compelling 1950s Dublin pathologist with—surprise!—a problem with the drink. Tana French has written three novels, and the first two (In the Woods and The Likeness) are, to me, quite superior to the newest one that is now out, Faithful Place.
In this summer of Lisbeth Salander, no discussion of such books would be complete without a stop in the colder European climes. I like Henning Mankell and just lately began to read Arnaldur Indriðason, whose fictional universe is set in Reykjavík, Iceland.
On the thriller front, my taste runs to the provincial. Daniel Silva’s first novel, The Unlikely Spy, is a masterpiece, and I love his series about Gabriel Allon, an Israeli assassin with a passion for art restoration. The aforementioned Jack Reacher collection, by Lee Child, is great fun. David Ignatius writes brilliant novels about the CIA, and I am an admirer of Charles McCarry’s, especially his Shelley’s Heart. In recent years I have become a fan of Alex Berenson’s nascent CIA series about the post-9/11 world.
I don’t give a shit if you read on a screen, or on paper, what matters is that you read, because you are what you read. Next time you’re at the dentist, doctor, hairdresser, check out who reads the junk magazines and who reads the novel while waiting.
I was in a dilemma about coming to Bouchercon San Francisco, as it is door-to-door over 20 hours from London, and apart from the cost; I really couldn’t spare the time between work, writing, reading and family commitments. Countering these issues were the memories of previous Bouchercon’s I’ve attended in Las Vegas in 2003 and the last two where I traveled with my friend Roger [R.J.] Ellory, Baltimore in 2008 and Indianapolis in 2009. I also haven’t seen Jeff Peirce the incredibly hard-working editor of The Rap Sheet since 2008 [though we’re in regular email and phone contact]. Even so, the idea of traveling to the West Coast of America, as wife said with puzzlement - “You want to travel 20 hours to the other side of the world, to sit in a hotel bar and talk about books for five nights and then travel 20 hours back…….that is not logical’. Of course she’s right, but so much of my life defies logic – like the eureka moment last week at The Theakston’s Old Peculiar Crime Festival in Harrogate. When Roger Ellory came off the podium after winning the Harrogate award for Best Crime Novel of the Year, he whispered to me “listen, we gotta go to San Francisco, we always have so much fun……”
Then I thought about how Roger and I first met, after I was one of the first people to review his debut novel ‘Candlemoth’ back in 2003. The surreal thing is the plot revolves around two friends - black guy and a white guy who traverse America…..
I know I am completely obsessed by Dennis Lehane’s novel sHuTteR iSlAnD as well as the Martin Scorcese film adaptation [and Christian De Metter’s Graphic Novel]. I am glad that despite everyone saying how close the film followed Lehane’s narrative, there was [in my opinion] a major difference – one contained in the very last line that Teddy Daniels / Danny Laedis / Leonardo DiCaprio utters at the conclusion. I’m very glad that it’s not just me that has deliberated the intrinsic significance in those lines added by the screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis.
And for those who didn’t get it -
David Cox at The Guardian also deliberates the significance of the ending and twists at the end of both novel and film
SPOILER ALERT – PROCEED AT YOUR PERIL
Shutter Island is no impenetrable art-house enigma: it's an old-fashioned noirish thriller that ends with a massive plot twist. As such, you might have thought it would have been easy to understand. In fact, since the film was released in March, the blogosphere's been awash with debate about what actually happens in the final scene.
Martin Scorsese's film is based on a best-selling novel by Dennis Lehane. The book's protagonist, Teddy Daniels, who's apparently a US marshal, turns out to be Andrew Laeddis, a demented killer. He's a patient in a mental hospital who's been encouraged by his psychiatrist to act out his delusion in the hope that this will dispel it. The role play fails: after a brief recovery, Andrew relapses into insanity and is therefore taken off to be lobotomised.
The film's been described as faithful to the book, and many cinemagoers seem to have assumed that it's telling the same story. Leonardo DiCaprio's Teddy does indeed turn out to be Andrew. However, before he falls into the clutches of the lobotomists, he utters a line that isn't in the book. "This place makes me wonder," he asks, "which would be worse – to live as a monster, or to die as a good man?"
For some, this is to be seen as no more than the rambling of a madman. Others, however, take it as meaning that Andrew's only faking his relapse. His unusual treatment's made him aware of the terrible thing he's done: guilt has therefore engulfed him, and he's deliberately getting himself lobotomised to escape it.
These two versions of what the film means could hardly be more at odds. Yet Scorsese hasn't chosen to indicate which is the right one. Nor has DiCaprio. Perhaps the latter isn't sure himself.
He found his role traumatising, and told an interviewer: "I remember saying to Marty, 'I have no idea where I am or what I'm doing.'"
Lehane is credited as one of the film's executive producers, so you might think he at least would know what's going on. Sadly, even he doesn't seem wholly certain: he explains that he stayed out of the scripting process. When pushed, he tries to reconcile DiCaprio's gnomic inquiry with his own original story. "Personally, I think he has a momentary flash," he suggests. "To me that's all it is. It's just one moment of sanity mixed in the midst of all the other delusions."
Cox speaks to Scorsese's psychiatric adviser, Professor James Gilligan of New York University, who gives the backdrop of 1950’s America and the Psychiatric Institutions that sHuTtEr iSlAnD is carved from.
A little while back following a sort out of some boxes of old comics; I ended up spending an afternoon re-living my childhood reading classic Jim Steranko comics I uncovered carefully wrapped in Mylar Bags. Since a kid, I have loved the surreal and existential artwork of Steranko, which fitted into the late 1960’s [and early 1970’s] zeitgeist, the James Bond imagery, the off-kilter reality and the wiff of science fiction entering our reality.
Today in The Guardian, media-talking-head and comic book fan Jonathon Ross interviews Jim Steranko at the eve of Comic Con –
Jim Steranko. Many of you will not have heard his name before, a dreadful truth that troubles me every day. If he were French they'd have his statue in parks, Italian he'd be on their stamps, Japanese and he'd be doing commercials for videogames and fermented soya bean soda. But in the English-speaking world, we still woefully undervalue these master storytellers who choose panels and word balloons to work with.
To my fellow enthusiasts he is a Genius, a Wizard, a Master, a God. A one-of-a-kind, self-promoting hipster/huckster with the finest hair I've ever seen on a man of his age. He is also one of the handful of pioneers who can be said to have genuinely revolutionised the art of graphic storytelling. Glimpse his work and, before you even know exactly how he's doing it, you instinctively know it is different – better – than the norm. You'll also be hopelessly hooked. For life. Non-comic addicts might think I exaggerate – but step away from my hyperbole, and allow yourself a little time with the examples we have printed here. The work should speak for itself.
Ross’s piece and interview is most insightful, and also probes some of ‘eccentric’ tales of Steranko, such as the rumours that he doesn’t sleep –
JR: I know you are health-conscious, which comes from your work in escapology and so on. What's an average day for you now?
JS: I eat one meal a day. I believe everything you put in your body is toxic – I eat raw fruits and vegetables. A very small portion. I live on the side of a mountain and run up it with my dogs every night. I begin working after I have dinner at eight o'clock, and work till about nine in the morning. Then I turn in until about 11 o'clock.
JR: Two hours sleep? Conventional wisdom has it that you need sleep . . . JS: I am proof the body can get by on two hours' sleep.
JR: You know how mad that makes you sound?
Read More Here and Click Here for some of Steranko’s wonderful Artwork
I was delighted when David Morrell and Hank Wagner asked David Montgomery, Larry Gandle and I to contribute to the ITW 100 Thrillers collection. I have been friends with Larry and David for many years as all three of us are big Thriller Fans and Reviewers for various print and online media. Over the years we have been judges for various literary awards, such as the Barry Awards, The Thriller Awards, The Gumshoe Awards. The CWA Daggers and others. I must admit, the 'inner fan-boy’ in me was very flattered to find my name rubbing shoulders with some of the biggest names in the world of Thriller Fiction.
The photo above is of the three of us thriller reviewers relaxing at the inaugural Thrillerfest held in 2006 at The Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix Arizona.
Over at Shots Ezine, we have a competition running to give away three copies of the ITW 100 Thrillers book, as well as a bonus essay by Thriller Writer Shane Gericke available for download – Click here for details
I am delighted to see that the ITW 100 Thrillers is getting a lot of media attention; as anything that can help combat illiteracy must be applauded, and Thrillers are a good way of promoting reading and getting people to read books.
With his very first novel, David Morrell created an iconic character, now as famous as Tarzan or James Bond: "His name was Rambo, and he was just some nothing kid for all anybody knew, standing there by the pump of a gas station on the outskirts of Madison, Kentucky." So begins Morrell's electrifying and morally unsettling "First Blood." Some of his other books include the horror classic "The Totem" and one of the most exciting Ludlumesque thrillers I've ever read, "The Brotherhood of the Rose."
Hank Wagner may not write novels, but he certainly knows modern horror, fantasy, mystery and science fiction. He's the co-author of "The Complete Stephen King Universe" and of "Prince of Stories: The Many Worlds of Neil Gaiman." His articles have appeared in publications ranging from Cemetery Dance to Mystery Scene to the New York Review of Science Fiction.
Both novelist and critic are members of the six-year-old International Thriller Writers organization. Its goals "include educating readers about thrillers and encouraging ITW members to explore the creative possibilities of the form." To this end, the group decided to compile this annotated guide to essential thrillers. Enjoyable in itself, the book also offers 100 possible answers to that perennial summertime conundrum: What book shall I pack for the beach?
"Thrillers: 100 Must-Reads" opens with the Greek legend of Theseus and the Minotaur and, by fudging the supposed cutoff date of 2000, closes with Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code." Each of the chosen titles -- one book per author -- is accompanied by a brief biographical note, followed by a two- or three-page essay of reminiscence, analysis and appreciation by a member of ITW. Among the essayists are Lee Child, Sandra Brown, James Grady, R.L. Stine, David Baldacci, Katherine Neville and F. Paul Wilson.
No one could seriously argue with the recommendations up to the mid-1970s. Here are Wilkie Collins's "The Woman in White" (1860), Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1901), John Buchan's "The Thirty-Nine Steps" (1915), Eric Ambler's "A Coffin for Dimitrios" (1939), and even what is, arguably, the single most famous adventure short story of all time, Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game" (1924). Moreover, the editors' definition of the thriller is a capacious one that embraces horror (Bram Stoker's "Dracula," 1897), science fiction (H.G. Wells's "The War of the Worlds," 1898) and romantic suspense (Daphne du Maurier's "Rebecca," 1938).
More Information on ITW 100 Thrillers including the competition and free .pdf Download of Shane Gericke’s look at John Sandford’s RULES OF PREY is available here
I love joining-the-dots about unrelated events, conspiracy theories and trying to see exactly who are 'the men behind the curtain’. Sometimes my mind does wander and I get puzzled about things. As a businessman, the financial crisis, which still continues, has made me scratch my head, and fuel anxiety. Frank Baum’s ‘The Wizard of Oz’ [1900] has always haunted me since seeing it preformed as a musical play when I was a child. I have always believed it to be an allegorical fable based on exposing the ‘truth’ behind what we term money. These rumours have circulated for many years, even the BBC investigated these claims -
It's unlikely its young fans will have been thinking about deflation and monetary policy.
At a time when some economists fear an onset of deflation, and economic certainties melt away like a drenched wicked witch, what can be learnt from Oz?
The 1939 film starring a young Judy Garland was based on Lyman Frank Baum's book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, published in 1900. It told of an orphaned Kansas girl swept by a tornado into a fantastical world, but who wants to return home to her aunt and uncle.
Thinking the great Wizard of Oz can grant her wish, she sets out to meet him with her beloved dog, Toto, joined by a scarecrow, a tin woodman and a lion.
Baum published the book in 1900, just after the US emerged from a period of deflation and depression. Prices had fallen by about 22% over the previous 16 years, causing huge debt.
Farmers were among those badly affected, and the Populist political party was set up to represent their interests and those of industrial labourers.
The US was then operating on the gold standard - a monetary system which valued the dollar according to the quantity of gold. The Populists wanted silver, along with gold, to be used for money. This would have increased the US money supply, raised price levels and reduced farmers' debt burdens.
What we should all fear most, in these days of economic turmoil, is the danger of the ‘mob’ and the growth of xenophobia stirred up by the extremists [both extreme right and left]. It was Anglo-Irish Politician and Philosopher Edmund Burke who stated that “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” The danger of the mob first presented itself to me when I was a young child in school, and my fear of people / mobs [especially the under-educated, or manipulated] continues today. It also contributed to my love of reading. People who read books [especially fiction] in contrast [to non-readers] tend to think for themselves, hence why totalitarian regimes burn books. The theme of book burning was raised in Fahrenheit 451, but it was an earlier Ray Bradbury short story entitled ‘The Crowd’ that put my fear of ‘crowds / mobs’ into context. I soon realized that the mob needed to have ‘someone’ in authority turning a blind eye, for their evil to succeed. That someone could be called the ‘Commissioner’.
Today I enjoyed [though ‘enjoyed’ is perhaps the wrong word in this context], a blog post, by the talented writer John Baker, entitled ‘They are selling postcards of the hanging’. The reason for my interest is that it offers insight into one of my favourite Bob Dylan songs ‘Desolation Row’, which in turn reflects the nature of evil. It is strange that I’ve enjoyed John Baker’s work for many years, first meeting him a decade ago via both newsgroup rec.arts.mystery and then at a Dead-on-Deansgate event in 2001. So it was little surprise that he too understands the nature and meaning behind Dylan’s song ‘Desolation Row’ and the evil that it mentions in its surreal lyrics. You need ‘The Mob’, as well as ‘The Blind Commissioner’ [who turns ‘a blind eye’ thus allowing the Mob to rule and for the ‘postcards’ to be taken]. Such evil by mob, augmented by a ‘Blind Commissioner’ occurred in Duluth in 1920, and in November 1938’s Night of Broken Glass and many, many times since. Before you say that, those were in the past - just look at what is happening in Iran, as the mob are alive and holding rocks [not ropes] while the Commissioner remains sightless.
On the 15th June 1920, three black circus workers were attacked and lynched by a mob in Duluth, Minnesota.
Rumors that six African Americans had raped a teenage girl gave rise to a mob of five to ten thousand locals.
The circus workers were snatched from the police station and hung from their necks on a corner of the street. Pictures were taken and a postcard offered for sale. The Chicago Evening Post reported, “This is a crime of a Northern state, as black and ugly as any that has brought the South in disrepute.”
No one was ever convicted for the murder of the circus workers, Isaac McGhie, Elmer Jackson and Elias Clayton.
A physician’s examination of the teenage girl subsequently found no evidence of rape or assault. Dylan’s song, Desolation Row, from the album Highway 61 Revisited, opens with a reference to the hangings, which took place in his home town 20 years before his birth.
I loved the way My Chemical Romance re-worked Dylan’s Desolation Row for the closing credits of ‘Watchmen’. When I saw the film for the first time, I smiled as one of my all time favourite songs closed the film version of one of my all time favourite graphic novels.
Before you say, hey, that incident was a long time ago, and we have a black man in the White House now…. yada, yada, yada. My response is simple as my concerns are not leveled at segregated America [as it was then], but the wider world. The mob mentality is truly scary, and to think that little has changed when you hear of the terrible things that happened in Nazi Germany, Stalin’s Russia, Bosnia, Darfur, East Timor…and the list of ‘officially’ condoned ‘mob violence’ is endless. The Mob now grabs rocks instead of rope in Iran. It makes one despair.
To read more of the terrible incident in Duluth on 15 June 1920, and Dylan’s links to Desolation Row from The Independent – click here
The warning from Desolation Row "Someone says, 'You're in the wrong place, my friend, you better leave'." has haunted me for many years, as being an outsider, I’ve felt its sting on my psyche many times, and heard those words spoken with hatred, and all the while the commissioner remained blind. I just hope ‘the commissioners’ in Iran see the light, because some things are just plain evil, even a blind man can see that.
Some of you might wonder why the mob, the blind commissioner or extremists are of such concern? I would reply that in times of economic crisis [such as ours], there is real danger for us all. Even EC Comics warned us with a 1952 story ‘The Patriots’ by Al Feldstein. This tale showed these dangers vividly where a Crowd turns into a jingoistic Mob that misdirects patriotism into murder. I respect writers such as Shirley Jackson, who warn us about the dangers of Mobs. She published her novella ‘The Lottery’ [1948], a chilling work that was banned in South Africa at the time; and one that resonates strongly for those of us concerned at the barbaric ‘stoning’ punishment in Iran and other repressive states. The Mob again has their blind Commissioner, to allow the unspeakable to happen.
My day was enriched today thanks to John Baker making me ‘think’ as only a writer can. If you haven’t discovered the work of John Baker – click here and here because his writing is well worth exploring.
And remember what Edmund Burke said “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
This is the first film that you are on board with as a producer. Can you talk about that experience working with everyone on the film?
Dennis Lehane: Oh, it was great. I just wanted to be involved as a producer because, at that point, I didn't have Shutter Island for several years and gotten it back, gotten the rights back, and I wanted to protect this a little bit. I wanted to be involved with really good people and I wanted to have conversations with those really good people about talent and that was sort of the limit of my contribution to things. The secret of my success is refusing to get involved with anybody who doesn't have a certain level of quality. I just won't do it. I have no problem walking away and leaving a bunch of money on the table. It doesn't bother me.
There was a quote from you that I read where you said that you wouldn't want to adapt one of your own novels because it would be like operating on one of your own children. What is the process for finding a screenwriter for one of your books? Is it like finding a spouse for one of your kids then?
Dennis Lehane: No, I think it's more like finding a really good contractor to work on your house. They're going to be in your shit for a few months (Laughs) and it probably could be aggravating unless you go with someone you really respect. The process started with, when Clint Eastwood and I chose Brian Helgeland for Mystic River, we were 100% in agreement on. We chose him based on what he had done with L.A. Confidential, which was just an unadaptable book and he adapted it. Once you see the gifts on display with really great adapters, just step out of the way, is my feeling. I am not a really good adapter. I think I am a good novelist and I think I'm a good teleplay writer and I think I'm even a decent screenwriter, but I'm not a good adapter. It's a different skill set, it's a different art form and the people who are good at it, man, all you do is sit back and take your hat off. I don't know what else to say about them. They're just a different breed.
Helgeland is one of the best. His adaptations are usually phenomenal.
Dennis Lehane: Oh, yeah. And Laeta Kalogridis killed this, Shutter Island. She just nailed it. I could see in Ben Affleck and Aaron Stockard's script for Gone Baby Gone, the same thing. They just got it, whatever it is that I couldn't have gotten. I couldn't do it with my own work. I probably could do it with somebody else's, because you have perspective but when I try to do my own work, I just lack perspective.I saw one of the DVD clips and you were talking about how when Leonardo DiCaprio came in, he was asking you all these questions about the character that even you couldn't answer.
What was it like to work with someone who is such an immersive actor like Leonardo is?
Dennis Lehane: Well, for the writer, a lot of times, we've kind of moved on and he's living in that present tense because he's playing the character. When he's asking me those questions, it was about five years after I had written the character, it was like, 'Wow. If only it was five years ago,' you know what I mean? Or maybe I just should've read my own damn book before I came to meet him. Yeah, he had that same kind of - him and Sean Penn have this real uncanny intelligence, in terms of their characters. I can't describe it, you just have to see it. You see the results on the screen, so it's not that hard to believe.
I know I have become fascinated, perhaps obsessed by Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy. Today I read with great interest The Telegraph’s article by Lasse Winkler [editor-in-chief of the Swedish book trade magazine Svensk Bokhandel] when he met with Larsson and discussed his [then] unpublished trilogy in an interview –
It all started one sunny day in late September 2004, on a park bench outside the Gothenburg Book Fair. John-Henri Holmberg, a Swedish publisher, sat down next to me and told me about three manuscripts he had just read, written by a friend of his named Stieg Larsson. They would, he said, make their author the most famous Swedish writer in the world, “bigger than Henning Mankell”.
At that time, Mankell had conquered almost every market around the world, achieving international sales of around 20 million copies. Larsson, who was then working as an editor on an anti-racism magazine called Expo, hadn’t published a single word of fiction.
If it had come from anyone else, I would have laughed off Holmberg’s claim as a piece of far-fetched fantasy. But my faith in his judgment, and the fact that this Larsson character had waited until he had three manuscripts ready before even approaching a publisher, intrigued me. So the next day, I called Larsson and asked if he would let me interview him.
A few weeks later, on October 27 2004, we met in the Stockholm offices of Expo. The fading light of day seeped into a room furnished with a simple table, two plain chairs and a lamp. Larsson, a 50-year-old chain smoker, looked exhausted. After his death, much would be written about his indefatigable work rate, his superhuman capacity to write for hours without a break. It was clearly taking its toll. The only known fruits of his labour were, at that time, his exposés of racist and fascist organisations for Expo, a publication he had helped set up in 1995 in the wake of a spate of neo-Nazi murders. This work had drawn him into the public eye and provoked death threats.
Larsson lived with his long-term partner, Eva Gabrielsson, but his name was not on the doorbell of their flat and his address was not listed in any records or databases. The couple had several established routines whenever they left home: sometimes they would leave by the front door; at other times, they went out the back, via the basement. Larsson had a habit of glancing over his shoulder frequently, as if to check if anyone was following him.
Not long before our meeting, the police had informed him that photographs of him and Gabrielsson, as well as information about their address, had been found in connection with a murder investigation they were conducting in Stockholm.
I began our interview by inquiring about this aspect of his life, asking if he took any precautions to protect himself. It was a mistake. “Sure,” he snapped back, “but I’m hardly going to tell you about them, am I?”
Recently Shots and The Rap Sheet sat down with Lee Child to discuss his Novel 61 Hours. Now Child’s English language publishers [Transworld] reveal the title and jacket images for his next novel.
In the UK, Transworld will publish Worth Dying For on 30th September 2010 as a Bantam Press hardback. It will be the fifteenth novel in Child’s series featuring maverick ex-military policeman, Jack Reacher, and the first time he has published two books in the same year.
At the end of his latest book, 61 Hours, published in the UK in March this year, Lee Child left readers in limbo. Was Reacher dead or alive? The British edition ended enigmatically – ‘To be continued, 30/9/10.’
Today, Transworld reveals that Worth Dying For will be another Jack Reacher novel but readers will have to wait until 30th September to find out how Reacher survived a massive underground explosion which was the culmination of 61 Hours.
The Edmonton Journal has a fascinating article on authors and their feelings about film adaptations of their work with insight from Dennis Lehane –
When author Anne Rice heard that Tom Cruise had been cast as Lestat in the 1994 film version of Interview with the Vampire, she went ballistic, complaining that he was "no more my Vampire Lestat than Edward G. Robinson is Rhett Butler."
It's to Rice's credit that she ate crow after seeing Cruise's performance in the finished film, to the extent of buying a two-page advertisement in Daily Variety, praising his work and apologizing for her earlier diatribe.
However, bestselling author Dennis Lehane is still annoyed about Rice's behaviour. He wrote Shutter Island, and has no complaints about Martin Scorsese's hit film version. Two of his other novels -- Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone -- also became critically acclaimed films, and again Lehane was hugely supportive of what directors Clint Eastwood and Ben Affleck did to those two books.
"What I hate, I truly hate -- and I always did, way before I became a published author -- is someone who runs out in front of cameras, talking about how unhappy they were about adaptations of their works," Lehane says. He cites Rice's notorious complaint about Cruise playing Lestat. "Like we're talking about a character of Hamlet's level!" he adds with a snort. "We're talking about a vampire who ends up in a rock 'n' roll band in the second book, if I remember right. This is not Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, (so) shut up! It reminds me of the guy coming out of the whorehouse, complaining he didn't feel loved."
Lehane has his allies. Nicholas Sparks, whose love stories are a continuing gold mine for Hollywood, doesn't complain. In fact, he sometimes finds the result an improvement. Mario Puzo had the good grace to admit that his bestseller, The Godfather, had been elevated to a work of art by director Francis Ford Coppola.
Lehane was recently asked whether selling screen rights to a book is like giving a child up for adoption. His reply was succinct: "No, it's like giving it up to a babysitter. That's exactly what it is."
People are constantly asking him for his opinion on what Hollywood "did" to one of his novels. He figures Hollywood hasn't done anything; "my books are still there." He figures authors who complain aren't drawing the proper distinction.
"A book is an apple, and a movie is a giraffe," he says whimsically. "They don't have much more in common than that. They have basic similar narrative DNA, but they're two separate entities. I have no problem looking at Jaws, the book, and Jaws, the movie, L.A. Confidential, the book, and L.A. Confidential, the movie. They're two different entities and two different beasts."
How do you follow something as cerebral and exciting as Battlestar Galactica? Well it seems writer / producer Ronald D Moore & Remi Aubuchon and his colleagues decided to go retro with some future-chic providing a glimpse of how machines could become sentient with the existential spin-off TV series Caprica.
While Caprica, like BSG, now has established a large and deep narrative, last night's a cliffhanger episode arguably lacked the punch of BSG's finest mid-season finales. That said, the show still appears to have enough momentum and unanswered questions to fuel a full season.
Caprica has wisely, I think, managed to keep the BSG homages and portents to a minimum so far, focusing instead on building a layered universe with a smart retro-future aesthetic that meshes BSG storytelling and Mad Men style, with the CGI small-scale and non-intrusive. Viewers have to admire the care taken in the world-building, such as the intricate slang and rituals created for the "foreign" Tauron characters. It is familiar yet other-worldly.
There have been plenty of present-day analogies and weighty themes thrown into the mix. Already we've seen sexual politics, moral grey areas, and techno-espionage aplenty, but the depiction of Caprican society has been particularly on the nose. Theoretically it's got it all, embracing the unlimited potential of technology, but something is rotting inside. It's spinning out of control: a world where some would rather flee into virtual reality or join terrorist cults than participate in meaningless conspicuous consumption.
Eric Stoltz as Daniel Graystone has emerged as the real gem in the cast. BSG's producers clearly like conflicted scientists (see also Gaius Baltar), and Stoltz excels at playing a complex genius driven by such grief and hubris that he creates the downfall of his entire race. We saw one particularly gripping character moment in episode eight, when Daniel tried to provoke his daughter into betraying her presence in the U-87 by playing on her childhood fears of fire.
I've really liked this show, even as the ratings have struggled to recover from an initial drop-off. While Syfy continues to tout the show's performance with the ever-important younger demo, I've watched the weekly tally hover right around a million viewers. The numbers for Friday's cliffhanger show 1.1 million viewers, with a 0.5 rating for adults 18-49 (tied for a series high). Yes, the season premiered right up against the Haiti telethon, and the hyper-serialized nature of Caprica has meant that it's harder for newbies to access the series if they missed week 1 or 2. I, for one, think the show would do a whole lot better if it aired on a different night of the week.
But I digress. The show's producers have clearly been building up to last Friday's cliffhanger, and Syfy has now pulled it off the air until the fall, in hopes that a larger audience learns to love the show by then. You can find most of the episodes in their entirety right here, and if you are one of those few who catches up with it during this indefinite “hiatus,” here's betting that you fall into one of two camps: The viscerally bored or the intellectually stimulated.
The gulf between these extremes illustrate's the show's ratings problem. Caprica may be a Battlestar Galactica prequel, but it's a show that up to this point has almost been devoid of action. It's an insulated bubble of a thing, about two dead daughters, two fathers who aren't quite getting the whole mourning process, and the virtual avatars of these two girls who continue to roam through a futuristic virtual space. (I've written truckloads of detailed copy about the show over at Techland, and you can find all the detailed analysis here, along with an interview with the show's co-creator here). There was a brilliant moment in an early episode where the series all but came to a standstill in a black box, with three avatars looking at each other. In one corner was the virtual representation of a living teenage girl. In another corner was the avatar of Zoe Graystone, who created a standalone virtual replica of herself prior to her death. And in a third corner was the avatar of another dead girl, constructed after her death in a botched experiment. She has no memories of her real-life alter-ego. She is a wandering CG construct, existing unto herself.
Confused yet?
Yes, all of this is quite trippy, but that's part of the show's allure. It keeps scrambling up our conventional notions of humanity, reality and morality. In these three avatars, we see a sliding scale of humanity, between the real girl in a fake world, the echo of a real girl in a fake world, and then the fake replica in a fake world. All three avatars can function, and feel emotion, but they represent very different things. So who's real, and who's not? As Zoe's avatar is downloaded into a robot in the real world, does she owe any allegiance to Zoe's father? After all, technically Zoe is dead. This is Zoe II, with a mission all her own. For all the series' flaws, they have successfully given us a character who is neither human nor robot. But something in between. That's pretty remarkable. Now I know that Jim hasn't been covering this show intimately, so it's a little hard for me to bring everyone up to speed. And I guess that's not really the point of this post, anyway. I merely wanted to give a shout-out to a show that I think has turned a rather significant corner. In last Friday's "mid-season finale," each and every storyline exploded (or imploded, depending on how you look at it). Daughters betrayed their fathers, characters attempted suicide, cyborgs that were locked down in computer labs have now broken out, and are engaged in high-speed car chases. Even a sweet-natured high school teacher, who did little more than sit around and talk for the majority of the first season, is involved in a car bombing. I'm going to refrain from giving away all the twists and turns, and instead encourage you to simply catch up with Caprica while it's away on break. Give some heady, smart sci-fi a try. As someone who thinks that A.I. is the best sci-fi film of the last decade, I have been thoroughly riveted by Caprica, and all the moral implications of its artificial life. If you could bring a dead loved one back in the form of a hologram, would you? Should you? What does it mean, to cheat death and escape mourning? And what would your loved one's replica owe you? Heck, what is love? Is it the exchange of emotion, or a one-way affair?
While we wait for the second slug of Season One of Caprica, you can catch up with more information via the SyFy Channel in the US or Sky One in the UK. If you’ve missed Caprica, the extended pilot is available on DVD for US Here and UK Here while the second part of season one of Caprica is planned for Autumn [if you live in the UK], or Fall [if you live in the US] 2010.
Personally speaking, I’m rather excited to see what happens when human material gets integrated into the machine, because with Caprica, we are taking a glimpse into the future; as long as we don’t destroy all we survey.
Ali Karim - is Assistant Editor at Shots eZine, a contributing editor at January Magazine & The Rap Sheet and writes for Crimespree magazine, Deadly Pleasures and Mystery Readers International and is an associate member of The Crime Writers Association [CWA], International Thriller Writers [ITW] and the Private Eye Writers of America [PWA]. Karim contributed to ‘Dissecting Hannibal Lecter’ ed. Benjamin Szumskyj [McFarland Press] a critical examination of the works of Thomas Harris, as well as The Greenwood Encyclopedia of British Crime Fiction [ed. Barry Forshaw]. Karim has contributed to ITW 100 Thriller Novels due out in 2010.
Karim been three times nominated for a Anthony Award [2007, 2008 & 2009] as well as The Spinetingler Award in 2008 for special contributions to the Crime and Thriller genre.
In these times of austerity I am saddened to hear that another blow to literacy is coming, and approaching fast. The library system in the UK is under threat [like in many other countries] as reported today in The Bookseller –
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