Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Killing them softly
I saw this film last night. It was brutal, a choreographed montage of everything that lies beneath the self-deceiving hyperbole of American politics. Set against the electoral rhetoric of Obama, Bush and McCain the script is taut, gutter-dirty and with a self-contained obscene morality that is so authentic it makes you reel. Life is brief for all of us and most of us realise it far too late to do much about it. In this film it can be so brief that the characters have barely time to lift a head in wonder as the bullets arrive. To die incidentally, as minor protagonists in an unknown plot, is the worst of all deaths whether as ordinary folk in state terrorism, as a result of famine in an ignored catastrophe or as pacific followers of the wrong religion in a certain place at a certain time. We would like to think of our deaths being somehow the noble ends of lives well lived, even when our final months are distressingly ignoble.
I wrote a tweet in homage to Omar Khayyam recently:
Our lives are kisses on the surface of the river
Tiny whorls that catch the light and then disappear
Gentle and poetic I hope. The perfect antithesis of Killing them Softly
I saw this film last night. It was brutal, a choreographed montage of everything that lies beneath the self-deceiving hyperbole of American politics. Set against the electoral rhetoric of Obama, Bush and McCain the script is taut, gutter-dirty and with a self-contained obscene morality that is so authentic it makes you reel. Life is brief for all of us and most of us realise it far too late to do much about it. In this film it can be so brief that the characters have barely time to lift a head in wonder as the bullets arrive. To die incidentally, as minor protagonists in an unknown plot, is the worst of all deaths whether as ordinary folk in state terrorism, as a result of famine in an ignored catastrophe or as pacific followers of the wrong religion in a certain place at a certain time. We would like to think of our deaths being somehow the noble ends of lives well lived, even when our final months are distressingly ignoble.
I wrote a tweet in homage to Omar Khayyam recently:
Our lives are kisses on the surface of the river
Tiny whorls that catch the light and then disappear
Gentle and poetic I hope. The perfect antithesis of Killing them Softly
Labels: Killing them softly: the poetry and prose of incidental death
Friday, September 21, 2012
Time and Space in a Story
It is said that Stephen Hawking's book A Brief History of Time is the least completed book by its readers in inverse proportion to sales. The more it sold the less it was read. It was the title that seduced its buyers. I think this is because we want answers to deep questions about our existences. When we are young, life seems inexhaustible and when we are old it most painfully is not. What's going on with time? Time is synonymous with gods and the mysteries of birth and death.
I've just travelled from the very south of France to the UK by train. A whole day's movement through changing landscapes. I felt a day older at the end of it. Much of our lives is spent in dislocation from realities, in artificial environments, in cabins and offices and untrained to make the most of each passing moment. Our lives leave us in their wake rather than the other way round. Maintaining a true grip on second by second reality is not part of our armoury.
Why I liked writing Azimuth was because it was about how people gain this true grip. It contains three long journeys, each lasting many years and the time and space for its central character to begin to understand what his life is all about. Despite the obstacles, the battles, the deaths and meeting individuals with vastly different outlooks on the preciousness of existence, he comes to a point I hope is within us all. A sort of rich acceptance of the brief history of our time.
It is said that Stephen Hawking's book A Brief History of Time is the least completed book by its readers in inverse proportion to sales. The more it sold the less it was read. It was the title that seduced its buyers. I think this is because we want answers to deep questions about our existences. When we are young, life seems inexhaustible and when we are old it most painfully is not. What's going on with time? Time is synonymous with gods and the mysteries of birth and death.
I've just travelled from the very south of France to the UK by train. A whole day's movement through changing landscapes. I felt a day older at the end of it. Much of our lives is spent in dislocation from realities, in artificial environments, in cabins and offices and untrained to make the most of each passing moment. Our lives leave us in their wake rather than the other way round. Maintaining a true grip on second by second reality is not part of our armoury.
Why I liked writing Azimuth was because it was about how people gain this true grip. It contains three long journeys, each lasting many years and the time and space for its central character to begin to understand what his life is all about. Despite the obstacles, the battles, the deaths and meeting individuals with vastly different outlooks on the preciousness of existence, he comes to a point I hope is within us all. A sort of rich acceptance of the brief history of our time.
Labels: #Writing: space, time and meaning
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Abandoned not ended
Even the above introduction to the character of Jennifer Cord has had to be changed slightly. The description of Jennifer so that her qualities are consistent with the tale that is to follow. It's right to say that no act of writing is ever finished, merely abandoned. This has been attributed to just about everyone though Paul Valery is possibly the first documented. Writing is its own tyranny to those who have fallen into the pit of the unconscious. I like the Robert Benchley remark to the effect that it took him fifteen years to realise that he couldn't write but by then he was famous. Writers (and I am no exception) are pathologically desperate for attention. Unlike those with various forms of emotional and psychological illness our acting out tends to be virtual. I'm writing this on a creamy warm morning in the mountains. It infuses me with the desire to write creamy prose. By that I mean warm and seductive. This is probably why Jennifer's character has been slightly altered!
Even the above introduction to the character of Jennifer Cord has had to be changed slightly. The description of Jennifer so that her qualities are consistent with the tale that is to follow. It's right to say that no act of writing is ever finished, merely abandoned. This has been attributed to just about everyone though Paul Valery is possibly the first documented. Writing is its own tyranny to those who have fallen into the pit of the unconscious. I like the Robert Benchley remark to the effect that it took him fifteen years to realise that he couldn't write but by then he was famous. Writers (and I am no exception) are pathologically desperate for attention. Unlike those with various forms of emotional and psychological illness our acting out tends to be virtual. I'm writing this on a creamy warm morning in the mountains. It infuses me with the desire to write creamy prose. By that I mean warm and seductive. This is probably why Jennifer's character has been slightly altered!
Labels: #Writing: tinkering forever.
Wednesday, September 05, 2012
In Azimuth there is a scientist who 'sees below the surface' using a glass fashioned from crystal. The idea of the eye not seeing reality is the stuff of philosophers' musings. I have just finished the first draft of a novella in which the eye is not quite a window to the soul but at least a window to a hidden and sometimes repressed reality. I wrote it one-eyed on a recliner on the terrace with the mountains guarding me. You can read the full diary of this awkward eye in Latest News at www.chronometerpublications.me But I am digressing from my intent. This is to mention the first ever recorded forensic examination of a murder. It took place in China, centuries ago. A man is found dead from a cutlass slash in a village. Solving the crime is beyond the headman who sends for an investigator from the capital. This man asks for all cutlasses to be brought to him. They are arranged in the sun. There is, of course, no blood on any of them. He waits. After a while tiny flies congregate on one blade. Invisible flecks of blood have attracted them. The murderer is revealed. Our eyes need back-up, even on an every day basis!
Seeing all these CSI-type documentaries on TV plus films that purport to utilise the latest investigative gadgetry makes you wonder why crimes take so long to solve. I quite like whodunnits which relay less on technology and more on plot, character and the psychology of the killer. I saw some of Manhunter last night, a rather well-wrought film by Michael Mann which seems to me to be superior to Silence of the Lambs which used the same plot. The investigator enters the mind of the killer, despite having had a break down when he did this once before.
Find out about Azimuth at: www.chronometerpublications.me
or from the dedicated website: www.azimuthtrilogy.com