Oh, deary dear. I reviewed A. N. Wilson's Unguarded Hours for Ignatius Press Novels, as it is the only religion-themed novel I have had time to read lately, and the fact I reviewed it has caused consternation among IP fans. It's not that I endorse the novel--I state clearly that it is not for the young or the sensitive--it's that I mention it AT ALL. And yet my Facebook critic would not have known that it was unsavoury in any way unless I had explicitly condemned it as such.
Wilson is rather Waughian in his tone, although (as I mention in the review), he picks not on modern society as much as on the clerical wing of the then-modern (1978) Church of England, which was full of atheist-socialist posturing and, not to put too fine a point on it, gay camp. The novel is devoid of faith in Christ, and the spiritual underpinning of the book is merely a fear that Christianity is all a crock, and all there is under Christian words and ritual is a bottomless nothingness.
I find that very interesting. I'd be wincing in humiliation if a disgruntled Catholic ex-seminarian exposed unsavoury elements in his training in that very British, mocking way. Catholics in Britain seem to think that would be dirty pool, though, and confine themselves to dinner party anecdotes. What I have heard about one Scottish prelate I would not care to repeat--although it would make a very funny... No.
Anyway, poor old Ig Pr is getting yelled at because of me, so would you all be angels and go here to respond intelligently to the review? I mean it. Two minutes out of your day to gladden the hearts of some good people. Before I got chucked out of a certain stuck-in-the-1970s Catholic newspaper, the editor suffered very greatly on my behalf, thanks to its "retired" editor, her mentor, who had kittens at such words and phrases as "Benediction" and "Sacrifice of the Mass." Oh, and while you are at it, browse the Ignatius Press catalogue and see if there's anything you'd like to give someone (including yourself) for Easter.
The critique is on the Ignatius Press Facebook page. If you feel like weighing in there, be nice to the weaker brethren.
Showing posts with label Arts and Letters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arts and Letters. Show all posts
Wednesday, 16 April 2014
Friday, 4 April 2014
Everybody Loves B.A.
SCENE OF DOMESTIC LIFE IN THE HISTORICAL HOUSE
Seraphic (standing on toes): This is what I would look like if I were 5'4".
B.A.: You're fine at 5'2". Why do you want to be 5'4"?
Seraphic: I don't really. But I would like to decompress my spine. Apparently all you need is five minutes a day on an inversion table.
B.A.: What is an inversion table?
Seraphic: Oh, it's really neat. It's a sort of board and you strap yourself into it and then you flip it over and hang upside down by your ankles.
B.A. (seeing where this is going, i.e. wallet): We don't need an inversion table.
Seraphic: Wah! But I want to decompress my spine!
B.A.: Well, what else can you do to decompress your spine?
Seraphic: Well, I suppose you could hold me upside down by my ankles. Let's try!
B.A.: You're mental. I can't hold you upside down by your ankles.
Seraphic: Why not? I weigh only one-hundred-and-thirty-three pounds.
B.A. Because it is physically impossible.
Seraphic: But you're a MAN. A big, strong MAN.
B.A.: Yes, but I would have to hold my arms up HERE. I could only hold a sack of potatoes from up HERE. And I would hurt my back.
Seraphic (abashed) : Oh! I don't want you to hurt your back. Maybe I could do a headstand or a handstand?
B.A.: But that wouldn't decompress your spine. Gravity would just compress your spine into your neck.
Seraphic: So hanging from my ankles is the only way?
B.A.: Yes.
Seraphic (dubiously): I wonder if I can even do a handstand.
(Seraphic turns her back on B.A. and attempts to do a handstand. Without warning, B.A. grabs her flailing ankles and pulls upward.)
Seraphic: AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!
(B.A. drops Seraphic. Seraphic giggles uncontrollably.)
B.A.: I really don't understand why you want to be taller.
Seraphic: I don't want to be taller. I want to decompress my SPIIIIIINE!
***
My column responding to the deacon who wrote a letter saying I put down the "new Mass" and suggesting I want it banned has appeared online for free. (I guess it's my week for the free-view column.) Here it is.
I suppose the only thing to add is that he was responding to my column (behind a firewall, alas) about how the most beautiful Mass in Toronto is Solemn High Mass at Holy Family Church on Sunday mornings. The point of that column was to alert people who long for beauty at Mass to this Mass, so they would know where to go. As in Toronto you can go to German Mass, Polish Mass, Italian Mass, Chinese Mass, Vietnamese Mass--all kinds of Masses catering to your preferred language or ethnic group--and even a Praise and Worship Music Mass, it seemed fair to me to publicize a Mass that is characterized by the highest possible beauty and solemnity.
I made no claims that it was anyone's dearest Mass, using the analogy of a mother. When you are five, you are convinced that your own mother is the best and most beautiful mother in the world, and so I suppose many, many Catholics feel the same about their own parish mass, and that is good. But naturally Zhang Ziyi and Aishwaryi Rai Bachchan beat old Mum hollow when it comes to objective feminine beauty, as you realize when you grow up. Not that you care. You love your mother because she is your mother while cheerfully acknowledging that she's not as stunning as the brightest stars of the silver screen, and feeling no guilt when you revel in their beauty.
To tell the truth about the Extraordinary Form is not to trash the Ordinary Form any more than to say that my Temporary Pretend Polish Daughter is the reigning beauty of the Historical House is to say I'm a wrinkled old hag. (And, indeed, I said the Holy Family EF is more beautiful than the Edinburgh EF, though naturally I am fonder of the Edinburgh EF.) I know that some liturgists have serious theological objections to the Ordinary Form, but I am not yet convinced this means the N.O. must go. (Can you imagine the confusion and dismay if it did?!) Cardinal Stickler wrote about the "Latin language [acting] like a reverent curtain against profanation" and I find that German, Italian and Polish work like that for me. And Cardinal Stickler points out that when the Novus Ordo is said by the book--he cites the Novus Ordo as said by popes--there is nothing amiss.
***
There are still many copies of Seraphic Singles available for sale, as my Canadian publisher informs me. If you have not read my first book, why not buy a copy and gladden hearts at Novalis? If you want to buy a copy for a Polish friend, the edition you want is the rather more celebrated Anielskie Single.
***
If you live in Canada (especially Toronto), why not get a copy of Catholic Insight magazine and read my latest interview about Ceremony of Innocence? Apparently there's a review, too, which I am dying to read.
Seraphic (standing on toes): This is what I would look like if I were 5'4".
B.A.: You're fine at 5'2". Why do you want to be 5'4"?
Seraphic: I don't really. But I would like to decompress my spine. Apparently all you need is five minutes a day on an inversion table.
B.A.: What is an inversion table?
Seraphic: Oh, it's really neat. It's a sort of board and you strap yourself into it and then you flip it over and hang upside down by your ankles.
B.A. (seeing where this is going, i.e. wallet): We don't need an inversion table.
Seraphic: Wah! But I want to decompress my spine!
B.A.: Well, what else can you do to decompress your spine?
Seraphic: Well, I suppose you could hold me upside down by my ankles. Let's try!
B.A.: You're mental. I can't hold you upside down by your ankles.
Seraphic: Why not? I weigh only one-hundred-and-thirty-three pounds.
B.A. Because it is physically impossible.
Seraphic: But you're a MAN. A big, strong MAN.
B.A.: Yes, but I would have to hold my arms up HERE. I could only hold a sack of potatoes from up HERE. And I would hurt my back.
Seraphic (abashed) : Oh! I don't want you to hurt your back. Maybe I could do a headstand or a handstand?
B.A.: But that wouldn't decompress your spine. Gravity would just compress your spine into your neck.
Seraphic: So hanging from my ankles is the only way?
B.A.: Yes.
Seraphic (dubiously): I wonder if I can even do a handstand.
(Seraphic turns her back on B.A. and attempts to do a handstand. Without warning, B.A. grabs her flailing ankles and pulls upward.)
Seraphic: AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!
(B.A. drops Seraphic. Seraphic giggles uncontrollably.)
B.A.: I really don't understand why you want to be taller.
Seraphic: I don't want to be taller. I want to decompress my SPIIIIIINE!
***
My column responding to the deacon who wrote a letter saying I put down the "new Mass" and suggesting I want it banned has appeared online for free. (I guess it's my week for the free-view column.) Here it is.
I suppose the only thing to add is that he was responding to my column (behind a firewall, alas) about how the most beautiful Mass in Toronto is Solemn High Mass at Holy Family Church on Sunday mornings. The point of that column was to alert people who long for beauty at Mass to this Mass, so they would know where to go. As in Toronto you can go to German Mass, Polish Mass, Italian Mass, Chinese Mass, Vietnamese Mass--all kinds of Masses catering to your preferred language or ethnic group--and even a Praise and Worship Music Mass, it seemed fair to me to publicize a Mass that is characterized by the highest possible beauty and solemnity.
I made no claims that it was anyone's dearest Mass, using the analogy of a mother. When you are five, you are convinced that your own mother is the best and most beautiful mother in the world, and so I suppose many, many Catholics feel the same about their own parish mass, and that is good. But naturally Zhang Ziyi and Aishwaryi Rai Bachchan beat old Mum hollow when it comes to objective feminine beauty, as you realize when you grow up. Not that you care. You love your mother because she is your mother while cheerfully acknowledging that she's not as stunning as the brightest stars of the silver screen, and feeling no guilt when you revel in their beauty.
To tell the truth about the Extraordinary Form is not to trash the Ordinary Form any more than to say that my Temporary Pretend Polish Daughter is the reigning beauty of the Historical House is to say I'm a wrinkled old hag. (And, indeed, I said the Holy Family EF is more beautiful than the Edinburgh EF, though naturally I am fonder of the Edinburgh EF.) I know that some liturgists have serious theological objections to the Ordinary Form, but I am not yet convinced this means the N.O. must go. (Can you imagine the confusion and dismay if it did?!) Cardinal Stickler wrote about the "Latin language [acting] like a reverent curtain against profanation" and I find that German, Italian and Polish work like that for me. And Cardinal Stickler points out that when the Novus Ordo is said by the book--he cites the Novus Ordo as said by popes--there is nothing amiss.
***
There are still many copies of Seraphic Singles available for sale, as my Canadian publisher informs me. If you have not read my first book, why not buy a copy and gladden hearts at Novalis? If you want to buy a copy for a Polish friend, the edition you want is the rather more celebrated Anielskie Single.
***
If you live in Canada (especially Toronto), why not get a copy of Catholic Insight magazine and read my latest interview about Ceremony of Innocence? Apparently there's a review, too, which I am dying to read.
Tuesday, 21 January 2014
Please Read Translations
What I wrote today. John Herreid did the graphic. He designed the cover for Ceremony of Innocence, too. I really like his work.
Saturday, 7 December 2013
Glasgow Idyll
A terrible storm swept Scotland from Thursday night to Friday afternoon, and all the trains were cancelled. Fortunately for our plans, the trains were running again by the time my Polish class ended at 8:30 PM. B.A. and I went to Waverley station and caught the 9 PM train for Glasgow.
Edinburgers on the whole are rather suspicious of Glaswegians, and vice versa. It is the done thing in Edinburgh to make rude remarks about Glasgow. However, I have difficulty doing this because I rather like Glasgow. It reminds me of my native Toronto, or of what my native Toronto would look like if all the 19th century buildings were still standing and the population was still largely what is now called "white British." Glaswegians are not aat all like Torontonians, though, for as a people they are very gregarious. Striking up sudden conversations with strangers is not unsual, although suddenly striking conversing strangers is apparently not unusual either. (Gregariousness does have its shadow side.) Torontonians are more like Edinburghers: unless we are drunk, we like our space and we mind our own business.
Nevertheless, I really like Glasgow, which is cosmopolitan and lively, instead of pretty and relatively calm, like Edinburgh (outwith Edinburgh's sink estates, naturally). It is odd that Edinburgh, not Glasgow, is the capital of Scotland, but on the other hand, it is Ottawa, not Toronto, that is the capital of Canada, and Washington, D.C., not New York, that is the captial of the USA. Glasgow is the New York of Scotland. It has tons of good cultural stuff.
Of course, when we went down to breakfast in the dining-room of our Glasgow cheap hotel, we perceived what looked like a bullet hole in one window. Hmm.
We were in Glasgow because B.A. had registered for a one-day conference at Glasgow University, and I had tagged along in my Glasgow-liking way. The day broke fresh and cheerful and B.A. sang "Let Us Haste to Kelvingrove, Bonnie Lassie O" as we crossed over the River Kelvin to Kelvingrove. The university rose up before us, and after admiring the neo-Gothic buildings, we went to the brutalist university library and got me a visitor's pass.
You university women will smile wanly, but I cannot tell you how exciting it was to be in a proper university library again. The thing about the National Library of Scotland is that members have no access to the stacks and have to ask for everything specifically. There is no browsing. But the sheer joy of having a whole day free to be in a good library--not a brain-dead public library stocked with romance novels and DVDS--is browsing.
Not that this was my plan. My plan was to spend the day writing Part 2 of a story I am writing in Polish for a friend's birthday. Part 1 was 470 words, and I guessed it would take me the better part of the day to write Part 2. (When I don't have to look up a word in the dictionary, I have to check its conjugation or declination 2 out of 3 times.)
However, when the guardian of vistors' passes asked me what I wished to consult in his big, brutalist library I remembered that Glasgow University, unlike Edinburgh University, has a Slavonic Studies degree and teaches Polish. Real, university-level Polish with books and cruelly high expectations of students, not inexpensive, easy-going night classes for the masses. So I said I wished to consult the Polish literature collection and wrote this down on a form. Then, having received the sacred card and asked a gregarious Glaswegian security guard "Certainly, dear!") to buzz me in, I kissed B.A. good-bye and headed for the elevator.
Stacks! Stacks! Stacks!
Slavonic Studies shares a floor with a lot of other disciplines, not to mention long rows of computers on which long rows of students type. I have never seen so many computers on an upper floor of a library, nor so many students typing together in complete silence. It was a bit odd, really. And they were all drinking out of bottles, and they were all allowed snacks. Snacks! In a library! However, there were signs everywhere explaining what they were allowed to snack on, and what sort of containers they could drink from, and assuring them that Wi-fi and texting were fine, but talking was not. They could stay on a computer for only four hours at a stretch.
I felt a bit like a time-traveller from the past, so I was glad to leave the typing masses behind and find the annex storing all the Slavic volumes. And lo! After endless rows of Russian stuff, I at last came upon the Polish Literature section. Listen, in Edinburgh I get excited if I see in a charity shop some old deserted Polish translation of Lolita. So imagine my excitement when I saw before me all the riches of 19th and 20th century Polish literature!!!
Hmm. Maybe you can't. Well, it was huge.
I looked at every shelf, and pulled out every book I found interesting, and had to suppress my yelp of joy when I found Antoni Libera's Madame--which Marta gave me in English--in Polish. That was swiftly added to the growing pile on my blissfully isolated desk. And then, when I had reached the end of Polish and the beginning of Czech, I sat down at my desk and, like the hero of Madame, began to copy out striking passages and quotes from the books of my chosen foreign language.
Then, after this warm-up, I worked on my story until 1 PM, when I went across the street to the cafeteria for lunch. The food on offer seemed strangely healthy and inexpensive. I had a smoked salmon wrap and a small bottle of milk--£3.95. The place was cheerfully lit, and a large screen exhibited the time and the weather forecast. Apparently the sun had come up around 8:30 and was expected to set at 3:45 PM. Once again, I had the sensation of being a time traveller from the past.
After my quick lunch, I went for a walk to the Slavonic Studies department and had a look at the Polish bulletin board. Then I returned to the library and Part 2. When Part 2 was done, I went back to copying Polish phrases and came across something extremely creepy.
I had found a English-Polish phrasebook for Poles. It was all about describing people which, as a novelist, I thought very handy. However, as I read, I saw that these descriptions were not about what people looked like or enjoyed as hobbies, but about their characters, their politics, their religious beliefs, their morals and their war records. Sample phrase: "Now that so many things have failed him, religion is his only resourse" (sic), "No woman who respected herself would go out dressed like that", "He is strongly influenced by the social doctrine of the Church" and "He has a British passport."
There was so much creepy Commie stuff about how much "he" or (more rarely) "she" subscribed to the doctrines of "the Party" and felt about the Workers, that I began to feel guilty about copying from this book at all.(I admit, however, that I snickered at "He seems to be a sex maniac, doesn't he?") Before long, I turned to the title page to see when and where: 1984, Warsaw, [School and Pedagogy Publishing House].
This volume could have been written under martial law, and even if not, 1984 was not a happy year for Poland. It occured to me that this was a manual for interrogating Western traitors or captured Western spies about their friends and neighbours, especially their Polish or Polish-British or Polish-American friends and neighbours. And that made me feel a bit sick, honestly, although--my word--from a historian's point of view, what a find. How on earth it ended up in the Glasgow University library I cannot imagine.
When I couldn't stand it any more, I shut the damned thing and picked up a bilingual copy of Polish love stores and read Sienkiewicz's "Lux in Tenebris Lucet". As usual when I read Sienkiewicz's stories, tears sprang to my eyes. Sienkiewicz is a great antidote to anything base or wicked. And then, since the annex was cold, I felt thoroughly chilled and longed for B.A. to hurry up and get out of his conference. But, alas, the conference did not end at 5 but at 6, after a concert, so I put on my gloves and read (in English) about the tensions between Classicism and Romanticism in the art of 19th century Poland.
Then I met B.A. in the lobby and we went together on the funny round subway system to the Royal Exchange area, where we saw that the Catholic bookshop did not have my book in the window and ate a good supper in an Italian restaurant. Then we caught the 8:30 PM train back to Edinburgh and then the train to the station nearest the Historical House.
So that was our Glasgow day. I have never read so much Polish all at once in my life, and the moral of the story is that there is nothing like a good university library as a work space, especially when you don't have a password for the wi-fi.
Edinburgers on the whole are rather suspicious of Glaswegians, and vice versa. It is the done thing in Edinburgh to make rude remarks about Glasgow. However, I have difficulty doing this because I rather like Glasgow. It reminds me of my native Toronto, or of what my native Toronto would look like if all the 19th century buildings were still standing and the population was still largely what is now called "white British." Glaswegians are not aat all like Torontonians, though, for as a people they are very gregarious. Striking up sudden conversations with strangers is not unsual, although suddenly striking conversing strangers is apparently not unusual either. (Gregariousness does have its shadow side.) Torontonians are more like Edinburghers: unless we are drunk, we like our space and we mind our own business.
Nevertheless, I really like Glasgow, which is cosmopolitan and lively, instead of pretty and relatively calm, like Edinburgh (outwith Edinburgh's sink estates, naturally). It is odd that Edinburgh, not Glasgow, is the capital of Scotland, but on the other hand, it is Ottawa, not Toronto, that is the capital of Canada, and Washington, D.C., not New York, that is the captial of the USA. Glasgow is the New York of Scotland. It has tons of good cultural stuff.
Of course, when we went down to breakfast in the dining-room of our Glasgow cheap hotel, we perceived what looked like a bullet hole in one window. Hmm.
We were in Glasgow because B.A. had registered for a one-day conference at Glasgow University, and I had tagged along in my Glasgow-liking way. The day broke fresh and cheerful and B.A. sang "Let Us Haste to Kelvingrove, Bonnie Lassie O" as we crossed over the River Kelvin to Kelvingrove. The university rose up before us, and after admiring the neo-Gothic buildings, we went to the brutalist university library and got me a visitor's pass.
You university women will smile wanly, but I cannot tell you how exciting it was to be in a proper university library again. The thing about the National Library of Scotland is that members have no access to the stacks and have to ask for everything specifically. There is no browsing. But the sheer joy of having a whole day free to be in a good library--not a brain-dead public library stocked with romance novels and DVDS--is browsing.
Not that this was my plan. My plan was to spend the day writing Part 2 of a story I am writing in Polish for a friend's birthday. Part 1 was 470 words, and I guessed it would take me the better part of the day to write Part 2. (When I don't have to look up a word in the dictionary, I have to check its conjugation or declination 2 out of 3 times.)
However, when the guardian of vistors' passes asked me what I wished to consult in his big, brutalist library I remembered that Glasgow University, unlike Edinburgh University, has a Slavonic Studies degree and teaches Polish. Real, university-level Polish with books and cruelly high expectations of students, not inexpensive, easy-going night classes for the masses. So I said I wished to consult the Polish literature collection and wrote this down on a form. Then, having received the sacred card and asked a gregarious Glaswegian security guard "Certainly, dear!") to buzz me in, I kissed B.A. good-bye and headed for the elevator.
Stacks! Stacks! Stacks!
Slavonic Studies shares a floor with a lot of other disciplines, not to mention long rows of computers on which long rows of students type. I have never seen so many computers on an upper floor of a library, nor so many students typing together in complete silence. It was a bit odd, really. And they were all drinking out of bottles, and they were all allowed snacks. Snacks! In a library! However, there were signs everywhere explaining what they were allowed to snack on, and what sort of containers they could drink from, and assuring them that Wi-fi and texting were fine, but talking was not. They could stay on a computer for only four hours at a stretch.
I felt a bit like a time-traveller from the past, so I was glad to leave the typing masses behind and find the annex storing all the Slavic volumes. And lo! After endless rows of Russian stuff, I at last came upon the Polish Literature section. Listen, in Edinburgh I get excited if I see in a charity shop some old deserted Polish translation of Lolita. So imagine my excitement when I saw before me all the riches of 19th and 20th century Polish literature!!!
Hmm. Maybe you can't. Well, it was huge.
I looked at every shelf, and pulled out every book I found interesting, and had to suppress my yelp of joy when I found Antoni Libera's Madame--which Marta gave me in English--in Polish. That was swiftly added to the growing pile on my blissfully isolated desk. And then, when I had reached the end of Polish and the beginning of Czech, I sat down at my desk and, like the hero of Madame, began to copy out striking passages and quotes from the books of my chosen foreign language.
Then, after this warm-up, I worked on my story until 1 PM, when I went across the street to the cafeteria for lunch. The food on offer seemed strangely healthy and inexpensive. I had a smoked salmon wrap and a small bottle of milk--£3.95. The place was cheerfully lit, and a large screen exhibited the time and the weather forecast. Apparently the sun had come up around 8:30 and was expected to set at 3:45 PM. Once again, I had the sensation of being a time traveller from the past.
After my quick lunch, I went for a walk to the Slavonic Studies department and had a look at the Polish bulletin board. Then I returned to the library and Part 2. When Part 2 was done, I went back to copying Polish phrases and came across something extremely creepy.
I had found a English-Polish phrasebook for Poles. It was all about describing people which, as a novelist, I thought very handy. However, as I read, I saw that these descriptions were not about what people looked like or enjoyed as hobbies, but about their characters, their politics, their religious beliefs, their morals and their war records. Sample phrase: "Now that so many things have failed him, religion is his only resourse" (sic), "No woman who respected herself would go out dressed like that", "He is strongly influenced by the social doctrine of the Church" and "He has a British passport."
There was so much creepy Commie stuff about how much "he" or (more rarely) "she" subscribed to the doctrines of "the Party" and felt about the Workers, that I began to feel guilty about copying from this book at all.(I admit, however, that I snickered at "He seems to be a sex maniac, doesn't he?") Before long, I turned to the title page to see when and where: 1984, Warsaw, [School and Pedagogy Publishing House].
This volume could have been written under martial law, and even if not, 1984 was not a happy year for Poland. It occured to me that this was a manual for interrogating Western traitors or captured Western spies about their friends and neighbours, especially their Polish or Polish-British or Polish-American friends and neighbours. And that made me feel a bit sick, honestly, although--my word--from a historian's point of view, what a find. How on earth it ended up in the Glasgow University library I cannot imagine.
When I couldn't stand it any more, I shut the damned thing and picked up a bilingual copy of Polish love stores and read Sienkiewicz's "Lux in Tenebris Lucet". As usual when I read Sienkiewicz's stories, tears sprang to my eyes. Sienkiewicz is a great antidote to anything base or wicked. And then, since the annex was cold, I felt thoroughly chilled and longed for B.A. to hurry up and get out of his conference. But, alas, the conference did not end at 5 but at 6, after a concert, so I put on my gloves and read (in English) about the tensions between Classicism and Romanticism in the art of 19th century Poland.
Then I met B.A. in the lobby and we went together on the funny round subway system to the Royal Exchange area, where we saw that the Catholic bookshop did not have my book in the window and ate a good supper in an Italian restaurant. Then we caught the 8:30 PM train back to Edinburgh and then the train to the station nearest the Historical House.
So that was our Glasgow day. I have never read so much Polish all at once in my life, and the moral of the story is that there is nothing like a good university library as a work space, especially when you don't have a password for the wi-fi.
Friday, 18 October 2013
New Book Dance Party
Thank you very much to those readers who have already bought my new book and even written reviews or comments. It's been an exciting week; my interview provided a provocative headline for Catholic World Report.
It's not every day anyone asks me about my writing or my influences, and I wrote and rewrote my answer about "most influential authors" a dozen times. But so far nobody has asked me--and if you should ever interview anyone about a novel, you might consider asking them--what I was listening to at the time.
Normally I write in dead silence, but while either writing or reviewing or thinking about (most likely) the chapters of Ceremony of Innocence, I was listening to club music. I wanted a real "rave" vibe for my book and was trying to conjure up memories of feelings and impressions from my time in Germany. After all, my younger characters go to clubs a lot, especially this one. And trance music is called "trance" for a reason.
Here are some of the tracks I listened to repeatedly while writing Ceremony of Innocence:
Scarf: "Odyssey"
Cascada: "Every Time We Touch"
Basshunter: "DotA"
Alice DeeJay: "Will I Ever"
Blumchen: "Heut' ist Mein Tag"
Tune Up: "Raver's Fantasy"
Darude: "Sandstorm"
The Killers: "Mr. Brightside"
The Killers: "Somebody Told Me"
Alice Deejay: "Back in My Life"
Mo-Do: "Einz Dwei Polizei"
and my favourite Canadian song of all time:
Tragically Hip: "Nautical Disaster"
I think I listened to Alice Deejay sing "Back in My Life" a hundred times. You can find all these songs on YouTube, which is where I found them. (The official videos for "Will I Ever", "Sandstorm" and "Einz Dwei Politzei" are Not Safe For Little Brothers.) However, I think I may have to buy them for B.A.'s MP3 player, which I take along to the gym.
Update: Yikes! Did not realize how appropriate "Nautical Disaster" was until now.
It's not every day anyone asks me about my writing or my influences, and I wrote and rewrote my answer about "most influential authors" a dozen times. But so far nobody has asked me--and if you should ever interview anyone about a novel, you might consider asking them--what I was listening to at the time.
Normally I write in dead silence, but while either writing or reviewing or thinking about (most likely) the chapters of Ceremony of Innocence, I was listening to club music. I wanted a real "rave" vibe for my book and was trying to conjure up memories of feelings and impressions from my time in Germany. After all, my younger characters go to clubs a lot, especially this one. And trance music is called "trance" for a reason.
Here are some of the tracks I listened to repeatedly while writing Ceremony of Innocence:
Scarf: "Odyssey"
Cascada: "Every Time We Touch"
Basshunter: "DotA"
Alice DeeJay: "Will I Ever"
Blumchen: "Heut' ist Mein Tag"
Tune Up: "Raver's Fantasy"
Darude: "Sandstorm"
The Killers: "Mr. Brightside"
The Killers: "Somebody Told Me"
Alice Deejay: "Back in My Life"
Mo-Do: "Einz Dwei Polizei"
and my favourite Canadian song of all time:
Tragically Hip: "Nautical Disaster"
I think I listened to Alice Deejay sing "Back in My Life" a hundred times. You can find all these songs on YouTube, which is where I found them. (The official videos for "Will I Ever", "Sandstorm" and "Einz Dwei Politzei" are Not Safe For Little Brothers.) However, I think I may have to buy them for B.A.'s MP3 player, which I take along to the gym.
Update: Yikes! Did not realize how appropriate "Nautical Disaster" was until now.
Wednesday, 16 October 2013
Attention British and Irish Readers Under 25
Would you like to kick-start a writing career? In that case, I think you should have a look at this competition.
The most famous Catholic female writer is still the recently deceased Muriel Spark. Her career got started when she won a short-story contest.
By the way, I hinted in my Ignatius interview that it would be nice if Catholics started paying attention to the successes of other Catholics again. So congratulations to Frances for getting into the finals of "The Great British Bake-off."
The most famous Catholic female writer is still the recently deceased Muriel Spark. Her career got started when she won a short-story contest.
By the way, I hinted in my Ignatius interview that it would be nice if Catholics started paying attention to the successes of other Catholics again. So congratulations to Frances for getting into the finals of "The Great British Bake-off."
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