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| Neil Gaiman's Graveyard Book buried under awards As the fantasy world's renaissance man collects yet another award, he talks to Michelle PauliNeil Gaiman's sweep of this year's children's fiction prizes with The Graveyard Book continued today after the Booktrust teenage prize came his way at a ceremony in London.Gaiman's spooky tale of a boy who is raised by ghosts in a graveyard after his parents and sister are murdered by a serial killer, has already won America's major children's fiction prize, the Newbery medal, as well taking the Locus young adult award and the Hugo best novel prize. It is also longlisted for the prestigious Carnegie medal, and shortlisted for the World Fantasy award. Perhaps understandably for a man this busy, he accepted the prize in absentia.Speaking from the States, where he has lived since 1992, Gaiman said that he was "thrilled and very surprised" at the win, but confessed that "the trouble with saying that is that you always sound vaguely insincere – people assume that with each award the book wins, saying you are surprised is less and less plausible."For Gaiman, the hoary old chestnut that it's not the winning but the taking part that counts really does ring true, as he explained."The Graveyard Book has lost as many awards it has been nominated for as it has won. In truth, what I am most thrilled about right now is that it gets nominated and gets onto the shortlist," says Gaiman. "Some years ago I wound up as a judge on an awards panel and I got to actually see what people say you should never see. Like watching first hand the law or sausages being made, you should never go backstage at an awards judging and watch how a book is judged, as judges trade their favourites and everybody's second choice wins. So the bit that I take enormous, genuine unsullied pleasure in tends to be just the nomination, on the basis that anything after that is a kind of weird horse race.""I think the Booktrust prize is one of the good ones. It crossed my radar as a prize last year when I bought the winner, Patrick Ness's The Knife of Never Letting Go, which I loved. And I have been really thrilled with the shortlist this year. The best thing about being on an award list is seeing who you are on there with, and there would have been no loss of face to lose to any of these."Gaiman beat Ness this year – last year's winner was in the unusual position of being in the running again, with the second part of his Chaos Walking trilogy – along with other strong contenders including Auslander by Paul Dowswell and The Ant Colony by Jenny Valentine. According to Judi James, the chair of the judges, and contrary to Gaiman's predictions of horsetrading, "The Graveyard Book was unanimously chosen the winner. [The main character] Nobody Owens won the hearts of all the judges, young and old, as did the delightfully sinister, generous, eccentric and heart-warming characters that inhabit the old graveyard. Gaiman's writing is gentle, fluid and humorous, and fundamentally uplifting."Gaiman himself said that it was difficult, as the author, to explain the critical and popular success of the book, which inspired a string of graveyard-themed Halloween parties in independent bookshops last month. In keeping with his reputation as "the literary world's rock star", he compared the situation to George Harrison's comment that, in the 60s, the only people who hadn't heard the Beatles were the Beatles. "I've never read it, I wrote it." he said. "I can tell from reviews, and the enthusiasm with which people come up and talk about the story, that it appeals. It's a book about community and family and growing up – and about life and all of those things. From an authorial point of view it's the book that took me longest to write – there were 25 years between the idea for the book and now. I had the idea and wrote a page and looked at it and decided that it was a much better book than I was a writer and that I would get good first as it deserved that. I got better and wrote a lot of stuff and then in 2004 – about 19, 20 years after I had the idea – I decided that I wasn't going to get any better and I should probably start to write it."All I had to do was cope with the weird things about it, that it was a collection of short stories, two years apart, that would build a novel. There were all these problems I set myself at the beginning and ended up hugely important. But it always seemed like a perfect setting for the stories and perfect shape of a story. "With its premise that an "alien" community can successfully bring up a child, The Graveyard Book clearly owes a debt to Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, which Gaiman acknowledged. "I got to stand on the shoulders of giants in order to write it," he said, also namechecking PL Travers for her Mary Poppins stories. However, The Graveyard Book is far spookier than anything that came from the mind of Kipling or Travers, as you would expect from the writer who came up with the equally creepy children's bestseller Coraline. As with Coraline, and any good "crossover writer" who engages both adults and children, Gaiman's skill in The Graveyard Book is to imply a lot with a little. He doesn't spell out the horror but lays the clues and leaves the rest to the shadows of the reader's imagination. "I love what the first three pages of The Graveyard Book do to people's heads," said Gaiman. "I love reading the upset reviews from people who read those first few pages and say, 'Oh my God, it's like a slasher movie with all the murders and blood' and I think, 'No, you did that. I just had a man walking round with a knife and you killed all those people in your head. It says more about you than anything I wrote on the page.'"Gaiman has earmarked the £2,500 prize money for some "cool art" following the realisation that if he spends money on something to hang on his wall then "every time I look at it I can remember the award. Which doesn't happen if you spend it on groceries." Another of The Graveyard Book's awards bought him an EH Shepard illustration, The Murder Re-Enacted, and his "Booktrust artwork" is likely to be another children's illustration. "There's something rather wonderful about owning an illustration of something you have seen in reproduction as a child and then you have it on your wall and you know it will be around long after you've gone and, with luck, so will the book," he muses. However, it is research for the next book that is first on the agenda for the prolific and diverse writer who found fame as a graphic novelist with the Sandman series of comics before his success as a writer of SF and fantasy novels for both adults and children. Next up is a "part-fiction, part-non-fiction travelogue and real life history" set in China. Taking inspiration from the Chinese epic novel Journey to the West, it will feature the book's protagonists Sun Wukong – known in the west as the Monkey King – and Xuanzang the seventh-century monk who travelled from China to India to bring back Buddhist sacred texts. "It will also partly be about me travelling through China and having peculiar things happen to me – the kinds of things you just can't plan," said Gaiman. "Like nearly buying a human elbow. It was being sold by a little old man with a tourist stand outside a temple. After failing to sell me any of the things on the table he rummaged underneath and brought out this bone wrapped in newspaper which turns out to be half a human arm, probably many hundreds of years old – things he's found after the archeologists went away …"Neil GaimanScience fiction, fantasy and horrorChildren and teenagersAwards and prizesMichelle Pauliguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
The pleasures of acting out | AL Kennedy Actors take the words we imagine in our heads and make them real, but what can we learn from the way they bring our characters to life?Sorry for the delay in blogging – as the last of the year is rained into submission, I have been travelling. Again. Manchester, London, Brussels, Berlin, Brussels, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Glasgow and a film festival in Cromarty is beckoning, even as I type. Usually, I would have taken advantage of the peace and electricity available in this or that train to hammer out something for you, but sadly I was a little preoccupied with sleep, numbed staring, making up 20 minutes of new comedy and fretting about my oncoming novel. The comedy has been duly delivered to a couple of surprisingly fragrant audiences, my mail, ironing and packing are up to date and I have these small hours of a Thursday morning to ponder. But before I get to the pondering, I will take a moment to point out that I am aware a number of people who used to be what we might call friends of mine now simply read this blog, having entirely abandoned any foolish ideas about phoning me at home for a chat, or actually meeting to do something human. I have been subjected to pathological levels of travel for more than a year now and whatever relations I had hitherto managed to maintain with real people – the ones I don't have to make up earlier - have become almost entirely theoretical. I have even – please forgive me – fallen into the strange pit of gossipy stalkers which is Twitter. At least this allows me to text somebody who might still care – if only because they intend to murder me and then use my skin for cravats. And, as I wandered about in northern Europe, I was once again struck by how few people on the other side of the Chunnel are welded to their headphones. British high streets are generally packed with what amounts to thousands of competing soundtracks and brave efforts to dodge as much of our prevailing reality as possible. Over There they still do chatting, good coffee and relatively functional public transport. They can also provide civilised, trilingual audiences interested in other cultures and literature in general at the drop of a jewel-like pastry, and can lavish readers with pleasant venues, varied, well-advertised events and proper arts coverage. It's boring to have to point this out – repeatedly – but the UK isn't as cool and bright and lovely as we are intended to believe. Our public servants don't just defraud us, they also don't serve us – in detail and day after corrosive, toxic day.But enough about them: actors. Best Beloveds, actors are an excellent thing. The Manchester part of last week's itinerary was given over to recording a radio play of mine and I have to say the proceedings were just a huge joy, parts of which I am still digesting. I knew very little, for example, about the detailed presentation of point of view within sound and where effects would be live and where they would not and what delicacy and precision goes into the production of radio drama – something I've always enjoyed, since the lovely days when I didn't have a telly.I very rarely have time to sit in on filming, rehearsals, or even performances of my own scripts. This is very occasionally a blessed relief when I hear later about insane producers, crippling budgets, vicious weather, costumes only fit to be viewed from one side and the risk of death in – for example - improperly choreographed fights, or botched house fires. (No, really.) But more usually I find it slightly heartbreaking to never quite know what the last night was like, or to have been somewhere else when a little rewrite might just have helped ... Manchester allowed me to sit and do virtually nothing for two full days, beyond eating biscuits and listening to excellent performers do what they do, hearing readings develop, interpretations shift and fret and lock, and generally being made very happy. I ended up quite light-headed.This is partly for entirely predictable reasons. If you have Robert Glenister and Bill Nighy flinging themselves into it all day – along with an equally splendid, professional and charming supporting cast – then you will be interested and entertained in the process. Of course. But bear in mind that I fell in love with words because actors said them to me, because they were out loud and happening at me and in me. I hear words in my head when I write them. I sit – in trains, or even my study – building people who don't exist, hearing people who don't exist, until they seem real to me and then perhaps may do to somebody else. Imagine what happens when you add actors to that – how very, deeply good it is that the music you couldn't quite hear not only sings in reality, but is far more beautiful than you could have hoped to make it alone. Imagine how permeable proper actors are to language. Imagine people who genuinely possess levels of recklessesness/talent/training/sensitivity/whoknowswhat and being allowed to hear them let words – your words – penetrate and operate and become what they need to be. It's a strange transaction – on the one hand the typist (if it's me) experiences sudden rushes of exhilaration along the lines of I think it, you do it, meat puppets of my brain – oh, life should be like this. And yet there are also swoops of despair along the lines of – I could do this all again and make it better now I know what you're all like, make it fit better – and thank you for being upset then and sorry for having to have made you upset, but in that scene it is necessary – and this sounds amazing, but that's you, not me – and that of has to go – that of doesn't scan at all and should be forgotten and never spoken about again … so sorry …And so on. At a certain level, actors are the best readers – it's their job to be. And I hope I can reverse-engineer some response to this whole thing which would improve the reading experience for the rest of my readers. I also need to consider what I can learn from being around people at the top of their game – why are they good? They pay attention, they have a certain type of courage, they are careful of each other, generous, they have interior drives with levels of surprising and usefully-applied hunger. What can I apply from this to my own working methods? I don't know yet, but I hope to.And otherwise, I am simply full of admiration. As I watched Mr Nighy and Mr Glenister on a monitor, working in what appeared to be a concrete holding cell at Heathrow (the space doesn't need to be pretty, it just needs to sound right) and having to semi-skate on scattered gravel, to produce the necessary effect, while hitting the required mark near the required mike for each cue, while hauling at each other, reading, emoting, taking direction and generally knocking it out of the park with a glorious attention to detail and levels of courtesy and concern for which I will always thank them, I did think very loudly – bloody hell, what kind of a job is that for human people? And grinning like a muppet all the while. God bless them, whatever they're up to at the moment.And onwards.AL Kennedyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Louis de Bernières and other British writers revive the literary salon Geoff Dyer and Jake Arnott also among those frequenting authors' evenings in LondonThe literary salon, the 18th-century gathering where intellectual giants would debate and inspire or infuriate each other, has been reborn for the 21st century with new salons appearing throughout the country. But those attending are as likely to be drawn from the ranks of edgy younger writers as from the famous.During the Enlightenment, salons established by charismatic individuals allowed the great talents of the age to discuss their writing – creating the work and ideas that changed the course of Britain's artistic history. Many classic works would never have appeared without the semi-public gatherings. Now there are meetings once again, so members can engage in unashamedly intelligent discourse and read unfinished work to gauge reaction before redrafting.In London, the private members' club Soho House has established a monthly salon,where some of the country's foremost authors and those aiming for future fame read – and discuss – their writing with the public. Next month's attendees include Louis de Bernières, author of Captain Corelli's Mandolin, and Naomi Alderman, who won the Orange award for her debut, Disobedience, a controversial novel about an Orthodox rabbi's daughter who becomes a lesbian. Those present previously include Jake Arnott, author of East End crime novel The Long Firm, which became a BBC series, chick-lit author Jenny Colgan, and Geoff Dyer, who won the Somerset Maugham award for his book about jazz, But Beautiful.The group was established by the playwright Damian Barr, who felt there was a need for a space for writers and book lovers to discuss, inspire, goad or cajole each other as they did in the salons of past eras. "It's an Enlightenment idea. You can talk to people, flirt, get drunk and still feel you've done something meaningful," said Barr, adding that the salon was a modern twist on the 18th-century model."It would be thrilling to think of myself as a latter-day Madame Geoffrin [one of the most famous French salonières] and it's a pleasing role to entertain, educate and please people. The salon is a space where like-minded people meet and many stories come out of the evening – people leave feeling stimulated. It's social and literary alchemy."Barr's anarchic sensibilities probably bear little resemblance to Geoffrin – writer Julie Burchill has described him as "the ringmaster for the Jerry Springer generation" – but he said the evenings have a definite purpose."Usually people read from work they haven't finished, and they might ad lib some of it to gauge the reaction. It gives an opportunity to engage. Jessica Ruston was inspired by something she heard and has just sold a serial based on it. So it's about creating as much as consuming."Ruston said: "[Journalist] Tim Teeman was talking about serials. I had had an idea for a story told entirely through dinner parties a little while before, and suddenly thought that it would work really well as a serial."Dyer says there is a unique energy to the meetings. "It's noisy and boisterous and jam-packed with people. There's something about the vibe of it when you read and you hear reactions," he said.The group occasionally breaks out of London and spends weekends at John Maynard Keynes's house in Sussex.Coffee houses and restaurants were often the base for salons, and they have re-emerged as such. Giles Foden, author of The Last King Of Scotland, which became an Oscar-wining film,, points to Damien Hirst's restaurant, The Quay in Ilfracombe, Devon. Calling for more such institutions, he said the perfect modern literary salon has "simultaneously the atmosphere of a library, a bordello and a boxing ring"."It's terrifically important that salons are back because writing is a solitary business, and yet the discussion of literature is really enlivened by face-to-face contact," he said. "These are places where ideas emerge."Foden attends a salon in Norwich. "Perhaps it's more of a mob than a salon. Another writer described it to me as 'a nest of singing birds', but it's a tremendously enlivening experience."In Edinburgh a salon named Cobalt has grown up at the Balmoral hotel, where JK Rowling put the final touches to the last book in the Harry Potter series. One of those who attends is David Nicholls, who wrote the BBC's recent version of Tess of the d'Urbervilles and the film Starter For 10, which starred James McAvoy. He explained: "Writing fiction can be very solitary in a way, and to be able to sit in a room with people and have a drink and hear their thoughts is really inspiring."Louis de BernièresGareth Rubinguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Occupied City by David Peace | Book review Pretentious and irritating stylistic quirks detract from a fascinating story, finds Viola FortThe second part of David Peace's planned Tokyo trilogy, Occupied City is based on the true story of the Teikoku Bank Massacre. In 1948, a well-groomed man walked into a bank at the close of business and explained he had been sent to inoculate all employees against an outbreak of dysentery. He poured a clear liquid into 16 teacups and issued careful instructions as to how the antidote should be taken. Within minutes, 12 of the staff were dead, the remaining four unconscious. Peace retells the story from 12 points of view, exposing the conspiracy and confusion surrounding it. Crossed-out sentences, shouty capitals and Beckettian repetition are deliberate stylistic quirks that make a cracking story at best hard work and, at worst, exasperatingly pretentious.Fictionguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
A Crime Novelist Takes on St. Peter Characters from Walter Mosley’s novel “The Tempest Tales” wrestle with good and evil in the author’s first play, “The Fall of Heaven.” feeds.nytimes.com |