Hieronymous the Anonymous

Finding the arc

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It's a home day today, but that doesn't mean I take it easy. So far today I've had someone come clear out the gutters, I've confirmed I'll extend my lease by another 12 months, sent a couple of work related emails and fielded a couple of related calls. I've posted a entry here first thing and I'm not long back from having a morning coffee at the cafe around the corner.

I'm in one of those creative writing phases I get taken by. I've long since stop trying to figure out the why's and wherefores of it, and come to accept the fact: there are times when I bubble over with ideas and creativity like a spring in an oasis, and other times I'm as parched of inspiration as an outback stream in the middle of a drought.

I've been doing a lot more writing lately, and a lot more thinking about writing. The 'thinking' shouldn''t be discounted. One of the shortcomings of my writing previously was that I did not think on it enough. I was a natural writer, I put pen to paper and wrote whatever came to mind. When I revised I did so mainly to clean up and refine what I had previously written. I gave little thought to the actual arc of the story.

Perhaps with age I have become more patient. I now find myself stopping to consider where I am going and asking questions of it. Often that means I come to a stop all together because the answer is not always immediately clear. I sit on it, often sleeping on it, and if that doesn't work will move on to other things confident that the answer will come to me. Invariably it does.

One outcome of this is that I am writing in a different way. The story I am working on right now is an example of that. It's a story that has been around for years, close to my heart but never finished to my satisfaction. The most recent completed version of it was about 35 pages. After umpteen revisions I decided to virtually re-write it from scratch, using the previous versions as the skeleton for a much more deeply considered version. The result thus far is that I am about halfway through the story and have written about 30 pages - virtually double the previous version. 

The extra stuff is due to a number of factors. In the first place the story is told in the first person. In this version I have adopted a style much more in keeping with how people really think and talk. The voice - and hence the character - is largely the same, but is much more digressive, and occasionally questioning, as if in relating his tale he comes across unexpected angles he too must stop to consider.

A result of this is a much deeper contemplation of the facts. It's not necessarily more wordy, it's just that as the protagonist looks back in telling his story he peels back the skin to see what is beneath. Not just what happened, but why.

In short my ambitions in writing this story are much more ambitious than before, something I seem helpless to prevent if I want to do it right. I have expanded the story whilst putting more detail into it. And so at halfway through I am double the length and growing - this will be a 70 page story I think.

My visit to the cafe this morning was more than just an opportunity to ogle the yummy mummies having their morning coffee. I have been stuck at a critical point of this story and sought to break free by varying the environment. I sat at my table drinking a latte and chewing on a friand. I chatted to the proprietor and pulled out the de Montherlant book I had stuck in my bag. I read a couple of paragraphs just to get in the right mind space - much like a drummer counts in the band, I sometimes need to read first to get the words flowing. Then I began to randomly write.

Did it work? Well, sort of. Some okay stuff there, but not the stuff I was after. It will come though, and given my expectations, it will be good.

Without apologies

I spent another hour reading de Montherlant yesterday. I'm now up to page 180, and the way I'm going it wouldn't surprise me reading the whole 600 odd pages in gradual increments, picking it up occasionally to browse and dipping through the pages.

It's pretty easy reading. He's a very good writer, and an interesting one. And despite his indifferent rap I find the protagonist -  Costals - a very attractive character. He was widely described as a misogynistic, but I think that is inaccurate. He may be cynical and sometimes less than completely honest, but it is not directed at women only. He is a writer, one of those characters who sits on the edge of society and describes it with an acerbic eye, while maintaining his own affairs in a fashion consistent with that perspective. He's much more a misanthrope, though I think he is a decent man at heart.

One of the reasons I like Costals so much is that I identify with him. We're very unalike in some ways, but often there are words coming from his mouth that I could easily have said myself. Sure he plays the angles sometimes, but he is also witheringly honest. He has no shame as they say, and no embarrassment at his more predatory ways. I like that. I don't like hand-wringing of any sort, and least of all the hypocritical sort.

Reading last night I thought at one stage that this would be a good book for women to read, if only to get some idea of how men really think. But then I thought there would be many men up in arms at that, and not just because they might feel exposed. Many would feel slandered, and by their lights possibly with good reason. Not every man is like Costals, not by a long shot, and many would be aghast at the comparison - yet I would contend that most men have some Costals in them, even if only occasionally or in the past. Most men would not be nearly as smooth with it as Costals is, and fewer still reconciled with that aspect of themselves.

Once upon a time I wanted to be the 'best' man I could possibly be. Without being aware of it it is something I have given up in recent years, and not just because it is impossible to know what 'best' is. There are certain standards I wish to conform to and there are principles that will always be important to me - which I could summarise perhaps as being honest, fair, objective and true. They're well enough even if they sound like a boy scouts oath.

There is another side of me though that I have long since let off the leash. It worries me not one iota, and in fact I take a lot of pleasure from it, and not just because pleasure is the object of it. I see little point in dressing up something as noble when in fact it is something just about primeval. I've given in to my natural instincts, allowed myself in many circumstances to go the way I feel. When I've got in trouble in the past it's often been because I've gone against those instincts and tried to act according to a higher standard. No more.

I enjoy this book so much because I relate to it very strongly. I'm not Costals and I'm not living in 1920's Paris, but not much changes in the passage of time and space. I know myself well and that's the first step towards any kind of contentment. The next step is accepting yourself for what you are. What I love about Costals is that he is so completely and unapologetically himself, with little regard for what others think of him. This doesn't make him a monster - he is capable of tenderness and kindness, but they are what they are, not affectations but simply another part of his complex self.

Ultimately you don't do anyone any favours by being anything other than utterly yourself. Sure, there are constraints on how we can act, just as there should be, but I'm giving you the tip - happiness comes from accepting who you are and being true to it.

The wisdom of old books

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As the dark falls I lay on the couch with Rigby curled into me, sleeping. Outside the rain falls in a pleasant, soothing hush. The only light comes from the flickering images on the TV I am watching, a movie, Knowing, better than I expected until the end of the world unexpectedly arrives.

It feels early still when the movie ends. I feel restless, as if there is something unfinished. I wander up the hallway with Rigby in tow, check my emails and follow up on a couple of sites. I get up and walk over to the bookcase in the hall, opposite the front door. This is where I deposit my daily things, keys, loose change, sunglasses. the headphones for my iPhone. There is a large smiling Buddha on top, his hands clasped together, and a tall stylised figure made from metal - a straw hat sits on its head, my headphones slung over an arm.

I get down on my hands and knees as Rigby watches curiously. He's wondering if I want to play. Instead I peer into the books arrayed on the wooden shelves of the bookcase. My eyes pass over the titles on the well worn books, not searching for any book in particular, but searching for something. I'll know when I find it. Then I reach in and pluck from the shelves a thick book with a black spine striped with white from all the occasions it has been opened and closed, all the times it has been read. I wander back into my study and put it onto my desk, and turn.

I pad back down the hallway and to the kitchen. I pack the dishwasher and turn it on. I wipe the bench and close the back door. On impulse I pour myself a glass of port. It seems the right thing to do. I flip off the lights and in the loungeroom turn off the TV - Whitney Houston is singing.

In the silence I return to my study. I sit down in front of my PC and after glancing at it pick up the book from my desk. It is a collection of four novels by Henry de Montherlant entitled The Girls. It was famous in it's day, but that day is more than 50 years previous, and it was in Europe, France particularly, that that day shone brightest. It is a book I have read three times perhaps. There are 639 yellowing pages in it.

I flick through those pages, reading the first few words of the introduction before moving on. It is a book about a famous author and the relationship he has with the four women in his life. One, I remember, is a religious virgin who writes obsessive letters to him. He is cynical, world weary, he enjoys his life even if he doesn't think much of it. Pierre Costals is his name. It's a great book.

As you mature all sorts of things influence the person you become. Much of that is family and friends, the environment you grow up in, the seminal moments of your bourgeois life. Music is there too I guess, at least as a soundtrack, and for me books also. This book was one of those that stayed with me for reasons I could never explain. Perhaps I saw something of my burgeoning self in the character of Costals. Perhaps it is the time it is set in, and the place, Paris, that captured me and drew me back again and again.

I recall the first time I read it I was embarking on what was to be a troubled relationship. I had to that point lived freely, easily. I felt comfortable with myself, with the man I saw in the mirror, with the man I presented to the world. The days would slide by, work, then the weekends, easy conversations, sunshine, drink, and like a kaleidoscope different experiences, a variety of them, coloured, bright, vivid. I ate them up, feeling myself in every moment and waking the next morning with the sun streaming in through the window and wondering at what had happened, wondering at the wonder of it.

Perhaps I felt something of my life in this book, perhaps I sensed the transitory nature of my life in the descriptions of life Montherlant described in his books. Certainly at times I dwelt on the characters of the women and the relationships between them and Costals and their conversations, the dynamic between them, as if it was something I was learning even as I understood on my own. I lived, I enjoyed, I celebrated and I slept around and toasted it all even as I lay there in the morning light with a smile on my face - and I saw through it all.

Then that relationship I mentioned took off and I saw something else, in me and in the book. As my life changed so to did the way I read. And I suppose it was like that all the other times I read it, a variation on not stepping into the same stream twice. Now, much later, the book lies open on my desk again.

Reading randomly from the pages the story feels real, lived. Much of it is composed of letters and in the intimate, occasionally anguished voice there is something immediate. I can sit here reading this now as I did 20 years ago and be aware that the author is long dead and the characters he created creations only, never real, and even if they had have been they too would be long dead while I go on walking the earth and living my own modern day version of the sort of life he described.

What it is is true though, and truth is timeless. I'm not here to laud the book, that is not my attention. Rather I discover as I write that I want to draw attention to the reality of my life and everyone else's. Well that may seem a bit weird, but it is not really so. There are times you feel more alive than others, and they are times generally when you remember that you are alive, unbelievable as it is really.

Reading the letters in this book I might have written them myself at some time, or more likely received something similar from one of the girls who have careened through my life. Moments of intensity, of intimate importance that slowly fade away into the past. And the stories here, the conversations, even the rueful thoughts of Costals may well have been mine once, or still to be.

If we're lucky we live intensely, and in the middle of the storm. Even bad is better than nothing. To feel is to live; better still to feel and to know it, and seek to understand it. I'm at the midpoint of my adventures and don't know what is to come. I know reading through the pages of this book that nothing is new, everything that is has been before, and that no matter how much we burn up with feeling that this is the central human experience.

Reading William Styron

I had one of those restless days yesterday when I couldn't settle down to anything. After a productive morning I spent the afternoon trying to find my way. I couldn't. At one point I returned to a story I had been writing but found I was creatively bereft. I turned out pure drudge. This added to the sense of restlessness, which in a way becomes self-fulfilling. When there's nothing there it's hard to do anything.

I felt particularly sour about my effort to write. In many ways I'm absolutely impervious to doubt, but my writing is something I feel less certain of. When I think about it it's the things I take for granted that worry me least, which is no surprise. Though the nature of my work often throws me into complex situations I have confidence that I'll manage them - I've done it before after all, and any doubt is quickly quashed by actually doing it. By and large that's pretty characteristic of the rest of my life. If I don't know something I'll find a way, and I never doubt it.

My writing is different. For a start it means much more to me. I might take a lot of confidence from my professional abilities, and some small part of my identity, but my writing really is who I am. I am much more intimately engaged with it, and so when it fails it gives me cause to question something of myself.

Writing is so much harder as well. It's not necessarily difficult to turn out a well crafted sentence - but it's hard turning those into chapters and stories that are actually coherent and mean something. It's delicate work and I've not mastered it yet.

For want of a better word I felt a little despondent yesterday afternoon - an unusual emotion for me. I was restless and so felt lost. I thought to go for a walk but as I did it began to rain. I stood at the window and watched the rain pour down and then the hail, small balls of frozen rain bounce from the deck of the front courtyard. The sky was dark and low and streaked occasionally by lightning which a moment later ushered in the low rumble of thunder. I watched some people hurry by covering their heads with their jackets and knew the sensation. By my side Rigby stood similarly fascinated, unpeturbed by the thunder. Then I remembered the clothes on the line.

As is so often the case I felt myself energised by the rain and the lightning. It had become dim inside without light and it was warm and cosy as I looked out, grateful for the shelter and for the unexpected pleasure of watching the rain fall.

For once I went to bed early last night and as I reached for the book I was reading I paused. Instead I went to the bookcase and got a book of stories out by James Salter, and another - A Tidewater Morning - by William Styron. I lit a tea light and set it up beneath the oil burner in my bedroom. Then I climbed into bed to read while the sweet perfume of the scented oil infused the room.

I read Salter first. Though I admire his writing I felt uninspired. Then I opened the Styron.

Styron is an author I greatly admire. I guess he is best known for Sophie's Choice, which is a marvellous book (a million times better than the movie, though Meryl Streep is perfect as Sophie), but he is the author of many other very good books.

A Tidewater Morning is one of those, a kind of fictionalised memoir of his early life growing up and going to war. It is an immensely intelligent and beautifully written book - it is authors like Styron who both intimidate and inspire my own writing aspirations. It is also the book which has become a talismanic touchstone to me. I read it when I wonder about things, I find myself reading it when I find my own writing go off track.

More than anything it is the quality of writing that draws me back again and again (though I find myself identifying with the sensibility of the young Lieutenant in the first of these stories). I read taking it all in as if it is a gorgeous piece of art. It reads so easily, so artlessly, so authentically, and with nothing left out and nothing out of place. This is how to write I think, simply, economically, honestly. It feels so true, so lived, that afterwards I sit back and watch the shifting shadows on the wall and simply ruminate on all I have read.

As I hoped I found something in the reading, found myself reconnecting to what I really wanted to say in my story, rather than what I thought I wanted to say. I turned and began to write in the notebook I keep by my bed the scene I had been trying to write so unsuccessfully earlier in the day. This time it flowed and felt real rather than contrived. Whatever I had lost earlier I had regained in the night, and I slept feeling content and with all my restless urgings vanished.

Perfect stories

Last night I read a short story so good it's worth recommending. I read a lot of short stories, and I read some pretty good ones along the way, along with the less good. Mostly the stories are by authors I follow, and it is only in the random collections I read that I stumble across less celebrated authors. This is the case with this story.

The story is The Rotifer by Mary Ladd Gavell. She was American, the managing editor of Psychiatry: Journal for the Study of Interpersonal Processes, and obviously a part time writer on the side. She never lived to see her story published. She died of cancer in 1967 and the story was published in Psychiatry by her colleagues as a tribute to her a few months after her death. It was picked up by The Best American Short Stories of 1968, and may well have languished there forgotten except that John Updike, the editor of the best stories of the century, chose to select it - which is where I read it.

There's no point in describing the story except to say it is a gracefully written, beautifully weighted piece that is almost the perfect example of what a short story can and should be - life in miniature but complete in itself. You read, perfectly convinced, and shut the book to think about what you have just read and what it means for you. As in all the best art I think there is something in it you recognise, tucked away deep inside, and brought to the surface by the genius of these artists. There it breathes, and there you feel the connection to something indefinably sublime. That's a great moment.

The tragedy, aside from her early death, would be if she had never written anything else. The good news as I discovered is that more than 30 years after her death all the stories her husband had put away where published into a book, I Cannot Tell a Lie, Exactly and Other Stories.

It's quite possible - likely even - that none of her other stories measure up to The Rotifer, but I intend to find out.

Worth sharing

I like a lot of things about traditional Japanese culture and art. I like the delicacy, the elegance, the minimalism. Haiku is a great example of that. Here's a lovely haiku I came across recently:

It is the time of rain and snow

I spend sleepless nights

And watch the frost

Frail as your love

Gather in the dawn.

- Izumi Shikibu

It’s just right, isn’t it?

By contrast C.P Cavafy was a Greek poet who spent most of his life living in Alexandria. I came across him before I went to Egypt a little while ago, wanting to get a flavour of the place, and in particular Alexandria. Cavafy was gay, but that shouldn’t impede anyone from enjoying his poetry – desire, love, are universal emotions no matter to whom they’re directed:

Body, remember not just how much

you were loved,

not just the beds where you have lain,

but also those longings that so openly

glistened for you in eyes,

and trembled in the voice--and some

chance obstacle arose and thwarted

them.

Now that it's all finally in the past

it almost seems as if you gave

yourself to

those longings too-- how they

glistened, remember, in eyes that looked

at you;

how they trembled in voices, for you;

remember, body.

- C.P. Cavafy

Mmm, worth remembering.

At the library

God knows I’m no royalist, but I’m thankful to the Queen for giving us a day off to celebrate her birthday (which is actually in May I believe). It gives me the excuse to be a slob for one more day.

In actual fact I didn’t get about of bed until 11 this morning. From about 8.30 on I was reading. I finished off another, quite disappointing book, before embarking on the next.

The book I have started is Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle. That planet of the apes, the original they made all those movies about. It’s not bad, intriguing more than compelling, dated in ways you might expect – it was written in the 1950’s – but fascinating in concept. I’ve read about 120 words so there’s still a fair way to go.

This is actually a library book. I don’t remember the last time I went to the library, though I used to go all the time when I was a kid. Normally I buy my books, which seems a pretty expensive exercise for something I’ll not likely read again, but what price pleasure? Unfortunately it’s not unalloyed pleasure, I buy and read my fair share of duds, no matter how well reviewed. The library then seems an obvious friend to me.

For some reason I had not even considered going to a library for many years. I would pass by them with my mind a blank. Then the week before last somebody asked why I didn’t go to the library. I’d just been complaining about many books I was going through and how much I was spending. A library? What a curious thought! There and then I dismissed it with some lame excuse, but found later and in the days after that the idea held an odd attraction for me. Part of it was nostalgia I was sure. I may have kept away in recent years but when I was younger I would go all the time. Close my eyes and I can picture the different libraries in detail. More particularly I can recall the distinct atmosphere of a library, like a church really in some ways, a place which seems to naturally discourage noise or brash movement, and instead wraps the visitor in the cloke of studious curiosity.

I had an appointment in Hawthorn last week at an osteopath. Afterwards I visited the nearby library I had scouted out earlier. By now it was darkening outside, and the early evening commuter traffic was keeping the roads busy. I walked to the counter and with a smile explained I wanted to join the library. They took down some details and within 5 minutes I had a freshly minted library card in my wallet.

I browsed the stacks for about an hour, getting no further than N in my exhaustive perusal. My excuse the week before was that libraries do not have all the latest releases, which is not strictly true, but close enough. What I remembered in browsing was the joy of the extensive back catalogue of books that libraries carry but few bookshops will. And so I came across old and near forgotten favourites, and stumbled across other books that piqued my interest. The beauty of a library is that it’s a lot easier to borrow a book you’re not sure you’ll enjoy, rather than fork out the hard earned for it. The options are greater, and they cost less.

I walked out with seven books under my arm. It was dark outside and I caught the train home. I stopped for some take away Japanese and as I waited for it to be prepared I browsed my books. I was excited already at the prospect of discovering more.

Not so lazy days…

My first lazy day for a while, and even then not so lazy. I’ve been doing one thing or another, just not the variety no at the pace I’ve recently been accustomed to. In the end I’ve found my own pace today and for once happily downshifted to it – I’ve been thinking so much lately that I’m just about thunk out: so this will be short.

I haven’t added to this for some time because my brain has been taken up in other things. In work and work related things – searching for work, negotiating with my marketing company, dealing with the printers doing my brochure, scrolling through the MS partner site, training myself and reading a lot of work related articles and correspondence, not to mention the emails, the phone calls, the catch-ups.

On top of that I’ve been writing. Point of fact it’s probably that which has kept me from here most. I’ve only a certain number of words in me every day I reckon, and creative words carry a premium over the merely descriptive. And so come the end of the day when I might have sat down here to write I found myself emptied out. I still had thoughts, still had ideas and observations, I just didn’t have the energy to compose them into something meaningful. And so I let it go.

I’ve been writing a lot, and have generally been pretty happy with it. I’m working on a bit of a deadline so I have been very productive. I’ve promised a segment every week for one of my readers to review. Each segment is between 4 to 5,000 words, which is pretty hefty. I normally reckon 600 words a day is pretty good going, but in these last couple of weeks I have had days in excess of thousand. And this is creative stuff, the stuff you drag out yourself kicking and screaming to put on the page. This discipline has been good for me.

I was up late last night writing. I had promised the latest segment for today, but by the time Wednesday afternoon came by it looked more likely that Monday would be the go. It’s hard to gauge what you’re going to manage on any given day. You never know what you’re going to get stuck on, and some things are easier to write than others. On top of that there is revision, which can be pretty time consuming with me. I want things just so. And sometimes you’re just blocked.

Patience is important. I remember reading of a famous author once who finished up writing every day with the beginning of the next days writing already in his head. He argued that gave him a head start the next day and allowed him some momentum going forward. I can’t argue the logic of it, but I would never do it. I’m afraid, and with good reason, that I might lose something good from one day to the next. If it’s there I want it on the page. Yet patience does a big part in the final product. Writing can’t be rushed. Sometimes it feels like it comes to you, but in fact that’s not the case. When you’re in this mode you are forever moving forward even if at times it is so slowly as to be invisible to the eye. Like a glacier.

That’s how it is with me sometimes. I know generally where I want to go, but often that’s as good as it gets. And so when I get to that stage I back off. I make a cup of tea, read a book. Sometimes I’ll be in bed reading and something will come at me. That slow-moving facility has been quietly whiring away in the background. Sometimes there is something I read or see that sparks some inspiration. And often I go to bed with nothing and wake up with the words in me ripe to be plucked. It’s for this reason I keep a notepad by my bed and another in my bag. I know by bitter experience that if I leave it to memory then I’ll lose it. Better to scribble something rough – as it often is – than to leave it to chance.

So, that’s where I was, stuck a little, and way behind schedule. Yesterday afternoon I sat at my desk and for a few hours went over what I had previously written and eked out a few words. They were the right words though as it happened, and they cleared the way going forward.

I went back to my desk last night intending to write just a little more so that I might finish up today on schedule. Instead as I wrote with the lamp on beside me I found I had some unexpected momentum. And so I kept on writing. Soon I had written enough to think it would be silly not to finish it up last night. And so that’s what I did. When I went to bed I was a happy blank.

And that’s what I am today too – you’ve done well to get so many words out of me. I feel exhausted by all this writing and I need a break. I gave myself the day off. I’ll be back into it Monday expecting that the break will have been productive. There are days when you get so close to what you are writing that you virtually live it, and for me that is neither pleasant nor sensible. It is good to get some distance, and good to go at it again fresh. I expect I’ll have all the answers on Monday, for a little while anyway.

Turns of the screw

Over the last week I've been listening to the audiobook of Henry James classic ghost story Turn of the Screw.

When it comes to audiobooks I can hardly imagine a better story. It's one of those stories you listen to on the tram, walking the dog, cooking dinner and you're transported into times long past. It's the sort of story you'd read by the open fire on a cold winters night, and in fact the story begins in the classic way, as a tale recounted to old friends.

Henry James is a difficult writer in some ways, and for all the pleasure I gained from this book I had to pay close attention so as to not lose track. He is famous for his long sentences - I nearly said elongated, circuitous - but his style is classic, and in a way it becomes another 'character' in the story. Revealed is a mindset, a time, a place, a class. The voice is invariably that of the upper-class gentleman - or woman - educated, articulate, Superficially reserved, intimacies are revealed in the qualifications and digressions that turn simple sentences into long and revealing description.

In this case the narrator is a woman. She is the classic English governess in charge of two young orphaned children. She is devoted to their welfare, and as the evil influence of her predecessors haunts the children she fights back, effectively for the children's souls. It is an eerie story, spooky in the classic sense of the word. I was transfixed, right to the unexpectedly abrupt end.

There was something else unexpected in the production that was entirely personal. Listening to the cultured English voice of the narrator I could not help but be reminded of Jennie every time. The tone of the voice was not identical, though at times it came very close. The similarity was marked first in the phrasing. In Jennie I used to smile listening to her I enjoyed it so much. It's no great trick for me to close my eyes and to hear her distinctive voice in my head with her distinctive phrasing.

The greater similarity was in the writing of James - it was he who put the words in the mouth of the governess, and he who framed her personality and character. Listening I could imagine Jennie speaking to me of commonplace things in much the same way. Though some of the references and language are by now archaic there is enough still to pass for conventional though distinctive narrative. The echoes are loudest in the exclamations, in the moments of high emotion when I can hear Jennie herself in my ears.

By far and away the greatest similarity was in the characters. The governess is virtually Jennie. Like Jennie there is a vulnerability, even a weakness perhaps, that is overcome by the necessity to fight tooth and nail for the embattled souls of the two children. Jennie was always open about her dislike of confrontation. It was something she would avoid if possible and had arranged her behaviour to minimise the possibility of it. She was a very brave and honest woman though.

The governess strikes you in a similar way - competent, efficient, kind, unassuming, caring, and somewhat vulnerable. She oscillates between despair and doubt to hope and a kind of pride. She overcomes her weaker self because she must in the much greater struggle to do right. Like all truly good people she acts from a courage that cannot be doubted when she must.

It may seem strange to be writing this, and I do not intend it in that way. I never expected this, but it was not something I could ignore. If I think back Jennie is one of the very best and nicest people I have ever known.

Exit Ghost

I wanted to write about Exit Ghost, the audiobook I listened to the other week. (It doesn't seem serious to say I listened to a book, as if the only valid criticism can come from the physical act of reading print on paper - but I'll overlook that objection).

Early doors this book resonated strongly with me. I've only read (or listened!) to about 6 of Phillip Roth's books, and only one other of the Nathan Zuckerman series.

As it happens I had read the very first in the series, The Ghost Writer, when Zuckerman is an ambitious and resourceful young man at the very beginning of what he hopes to be a successful literary career. In that novel Zuckerman is visiting the home of his idol, I E Lonoff, when circumstances contrive that he stays overnight. Zuckerman is at once witness to and gets involved in the events that follow, which includes the luridly imagined speculation that the European girl he has taken a fancy too is in fact Ann Frank, somehow saved from the camps and transported to the east coast of the States.

The book is playful, fun to read, whilst being typically intelligent - and Zuckerman is cast as a somewhat unreliable sprite of a character.

Exit Ghost is the last in the series. All the various books in between which describe the adventures of Zuckerman I have heard of but not read. In some way that became significant as I listened to this book - - I see him at the start and I see him at the end.

The end as such is very far from where he began. His idol Lonoff is long dead and largely forgotten, while he, Zuckerman, is a great man of American letters. There is some weariness in acknowledging this, as if after dreaming of it in that first book there is the realisation that it is just something more. Something essential as it happens, but something that is done, a job.

Like in Everyman (a great book) there is the theme of things running out, of life passing, dwindling in fact to this aged point. In Zuckerman's case he has prostate problems which necessitates him wearing a nappy. He also fears that he is gradually losing his facility to write, and in fact think, lucidly. And strangely for me he meets up with the very same Ann Frank substitute from the first book, Amy Bellette, in this the last. In this though she is no longer the alluring and mysterious European girl he lusted over. In the years between she has become an old woman who has just come from hospital after being operated on for a brain tumour.

Everything is in decline. The arc that started in The Ghost Writer and soared as Zuckerman became a successful writer here falls away to an ineviable and diminished end. For me, who has read none of the books in-between, this was most stark. Here the two books were directly juxta-posed against each other.

Then the flame that has died down over the years suddenly leaps. Zuckerman falls for a girl. Sure, she's 40 years his junior, but she's smart and sassy and sensitive and he is to her a great writer. His imagination dormant now comes to life. He contrives situations. He postulates outcomes. He imagines whole conversations - all in his erudite and measured way. In short, a type of hope takes hold of him, limited though it is.

This was my favourite part. That's my boy I thought, go get her. Why should you accept such a limited and bleak outcome? It's a question I'm asking all the time as I observe people I know winding down as if they have done enough, there is no more to try for or to wonder at, nothing more to hope for indeed - and certainly nothing worth fighting for. Well, for a moment, Zuckerman finds that something.

And then the story ends. For me listening it felt like it had another 3 chapters in it. All this in him and then he decides to pack up and go home and leave the girl behind. I had really enjoyed this book and then it ended prematurely, unnaturally almost, as if Roth lost interest in it and decided to wrap it up. Unfortunately what could have been claimed as a significant novel became something much slighter.