El Escritor Inglés: September 2010

Monday, September 13, 2010

An Idiot's Guide To Athens

No trip to the Greek capital could be complete without a visit to the Acropolis [Greek = ‘high city’]. The so-called Athenian Citadel stands atop what is known as the Sacred Rock, 150 metres above sea level (Figure 12.1). Construction dates back to the 5th century BCE, and it has since become, understandably, an archaeologist’s, as well as an historian’s, paradise.

Figure 12.1: An aerial view of the Acropolis of Athens

A friend of mine took his girlfriend there recently. He phoned me from his hotel overlooking Paleo Faliro harbour. During his day at the Acropolis, he had been accosted by a pushy tourist outside the Parthenon (Figure 12.2). My pal had stopped to inspect a rectangular stone slab which was positioned flat on the ground and elaborately engraved, albeit in Greek script. The tourist grabbed the opportunity to embark on a condescending monologue. It was, apparently, a sacred memorial tablet, despite bearing no date. It was centuries old, despite being in near-pristine condition. Most significantly, though, the shapes of some of the characters demonstrated, with great precision ‘to the educated observer’, the era in which the tablet had been inscribed. The curvature of the letter ζ (zeta), in particular, was, supposedly, a definitive indicator of its age.

Figure 12.2: The Parthenon Temple, dedicated to the goddess Athena

Once my pal had recovered from the verbal onslaught, he caught the eye of a solitary old man who was sitting nearby. Unable to speak each other’s language, the man, after gesturing for a pencil and paper, scribbled two words in perfectly-formed Greek letters.

A postcard arrived at my house the following week. On one side was a photograph of the Parthenon set against a clear blue sky. On the other, my pal had painstakingly copied:

ανθρωποθυρίδα κάλυψη

Please translate!

I am familiar with Greek letters, as is any halfway decent scientist, but had no idea as to the meanings of the words they comprised.

I sat at my laptop, opened the ‘Symbol’ section in Microsoft Word, and carefully strung together the two Greek words, before entering them into Google Translate. As I was copying and pasting each letter in turn, however, I wondered whether my pal had provided me with the correct letters in the correct sequence. How would I know? What if he had miscopied some of it? Written poorly, μ (mu), ν (nu) and υ (upsilon) could be indistinguishable. Just one omission or transposition could alter the whole word and hence its meaning. (In English, for example, friend is hardly the same as fiend.) Moreover, what if the old guy could not spell?

I hit the button. The English translation appeared. Eureka. Archimedes had just flooded the bathroom. I had certainly found it.

ανθρωποθυρίδα κάλυψη turned out to be Greek for ... ‘manhole cover’.

I almost fell off my chair. Of course, I cannot verify the old man’s opinion, although the evidence (see above) suggests that it was sound.

So, let me say to the pretentious bore who descended, without invitation, on my mild-mannered pal: you have demonstrated more than adequately the extent of your Classical knowledge. Now shut up, you fool.

Copyright 2010 Paul Spradbery

Thursday, September 09, 2010

Acróstico

Sometimes people look without seeing. I suspect you are doing so right now. For the quick mind, or those who see patterns where others perceive mere randomness, understanding such a concept should come easily. Two of the most enjoyable films I ever saw were The Usual Suspects (1995) and The Sixth Sense (1999). Both were littered with clues to the stories’ pivotal themes. In the former, a violent thriller, the central character, played by the Oscar-winning Kevin Spacey, relays a tissue of lies to his police interrogator. In so doing, he reveals all; but, by spinning such a complex yarn, the truth remains cleverly camouflaged in the foreground.

I think the same is true here, don’t you?

less dramatic is something I recall from my third year at university, back in the good old days of the late 1980s. A dear friend of mine – half-Indian, half-Danish – often visited my hall of residence to call on me before a lecture or seminar. Once, as I was explaining something on the way, I stopped abruptly and just stared at him.

yet I could not say why. He knew, for sure, but he was not letting on. Something or other was out of place. My bewilderment was subconscious. He knew as much, and, underneath the deadpan façade, was probably finding it quite amusing.

When we arrived at the lecture theatre, I scrutinized him for a few seconds. I had an inkling that something about him had changed. It was of a physical nature. He started laughing. By then, I knew that he knew that I had noticed. ‘What’s different?’ I asked, leaning towards him inquisitively.

young though he was – twenty or twenty-one at the time – I had always known him, over our first few years, to have a full moustache. That was it! He had shaved it off, under the orders, perhaps, of his new girlfriend.

maybe I ought to have noticed it immediately. He was a good friend whom I did, after all, see practically every day. Demonstrably, the human brain is not infallible. During real-time scenarios, the eyes see whatever they expect to see, not necessarily what is really there. Another example is a writer proof-reading his own work. He takes care, yet reads the lines, often many times, inserting words that are not actually there.

mentioned in the first paragraph were two films in which the truth was staring everyone in the face right from the beginning. Do you notice something similar here
?

Copyright 2010 Paul Spradbery

Monday, September 06, 2010

Digging Like A Dog

About nine years ago, some of my folks moved to the small town of Fairfax, Virginia, USA. It is a mere twenty-minute drive from Dulles Airport, on the outskirts of Washington, DC, so paying them a visit was a simple proposition. This part of the country is famous for having been the main battleground of the American Civil War (1861-5) (Figure 10.1). During my stay, therefore, we decided to take in some of its history, exploring the state and neighbouring West Virginia and Maryland.

Figure 10.1: Manassas National Battlefield Park, Prince William County, Virginia

Twenty-five miles southwest of Washington lies the small Virginian town of Clifton (Figure 10.2). By ‘small’, I refer to its current population of fewer than two hundred people. The place is delightfully unspoiled. In a store called Judy’s Junque, at 7144 Main Street, on August 16th, 2001, a lady asked me whether I was ‘a real limey’. Having never previously met one, she was utterly charming when I confirmed her suspicions.

Figure 10.2: Clifton, Fairfax County, Virginia

While peaceful and picturesque, however, Clifton’s principal claim to fame is one of America’s most enduring urban myths. I was unaware of its existence while I was there (Figure 10.3).

Figure 10.3: Exploring the town's Main Street

The legend goes something like this. At the turn of the 20th century, there was an ‘asylum for the insane’ just outside the settlement. As the population grew, in the aftermath of the Civil War, the inmates were transferred to nearby Lorton Prison. During the transfer, the bus was involved in a road accident and most of the prisoners were killed. Those that fled were soon rounded up – except for one. Douglas J. Grifen attempted to escape across the nearby Southern Railway overpass and was hit by a train. Afterwards, the police heard laughter from the other side of the tracks. In subsequent years, on Hallowe’en, his ghost, dressed in a rabbit suit – the so-called ‘Bunny Man’ – appears at the railway bridge (Figure 10.4) and mutilates revellers with an axe. The locals have also seen carcasses of skinned rabbits hanging from nearby trees on November 1st. What gripping stuff!

Figure 10.4: The 'Bunny Man Bridge' on Colchester Road

Nowadays, thanks to the Internet, looking into such tales is made easy. I decided, therefore, just for fun, to conduct my own research. I had to dig quite hard. When investigating any incident of a criminal nature, the best place to begin is the local police department. Any murders or mutilations carried out by a killer lunatic returning from the dead in a rabbit costume would surely have been classified as recordable incidents.

Surprise surprise, it turned out that nothing of the sort has ever occurred. Moreover, Fairfax County has never had an asylum, and Lorton Prison had not been built at the time of the purported bus crash. (Even if it had, it would have belonged to the District of Columbia, not to the state of Virginia.) Lastly, there is no official court record of either Grifon or his first ‘murder victim’, a man called Marcus Wallaster.

Facts certainly get under people’s feet, don’t they? Well, not under everyone’s. Each year on October 31st, locals congregate around the railway bridge, drinking, smoking and trying to frighten each other witless. Some leave minutes before midnight; others take their chances.

Perhaps I shall return at the end of next month. If no articles appear on this website in November, you will know the reason.

An urban myth? That is perhaps a little unfair – Clifton is in the country.

Wednesday, September 01, 2010

The Pilot Light

I wrote The Pilot Light (Figure 9.1) in 2002. It took about six months, which equates to fewer than 140 words per day – slow progress by anyone’s standards. After having the final draft read, and checked for typos, by a couple of very capable friends, I set about hunting for a suitable, not to mention reputable, publisher.

Figure 9.1: Front cover

The Writer’s Handbook (Figure 9.2) is, arguably, the best place to begin. As thick as a King James Bible, it is revised every year, as publishers come and go, but it provides a wealth of information regarding who deals with what. I noted the most relevant organizations and set about contacting them one by one. (It is considered unprofessional to approach two or more simultaneously.)

Figure 9.2: The WH: an excellent place to begin publication research

I was prepared for the inevitable stream of rejection letters. In his classic 1952 novel Matador, fellow hispanophile Barnaby Conrad (1922-) tells the story of a man who takes up bullfighting because of the unpredictability of being a writer. He preferred to face the bull’s horns than receive yet another rejection slip. His rationale was that at least he could run away from the bull!

My first instalment of bad news came from Transworld who claimed, simply, that their lists were ‘extremely full’. Hodder & Stoughton were even more blunt: they did not accept novellas, full stop. Apparently, hardly any British publishers did. I was slightly incredulous. Novellas are extremely popular in, for example, the United States; and, in today’s fast-moving world, surely shorter works would be ideal for readers with limited spare time?

To be fair, H & S did affirm their interest, but only if I were to increase the existing length (24,000 words) to that of a standard novel (120,000). I declined straight away. I felt that the story would ‘work’ only as a novella. It does, after all, focus on the events of a single weekend. Increasing its length fivefold, purely to conform to transient publishing conventions, seemed absurd. It made me wonder how many potential literary gems had fallen by the wayside as a result of short-sighted men in suits who knew everything about short-term marketing but little of the Arts themselves.

Orion were more positive. After sending them a synopsis, I was asked to submit three sample chapters. This amused me somewhat, as the story has only eight in total. In other words, they wanted to read a sample 37½%! Three weeks later, though, they confirmed their lack of interest.

Pipers’ Ash, who specialize in short books, described it as: ‘Beautifully written, as expected. We would not suggest that you compromise your style in any way.’ The stumbling block was the supposed lack of ‘crash-bang-wallop’ excitement, which today’s readers are deemed to demand. Back to the Handbook I went.

Further encouragement came from Tindal Street Press, who described the plot as ‘well thought-out’ and the writing ‘effective’. They, too, however, returned the typescript, along with the lament: ‘It is always hard to publish and successfully market a novella.’ To this day, I cannot understand why.

I have heard a number of authors state that their novels were accepted by the very last publisher they approached. (That much is surely self-evident: once accepted, why continue submitting the wretched thing elsewhere?) My own ‘very last publisher’ was Wordsmill & Tate, based in central London. Good news arrived in November 2003, by which time, however, the firm had been bought out by Pegasus. The editor’s appraisal still rings in my ears:

‘The text is very well written, with awareness of character and plot construction. Suspense is well created and achieved, with occasional clues for the observant reader. There is a strong sense of narrative voice, maintained throughout. The setting in Norfolk is well developed and visually created. The ending is crafted, giving the reader pause to consider the narrator’s dilemma. What a joy to read a text with so few errors and a real sense of style and pace.’

He also coined the phrase, ‘A 21st-century tragedy’, which I liked immediately, along with the poignant advertisement slogan, ‘A reminder that the most hideous tragedies are the preventable ones’ (Figure 9.3).

Figure 9.3: Promotional poster

As well as enjoying witnessing the publication process unfolding, it was fun being asked to give interviews (Figure 9.4) and contribute to short press articles (Figure 9.5).

One such piece, which I wrote for the Home Office’s quarterly magazine All Points North, cemented a couple of solid friendships. Editor Anthony Stone wrote: ‘This 38-year-old has a realistic take on where writers sit in the social hierarchy.’

This was in response to an article which I began:

‘Nobel Prize-winning author Sinclair Lewis once said that only in America was the successful writer indistinguishable from any other decent businessman. In other countries, art and literature are left to shabby bums living in attics and feeding on booze and spaghetti. In most cases, he is right. Worse still is that trying to impress a major publisher is a bit like skiing uphill. In this country, the only things most authors ever see in print are their own fingers. I am one of the fortunate few. Prior to publication, I was an unknown. After the release of The Pilot Light, I moved up to obscurity.’

Figure 9.5: Magazine article

Publication of the book has since been discontinued. To my amusement, the final royalty statement began: ‘Dear Mr Steel ...’ (?) Few copies remain commercially available. Amazon, for example, now lists it as ‘out of print’. At present, I have no plans for a second edition, but am nonetheless extremely happy with the overall response. Since 2004, The Pilot Light has sold more than 10,000 copies worldwide. Not bad for a novella!

A limited number of copies are still available on application by email to paul.spradbery@googlemail.com (£6.99). Additional information can be found at the following web addresses:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pilot-Light-Paul-Spradbery/dp/1843861348

http://openlibrary.org/works/OL9791963W/The_Pilot_Light

The Writer’s Handbook (2010) can be accessed online at:

http://www.thewritershandbook.com/