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Masterpiece, or Not?

8/26/2012

I've just finished reading Julian Barnes novel, The Sense of an Ending, which I really enjoyed for a number of reasons. One of the reviews listed on the back cover describes it as a masterpiece.

Which made me start wondering just what is a masterpiece. We all have our own opions and it is a matter of taste, but one thing's for sure, book reviewers have to be really careful about using such words (they're entitled to their opinion of course), because such high praise can only lead to high expectations among readers.

And if these are not met, you are not only disappointed with the read but also then question its validity and potentially any other reviews from the same source.

That said, I really enjoyed the book, which is published by Vintage Press, it's a simple story and deceptively easy to read. It's told from the perspective of a man who's looking back on his life and dealing with things that happened at university (by and large) and the impact of those times on him (and a few other people) now.

It's also to do with memories, and how these change with time, and how they become less certain as we age. Amateur writers such as myself can learn a lot from how the book's written. For example, you don't have to write 100k words to tell a story or for your work to be valid; the story can be low key - you don't have to have tons of actions or plot twist: simplicity can be your friend.

But as much as I enjoyed it, it's not a masterpiece in my opinion. A couple of indisputable masterpieces for me are Cormac McCarthy's The Border Trilogy and Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast.

These books take you deep inside the story, far, far away from the here and now. Then they bury you in words and ideas, they are poetic and imaginative in ways that take you can never expect. They lead you away from yourself whilst simultaneously taking you deep inside yourself.

And when you've finished reading you are changed: the book is tattooed on your psyche. You are still savouring and thinking about them a year later and wondering how much more time has to pass before you've forgotten enough to start reading them again.

That, for me, is the difference between a masterpiece and a damn good read.
Cheers.

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It's All About Inspiration

8/23/2012

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Welcome to IAAY number ten!

This week it's all about Australian guitarist Lincoln Brady, someone who not only performs other people's work (and pushes the boundaries of the classical repertoire off the edge of the planet), but also composes his own work. As a guitarist myself, I take my hat off to anyone who does both.

IAAY is published every Wednesday (yes, all of them), so there's plenty of time for you to join in too! Contact me via the comments section or via Twitter: @mickdavidson.

It’s All About Lincoln Brady
It’s All About Jan Freidlin

Hello, my name is Lincoln Brady and I am a classical guitarist living and working in Adelaide, South Australia. I’d like to talk about several artistic projects I’ve been involved with over the past four years.

During this time I’ve worked with the excellent Russian-born,Israeli composer - Jan Freidlin - premiering several of his new compositions for guitar:

Freidlin is a very prolific composer with a very poetic but accessible style. The above compositions are very different in terms of emotional content revealing a broad-ranging imagination and a great technical proficiency.

’Moon Triptych’ is kind of ‘serenade’ to the moon but with a deeply ‘existential’ feel. ‘TangO’ Clock’ is a musical description of ‘a day in the life of a tango dance teacher’, as revealed in the titles of the 5 movements: ‘Entrada at Sunrise’, ‘Morning Milonga’, ‘Tanghitta at Noon’, ‘Evening Tango-Vals’, and ‘Final at Night’.

“Five Venetian Glass Poems” is yet another contrasting piece – a meditation on the special poetry of the amazing glass-Art exhibits of Venice. The video clip of this suite is hosted on the website of the "Murano Museo del Vetro” (a museum in Venice).

Each of my interpretations of these pieces appear on Youtube with exquisite picture sequences organised by the composer himself.

Last year, at my request, Freidlin generously composed and dedicated a piece for my guitar & flute duo (DUO ORFEO) called “Delphic Music Games in Three Events” for guitar & flute & woodblocks - it was premiered at the Adelaide International Guitar Festival on 9th August, 2012.

It’s All About Me

This year I’ve also resumed writing a composition project of my own – “Six Preludios” for solo guitar. They are written in a mainly traditional and romantic style. Although they have fairly formal musical structures they have a ‘personal’ tone – written more for pleasure rather than attempting to make a big statement. I gave them Italian titles which just seemed appropriate and which alluded to classical music tradition:

‘Preludio Misterioso’ is probably the best one and it is my favourite. This piece uses a rapid right hand arpeggio technique which is used in many classical guitar compositions.

It was inspired by a piece by the American progressive- Rock band ‘Spastic Ink’ which only uses two pitches and lasts for an amazing four minutes! This technique is also used in classical music composition.

It’s called ‘Limited Pitch Class Set’ - the composer restricts himself to a small selection of pitches forcing himself to rely on other musical parameters such as rhythm, harmony, tone colour to create interest. My piece, though, employs five pitches, two chords, and lasts only two minutes!

You can find links to more of Lincoln's performances of pieces by other composers on his website.

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It's All About Inspiration

8/15/2012

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Welcome to IAAY number nine!

This week it's all about British writer and editor, Marian Newell, whose first novel was inspired by childhood memories of the Cinque Ports and their lurid smuggling folklore.

IAAY is published every Wednesday (yes, all of them), so there's plenty of time for you to join in too! Contact me via the comments section or via Twitter: @mickdavidson.

It’s All About Marian Newell
It’s All About Charles Dickens

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (1859)

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.’

This must be one of the greatest closing lines in fiction, quite an achievement when you remember that the book has a cracking opening line too. The words moved me to tears when I first read them in my late teens, and the nobility of the protagonist’s sacrifice retains its power for me still.

This book shaped my taste in fiction, making me seek grand themes and psychological depth. Most of all, it piqued my interest in motivation. I want to get to know characters as if they were real people, and I want to understand what they want and why they act as they do.

One of the grand themes in this story is redemption. It asks whether a worthless life can be redeemed by a single noble act. It also invites us to consider whether the sacrifice has less value because the life is worthless, a burden to the man who sacrifices it.

The quoted words are finely crafted, using the literary device anaphora — the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses. This occurs throughout the book and underlines the recurring theme of doubles. There are the two cities of the title and the two characters so alike that they can be repeatedly mistaken for one another.

For me, though, the power of the quote is in the satisfying resolution it gives to the story. An ending that might have been unbearably sad is lifted by the fact that death holds no fear. There is utter confidence that the path taken will leave everyone, including the man who forfeits his life, better off.

A sense of closure remains important to me. I often find stories that end ambiguously to be unsatisfying. While recognising that there is value in personal interpretation, I usually prefer to know what the storyteller means rather than to discover my own meaning in their work.

It’s All About Me

A Devil’s Dozen by Marian Newell (2012)

This, my debut novel, is a fictionalised account of real events. It describes the rise and fall of a smuggling gang that operated on the Kent coast in the 1820s. The tale demanded a strong focus on historical detail and actual incidents but my own interest was more in the nature of the fourteen viewpoint characters. I wanted to use fiction as a tool to look beyond the recorded facts.

It struck me that any group of that size includes a variety of people, doing similar things but for a range of reasons. Having read as much as I could about the time and place, I considered how the men might have differed in their backgrounds and circumstances. The motivations of the characters that I created range from need to greed, from the wildly irrational to the coldly calculated.

My story is unlike A Tale of Two Cities in that it has a factual core and doesn’t impose specific themes on what took place. However, and with no comparison to Dickens’ mastery of the form, I do see ways in which my work was influenced by his. Much of the impact of the sacrifice in A Tale of Two Cities comes from its unexpected source. Our expectations are often confounded: people we consider reliable may let us down, while people we dismiss may surprise us. I tried to cast against type when I allocated actions derived from contemporary local rumours to the individuals I had characterised.

Returning to endings, the optimism of mine certainly owes a debt to his. I was mindful of the importance of opening and closing chapters and considered my personal favourites. It was Rebecca (‘Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.’) and A Tale of Two Cities that sprang to mind.

My manuscript originally ended on a reflective and slightly sad note. During the editing process, I revised it to conclude in a more forward-looking way:

‘You sees that, boys? Paul? Tommy? You sees it?’

Tommy looked at Pierce, who closed his mouth and swallowed. They all stared at each other for a moment or two, then Pierce cleared his throat and shouted back.

‘We see it. By Christ, Quacks, we all see it.’

I had lacked the confidence to stop at this point but feedback made me realise that cutting what came afterwards would make the ending stronger. Readers would be able to see what the future held, just as my characters were seeing it.

I wonder if Dickens knew all along that his story would end with the uplifting sentiment we read in the final version. I suspect he probably did.

Book’s website
Buy it on Amazon

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It's All About You

8/8/2012

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Welcome to IAAY number eight!

This week it's all about British writer, Christina Cummings, who is one of the driving forces behind the Winchester writing group Pencils And What-Not.

IAAY is published every Wednesday (yes, all of them), so there's plenty of time for you to join in too! Contact me via the comments section or via Twitter: @mickdavidson.

It's All About Christina Cummings
It’s all about Everything
When I agreed to take part in IAAY, I hadn't predicted that, to my frustration, I would discover that everything I thought I knew and everything I’ve known would vie for my attention, so that to take just one aspect and offer it up as my inspiration would be to dishonour all the rest. It’s definitely part of my nature to want to gather up life’s wonders, like so many flowers and then not let go.

On deeper thought, some of the stems have fallen from my grasp and petals that once brought joy or solace, have dried up, lost to that place inside that exists just beyond memory. There are recollections more fresh than some, but nevertheless integral to my soul where inspiration nourishes me like rainfall.

I am not going to opt out altogether, or dodge this question for one simple reason: To know that which has driven me thus far. In questioning what inspires me, I question myself.

So, where does my inspiration lie? My answer is this: in everything.

Because I am a writer, however, I think mention here of just three of the many works I’ve read that have over my lifetime allowed the quiet seed to grow, is to give tribute to the symbiotic love affair which only writers and readers know.

The Women’s Room by Marilyn French
If you give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff
The Tie that Binds by Kent Haruf

It’s All About Me
My first manuscript is entombed upon a floppy disc. It dates back from the early 90’s when I was living in Philadelphia’s now hip and trendy Northern Liberties. Typing with fumbled fingers, I began the purge that underpins the need to tell a story. As the word count whirled, it was as though I were the captain of a ship, steering my crew to a safe harbour. Each tiny bit of action, each character was at the mercy of my helm. Or so I thought. What actually occurred was a mutiny. The moment they were christened, or given a voice, they guided me until on a ‘good writing day’ we were all in it together.

The synopsis wasn’t something I’d really thought about, but it was to be a story of unrequited love set in the deserts of Jordan. It seemed right to base the plot on what I knew, and the memory of spending a night near Petra with stars for blankets and a pillow of stone was the catalyst for what was the opening scene.

However this unfinished first manuscript remains hidden even from me now, as I can’t view it and had never printed it off. Of this fact, I'm glad – I’m sure the naivety of my prose would make me blush.

The piece of writing I have chosen for IAAY, however, is a more recent foray. The years in the interim have been rich with extremes and there have been days I’d forgotten how to write. But there are good days too. This excerpt is from a novel that I'm working on, for which my daily inspiration is the resolute and unwavering regard for life that I have, over time, learned from my mother, in order to survive.

“Autumn is for mushroom picking. Eidel wandered the woods, keeping her eyes down. The basket she carried, was the one her mother used to keep the laundry in once she’d unpegged it from the line ~ she used to tie the rope from the cornice of the caravan to a nearby tree or fencepost, and for as long as they camped in that spot, clothes would flutter like bunting along the length of it. Now, over half a century later, on a warm day, if Eidel leaned in close, she liked to imagine that she could still inhale the floral pleats of her mother’s skirts and with that breath she would picture her mother folding cotton sheets and smoothing down hems with hennaed fingers, smiling, happy at work. Her mother had never known how to feel otherwise.“
©Christina Cummings 2012

You can find out more about Christina at the following:

www.pencilsandwhat-not.com
Twitter: @PencilsWhat

Bio:
Chester-born Christina nursed, taught and sang her way around the world. Now living in Winchester, she is the mother of two amazing children, who still listen to her stories. She is currently wrestling with a novel.

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It's All About You

8/1/2012

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Welcome to IAAY number seven!

This week it's all about Australian writer, calligrapher, artist and, as if that wasn't enough, Olympic cycle trainer, Graham McArthur. Oh yes, did I mention he plays the guitar a bit too and released three music CDs ?

IAAY is published every Wednesday (yes, all of them), so there's plenty of time for you to join in too! Contact me via the comments section or via Twitter: @mickdavidson.

It's All About Graham McArthur
It’s all about My Father
I grew up surrounded by letters. Lettering was everywhere inside and outside the house. My father was a sign writer and calligrapher although he never used the label. He worked from home and there were large signs in the driveway and in the ‘shed’ where he spent most of his time. Small stuff was made inside wherever there was room. Works on paper, wood panels, scrolls, plaques, heraldry, photo mounts etc were stacked against the walls and on chairs and any available flat surface including the floor. The dinning room became his inside studio for 360 days of year (it only functioned as a dining room at Christmas). As a small pre-school boy this is the room I spent most of each day in.

I can not remember a time I did not draw. For obvious reasons most of my drawings contained letters. My father thought that if I was drawing letters, I should draw them correctly. From the age of five and before I learnt to read, he had me drawing Roman Capitals in pencil on a daily basis (up to about age 11-12). My love of letters has never lessened.

It was many, many years later that learnt to appreciate just how much he taught me and how skilled he really was. I still have a few leaves of gold leaf from those early years of learning to brush letter and gild on glass, wood and leather all before I learnt to read.

Unfortunately nothing has survived except 2-3 leaves of gold. I can only imagine how bad those early letters were, but the memories are what is important and much more precious than any physical reminders.

It’s All About Me
I left art school early to pursue a career in fine art. After an inaugural sell out exhibition I spent a few years painting portraits and landscapes. This drove me insane and so I turned to commercial illustration eventually working as an illustrator and typographer for a printing and publishing house during the early 1970’s. By the mid 70’s I was freelancing and have been freelancing ever since.

Three years ago I accepted a full time job offer and have pulled back from illustration somewhat. Today my interests and work is varied and broad. I still love letters and lettering, calligraphy and type design. These precious things will never leave me. I still love to draw and paint and have learnt late in life to appreciate abstract art and all its singular challenges. I now understand just how important my often tedious and repetitious classical training in drawing, painting and lettering is in creating a sound foundation from which one can have the freedom of choice in pursuit of experimentation and discovering the new. Without that training you have little to nothing from which to stand on or leave behind.

I made my first guitar in circa 1990 because I could afford to buy a good instrument. Its is a terrible instrument but it taught me much. Ten years after that my guitar workshop became my daughter’s bedroom and guitar making was transferred to the shed where it remains with an ever growing hunger to re-establish warmer and more pleasant surroundings befitting its stature and importance to my life. Of course I play terribly and one should always wear ear muffs when I am near an instrument.

Music is of course extremely important to me and is a big part in my daily life. A recently developed passion for electronic soundscapes and experimental music genres has almost become an obsession, well OK, I will admit it is an obsession.

Sorry can’t help it. My third CD was thrown at the world a few days ago.

When not following the above distractions I find a strange comfort it reading and writing. My fantasy novel ‘Mironmure’, which began life some 15-20 years ago is as stagnant as always, but not forgotten. I am still working on it - honest. The other novel is going much better and I am hopeful it will be finish with in the next 12 months. This time I have taken to crime with the aid of a rather socially inept and reclusive artist who has become very pissed off and annoyed at a certain individual who steals artworks and kills people. Can’t say any more on that.

I must not leave without mentioning the bike, its always about the bike. Cycling is in my blood and its a sport I love dearly. Three athletes I introduced to the sport and coached in their formative years are riding for Australia in the Olympics. I am very excited about that.

You can find out more about Graham at the following:

* All art work (C) Graham McArthur

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Masterpiece, or Not?

It's All About Inspiration

It's All About Inspiration

It's All About You

It's All About You

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