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The UK’s 2016 Little Rebels Award shortlist has been announced – and once again it sets a challenge for the judges… It presents a good mix of books for all ages. There are some big names among the books’ creators – and notable is Gill Lewis’s Gorilla Dawn, … Continue reading ... →
Stay Where You Are & Then Leave will appeal to middle grade readers interested in twentieth century history, life in England during World War I; also anyone who has had to deal with a parent changed by trauma.
I enjoyed writing the blog post Books with the word ‘Girl’ in the title so much, I thought I’d do one for books that have ‘boy’ in the title. At first glance, I thought this one might be easier, but let’s see how I go. The first book that comes to mind for me is […]
The 2014 Brisbane Writers Festival had an inspiring launch on Thursday night when author/publisher Dave Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, What is the What – about the lost boys of Sudan) told a full tent about the genesis of McSweeney’s publishing company and its 826 Valenica Writing Centres. The tutoring behind these pirate, […]
And if I were looking for more thought provoking books (as indeed I always am), I’d turn to the Little Rebels Children’s Book Award. Now in its second year, this is an award for radical fiction for children aged 0-12. Last year’s winner was the marvellous and moving Azzi in Between by Sarah Garland (my review can be found here), and this year’s winner will be announced in just a couple of week’s time.
The books shortlisted for this year’s award
The books, authors and illustrators in the running of the Little Rebels Children’s Book Award 2014 are:
I recently put a pretty tricky question to those authors who made it onto the shortlist:
If it were possible with a wave of a wand what would you change about the way the world works, to make it either more inclusive, less discriminatory, or a place which was more just and equitable?
Here’s how they replied…
Nicola Davies
Tricky. I have one practical thing and one that you really would need a magic wand for. The practical one is to make sure that every girl on the planet gets and education; women with confidence, education and power are the single biggest force for change.
And the magic wand one is to give all bankers, politicians, drug lords…all those in positrons of power over others to see the consequences of each of their actions on the wider world, as clearly as a movie and to feel them, as physical pain. I think that might be really helpful.
Deborah Chancellor
This one’s easy. I’d make sure half the people in every single profession were women. With my magic wand, fifty percent of all politicians, judges, business chiefs, religious leaders, generals (etc) would be female. Without a doubt, the world would be a fairer, more inclusive and generally more harmonious place. Perhaps one day we’ll make this utopia happen, but we’re still a long way off.
Andrea Beaty
I would create shoes that would transport people into the lives of others to show how their actions and attitudes affect other people. Many of the world’s problems would quickly straighten out if people who take advantage of others or inflict suffering upon others would have to walk a mile in the shoes of the people they disrespect, harm, or disregard. Perhaps Rosie Revere could invent the walk-a-mile shoes. She is very clever! Until we have walk-a-mile shoes, though, we have literature. It lets us each see the world through other people’s eyes. To walk a mile in their shoes. It gives us empathy. And that is more powerful than any magic wand.
An interior spread from Rosie Revere Engineer. Click for larger image.
Gillian Cross
If I could take one action to make the world fairer and more equal I would make education available and affordable for all children across the world, especially girls.
Gill Lewis
I would wave wand to enable us to be able to change our skin with people and animals…to walk a mile in their shoes…or hooves!
In Harper Lee’s story, To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus gives Scout a piece of moral advice;
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
Most prejudice or discrimination is born of ignorance, indifference and fear of the unknown. To truly understand another’s situation is to live their life, to see the world from their point of view. I would extend this to animals too, for us to live an animal’s life; to live as elephant, an eagle or a honeybee and to be able to see the adverse effects we humans have on the natural world and to understand the consequences of our actions.
Unfortunately we don’t have magic wands, but we have the next best thing…books!
Books transport us into other worlds and give us some insight and understanding of others’ lives.
Until I find that magic wand, I’ll keep reading and writing books!
************
Unfortunately Geraldine McCaughrean and John Boyne were not able to take part; I would have been very interested to hear what they might have chosen to do with a wave of a wand.
And as for me? What would I magic up? I found myself nodding wildly at all the responses above, but if I were to offer something different here’s what I might conjure up: If looking just at the bookworld, I’d get rid of gendered marketing and watch with great interest to see how it shakes up (or otherwise) book sales. On a bigger scale, I’d ban private car ownership, and invest massively in public transport. It would do wonders for not only environmental health, but also personal well being I believe. And if I could move mountains, I’d change how economies work so they don’t have to be predicated on consumption.
What would you do with a wave of your wand to make the world a better place?
Se7en's Fabulous Friday Fun #120 - se7en said, on 4/26/2014 5:46:00 PM
[…] Playing by the Book… made me want to buy a new book case… and this post must have been so much work to create: Rebellious Reading and other Audacious Acts. I love the author comments in this post. […]
Well, we’ve finally started this year’s Reading the World Challenge in our household!
As our together-read, we’re “doing” Europe at the moment. We’re about half way through Dickens’ Oliver Twist, which I’m really enjoying, since it’s a good few years since I read it, and the boys are revelling in. I suggested it because I was getting a bit fed up with continued allusions to Oliver via the musical Oliver! and felt (poor kids, purist that I am!) that they needed to get back to grass roots here… I did wonder if we were biting off a bit more than we could chew but in fact they are completely caught up by the narrative and Dickens would be happy with his effect on their social consiousness/consciences! It’s definitely proving to be one of those books that they wouldn’t read on their own but that, with frequent, unobtrusive asides to gloss the meanings of words, they are more than able to enjoy having read to them. It’s just very long and now that term-time is back in full swing, it’s hard getting the sustained reading time all together that we would like.
We have also read The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne (David Fickling Books, 2006). This is an extraordinarily powerful book about a nine-year-old German boy, Bruno, who becomes an unwitting witness of the Holocaust when his father becomes the Commandant of “Outwith” concentration camp (as Bruno mistakenly calls it), and who makes friends with a Jewish boy, Shmuel, on the other side of the perimeter fence. If you have read this breath-taking, punch-in-the-stomach book, do take a look at the discussion that Janet got underway here on PaperTigers on the Tigers Bookshelf. Although it says on the back cover that despite being a book about nine-year-olds, “this is not a book for nine-year-olds”, and I therefore, again, had some reservations of reading it with the boys, I was glad we did. Because we were reading it together (and not at bedtime – this is definitely not a book to read just before you go to sleep), we couldn’t read it in one sitting as has been recommended – but we all mulled over it deeply and all brought our own ages to it. I know that Little Brother’s nine-year-old perspective was very different to mine (as, indeed was Older Brother’s), but it was still valid; and I hope they will both read it again independently when they are older.
Little Brother’s own read was also focused on Europe with Starry Messenger: Galileo Galilei by Peter Sís – this is what he says about it:
I liked The Starry Messenger because you could always recognise Galileo in the pictures because there were always stars near him. Sometimes he was wearing them and sometimes he was drawing them in the sand. It was hard to rea
0 Comments on Reading the World Challenge – Update #2 as of 1/1/1900
We have deeply enjoyed hosting the Tiger’s Choice, the PaperTigers’ online bookgroup, over the past year–it introduced us to a number of interesting books, a group of authors whom we hadn’t read before, and a collection of new friends from around the globe who joined in our discussions.
Nancy Farmer, Uma Krishnaswami, Ken Mochizuki, Minfong Ho, Jane Vejjajiva, Julia Alvarez, John Boyne, Katia Novet Saint-Lot are all authors whom we plan to return to again and again for reading that expands our cultural horizons. As their body of work increases, the Tiger’s Bookshelf will be there–to read, to praise, to cheer them on.
We will however be doing this in another form rather than through the Tiger’s Choice. As exciting and rewarding as it has been to explore books through this avenue, we have new plans for the Tiger’s Bookshelf that do not include our bookgroup. We thank all of you who have read this portion of our blog, and who have joined in the discussions, and hope that you will continue to be part of the ongoing conversation that will take place on the PaperTigers Blog, and through the Tiger’s Bookshelf!
0 Comments on The Tiger’s Bookshelf: A New Incarnation as of 12/3/2008 12:46:00 AM
I haven't been able to keep up with my LJ lately, but just read in the SLJ that this book has been made into a movie. Chilling. Here' the link. I'm not sure if it will work or i you have to be signed up with SLJ to read it.
Since we are already in the middle of National Reading Group Month, our thoughts have turned to reading suggestions for book groups for young readers. At PaperTigers, we are deeply committed to books on multicultural subjects that bring differing cultures closer together. So of course the books on our little list are novels that we think will accomplish that, while they keep their readers enthralled and provide the nourishment for spirited book group discussions. Almost all of the suggested titles are in paperback editions and all should be available in libraries. Most of them have been reviewed by PaperTigers and one has been chosen by our own online bookclub, The Tiger’s Choice.
1. Beacon Hill Boys by Ken Mochizuki (Written for older readers, this novel explores teenage rebellion, parental expectations, and racial stereotypes with humor and perception. This is a perfect book for boys who are reluctant readers–by the end of the first page they’ll be hooked.)
2. On Thin Ice by Jamie Bastedo (Through entries in Ashley’s diary that she keeps while visiting family in an Inuit village, this book addresses the issue of climate change in Arctic Canada, where the polar bears are coming far too close for comfort.)
3. Woolvs in the Sitee by Margaret Wild (Who are the “woolvs” who terrify Ben and keep him sequestered in a place where he is safe from them? This is a title for older readers that falls into the realm of picture book/graphic novel, and one that will keep them reading.)
4. Kira Kira by Cynthia Kadohata (Winner of the 2005 Newbery Medal, this is a novel that takes a serious look at serious issues, through the lives of an extended Japanese-American family who are struggling in tough times.)
5. Cinnamon Girl: Letters Found Inside a Cereal Box by Juan Felipe Herrera (The tragedy of 9/11 as seen through the eyes and voice of thirteen-year-old Yolanda, whose uncle had “inhaled Twin Towers of dust,” while delivering flowers at the moment that the planes struck.)
6. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne (This is a book group selection for all ages, and when we chose it for our own book group, the discussion was thoughtful and lively–much to think about in this slender little volume.)
And there is our baker’s half-dozen–what suggested titles would you add to this little list? Let us know!
7 Comments on A little list that could be the start of something big, last added: 11/12/2008
Young Milly is the heroine in Julia Alvarez’s Finding Miracles, which was featured as our Tiger’s Choice last month. Born Milagros, and adopted by an American couple from an unnamed country in Latin America, Milly is in many ways a typical high school girl grappling with issues of identity. As Janet points out in her review of the book, “In her journey to learn how to be Milagros as well as Milly, this extraordinary young woman learns that family is an expandable concept.”
Whereas Milly’s tale isn’t “about adoption,” Julia Alvarez sensitively weaves in the theme around the book’s other topics—which makes it a very timely read for National Adoption Awareness Month, when we celebrate adoption as one of the special ways in which families are formed.
Adoption added complexity and depth to Milly’s journey of self-discovery, as it did to Joseph Calderaro’s personal quest in Rose Kent’s Kimchi & Calamari, about a Korean teen who was adopted as a child by Italian-American parents. Whereas Finding Miracles and Kimchi & Calamari don’t deal exclusively with issues of adoption, by portraying well-rounded, well-adjusted adopted teens they emphasize the true, positive nature of adoption and help dispel the stereotypes that abound in literature and the media. For these and many others reasons, I highly recommend them.
Click here for ideas on how to celebrate and advocate for children who have yet to find a loving family to be a part of, and check out Marjorie’s The Ties of Love post for more book ideas and resources on the theme. You don’t need be a member of the adoption community to appreciate and enjoy this celebration!
Janet said, on 11/5/2008 12:20:00 AM
Today the PaperTigers is thrilled to be part of Katia Novet Saint-Lot’s virtual book tour for her wonderful book, Amadi’s Snowman (Tilbury House). From her home in Hyderabad, India, Katia is spending this month visiting blogs around the world in interviews and photos, discussing her life as a writer and global nomad, and providing photos and drawings from children who have fallen in love with her irrepressible and insatiably curious creation, Amadi.
The drawings that preface our interview with Katia come from students in two fourth grade classes whom she met during a Hyderabad school visit.
These are children fluent in English, with Hindi and Telugu taught as second languages, who were quite interested when Katia told them that Amadi and his classmates are English speakers as well.
And as their delightful drawings plainly reveal, they became immersed in the Nigerian world of the small Igbo businessman and devoted reader in the making, Amadi!
Janet said, on 11/5/2008 12:21:00 AM
PaperTigers: Your life has been a tapestry of living in many cultures—in France, Spain, England, the United States, Nigeria, India. How has this helped you as a writer?
Katia: This is an interesting question. How does life in general help and/or affect us as writers? I would say every experience shapes us, and what [...]
Corinne said, on 11/6/2008 10:00:00 PM
In 1995 the Texas State University College of Education honored distinguished alumnus Dr. Tomas Rivera, by developing the Tomas Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award. This award honors authors and illustrators who create literature that depicts the Mexican American experience. It helps keep alive Dr. Rivera’s legacy in literature and works towards sustaining the vision he saw for the education of Mexican Americans in the United States. In addition it raises conscious awareness among parents, teachers, and librarians of this distinguished literature so these books can inspire, entertain, and educate all children both at home and at school.
The 2008 winner of the award is Los Gatos Black on Halloween by Marisa Montes and illustrated by Yuyi Morales. Written for children in grades K -5, Montes weaves Spanish words into the rhyming text and tells the story of black cats, witches, skeletons and other spooky creatures that march to a haunted casa on Halloween night. Once there the creatures enjoy a fiesta with music and dancing until there is a “RAP! RAP! RAP!” at the door. This causes the frightened spooks to hide, for “The thing that monsters most abhor/Are human niños at the door! Of all the horrors they have seen/ The WORST are kids on Halloween!”
Marisa and Yuyi were kept busy last week with Tomas Rivera Book Award ceremonies and book signings! On Thursday, October 30th, they were honored at a special luncheon held at the university president’s home where they received their award prize and plaque. Later in the day, accompanied by a mariachi band, they attended the Author/Illustrator Presentation on campus.
The next day, as part of the Texas Book Festival Reading Rock Stars Program, the Tomás Rivera Committee selected a public school in Austin and bought every student a copy of Los Gatos Black on Halloween with the award seal on the cover. Yuyi and Marisa did a presentation at the school and the students were thrilled to get their books signed.
The whirlwind weekend of festivities continued on Nov 1st, when Montes and Morales participated in the Texas Book Festival by giving the Tomás Rivera Award reading session and then signing books for festival attendees. Click here to watch it on Youtube !
PaperTigers will continue to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month until mid November.
Sally said, on 11/8/2008 1:01:00 AM
Tonight I read Shin-chi’s Canoe by Nicola Campbell, illustrated by Kim LaFave to my daughter. The story is a follow-up to Campbell’s earlier book Shi-shi-etko which narrates the story of a young aboriginal girl, Shi-shi-etko, as she is separated from her family at the age of six to attend a residential school. In Shin-chi’s Canoe, Campbell returns to the same family but now it is time for Shi-shi-etko’s brother, Shin-chi to go to the same school with his sister. Shin-chi is given a little carved canoe as a parting gift from his father and the boat will serve as a reminder during the cold cruel months ahead of a request Shin-chi has made of his father: namely, to build a dugout canoe for him when he returns home at the beginning of summer.
When this book arrived at our house, my daughter was immediately taken by it. She and her classmates were all building boats to be launched at a nearby creek. Can I show this book to my teacher? She asked right away. But we haven’t read it yet, I said. We’ll read it tonight, I promise. At bedtime we curled up into bed and read Shin-Chi’s Canoe. My daughter remained silent through the reading and at the end, she made a comment that struck me. While I concentrated mostly on the social injustice of the aboriginal residential school experience, my daughter remembered instead the request Shin-chi made of his father, namely, the promise that he would have his own canoe by the end of that first year away at school. See, his Daddy’s making the canoe just like Shin-chi asked, my daughter said. Quite frankly, caught up as I was with the bigger social issue presented by the book, I had forgotten that simple request. I was amazed and humbled by my daughter’s observation. Truly, children have their own unique perspective. That is why reading to them at bedtime can be so hugely rewarding.
Incidentally, November is National American Indian Heritage Month in the United States. The story of Shin-chi and Shi-shi-etko is a great way to start educating young people about the history of aboriginal childrens lives in North America.
Janet said, on 11/9/2008 1:49:00 AM
Readers of our blog may have noticed a new name as a byline for Books at Bedtime–one whom we are delighted to have as one of our PaperTiger team. Sally Ito is a Canadian poet, novelist, book reviewer, teacher, devoted children’s literature aficionada, and mother of two children whom she reads to regularly.
Sally will alternate with Marjorie in writing this popular PaperTigers feature, and in the weeks that she doesn’t present Books at Bedtime, she will chat with us about poetry for children, books that she loves, and –perhaps– how she has turned her family into a book group!
Welcome to the PaperTigers Blog, Sally–we’re so happy that your talent has been added to our ranks.
Janet said, on 11/11/2008 4:45:00 AM
Sometimes the simplest remark can be the most transforming. “Perhaps, sir, you will come back with books,” a Nepalese headmaster said to John Wood, a vacationing Microsoft employee, as they stood in a school library that had twenty books that “were all backpacker cast-offs.” Haunted by the thought of children who might never know the joy of reading, Wood returned home and spent a year gathering children’s books. He went back to the headmaster with 3,000 volumes and a new direction for his life. John Wood decided that bringing books to children who have none was his vocation and Room to Read was born, as he tells readers in Leaving Microsoft to Change the World.
Wood put together an organization with staff who share his dream and his passion, aided by a fundraising network of more than 3,000 people. The core programs of Room to Read are the Reading Room which has built 5,600 libraries, Local Language Publishing which publishes and distributes books written both in English and the local language, the School Room which works with local communities to build schools with 444 in use, the Room to Grow Girls’ Scholarship that enables 4,000 girls to complete their secondary education, and the Computer and Language Room which builds computer and language labs.
Found in India, Sri Lanka, Zambia, South Africa, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, Room to Read is vitalized by donations and volunteers, who have discovered how they can help by going to www.roomtoread.org. All share a common goal—to have built 10,000 libraries by 2010.
Scheduled half-day visits to a Room to Read site are welcome with advance arrangement.
One man, one dream, 3,000 books– one optimistic remark changed a life and consequently thousands of lives are being changed through the power of reading and the joy of literacy, all over the world.
John Boyne says that he likes it when people read The Boy in the Striped Pajamas “in one or two sittings, over a couple of hours maybe…Because that, in a way, is how I wrote it.” That’s exactly the way I read this book, without stopping, in an hour or two, because once I began I couldn’t stop. Did this book pull you in from the first page, or did it take time before you were completely absorbed? If so, what part first pulled you in to the story?
Bruno incompletely understands the world around him and expresses his lack of understanding through puns. Was this something that enhanced the story for you or did it annoy you?
Do you think Bruno is a realistic portrayal of a nine-year-old boy, or is he young for his age? Do you think nine-year-olds today are more mature, and if so, why?
Why did Lieutenant Kotler disappear?
Do you think that Shmuel intended for Bruno to return home from their final meeting?
This is a book that left me yearning to talk about it. Please respond with your own questions and observations so we can continue this discussion next week.
0 Comments on The Tiger’s Choice: Talking About the Boy as of 6/18/2008 4:16:00 PM
My friend Holly who is an ardent and gifted bookseller of children’s literature put The Boy in the Striped Pajamas into my hands when I asked her which recently-read children’s book resonated and lingered with her long after she had put it down. She is a woman whose taste is beyond impeccable so I took her recommendation home with me, read it, and months later am still haunted by it.
Because it is a book that falls outside of the usual geographical boundaries that mark books recommended and reviewed by Papertigers, and because it is a disturbing work of fiction, I didn’t immediately feature it as a Tiger’s Choice for children and adults to read together. Then I talked to my friend and colleague Corinne about it. She immediately read it and gave it to her eleven-year-old son, so they could discuss it, and I begged to be part of their conversation when it took place.
And that clinched it–if this book had this effect on Holly, Corinne and me, all women of different ages and backgrounds, and if Corinne instantly passed it on to her son, it is a book that merits discussion by a wider audience–and here we are.
I think the author would be happy to know that it has been chosen as a book for both adults and children to talk about in a forum where everyone has equal footing. John Boyne remarked in the interview at the end of The Boy in the StripedPajamas, “I’m not entirely sure I know what the difference is between a children’s book and an adults’ book,” and then quotes a friend’s question, “What is Treasure Island?”
There will be no questions posed about this book until we begin to discuss it after June 15th because it is crucial that we all come to our own conclusions in our very own ways. In explaining why it is a book that has world-wide importance, John Boyne says, “Fences such as the one in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas still exist; it is unlikely that they will ever fully disappear.” Perhaps if enough people talk about this book, and other novels that address the same issue, we may someday live in a world without fences.
0 Comments on The Tiger’s Choice: Meeting The Boy in the Striped Pajamas as of 6/10/2008 4:14:00 PM
Bruno is miserable.He’s a nine-year-old explorer with nothing to explore and no friends. His family has been moved from their comfortable, spacious house in Berlin to a place that is small and isolated. Nobody lives nearby except for a large number of people behind a long fence, whom Bruno can see at a distance from his bedroom window, and the soldiers whom his father oversees. It’s a dismal, gloomy place and Bruno wants nothing more than to leave it and go back home to Berlin.
Everyone, from his parents to his annoying older sister to the maid who has known him since birth, assure Bruno that this is impossible, but nobody will tell him why. So Bruno decides it’s time to explore his surroundings, as unprepossessing as they appear to be.
As he enters the outside world, mysteries present themselves. Why is the old man who helps him when he falls from his tire swing now a waiter when he used to be a doctor? Why don’t any of the people whom he can see from his window, the ones who live behind the fence, ever visit his family? And who is the boy dressed in striped pajamas on the other side of the fence who becomes Bruno’s only friend?
There are many questions in this book, and many of them continue to go unanswered when the end has been reached.
Is it a children’s book? No. Is it a book for adults?
“No. It’s a book,” the author tells us, “It’s a story.”
That it is, and it’s one that readers of all ages will want to discuss. Let’s talk.
0 Comments on The Tiger’s Choice: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas as of 5/20/2008 12:59:00 PM
We’re still receiving comments on this month’s Tiger’s Choice, Naming Maya. Please add your thoughts about this wonderful novel before the discussion ends at the end of May. And if you are eager to read additional fiction that will complement Uma Krishnaswami’s work, Sherry York has just published Ethnic Book Awards: A Dictionary of Multicultural Literature for Young Readers, which includes a reader’s guide to Naming Maya.
Next month we will go to historical fiction that will awaken a whole new arena of conversation, we hope. For those who would like to find the book in advance of the discussion, the book will be The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne. Originally published in Great Britain, this novel is available in paperback and is a Young Reader’s Choice Award nominee in my corner of the world. It’s also showing up on quite a few adult book group displays, and will be our focus in June.
0 Comments on The Tiger’s Choice: Nearing the End of the Discussion as of 5/13/2008 3:50:00 PM
It is useful to imagine the book as two funhouse mirrors facing one another. --Waggish
We often pretend to be objective about books when writing about them, but such objectivity is obviously a lie, and I would be foolish to continue that lie when writing about a book that has affected me in such a particular way as The Affirmation has. I am not so much going to describe what I think the book will do to you as what it did to me.
What it does to you ... well, for that you're on your own.
A saying of Leonard's comes into my head in this season of complete inanity and boredom. "Things have gone wrong somehow." It was the night C. killed herself. We were walking along that silent blue street with the scaffolding. I saw all the violence and unreason crossing in the air: ourselves small; a tumult outside: something terrifying: unreason -- shall I make a book out of it? It would be a way of bringing order and speed again into my world. --Virginia Woolf diary, 25 May 1932
An aside: I read The Affirmation at a time when writing had become, in various ways, difficult for me. First and generally, there was the lack of time. My life had changed. I had less time than ever before for myself, partly because I had changed jobs and learning a new job is immensely time-consuming and exhausting, and partly because I had changed where I lived, and learning a new life is equally time-consuming and exhausting.
While the volume of all of my writing and reading had decreased substantially, my writing of fiction had nearly stopped. I was used to dry spells -- fiction does not come naturally to me, and that is one reason I get more pleasure from completing a new story than from anything else -- but a year and a half without finishing a single new story, without ever writing more than a page of fiction that seemed even remotely promising -- this was a new experience. When I finally finished a very short story, I hoped it would lead to an outpouring of other stories: pent-up, gestated, waiting in the wings. It did not.
There are, I'm sure, many reasons for my inability to continue writing fiction, the form that has until now been the most constant in my life, the form that offers the greatest challenges. The reason that I've found most interesting, though, and the one that offers at least some hope of breaking through the wall is this: I felt that I had reached a point where if I continued to tell the sorts of stories I told, I would repeat myself. Almost all of the fiction I could stand for the general public to see found a publisher of some sort. Some of it gained attention and praise, some of it was criticized, some of it was misunderstood, some of it was ignored. But it was out there. Much of what I had written ever since childhood had been variations on a limited set of themes; I made one variation after another in an attempt to get it right, to find the best form. And then I reached a limit. I could no longer envision other forms -- I'd found ones that worked for me, I'd done my best with them, I'd reached an end where I could not imagine any more progress, only reiteration, and I felt no passion for that. To write again, I would need to find new material or new forms or, preferably, both. (No, I have not found either yet. I have seen glimpses, though.)
We treat the past as real insofar as present existence has been conditioned or generated by it. The more indirect the causal derivation of the present from a particular past becomes, the weaker the past becomes, the more it sinks toward a dead past. --J.M. Coetzee, "Time, Tense, and Aspect in Kafka's 'The Burrow'" in Doubling the Point
The Affirmation begins with the narrator, Peter Sinclair, asserting the things he says he knows for sure: His name, the fact that he is English, and his age (29 years old). Except: "Already there is an uncertainty, and my sureness recedes. Age is variable; I am no longer twenty-nine."
I was prepared for the uncertainty. I desired it. I had read (and reviewed) the novel Christopher Priest wrote after The Affirmation, The Glamour, and the uncertainties at its core had provided, I thought, a thrilling reading experience: the experience of never being on solid narrative ground. (The straightforward tone and style made this experience more profound than the tricks of many more obviously "experimental" novels ever had for me.) I had also read Priest's more recent (and most famous) novel, The Prestige, which is often masterful, but nonetheless disappointed me with what felt like a tidy resolution. The plot trumped the metaphysics, and I'll always prefer metaphysics to plot. The Affirmation, I thought from reading various comments about it, would be closer to the purity of The Glamour.
The Affirmation, it turns out, is even more pure on a meta(-physical)(-fictional) level than The Glamour, and this time its thrills were more unsettling to me. Peter Sinclair, it turns out, is writing a manuscript in an attempt to figure himself out. He has lost his girlfriend and his job, and he settles down to work at a cottage owned by his aunt and uncle, who have asked him to fix the place up a bit.
All seems fine until suddenly we discover that Peter's version of reality is not shared by other characters, and the moment this becomes clear -- when his sister offers a very different view of his existence than he has given us so far -- was, for me, so jolting I set the book down for a week.
For some reason or another, I had bought into Peter's version of events so completely that to have that version undermined was disturbing to me, and I had to get distance from the book. It was a pleasurable sort of disturbance mostly, and one that led me to be even more impressed with what Christopher Priest had wrought than I'd been before, because it's rare that a novel ever tricks me quite so fully, particularly when I know the author's proclivities and have even sought out the book for just this sort of trick. I had been expecting the narrator to be unreliable, but I hadn't expected him to be unreliable in this particular way.
"Give it back to me," I said at last. "I don't want you to read any more."
"I've got to," she said. "I've got to understand."
But time passed and not much was clear to her. She started asking me questions:
"Who is Felicity?"
"What are the Beatles?"
"Where is Manchester, Sheffield, Piraeus?"
"What is England, and which island is it on?"
"Who is Gracia, and why has she tried to kill herself?"
--The Affirmation
After the early shock, the rest of the novel was, in some ways, a let-down, because nothing in the rest of it would be as powerfully unsettling for me. Indeed, some parts would prove to be simply boring. Like The Glamour, the writing is flat and straightforward, which is often a strength (for misdirection, at least, since the sentences are so generally bland that they can not call attention to themselves) and sometimes a weakness (because sometimes blandness is just bland).
The last pages of The Affirmation do not provide the sort of shock the last pages of The Glamour do, because the kind of recontextualization of the narrative that these pages offer is easy enough to predict. What makes The Affirmation powerful is not its surprises, which are mostly superficial, but rather its unified uncertainty. It is a novel that is nothing other than itself; it is a hermetic structure. We cannot know what is "real" except the words that are provided for us. The book seems to reference a recognizable reality, but then it undermines that reference by positing other realities, and never settles obviously for one or the other. Everything could be a delusion. Everything is a delusion: the delusion that is fiction. We cannot choose what is true or what is imagined, because both are presented with the same techniques.
If the pages had become unworded, if the story was now untold, then it meant I could start again.
--The Affirmation
Blankness. Emptiness. Possibility. Nothing.
End? Beginning? Real? Unreal?
There's no way to know. Peter tells a story about seeing a room differently from his sister. But Peter tells many stories. He tells stories about islands we have never heard of and distant wars we didn't know existed. He tells stories, too, about places whose names we recognize and events we know happened in the world we think we live in, the past we call real, the one that created our present.
Peter tells stories so that he may try to find himself, find some truth, remember something that was somehow lost, bring life to the dead past. He tries again and again. The something remains lost, the past stays dead.
He does not know who he is. Nor do we. All we have are words.
7 Comments on The Affirmation by Christopher Priest, last added: 11/19/2007
He does not know who he is. Nor do we. All we have are words.
And they have us knowing it or not.
thanks for this insight into a book yourself (mmmh, that's a declension methinks) from of my favourite writers
Genevieve said, on 11/15/2007 11:05:00 AM
This is a wonderful post; I like a book review that tells me more about the reader than the book.
mr waggish said, on 11/15/2007 12:47:00 PM
A wonderful evocation of this elusive novel. For me it was strange in that the novel resisted identification precisely because it is so solipsistic, and any attempt to touch the narrator's world is revealed to be an illusion. Things keep collapsing inward on themselves. The effect it had on me was vertiginous in a way that I associate with Philip Dick's best work, though he achieves it through entirely different means, and draws more metafictional effects out of it.
Matthew Cheney said, on 11/15/2007 9:49:00 PM
Yes, vertiginous! And PKD is very much what I thought of, too -- particularly the effect the end of Ubik had on me.
gothsheep said, on 11/18/2007 3:36:00 PM
Frankly I could not pay attention to this review after reading about your decision. For you not to write fiction, I can only imagine this must be one of the bleakest of times for you. As an avid follower of your work, I feel adrift and stunned. Also shocking was the single comment regarding your painful revelation. I know the literary world is harsh-but really do only thugs read this??? Is it just too much to be believed?
Matthew Cheney said, on 11/19/2007 6:14:00 AM
I appreciate the concern -- my struggles with completing any fiction mostly have to do with having had a rather overbusy and unsettled life for a while now. That won't be getting any better in the immediate future, but I'm thinking of ways to adjust and change my life to bring more balance and, hopefully, a return to that most difficult and yet rewarding form of writing.
meika said, on 11/19/2007 12:56:00 PM
hey, I was sympathising, I've just given up writing and taken up sculpture, much more rewarding, and it seems I can sell it.
Any recommendations on books for newborns?
Great blog!
http://www.thedadnetwork.co.uk
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