Some rushed thoughts on narrative pacing…

I have started thinking about the question of narrative pacing or, to phrase it another way, literary rhythm and tempo. This rhythm is at work at the level of the sentence, the paragraph and the text as a whole. It is vital to the success of any piece of writing.

The best texts show an awareness of this. Just think of the way that the rhythm of Elizabeth Gaskell’s ‘condition of England’ novel Mary Barton (1848) markedly changes in its final third. Here, we find a kind of literary accelerando as the characters set off on a river chase. Think, too, of something like Proust’s modernist masterpiece, À la recherche du temps perdu (1913-27), which, despite its immense length, manages to engage with the reader every subordinate clause. For the mature Marcel, of course, this was simply a question of style.

Classic murder mystery texts can be a little one-paced at times. Whilst there is an inevitable speeding up of events as we approach the great detective’s gripping dénouement, the tone is too often too even, the beat just a little flat. From the opening line clues are scattered in front of us. Everything is important, even the unimportant red herrings. And, let's admit it, in this genre the writing is usually quite workmanlike. Neither Dame Agatha Christie nor Dame Ngaio Marsh were great prose stylists. Description is often left at the door.

It is for this reason that certain texts stand out. Take, for instance, the last book in the Poirot sequence (although far from being the last written), Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case (published 1975). This has an altogether different structure and pace. This is a murder mystery that for the most part lacks a murder. This a text of foreshadowing and nostalgic reminiscence.

For all that I love the classic mysteries I often wish that they were more stylish.

The Gravitational Pull of Decades

It is a critical and theoretical commonplace that our choices of reading materials are not as free as we might initially think. When we choose a new novel to put on our nightstand that decision is more or less consciously informed by a number of personal, socio-political and economic factors. Indeed, even the choice to read a novel at all is one that is conditioned by a variety of things.

In October last year I noticed that my reading had started to follow an interesting trajectory – I had, without really realising it, read a whole sequence of novels in a row that had been set in Paris. These ranged from Alexandre Dumas fils’ melodramatic novel La Dame aux Camélias (1848) to Cara Black’s breathless thriller, Murder in the Marais (1999). Of course, there had been a certain element of chance involved in all this, which I was quick to acknowledge.

When I cast my eye over the texts that I’ve recently been reading I can see a new kind of connection emerging. This is a link not based on space but time.

A few weeks ago I read Amy Fay’s wonderful memoir, Music-Study in Germany (first published in 1880). Fay, an excellent pianist, records the time she spent in Europe studying with the greats of the piano between 1869-1875. Her teachers included both Carl Tausig in Berlin and Franz Liszt in Weimar. It is, quite simply, a wonderful book, full of life, immediacy and music.

I am currently reading Emile Zola’s novel Nana (also 1880), which charts the rise and fall of the eponymous character. I expect to finish this text in the next few days. This novel is set in Paris in those strained moments at the end of the Second Empire, immediately before the Franco-Prussian war (1870-71).

This is a coincidence I know but… both of these texts were originally published in the same year: 1880. They are also both ‘set’ at the same moment in time (the turn of the decade from the 1860s to the 1870s). Yes, one is a memoir and the other a novel but the fact remains. And, interestingly, as both looked backwards they both involved acts of memory.

I had not planned any of this – the dates of publication played no conscious part in my choices. Indeed, I only started to read Zola’s text when I did as I had received a copy for free.

Nevertheless, it makes me wonder whether we might add one more entry to that list of factors governing our choices of novels. I wonder whether specific decades, in fact any given moment in time, might exert a kind of gravitational pull on us.

I’m not sure. It would be interesting to know what you think.

In any case, I will soon be setting off on an altogether different course. After I have completed Nana I intend to read one of Jules Verne’s voyages extraordinaires, Around the World in Eighty Days. Although, now that I think about it, this text was first published in 1873, which was the very year during which Amy Fay studied with Liszt.

A Writer Retreats: or, A Writer’s Retreat.

It is now two days since I decided to largely retreat to my book-lined study.

My intention was simple: to force myself into calm; to find a level of purpose and concentration that would allow me to think and, above all, to write. I wanted to establish a new habit of creativity. And in order to help me achieve that, I promised myself I would update this online journal everyday until the end of the month.

So far, I have spent my time variously reading, thinking and staring out of the window, although not necessarily in that order.

In the last forty-eight hours the weather has turned from a reluctant sunshine to dank and rainy English summer conditions. Today, a persistent drizzle bothers the rooftops across the courtyard. The grey clouds overhead seem to have made themselves at home, as though having made the effort to arrive here they are now reluctant to leave, and consider this place as good as any other to dump their burdensome load.

A springer spaniel barks a regular intervals, a living clock that has taken over time-telling duties from the stopped watches collected in my drawer. I can hear the sound of bins being dragged across potted paving slabs. Yesterday, a horse and carriage made its way, unseen by me, along the main road, its shod feet clattering on the surface as it went.

No artist’s room is ever disconnected from the world around him or her. Life still intrudes. Even Proust was beset by thousands of letters and social callers after he withdrew from the Parisian social whirl. In my study, too, the lines of communication remain open.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I intend to pick up my pen or, what amounts to the same thing, dust off the keyboard, and begin writing.

Until tomorrow…

A Blog Post a Day: A Project for June

It is so hard to think clearly, with subtlety and deftness. It is even harder to articulate one’s thoughts in a nuanced manner.

When I’m working on a new literary critical case it sometimes seems as if the books that line my study walls are leering down at me like so many grotesques, mocking me and my meek efforts. The more I try to think, the more the thoughts form an impenetrable fog in my mind, a fog that gets everywhere, even in this muggy, muddy English summer.

In order to extricate myself from these difficulties I have made a rash decision. Yesterday evening, having posted my review of Agatha Christie’s ‘The Big Four’, I promised myself that I would update this online journal everyday until the end of the month – and possibly even beyond.

I hope that by setting myself the task of writing something new on a regular basis I will disperse the critical and creative torpor that hangs over me and, it would seem, this whole building. Moreover, I hope that I will instigate a new practice of writing.

I bumped into Thistleton yesterday. He expressed some kind thoughts about the project, although he doubted the possibility of engineering creative insight through practice.

I would really appreciate it if you, dear Reader, were able to support me in my endeavour by following this blog (click the button on the right) and by checking in each day to see what I’ve written.

à demain…

On reading and not reading an Agatha Christie novel

I have recently finished reading Agatha Christie’s The Big Four – one of the early Poirot novels (it is actually the fifth book in the sequence).

It is easy to devour The Dame’s murder mysteries in one or two sittings: on a Sunday afternoon, perhaps or, as is more likely in my case, shut up in the peace of my book-lined study. The prose is simple enough and the plots well-constructed enough that you can read them very quickly.

My reading of The Big Four was slightly different. Instead of reading it at home I worked my way through the text in that most Christie-like of locations: the train. The book accompanied me on a series of research trips that I recently took by rail.

And what a delight it was. The sun streamed in through the carriage windows and, as we sped past, the countryside seemed to unfurl itself before us. The book itself was great fun. It is an intriguing, entertaining and occasionally absurd novel. What is more, the characters are placed in serious jeopardy on a number of occasions, which is actually quite unusual for a Poirot novel.

The nature of my rail journeys meant that I was forced to read The Big Four in several sittings. I was able to mark off the chapters by the stations at which we stopped.

Strange to say, though, that whilst I enjoyed reading the novel immensely, I was actually a little reluctant to pick the text up at the beginning of each of new trip. Having put the book down I felt no compulsion to pick it up again. This despite the desire to know what would happen, to learn how it would turn out, and to discover how Captain Hastings would extricate himself from his latest scrape. And I ask myself: Why?

One obvious and well documented fact is that, outside of the main detective characters, the participants in murder mystery novels are only functions of the plot, counters moved around in a board game of motives. As a reader I hadn’t invested in the development of the characters’ story arcs.

Then there is the fact that The Big Four reads like a series of short stories. It is very episodic – perfect for reading between railway stations but not conducive to sustained reading over a long stretch of time. It is also a surprising book. It is a novel that reads more like a spy thriller than a classic country house whodunit in the typical Christie mould. It is a book that defeats generic expectations.

In the end, it was worth reading to the end of The Big Four. And if you expect to travel by train anytime soon I would heartily recommend it as your travel novel.

Reader, I finished reading it.

It is true that even weary, book-learned literary critical detectives were young once. Many years ago I attended a fine and respectable school in the south of England. I was a diligent and purposeful student, prone to over-seriousness and anxious to achieve good marks. There was always something about the image of the scholar to which I aspired.

My usual diligence forsook me when, aged about 14 years, my fellow pupils and I were asked by our teacher to read Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. The fact that I was unsure at first which of the two names on the cover belonged to the author and which to the central protagonist did not augur well. This initial confusion was slowly replaced by apathy. I rarely read the passages we had been set; I contributed little to class discussions. I think that I finally stopped reading the text after about one hundred pages.

My failure to finish this novel had always concerned me. I had been left with a vague sense of having failed to meet the high standards that I set myself. Worse, I felt that I owed something to the text: it deserved better.

Then, a few months ago, I saw a copy of Jane Eyre on the bookshelf in a local charity shop. It was on sale for a mere £1. Seeing the volume there, abandoned and slowly awaiting its fate in stock rotation, my conscience was piqued. I would buy this book and I would finish it.

Two weeks ago I set about reading the novel. And what a wonderful novel it is. It has accompanied me on the many journeys I have since undertaken. As Jane travelled from the fictional Thornfield to Morton I travelled to the very real Nottingham by train; as she arrived at Ferndean to find Rochester I returned home on a dark rainy evening – my experiences as reader neatly mirroring those of the characters in the text.

Then, last night, I finished it. A wonderful piece of writing, without doubt, superbly Romantic and touchingly romantic.

As I finally shut the covers I felt that I had at last repaid my debt to this text. And, I didn’t doubt, with interest – for wasn’t my reading of it now so much more sophisticated than it ever could have been all those years ago? I began to recall the different things we had once been taught to say and think about the book at school. Yes, I was sure that I now disagreed with many of them. However, my mature analysis of the text will have to wait for another day.

The book that had, until last night, been my most embarrassing DNF (‘did not finish’) is now one of my most cherished novels.