Blog Archives

What connects a popular psychology book and a novel about psychosis?

29/1/2016

I hadn’t been reviewing for very long, when I was invited to contribute to the book recommendation site, Shiny New Books. Honoured as I was, I didn’t feel ready back then, but kept it in mind. After Victoria posted a lovely early review of Sugar and Snails on the site and hosted my guest post on writing about secrets, I resolved to keep an eye out for suitable books to review. I’m pleased to announce that my reviews of The Social Brain and Playthings were accepted for the latest edition so if you’re satisfied with the easy answer to my question you can go straight to the reviews by clicking on the images. But if you’d like to discover another connection, then read on.

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The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes & Exposure by Helen Dunmore

27/1/2016

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In the week which saw the publication of the results into the inquiry into the killing of Alexander Litvinenko, I read two novels with a Russian connection. Both are about living under the shadow of terror, both penned by lauded English novelists and published in the UK tomorrow. Nevertheless, these are two very different novels; read my reflections to see which you prefer.

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Time travel, insecure attachment and PTSD

24/1/2016

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A friend tells me about an exercise he remembers fondly from a management course. You’ve probably come across it; it’s the one where you create a timeline of the ups and downs of your life. I’m feeling uneasy even before he asserts confidently that of course we’d all start life in the peaks, the troughs not arriving until we take on adult responsibilities. That’s not the shape of my timeline, however, and perhaps not yours either.

I could point out that a difficult childhood is not uncommon but, in my head, I’m already somewhere else. It won’t make me feel any better to correct his misapprehension. I concentrate on making the right non-verbals and wait for my discomfort to pass.

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Woof, woof! Spill Simmer Falter Wither by Sara Baume & Fifteen Dogs by André Alexis

21/1/2016

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The other week, as I was tramping across the soggy fields near my house, a woman stopped me and asked if I’d noticed a boxer on my travels. Although a big dog off the lead is as welcome to me as a rampaging lion, I managed to keep my voice and face sympathetic as she explained how her pet had darted out the front door. Apologies I can’t supply the ending of this real-life drama (memoir?), but I’m sharing to show I’m not a canine lover. I’ve steered away from doggy fiction since Waiting For Doggo, but, these two took my fancy, proving – as if I didn’t know – that, even narrated from the point of view of an earthworm, fiction is always about the human condition.

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What’s wrong with an angry woman? The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud

18/1/2016

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When Fleur Smithwick, one of the early endorsers of my debut novel, Sugar and Snails, likened my central character, Diana, to the narrator of The Woman Upstairs, I was flattered. I knew that the author, Claire Messud, was well regarded by the literati and, although I hadn’t read it, the reviews suggested The Woman Upstairs was my kind of book. I also recalled some fireworks around the publicity, when (presumably male) reviewers and interviewers had queried the creation of an angry female character. Having finally read the novel, I followed this up to discover an article in the New Yorker on character likeability. Interesting as that article is, I’m shocked that it stems from an unchallenged assumption that readers will agree that Nora is unlikeable, not someone you’d want as a friend.

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Storytelling as Personal Metaphor?

16/1/2016

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Writers of fiction and creative non-fiction know the value of metaphor. So you might be interested in recent research by Adam Fetterman and colleagues suggesting that life is different for people who think in metaphors. Having developed a means of measuring metaphoric thinking style among students, they found that people rate neutral words as more pleasant when they’re printed in a white font than in a black one (evidently, none of their subjects had ageing eyes which renders light print virtually impossible to read); that among those prone to metaphorical thinking, the more sweet food they’d eaten, the more sweet their interactions with others (presumably within limits, I’m not terribly sociable if I’m feeling sick); and that those with a stronger metaphoric thinking style showed greater insight into the emotions of others. As you can see, aside from the fact that many metaphors are actually clichės, I’m a little sceptical about this research but, not having read the full report in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, I’m not in a position to argue.

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What’s reality anyway? The Room by Jonas Karlsson & The Folly by Ivan Vladislavić

13/1/2016

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I’m delighted to introduce you to two quirky short novels about finding and creating a place of one’s own, the first from Sweden and second South Africa. Both novels have pared down characters and plot and are nevertheless highly compelling in their eccentricity.

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Restaurant meals: Memoir as social history

10/1/2016

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I know, I know, who cares but me that, despite my respect for the memoirists with whom I associate in the blogosphere, I remain averse to memoir. Or did, until Irene Waters’ New Year challenge finally showed me the way. As I admitted during my brief residency on Sherri Matthews’s Summerhouse, I have an interest in putting the personal into fiction. Thanks to the ensuing discussion, I’ve been thinking about fiction as a metaphor for the personal stories that shape us as individuals, but are impossible to tell. (Of which I hope to see more in a later post.) But even a Guardian article towards the end of last year, in which Blake Morrison explores several reasons for writing memoir, didn’t help me understand why writers are drawn to bare their souls.

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Rebellion crushed: Human Acts by Han Kang

8/1/2016

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How does one organise the logistics of identification and disposal of bodies following a massacre? Does the soul exist independent of the body and, if so, at what point might they go their separate ways? How can theatre survive in a climate of censorship? What right has an academic to push a survivor to revisit traumatic memories in the interests of research? What role do women take in agitating for change?

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Life as fiction: The Long Room by Francesca Kay and Tightrope by Simon Mawer

6/1/2016

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My first review post of 2016 brings two very different perspectives on the clandestine world of spies. Set in 1981, The Long Room shows what can happen when those undertaking the tedious tasks of monitoring intercepted messages decide to create their own excitement. Like I Can’t Begin to Tell You, Tightrope features a brave heroine of the Second World War, now confronting the “normality” of dull and drab post-war England. My experience of the genre is rather limited – and one might argue that both of these novels would be classified as literary rather than thriller – but my reading suggests that, like acting and adultery, espionage is about creating and maintaining fictions, something close to the writer’s heart.

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For Whose Benefit? A Sideways Look at the Creative Writing Industry

3/1/2016

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Over half a century ago, the social scientist and psychoanalyst, Isabel Menzies Lyth was commissioned to carry out an investigation into why so many promising nursing students were dropping out of training. What she discovered makes edifying reading for anyone using, or employed within, the human services or, indeed, any organisation at all. Despite the best intentions of all the staff, the social systems that had evolved within the hospital were like a spanner in the works, functioning against the primary task of healing the sick. Many highly motivated students, despairing at the impossibility of delivering compassionate care, simply left. Yet this human wastage was built into a system that relied on a high volume of low-paid students to deliver patient care, without having sufficient posts for them to move on to on qualification. Although the work is radically different, I’ve wondered for some time whether there’s a similar redundancy built into the creative writing industry, encouraging the dreams of far more budding writers than there are slots in the publishers’ lists.

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