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Welcome

I started this blog in 2013 to share my reflections on reading, writing and psychology, along with my journey to become a published novelist.​  I soon graduated to about twenty book reviews a month and a weekly 99-word story. Ten years later, I've transferred my writing / publication updates to my new website but will continue here with occasional reviews and flash fiction pieces, and maybe the odd personal post.

ANNE GOODWIN'S WRITING NEWS

What life is actually like: In Extremis by Tim Parks

8/7/2017

8 Comments

 
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[T]his is what life is actually like. Your mother is going through every kind of hell, in excruciating pain, not knowing what bed she will die in, your sister sounds relaxed and jokey, and you are thinking of your old friend Dave and the precariously double life he always led.


Like the characters in Alison Moore’s second novel, Thomas doesn’t know what he wants. Does he want to rush to the London hospice where his mother is dying, or would he prefer to linger at the physiotherapists’ conference in Amersfoort where he has a guest slot? Is there something he needs to tell her, to confess to this deeply religious woman that he’s been separated from his wife for four years? Is it important for him to get to Berlin a couple of days later to give the opening address at the 27th annual gathering of European linguists? Should he view his mother’s body even though he knows she wouldn’t have wanted to be embalmed? Should he be worried about his frequent need to use the lavatory? Should he contact his therapist? Or should he simply go home to Madrid where his much younger girlfriend waits? And if that weren’t enough to think about, the wife of his best friend and fellow philanderer is urging him to counsel their son.

It takes nerve to write a novel about “what life is actually like”, about conflicting and confused motivations and the wonderful illogicality of our inner lives. Fortunately, Tim Parks has the self-discipline to hold back from total stream of consciousness and the skill to pull it off. Thomas’s digressions are sheer joy if you’re interested in
linguistic drift, the messy reality of bodies, the gulf between religion and rationality, the process of dying, family or infidelity.

It also takes nerve to write about using the toilet and the language we use to distance ourselves from bodily fluids. Having opted to try anal massage for the first time at the physiotherapy conference, Thomas suffers from urinary frequency, a particular problem when he’s travelling so much, although it does give him the opportunity to compare different toilets, including the one in his mother’s house which is twinned with one in
Bangladesh (a great idea which I’ve only ever seen in the UK in toilets attached to churches). As Thomas says, “Reams … could be written about how people behave in public lavatories. Reams no-one would ever want to read.” (p127)

I was a little confused about the intended relationship between this novel and Tim Parks’ previous one,
Thomas and Mary, published last year. There’s a significant overlap between character and circumstances (especially in Thomas’s indecisiveness and his family of origin) but also several differences (for example, number of children and location of his girlfriend, Elsa – and presumably many more that I wasn’t reading closely enough to pick up), but no mention of this in the blurb or publicity materials. It’s interesting that I felt Thomas and Mary to be unfinished; In Extremis is to me the better novel and – although not quite a sequel – does seem to tidy things up. (Interesting for me as, when readers first asked if I’d consider a sequel to my debut novel, Sugar and Snails, I was adamant I wouldn’t, but have recently become curious about my character over a decade on (though published in 2015, the novel is set in 2004) – a non-sequel like In Extremis might be a good way to write it.)

Thomas and Mary has a stronger “shrink”, however, but only because the Thomas in In Extremis doesn’t show his therapist in action. I was convinced by his tendency to have her in mind; for example, ruminating on taking a taxi to the hospice despite his general stinginess (p71-2):

It would be fun discussing the detail with my shrink. The tip, I mean … Let’s give a stupidly large tip, against the grain, against the boy who is his mother’s thrifty son.

I was also moved by his memory of the shock of being understood at their first meeting (p83):

Whenever I think I have made the wrong decisions, I go back to that watershed, that tear-shed, in the shrink’s drab office, the moment when our eyes first met and I understood I had an ally.


I was also impressed with her take on pornography as “a wilful denial of the need for love” (p253). Nevertheless, I was concerned for this alternative Thomas having yet again, albeit in another city, found himself an unconventional therapist who not only smokes in sessions but urges him to “phone me, if it all gets too much” (p258).


In Extremis is a humorous philosophical novel about what makes us who we are. No aspect of mind or body is off limits, making Tim Parks the undoubted winner of the non-existent Annethology Award for Fictional Toilets. Thanks to Harvill Secker for my review copy.

It so happens that
 my debut novel, Sugar and Snails, inflicts a UTI on my narrator and my two most recently published short stories chime with this novel’s themes. "Blood" is about the mess of bodies, while "I Want Doesn't Get" is about sibling rivalry over the management of a mother’s remains. If you follow the weekly Carrot Ranch Flash Fiction Challenge, you might be interested to know that I developed both of these stories from a raw ninety-nine-word version. So it’s only right and proper that I pair this review with the latest challenge …

In Extremis can be read as a novel about the pursuit of a guiding light. Thomas’ mother has found hers in Christianity; he’s less sure about his. Perhaps it’s in family, friends or his lover; perhaps he needs to find it within himself. His therapist can accompany him in his search but, appropriately, she can shine her light only on the way he’s come. So the topic for this week’s 99-word story? A beacon of course!

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In Extremis

The white light drew me, summoned me, invited me, called me to dissolve where pain was unknown. The blue light flashed, on off, on off. Although much colder, it wanted me too. If my body could divide into a white side and a blue side, I could rest in peace. If I could float in the white till I was mended, I could give myself to the blue. But there was no going back from the white light. I had to decide.

Another light, sharp, beams into my eye. “Got a response here!” I’d been chosen for the blue.


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It wasn’t until I’d written this that I remembered my first fiction publication over ten years ago.
George and Pat For Ever, which appeared in the now defunct Pen Pusher and later republished by Fiction on the Web, explores similar territory.

Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
8 Comments
Jeanne Lombardo link
9/7/2017 02:08:27 am

Another super review Anne. I have learned a lot from you on what to expect from a therapist, and when certain behaviors do not sync with standard practices. Seems many novelists attempt the bodily functions and fluids themes these day. But it another thing to pull them off. I enjoyed the quotes you included. Even more I appreciated the opportunity to look at your short stories. Nice juxtaposition of the narrator's anxiety over her period and the fiasco that drawing the boy's blood becomes in "Blood." And "I Want Doesn't Get" is a superb psychological portrait of sisterly resentment and the insecurity that can drive such feelings. Loved the ending!!! As for the flash, well done (I just love how you Brits use that expression; it sort of floored me when my friends in London said that to me when I gave birth.) You evoked that netherland of the in-between conscious state so well.

Reply
Annecdotist
9/7/2017 11:58:04 am

Thanks for your expression of appreciation, Jeanne, and for that new piece of learning about transatlantic communication. I genuinely didn’t know “well done” was an English/British expression – it seems so ordinary!
And reminds me to be grateful for modern communications that enable us to connect so easily across continents and time zones.

Reply
D. Avery link
10/7/2017 02:17:03 am

Your flash was indeed, well done, as stated above; the nether lands of consciousness, being at the scene...very effective work with the lights then switching to the light in the eyes.
At first the narrator has to decide then the narrator is chosen for the blue; active to passive. Is the narrator ambivalent? Will the feeling of being chosen as opposed to choosing effect how the narrator lives next?

Reply
Annecdotist
11/7/2017 03:09:32 pm

Thank you so much and glad it worked for you.

Reply
Norah Colvin link
11/7/2017 12:12:12 pm

A great post and a bounty of links again, Anne. I enjoyed your review - sounds like an interesting book exploring the complexities of life, many of which I feel we try to hide from ourselves as well.
I enjoyed reading your stories. You tell them so well. I could see myself there in the chair with a tourniquet around my arm, giving blood. I'm sure the narrator will be relieved, if inconvenienced, by her own bleeding. I love Want doesn't get, and the wonderful revenge taken at the end. I hope she never finds out too! I enjoyed reading Pat and George forever, It's interesting how you explore the in between life and death stages in both it and your flash. You do the explorations into the psyche very well. We readers benefit.

Reply
Annecdotist
11/7/2017 03:08:54 pm

Thank you, Norah, it’s always lovely to receive your feedback.

Reply
Charli Mills
13/7/2017 06:38:45 am

A wealth of stories to read in this post, Anne, yet what caught my attention most was the possibility of a sequel for Diana. I think of young GLBT adults who did not face the struggles Diana did in her generation, yet now they face uncertainty (in the US) regarding a turn in policies. What would Diana make of this political climate?

Ah! Nice to give a nod back to your earlier work. Good idea to scan. I think most the magazines I wrote for or had pieces published in are all out of business. The past 15 years have not been kind to print.

Reply
Annecdotist
13/7/2017 05:45:23 pm

Mmm, I wonder too what she’d make of that, but I never thought of Diana as being very politically engaged. I think she’s got a bit more personal working out to do, but I should bear in mind the possibility for her. If I ever do get back to her story it’ll be a while off. I’m still grappling with different ideas about how to tell my psychiatric hospital closure story.
It’s not surprising I revive similar themes in my short stories – happens on my blog too – but I don’t always notice! Quite a few of the online magazines that have published my short stories have gone out of business too (I don’t take it personally!) There’s a lot of work (as you certainly know from the ranch) keeping these things going and sometimes the editors need a break. It’s a shame when the whole site goes off-line though, and all the work is lost.

Reply



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