Killing Jennifer
I’ve been thinking about my last post and why on earth I ended up going on about Hilary Mantel - after all, I’ve only read two of her books, and that rather painfully. I conclude it was her showy approach to literary research that got to me, so this time I’m going to talk about that. Bear with me if you want know about the sad demise of Jennifer.
My first excursion into novel writing was an attempt to write the sort of book Arthur Ransome might have produced, were he still around (he died in 1967). I’ll get to why (and why not) in a minute. The point is, if you’re going to avoid producing some kind of crass fan-lit, you’re going to saddle yourself with an immense amount of literary research. That’s life. What seemed initially like a cute idea gradually turned itself into a dreadful monster gnawing at my vital parts. The outcome, apart from the consolation of starting on a series of books close to my heart, was that I ended up knowing an awful lot about a childhood hero. Believe me, it’s often better not to know a lot about your heroes: Mantel, sit up at the back there and take note.
So why did I do it at all? You only have to start something like that to hear a chorus outside your bedroom window, singing (all together now): “children like that don’t exist any more.” What they mean, of course, is children like you don’t exist anymore. Which, come to think of it, is rather cruel. In another sense they’re quite right - of course they don’t. But chorus dear, aren’t you missing the point? Surely you knew children like that didn’t exist then either. Who on earth ever thought they did? They never existed. The world Ransome conjured up in 1929 never existed. At least he was well aware of that, and you should be the same. On the other hand, it’s a worthwhile place. Wouldn’t you like to live there? Wouldn’t anybody? Which is where literary research comes into it.
Ransome could pull off two tricks with an assurance that makes you want to weep - the more so because, until he started his children’s books, his fiction was hardly very distinguished. The first trick was he could effortlessly persuade you that there was no story to be told. You still bump into people, liking the Swallow books, not knowing why, and apologetically adding, “Of course, nothing much happens in them.” So part of the answer to why I got into this was the challenge of writing a complicated plot, yet managing to hide its workings from the reader, everything appearing seamlessly inevitable; just inconsequential events. Try it – you’ll find you can’t. His second trick was that by some strange alchemy, although nothing much seems to happen, you are seduced to read on; to the point where you find yourself hypnotised. The inconsequentiality (if that’s really a word) is, of course, an illusion. Pigeon Post, for example, runs on wheels as well-oiled and complicated as any you will find in Le Carré. Ransome’s art was the art of the inexorable – things happen because they must.
The paradox of Ransome’s realism is most clearly exposed in two related domains - sex and mortality. Or, to put it less grandly, growing up.
Taking sex first, when Arthur wrote Swallows and Amazons he was 44 years old with a long journalistic and literary career behind him, including biographies of Oscar Wilde and a translation of Remy de Gourmont. References to Wilde’s homosexuality in his biography had landed him with the scandal of a libel case fought out over several days in open court. The Gourmont translation introduced English readers to a French author in the symbolist tradition whose references to sex and sexuality also courted scandal. You could hardly doubt he knew a lot about sex. Nonetheless, he claimed to despise the kind of “sexual spillikins” he found in Aldous Huxley, and neither the Swallows nor the Amazons ever evince the slightest interest in sex. How odd is that? Teen-age children camping together, swimming together, sleeping together under the open sky – and not the faintest hint of sex. Given this author’s history it must have been a professional decision, taken for professional reasons. I think I know the reason, but I’ll keep you waiting while literary research morphs into a little psychology.
Deciding on names for characters is no trivial business. Indeed, authors can end up quite paralysed by indecision over names (Simenon got them out of the telephone directory, but he was an exception). Imagine how Swallows and Amazons might have turned out if Nancy had, as initially intended, actually been called Jane? And although Ransome’s names, here and there, are taken from friends and relatives, in many cases they are strangely charged with sexual allusion. Particularly Titty. It is certain that Mavis Altounyan was the model and possibly true that, as a little girl, she loved the children’s story Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse. But surely nobody re-names a child on such flimsy grounds, particularly a name with such powerful connotations? Connotations familiar enough to the translator of Remy de Gourmont. As a child I recall the pleasure in the license given to utter this name: a pleasure potent enough for a BBC production to apologise for it and for others crudely to change it to Kitty. No, the sexual charge is there and it must be concluded that Ransome intended it.
Nancy and Roger in this context suddenly make you pause. Susan too. That name may simply recall a favourite Aunt, but it is charged in other ways: Black-eyed Susan was certainly known to Ransome. And why, after the endless ruminations over what to call the Callums, would one fall on the name Dick? Why indeed. So perhaps sex was, after all, not so very far away. Benjamin Britten, whose nose for such things was infallible, certainly seemed to sense this and his earnest hope after Peter Grimes (innocence degraded) was to set Swallows and Amazons. Ransome even spent time at Aldeburgh. What an opera that would have been. But the idea came to nothing.
Which brings me to Jennifer. Ransome apparently thought it courteous (there is no better word) to balance things up with a sister for Nancy. Peggy (he wisely dropped the name Mary, his first choice) is a character that has little to say and less to do in the novels. Even in Winter Holiday, her moment out of the shadows, she never comes to life and has to hobble along as a pale imitation of her sister. In a word, she has none of the vital energy that charges the character of the others. In my first book I invented such a character. I even christened her “Jennifer” and for 100,000 words of a first draft she just about had things to say and do. But it took only my first reader to ask, “What’s the point of Jennifer?” to bring me to a dreadful conclusion. Step forward the author as murderer. Line by line, Jennifer and her sad doings were erased. The book was never published. I do not miss Jennifer.
Ransome's reasons (and growing up) must be kept for another time. Check back and see.
Visit Lasserrade Press http://tinyurl.com/lzuukwf
I’ve been thinking about my last post and why on earth I ended up going on about Hilary Mantel - after all, I’ve only read two of her books, and that rather painfully. I conclude it was her showy approach to literary research that got to me, so this time I’m going to talk about that. Bear with me if you want know about the sad demise of Jennifer.
My first excursion into novel writing was an attempt to write the sort of book Arthur Ransome might have produced, were he still around (he died in 1967). I’ll get to why (and why not) in a minute. The point is, if you’re going to avoid producing some kind of crass fan-lit, you’re going to saddle yourself with an immense amount of literary research. That’s life. What seemed initially like a cute idea gradually turned itself into a dreadful monster gnawing at my vital parts. The outcome, apart from the consolation of starting on a series of books close to my heart, was that I ended up knowing an awful lot about a childhood hero. Believe me, it’s often better not to know a lot about your heroes: Mantel, sit up at the back there and take note.
So why did I do it at all? You only have to start something like that to hear a chorus outside your bedroom window, singing (all together now): “children like that don’t exist any more.” What they mean, of course, is children like you don’t exist anymore. Which, come to think of it, is rather cruel. In another sense they’re quite right - of course they don’t. But chorus dear, aren’t you missing the point? Surely you knew children like that didn’t exist then either. Who on earth ever thought they did? They never existed. The world Ransome conjured up in 1929 never existed. At least he was well aware of that, and you should be the same. On the other hand, it’s a worthwhile place. Wouldn’t you like to live there? Wouldn’t anybody? Which is where literary research comes into it.
Ransome could pull off two tricks with an assurance that makes you want to weep - the more so because, until he started his children’s books, his fiction was hardly very distinguished. The first trick was he could effortlessly persuade you that there was no story to be told. You still bump into people, liking the Swallow books, not knowing why, and apologetically adding, “Of course, nothing much happens in them.” So part of the answer to why I got into this was the challenge of writing a complicated plot, yet managing to hide its workings from the reader, everything appearing seamlessly inevitable; just inconsequential events. Try it – you’ll find you can’t. His second trick was that by some strange alchemy, although nothing much seems to happen, you are seduced to read on; to the point where you find yourself hypnotised. The inconsequentiality (if that’s really a word) is, of course, an illusion. Pigeon Post, for example, runs on wheels as well-oiled and complicated as any you will find in Le Carré. Ransome’s art was the art of the inexorable – things happen because they must.
The paradox of Ransome’s realism is most clearly exposed in two related domains - sex and mortality. Or, to put it less grandly, growing up.
Taking sex first, when Arthur wrote Swallows and Amazons he was 44 years old with a long journalistic and literary career behind him, including biographies of Oscar Wilde and a translation of Remy de Gourmont. References to Wilde’s homosexuality in his biography had landed him with the scandal of a libel case fought out over several days in open court. The Gourmont translation introduced English readers to a French author in the symbolist tradition whose references to sex and sexuality also courted scandal. You could hardly doubt he knew a lot about sex. Nonetheless, he claimed to despise the kind of “sexual spillikins” he found in Aldous Huxley, and neither the Swallows nor the Amazons ever evince the slightest interest in sex. How odd is that? Teen-age children camping together, swimming together, sleeping together under the open sky – and not the faintest hint of sex. Given this author’s history it must have been a professional decision, taken for professional reasons. I think I know the reason, but I’ll keep you waiting while literary research morphs into a little psychology.
Deciding on names for characters is no trivial business. Indeed, authors can end up quite paralysed by indecision over names (Simenon got them out of the telephone directory, but he was an exception). Imagine how Swallows and Amazons might have turned out if Nancy had, as initially intended, actually been called Jane? And although Ransome’s names, here and there, are taken from friends and relatives, in many cases they are strangely charged with sexual allusion. Particularly Titty. It is certain that Mavis Altounyan was the model and possibly true that, as a little girl, she loved the children’s story Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse. But surely nobody re-names a child on such flimsy grounds, particularly a name with such powerful connotations? Connotations familiar enough to the translator of Remy de Gourmont. As a child I recall the pleasure in the license given to utter this name: a pleasure potent enough for a BBC production to apologise for it and for others crudely to change it to Kitty. No, the sexual charge is there and it must be concluded that Ransome intended it.
Nancy and Roger in this context suddenly make you pause. Susan too. That name may simply recall a favourite Aunt, but it is charged in other ways: Black-eyed Susan was certainly known to Ransome. And why, after the endless ruminations over what to call the Callums, would one fall on the name Dick? Why indeed. So perhaps sex was, after all, not so very far away. Benjamin Britten, whose nose for such things was infallible, certainly seemed to sense this and his earnest hope after Peter Grimes (innocence degraded) was to set Swallows and Amazons. Ransome even spent time at Aldeburgh. What an opera that would have been. But the idea came to nothing.
Which brings me to Jennifer. Ransome apparently thought it courteous (there is no better word) to balance things up with a sister for Nancy. Peggy (he wisely dropped the name Mary, his first choice) is a character that has little to say and less to do in the novels. Even in Winter Holiday, her moment out of the shadows, she never comes to life and has to hobble along as a pale imitation of her sister. In a word, she has none of the vital energy that charges the character of the others. In my first book I invented such a character. I even christened her “Jennifer” and for 100,000 words of a first draft she just about had things to say and do. But it took only my first reader to ask, “What’s the point of Jennifer?” to bring me to a dreadful conclusion. Step forward the author as murderer. Line by line, Jennifer and her sad doings were erased. The book was never published. I do not miss Jennifer.
Ransome's reasons (and growing up) must be kept for another time. Check back and see.
Visit Lasserrade Press http://tinyurl.com/lzuukwf