Kirkus a Dead Corpus?

Rumours of the death of Kirkus Reviews are apparently not exaggerated. While many writers are unhappy about the loss of a major reviewing vehicle, can't say I'm weeping. Of course it's personal. The Book of Dreams was panned by some unknown Kirkus critic. But it's also a matter of principle. There's something very wrong with anonymous criticism. Like blows to the genitals and stabs in the back, it's an act of cowardice. If you believe in your words, then stand by them. And needless to say, it allows for all kinds of abuse. Kirkus printed some pretty nasty pieces in its day. When I reviewed for John Banville at the Irish Times he once said to me, "if you can't say something good about a book, don't review it." I confess I learned from him that day as I had written some biting reviews myself for Books Ireland - but at least I put my name to them! The truth is there are no experts in this field. Critical history shows us many a classic that was savaged in its day. (Moby Dick comes immediately to mind.) No matter what critics insist, reviewing is entirely subjective and reviews always say more about the reviewer than they say about the reviewed. Rest in peace, Kirkus. I think this could be classified as a little dance on your grave.

David McCallum --Kidnapped

I don't think I read Kidnapped when I was young, actually, as I'm sure I would have remembered it. What an amazing story! I would highly recommend a read. A little bit of difficulty, perhaps, getting used to the dialect at the beginning but that soon passes. The characters are truly amazing - the unscrupulous uncle, the idiosyncratic captain, the motley crew and most of all the truly courageous young David and the utterly unique hero that is Alan Breck, the Jacobite Highlander. I wish I had seen the television series, shown here. But poor David Balfour, what a terrible time he had on Erraid as opposed to the wonderful sojourn I had there.

Kidnapped on Erraid!

The Scottish island where I took a working holiday (check out my t'other blog) was well known to Robert Louis Stevenson who spent his summers there, as his father was an engineer working on the nearby lighthouse. (The window pic is the living room in one of the lighthouse workers' cottages, where I stayed with two friends.) Stevenson used Erraid as one of the settings for his book, Kidnapped, a great adventure story not unlike Dickens. Stevenson is most famous, of course, for Treasure Island. There's a story told on the island that Stevenson's father wanted him to be an engineer but Robert had other dreams and he lay down on the Wishing Stone on Erraid - will post a pic of it soon - and made his wish to be a writer. Now I have to be honest and admit that I didn't know Stevenson was Scottish. Oh, and here's a pic of Balfour Bay, named after the main character in Kidnapped, which has a fabulous strand and is lovely to swim in, though freezing cold.

Time to Read

I'm going like the clappers these days with a gazillion things to do, places to go, people to see so I have no idea how I am managing to read a load of books on top of it all. I must be going faster than the speed of light. I recently re-read Doris Lessing's Briefing for a Descent into Hell. In some ways it was research for my new adult novel which is also 'inner space fiction' as Lessing calls her speculative work (including the Canopus series) - "for there is never anywhere to go but in." The book, in a nutshell, is about life, the universe and everything, the story of a man having a psychotic break or an episode of enlightenment, depending on your world view. Here's a fantastic quote at the beginning of the book from Rachel Carson, marine biologist and author of The Edge of the Sea, which I must find as she is evidently a stunning writer also: ... this miniscule world of the sand grains is also the world of inconceivably minute beings, which swim through the liquid film around a grain of sand as fish would swim through the ocean covering the sphere of the earth. Among this flora and fauna of the capillary water are single-celled animals and plants, water mites, shrimplike crustacea, insects, and the larvae of infinitely small worms - all living, dying, swimming, feeding, breathing, reproducing in a world so small that our human senses cannot grasp its scale, a world in which the microdroplet of water separating one grain of sand from another is like a vast, dark sea.
I rarely re-read books and am quite amazed by the trend amongst younger readers these days to do so. My daughter continually re-reads her favourites while also picking up new work. The only books I have faithfully re-read over the years are - surprise, surprise - the Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings. Mind you, this summer I did read Garth Nix's Abhorsen series again (was reading Lirael in Lough Derg, weird) to my utter enjoyment and I'm pretty certain I will re-read Briefing again in the future.

The Hunter's Moon Reader Trailer #2

Found this on youtube when I was showing my sister Pat some of the other reader-made trailers for my books (The Hunter's Moon, The Summer King, and The Light-Bearer's Daughter). Very exciting! I really enjoy the creativity of my readers and I'm honoured that they spend this kind of time and effort on my stories. Gives me warm happy feelings. I notice she uses the beautiful music of Canadian artist Loreena McKennitt whom I met years ago at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Co. Monaghan and whom I mention in The Book of Dreams. There's no such thing as coincidence.

The Outsider

I decided to read this book after I heard that the amazing Jordanian sculptor and poet, Mona Saudi, cited it as a major influence on her as a young artist. The author, Colin Wilson (whose book The Occult I found tedious and devoid of insight) was the original 'angry young man' who produced this beautifully written work of critical and philosophical thought at the age of 24. Can't say it did much for me, particularly his opinions on Herman Hesse, one of my favourite writers. You can see Wilson's block. He names and describes a type among artists - 'the outsider' - who seeks the meaning and purpose of life, attempting to answer the crucial question 'how should we live our lives?'. No doubt considering himself one of this type, he recognises their plight, yet as soon as he finds someone who has an answer, i.e. Hesse, he dismisses the answer as romantic nonsence. Wilson simply cannot deal with mystic or spiritual reality. Notable is the fact he does not even mention Hesse's Journey to the East. Also he says no human has achieved self-realisation - now that's a Western blind spot! Even back in 1956, the Buddha was known and Buddhism itself names many realised human beings. My final complaint, of course, is that he seems to be unaware that there ever existed a writer who was a woman! Immediately coming to mind are Emily Bronte, Virginia Woolf, Isak Dinesen, and Doris Lessing, all fitting the outsider description. What we need are a few more angry young women! So, my opinion on this book: worth a quick perusal for its historical value but otherwise of no great interest.

Ballinamore

Sometimes life brings you full circle. It was decades ago when I first came to Ballinamore, Co. Leitrim to work in my aunt and uncle's hotel, The Commercial Hotel, Main street. Years later, my first book - The Druid's Tune - would be set in this town and on a farm just outside it, before my characters time-travel to ancient Ireland. And now here I am posting this in the library in Ballinamore because I am spending some time in nearby Jampa Ling. Firstly, I was thrilled to see The Hunter's Moon on display here in the library (and they didn't know I was coming) and then to find that there are also copies of The Druid's Tune and The Singing Stone in the local studies section. (They are the Irish published versions by O'Brien Press.) It always cheers up an author to see one's work in public. I'm also listed as a Leitrim writer! Had to smile at that.