Curmudgeon
It's been a transitional sort of week. I began writing a short story- horror, again, with more than a touch of M.R. James about it, I was on firmer ground than I was trying to write like H.P. Lovecraft- but once again, I just stopped. I wanted to get closer to the characters, to illustrate them, to make the reader felt that he/she knew them, felt that they were real. I'd watched, for the umpteenth time, episodes of Only Fools And Horses, my favourite sitcom, marvelled in John Sullivan's rich dialogue and the nuanced performances of David Jason and Nicholas Lyndhurst. I felt that I knew Del Boy and Rodney, Grandad and Uncle Albert. Although, to be fair, these were episodes from the fourth series, by which time John Sullivan had been getting to know the characters better himself.
I don't know. You can feel like you know a character, can't you, reading a short story for the first time? Even when that character exists only in that one short story? I know I felt like that about Malcolmson, the protagonist of William Trevor's incomparable Access To The Children. And many other of his protagonists in his superb short stories. But then Trevor wasn't writing in a genre.
I felt that, as I was writing, that the reader didn't know about my protagonist's past. It wasn't relevant to the situation he found himself now, being stalked by an angry ghost. I wasn't writing a literary short story, after all. I'd imagined this character's past; I just couldn't find a place in the narrative to relive it.
I've been having mixed feelings about horror fiction in general, actually. That maybe I ought to try something more realistic, something not in a genre (except, perhaps, comedy or romantic comedy). Something where the object is to show the world as you see it; where the reader feels he/she is spending time with someone likeable. A novel like Nick Hornby's, Stan Barstow's, Keith Waterhouse's. As much as I enjoyed horror fiction- writing my own and reading/watching/listening to other people's- I've always felt that essentially they are jokes to be told with straight faces.
To compound it all, I saw that Roger Corman/Vincent Price film The Haunted Palace on Youtube, plus two superb short features, The Stranger Left No Card and Return To Glennascaul. And I found myself falling in love with horror all over again. The sense of the eerie, the otherworldly. But is it a holiday romance?
Meanwhile, the Diamond Jubilee came and went. And I've been nursing a great anger about the world and how it is run. Spain having to go cap in hand to Europe. One in four Spaniards out of work. Capitalism has to go. It doesn't work. We've had a couple of decades, in this country, of unemployment, low wages, repressive laws, weak unions, attacks on our welfare system, homelessness. We've tolerated it because we've been assured that it would lead to an economic miracle, and now we're in debt again anyway. Not even our own debt- we're paying off the bankers' debts.
I don't hold responsible people who ran up debts on credit cards, etc. Although that was stupid, it was what they were encouraged to do, and it's really what led to the so-called boom, at least in this country. My wife and I never noticed we were experiencing a boom; but then again, we've never had credit cards. House prices rocketed during this time- again, everybody put up with it, it was all part of the miracle- so you ended up in debt just by wanting a roof over your head. For too long, we were given loans instead of pay rises; we never thought we'd have to pay it back. And it's interesting to see that the countries which are recovering fastest- France and Germany- are the ones which didn't sell off their national assets, still had functioning industries with proper wages, and never went in for high finance.
No, capitalism has to go. Maybe what the world needs is a Marxist- truly Marxist- economy. But here's the rub: I still believe in God. I don't want to live in Huxley's Brave, New World. I've got a soul (honestly), and it wouldn't be satisfied merely by a house, a job and food. There has to be art, and a sense of something outside yourself. People must be allowed to be creative, spontaneous, passionate. Can you be a Roman Catholic and a Marxist?
I feel like I've got to do something else, apart from writing fiction, to try and put the world right. I feel like I've got to challenge the complacency of the world's leaders, but I don't know where to begin. The Jubilee just compounded it. I've got nothing against the old biddy on the balcony, but that institution has got to go. The sight of some woman on the television news gushing: "She waved at me" was nauseating. She's no better than you, she's just richer.
It didn't help that I was working that Sunday, not far from the river, and I got caught up in the melee. First of all, the stewards put barricades across my workplace, and told me it was shut today; I had to plead with them just to let me up to the front door. For some reason, they not only stopped cars driving up certain streets but they also blocked the pavements off for pedestrians, so you were forced to walk along the road.
Getting home was even worse, though. In the pelting rain, trudging along at a snail's pace behind a crowd of crowd with union jack hats. Babies grizzling. Smoke from expended barbecues. Queues along the street just to get down to the tcket offices of the tube stations, which had not expected any sort of turnout. Never mind being a republican, it's a wonder I didn't turn into an anarchist.
The street parties annoyed me too. We didn't have one on our estate, nobody here knows anybody else and we didn't want to take the opportunity to find out. All those people on the television telling us to knock on each other's doors, then start cooking, irritated me. For ages, I feared having to put on a forced smile on my doorstep for some beaming idiot with a clipboard.
I want to do something, but I don't know where to begin. I could challenge it issue by issue, I suppose. Join this protest, that one. March. Write to my MP. It sounds bad, though, but I don't want to knock on anyone's door with a petition. It's probably the thing which has held this country back, the lack of community, but I don't care, I want to be left alone.
I don't know. You can feel like you know a character, can't you, reading a short story for the first time? Even when that character exists only in that one short story? I know I felt like that about Malcolmson, the protagonist of William Trevor's incomparable Access To The Children. And many other of his protagonists in his superb short stories. But then Trevor wasn't writing in a genre.
I felt that, as I was writing, that the reader didn't know about my protagonist's past. It wasn't relevant to the situation he found himself now, being stalked by an angry ghost. I wasn't writing a literary short story, after all. I'd imagined this character's past; I just couldn't find a place in the narrative to relive it.
I've been having mixed feelings about horror fiction in general, actually. That maybe I ought to try something more realistic, something not in a genre (except, perhaps, comedy or romantic comedy). Something where the object is to show the world as you see it; where the reader feels he/she is spending time with someone likeable. A novel like Nick Hornby's, Stan Barstow's, Keith Waterhouse's. As much as I enjoyed horror fiction- writing my own and reading/watching/listening to other people's- I've always felt that essentially they are jokes to be told with straight faces.
To compound it all, I saw that Roger Corman/Vincent Price film The Haunted Palace on Youtube, plus two superb short features, The Stranger Left No Card and Return To Glennascaul. And I found myself falling in love with horror all over again. The sense of the eerie, the otherworldly. But is it a holiday romance?
Meanwhile, the Diamond Jubilee came and went. And I've been nursing a great anger about the world and how it is run. Spain having to go cap in hand to Europe. One in four Spaniards out of work. Capitalism has to go. It doesn't work. We've had a couple of decades, in this country, of unemployment, low wages, repressive laws, weak unions, attacks on our welfare system, homelessness. We've tolerated it because we've been assured that it would lead to an economic miracle, and now we're in debt again anyway. Not even our own debt- we're paying off the bankers' debts.
I don't hold responsible people who ran up debts on credit cards, etc. Although that was stupid, it was what they were encouraged to do, and it's really what led to the so-called boom, at least in this country. My wife and I never noticed we were experiencing a boom; but then again, we've never had credit cards. House prices rocketed during this time- again, everybody put up with it, it was all part of the miracle- so you ended up in debt just by wanting a roof over your head. For too long, we were given loans instead of pay rises; we never thought we'd have to pay it back. And it's interesting to see that the countries which are recovering fastest- France and Germany- are the ones which didn't sell off their national assets, still had functioning industries with proper wages, and never went in for high finance.
No, capitalism has to go. Maybe what the world needs is a Marxist- truly Marxist- economy. But here's the rub: I still believe in God. I don't want to live in Huxley's Brave, New World. I've got a soul (honestly), and it wouldn't be satisfied merely by a house, a job and food. There has to be art, and a sense of something outside yourself. People must be allowed to be creative, spontaneous, passionate. Can you be a Roman Catholic and a Marxist?
I feel like I've got to do something else, apart from writing fiction, to try and put the world right. I feel like I've got to challenge the complacency of the world's leaders, but I don't know where to begin. The Jubilee just compounded it. I've got nothing against the old biddy on the balcony, but that institution has got to go. The sight of some woman on the television news gushing: "She waved at me" was nauseating. She's no better than you, she's just richer.
It didn't help that I was working that Sunday, not far from the river, and I got caught up in the melee. First of all, the stewards put barricades across my workplace, and told me it was shut today; I had to plead with them just to let me up to the front door. For some reason, they not only stopped cars driving up certain streets but they also blocked the pavements off for pedestrians, so you were forced to walk along the road.
Getting home was even worse, though. In the pelting rain, trudging along at a snail's pace behind a crowd of crowd with union jack hats. Babies grizzling. Smoke from expended barbecues. Queues along the street just to get down to the tcket offices of the tube stations, which had not expected any sort of turnout. Never mind being a republican, it's a wonder I didn't turn into an anarchist.
The street parties annoyed me too. We didn't have one on our estate, nobody here knows anybody else and we didn't want to take the opportunity to find out. All those people on the television telling us to knock on each other's doors, then start cooking, irritated me. For ages, I feared having to put on a forced smile on my doorstep for some beaming idiot with a clipboard.
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