Biographies And Diaries: 

At the suggestion of an ex-girlfriend, I have kept a diary for the last thirteen years.  This is a habit I have kept four times longer than the actual relationship, which says more about my habits, than my choice in partner.  I do it for mental clarity, even though I wonder what my stepson will actually do with them when I am not here.  

This must explain why I am fascinated by autobiographies, biographies and diaries.  This, for an avid reader like myself is the equivalent of a nourishing meal.  You can learn a lot about your favourite celebrity, the best will leave the odd unanswered question. Either well, there is skill and craft involved as much as a good read.

So firstly, a word about celebrity autobiographies: don't read them.  They are the instant noodles of the book world, but at least instant noodles aren't sold at 50% off in January.  If this is your bag, bag them then.  Sports biographies used to be like that and still are to a certain extent.  Possibly the best: 61 Minutes in Munich by Howard Gayle, the first black player to play for Liverpool.  Honest about both what was a disappointing career and the part that racism played in curtailing it.

Music is my other big passion, and again there has also been an improvement in this genre.  Me by Elton John is candid, shocking and no stone is left unturned, either in terms of his sexuality, addictions or tantrums.  It also confirms the urban myth that whilst staying in a hotel, he rang his record company to ask the wind to stop blowing outside his room. 

Keith Richards confirms the "I am not your drummer story" in Life, as well as his ongoing guerrilla war with Mick Jagger - he describes him as "a nice bunch of blokes."  I'll Never Write My Memoirs by Grace Jones is in the same vein, with possible pub quiz questions about regretting turning down a role in Blade Runner and being asked to do Slave to the Rhythm by Trevor Horn, whilst setting fire to her then boyfriend Dolph Lungren's trousers.  

Head On/Repossessed is a double volume charting Julian Cope's rise from slacking Scouse student teacher to post-punk icon and finally, The Arch Drude we know and love today.  The best is undoubtedly Miles: The Autobiography.  Published a few years before an untimely/somewhat inevitable death, Miles Davis talks at length about being one of the great artists of the twentieth century, but with as much honey as venom.  It's like being mugged by angels.  

For actors and entertainers, start with Who on Earth Is Tom Baker? It's delicious stuff from the best Doctor Who.  It's good on growing up as a Catholic in 1930's Liverpool as much as Tom's "experiences" with Doctor Who groupies or drinking with Francis Bacon. John Peel was halfway through Margrave of the Marshes when he died.  And appropriately enough, you get two sides of the man: the first is as dilatory as Peel himself, the second reveals someone with real doubts and insecurities. 

A recent read was I Know This Much Is True by Miriam Margoyles.  Arch, entertaining and completely filthy. The book is pretty much the same. See also Absolute Pandemonium by Brian Blessed. Jasper Rees was given access to Victoria Wood's archives by her family.  Let's Do It is a loving portrait of a much-missed comic mind, but someone with a propensity for personal cruelty as much as a Stakhanovite work ethic.  

In a similar vein, Piers Paul Read was given access to Alec Guinness' diaries.  This is as complete a picture as you'll get, despite the destruction of several volumes of diaries throughout his lifetime (and Read explores the reasons why).  It's shows a man who was fastidious, insecure about his own talents and ultimately resentful of being in Star Wars, which gave both financial freedom and an unwanted, but geeky fanbase.  

Richard Burton's widow gave Swansea University his diaries after his death.  Chris Williams condenses 45 years of introspection into nearly 700 pages of brutal honesty, self-destructive behaviour (hence lapses in the narrative) and a man who wanted to be rich, but with minimum effort. Finally, Richard E Grant's diaries With Nails is as gossipy and witty as the man himself.

So, plenty to enjoy till Alan Rickman's diaries are published in October.  You can expect my diaries sometime in the late 21st century, subject to my stepson understanding my handwriting and legal clearances.

Grown Ups by Marian Keyes:  

A new year, maybe time to try something new.   Four years ago, my wife suggested I try one of Marian Keyes books.  She pointed me in the paper direction of Rachel's Holiday, her second book and then I have been slowly obsessed.  She is a writer with a moral purpose, but with a light, comic tone and an absolute master of the laborious plate spinning of novels that sometimes span hundreds of pages.  A sequel to that first book Again, Rachel is published this month.  However, if you would like to make a start, try her last novel Grown Ups.  

In many ways, it is a fantasy 2020 published as we saw the start of Covid and all the things that we saw taken away from us.  The Casey's run a chain of independent grocers and spend that missing year on holiday, at a festival and a truly awful murder mystery weekend with their blended families.    At a family party, one member suffers a concussion and a lifetime's worth of unhappiness, mental health problems, infidelity and general unhappiness come tumbling across the kitchen table.  

That is a huge scope for any writer and I've said, she's in control.  The novel starts with the inciting incident and works backwards, with the last third working through the emotional carnage.  It ends on an uncertain, yet satisfying note.  No-one is particularly happy, but at least they are honest about their dissatisfaction.  And in one case, one character achieves a transitory form of happiness on their own terms.  

This is Nell, young, restless and socially conscious. Married to an older man (a former cycling champion), step mum to his children from a previous relationship.  Nell is possibly one of the few times I've had a crush on a fictional character in a book.  It's Nell, or Ashley in Iain Banks' The Crow Road. Maybe that is a trigger for me, big, bold novels about family secrets. 

Anyway, this is a comic novel achieved through hard graft and great skill.  In many ways, Marian Keyes is an underrated writer and it's a literary mystery as to why.  Her books have been translated into over thirty languages - that is over thirty years, fifteen novels, two collections of non-fiction and a cookery book.  She deals with human issues in a warm, comic way.  Another writer of a different gender or country (she's Irish) would be lauded for that grace and body of work.  The Walsh's in particular, who feature in six of her novels are a wonderful creation.  Putting the fun into dysfunctional, but never with authorial snobbery or judgemental polemic.  Again, Rachel sees Rachel Walsh working in the rehab she attended in Rachel's Holiday.  

I'd start there and work around.  She's a writer you'll discover and become slowly obsessed with.  In uncertain times, warm your soul with a new, literary discovery.   

 The Peripheral:  

Ah, 2022.  The year of George Jetson's birth, which will make those of us of a certain vintage feel old.  It's also forty years since an American science fiction writer called William Gibson needed a term for a fourth-dimension created by a network of computers and called it "Cyberspace".  

It'll never catch on.  

His work has been eulogised, derided and "paid homage to" over four decades (I'm looking in your direction The Matrix and Inception).  His books are epically cool, a Kubrickian remove from their narrative, but with a real moral purpose and chapters like hot shots of espresso.

Later this year, we'll see an Amazon Prime series of his 2014 novel The Peripheral.  Adaptations of his works are rare, but look elsewhere on everyone's favourite parcel delivery service for the teeth-grindingly awful Johnny Mnemonic.  The Peripheral is perhaps the most accessible of his books, but it appears to have acquired a curiously timely status.

It's a novel across two time zones: a pre-apocalyptic mid- 2020's, before an event called "The Jackpot" wipes out 80% of humanity: a tsunami of war, political instabilities, global warming and pandemics. 

I know, sounds far-fetched.  

The other is a mid-23rd century, where science has thankfully solved all of our problems.  London is ruled by a monarchy, but in reality, AI makes the big decisions and Russian gangsters have the money.  Thankfully, there is a something to take your mind off things.  There's a Victorian cosplay zone with both robot street urchins and prostitution.  If that's not your bag, Time Travel (called Continua) is possible by the manipulation of data, creating an alternate reality called a "stub".  

Video games tester Flynne Fisher sees a murder in a game which, in reality takes place some two centuries hence.  Fixer Wilf Netherton becomes involved in a plot to manipulate the past, to suit the needs of a greedy future.

Like most of his oeuvre, it's a caper with the eponymous McGuffin.  Here: a robot, which can house the consciousness of a living being.    It's involving, imaginative and slick piece of work.  Most of Gibson's books come in trilogies, Agency is set in the same universe - with a Continua enthusiast called Vespasian creating a world on the brink of nuclear war. The finally book in this trilogy is, as yet unwritten.   

And so, later this year we'll see a much-delayed series of The Peripheral.  Some eight years after the publication of the novel, not helped by a mid-production shutdown due to Covid.  This is a level of irony that even Alanis Morrisette would shy away from. Production finished in November.  No trailers, no photos, but an IMDB listing with actors. Yes, it actually exists.

Hopefully, this will lead to his work receiving more praise and more curious readers.  Go to BBC Sounds to hear him on Desert Island Discs, or discussing his debut Neuromancer on World Book Club. His elongated drawl of a voice has addictive, mesmerising qualities.  He is a prime example of a novelist as both a visionary and an idealist; who sees technology as both saviour and satan.  To quote him nineteen years ago, "The future is here.  It's just not widely distributed yet." 

 Milk To 1-40, Caffeine to 1-80

Milk To 1-40, Caffeine to 1-80 is a great name for a coffee shop.  A few tables, for those of us who vant to be alone.  The entire back wall, filled with the bee-like shadows of baristas, punctuated by the hiss of steam and the slow, sensuous searing of milk.  None of the darkened, underground gloom of the big coffee chains.  It lies in an area of the city, where it used to be ill-advised to walk late at night.  A liberal application of both coffee and hipster made it into a trendy area.  It lies next door to an antique shop, filled with both the possessions and dreams of other people called Buy Curios.  The other side is filled with a Christian bookshop called Crosswords.  The weather is unseasonably warm and bright for a December day; somewhere between Black Friday, Cyber Monday and What The Fuck Do You Want For Christmas Tuesday.  

A 4X4 pulls up.  Something muscularly Freudian and designed to be driven across warzones.  A man locks the door.  Dressed in a fashion belonging to those with either an extreme sense of flamboyance; or no concern for other people’s opinions.  Zero fucks are given by this muscular, elegant man in a red velvet suit and black boots.  If this was a few years ago, no-one would dare touch the car for fear of imminent violence.  

Heart breezes in and causes several coffees to be spilt.  He orders something, that generally would cause headaches in most people.  He sits down and searches for WiFi. He looks up and sees the sign:

‘WiFi Password: There is no WiFi Password.  Have A Conversation.  Order Another Cup’.

He searches for WiFi on the phone, picks up the one of the Christian book shop across the road.  Everyone knows that the password is 5loaves2fishes.  

Heading towards this street is a sinuous woman on a bike.  Flowers in her hair, a Summer dress flowing in the February chill.  Pink sunglasses casting a magenta shade.  She leaves a cloud of perfume behind her.  Not enough to pollute the atmosphere, or cause people to gag.  However, it does cause admiring glances from several men.  And at least four women.  Soul chains her bike to a lamppost outside Milk To 1-40.  She might be a complete flowerchild, but she’s not stupid.  She looks into the plate glass windows and waves at Heart.  It might be Christmas Shopping Time; but the café is relatively empty.  The sense of loneliness and Winter light gives it the sense of an undiscovered Hopper painting.  She waves at Heart, Heart waves back.  A frisson of excitement settles across the Winter air.  

Heart, has already ordered.  Like most men with an excess of testosterone, he camouflages this macho dickheadery as an act of pure Medieval chivalry.  He has ordered a coffee which has come from Ethiopia.  It is served alongside a glass of water - such is the insidiousness of the caffeine.  Alongside it is a wedge of Hummingbird Cake.  Despite its name, this bird is earthbound by banana, pecan, cream cheese and coconut.  For Soul, he has selected a Camomile Tea and a slice of Victoria Sponge.

 ‘I’ve ordered for you!’ he says, with an expansive gesture as she walks towards the table.  

She peers over the glasses, then peers closely at the cake.  ‘Is that a Victoria Sponge?’

‘It should be, I paid for it’.  

‘Technically…’ she underlines this point, as she sits down and removes her glasses; ‘It’s not a Victoria Sponge.  A true Victoria Sponge has jam only; not jam and cream.’

‘It’s a fucking cake!’ Heart says, slipping into the darker elements of his psyche.  He removes his sunglasses and is momentarily calmed by the cerulean depths of Soul’s eyes.  Time passes, empires rise and fall.  Dying stars continue their slow breaths.  These are immortal beings after all, and anything could happen.  

‘However,’ she says, underlining the words with the merest flourish of a finger; ‘I fancied some cake.  And I accept your kind offer.’  She moves the fork sideways and with a combination of light and firm pressure, takes a mouthful of cake.  She washes it down with a sip of tea.  A long and awkward silence follows, the kind that there shouldn’t be on a first date.  Heart breaks it, as he says through a mouthful of cake:  ‘How’s Anima?’

‘She’s fine.  What is all this about, anyway?  This doesn’t feel like a date.  And technically, I’m spoken for.’

‘I’m offering you a business proposition’, he says through another mouthful of cake, followed this time by a slug of coffee.  ‘I’m getting tired of being an Agent Of Spirit.  And The World is spinning down to the next catastrophe.  Dunno what it is yet.  Pandemic, Asteroid Strike-‘

‘I’ve seen that one.  Nasty, nasty stuff.  Still, tropical flowers everywhere would nice.’ Soul, is at heart (every pun intended) a dreamer.  She sees the best of every situation and can see the merest chink of light in the darkest of clouds.

‘What I am proposing’ He says; absent-mindedly tracing a line in the sugar he has spilt on the table ‘Is an alliance.  Not a romantic one, but me’, he bangs the table, disturbing the mid-afternoon coffee break for several people. ‘And me’ he knocks again, causing a further frisson of fracas and the abandonment of several novels that were well reviewed by The Guardian, but will remain on the shelves of the local charity shop for at least a year; before returning to the trees that gave birth to them ‘working together’.  

And for a moment, eternity hangs by a single, Damoclean thread.  I mean, this thing happens more often than you think.  Soul is actively considering the offer.  A union of Heart And Soul?  Humanity could be saved from itself.  Peace, justice and equality.  With lots of flowers.  Pretty flowers, waving in a Summer breeze….

And then Anima walks in.

Anima is a, gender-fluid creature.  As the name suggests, she is the spiritual embodiment of the space between the Male and Female psyche.  She’s moving through the door, exchanging furious glances at some customers and apologising profusely to others.  She’s in a relationship with Soul.  At the moment, anyway. She has previously been in a relationship with Heart.  And several other spirits.  To say ‘it’s complicated’, would be an understatement.  She sits down at the table, dressed in a hoodie which has seen better days and leggings which have seen better years.  You couldn’t cut the silence if you tried.

‘Afternoon Anima.  Who are you today’ says Heart, as he takes a slug of coffee ‘and should we be scared?’  He smiles insincerely.  

‘Fuck you and the horse you rode on, you macho prick.  Hi Darling.’  She kisses Soul in such a way that several customers conclude that this is the most interesting date they’ve seen.  Heart points a finger in the air at the nearest barista and points at the table.  

‘What’s cooking?’ says Anima, as she traces the patterns of distant galaxies in the spilt sugar.  She’s almost childlike now, smiling and stealing glances at Soul.  She reads the barista’s mind and she places her coffee and cake on the table.  She’s studying art history.  She’s talented, definitely.  At the same time, she has a haughty disdain for anyone else.  Her dreams of being a famous artist will crumble, due to this fatal flaw.  She’ll end up teaching art history to snotty teenagers.  Her own snark will chase any lover away.  

‘Heart here’ she points at him, he smiles back.  ‘Is offering an alliance.  Me and him working together.  Creating a utopia.’

‘And I wasn’t invited?’ questions Anima.   She looks back hurt, with a single tear running down her cheek. Soul traces the path with a finger.  

‘My darling…’ she says, speaking in a child-like way to a child-like spirit ‘I didn’t even know…’ This apology is accepted.  

‘So’ says Anima, still idly tracing pretty patterns on the table; ‘You two are going to work together. Which ‘generally’ leads to peace.’  She does the air quotes thing, so let it not be said that elemental spirits aren’t fucking irritating too.  ‘The Pax Romana, The Long Peace, that sort of thing?’

‘You got it one sister’, Heart says with a double thumbs up.  I refer you, gentle reader to the previous point about macho dickheadery.  

‘The Pax Romana was plagued with civil wars.  The Long Peace was underpinned by the threat of nuclear Armageddon, only prevented by Stanislav Petrov.  Thanks Stan!’ She raises her coffee cup and drinks it in one sip.  

‘She’s got a point, you know’.  Soul smiles at Heart.  He can feel a deal - which would grant him a power that would match that of The Spirit – slipping away, dripping like water.  

‘Ok’ he says, looking at the half-drunk coffee and half eaten cake.  ‘What is the alternative?’

‘When you say an alternative, do you mean something that gets you what you want?’ Soul smiles sweetly.  The scent of flowers is fading away and the cool water of pure rationality is flowing through her veins.  

‘At the moment, me and Soul are in a relationship.  And that is the way it is going to be for quite some time.  Isn’t it, my love?’ They kiss in public again, causing the turning of several different heads and the deletion of at least four dating apps.  ‘Humanity is at a crisis point.  It is more than capable of exterminating itself.  It’s a junkie, addicted to the possibility of a multiple-choice apocalypse.’

‘Nice image’ nods Soul.

‘Humanity’ says Heart ‘is a junkie, I agree.  It’s addicted to cheap sentimentality.  It’ll cry at a dolphin getting caught in a plastic bag; whilst voting for governments that let children starve.’

‘I agree’ begins Anima.  ‘But where does this change come from?  Women.  Young people.  Activists.  People who are tired of being racially abused or murdered by police officers.  People who just want agency over their own sexuality, their own gender preference.’

A long pause settles over the afternoon.  Heart remains silent.  He’s itching to say something in the general ballpark of sarcastic, flip, passive aggressive.  But he can’t.  He knows in his heart of hearts, there is no comeback.  This is the truth.  In this sense, immortal beings are truer to their own souls than mere mortals.  And he also knows that humanity will find the answers.  Maybe slower than he would like. But there will be a glad dawn, some uncertain time away.  

‘Come on’ said Anima.  We’re leaving.  ‘Work to do.  Minds to change, ideas to be formed and souls to be tweaked.  Least of all: yours.’  They leave, arm in arm.  Heart leaves soon after.  

And so, it came to pass on a late Winter afternoon, humanity was saved.  Not by machismo, or force but by the quietest part of its personality.  This small point in history, made in a coffee shop was never noticed.  It was a grain of sand on an infinite beach.  A side street in civilisation.  That rarest of things; a useful argument. 

 

 Me, on BBC Radio Devon:  one hour in.  https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0b3sgmd

 Book Review:  The Left Hand Of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin 

Christmas approaches and with it, the annual rituals of books and films. Some people swear by A Christmas Carol.  I find Dickens to be almost forensically written and morally complex at the same time.  If you want something apposite for long, cosy nights and crackling firesides, the above could be it.  

Set in in a distant future, Genly Ai is an investigator for The Ekumen; a galactic empire based not on force, might and conquest, but "curiosity, adventure, delight."  He has come to Gethen, a planet in a permanent state of Winter, to convince them to join The Ekumen.  Ai's friendship with King Argaven's advisor Estreven makes him a pawn in a political game.   

That's the basic narrative of the novel, but it doesn't really reveal it's style, which alternates between the analytics of Ai's field reports, Gethenian fables and sacred texts; plus, the actual friendship between Ai and Estreven.  Which, it is suggested has the potential to be much more. 

I'd also draw attention to worldbuilding, which for me is as much a capital crime for writers as info dumping.  The fine details of life on Gethen come conversationally.  So, we learn Gethenian's become the opposite gender (called Kemmer) for a few days each month.  This biological fact has shaped every part of their society as much as climate.  The cold means that Gethenians eat constantly, strangers are both welcomed and given shelter and buildings have two sets of doors to allow for snowdrifts. 

In that sense, it comes from that late 1960's era of science fiction.  But it's easier to read and more graceful than something like Dune.  I'd probably class that as something like Catch 22 or Ulysses: a K2 or a King Lear of a book; where everyone makes an attempt but few succeed. 

But it's perfect for Christmas, as it shows one human life as dependent on another. The title comes from a religious ceremony called a foretelling that Ai attends. The celebrants of which worship a female messiah called Meshe, who died over two Millenia ago. 

Ai is seen by some as a sexual deviant for his permanent gender status.  He's also seen as a curiosity on a planet with no birds or insects, so the concept of flight doesn't exist.  Space is referred to as The Void, where the souls of sinners go. 

Estreven's name might mean traitor on Gethen, but he is Ai's saviour in a greater cause.  Ai is a young man who has given his life towards it.  He's actually over one hundred years old, having travelled from Earth at near light speed in suspended animation.    His crewmates will awake in a few years' time as a security measure, but he is literally alone in an alien land.   

Le Guin is seen by many as an icon of fantasy and science fiction; but I think that isn't enough praise.  I'd also mark her personally in the same league as Bulgakov or Spark.  I've read one book by each and I am terrified to read another, lest it isn't as good. 

However, now we are near the equinox and we're all out of Whamaggedon, why not join me in my ritual?  You'll learn that "a single voice, speaking truth is a more powerful force than fleets and armies, given time."  See also "Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made like bread, remade all the time, made new."