Month In, Month Out

I saw the Magna Carta today.

I also learnt that there are more than one - dozens of the things, actually, since it was issued several times, and each time one was sent to every county. Frankly, I'm surprised I haven't tripped over one before. Anyway, the Bodleian is currently displaying some of them, and I went along to have a look - was quite a surreal experience, but very fun and interesting. Our Vicar would be proud.

That opening sentence was quite unusual - which leads me to remark; Danielle had a good idea the other day, well I think she may have borrowed the idea, but it is good nonetheless. The idea is that you type out the first sentence from the first day/entry of each month, on your blog, and thus present a progress of the year. Just one sentence per month. Well, I only started in April, but I'm going to count the 10th April as a 'first day'.

April - Why, hello there.

May - May 1st is coming to an end in England, and thus comes the close of Magdalen's May Day.

June - We've all heard about the difficulties authors have with their second books - especially if these authors have had phenomenal success with their first books.

July - I don't read Science Fiction, but I think it's true to say that a lot of it is about making humans.

August - I'm back, I'm back!

September - This year has been one of lengthy absences in the world of Stuck-in-a-Book, and for that I apologise.

October - I'm sure most of you have been in this position: you want to tell someone a funny quotation you've read, only you can't remember the book, author, page or even the quotation properly.

November - If you're not singing Dolly Parton in your head right now, then either a)you're too young b)you're too sophisticated, or c)you're too sane.

December - Another week of being rather lax with blog posting - as I scroll down the section in the column which categorises posts by months, I'm astonished that I managed 28 in October and May.

What a strange collection of month-openings... and many of 'em apologising for my reticence. And not much about books there! How accurate a cross-section of my logging this is, I leave up to you...

"I Am Legend" Review Coming Next Week

I am full of glee at this moment. Yes, I said glee.

"I Am Legend" is opening this weekend. I'm sure you've heard about it - Will Smith is the last human left in a world filled with vampires. The reviews so far have been mixed, but I'll still be in the theatre this weekend, munching on popcorn and drinking soda and telling my wife when the scary parts are over and she can open her eyes again. In the immortal words of Chris Knight, it's a moral imperative.

The reason why I'm filled with glee is because "I Am Legend" is based on a novella of the same title by Richard Matheson, first published in 1954 and one of the ten best books I've ever read(and certainly the best science fiction novel). If you write science fiction or anything with a post-apocalyptic bent, and you haven't read "I Am Legend", then you're simply missing the boat. If you don't believe me, perhaps you'll believe Stephen King, who has said that Matheson's writing influenced him the most as a writer.

Review to come.

Secret Santa

I attended rather a fun Secret Santa party this evening, and this is what I got:


1) All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West
2) A Month in the Country by J. L. Carr
3) The Go-Between on DVD

Doesn't Santa know me well? Helps that I talk a lot about my literary likes and dislikes - always feel bad when I realise I don't know the preferences of those around me, when mine are well known. Perhaps because, where many of my friends have devotion towards certain sports or instruments or activities, I profess a deep-set adoration for Virginia Woolf and Jane Austen. Hmm. BUT these wonderful gifts are much appreciated, and perform that wonderful feat of being both beautiful and having great contents. Or so I assume - have not read/seen any of them, but am most confident. And now I can join in Cornflower's Book Group!

Following E-Query Instructions

Most agencies now accept e-queries. However, each agent has very specific guidelines on how to submit such queries - what address to send them to, what to include, whether attachments are acceptable, etc. If you're savvy enough to find an agent's email address, than you certainly should be able to find their website, which should include their guidelines. Just in case, here are mine again:

I will only respond to e-queries sent to me via my agency submission web page. I will not respond to e-queries sent to me in any other manner, unless it is a referral.

I will respond to all e-queries sent to me via my website within few days, and at most two weeks. If you have not heard from me after two weeks, it's because you either did not fill out the form correctly or you queried me more than once with the same material.

If I reject your query, do not ask me for more details or recommendations. I will not respond, and will actually get annoyed.

Though I strongly prefer e-queries, I still accept regular mail queries (query, SASE). It takes four to six weeks for me to respond. If you do not include an SASE I will not reply.

I know I'm laying down the law again, but the number of e-queries I've received last week that don't follow the above guidelines above was tremendous.

A Proper Family Christmas

Christmas Shopping is upon us, and I daresay some of you started some months ago, stirring the pudding back in March and planning the Christmas card list last Boxing Day. For the less organised amongst us, any ideas for presents are probably very welcome - and I'd like to push one under your nose for the bookish person in your life. Or perhaps you'd like to push this under someone else's nose, since you're the bookish person in their life.

I also have an AA Milne quotation for every occasion. Well, I can't remember exactly how this goes, but something along the lines of: "Every critic instantly assumes that, should a writer be able to make his audience laugh, he secretly wishes he were making them cry". Milne didn't always love his critics, but the point is that we shouldn't underestimate the comic writer - I think it's much more difficult to make readers laugh than it is to make them cry, and a comic novel done well is a wonderful thing.

Step forward Jane Gordon-Cumming, and A Proper Family Christmas. I was worried people didn't write books like this any more. Don't get me wrong, I love pensive, slightly depressing, high-literary fiction more than anyone - Virginia Woolf is one of my favourite authors, after all (though she is incredibly funny, I must add) - but where did novels go which gently laugh at human nature and the tangles they get themselves in? Thankfully Jane G-C has written one such novel, and I know you'll love it.

William lives by himself in a rambling old house, such as are only found in fiction - well, I say alone, he actually lives with a rather wonderful cat called Scratch. You can't go wrong with cats in fiction - they're such amusing and characterful creatures. Anyway, William is an obstreperous old man, but one you can't help loving. Despite his best efforts, every member of his family descend on his house for Christmas - his forthright siser Margery; widow Hilary and her attractive teenage son; neurotic Lesley and Stephen with their spoilt child Tobias and put-upon nanny Frances; scatty Julia and innuendo-flinging Tony with worldy-wise daughter Posy and flirty nanny Shelley; arty Leo who seems to be perpetually ignored by all; charmer and antiquities expert Oliver. Phew, think that's everyone. What a cast! Despite a lot of characters and a lot of names, like one's own family one never gets confused. They all have their place and, like them or loathe them, you can't help being quietly fond of each and every one.

This novel is definitely a character piece - throw together a lot of disparate and amusing people, and a few Wodehousian plots, and see what happens. And what happens is a witty and touching romp through the intricacies and politics of a family Christmas. If you don't recognise it all, you're lucky, but you'll love it nonetheless. A perfect Christmas present for someone who loves something to read on Boxing Day, just so long as they can't recognise themselves in its pages... and best not give it to anyone called William, Leo, Margery, Lesley, Stephen, Tony, Shelley, Tobias, Posy, Julia... at a pinch Frances, Oliver, Hilary and Daniel will take it as a compliment...

Do You Music Share?

Earlier this week the House Judiciary Committee introduced a new bill to strengthen the federal government's ability to enforce intellectual property law. Created in response to the increased counterfeiting and piracy around the world, the Intellectual Property Act of 2007 (Pro IP ACT) is one of the most significant pieces of copyright legislation in the past ten years.

The act is 69 pages long, so of course there are many components, but here is what I expect to be the most significant parts. The Act will: 1) strengthen criminal and civil laws for copyright and trademark infringement; 2) appoint officers to work with foreign countries to help combat piracy and counterfeiting abroad; 3) and establish as part of the executive branch the Office of the United States Intellectual Property Enforcement Representative, whose goal is to enhance law enforcement coordination both nationally and internationally.

Overall, I think that this is a necessary step to combat what has become a frustrating situation for businesses and artists alike. However, I do think the bill might fail to properly address the innocent infringer (someone who mistakenly thinks that the copying is fair use) and doesn't properly recognize the distinction between illegal copying for personal, as compared to commercial use. As you can imagine, fans of music sharing are freaking out right now.

Haunting

Didn't think we'd have anyone call out "I know that book!" from yesterday's post.

I’ll put you out of your misery – the latest addition to my 50 Books is David Lindsay’s The Haunted Woman. It’s one of the books which came to my mind first when planning the list, and one of those which I still have in my mind over three years since reading it. I’ll warn you, though, reactions have been rather widespread – just within the blogging world, Lisa at BlueStalking and Elaine at Random Jottings thought almost exactly the opposite. Lisa put it in her top ten reads of 2004, whilst Elaine thought it was silly and pretty poor – all the more fun when opinion is disparate, isn’t it?! (On a completely unrelated note, did you know that the correct term for ‘?!’ is an interrobang?)

The Haunted Woman is another of those novels I love, where life is normal except for one fantastical element. In this case it is a staircase, which gets me interested immediately. Think this might be a rather specialist interest, but I love staircases in literature – was musing the other day whether there was scope for a thesis there, but might be too esoteric even for Oxford. Plus the only other one I can think of which has any particular relevance is Mrs. Sparsit’s metaphorical staircase in Hard Times. If you can think of any others, do let me know…

I’ll quote the blurb from my copy of The Haunted Woman:

Engaged to a decent but unexceptional man, Isbel Loment leads an empty life, moving with her aunt from hotel to hotel. She is perverse and prickly with untapped resources of character and sensibility. They explore by chance a strange house and there Isbel meets Judge, its owner; a profoundly disturbing relationship develops and it is from this that the drama unfolds.

They obviously don’t want to give the staircase bit away, but I shall – there is a staircase which offers three doors at the top. Isbel takes one of them, which leads to a room, where she meets Judge again. When they return to the main house, neither remember what has taken place in the room. And so it goes on, with parallel existences and relationships. All the way throughout the novel there is the mystery of what remains behind the other doors…

David Lindsay’s writing is sometimes criticised for not being very fluid or well styled, but I just found it took a little getting used to – sure, he’s not Virginia Woolf, but I didn’t find it stood out as awful. And, for me, the plot and intrigue and characters more than make up for this. I sometimes love books for language, regardless of plot (e.g. Tove Jansson’s writing) but equally sometimes plot takes precedence over language. And Lindsay manages to combine the two in a way which leads to a beautiful surrealism by the end, and produces a novel which is quite unlike anything else I’ve ever read. Give it a try.