Life through the (fictional) Looking glass
This week I have been back in Sydney working on a new play called Infidelity – basically a dark comedy of manners around the theme of what the French politely describe as the clap of lighting – the plot involves two married couples - four characters – a American/Australian painter Marta (49), female late forties who’s married to an Australian Jewish film director Saul (60) his German London based film producer (female, 42) who’s married to an English psychologist Peter (38). It takes place in both London and Melbourne and begins after a producers screening of the director’s movie around a dinner party at Gita’s apartment in Notting hill Gate. The second act takes place a year later in Melbourne at a dinner party and Marta at Saul’s house.
Marta and Peter – individuals who are normally in the orbit of their alpha partners (to their amazement and secret chagrin) fall both in lust and in intellectual solidarity by the end of the first half of the play with both satirical and disastrous consequences.
I began the play before the current global economic crisis and then paused realising that the zeitgeist in the western world was changing so rapidly from week to week that I would have to for the dust to settle to gauge how my characters lives and behaviour would eventually be impacted by such dire economic events.
For Saul whose low budget movie loses the backing of the mainstream studio and is forced to seek post production money elsewhere to finance the edgier (and racier) cut he wants (the original reason why the studios walked) the recession makes it so much harder to realise his vision of his film, for his wife the prospect of walking out to a more precarious financial future without him (divorce has become prohibitively expensive) is daunting…For the younger English based couple life a year later is even harder. The psychologist has lost clients and the film producer a couple of costlier costume dramas and she is now contemplating getting into producing reality TV.
Certainly life is dire currently in the UK, the English seemed to be bombarded with incessant bad news almost as if the press have a certain schadenfreude about their intentions. Now back in Australia it seems that their press is a little more circumspect - also, thus far, the Australian economy doesn’t appear to be impacted as badly as the UK and the US – then again, the tidal wave might only be four months behind in Oz –hard to tell, but walking the streets, everyone appears to be a lot happier and relaxed by comparison and retail isn’t down nearly as badly as in the rest of the world.
Visually in the play I want to introduce some of Saul’s footage that had ended up on the editing floor into the play. The footage is a sex scene between Saul’s protagonists in the movie, a scene that the studio had deemed too politically incorrect and inexplicit to use (a theme close to my heart). I intend to use it to great comedic effect when Saul wanders back into the dinner room, not realising that his wife and his producer’s husband have started to make love under the table, without noticing them he switches on the outtakes and thinks the sounds of lovemaking he’s watching are coming from the screen and not under the table. Again, projection, reality and fiction all fused into one. The best most seamless example of media used in a play, in mu opinion, was Patrick Marber’s Closer (I was lucky enough to see the production he directed himself in London years ago). In that scene we have a male protagonist having intense Internet sexual flirtation with another male character via the Internet using a female persona without the other character realising. It is both hilarious, poignant and a study in loneliness and projection all at once, and is an integral part of the production (projected text on a back screen) without pulling focus from the actor on stage: A fine balancing act in a conventional modernist narrative.
This sensation that the global zeitgeist is shifting under one’s actual feet – it’s transforming so faster - made me think about how artists, writers etc are little more than creative observers who absorb then filter, digest and process the world around them. I do not believe that any real artist works in a vacuum. The challenge is to capture the universal in the specific. Some themes and primary emotional experiences never change merely the furniture and the costume.
Life in the narrative
I’m now back in Australia for a large birthday party (my own.) Mid-life, I guess, and I’m confronted with the odyssey of many incarnations that have brought me to this point in my life. Naturally a fairly frenetic person with a frenetic lifestyle I don’t often have the luxury of introspection - in fact I feel like I’ve been on fast forward since about 16. One of the advantages of writing is that an author can escaped into her/his own narrative during the actual process of writing. This is particularly true of myself partly as the nature of my work takes me into the labyrinths of research, and purely fictional characters and lives. There is a glorious distraction from the real world in this – interestingly enough an editor I recently worked with told me that quite a few writers she works with suffer from agoraphobia and are reluctant to leave their homes. I suspect this is because there is a danger one can start to really live in one’s own stories and give up on the real world. After all you can control a fictional world.
Certainly when I was a child I chose to escape into the fictional world of reading to avoid a rather dramatic home life. I remember sitting for hours in the cupboard seriously expecting the back of the cupboard to dissolve and give way to the magical world of Narnia. As I grew up in London there was always the obligatory heavy coats and Macs musky with perfume and the street making a hanging dark forest that only added to the mystery. Likewise the wasteland between the back fence and the railway line (my closest girlfriend’s house backed onto the Bakerloo line) was also a fantasyland of tangled blackberries and undergrowth ripe for the imagination.
As children of the 60’s and 70’s we made up our own entertainment and stories – and as we had little but abandoned houses, vacant lots and the adults around us to project our imaginations on – we worked hard at it. Watching my stepsons on play stations I’m not entirely convince the new generation of electronic media exercises the imagination quite as much. We made up our own characters, monsters and spacecrafts from scratch, there does seem to be certain passivity in the multitude of options the kids are offered today.
But back to the big birthday – I take solace that on a cellular level we are entirely different creatures from moment to moment. Certainly I have been through many manifestations and do not feel the same person I was, even five years ago. I have been extremely fortunate to have lived in several countries and have close friends scattered across the globe. There are advantages and disadvantages one of these is the challenge of creating a continuum of history – Born in England, bred in London (to two people who themselves were migrants of sorts), 20’s in Australia, ‘30’s in The US - I have found that the time I’ve now spent back in the UK has created a full circle and many of the family myths and projections migrants experience when out of their home land for decades have been dispersed and old hauntings exorcised. Certainly my last few years in London as a teenage after my father died suddenly when I was sixteen were traumatic (on retrospect – then they felt wild and exciting), and really it was only the grace of God that I emerged fairly intact.
Actually for the first time, I placed myself as a minor character in Sphinx, (although I gave myself a couple of more years – 18 instead of 16 so that I was at least legal – in a fictional way and gave myself psychic powers – that is definitely fictional!) which was both fun and confronting.
A Polish friend of mine one said to me - a migrant is one who dreams of the palm when under the pine then when he’s back under the palm he finds himself dreaming of the pine; This is, in some ways, all our dilemmas. In a way, after a certain age, our childhood becomes the land we have migrated from – a tantalising horizon we find ourselves dreaming about yet unable to return. The trick is to never grow up.
Another sad coincidence: the building that recently collapsed in Cologne on the 3rd of March – the Historical Archive of Cologne - was one that both myself and my researcher/translator (and very close friend playwright Henning Bochert) utilised while working on my novel ‘The Witch of Cologne’. It is tragic that both lives were lost as well as invaluable historical records going back to the Roman Times that were irreplaceable, my condolences to the city and people of Cologne.
Tsunami
There is a Tsunami of change hanging over the publishing industry, a little like the same Tsunami that hung over the music industry a few years ago. It is the transition from hard copy book format into e books, the Kindle, free down loads and a whole revolution in the reading experience. A revolution that, frankly, is already underway and one that publishers, agents and this writer, are a little nervous of – like a bunch of experienced surfers clutching their antiquated long boards staring up at this massive wave on the horizon, wondering when it will break, how it will break and will they be able to ride the crest.
I’d love to think that owning a book, holding it in excited clammy hands, caressing the beautiful embossed paper, staring down at the cover – the image of which (hopefully) not only resonates with the story but is also haunting – will always be the primary way a reader will consume a narrative, but looking at how anyone under the age of around thirty-five wolfs down and assimilates stories from watching 3 minute videos on I pod through to racing through the stages of a play station game to creating one’s own narrative, persona and quest on Second life, I suspect that the old fashion bound book will end up a collector’s item – a little like traditional frame painting/art is perceived now. Desirable to own but slightly rarefied and perceived as a luxury item.
We will all have Kindles – hopefully as stream-line and as sexy as the I Pod (boy, do I wish Apple was in the race for the first really sexy reading device) story, with a decent viewing screen (currently for speed readers as myself it is far too small- and slow) and we will all have massive library downloaded on these devices. The structure of the actual novel will change – with multi platforms feeding into the storyline – highlighted words that - when hit on - will take you to detailed footnotes – maps, historical research, drawings, maybe even fictionalised photos of the characters. There might even be alternative endings to the story, or (and I can hear my publisher sharply inhale at this point) the unedited author’s ‘cut’, God forgive us our indulgences.
Where lies the imagination of the reader you might ask yourself, Spoon-fed, as she/he would be? Well, I suspect it will be in authorship itself as there will be a massive (there is already) increase in self-published on-line serialised novels – the progressed blog; of only a few will make it in print – as there will be no financial incentive to be traditionally published other than as a vanity project.
Initially, just as democracy can lead to mediocrity - there is going to be an awful lot of unreadable, indulgent flotsam. Then as the revolution settles down into an organised industry the cream will rise to the top again. It is inevitable. It is Darwinian.
However, in the transition, just as many bands have suffered from a sudden loss of royalties due to free downloads and have been forced back on the road, it’s going to be even tougher for working authors. Already in the current paradigm very few actually make a living, (apart from the top 3%)and those of us who do, it is usually not a fantastic living. Bands survive by performing live or hoping that that first free down load will lead to the purchase of the DVD in the stores – so far that has worked (although DVD sales are slumping and it isn’t just because of the recession). Most authors’ pick up 10 to 12% royalties per unit – you have to be a best seller to make a reasonable living. Now calculate in the free download plus e-mailing that download to your friends, family etc. All of which eat away at eth actual necessary to own a book.
The process of writing (especially when a great deal of research is involved) is labour intensive, and we still have to eat. Time to think laterally and trade in your long-board for a custom designed one.
NOTE: For my UK readers my novel Sphinx has just been brought by Sphere, LittleBrown’s UK and I will be published under the name T.S.Learner January 2010.
On Rats and Royalty
I have to confess to a life-long love affair with a three-inch nearly blind rodent that resembles an uncircumcised very wrinkly penis with long yellowed teeth. I stumbled upon these creatures in a small zoo in Southern California – pink hairless and pressed up against the glass of a bisected warren that resembled the labyrinth of an Ant’s colony they lay snuggled against each other like shot down miniature zeppelins: the Naked Mole Rat.
As I said it was fascination at first sight and the more I discovered about these creatures the more endeared I became. How can you beat a mammal who lives in a colony with the same social structure as bees or ants – the only mammal to do so, (it’s called eusocial) with one ‘queen’ who gets to have her own harem of about four choice males, and, who literally lengthens when it’s decided she will be queen but increasing the space between her vertebrae so that she’s long enough to bear the numerous litters of pups (about four a year with sometimes as many as 27 pups in a litter) and who controls the fertility or lack of it of the other mole rats around her by bullying them by shoving them repeatedly with her snout thus inhibiting any onset of reproductive hormones. There is a strict hierarchy with ‘worker’ or should I say ‘digger’ mole rats at the bottom – whose lives are devoted to digging out the massively long underground colony (naked mole rats never ever come to the surface) in a convey belt style manner. Next class up is the soldier naked mole rat – heavier and stronger than the worker, these guys (and gals) fight off intruders and are (if they’re buff enough) get to audition for the harem. (Picked out on parade).
These underground colonies exist mainly in Africa, in desert regions and can be miles long with as many as 300 individuals. The Naked mole rat (or sand puppies as they are known locally) lived off the large succulent tubers or roots of desert vegetation. Obviously evolution has maximised the survival capabilities of these creatures whose other wonderful habits included basking in sun heated tunnels nearer the surface then going further down to join their chiller comrades to warm them with their little pink bottoms. Eating their own faeces to re-digest the fibrous roots they live off, rolling in their own shit (in specially dedicated ‘toilet’ tunnels) so that they are imbued with the particular scent of the colony and this demarks them from any intruder mole rat from another rival colony. Which, as true provincials, they will attack and try and kill upon appearance (classic Western plot - Naked Mole Rat comes to town).
Controlling their own metabolic rate so that they are able to shut down when the going gets tough. Yet despite their resting metabolic rate being 30% lower than expected they still out perform all other mammals re: energy spent in their lifetimes. Boy, wouldn’t that be great for these times! Imagine - the fridge is empty, the credit card is maxed out and McDonalds is shut and suddenly you’re able to live off that stale donut at the back of the cupboard for weeks and have enough energy to mug a banker the next day!
It gets better - now the scientists have discovered the Naked Mole rat might hold the secret to eternal youth. Fertile Female Naked Mole Rats never get menopause (love that!) even better old Queens breed just as well as young Queens. They appear not to age at all (i.e a 24 yr old mole rat has the body of a 2 year old mole rat) and they never ever get cancer.
Now I know the best of us are guilty of anthropomorphism but it strikes me that there is a lot to be learnt from this unprepossessing rodent. Firstly, okay, the social structure does sound like a benign dictatorship (with only the top mole getting laid – now why is that a familiar concept?) but when you consider that Naked mole rats are so closely related (after all this is more than kissing cousins) their DNA is practically identical you begin to see some of the pluses of dedicating yourself to the community (who needs religion when you are serving the ‘order’). In fact there is an argument that they (like bees or ants) function more as one part of a whole organism as opposed to an individual.
Who would of thought it possible for a mammal? And just how powerful is environment in shaping culture? Hugely, I suspect. Interestingly, as opposed to the more traditional way of establishing ‘break-away’ colonies – the Naked mole rat colony doesn’t split as such, instead a couple of fatter (weight is important as it is an indication of potential sexual maturity) and lazier individuals with an inexplicable propensity to travel (I think I know this guy) simply wander off under the desert and start up their own colony at some distance.
More disturbing when the queen dies or sickens the position of Queen is contested amongst the ‘soldier’ class with fierce fighting between the stronger females - sometimes for months; An rare instance where politics and reproduction fight it out – although strangely I am reminded of the Hallmark series ‘The Tutors’ with Rhys Meyer in the titled role, (who bears as much resemblance to Henry the Eight as I do to a mole rat although in actuality the real Henry the eighth did share some characteristics of the mole rat – small pink eyes, rather rotund) casting his eye about, and the vicious in-fighting of the ladies-in-waiting as they try to thrown themselves under the costumed (and often uncostumed) Rhys Meyer; such is the stuff of good fiction. I swear ‘Mole-Rats: the documentary’ is just around the corner as well as ‘Mole-Rats: the musical’ and ‘Mole-rats: the rock clip’ And I’m thinking of adopting the animal as my totem. Other cute facts about mole rats – their teeth never stop growing and they keep them trim by digging and gnawing out their tunnels and they all sleep together in large pink knots to keep warm.