I know novels have been regarded as escapist since the dawn of novels... but in the last year or so I have found it harder to escape into them, as I have become so critical and unable to read them. I lost my favourite form of escapism and have had to make do with lesser forms of entertainment. In the last few months however I have read several novels that performed the great trick for me... and I am delighted.
In the last few weeks I have read Ann Patchett's excellent Bel Canto and Justin Cartwright's The Promise of Happiness, and have had the great pleasure of re-reading The Moonstone. The number of classic novels I read as a teenager/young woman "for the story" and failed to notice how wonderfully and fearfully they were made is astonishing. I adored the Moonstone - the different narrators were sheer genius - I especially loved Miss Clack and her tracts: "Satan Amongst the Sofa Cushions" was a wonderful title. These books are all suitably impressive and humbling - I really thought they had something to say - and interesting ways of saying it. Observations of how people behave in difficult situations. Perhaps that's what's wrong with TRF - Lucy isn't really in a sufficiently difficult situation. Re-write ideas are endlessly occurring to me, but in the mean time Seduction - which is my new working title for Conscience vol 1 - is taking new and improved shape. It is a fascinating exercise to track the sexual development of an inexperienced young woman who wants to enjoy sex, but has a somewhat buttoned up boyfriend in an era when middle class people didn't "do" sex before marriage. I am now thinking of entitling the 3 novels: Seduction, Conscience, Evasion
Reading has been a wonderful release - but writing has generally made me happy. This is what I ought to be doing, anything else is a distraction.
In the last few weeks I have read Ann Patchett's excellent Bel Canto and Justin Cartwright's The Promise of Happiness, and have had the great pleasure of re-reading The Moonstone. The number of classic novels I read as a teenager/young woman "for the story" and failed to notice how wonderfully and fearfully they were made is astonishing. I adored the Moonstone - the different narrators were sheer genius - I especially loved Miss Clack and her tracts: "Satan Amongst the Sofa Cushions" was a wonderful title. These books are all suitably impressive and humbling - I really thought they had something to say - and interesting ways of saying it. Observations of how people behave in difficult situations. Perhaps that's what's wrong with TRF - Lucy isn't really in a sufficiently difficult situation. Re-write ideas are endlessly occurring to me, but in the mean time Seduction - which is my new working title for Conscience vol 1 - is taking new and improved shape. It is a fascinating exercise to track the sexual development of an inexperienced young woman who wants to enjoy sex, but has a somewhat buttoned up boyfriend in an era when middle class people didn't "do" sex before marriage. I am now thinking of entitling the 3 novels: Seduction, Conscience, Evasion
Reading has been a wonderful release - but writing has generally made me happy. This is what I ought to be doing, anything else is a distraction.
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