A few bemused questions from Alex today:
Q: If you hate writing why are you doing so?
A: In truth I love it because it contributes to my already highly-developed sense of self-importance. But it sounds (I think) pleasantly self-deprecating and cool to say the reverse. So, affectation again.
Q: And I fear a play about anything in Iraq may have trouble avoiding political issues.
A: Yeah, I know. I just want to avoid obvious partisanship or tubthumping.
Q: And is Shakespeare really torture....?!
A: His structures are. One of my original ideas was to give “Nothing On” exactly the same structure as “Much Ado”: seventeen scenes, crucial plotpoints in the same places, etc, until I realised that while Shakespeare’s really good at language and characterisation and imagery and all that, his plots often stink. Try reading “Troilus and Cressida”. Ugh.
Q: Do you want ideas or critiques or simple encouragement?
A: All three, please. And if I stop posting to the blog, it probably means that I’m slipping into the easiest of all writers’ activities: inaction. So pester me, if you have the time.
I’ve been mugging up on the Iraq/ Islamism stuff today. (“Page 31, exercises 1 to 80. Get on with it you bastards, Sir’s trying to read”. Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m supposed to be teaching, but they all do all right in the end irrespective of what I say or do. And they’re all going to be actuaries anyway, so who cares?). Malise Ruthven’s “A Fury For God” has been really good - historical/sociological perspectives on the rise of Islamism and the causes of 9/11. At the opposite end of the scale is William Shawcross’s “Allies”, a tongueing portrait of TB and GWB and their matiness along the lines of “I love Dubya, if he wants to bomb the raggies that’s fine by me”. Actually I’m simplifying Shawcross’s argument *somewhat*, and it’s really quite a good book. Also v. interesting in this regard are Akbar Ahmed’s “Islam Today” and Bernard Lewis’s “What Went Wrong?”
I’ve also nicked a copy of York Notes Advanced on “Much Ado About Nothing” from the School Library. I say “nicked” because that’s exactly what I have done. I could have borrowed it quite legitimately, of course, but I’ve taken one of my occasional irrational dislikes to the new morning librarian, Mrs Barker (well, it’s not exactly irrational - she moans all the time) and thus I delight in persecuting her in these small ways. York Notes are great: tell the kids what to think, save their teachers having to.
Did y’all watch “The Power of Nightmares”? Thrilling stuff. Especially the little Taliban blokes at the end skipping through the daisies to “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head”.
Anyway, I have to go. The dog is lying beneath the table, treating me to a montage of her available smells.
(By the way, don't forget that you can post comments to the blog for all to read. Bring this post up by itself by clicking the link at the bottom, then click "post a comment". You have to create a member ID, but it's easy, and you get next to no spam.)
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Published by Earthman
on Friday, November 05, 2004 at 7:11 PM. Q: If you hate writing why are you doing so?
A: In truth I love it because it contributes to my already highly-developed sense of self-importance. But it sounds (I think) pleasantly self-deprecating and cool to say the reverse. So, affectation again.
Q: And I fear a play about anything in Iraq may have trouble avoiding political issues.
A: Yeah, I know. I just want to avoid obvious partisanship or tubthumping.
Q: And is Shakespeare really torture....?!
A: His structures are. One of my original ideas was to give “Nothing On” exactly the same structure as “Much Ado”: seventeen scenes, crucial plotpoints in the same places, etc, until I realised that while Shakespeare’s really good at language and characterisation and imagery and all that, his plots often stink. Try reading “Troilus and Cressida”. Ugh.
Q: Do you want ideas or critiques or simple encouragement?
A: All three, please. And if I stop posting to the blog, it probably means that I’m slipping into the easiest of all writers’ activities: inaction. So pester me, if you have the time.
I’ve been mugging up on the Iraq/ Islamism stuff today. (“Page 31, exercises 1 to 80. Get on with it you bastards, Sir’s trying to read”. Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m supposed to be teaching, but they all do all right in the end irrespective of what I say or do. And they’re all going to be actuaries anyway, so who cares?). Malise Ruthven’s “A Fury For God” has been really good - historical/sociological perspectives on the rise of Islamism and the causes of 9/11. At the opposite end of the scale is William Shawcross’s “Allies”, a tongueing portrait of TB and GWB and their matiness along the lines of “I love Dubya, if he wants to bomb the raggies that’s fine by me”. Actually I’m simplifying Shawcross’s argument *somewhat*, and it’s really quite a good book. Also v. interesting in this regard are Akbar Ahmed’s “Islam Today” and Bernard Lewis’s “What Went Wrong?”
I’ve also nicked a copy of York Notes Advanced on “Much Ado About Nothing” from the School Library. I say “nicked” because that’s exactly what I have done. I could have borrowed it quite legitimately, of course, but I’ve taken one of my occasional irrational dislikes to the new morning librarian, Mrs Barker (well, it’s not exactly irrational - she moans all the time) and thus I delight in persecuting her in these small ways. York Notes are great: tell the kids what to think, save their teachers having to.
Did y’all watch “The Power of Nightmares”? Thrilling stuff. Especially the little Taliban blokes at the end skipping through the daisies to “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head”.
Anyway, I have to go. The dog is lying beneath the table, treating me to a montage of her available smells.
(By the way, don't forget that you can post comments to the blog for all to read. Bring this post up by itself by clicking the link at the bottom, then click "post a comment". You have to create a member ID, but it's easy, and you get next to no spam.)
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