The Canons of Culture (NEW CONCEPTS)

[Mick Harper]

It is modelled on Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu. For 'British' in your critique read 'French' and for 'four books' in your verdict read 'four pages' in my case.

I don't think Powell is much read in Britain today. What seemed fascinatingly anthropological to his contemporaries, and the generation after, would seem desperately archaic, even repellant, to our current egalitarianly go-go readers.

[Grant]

Problem with Dance to the Music of Time is that the narrator does nothing and Widmerpool - the one we are supposed to hate - is the most interesting character. We are supposed to laugh at him because he wore a funny coat at school and used to go long-distance running.

Problem with A la Recherche is that the narrator drones on about his love for a girl but he's clearly gay. I gave up after three books.

[Pete Jones]

[Grant]

Years since I read it, but isn't Widmerpool someone who follows every modern craze over the period of the books? Golf would have been a middle-class craze in the 20s and 30s so the narrator would have sneered at his interest.

[Mick Harper]

Louis Auchincloss is someone who flits in and out of one's literary spyglass from time to time without anyone, me anyway, quite knowing why. He sounds Scottish so you think you ought to know who he is. Pete recommended him the other day so I set to to find a Kindle novel of his to try him out.

My first discovery is he is American so probably Auchincloss is Jewish rather than Scottish. Was, he died in 2010. Next thing, his books seem to be lit crit and history rather than novels. He is described as a 'lawyer and novelist' which is not something I've come across before. Shades of John Mortimer.

I eventually tracked down his novels but only one was available in Kindle and cost $75 which rather defeats the purpose. So I may never find out. Anyone got anything on the dude?

[Mick Harper]

So Hatty is invited by an ill-wisher to see Arturo Ui at Stratford (I didn't know it was one of Shakespeare's) and it's one of those modish productions where the actors enter from everywhere including through the auditorium. Hatty has sloped off for a smoke somewhere and who is this hurrying past, practically knocking her over, but Mark Gatiss in the name part. "Get out my way, woman," he says. Then, "Oh sorry, I didn't see it was you, Hatty. Are you all right for later?"

Something like that, she wasn't making a lot of sense. It was already well into the morning, if you get my drift.

[Pete Jones]

[Pete Jones]

Vidal's stepdad Auchincloss would also marry the mother of Jackie Kennedy. A tangled web.

[Pete Jones]

[Mick Harper]

John Grisham was (presumably) a lawyer. His novels are usually legal dramas. But I don't think anyone would describe him as 'lawyer and novelist'. This is quite important since every novelist was something before he could be remotely described as a novelist. It's called 'writing about what you know'.

John Mortimore--who I recommend to you though mainly through the TV adaptations of his books--actually worked as a lawyer throughout. I doubt that Auchincloss did. Although maybe he did, I was amazed at the sheer amount -- and breadth -- of his work product. He reminded me a bit of Anthony Burgess.

Your fascinating info about Auchincloss's social connections reminds us that the literary craft has a much higher standing in your country than mine.

[Pete Jones]

[Mick Harper]

I was so engrossed replying to your Trump post I forget the time.

[Mick Harper]

I have discovered a novelist's trick. Let's suppose you are writing a book--or better still a cycle of books--and the protagonist is (inevitably) an idealised version of yourself.

Naturally you won't want to be a quondam Margaret Drabble and get accused of writing to, for and about people just like yourself, i.e. the life and times of genteel literary types in Hampstead who say 'quondam' to one another.

You want to be more 'musculature', setting your works in a shabby non-genteel rustbelt town. The action takes place largely in bars and places of physical work. But everyone in it is a snappy dialogueur. Well, who knows, plebs may be like that. Your average novel reader doesn't.

But you can see the problem. How did the 'you' figure ever end up in such an environment. Easy! Your dad is a rough-hewn figure who married your mother, a Hampstead etc lady, when he came home as a war hero. Or she has domineering parents and would do anything to get out. Or she's a bit potty.

It doesn't matter because you've become the master of two worlds. You can bring the merits of each to impinge on the other. The book practically writes itself. The fact that this never happens in real life is irrelevant... you're writing fiction!

[Mick Harper]

Needing my next fix of Richard Russo I looked at what Amazon had to offer. I found Sh*tshow, as Amazon delicately put it. But what's this, a choice of format? It's available for 99p on Kindle and £278 in paperback. Well, anyone, what should I do?

[Pete Jones]