Written World is about writing, or is meant to be. It strays from its purpose from time to time, in hopes of providing at least some light relief from yawn-inducing essays about literature that may presume to entertain but too often don’t.
So the previous post was my novella, Wannabe by Garbo. You read it. No? You just get right back there and consume it. It’s a cracker! Maybe you read it and you’re deeply offended. Well! That’s something. A fashion designer once advised his daughter that if she couldn’t be the best dressed woman in the room, she could at least be the worst dressed – like that.
Of course if you are offended, I’m very sorry. I don’t really want you to be. But I can understand if you are, and I went to say a few things about that.
It would be easy to think that it’s a “confessional”. That’s partly true. I loosely based the central character on my own pathetic self and my life history. However, in key respects he is not like me at all. For one thing, he’s much nicer than I am. The life history I have foisted on him in many ways nonetheless outdoes my worst and what I am trying to get at through him is the difficulties males face in our time, through our own failings. According to me there is a way forward, and my character Simon Quayle sets it out in his personal statement. I agree with that statement.
There is more!
All my books/writing are meant to be about ideas, and Wannabe, says its author, is groaning with them! That’s why I want you to read it, and why you might be coming at me with a pitchfork, not only about gender politics but some other stuff.
There is a reading of the nature of the country where I live that is now getting noticed in other ways, and according to me, it matters a lot. We New Zealanders seem to find it difficult to get our heads around a common view of where we came from to decide where we’re at.
So there’s a wee contribution along those lines. Readers may find this overwhelmingly negative, but it is not so. It merely recognises the negative that is all around us and finds a way to make things better. That’s not bad!
There is also quite a bit of offhand discussion about writers in Wannabe. I wanted to highlight some who are lesser known or even unknown, and to bring out information about some of the better known that is likely to surprise their admirers.
All that in less than 30,000 words! Not only that, but “cunningly concealed in a page-turner”! OK, I wrote those words. What I want to say, as humbly as I can make it, is that this is actually a pretty good yarn. I think you should read it.
The Written World 