Final surrender

Let me get it right - I love books. Have always loved books, have always bought too many books, have several times got rid of huge numbers of my books for various reasons: moving countries is a good reason. Or running out of shelf space.Then I buy more books.

I have great respect for books. I don't write or highlight or underline in books (if I work with a book, I use post-its). In my youth, books were hard to get hold of. Books were valuable. I could occasionally pay a monthly salary for a very attractive book (were books expensive or was my salary miserable?).

On the other hand, I have no reverence for first or rare editions, and I like paperbacks, not only because they are cheaper, but because they are lighter and easier to read in bed or bring on a trip. And I have long ago discovered the practicality of Project Guthenberg when you are looking for a quote.

Yet I have so far not succumbed for reading devices.

I wonder whether having a Kindle is something literature people don't talk about, like a shameful disease. Because we all love books. Because books are so important, and all these horrible electronic things imply demise of the book. No literary scholar with self-respect will ever fall as low as reading e-books. Although for me it is most often the text that is important, not the physical object.

Anyway, yesterday as I started thinking about what books I want to take with me when I go to Sweden next week and then to Brazil the week after... and I remembered last time I was in Brazil and ran out of books and all those transatlantic flights when you finish a book in the middle of the trip and have no other choice than to start all over (you can do it with some books, but not all). And all the times you open a book you've brought on the plane and discover that you just don't want to read it right now, but you have to because there is nothing else to read except the inflight magazine.

I went on amazon and started looking, to begin with, whether any books I have on my current reading list were available as e-books, and of course they were, and since I am in the period of re-reading major classics, most of them are free. As I was clicking around I saw a link saying "Download Kindle for your PC". I thought I would try to see whether I sort of generally, in principle, hypothetically would be happy to read a novel on a screen. Because if it was awful there'd be no point in getting a Kindle.

I downloaded it, and I downloaded a book that had been on my reading list for a while, Tess of the d'Urbervilles. I read Mayor of Castebridge a couple of months ago, and it was magnificent. A good, solid, crisp, smelly Penguin Classic. Could it be as good on screen? Yes, it was. It actually made no difference at all, except that when I had my laptop in bed, there was no room for the cat, so she was upset and left and never came back. But I read Tess of the d'Urbervilles for a couple of hours, and it made no difference whatsoever, and I played a bit with changing font size and opening two pages on screen, but it really didn't matter. Only my laptop is definitely heavier than a paperback, and it also gets very hot. I have a smaller laptop that I take with me on travel, and this morning I downloaded Kindle onto it and discovered, to my joy, that my Tess was there as well. And yet...

The estimated delivery of my Kindle is next Monday. I'll keep you posted.

“Based on a true story...”

A friend gave me a book that she thought I should read. I am always grateful for reading suggestions because there are too many books our there, impossible to keep track of. It isn't a well-written book in my humble opinion, but I am glad I have read it because it will certainly get a lot of attention and likely to win awards because of its subject matter. Between Shades of Gray is the first novel by the American writer Ruta Sepetys, of Lithuanian origin, and it is a story (“based on first-hand family accounts and memories”, the back cover informs) about the deportation of Lithuanians after the Soviet occupation in 1939. For someone who has read a least some Holocaust literature, including children's literature, the gruesome details are not particularly shocking. For someone who has read books about Soviet labour camps, nothing is particularly new, and with all the horror and misery, the story is relatively idyllic. For someone like me, who learned the words “deportation” and “labour camp” among the very first, much is recognisable from family history: my great-grandfather, too, was thrown out of a cattle car when he died under transport. And yes, it is true that you could be shot if you stole a beet.

The writer has obviously done some serious research, visiting Lithuania and collecting evidence about the events she describes through the eyes of a fifteen-year-old. Since it is a book of fiction, she is not telling a story about any individual, but a collective story of a nation among other nations, and it is quite natural that in a novel everything is deliberately amplified and many stories brought together. Sepetys has got almost everything right. But it is this tiny “almost” that spoils the book for me.

It is, for instance, highly unlikely that a deportee would be allowed to keep a sketch pad and pencils, not to mention a fountain pen. This is one of the premisses of the plot, and I can accept it as poetic licence; however, the metaphor might have been stronger if the protagonist's drawings were imaginary rather than material. A deportee would definitely not be allowed to keep a Bible, which was forbidden under the Soviet regime even outside the penitentiary system.

When the Lithuanian are taken from a Siberian railway station to a labour camp, the truck stops in the middle of nothing, and the deportees are ordered into a building to take a shower. This is a poignant scene reflecting the humiliation of the female prisoners who must undress in front of the male guards. Apparently, Sepetys cannot imagine that in the region she depicts there is still no running water today, seventy years later. Sepetys describes in great detail the squalor of the local population, so where would a shower come from in the desolate Siberian steppes? (Showers are generally not a feature of Russia).

As they settle in the camp, some deportees write letters to surviving relatives and friends in Lithuania – and get replies. Lithuania is now under Nazi occupation; there is no way a letter from a Soviet prison camp would be delivered, and no letter “with Lithuanian stamps” would ever reach Siberia. The truth about totalitarian regimes is so unfathomable that no research helps you to comprehend it.

I would really like to believe that Sepetys has done her research properly, but there are too many gaps between her informants' evidence that she fills inadequately. The final drop comes when the protagonist gets a book for her sixteenth birthday. Well, by some serendipity a pretty, hardbound book with golden lettering might have found its way into a Siberian village. The protagonist is thrilled, because it is a book by her favourite author, Dickens, and a title she has not read, Dombey and Son. Then she opens the book and is utterly disappointed: the book is in Russian, which she cannot read. So how could she read the name of the author and the title? Shouldn't a writer who sets her story in Russia know that Russian language uses a different alphabet?

You may think it doesn't matter in a story of unimaginable suffering, and most readers will never notice. But if a writer decides to “tell ye your children...” she has to be credible all the way through.

Close encounters with children's writers

For obvious reasons I have met quite a few children's writers. One day I may write a proper memoir, but I can start with some episodes of entertaining nature.

Some years ago the Swedish Institute for Cultural Exchange sent me to Moldova. Most people don't even know where Moldova is or that there is such a country, and quite correctly, it only became an independent country recently. The check-in attendant at Stockholm airport hadn't heard of such a country and refused to check me in.

I was going, together with a young employee from the Institute, to explore whether Moldova was of any interest at all for Swedish cultural engagement. Our liaison was a suspect NGO that was supposed to get us in touch with libraries, the writers' union, publishing houses and higher education institutions. In their emails, the NGO wondered whether we had any special wishes. I said I would like to meet Spiridon Vangeli.

Now, if you were a British NGO and there was a visitor coming from Sweden asking to meet Philip Pullman, you'd probably say to yourself: "Yes, and HRM as well" and forget all about it. This is what the Moldovian NGO did. However, when we were there and went through the very tight programme, I wondered whether they had contacted Vangeli, as I had requested. They looked uncomfortable, not knowing how to tell me that the famous author was probably busy, and who was I anyway. I insisted mildly, and the young lady made a call, during which her face expression was transformed from puzzlement to astonishment to full shock. She put down the receiver and said: "He is coming over this very minute, with his car and driver, and he will take you to meet his friends and have dinner..."

I had a wonderful time with Spiridon Vangeli, a marvelous children's writer whom I had met in Moscow and whose signed books I still cherish. The young lady from the NGO was very respectful toward me for the rest of my visit.

Surprise parties

I haven't got much experience of surprise parties, and it's perhaps just as well. When Staffan turned 50 he escaped from celebrations and went biking in France, but when he came back his friends started plotting. They hired a place, sent out invitations, divided tasks and prepared everything. Two friends were supposed to take him out for lunch and instead bring him to the venue. My role was simply to come over as soon as they had left, but not dress up before that, not to raise his suspicions.

On the morning of the day, Staffan announced that he had a cold and phoned the two friends to cancel the lunch. They called me in despair and after a brief war council we decided that they would come over to us and then pretend they wanted a particular blend of whisky (for lunch! highly plausible) and persuade Staffan to go together to the liquor store. Somehow they did manage to persuade him - he must have been off guard because of his cold. He had not showered that morning and was wearing his shabbiest jeans and shirt. Frankly, he looked awful. As soon as they had left, I put on my party clothes and makeup and hurried to the venue where some thirty guests were waiting with champagne bottles ready. Some minutes later, one of the kidnappers came in, frustrated. As soon as they had driven past the liquor store and toward the centre, Staffan got suspicious, and when they parked, he promptly refused to get out of the car. I had to go and talk to him, and when he saw me in my fancy dress - half an hour after he had seen me at home in my track suit - he finally relised what was going on, and his reluctance grew. I was uncertain what tactics to use, but eventually told him not to be a wet blanket but come in and see his friends who had taken all the trouble.

I don't think he has forgiven me yet, although it wasn't my idea.

Unlike Staffan, I love celebrations, and when I turned 50 I gave a huge dinner party which I had planned almost a year in advance. (That is another story which I may tell sometime). But I also knew that at work we usually celebrated people's birthdays with a cake at our weekly afternoon coffee, so although I had no classes that day I decided to attend the coffee and allow myself to be celebrated. Since I also knew that we usually collected money for a gift and consulted a family member about what might be desirable, I had told Staffan that if anyone consulted him, I wanted a gym card and no cut flowers. They did indeed consult them, and apparently he knew about the surprise.

I was marking essays or something like that in the morning when Staffan inquired whether I was quite sure that the celebration was in the afternoon, and I told him I was. Two-thirty, as usual. Behind my back, Staffan called my department, and soon after there came a call from a friend who wondered whether I was aware that there was a surprise lunch for me at twelve. My first reaction was to jump into my car and drive as far away as possible from Stockholm and my department. I knew I would have enjoyed a surprise party, but they could have made sure I turned up. I finally did turn up and even enjoyed it, but there was a little cloud in the silver lining.

All this to thank my wonderful students for the surprise party for which they really made sure I was there. They had planned it for my actual birthday last Monday. Morag's role was to invite me to have a cup of birthday tea after my class, and I never had the slighest suspicion, just thinking how sweet of Morag. The day before I learned that my dear son would be in London for a couple of hours on Monday - the best birthday present I could have - so I cancelled the class to go and see him. I can imagine the students' disappointment! However, after I had humbly apologised and assured them I would let myself be celebrated next year, I had no clue that the party was still on. (They had created a Facebook event for it - I almost start crying now as I think about it). So last Friday, as I finished the class moved from Monday and was putting away my things, the door opened and in they marched, not just those attending in the class, but the whole bunch of masters, coming in specially, on a Friday afternoon! With cake and all.

It is such moments that make everything worth while, even fighting the windmills of University administration.

Masterpieces I have missed

I cherish the idea that I am quite well-read in children's literature. Of course nobody today can really keep abreast with everything that is published, but I have always imagined that I have read the most important children's books from a number of cultures and languages. My initial interest was fantasy, so it took me some time to discover the pleasures of Anne of Green Gables, The Secret Garden and Heidi, and I have been working hard to fill the gaps. Therefore I was a bit worried when our children's literature reading group decided to choose Anthony Buckeridge's Jennings Goes to School. Conceited as I am, I couldn't imagine there was a classic I hadn't read. A classic worth reading.

Usually when someone suggests a book for the reading group it's because they like it. It means that when you read the book someone has chosen you try to see why this person liked it, or at least what may be intresting to discuss. I hadn't done my homework by the time we met, and it so happened that the person who had suggested it couldn't come, so there was the whole group hating this book and no one to defend it, until someone said, rather timidly, that it was actually funny. The rest of the group protested loudly. Humour is a very serious matter, it is not only culturally dependent - and our group is highly multicultural - but individual. I don't find Just William particularly funny. Except for one person, the group claimed that Jennings was not funny. Yet something in the advocate's description, accompanied by a few quotes, made me curious. Apparently, it was linguistic humour, not situational humour. A student gave me her copy with the comment that she never wanted to see it again. So the other night I gave it a chance.

Staffan came running from the kitchen anxious that I was having a bad cough attack - but I was laughing and just couldn't stop. I hadn't laughed so much over a book since I read Three Men in a Boat. Jennings - I am your fan club. How could I have missed this absolutely marvelous book? It was published the same year as The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Once upon a time I made my way dutifully through Tom Brown's Schooldays and even forced my students to read it as a background to Harry Potter. Now I see that Harry Potter does not owe to Tom Brown, it owes to Jennings. How could I have missed it and why haven't I seen anyone mention it, for it must have been mentioned in every Harry Potter essay.

Here is a taster. I take all the trouble to type it.

"His name's Temple, and his initials are CAT, so naturally we call him Dog."
"But you didn't call him Dog, you called him Bod," argued Jennings.
"Give a chap a chance to get a word in," said Venables. "I haven't finished yet. It's a bit of a sweat calling him Dog, so we call him Dogsbody for short."
"But it isn't short," protested Jennings. "Dogsbody's much longer than Dog."
"Okay, then," replied Venables, logically, "it needs shortening. Bod short for Body, and Dogsbody short for Dog".

Is this where Neil Gaiman's Bod comes from?

There are twenty-five Jennings novels. My summer reading list is full.

Getting there

Good news today: my co-editor and I are getting a book contract.

Several people have asked me recently whether the volume coming out of the conference last autumn has been published yet. Which shows how little they know about book publishing.

For the conference, we asked for full papers. It means that we had a vague idea of what people would be talking about. We went deliberately to different sessions to hear as many papers as possible. A good written paper doesn't always make a good presentation, and a conference paper does not necessarily make a good volume chapter. Publishers don't want conference proceedings these days, because these don't sell. And frankly, I hate conference proceedings that lack coherence and are very uneven in quality. So we decided from the beginning that we would select no more than twelve papers. It was a hard decision, because there were many good papers that simply didn't fit into the book. I sincerely hope they have been or will soon be published elsewhere.

The conference was last September, and by the end of October we had made our selection, informed the lucky few and asked them for abstracts to be included in the proposal, at the same time asking them to revise and expand the papers to almost three times the length. I have never yet met an author who was upset by the request to expand their paper. Mostly we are asked to cut them down.

By December, we had collected all abstracts and written an introduction. We had completely opposite ideas about what an introduction is supposed to be doing, so it was a very useful exercise. We also wrote a formal proposal with specifications of audience, competition on the market, estimated length and other stuff. I have a file in my computer for this, where I just insert the relevant info.We submitted the proposal early in January. We also sent the outline to our authors asking them to take each other's chapters into consideration.

Sometime mid-March we received the positive first response from the editor who requested two sample chapters, one by an established and one by a less known scholar. Since we had asked all our contributors to submit their finished chapters by first of March, and surprisingly enough some of them did, we chose two and resubmitted. Meanwhile we chased the rest of our authors and edited all chapters for correct format. At least a couple of submissions were really late, but it didn't matter much at this point. We kept our authors posted about the progress. Authors tend to get impatient because they want to include their chapters in their CVs as forthcoming. We told them they could do it at their own risk. Personally, I'd never put anything on my CV before I had a contract.

About a month ago we had a generally positive response from the editor who had received two reader reviews. Now, reader reviews can be extremely helpful or they can be hopelessly stupid. Most of the comments were helpful, some were stupid, but what we were asked to do was address every single comment, either agreeing with it or arguing why we didn't agree. The fact that we didn't quite agree between ourselves wasn't quite helpful, but we did it. Meanwhile, we chased the tardy authors and corrected format and footnotes. If you ask authors to correct the footnotes you can be sure that they will make new errors, so it's just as well to do it yourself.

Today - happy news! The Board has approved the proposal, and we are getting a contract. So when is the book coming out? Take it easy. Since we have been so optimistic and prepared the manuscript while we were waiting, we can now submit it very quickly, probably next week. The editor has sent us, once again, Author Guidelines, with a really helpful note that we don't have to keep to them. So much for all our efforts. After we have submitted, the ms will go out to another round of reviews. It means that it is pointless to ask the authors for further revisions, even though we would like some. But we'll wait till we have the reviews, which may be helpful or stupid. In any case, we will have to report back to the editor how we are going to address the comments and then send the chapters back to authors for revisions. Are you with me? We are now probably in September-October. We will have to give our authors a couple of months for revisions. Meanwhile, we cannot do anything. When we have received all revisions, we will do the final editing and send the ms to the editor. It will then go to copy-editor and return to us with queries, helpful or stupid. Some copy-editors like to show that they have done their job well and change your spelling from British to American or the other way round, or change double quotes to single, or insert new paragraphs where you don't want them.

I think we are well over Christmas now. Copy-editors deserve their Christmas holidays. A few months later there will be page proofs, which always, I mean always, come when you least want them, and it's always urgent, after all those months. Hopefully, this publisher will not send out proofs to all authors individually. I much prefer to proofread myself than chase contributors who happen to spend their sabbatical in Antarctis without internet access.

Eventually, about two years after the conference, the book will be out. Our publisher is very proud of their short production cycle.

This is the most exciting book ever written

There is a new academic activity I have recently become engaged in: writing blurbs for people's books. It has always been a mystery to me. I understand that a paperback edition can carry quotes from positive reviews on the back cover. But when some for me totally unknown professor This and That from Such and Such obscure university is quoted stating that it is the most amazing book on the subject, I feel skeptical. Has this professor actually read the book? Did the publisher pay them to read the manuscript or is it just a friendly gesture?

The practice seems to get more and more common, as I have been asked to write blurbs for several books during the past few months. First, no, the publishers don't pay you for this; at best, you will get a free copy of the book when it is published. Let's say that an average academic book costs £30, and it takes me four to five hours to read an average academic book if I read it quickly (if I read it properly, it takes four to five days), the hourly rate is rather low. In some cases, I had read the book at manuscript stage and was presumably familiar with it. It is, however, a huge difference between writing a critical review of a manuscript, aimed at helping the author to improve it, and writing a blurb that will entice readers to purchase it. You cannot go into technicalities in a blurb. Above all, you cannot be critical. So how much is it worth? I don't have to read the whole book in ordet to write some casual words about its merits. Amazing! Outstanding! Innovative! The rest you just infer from the table on contents.

As in all academic games, this is a matter between you and your conscience. Personally, I cannot endorse a book that I haven't read, even if I know the author's earlier work well. It is possible to tell the publisher: "This book is a pile of s-t, and I cannot say anything positive about it, but don't tell the author". Still, when you agree to write a blurb for a book you haven't read, you assume that you will be able to write something positive, but what if it is seriously bad? Isn't it safer to decide once and for all that you will never, ever write blurbs?

However, it is so easy to be seduced. After all, it is flattering to be asked. It is more than a free copy of the book. You are also advertising yourself, so that someone reading the book wonders: "And who the h-l is this professor saying all this s-t about this lousy book?" Advertising space is valuable in academic games. Another consideration is, as with many other things, mutual gain. Today I endorse your book, tomorrow you will support my grant application. But also, frankly, it is a pleasure to praise a good book.

Yet even when the book is excellent, writing a blurb is not particularly exciting. This is why I am blogging rather than reading this wonderful, fabulous, extraordinary, outstanding, ground-breaking, cutting edge book.