The Pleasure and Sorrow of Being a Writer

July 2, 2009

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What are we to make of Alain de Botton’s outraged response to a critic’s less than favourable review of his latest work, Pleasures and Sorrows of Work? Alex Wade provides an up close and personal guide to what’s in a writer’s mind.

‘Never read your reviews’ is an exhortation often sent a writer’s way by those in the know – editors, literary agents, copy-editors et al. They’re used to dealing with the peculiar blend of sensitivity and ego which goes to make a writer, and know, from bitter experience, how fragile the concoction can be. So they counsel not so much caution as a lofty disdain for the words of that inferior breed, the literary critic. What, they suggest, can a critic possibly have to say of relevance to the nobility of the writer’s calling?

Needless to say, writers habitually ignore this advice and compulsively read everything written about them. They are driven to do so both because ego perennially outweighs sensitivity and because of another fundamental drive in their make-up – curiosity. Writers are, by definition, incorrigibly curious about the world around them, about its people and, especially, the words they use. There is thus as much sense in telling a writer not to read his or her reviews as there is in tapping the keys of a calculator and hoping that a novel will emerge.

A good friend of mine, herself an editor, urged me to spurn reviews of my first book, Wrecking Machine. As is the way of things, I ignored her advice and eagerly sought the first published review of the book, in Metro. To appropriate Caleb Crain on de Botton’s Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, I’m afraid the reviewer wasn’t crazy about it. If memory serves – and I suspect it does – he began his evisceration of Wrecking Machine with the words: “The first rule of Fight Club is that you don’t talk about Fight Club. If only Alex Wade had remembered this advice.” My book was a mixed genre affair, part reportage of the world of white collar boxing under the auspices of an organisation called The Real Fight Club, part memoir of how I’d come to find myself in this strange subterranean world. The reviewer – whose name, in all honesty, now escapes me – did not empathise.

“Wade’s journey into boxing was motivated by the desire to deal with his demons,” he wrote (roughly). “Given that his demons seem to consist of being a sexist womaniser who likes a drink or six, the only attraction in reading this book is in waiting to see him get a good kicking.” Ouch. But there was worse, a savage uppercut to my sagging jaw: “And even this is poor compensation for having to wade through this drivel.”

Woe was me. My first review – one my publishers cannily avoided telling me about – and my book was condemned as mere drivel. I felt sick, as if I had, literally, been punched. And then I felt angry. Who was this bile-filled individual? Maybe I knew him, perhaps he had an axe to grind. It was even possible that during the carnage of the Wrecking Machine years, I’d offended him by some boorish behaviour in a bar. God knows, there’d been a lot of it back then. I felt depressed and fearful, too – if Metro was for starters, what on earth would the heavyweights in the national press have to say?

Naturally, I read their reviews too. Thankfully, they were positive. I began to feel confident about the book again. Fantasies of meeting the Metro man and delivering a straight right to his nose receded. In time, I forgot his name, and now I see the funny side. I realised, also, that a bad review is a rite of passage. Everyone has them, just as every writer can list a series of rejections before getting a publishing deal.

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But should a writer indulge what seems only fair – a right of reply in the face of a negative review? De Botton, confronted by Crain’s qualms about Pleasures and Sorrows, posted a highly querulous comment on Crain’s blog which concluded by saying: “I will hate you till the day I die and wish you nothing but ill will in every career move you make.” He further stated that he would “be watching with interest and schadenfreude.”

If de Botton is indeed the author of this comment – and in the blogosphere, such things are not always certain – this is regrettable. Far better to have fantasised about visiting violence on Crain, or, better still, go to the boxing gym and spar harder than ever. This served me well, post-Metro review. Instead, de Botton’s words read as the tantrum of the child who thought he’d submitted an essay worth a sparkling Grade A, only to receive a B+. For de Botton, and other writers in a similar position, silence is golden, not least because, as Roberto Bolano tells us in By Night in Chile, silences are always heard, even by God. That, or you don’t read your reviews in the first place.

Pictured: Alain de Botton’s Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, and, below, Alex Wade thinking about the man from Metro.


 

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Seven of the Best Alternative Professionals

August 30, 2010

Susan Casey’s new book, The Wave, is soon to be published. It brilliantly illumines the world of professional big wave surfing, at the same time as exploring the phenomenon of rogue waves (specifically, those which top 100ft).

Suitably inspired, we thought we’d take a look at a different kind of professionalism than is usually to be found on these pages. Those featured in our magnificent seven of alternative professionals may not wear suits for a living, still less spend their time in the boardroom, but they couldn’t do what they do if they weren’t every bit as dedicated, focused, driven and downright professional as those at the helm of a City law firm, finance house or PR company.

1. Laird Hamilton

Hamilton is the star of The Wave, and no wonder. Based on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, the man is a force of nature, a 6″3′ powerhouse who makes big wave surfing look like a walk in the park. But it isn’t. The wave known as Teahupoo, surfed by Hamilton in Tim McKenna’s picture below, is a killer. Only years of focus, training and preparation make Hamilton able to ride this wave with such aplomb.

2. Danny Way

Warning: do not watch this footage if you are afraid of heights (and squeamish). American skateboarding star Danny Way has been rebuilt more times than the bionic man. He’s also made a small fortune from a sport so often wrongly derided as ‘for kids’. Definitely not one for a suit and tie, Way nevertheless deserves respect – as much as he would appear to need a permanent personal medical staff.

3. Shane McConkey

Professional skier Shane McConkey died in March 2009 while skiing in the Dolomite Mountains in Italy. His death robbed the world of extreme sports of an athlete known for combining BASE jumping with skiing, as seen in such feats as skiing into a BASE jump off the Eiger. RIP.

4. Shaun White

There are those who say that White, snowboarder extraordinaire, has the kind of hair that is inimical to success. We say, like Forbes magazine, that if White earned $9 million from his endorsements in 2008 alone, what’s he worth now? We also say: don’t try what White does at home. Or anywhere, really.

5. DannyMacaskill

If BMX riding is jejune, does it matter? Not to Macaskill, a man who’s worth a lot of money thanks to his remarkable ability on a bike.

6. Lynn Hill

There are rock climbers, and there’s Detroit-born Lynn Hill, the woman who made the first free ascent of the infamous Nose Route on El Capitan in Yosemite Valley. Currently sponsored by the Patagonia gear and clothing company, Hill has done it all, taking phenomenal risks in the pursuit of her calling. Take a look at the intensity of her gaze: this woman would have been a genius at whatever she’d chosen to do.

7. Dallas Friday

She has the best name of any sportsperson, ever. She also looks pretty good, too, and is even better at her chosen discipline, wakeboarding. And discipline is the name of the game: as with everyone here, however outre their worlds, however extreme their sports, if they weren’t disciplined they’d not only be impoverished but also, quite possibly, dead. Respect.

Hats off to the News of the World

August 30, 2010

Fantastic sting by the News of the World, whose legendary undercover reporter, Mazher Mahmood, has pierced the heart of some disgraceful match-fixing in professional cricket. Hats off, yet again, to Mahmood, but, strangely, we feel slightly sorry for him. Will he ever be able to retire into the sun and live a normal life? Somehow we rather doubt it.

Pictured: something which is decidedly not cricket.

Judge Dread, truly dread

August 24, 2010

An Englishman’s home is his castle. This ancient tenet of English society means that when a burglar breaks into an Englishman’s home (or castle), the homeowner, or feudal Lord, is entitled to defy him. The tools of defiance are many and varied but include diplomacy (“isn’t it past your bedtime?”), wheedling (“please, my good fellow, won’t you go away?”), lies (“see that castle across the street? It’s full of gold bullion”) and weaponry (“is that a nuclear missile in my pocket, and why aren’t you terrified to see me?”).

This last, however, causes problems. When a homeowner, eager to defend his castle, shoots a burglar, all hell breaks loose. Tabloid hacks break out in sweats as they find themselves compelled to blame European laws and the politically correct for daring to wonder whether such force was necessary when, really, all that is in issue is whether shooting dead an intruder was proportionate to the perceived threat and context.

In the US, this question was recently answered in the affirmative by the excellently named Judge Carlisle Overstreet. The 65-year-old judge shot and killed an unarmed bandana-wearing burglar after the man broke into his home and started coming upstairs. According to the estimable Legal Blog Watch, the dead burglar, John Howard Jr. (who, says the Augusta Chronicle, delighted in the nickname ‘Killa’), was one of two men who broke into the judge’s house in the early hours of the morning. The other, William Omar Jacobs, turned himself in and was denied bail.

This sorry or inspirational tale begs a question. If it had happened here, would it be the first time in recorded history that a judge had killed a burglar? In fact, is this unprecedented across the pond, too? And more to the point, if anyone says the judge acted disproportionately and that he really shouldn’t be canonized, are they politically correct stooges from a morally abased, utterly bankrupt European superstate (or something like that: we confess that tabloidese eludes us)?

Pictured: a judge says “Clint Eastwood isn’t the only one who likes large handguns.” But note: she’s not Carlisle Overstreet.