I was hoping to add another book to this list, but it seems I will not finish reading it before the year is out, and also it is too beautiful a book to hurry up the reading, so I will make that my first book of 2019. I made a films of 2018 list a couple of days ago, in case films are more your thing.
But back to books: 2018 was a year with a nice variety of readings, more varied than my books of 2017 list. Also, a lot longer: I read 29 books this year, which is 6 up from last year. Again, I didn't read a long classic novel (although they are still on the to-read list) and also I quit reading a couple of books that took me too long to get through. If I have little time to read, I want to spend that time with books I actually like.
So, my complete 2018 list:
1 Lincoln in the bardo
2 Uncommon type
3 The heart goes last
4 The English patient
5 The sense of an ending
6 The ocean at the end of the lane
7 De zeven wetten van de liefde
8 The blind assassin
9 Murder on the Orient Express
10 The ABC murders
11 The noise of time
12 Fahrenheit 541
13 The Penelopiad
14 The view from the cheap seats
15 The garden party
16 All Change
17 The Liar
18 A handful of dust
19 Seveneves
20 The Children Act
21 My purple scented novel
22 The diary of a bookseller
23 Far from the madding crowd
24 Call me by your name
25 The only story
26 Shades of Grey
27 Normal people
28 Het bestverkochte boek ooit
29 Pride & prejudice & mistletoe
So, four rereads: The ocean at the end of the lane, The Liar, The Children Act and Shades of Grey, all by some of my favourite male authors (Gaiman, Fry, McEwan and Fforde). Two Dutch books, which are both non-fiction. I started reading two Dutch novels, but put both of those down as they didn't engage me enough. Will have to try again next year.
I had a couple of book resolutions for 2017 and 2018; stop reading of I don't like the novel, fewer rereads, read more great new authors such as Margaret Atwood. Also, as I was short on these last year; read more Dutch novels, short stories, non-fiction, and more new female authors. Some of those worked out, some clearly didn't. Despite the 'rules' I was really hoping for new novels by Ian McEwan or David Mitchell, but not having those I read more by new discoveries such as Julian Barnes, Margaret Atwood of course, and my newest love; Sally Rooney. Also, I read four Man Booker prize winners this year (Lincoln in the bardo (2017), The sense of an ending (2011), The English patient (1992) and The blind assassin (2000)), which makes 2018 a year filled with some of the best novels ever written.
Anyway, let's look at some lists:
Best English novel
1 Normal people
2 The sense of an ending
3 The English patient
So many great novels this year! This list was hard to make, also because novels that I've read more recently seem to stick in the memory better than those I read in January or February. But I managed to bring it down to three novels. But the undisputed number one is Normal People by Sally Rooney. I haven't been this happy reading a novel in a very long time. The Sense of an Ending makes a close second, though. Julian Barnes was a 2018 find, and I actually read three of his novels this year. The Sense of an Ending was the first and by far the best. It is one of those deeply emotional, tragic without being dramatic, stories about someone finally realising how much they've been deceiving themselves all of their life. As I wrote in February; This is a novel you can pull out each year, read again, and still find new bits in it. I will leave it alone for a couple of years, and then time will tell whether that is true. The last novel on the best novel list is another Man Booker winner (Normal People was merely longlisted, which is a shame, although I am now reading the 2018 Man Booker winner Milkman and can see how that is even better than Normal People) and another novel I read in February. The English patient, an instant classic I'd somehow missed all this time. I was watching Bodyguard on Netflix yesterday and it got me thinking about The English patient, so much so that I had to rewind because I'd been reminiscing so much. That is what a good novel does to you; it sticks with you, and you remember it while watching or reading other great things.
Honourable mentions on this list go to The Blind Assassin and Call me by your name, which didn't make the list but are still great novels.
Best Dutch novel
Non-existent this year
Best classic
1 Fahrenheit 541
2 Far from the madding crowd
3 A handful of dust
As always, one can argue here when a novel counts as a 'classic'. Last year, the oldest novels I read were over 20 years old but didn't feel as classics because they were still so current. This year, I felt like putting The English patient here, only to find out that novel is actually from 1992. Strange, how some novels feel much older than they are, while others are exactly the opposite.
Anyway, the novels I put in are from 1953, 1874 and 1934. I could also have put the Agatha Christie novels I read, as they're also from the 1930s, but I liked these less. Fahrenheit 541 is the newest novel on the list and my biggest discovery of 2018. I still can't explain how I missed this novel up until actually reading it (because Neil Gaiman mentioned it in The view from the cheap seats) but there you are. Read this novel, if you haven't already. Far from the madding crowd is a Thomas Hardy novel, which makes it a classic in its own right, but also a book to be shunned if you studied English literature and wrestled through Jude the Obscure, as I did. But as it turns out, this is a far nicer read. A handful of dust is also one of those fallen-through novels; one of my friends actually wrote here thesis on Evelyn Waugh and I never bothered to read any of the novels in it, except for Brideshead revisited a couple of years ago. I liked that better, A handful of dust is a bit too cynical and nasty for my taste, but still a good read.
Best non-fiction
1 The view from the cheap seats
2 The diary of a bookseller
3 Het bestverkochte boek ooit
I'm not sure if The view from the cheap seats counts fully as non-fiction, as with Neil Gaiman you can never be sure, but it by far the best non-fiction I read this year. The diary of a bookseller follows the life of a bookseller in the biggest bookshop in Scotland, which was a revealing, if somewhat narcissistic, read. Het bestverkochte boek ooit is by De Correspondent, the Dutch non-news news website that is expanding into the USA to bring the news that is not the current, actual, hyped up news but the stories behind the news, the events slowly unfolding. This book is about our obsession with numbers and what they actually mean.
Best short-story collection
1 Uncommon type
2 The garden party
Not a lot of short-story collections this year, but more than in 2017, when there were none. Uncommon type was a big surprise this year; it turns out Tom Hanks can actually write a pretty decent story! The second short-story collection I read was by Katherine Mansfield. I read The Garden Party (the story from the title) for my English lit studies, when again it was one of those timeless stories that feel still current, even though it was written in 1922. The rest of the stories are nice reads, but not as memorable as Tom Hanks' book.
Best fantasy/scifi
1 Seveneves
2 The Penelopiad
Not a lot of fantasy or scifi to go around this year, and Shades of Grey counts as a reread, but these two deserve some kind of mention. Seveneves is a scifi novel that taught me more I ever thought to know about the ISS, living in space, space physics and building a new world. The Penelopiad is Margaret Atwood's interpretation of the Odyssee myth. This may not count as fantasy in the strictest sense of the word, but I do want to mention it because of her very human and real characters.
Best 'new' author
1 Sally Rooney
2 Julian Barnes
3 Michael Ondaatje
This list can hardly come as a surprise. Will read more of these authors whenever I can.
Most disappointing novel
1 All change
2 The heart goes last
3 The only story
This list always hurts. This year, it contains three of my favourite 'new' authors; Elizabeth Jane Howard, Margaret Atwood and Julian Barnes. I've said all I ever wanted to say on All change. The heart goes last was my most disappointing Atwood novel this year; compared to The Blind Assassin or The Handmaid's tale it feels rushed, with stock characters and a stock message. The same is true for The Only Story; Julian Barnes's newest novel. I had actually forgotten what it was about, but reading the blurb it all came back to me; the failed relationship of characters I didn't actually care about. Especially reading it directly following Call me by your name, which depicts a blossoming relationship in all its lovely longing, this novel made me thoroughly sad. I hope to pick up better novels by Atwood (Alias Grace is still waiting) and Barnes next year, as it hurts me to put authors I usually really love in this list.
Authors I read more than once:
- Margaret Atwood (3x)
- Julian Barnes (3x)
- Agatha Christie (2x)
- Neil Gaiman (2x)
- Ian McEwan (2x)
Showing posts with label Stephen Fry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stephen Fry. Show all posts
Monday, 31 December 2018
Saturday, 9 June 2018
Penelopiad
Margaret Atwood is a great author. I may have mentioned this before, but my admiration seems to be developing in the direction of a full-on literary girl-crush.
So I've been reading Mythos by Stephen Fry, his retelling of the Greek myths. And while mr Fry is great, and his writing style is light and humorous, I seem to be unable to get through the book at any speed. It's more a series of leaps and bounds, with long periods of reading-something-else in between. These thousand year old stories remain a bit dry and dusty, even in the hands of modern writers.
Then I came across The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood, a retelling of the Illiad/Odyssey from Penelope's (Odysseus's wife) perspective. Aparently Canongate does a myth-retelling series, in which they ask a couple of great authors (including Phillip Pullman, Ali Smith, A.S. Byatt) to retell a myth from a contemporary perspective. So far, they're at 9 stories, but the aim is to get to 100 in the end.
They were smart enough to ask Margaret Atwood to do one right in the beginning, which gave the whole series a boost. And Atwood wouldn't be Atwood if she didn't give the whole thing a truly feminist twist (although she disagrees with that classification, saying that it was just written from the point of view of a woman). So Penelope is the main character, telling us the story from the realm of Hades, which is firmly set in the 21st century.
Now I hadn't gotten to the Odyssey bit in Mythos, but the story is well-known: it took Odysseus quite a while to get home from Troy, fighting monsters and sleeping with goddesses, while in the meantime his wife waited faithfully, surrounded by dozens of suitors trying to claim Odysseus's kingdom. Or, in other versions of the story, Penelope went all-out with these suitors. In The Penelopiad, she explains that she was just trying to survive the best she could. She is neither sinner nor saint, she doesn't want to be put on a pedestal like Odysseus and his big stories (the cyclops was just a one-eyed guy in a drunken bar fight, according to her), she was just a woman trying to get by.
Another element to the story are the twelve maids hanged by Odysseus upon his return. In the 'official' version, these maids were working together with the suitors and had to be hanged for their treason. In this version, Penelope reveals she asked the maids to spy on the suitors and work with her to help her get by. She never gets a chance to explain this to Odysseus before he hangs the girls. However, Penelope's chapters are interspersed by 'chorus' chapters in which the maids give their point of view, which throws yet another light on the story. But still the double standards are clearly there: the maids sleeping with the suitors earns them a hanging, while Odysseus sleeping with a goddess earns him praise.
Finally, Penelope has some beef with her cousin Helen, who of course started the whole Trojan war by running off with Paris. Helen continuous to haunt her in the underworld, showing up with throngs of suitors still following her. What it comes down to, is Penelope being jealous at Helen for being more beautiful and revered than herself. Given both their back stories, this is completely recognisable and it makes me like Penelope more as a character. She did her best trying to keep Odysseus's kingdom together while he was away, but in the end, she doesn't feel as good about herself as Helen, who does nothing but play men against each other. It should be the other way around, but as with so many relationships, things are not that logical.
The Penelopiad took me about two days of reading to get through. It is not dry, it is not dusty. It is the story of a woman trying to explain why she did what she did, firmly set in our time but describing events of three thousand years ago. And it is completely recognisable; this is a human character, with human actions and flaws. Maybe that is what makes these Greek myths slow reading; all these super-human characters who get away with everything gets boring after a while. We like superheroes best if they show some sort of flaw, some weak point that makes them more human. This is what Margaret Atwood did; she gave a human perspective on a non-human situation. And I tend to agree with her; that doesn't make the story feminist, it just gives another point of view. Something we could use more often, in classical literature. I hope the rest of the Canongate series is as good as this, for these stories, dusted and renewed, still deserve to be retold for many years to come.
So I've been reading Mythos by Stephen Fry, his retelling of the Greek myths. And while mr Fry is great, and his writing style is light and humorous, I seem to be unable to get through the book at any speed. It's more a series of leaps and bounds, with long periods of reading-something-else in between. These thousand year old stories remain a bit dry and dusty, even in the hands of modern writers.
Then I came across The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood, a retelling of the Illiad/Odyssey from Penelope's (Odysseus's wife) perspective. Aparently Canongate does a myth-retelling series, in which they ask a couple of great authors (including Phillip Pullman, Ali Smith, A.S. Byatt) to retell a myth from a contemporary perspective. So far, they're at 9 stories, but the aim is to get to 100 in the end.
They were smart enough to ask Margaret Atwood to do one right in the beginning, which gave the whole series a boost. And Atwood wouldn't be Atwood if she didn't give the whole thing a truly feminist twist (although she disagrees with that classification, saying that it was just written from the point of view of a woman). So Penelope is the main character, telling us the story from the realm of Hades, which is firmly set in the 21st century.
Now I hadn't gotten to the Odyssey bit in Mythos, but the story is well-known: it took Odysseus quite a while to get home from Troy, fighting monsters and sleeping with goddesses, while in the meantime his wife waited faithfully, surrounded by dozens of suitors trying to claim Odysseus's kingdom. Or, in other versions of the story, Penelope went all-out with these suitors. In The Penelopiad, she explains that she was just trying to survive the best she could. She is neither sinner nor saint, she doesn't want to be put on a pedestal like Odysseus and his big stories (the cyclops was just a one-eyed guy in a drunken bar fight, according to her), she was just a woman trying to get by.
Another element to the story are the twelve maids hanged by Odysseus upon his return. In the 'official' version, these maids were working together with the suitors and had to be hanged for their treason. In this version, Penelope reveals she asked the maids to spy on the suitors and work with her to help her get by. She never gets a chance to explain this to Odysseus before he hangs the girls. However, Penelope's chapters are interspersed by 'chorus' chapters in which the maids give their point of view, which throws yet another light on the story. But still the double standards are clearly there: the maids sleeping with the suitors earns them a hanging, while Odysseus sleeping with a goddess earns him praise.
Finally, Penelope has some beef with her cousin Helen, who of course started the whole Trojan war by running off with Paris. Helen continuous to haunt her in the underworld, showing up with throngs of suitors still following her. What it comes down to, is Penelope being jealous at Helen for being more beautiful and revered than herself. Given both their back stories, this is completely recognisable and it makes me like Penelope more as a character. She did her best trying to keep Odysseus's kingdom together while he was away, but in the end, she doesn't feel as good about herself as Helen, who does nothing but play men against each other. It should be the other way around, but as with so many relationships, things are not that logical.
The Penelopiad took me about two days of reading to get through. It is not dry, it is not dusty. It is the story of a woman trying to explain why she did what she did, firmly set in our time but describing events of three thousand years ago. And it is completely recognisable; this is a human character, with human actions and flaws. Maybe that is what makes these Greek myths slow reading; all these super-human characters who get away with everything gets boring after a while. We like superheroes best if they show some sort of flaw, some weak point that makes them more human. This is what Margaret Atwood did; she gave a human perspective on a non-human situation. And I tend to agree with her; that doesn't make the story feminist, it just gives another point of view. Something we could use more often, in classical literature. I hope the rest of the Canongate series is as good as this, for these stories, dusted and renewed, still deserve to be retold for many years to come.
Friday, 13 July 2012
Fry's fiction
Now I've written about Stephen Fry's autobiographies (which I read in the wrong order), but for a couple of days now, I've been reading some of his fiction. I read Making History several years ago, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, as it has an intricate plot, takes place mostly in Cambridge and the future, and involves some heart-breaking romance. Not the best-written fiction I've ever read, but a good story and very amusing.
So when mr. Fry kept making references to his first novel, The Liar, in his Moab is my Wash-pot autobiography, I had to read that too. So I Amazone-d it, and I've been reading it for the past week, because you know, it's the holidays, so I don't have time to read.
The book is... weird. First of all, it's not written in chronological order, but things keep jumping around from Adrian (the protagonist) at boarding school to Adrian at Cambridge and back again. This should be fine, except that Adrian does basically the same thing in both locations (namely lie and be a fraud), and that there are so many side-characters with similar vague names who jump in and out of the story that it's hard to keep track of who was his roommate and who was merely one of his classmates. The writing is so-so, I can see how his humour is developing, but it isn't quite at the level of Making History or his autobiographies, and a far cry from what comes out when he actually opens his mouth.
Then there are some weird, disjunctive things in italics that run through the novel that make no sense at all, nested in between the main chapters, involving characters called "Tweed jacket". I'm sure I'll figure this part out when I get to the end of the book, and if I don't, I don't feel like I'm missing much.
But what is freaking me out the most, is that it is semi-autobiographical. I know Stephen Fry said that a lot of his personal life went into The Liar, but I hadn't expected him to have done it so literally. I mean, his background, actions, friends, entire life-events, are just put down on paper for all to read. I can clearly see Hugh Laurie and Emma Thompson walking around in there, even though they are now called Gary and Jenny. The bits about the boarding school are eerily familiar, and then some conversations can also be found word for word in Moab. But then, on the next page, some freaky fictional thing happens, and everything goes off balance. I'm not sure what to believe anymore, although the fictional things are clearly less worked-out and thought-through than the real things, so you can sort of see it from that. Also, looking back at some of the things that happened in Making History (which is one of the later books by the way), I can now see connections, and these are probably also things that he took from his own life.
Maybe I shouldn't have read the autobiographies before getting to the fiction, but in a way I'm happy I've done it, because now I can see that at least some of the things aren't real, some of the weird and partly gruesome stuff that goes on in boarding schools didn't really go on...
Finally, I can already see that this one is going to end with a big romance again, as did Making History. Stephen Fry is a great, great romantic. Which makes me really sad, because from what I've read so far, life has quite let him down on that account. In his novels, the beautiful straight-guy-with-girlfriend suddenly turns around, discovers the gay protagonist who's been in love with him for years, realises he's gay as well, and they live happily ever after. This did not happen for mr. Fry and his Big Love. From what he writes on his blog, he's still looking for that one Perfect Person. It's great that he can experience it through his writing, and I think it does a lot for people who do not believe that gay people can feel love like 'normal' people, but it wrings my heart to see the heartache put on the page like that. So let's hope that at 54 he's not to old to find the love of his life, and then the ends of his books can also be written from his own experience. And let's hope that it'll be all he ever dreamt off.
So when mr. Fry kept making references to his first novel, The Liar, in his Moab is my Wash-pot autobiography, I had to read that too. So I Amazone-d it, and I've been reading it for the past week, because you know, it's the holidays, so I don't have time to read.
The book is... weird. First of all, it's not written in chronological order, but things keep jumping around from Adrian (the protagonist) at boarding school to Adrian at Cambridge and back again. This should be fine, except that Adrian does basically the same thing in both locations (namely lie and be a fraud), and that there are so many side-characters with similar vague names who jump in and out of the story that it's hard to keep track of who was his roommate and who was merely one of his classmates. The writing is so-so, I can see how his humour is developing, but it isn't quite at the level of Making History or his autobiographies, and a far cry from what comes out when he actually opens his mouth.
Then there are some weird, disjunctive things in italics that run through the novel that make no sense at all, nested in between the main chapters, involving characters called "Tweed jacket". I'm sure I'll figure this part out when I get to the end of the book, and if I don't, I don't feel like I'm missing much.
But what is freaking me out the most, is that it is semi-autobiographical. I know Stephen Fry said that a lot of his personal life went into The Liar, but I hadn't expected him to have done it so literally. I mean, his background, actions, friends, entire life-events, are just put down on paper for all to read. I can clearly see Hugh Laurie and Emma Thompson walking around in there, even though they are now called Gary and Jenny. The bits about the boarding school are eerily familiar, and then some conversations can also be found word for word in Moab. But then, on the next page, some freaky fictional thing happens, and everything goes off balance. I'm not sure what to believe anymore, although the fictional things are clearly less worked-out and thought-through than the real things, so you can sort of see it from that. Also, looking back at some of the things that happened in Making History (which is one of the later books by the way), I can now see connections, and these are probably also things that he took from his own life.
Maybe I shouldn't have read the autobiographies before getting to the fiction, but in a way I'm happy I've done it, because now I can see that at least some of the things aren't real, some of the weird and partly gruesome stuff that goes on in boarding schools didn't really go on...
Finally, I can already see that this one is going to end with a big romance again, as did Making History. Stephen Fry is a great, great romantic. Which makes me really sad, because from what I've read so far, life has quite let him down on that account. In his novels, the beautiful straight-guy-with-girlfriend suddenly turns around, discovers the gay protagonist who's been in love with him for years, realises he's gay as well, and they live happily ever after. This did not happen for mr. Fry and his Big Love. From what he writes on his blog, he's still looking for that one Perfect Person. It's great that he can experience it through his writing, and I think it does a lot for people who do not believe that gay people can feel love like 'normal' people, but it wrings my heart to see the heartache put on the page like that. So let's hope that at 54 he's not to old to find the love of his life, and then the ends of his books can also be written from his own experience. And let's hope that it'll be all he ever dreamt off.
Tuesday, 17 January 2012
You can do better!
I have been reading The Fry Chronicles, which is the second part of Stephen Fry's autobiography (I was unaware that there was a first part before I began reading, otherwise I would have started there) and it is one of the best books I have read in a long time. This is partly because Fry thinks along the same lines as I do, and partly because he has done a lot of things that I am very curious about (such as go to Cambridge), but mostly because his writing style is just so brilliantly dry and ironic and self-critical and humorous. He just loves his alliterations, as when he describes the "fumbling, frotting, fondling and farcically floppy failure as well as more infrequent feats of fizzing fanfare and triumphant fleshy fulfilment" (104) that made up his love life. Sometimes he can explode in anger, while still maintaining his own voice, as in "[t]he people who tell you this are cut from the same cloth as those who grow up these days to become trollers on internet sites and who specialize in posting barbarous, mean, abusive, look-at-me, listen-to-me anonymous comments on YouTube and BBC 'Have Your Say' pages and other websites and blogs foolish enough to allow space for their poison. Such swine specialize in second-guessing the motives of those who are brave enough to commit to the risk of making fools of themselves in public and they are a blight on the face of the earth" (95). It truly is a wonderful book, I would recommend it to anyone, even those slightly less interested in the person of Stephen Fry.
But that is not the point I was going to make today! And believe me, there is a point to all this.
At some point (haha), Fry discusses his choice to go into theatre, even though he cannot sing, dance, or act very well. He explains one of his motives very shortly, saying "I suppose a conviction that one can do better is a necessary part of pursuing a calling" (93), however arrogant or presumptious it may seem. Reading or seeing or hearing something, and then thinking "I can do better than that!" as a kick-starter to artistic (or other) ambitions.
So I thought about that, and I think it is true for a lot of activists, artists, actors, or other professionals, like sportspersons (cannot say "sportsmen" anymore) or bankers (although they may be leaning more towards "I can do better for myself!"). You need that kind of drive to get going and keep going, in some things.
But on the other hand it's also very daunting, trying to be better than Ian McKellen or Vincent van Gogh or The Beatles or whatever. I mean, if I think about reading a book by Ian McEwan and thinking "I can do better than that!" it not only feels like blasphemy, it's genuinely untrue. I don't think I can do better than him, on the contrary, every time I read a very well-written book I feel like I will never get there, I will never be that good. And that is precisely one of those reasons why I tend to give up after a while; I have made some progress, something is visible, words are on the page or paint is on the canvas, and I look at it and go; "This can never be as good as X or Y! I might as well stop here, because it will all be for nothing anyway!"
And that, my friend, is what we call the wrong attitude!
So the insight of today is; I should become more arrogant. No, I shouldn't. But I should become more self-confident and not expect some masterpiece on first attempt, but think about the fact that Ian McEwan, or even Stephen Fry for that matter, must have written several drafts before their words were put that perfectly on the page. You can only get better with practise (I used to have a primary school teacher who was always telling me to "Practise! Practise! Practise!"), and you (I) will only practise if you do not think about all the masterpieces that are out there, but focus on what you are doing. Although you do have to be aware of it, of course. So that may not precisely be what Fry was talking about, but then again I am not "pursuing a calling" and not as ambitious as many think me to be, even though I do still dream of a life as an author (without all the stupid tv programs and quiz shows and whatever). Anyway, it's not as if he became what he set out to be, because he was determined to become a teacher in a boarding school. So who knows where we (I) will end up.
So that was my Fry-induced insight of today, and I hope it may do someone else some good as well!
But that is not the point I was going to make today! And believe me, there is a point to all this.
At some point (haha), Fry discusses his choice to go into theatre, even though he cannot sing, dance, or act very well. He explains one of his motives very shortly, saying "I suppose a conviction that one can do better is a necessary part of pursuing a calling" (93), however arrogant or presumptious it may seem. Reading or seeing or hearing something, and then thinking "I can do better than that!" as a kick-starter to artistic (or other) ambitions.
So I thought about that, and I think it is true for a lot of activists, artists, actors, or other professionals, like sportspersons (cannot say "sportsmen" anymore) or bankers (although they may be leaning more towards "I can do better for myself!"). You need that kind of drive to get going and keep going, in some things.
But on the other hand it's also very daunting, trying to be better than Ian McKellen or Vincent van Gogh or The Beatles or whatever. I mean, if I think about reading a book by Ian McEwan and thinking "I can do better than that!" it not only feels like blasphemy, it's genuinely untrue. I don't think I can do better than him, on the contrary, every time I read a very well-written book I feel like I will never get there, I will never be that good. And that is precisely one of those reasons why I tend to give up after a while; I have made some progress, something is visible, words are on the page or paint is on the canvas, and I look at it and go; "This can never be as good as X or Y! I might as well stop here, because it will all be for nothing anyway!"
And that, my friend, is what we call the wrong attitude!
So the insight of today is; I should become more arrogant. No, I shouldn't. But I should become more self-confident and not expect some masterpiece on first attempt, but think about the fact that Ian McEwan, or even Stephen Fry for that matter, must have written several drafts before their words were put that perfectly on the page. You can only get better with practise (I used to have a primary school teacher who was always telling me to "Practise! Practise! Practise!"), and you (I) will only practise if you do not think about all the masterpieces that are out there, but focus on what you are doing. Although you do have to be aware of it, of course. So that may not precisely be what Fry was talking about, but then again I am not "pursuing a calling" and not as ambitious as many think me to be, even though I do still dream of a life as an author (without all the stupid tv programs and quiz shows and whatever). Anyway, it's not as if he became what he set out to be, because he was determined to become a teacher in a boarding school. So who knows where we (I) will end up.
So that was my Fry-induced insight of today, and I hope it may do someone else some good as well!
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