First person pov

I have been sifting through, trying to find a first person voice for Icarus.

John Banville writes The Sea as first person, but as a recollection of something that happened some time before. He is in the present and recalls the past and move from present to past tense accordingly.

Graham Swift writes The Light of Day in first person present tense, but again slips into past tense for recollections.

Engleby is first person past tense, but then this makes sense when at the end the first person narrator explains that the account is his diary. Sebastian Faulks cleverly keeps this secret so that the account feels more like the action as it happens.

In Moon Tiger, Penelope Lively moves between first person present tense and third person past tense as she switches between the narrative of the story teller and flash back.

Graham Green, in The Quiet American, has his narrator write about his friend Pyle in the first person past tense. You don't get any real sense of it being an account of something that happened previously; there is no nagging imperative to imagine just where and when the narrator is recounting his tale.

John Grisham, The King of Torts

I was advised to read a John Grisham thriller to gain a sense of the tension needed in The Icarus Bond.

I am half way through. Grisham is sticking close to Campbell's twelve parts and it works. There are places where, without pace, the reader might pause too long and dig up little flaws with some of the detail of the plot, but Grisham keeps you at it.

I miss the more fully fleshed characters of Richard Yates, but it is quite relaxing to have a more staightforward plot to read.

Tax Avoidance

The dust is settling a little after the Guardian's crusade against the evil tax avoiders. There are to me two points which need to be made.

In the UK, Public companies owe a duty to their shareholders. In exercising this duty it is generally considered reasonable that they should minimise costs and maximise revenue. If taxation, which is a cost, is not to be minimised then they would be failing in their duty. So the answer is not to wring hands, but to open a debate over the duties of directors of public companies. If, however, taxation is a distribution of profits in the same way as dividend then the tax needs to be maximised. But what then about employee remuneration; is it a cost or a distribution? What about local taxes? This subject needs proper debate.

The second point is banal, tax avoidance is as old as the hills. I spent most of my career advising clients on how legally to minimise their tax bill. But the question is the same; is tax a cost or a distribution?

Revolutionary Road

 I was guided towards this book as one which dealt with the world of work, which is relevant to the novel I am writing. It is remarkable.

It has the most authentic marital row I have ever read (page 40 of the Vintage edition).

It offers a wonderfully realistic picture of reading to young children (page 56)

Revolutionary Road gives a great sense of the feel of a 1960's office. The sense of annoyance with a young mistress, I suspect, must surely ring bells for any who have walked that path.

It is written at a good pace but with no strong plot; it is very much a book about the interaction of characters. Tennessee Williams said about the book, 'this is more than fine writing; here is what makes a book come immediately, intensly and brilliantly alive...a masterpeice'.

He's not wrong.

For me the best aspect of this book is the astonishingly realistic dialogue. Richard Yates obviously listens alot. But it is more than that, since he embeds the thoughts of the characters and allows them to use words in their heads which they dare not use out loud.

An intriguing character is John, a resident in a mental institution, who tells it as it is. He is the character, the only character who tells what he sees. He is the child, but with the maturity of the adult.

The dialogue tends not to be short and sharp, rather Yates gives the characters room for extended and involved conversation.

Great book

The House of Sleep

Jonathan Coe's 1997 book is described by The Times as 'hilarious and devastating'. There are two very funny passages and the central plot, which never feels quite central is grim. The first funny bit is for us writers and is a delicious encounter between a commercial film director and a literary writer.

The story largely hangs on the symptoms displayed by people with sleep disorders and from time to time approaches farce. For me the heart of the book surrounds the relationships between a small group of students who were at university together and who later encounter each other (it is not a Peter's Friends!). This part is written sensitively and make the read worthwhile.

I'm going on a witch hunt

Last night I sat and watched as the select committee questioned the four bankers who are being pilloried but also skapegoated for the banking collapse. This was poor drama, far too well rehearsed and so wide of the mark it was embarrassing.
I mean how convenient for RBS to have ABN to hand? How convenient for HBOS to have questionable lending decisions? How frankly undignified to have four unquestionably intelligent men in the dock.
Does anyone seriously believe it was their fault? As always on such occasions the metaphor is to be found in sport: if the rules permit it you do it, to do otherwise will guarantee defeat and defeat would serve no one admittedly least of all those set to gain most through their bonuses. The point though is surely that deregulation had made possible the fantasies of financial engineering that filled the balance sheets of financial institutions. So it was obvious that the brightest and best would be recruited to invent ever more fantastic devices and the banks would milk them dry of profit. Was I the only one to raise a slight eyebrow at the RBS results following the NatWest acquisition. I rather doubt that results like that didn't come just from cost savings.
The point though remains that the banks did what was only natural, given the environment in which they were allowed to operate.

How do you write children as children?

Patrick Gale knows and you can see it in his Notes of an Exhibition. He has the siblings Garfield and Morwenna visit their mother in mental hospital where she has given birth to the new baby Hedley. The way they are shown to react has such an authentic feel to it. We are told when writing for children to write to their height. Gale knows exactly what that height is. We can say that his book is not strongly plot driven but the characters and their interaction is utterly compelling.

http://www.galewarning.org