A Little Light Reading

I’ve been thinking a lot about the list of books that people claim to have read, but never really have. And I’ve also been thinking a lot about Charlie Brooker’s claim that James Herbert’s ’48 is a pretty spectacular book. As it stands, ’48 is an ok book, not great but perfectly readable. Which is the point, really. For me, a book should be readable. And actually one of the most under-rated talents of an author is to make a book fundamentally readable. There are two key factors in making this happen. First of all, they need to have a writing style that is accessible. And then they need to have a story that is actually worth reading.

Perhaps there is some sort of intellectual snobbery towards those who write popular books. It has taken ages for the best works of Agatha Christie to be truly acknowledged as classics – not just of the genre, but of writing in general. Likewise, there is now a widespread understanding that Edgar Allan Poe is one of the greatest writers of all time. Yet in his day his stories were often reviled and he struggled to make a living from his work. Which does make me wonder which authors, currently regarded as mainstream and far from great, will be lauded as masters of their craft in the future?

Inevitably, there will be authors I just cannot stomach whose work will live on – J K Rowling is a good example of that. It may also be that media other than prose become respectable. Consequently, you may find that some of the most important writers of this age are those writing for the TV, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Russell T Davies, Jimmy McGovern and Paul Abbott also become widely regarded as masters of their craft. Likewise, people like Stephen King and Ian Rankin may achieve the sort of critical acclaim they deserve in the decades to come, rather than the more muted critical notices of today that in no way reflect their commercial success.

I’m predicting the future here, and (of course) that can go badly wrong. Also, I’m not going to mistake commercial success for quality. After all, Jamie Oliver’s cookbooks sell well. It doesn’t stop him from being a talentless cross of obese hamster and fat-tongued cockhead. So I’m not going to list the authors who I think should be regarded as greats, and instead list ten books that I really love and think are definitely worth reading.

Carrie by Stephen King: Ignoring the fact that it is a great novel in its own right, it also has something to *say*. For all those who want to understand school shootings, well, you could do far worse than reading this novel. Replace the telekinesis with a gun and change Carrie’s gender, and you have a teenager pushed into a horrible revenge against a society that appears to hate them and they hate.

The Drowned World by J G Ballard: J G Ballard is one of those authors right on the cusp of being considered great. People treat Empire of the Sun as an important work, and also are starting to see beyond the controversy around books like Crash to the fascinating ideas lying under the surface. However, his first book is an undiscovered gem. Bleak without being fundamentally depressing, it sums up nicely the Ballard worldview and begins his trademark of characters who appear not only disassociated with the world, but also with themselves.

The Killing Joke by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland: Graphic novels are often looked down on, because – y’know, comics are, like, for kids. Alan Moore’s work is going through the process of challenging those perceptions, as the veneration of Watchmen shows. If you want to dip back in his history and see the origins of the Joker in The Dark Knight, then read this.

Human Nature by Paul Cornell: Fan fiction has an even worse reputation than graphic novels. And deservedly so, since a lot of it is unreadable garbage written by people who really, really need to get out more. However, every now and again, you get decent fan fiction, albeit still written by people who need to get out more. Human Nature is a great example of great Doctor Who fan fiction – so good, in fact, that they made it into prime-time Saturday night TV.

Ghost Story by Peter Straub: Stories about small US towns under attack from something supernatural or something superhuman are nothing new – hell, the aforementioned Stephen King has built a career around such stories. But Straub’s novel is perhaps the best example of a genre that has slipped into cliché. I genuinely thought I would find this book long and tedious; in the event, it is a great read that really drags you in and makes you care about the characters.

Empty World by John Christopher: John Christopher should be on the same pedestal as John Wyndham, yet he remains a secret. Those who do know of him tend to just know the (admittedly fantastic) Tripods trilogy. However there are many gems in his back catalogue, and my personal favourite is this short novel. Dealing with the aftermath of a particularly virulent pandemic, the novel suggests that the real challenge for surviving in a post apocalyptic world is coping with loneliness.

We Have Always Lived In The Castle by Shirley Jackson. Like Ballard, some of Jacksons’ other works – such as the wonderful The Haunting of Hill House - are getting the acclaim they deserve. Yet this odd book deserves considerable acclaim as well. With the unreliable narrator and the odd family ostracised by the village for a past crime, it builds up towards an climax that is predictable yet feels oddly right.

The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson: It is fake. It is clearly fake. And you shouldn’t need Snopes to confirm that it is a fake – you just have to read the book. It is very well done – almost compelling in a trashy sort of a way. And it is a creepy little story; very much the modern ghost story. It is also palpable nonsense, and like all good nonsense should be, it is also very enjoyable.

The Thief by Ruth Rendell – one of the “quick reads” book range, which is great as it means you can read the book in about an hour and it costs relatively little. The book itself is an odd story of a pathological thief who steals the wrong thing from the wrong person. And the protagonist’s nemesis in this story is one of the most striking villains in any book I think I have ever read. His scheme for revenge is as devastating as it is simple.

The Woman In Black by Susan Hill: Hill is respected for some of her work, not least school book staple I’m the King of the Castle. But her best work – and one of the most terrifying books I’ve ever read – is this one. Turned into a great play and a great film, the book itself is well worth a read.

Of course, the above list is deeply subjective and many may snort with laughter at my choices. But the central point still stands – there are authors and books out there that are simply not respected despite being great. If you have an author or a book that you think is pretty fucking awesome but no-one really knows and/or respects it, then stick it in the comments section and I’ll read it in the highly unlikely event that I get the time…

On the surface, it seems a little surreal to state that there was "nothing aggressive" about a mass murderer. After all, murder - especially a spree killing in a school - tend to be quite an agressive act. Your Thomas Hamiltons and Michael Ryans and known for their passive behaviour. But then again, it is only their final acts that appear so aggressive and so violent.

Tim Kretschmer probably wasn't aggressive before he went on his shooting spree. He was probably a very normal looking young man. There were probably very few warning signs that he was about to perpetrate a terrible act of violence. And that is why all those who call for the authorities to recognise the warning signs are on a hiding to nothing. The warning signs won't be there - Kretschmer won't have sat around muttering "kill 'em all, kill 'em all - gonna fucking kill 'em all." Any signs of his burgeoning rage could probably have been interpreted as signs of being a teenager.

Part of the tragedy of these mass killings is that they are arbitrary and they are random. You can't predict them; you can't stop them unless you imprison everyone who ever appears to be slightly weird. It is comforting in the aftermath to talk about identifying warning signs in the future. The reality is somewhat different, and behind that reality is the unpleasant truth that you probably can't stop these things from happening.

School Shootings

There was another school shooting this week, although unless you were keeping your eyes open when reviewing the media, you might have missed it. See, this one occurred in Finland, rather than in this country or our favourite former colony, meaning there was much less attention given to it.

I wrote a lot about the last massacre committed by an angry loner, and I think a lot of those comments can be related directly to this more recent tragedy. I don't know whether Finland will respond in the same way that the US did to the VA murders, but the temptation will be there to start the old blame game. "Oh, he watched violent videos so he wanted to kill", "Oh, he had access to weapons so he wanted to kill" and so on, ad fucking nauseam, until every cliche has been trotted out. Well, shite. The only person directly responsible for these murders is the person who grabs a gun and starts shooting. And when, as they so often do, they kill themselves after the rampage or as the police close in, well, you just have to accept that the prepatrator has escaped the punishment society so desperately needs to inflict to console everyone.

But if someone does realky want to try to understand why this sort of tragedy intermittently occurs, and what could be done about it, then it might be worth taking a look at the lives these guys led before they aimed their weapons at their classmates and teachers. Because, generally speaking, them seem to be quite fucking bleak. Take the comments about by the detective looking into the Finnish massacre about the killer (as reported on the BBC):

"Det Haapala described the young man as a "lonely rider" who had been bullied by other students at the secondary school"

Then consider these comments about Cho Seung Hui, the killer at Virginia Tech:

"During Cho's time in middle school and high school, he was teased for his shyness and unusual speech patterns. Some classmates even offered dollar bills to Cho just to hear him talk. According to Chris Davids, a high school classmate in Cho's English class at Westfield High School, Cho looked down and refused to speak when called upon. Davids added that, after one teacher threatened to give Cho a failing grade for not participating in class, he began reading in a strange, deep voice that sounded "like he had something in his mouth." "The whole class started laughing and pointing and saying, 'Go back to China.'" Another classmate, Stephanie Roberts, stated that "there were just some people who were really cruel to him, and they would push him down and laugh at him. He didn't speak English really well, and they would really make fun of him."Cho was also teased as the "trombone kid" for his practice of walking to school alone with his trombone. Other students recall crueler names and that most of the bullying was because he was alone.""

Or take Jeff Weise, who murdered nine people before shooting himself:

"Weise allegedly had a history of trouble at the school, getting into fist-fights. Although no clear motive has been attributed to Weise's actions yet, he was described as a loner, who was bullied – possibly due to his appearance."

Now bullying is not new, and, not matter how many well meaning but faintly patronising campaigns there are, it ain't really going to go away, if we are honest. And not everyone who is bullied becomes a school shooter, just as not all those who watch violent films are going to go on a rampage. But rather than looking for parts of a country's culture to blame after one of these shootings, maybe it would be would be worth examining exactly how a young man can be so ostracised by his schooling and by those around him that he sould see himself as a "social Darwinist" who has the right to wander around the corridors of his school and can "eliminate all who I see unfit".