Room 237 and what it tells us about author intention

Last November, I think it was, we went to see the excellent documentary by Rodney Ascher, Room 237, at the ICA. I've been waiting since then for a DVD of the film to arrive because I immediately wanted to see it again.

It's a documentary that has quite rightly garnered a lot of praise - its subject is the hidden meanings of Stanley Kubrick's film version of Stephen King's The Shining - but the way it goes about discussing the film is unusual.

It features the voices (only) of five different commentators on what they think The Shining, or Kubrick's take on it, is actually about. No, it's not really about a writer getting cabin fever in a deserted hotel and trying to turn his wife and son into sushi with a fire axe.

According to the theories propounded in the movie, it's about various other things too: the Holocaust, the genocide of the Native American Indian, how NASA got Kubrick to fake the moon landings and then forced him into secrecy over the subject (!) and so on.
Instead of seeing the various commentators on screen, Room 237 uses a nice trick of using footage from various Kubrick films to play with, or against, the narrators of each theory, some of which turn out to be remarkably convincing, some, well, let's just say, some less so.

If you're interested in how these symbolisms play out, get hold of Room 237 and have a look, it's well worth it. What's most interesting about all this however is what it shows us about author intention.

A question I get frequently when visiting schools goes like this:
Student: 'You know when you write a book?'
Me: 'Uh-huh?'
Student (with one eye on their English teacher): 'Do you actually mean all those things our teacher says you mean?'
Me (smiling): 'Some of them.'

The (post) modern view holds that it doesn't actually matter whether the author meant that thing about the curtains:

This cartoon is harsh on teachers: the intersection in the Venn diagram is much larger in general, I think.

What matters is what the reader took away from the text, whether or not the author meant to put that meaning there.

From my point of view, sometimes I've meant things to be in a text, and people have 'got it', sometimes they haven't. Sometimes, I haven't intended a particular meaning to be in a text, but people have found that meaning anyway. At which point, if it's cool, I immediately claim I meant it all along, and if it's fatuous, I deny all knowledge ;-)

Room 237 is wonderful because we see this process happening twice over. Stephen King wrote his book, and Kubrick made his film of it. So there's one instance of change in the 'text' already, and in this case, there are some significant changes between the book and the film; most of them improvements in my opinion: the book has giant topiary rabbits etc coming to 'life' in Jack's mind; the film has that frozen maze. The book ends with the over-signposted explosion of the hotel's boiler; the film ends in the maze in much more sinister fashion. King has Jack going ape with a Roquet mallet (huh?), Kubrick gets right to the point with a damn big axe. And so on. King famously hated what Kubrick did to his book, which  Kubrick was well aware of. One of the narrators in Room 237 makes a nice point about how Jack's specifically red VW Beetle in the book becomes a yellow one in the movie, and then as if to put two fingers up to King, places a red Beetle under the wheels of a truck in the traffic accident scene; 'take that, author.'

And at this point, the wild theories about what Kubrick was actually trying to say with the film kick in -  and fascinating it is to try to unpick where valid interpretation becomes ludicrous conspiracy theory, and perhaps the modern view is right, that if you find 'it', 'it's' real. But if that's so, just don't expect the author to put his hands up and admit to it too. He may well have meant nothing of the sort. Especially if you're the guy who believes Kubrick intended us to watch the movie backwards...

Doctor Who and the Spear of Destiny

Here's a small clue to what I've been up to lately...

Yoinks! BBC TV Centre is more dangerous than I remembered!

I'm absolutely delighted to announce that I've written the third in Puffin's year long celebration of Doctor Who's fiftieth anniversary. Each month from January to November each of the eleven Doctors is being brought to life once more by a different writer.

The news about each writer is being strictly embargoed which means that up until today, all anyone's been able to see about my book is this:

Ooh, who can it be?

Eoin Colfer kicked off with the First Doctor back in January, and last month Michael Scott's Patrick Troughton-inspired Time Lord lived again.

Now I've been given the chance to write a new story featuring my all-time favourite Doctor, Jon Pertwee. If you're not too familiar with classic Doctor Who (well, it is quite a long time ago now), then you might want to nip over here to find out a bit more about the Third Doctor.

Jon Pertwee

I've never had to work so hard to keep my mouth shut.

Now that I can finally talk about it, I can share a little my excitement at getting this chance. Doctor Who is iconic. There is no other word for it. It's now been a part of British culture for 50 years. 50! That's a lot. So I admit that when I finally sat down to write the opening words of my story, I had a sudden freeze. Hands poised over the keyboard, I thought "Holy -insert-your-own-expletive-here-, this is Doctor Who! Doctor Who!"

Then I gave myself a quick slap and got on with it, deciding to have as much fun as possible with the Third Doctor and Jo Grant in a jaunt into the Viking-age world. The picture above of me moments before annihilation by a Dalek is slightly misleading - for various reasons I decided to put the Doctor up against his old nemesis, the Master.

The story links together a few nice pieces of mythology and legend - the Spear of Destiny was the spear which pierced Christ's side as he hung on the cross. Legend has it that the armies of whoever holds the spear would be invincible. It was of the various supernatural things that Hitler was obsessed with. But as it happens, someone else who hung on a piece of wood was Odin. He hung on the 'world tree' for nine days and nights, and was pierced by his own spear, a magical weapon called Gungnir. Here's a picture of Odin in happier times, resting on his throne with his faithful ravens, Huginn and Muninn, alongside.

Odin with Gungnir

There are more of these nice serendipitous connections in the story, but I don't want to give away too much more about the plot for now.

Instead, I'll just say that I hope people like it. Doctor Who is, after all, one of those things that has a very large and very faithful fanbase, of whom I was very aware when writing. I tried my best to bring the wonderful Jon Pertwee back to life for a short time, and if a few of those fans agree, I'll be more than happy.

For now the story is only available as an ebook, and you know what that means: go here to see it.

Icebergs, and What I've Been Doing

It hasn't escaped everyone's notice that I didn't put out a new YA novel in 2012, and in that time the question has been levelled at me from time to time; what are you doing?

Well, I haven't been twiddling my thumbs, not all the time anyway. I've been working on the Elf Girl and Raven Boy series, and on that graphic novel I'm doing with my brother, and on a screenplay with him too, and on a play version of My Swordhand is Singing, and all of these things are taking slow steps forward into the world, but they take a loooong time to actually arrive. So to the outside world it looks like I've been slacking :-(

And I did want to write a new YA novel, only the problem was, I couldn't think of one. Did I have writer's block? Maybe I did, but despite two years of failing to get a book written, I'm still not sure if it actually exists. That must sound pretty stupid, and I can't really explain what I mean. Only that I had ideas during this time, but something about them wasn't happening. They didn't develop properly, despite the fact that I tried everything I know to make them do so. I tried smothering them with attention, and I tried ignoring them, and everything in between, but nothing worked.

In increasing desperation I read everything and anything I could on creative blocks, spoke to every sympathetic author I could (thanks, people:-) ) and generally tried to figure out what was wrong. Everyone I spoke to, without fail, told me that the ideas would come back and that I'd know what to write again soon, but I'd managed to spook myself thoroughly by reading about various composers and writers who just stopped creating one day, and never took it up again. In the case of Sibelius, that was the last thirty years of his life. In the case of Rossini, most of the last forty. That scared the hell out of me, and anyway, the problem wasn't that I wasn't having ideas, but that they weren't growing like they should.

Never the most frequent of bloggers, my entries fell away to nothing, simply because I felt like fraud talking about writing when I wasn't doing it.

And then an iceberg sailed over the horizon. What I mean by this is that an idea that I've been thinking about, on and off, for seven years, finally decided to let me get a hold of it. I finally knew how to write it, having started once five years ago and having abandoned it. This time I knew it was going to be all right, and so now I'm very glad to say I've just finished the second draft of my next YA book, due out in October. Phew. It's called She Is Not Invisible.

Why's it an iceberg? Because the book has ended up being relatively short, at around 45,000 words. But there is more thinking and more planning and more research under the visible surface of this novel than anything I've ever done before. But of course, only the top 10% can be seen. I think Hemingway said something like that about all his writing, and you can be sure he said it better than me, with much more grandeur, and with a drink in his hand, too ;-)

Judgement

On Tuesday I finished my work as one of this year's judges for the Costa Book Awards; I was a category judge for the children's prize, and then joined the final panel to select the overall winner.

Here, before I get into the point of this post, is a photo of that final judging panel which I present here as evidence that writers can dress smartly when required to do so.

Left to right:
Mark Watson, Katie Derham, D.J. Taylor, me, Daljit Nagra,
Wendy Holden, Jenni Murray, Jenny Agutter, Sophie Ward

Everyone knows that it's a really hard thing to decide not just between five books on a shortlist, but five different kinds of book, something that is unique to the Costa Book Awards, as far as I'm aware. To compare a children's book with a poetry collection, a biography, a novel and a first novel is pretty tough. What is the 'best' book, when the books are so very different in their nature in the first place?

The final truth of the matter however, is this: choosing any winner of a prize is a somewhat arbitrary decision. Yes, there are books that most people would consider bad, and books that many people would consider good, but once you get to the upper end of the scale, what makes one book 'better' than another? At this point, all the arguments about style and skill and emotion and structure and language start to break down, because they are ALL good books. And what you're left with at that point is no more than a feeling. Which book lived with you the longest, which affected you the most? That to me is as good a way of judging a prize as anything else, and therein lies the point - these are very much personal feelings, which may be shared by another judge, but which may well not be.

Having sat on around half a dozen judging panels now, I've had some experiences I would rather not repeat, and I've had some that were delightful, as was the case this week I'm glad to say. But one thing I have learned is this: if your book is shortlisted for an award, and you don't win, don't be too upset. How the book that 'beat' yours was chosen may not be as clear-cut as people imagine.

And there's a inverse to that law - if you did win, don't get too cocky. Don't stand on the stage and KNOW your book was better than everything else published that year. The judges may know there was a little more, or rather less, to it than that.

The "Next Big Thing" Blog Meme

DARK SATANIC MILLS


As part of the ongoing Next Big Thing blog meme, I've been tagged by my excellent brother, Julian Sedgwick, whose first novel, The Black Dragon, comes out July 2013 from Hodder Children's Books.
I've got a few things on the go at the moment but I wanted to honour my brother by talking about a graphic novel we've written together. And at that point I must immediately talk about our superb illustrator: John Higgins

For John to be illustrating our work is more than a dream come true: Julian and I grew up reading 2000AD and the like, so we're beyond pleased to have this legendary artist bringing our thoughts to life.

What is the title of your next book?
Dark Satanic Mills

Where did the idea come from for the book?
The title may be familiar to some readers; it's a line from the verses now known as "Jerusalem" by William Blake. And was Jerusalem builded here, among these dark satanic mills.

But the real origin of the book lies in our wanting to say something about the perils of belief.
I have to pick my words carefully here: we're not saying it's wrong to believe in God, or Allah, or UFOs for that matter. We're saying it's a dangerous thing when you believe so devoutly in your chosen god that you allow the possibility of no others, that you are at risk of enforcing others to think the same way as you do.

We absolutely want to champion those who believe in a fair and free way, and often these people are those who do not follow orthodox religion, but find their own route to understanding.

And this brings us back to William Blake, because although his religion was nominally a Christian one, he made his own very unorthodox approach to it. People often mistake the "dark satanic mills" of those lines of his from the introduction to his edition of Milton as referring to the woollen mills of the industrial revolution. But he actually used the term to refer to the church. The orthodox church, which he saw as imprisoning our true nature and spirituality.

What genre does your book fall under?
It's a graphic novel, about a dystopian future. Elements of sci-fi.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
For Christy, our heroine, I'd like someone young and interesting looking, like Bella Heathcote. She has to be believable on a motorbike though. For Thomas, her co-protagonist, we need someone with an honest face, and determined. Ewan McGregor'll do nicely.

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?
V for Vendetta meets The Wizard of Oz, with a side-order of William Blake.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
Our agent is the diligent Kirsty McLachlan at David Godwin Associates. It will be published by Walker Books in 2013.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
I have absolutely no idea. Writing a book is a strange process that goes through many stages, some of them less obvious than others, but all of them critical. How do you know how much of your time you've actually spent getting ready to put virtual pen to paper? I think we worked on it on and off for about a year, but that's a total guess.

What other books of the same genre would you compare yours with?
As I mentioned above, V for Vendetta would be a good comparison. And I also think it bears some similarity to certain serials from 2000AD.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?
I think I've covered that above, but it might be worth adding that having had those ideas about religion, it was necessary to find a world to place it in. The thought of a collapsing England, shrouded in darkness in a time of unrest and ecological disaster was too good to ignore. It's been done before, but then, what hasn't? And it seemed right and true to our concept, so that's they way we went.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
The titles of each of the seven chapters are the "last seven words of Christ": his utterances from the cross. There's elements of A Clockwork Orange and Quadrophenia. There's the coolest Citroen DS ever. And did I mention that the illustrations are coming from the pen of John Higgins??

I hereby tag the following awesome writers:
Jacqui Brocker
Kevin Jackson
Annabel Pitcher
Philip Womack

Their answers should appear on Wednesday next week.

Being James Joyce

That's a snap of me in profile being James Joyce last Sunday. My dear friend Kevin Jackson was making a short promo video for his forthcoming and most excellent book: Constellation of Genius, which is a history of the year 1922.

This was especially timely since I'd spent the previous three days in Dun Laoghaire, in sight of the Martello tower where Joyce spent six nights once upon a long time ago. The tower is a museum to this great Irish writer now.

I was in Dun Laoghaire (a name, as my co-host @tomdonegan pointed out, that is not conducive to auto-correct) for the superb Mountains to Sea book festival, six days of wonder and fun curated by lovely Tom and equally lovely @sarahwebbishere.

I did a couple of Raven Mysteries events, which I end with a little play performed by myself (as Edgar the raven) and five volunteers from the audience. It's almost always a complete shambles, and more fun because of that, and I'm glad to say that the plays were as smooth as always ;-) I was chortling so much I forgot my lines :-)

Tom and I took a stroll to the end of the harbour wall in DL, a spot which according to Mr Donegan proved the turning point for Samuel Beckett, who taking a similar jaunt in a force eight gale decided to move to Paris instead and leave Ireland behind him. We were blessed with extraordinary weather however and on the way back witnessed this cloud formation, sometimes mistaken for a flying saucer. (it's the one dead centre) Neither of us could recall its proper name, anyone know? Answers on a postcard please.

The following morning I just had time to witness a superb double act from @jabberworks and @philipreeve1 and then it was time to whizz home to prepare to be James Joyce.

Constellation of Genius is launched October 4th I believe. And then the next film Kevin and I work on together will be an extract of My Swordhand is Singing, shot on location in the Alps!

My Swordhand is Singing - the theatrical experience!

Here's a short film of the trial version of My Swordhand is Singing as an immersive theatrical experience.