Category: Books

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I is for Ian, Ian Fleming

1908-1964                                                                                   
It’s I-day
today. And I bring out someone not quite a classic yet just as timeless, just
as well loved and way more exciting. He is the one who created the coolest,
hottest hero ever.. and I mean ever. It’s the flamboyant Ian Fleming – the man behind James
Bond. If anything he was at least just as dashing as the hero he created.

A tough
legacy to follow

Ian Fleming
came from a well respected, wealthy English family. His grandfather was a banker
and his father Valentine Fleming, a landowner and Member of Parliament as well
as a war hero who was killed in the War when Ian was about 9. His brother Peter excelled at Eton and Oxford and went on to become a well know travel
writer. Ian had to live up to a towering legacy.

A restless
soul

All of that seemed like a tall order for Fleming. He could
never distinguish himself at academics. He left Eaton before completing his graduation.
At the military academy he left without taking an officer’s commission. He
tried to take the Foreign Services Exam but could not clear that too. Finally,
like his brother, he joined Reuters – the news agency – and became a
journalist.

Ian Fleming

A few years
as a journalist convinced him that his salary would not let him live the kind
of high life he wanted. His own inheritance was out of reach so he took on work as a
banker. A few years later, bored of his banker’s job he quit and joined the
Times.

In 1939 he
joined the naval intelligence. That’s where he seemed to have finally found his
calling. Quite like his hero he planned and carried out dangerous missions. He
also wrote countless reports where his natural flair for writing showed up and
they made for great reading. It was during those days that he went to Jamaica
for a conference and fell in love with the place promising to return.

In Jamaica, Bond
is born

My favourite Bond

And return
he did. He built himself a house called Goldeneye
and every year, for six years, he would go to Jamaica to live the high life he had
always wanted… partying, romancing and having affairs. The turning point came when a married woman, Anne Rothermere, he
was having an affair with, got pregnant and pressured him to marry her. While
waiting for her divorce to come through he started writing his first novel
Casino Royale. After that, each year he used his Jamaican holiday to write a
novel.

At the age of 56 Ian Fleming died of a heart attack. In a very Bond like manner his last words were to the ambulance drivers. Said he, “I am sorry to trouble you chaps. I don’t know how you get along so fast with the traffic on the roads these days.”

James Bond..

.. would be
the dullest, most uninteresting man to whom “things happened”, thought Fleming when he first conceived Bond. However, 12 Bond novels later, we know better. Secret
Agent 007, took on a life of his own.

Fleming modeled Bond after many real life characters including his brother and himself. He put to use his real life experiences. His villains too were people he disliked in real life!

Seven actors have played James Bond in 23 films, beginning with Sean Connery in 1962 to Daniel Craig in 2012.. but you already know that. So who’s your favourite Bond? I’d go with Sean Connery.

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I won’t leave a clue for tomorrow. Girls and boys.. wait for the magic to begin!

This post is part of the April A to Z Challenge, 2014 for the theme AMAZING AUTHORS.

Also linking to the Ultimate Blog Challenge.
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H is for Harper Lee

Born 1926
She’s the daughter of a former newspaper editor who practised law in the Alabama State Legislature; a perfect combination to have in a dad if you’re planning to write a book like To Kill a Mockingbird. That is Harper Lee. Did you know that this is her only published book? Some contrast to my yesterday’s favourite Georgette Heyer who was so prolific.

Her full name is Nelle Harper Lee. Nelle is her grandmother’s name spelt backward. Sweet, isn’t it? When I first read the book I wasn’t yet a teen and the only thing that stayed in my mind was Boo Radley. I gave it up midway as too scary.

Her Childhood

While her father was an attorney her mother Frances suffered from bipolar disorder. Rumour has it that she twice tried to drown Lee. As a result, Lee, grew up as a defensive and aggressive girl much like Scout in the book. She studied to become a lawyer. However even while in High School she was interested in Literature. After the first semester of her Law degree she dropped off to pursue her writing. She moved to New York where she met her childhood friend Truman Capote, a writer himself. She also made friends with Broadway composer and lyricist Michael Martin Brown and his wife Joy. In 1956, as a Christmas present, the couple offered to support Lee for one whole year while she focussed on her writing. Lee quit her job and did just that.

Life and fiction

As a child Lee observed racial discrimination in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama. Lee’s father once defended two black men, a father and a son, for killing a white storekeeper. The two men were hanged. Perhaps that’s where the idea germinated.
Lee modelled Scout on her own self. both their fathers were attorneys. Her friend Truman Capote, inspired the charcater Dill. Truman also talks about a charcater similar to Boo Radley who lived close by and left things in a tree just like Boo in the book.

To Kill a Mockingbird

Told from the perspective of a six-year-old girl, Scout, the book talks about her father Atticus Finch who is appointed by the court to defend a black man accused of raping a young white woman. He agrees to do so to the disapproval of the townsfolk. Even though evidence suggests otherwise the jury hold Tom guilty and he is shot dead while trying to escape from prison.
The book handles the sensitive issue of racial discrimination in a sweet and simple way. Since it’s told from a six-year-old’s perspective it has to be simple, yet Scout and her brother Jem grasp the situation and staunchly stand by their father in an amazingly adult manner.
The book flows so seamlessly and seems so spontaneous that it is difficult to believe it took almost four years to be written. Lee laboured over each page. The first draft seemed like a bunch of stories rather than a novel and so Lee rewrote the book over two and a half years. It was finally published in 1960.
The book was later adapted into a film with Gregory peck
playing Atticus Finch.
Scout and her brother Jem in a scene
from the film
It was an immediate success and won her the Pulitzer prize for fiction 1961.
After the publication Lee gave no interviews and hasn’t written anything other than a few essays since then. In 2006 British librarians ranked the book ahead of the Bible as a book ‘every adult should read before they die’. How’s that for praise!

Why Harper Lee never wrote again

Though she said she was working on a  second book The Long Goodbye, she never published again. No one knows for sure why that happened but some suggest it was the huge reaction to her first book that put her off writing. Though the book got her instant fame, back home in her close-knit town people recognised her in Scout. Perhaps even Lee hadn’t been aware of how much she had drawn from real life. Her liberal anti racial views didn’t go down well with her townspeople and she was flooded with hate mail. Always a defensive person, that made things worse for Lee and she never did write again.

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It’s a man on my blog tomorrow people. And a dashing one at that. His creation is, if I may use a much overused word, the ‘sexiest’ man ever and has been immortalised in films by some of the hottest actors of their time. I’ve almost given it away.
Come now, guess!
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This post is part of the April A to Z Challenge, 2014 for the theme AMAZING AUTHORS.
Also linking to the Ultimate Blog Challenge.

 

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Georgette Heyer – The Queen of Regency Romance

(1902-1974)

I stumbled upon Georgette Heyer in my school library. It wasn’t love at first sight for then I was totally taken in by Victoria Holt. However, once I did begin, Heyer, jumped right up to the top of my favourite author list.

This British writer was born in the 1900s in Wimbledon, London. However, she chose to set her novels a full hundred years back, in the Regency period.

What a glorious time that was!

Women in elaborate gowns and even more elaborate hairdos topped off by insanely expensive hats. And the men, just as fashion conscious, with their cravats that could be arranged in a hundred different ways, their breeches and stylish coats; balls, soirees, phaeton rides and hunting parties.

Oh I do love it all and Georgette Heyer brought it to life.

The beginning

Her journey in writing began with story-telling sessions. When she was just 17 her brother fell ill with a form of Haemophilia and she began a serial story to entertain him. Her father, who had always encouraged her to read, loved the story and thought of getting it published. The book appeared as her first novel The Black Moth even before she turned 20 and then there was, to use a cliche, no looking back.
Georgette Heyer was one of the most prolific writers coming up with a mystery and a romance each year. Some of her well-know books include These Old Shades, Devil’s Cub, Talisman Ring, The Grand Sophy, Sylvester.

A meticulous researcher

Given that her novels were set in a period she had never seen, she researched every single aspect of that time. Wiki tells me her library included about a thousand reference books. She would make note cards on almost everything no matter how insignificant.
She read up histories of snuff boxes, sign posts and costumes. She sorted her notes into categories like beauty, hats, household, prices. She made extensive lists of phrases on topic like food and crockery, endearments, forms of address!
Whew!! Some effort there!
Which is why for a long time I thought she actually belonged to the 19th century.. so authentic was she. She’s another one inspired by Jane Austen.

Not one for the media

Her third book – These Old Shades (my personal favourite) – was released during the time of the UK general strike and got no promotion at all.. no reviews, no newspaper coverage, nothing. Yet it sold some 190,000 copies. After that she refused to give interviews completely.

A combination of romance and mystery with liberal doses of wit

.. that’s what you find in her books. Her heroes were typically serious yet appreciated spirit in their lady and enjoyed a good laugh. Her heroines were often young. They were always effervescent and unaffected and very very romantic. More often than not Heyer threw in a dash of mystery which made her books even more exciting.

And now I’m off to reread her. Did I tell you, you can read her books over and over again and enjoy them each time? Yes, well you can.

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And for tomorrow’s clue – an H, this lady, has to her credit, just a single published book that won a Pulitzer and became classroom material. Okay.. let me make it easier the book is told from the perspective of a 6-year-old girl.
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This post is part of the April A to Z Challenge, 2014 for the theme AMAZING AUTHORS.
Also linking to the Ultimate Blog Challenge.

 

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F for Helen Fielding


Born 1958

F brings out
another woman – Fielding, Helen, of Bridget Jones fame. A self confessed Austen
fan Helen says she picked inspiration from her books. I mentioned it here while talking about Austen. Fielding gave chick-lit a whole new dimension. Rather than looking at pure romance she tackled a thousand other issues that plague single women.

Early days

Fielding studied
English before she started working with the BBC as a researcher. While at the
BBC she travelled to Sudan and then wrote and produced documentaries in Africa
for fundraising broadcasts. That’s where the idea for her first book Cause Celeb
came from. The book was praised but made little money. Meanwhile,
Helen turned journalist and wrote columns for various newspapers even as she
struggled to work on her second book. Bridget Jones’s Diary brought her instant fame and was followed by a sequel, Edge of Reason and then Bridget Jones – Mad about the Boy. She has done other books too including Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination.

The birth of
Bridget

When she was
asked by a London newspaper to do a column on her own life as a single woman
she had no idea it would lead to Bridget Jones. She refused to do the column
saying it would be too embarrassing, too personal. However, she did agree to write
anonymously creating a fictional character in her 30s negotiating single life
in London. The column became immensely popular. She was still trying to finish her second novel. However, her identity as the person behind the column was revealed and her publishers asked her to convert it into a book.

I love
Bridget Jones’s Diary because…

Bridget refuses to fit into any regular ‘heroine’ mould 
She’s neither pretty and delicate nor strong and capable. She’s just funny and sweet and goofy and self deprecating. Just like me, is always struggling
with weight troubles and (not quite like me) boyfriend troubles. She has a mother who refuses to
leave her alone (mine doesn’t either!) and friends who keep giving her all kinds of bizarre advice. Even
better – in the end she finds a wonderful man who is good-looking, rich
and above all loves her ‘Just as she is’. What’s not to like? I’ve actually done loads of things that happen in the book like..

– Hitting the gym with a vengeance in anticipation of a big event.
– Or wallowing in self pity
– Or yelling out to my kids during a phone conversation with someone like a typical Smug married.

I love the diary format of the book
It makes the whole story-telling much more personal and Bridget can get away with saying a lot of hilariously embarrassing (sometimes downright gross) stuff because she’s only talking to herself.

I love the vocabulary.. 
..that Fielding coined. Smug marrieds, Singletons and mentionistis.

I also recommend the movie, if you’ve not seen it already starring the amazing Rene Zellweger, a very delicious Colin Firth and a devilish Hugh Grant.

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Tomorrow’s author, ladies and gentlemen, isn’t an easy one to guess. Here’s the clue – she’s a British lady who wrote historical romances with a dash of mystery and loads of wit. No googling please!
This post is part of the April A to Z Challenge, 2014 for the theme AMAZING AUTHORS.


Also linking to the Ultimate Blog Challenge.
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E has to be for Enid Blyton

1897 – 1968
I cannot imagine my childhood without her. For a long time I thought she was a ‘he’ called Gnid Blyton. She is Enid Blyton.
I then lived in a congested city area where houses were stacked close together and green garden patches were rare treats. We did, however, have endless open terraces stretching across houses. Sitting there dreaming over my homework I would lose myself in Enid Blyton.
She became my favourite companion as together we followed Jo, Bessy and Fanny up the Faraway tree dodging Mrs Washalot’s deluge, sliding down Moonface’s Slippery Slip or gasping from the cold water the Angry Pixie threw at us.
We picnicked on the wide green moors with Julian, Dick, George and Anne when I wasn’t even sure whether moors were people or places or both. I could almost savour Aunt Fanny’s fruitcake and plums from Kirrin Cottage and wash it all down with cool lemonade.
Some days we’d clamber onto the wishing chair with Peter, Molly and Chinky and fly away to far off lands.
And of course there was school. Malory Towers, St Clairs! I’d watch a game of Lacrosse though I could barely pronounce it forget figuring out what it was. I learnt from Irene that music and maths go together. I rolled in laughter at mam’zelle’s English and was inspired by Alicia’s pranks.
Oh it was all so much fun. Enid Blyton was all of that and more.

Boy was she prolific!

At the peak of her career she was writing 50 books a year. She would start writing after breakfast and continue till 5 in the evening stopping only for a short lunch. She did, on an average 6000 to 10,000 words a day.
There were rumours that she had a team of ghost writers because people found it difficult to believe that one woman could write so much. She even took legal action against a librarian who had said so and won the case.
She said the stories flowed from her imagination without her needing to think about them. She didn’t believe in research of any kind and wrote simply from her imagination. She would often have a red shawl draped around her knees. She felt the colour red provided stimulation to her mind.

Her life

Sadly, she didn’t have a very happy childhood. She loved her father but he left the family to live with another woman. She was heartbroken. She didn’t get along with her mother who disapproved of her writing. Later she wasn’t much of a mother herself to her two daughters.
And there’s more.
She was said to be a ruthless self promoter. Her understanding of marketing and branding were way ahead of her times. She looked into each aspect of her books including the designing. It was she who insisted all her books have that trademark signature.
She didn’t shy away from using her daughters for publicity and they were brought out to be ‘displayed’ to her fans. Her daughter Imogen writes in her (Blyton’s) biography that she was ‘without a trace of maternal instinct’.
However, her fans were her real family. Her books had everything that her own life didn’t.

There are detractors of her work too..

… plenty of them. Her books were allegedly unchallenging and without literary merit. She has been termed ‘elitist’ (George from Famous Five owned an island), sexist (Check out this remark made by Julian for George, ‘You
may look like a boy and behave like a boy, but you’re a girl all the same. And like it or not, girls have got to be taken care of’) and racist (Golliwogs were often depicted as the ‘bad’ ones).

Critics called her plots unimaginative and repetitive.
Schools banned her books in the 60s and BBC refused to broadcast her works!!

And yet she has survived..

It cannot possibly all be marketing, can it? A magical world on top of a tree, a chair with wings, toys that came to life at night – an entire Toyland, pixies, fairies, elves and goblins. Unimaginative?? Nah!

As for repetition — I loved it. I waited for it. Come on! Children love repetition. Not for nothing have I told the same stories to my twins countless times, sometimes back to back.

You do get the idea here, right?

I will not listen to anything against her.
And so millions of young ones and the not so young ones, continue to adore her books making her one of the widest selling authors ever.

Of late there has been talk of making her books ‘politically correct’ to make them suitable for the 21st century. What do you think, people? Would you prefer a ‘polished’ Blyton for your kids?

Meanwhile, I’m off to paint my house red. Maybe then a book will happen.

Oh yes the clue for tomorrow – She’s a lady (again!), she doesn’t have the quintessential pretty heroine, in fact she’s definitely overweight, and (this is the giveaway clue) her heroine’s in love with Mr Darcy. Come now tell me.

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This post is part of the April A to Z Challenge, 2014 for the theme AMAZING AUTHORS.

Also linking to the Ultimate Blog Challenge.

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