Three dread words — laid in a row My first formal title was Efficiency Planning Manager. And the role was bestowed with ceremony. My boss clicked through vast spreadsheets and explained the title’s constituent parts. ‘Efficiency’ was when the numbers went down — a good thing, something to be desired: It’s all about maintaining the …
True crime. Popular since Cain brained Abel. So let’s make room for the genre and its tensions and its foibles. Let’s talk about two dramas. One serialised on Netflix. The other in The New Yorker, 60 years prior. Richard Gadd spilt his guts Baby Reindeer was mandatory viewing in 2024. Richard Gadd played himself, reliving …
Remember Raiders of The Lost Ark? The Ark of the Covenant goes into a crate. A hammer slams, driving a nail. The lid fits tight, wood on wood, hiding the Ark from view. Anonymous hands snap on a padlock and a government employee (flat cap and flat expression) guides the crate along the gangway. The …
I’m back from the theatre The play ended with a girl leading her father beyond the city walls. The girl was Electra. The man, Oedipus. The city, Thebes. Perhaps those names strike dissonant cords of memory. As they exited the tragedy, the outcast king questioned whether his people were at peace. He’d put out his …
Has anyone ever tried to convince you to write like Dante? Probably not, because who writes poetry anymore?* Modern pen-pushers are busy with blogs, emails and social posts. But we should remember the medieval poet Dante Alighieri. (And not just because it’s Valentine’s Day and he was drippingly romantic.) We should remember him for his …
Authors are great exaggerators I realised that while hammering out an essay on Jules Verne. Verne conceived of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea after seeing a submarine — well, a model of one — at the world fair. So a machine that took passengers under water existed in 1867. Verne’s innovation was making the …
Are you sure, Monsieur Verne? The way scientists and writers interact — I’ve seen it described as a codependency. Authors take inspiration from science. Their stories expand what readers can imagine. Those readers include scientists who engage with experimental ideas. They pull on pristine lab coats and test whether fictions could enter reality. That’s how …
The unease starts with the title Yellowface winks obscenely from bookstore shelves. It stimulates. It sets the machinery of the mind in motion… and then jams its gears. The reader gets the term is racially charged. Recalls ‘Blackface’ – yep, that’s a thing. Thinks of Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. But that’s about all …
Any ending is temporary That becomes clear on the first page of White Teeth, when a despondent Archibald Jones tries gassing himself. The act should have ended Zadie Smith’s novel before the debut had properly begun. But… ‘No one gasses himself on my property,’ Mo snapped as he marched downstairs. ‘We are not licensed.’ Archie …
It is a time of time There was snow last night, I’m told. By the time I was awake, it had been overtaken by grey drizzle. But the mind can play tricks. I can imagine the dancing snow, even as I look out on a pavement dressed in rain. The snowflakes would have whirled in …
