mappalujo
/ cobralingus
POST FUTURISM
We are now living in the future. How disappointing this period
seems, compared to the world we promised ourselves. With the Dome,
the Millennial celebrations and the general feeling of "Was that
it?" behind us, we have become slaves to cynicism, artificial
passions and desperately forced excitements. It is not a time
for great art. However, if it is fuelled by world-weariness alone,
the future will not last that long. Perhaps, in our imaginations,
we could bypass this period entirely. I would like to discuss
a possible literature, the kind of writing that will take place
in the post-future age.
One symptom of the current future is the perceived sorry state
of the English novel. The people who make this complaint spend
the rest of their time praising the latest masterwork that manages
to tell a good story in a simple enough manner. In other words,
a retreat is made into the past. Almost every novel published
this year will use a template invented three centuries ago, and
set in stone during the Victorian age. Those few books which do
try a new approach are met with tired groans. This is the fashionable
ennui of current emotion. The writers are being too clever, there's
too much going on, too many ideas, it's too much like hard work.
Oh, the constant laments of this or that book being unreadable.
What the naysayers really mean is that they themselves cannot
read it. It's too difficult for them. Compared to what? Jeffery
Archer? James Joyce? What is this benchmark of readability? Ian
McEwen, J K Rowling, Salman Rushdie? What are these lines drawn
in the sand, over which writers are not supposed to tread? Have
we lost the courage to engage with a challenging text?
Two British writers, Nicholas Blincoe and Matt Thorne, recently
made a set of ten rules by which to create fiction. The collection
of stories they put together, All Hail the New Puritans, is a
peculiar document. Fifteen fairly young writers have decided to
remove all traces of formal density from their work. There are
to be no flashbacks, no authorial voices, no dual narratives.
The writers will, "shun poetry and poetic licence in all its forms".
The New Puritans have nailed their colours to the mast, and what
a drab, lifeless banner flies there. These are the dry, deft,
slightly engaging tales that so many of our writers produce already,
without any rules other than fixed tradition. The small thing,
done well; a fearsome denial of the imagination.
Where does this fixation with the linear narrative come from?
By dismissing the textual adventures of Joyce, British writers
stayed true to the old pleasures of straightforward storytelling.
This leads to our current situation, where the vast majority of
novelists are still intent on drawing a single narrative thread
through a complex world.
Yet we live daily in a web of connections, all of us becoming
adept at riding the multiple layers of information. This is the
fluid society. Tracing pathways through this intricate landscape
needs a different kind of narrative art. It is in this spirit
of adventure that I envisage the post-future novel.
I do not mean a refusal to tell stories. But we need to expand
the notion of what a story is, and to seek out new ways of telling
these stories. We need to be brave in this, as writers, as critics,
and as readers. It is pertinent, in this regard, to look at the
recent novel, House of Leaves, by the American writer, Mark Z
Danielewski. More a vast convoluted labyrinth than a simple book,
House of Leaves contains wondrous delights on every page. There
are poems, photographs, quotations, areas of text printed upside
down, almost blank pages, footnotes, an index, a playful use of
typography. The book also tells a great story. Searching for the
narrative clues scattered throughout the text becomes an intense
pleasure.
I would propose that this book is one of the first examples of
post-futurism. It is exactly the kind of storytelling we now need.
House of Leaves was a big success in the States. It is interesting
to imagine what the critical reaction to the book would have been
in this country, if the novel had been written by a British author.
Could such a beautifully complex story even be told at this time,
on this damp, grey island?
By reaching towards an imaginary literature, the post-future novel
offers itself as a way forward. First of all, we have to accept
that English writing has been far too slow in its adoption of
avant-garde techniques, in comparison with popular music, art
and films. The narrative fabric of the latest cult movie is woven
through with jump cuts, freeze-frames, montage, slow motion shots,
tracking shots, handheld camera techniques, and the like. House,
hip-hop and garage recordings contain elements of remixing, scratching,
and sampling. We can also look at the branching narratives of
computer games, at the strange connections that hypertext links
reveal on the Internet, at the games played with image and text
in a graphic novel.
All of these are fluid mediums, for a fluid society. Set against
such material, no wonder the contemporary novel seems moribund.
As writers, we need to open ourselves up to this fluidity. What
are the prose equivalents of the tracking shot, the hyperlink,
the remix, the freeze-frame? As readers, we need to bring the
expertise we use when enjoying a film or a piece of visual art,
into our appreciation of the novel.
As I write this, I'm playing Decks, EFX, and 909, a CD by the
techno DJ and musician, Richie Hawtin. Listening to it now, an
idea has come to me. I'll present this idea, as the possible outline
of a post-futurist novel. The CD consists of thirty-eight pieces
of music, played on a number of turntables, with two or three
records being played simultaneously. Hawtin includes a diagram
on the CD's sleeve, which depicts where each record begins and
ends. The DJ also employs the other two devices mentioned in the
title, a special effects processor, and a Roland 909 drum machine.
With these various elements, Hawtin produces a coherent musical
narrative. I use the word narrative without compromise. Anybody
who has enjoyed a good DJ set in a nightclub, will attest to this
sense of a story being unfolded through the music.
With this in mind, we could use Richie Hawtin's CD as the template
for a novel. We need to create thirty-eight stories, which then
blend into each other using the CD's diagram as a guide. As one
story comes to an end, another story, or two other stories, are
mixed into it. These new stories are then carried on, until further
stories are added to the mix. Hawtin will return to the same record
twice, or to a different remix of the record; we can use this
technique to allow our various stories to reappear at different
places in the narrative. The special effects and the drum machine
elements can be interpreted in their own ways, according to the
individual imagination. There are no rules, only opportunities.
Above all, imagine the pleasure gained from following the various
stories through the mix.
This gives just one possible structure for a post-futurist novel.
I now want to talk a little about the language that such a novel
could use. We have become very adept in this country, at writing
"books". By this, I mean that we tend to concentrate on the big
picture, rather than the interplay of words. Looked at in a different
light, however, words become a liquid medium, a malleable substance
capable of being transformed in surprising ways. Words can be
stretched, broken, melted, drugged, mutated, forced into submission,
set free. We need writers who revel in the wild excitement of
language, at this deepest level, creating a kind of dub fiction.
Our writing will then be charged, sensual, and alive with the
poetic effects the New Puritans fear so much. Let us not be afraid
of intensity of expression.
Hip-hop DJs have a phrase to describe the detailed, moment to
moment controlling of a set of turntables, celebrated in the classic
early track by Gang Starr, "DJ Premier in Deep Concentration".
The post-futurist novel will employ just such a concentration
in its use of language. At the same time, it will utilise a fluid,
organic structure, a network of storylines. It will be experimental,
and yet will place a firm accent on the portrayal of human desires.
It will be Raymond Chandler writing Ulysses, James Joyce writing
The Big Sleep. It will move away from lazy cynicism and nihilism.
Post-futurism reveres the narrative imagination. If the English
novel is truly dead, we should place a flower on its grave, trample
down the dirt. Now is the time to raise up the fragile, blossoming
ghost. |
THE VURT FILM
I'm now heavily involved in writing the script for the film version
of Vurt, my first novel. This will be directed by Iain Softley,
whose K-Pax (opening soon in the UK) was a recent number one in
the States. The Vurt film will be a reinvention of the book, rather
than a straight adaptation. I'm taking the opportunity of bringing
the book in line with my current concerns, without losing its
essential "Vurtness" of course.
There are serious logical problems with the plot of the novel,
due to the fact that I didn't really understand such considerations
in those early days. These problems would be glaring in a film,
so a lot of work has gone into making the plot work, on a structural
level. I've also attended more to the emotional development of
the various characters. So the film will not just be about Scribble
searching for Des, but also about Scribble and Beetle, and Mandy
and Bridget, and the various relationships they have, and the
various journeys they make, as individuals, and as a group.
Some elements of the book have had to be discarded for various
reasons: some of it is just dated; certain images have been seen
too many times in films made since the book first came out; other
elements I now find a bit weak. A lot of new stuff has been introduced.
I'm always keen to present new ideas, rather than just reuse old
ones. So that aspect of the writing has been fun, especially working
closely with the director. But it's hard work. I've had to learn
some new techniques, far different from the knowledge I've built
up over the last ten years, writing novels. Basically, every line
of a film script is examined in far greater detail than the lines
of a novel. The director acts as a kind of incredibly strict editor.
It's still early days. I've been working on the treatment these
last few weeks. A treatment is a narrative version of what I imagine
is happening on the screen, moment to moment. This is used to
establish the structure of the plot, and the emotional arc of
the characters. The main problem I've had is simply coming to
terms with this way of creating a story. With my novels, I start
with a vague idea, and just start writing. I build the characters
and the plot up from the basic building blocks of the words. With
the film, I have to do the exact opposite; start with the overall
structure, and work down to the words. Once the treatment is finalised
with the director and the producers, only then will I start writing
the script itself. Everything moves quickly in the film world;
you get about six weeks to write a first draft. I am, in truth,
finding the whole process fascinating, and very exciting. |
COBRALINGUS
There are various other projects floating around; websites, films,
plays, etc, all of them still very much up in the air, so I won't
talk about any of them just yet. But there's one thing I can't
resist mentioning. I couple of months ago I received a telephone
call from Brian Eno. I've never met him before, but I'd sent him
a copy of Cobralingus when the book first came out, just on the
off chance, and subsequently forgotten about it.
Then he gives me a ring, and tells me that he loves the book,
and that he's doing a piece of music based on some of the texts!
He wants me to come down to his studio and listen to the first,
rough version of it. So, there I was, inside Eno's studio, listening
to this amazing music coming out of the speakers, and a voice
intoning words that I had written. It was more than a little overwhelming,
as you may imagine.
Most gratifying was the fact that he liked Cobralingus so much,
because he was one of the influences behind the project, especially
with his set of creative instruction cards, Oblique Strategies.
When, where, if and how this music will be released, I'm afraid
I just don't know. But definitely one to look out for. |
Very best wishes
And many thanks for your support
Jeff x |
Publishing History
Press to return to 'Vurt'
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