Grosse Fugue
  • Home
  • About 'Grosse Fugue'
    • Synopsis
    • The title and the music
    • Buying 'Grosse Fugue'
    • Read an Extract
    • Buying the music
  • Read an Extract
  • Reviews
  • Buy the Novel
  • About me
  • Blog
  • Contact

Masturbatory publicity – the eye-wrecking need for DIY

26/7/2012

5 Comments

 
Grosse Fugue has now been on the market for a month or two. What’s clear is that any author but the most established needs to be as much a marketer as they do a writer.

You only have to look at the fabled lists of looked-forward-to books to see the challenge.  Here’s one example: Huffington Post’s 15 Best New Books Of 2012. Predictable, tedious and entirely elitist. Established authors from established publishers log-rolling their respective interests. This is no more a commercially competitive picture than retail banks or privatised utilities, with their cosy co-existence and identical offers (and that, of course, it no imputation of cartelling).

It’s a picture of those who are striving every sinew to keep what they’ve got. Conservatives in the true sense of the word.  So, for the brave, entrepreneurial independent publisher and their stable of authors, the chances of penetrating the fortified walls of the publishing behemoths and the papers who review their works are slight indeed.

We writers have to do it ourselves. The proliferation of electronic media makes all this possible. Easily upgraded websites, Facebook, blogs and Twitter are all essential weapons. 

The great challenge of course is content. It’s all very well having these media at your fingertips. It’s quite another thing to originate interesting things to say on a regular basis. And, sheesh, are they hungry! A bit like the burgeoning of tv channels inevitably resulted in a reduction in quality and the long, triumphant march of mediocrity, so that is the threat hanging over social media.

That means I’m off to a darkened room now to dream up screeds of interesting high-quality material to feed these voracious beasts. I may be some time.

5 Comments

OUCH – a novelist’s response to a stinging review

19/7/2012

2 Comments

 
So, how should you react when the first media review of your debut novel is less than complimentary, to say the least (and on the website of your favourite newspaper, to boot)?

It would have been all too easy for my publisher or me to arrange a balancing contribution anonymously. And it certainly was seductive to pretend it had never happened.

But neither of those positions is honest or transparent. My recourse? This blog (and a link to it on the Guardian website).

I know that my writing style doesn’t appeal to everyone. But then, whose does? In all the conversations about Grosse Fugue, I’ve sought to discover a book that everyone loves and have so far failed to do so. Fortunately for me, my publisher APP was very much drawn to it.

One of the interesting effects of my novel is that people are entirely inconsistent about what features they like. The Guardian reviewer commented on the Intermezzi, particularly #1. Others like #2; some hate them all! Some have remarked on how interesting a lot it is; more have said how moving it is. This reviewer discerns ‘long, pompous passages about European history and culture’; a number have commented on how informative they found it.

This all goes to prove that reading is inevitably subjective. Can one improve? Of course. Does this review spur me to be better? Damn right it does. Should it discourage people from trying Grosse Fugue? Ah, there’s the rub. It probably will do, but has no right to. If people are drawn to the subject, attracted by the interlacing of catastrophe and great art, and want to get drawn into challenging debate, then I would argue they should try it.

The review eschews all that, focusing on style (perfectly legitimately in the context of a literary prize). A few have commented on it and on a passage lifted from Amazon’s ‘Look inside’ facility. Criticising any book based on a very narrow selection does seem unreasonable to me.

Of course I’m disappointed with this review. Who would not be? But I’m also grateful that the book has been read attentively. I am saddened that the intention to move the Holocaust debate on from causation and suffering to legacy has been missed, as have the, no doubt futile, attempts to share my passion for Beethoven and his late quartets.

My only hope is this additional exposure does encourage more readers to consider the book and read the reviews on Amazon that offer a different perspective.


2 Comments

The tip of the iceberg – reflections on the German ban on circumcision

19/7/2012

1 Comment

 
Jews and Muslims around the world have been inevitably exercised by the Cologne court decision to outlaw male circumcision.

The old saws are being trotted out about a cultural assault, anti-semitism and islamophobia. And yet, if we detach ourselves from the noise, sentiment and, quite frankly, illogicality of the procedure, it is easy to see how the court came to its conclusion.
Babies – and young children – are incapable of informed consent. This is a central tenet of law throughout the world. The tolerance of the infliction of pain and irreversible body change is accepted only in relation to the treatment of male children. We have, thankfully, more or less universally turned against female circumcision.


Angela Merkel, inevitably sensitive to the furious response from world Jewry, states that there is a right to perform this rite. But on what basis? There is no logical foundation for this thought, even if the realpolitik is persuasive. It is clear that circumcision is an assault. The fact that its moving force is religious conviction and identity does not actually alter that. Perhaps one sign of the inherent weakness of the ‘pro’ position (similar to the ‘humane slaughter’ justification of kashruth and halal ritual killing of animals) is the health argument. Instances of cervical cancer and HIV/Aids are lower in areas of mass circumcision than elsewhere. But this argument is likely to be increasingly undermined by increased screening and immunological breakthroughs like the HPV vaccine.


For me, the Jewish argument in favour of circumcision is wreathed in sentiment and out-dated notions of identity. If Grosse Fugue is about anything, it’s about the redefinition of identity in the light of what befell my people. No amount of religious indifference or even conversion provided immunity from murder. Increased observance since the Holocaust is merely a strand of denial, pretending that it never happened so that all that went before can continue unchallenged.


Will the ban be overturned. Merkel has promised legislation. But that doesn’t alter the fact that the judgement was humane and legally correct. 
And it doesn’t destroy the argument that no amount of hanging on to arcane superstitions can obviate debate about what the Holocaust actually means today.

Hopefully, a new sense of identity will soon begin to take shape, one that acknowledges the universality of the slaughter and the moral obligations which flow from that. When that happens, we Jews can perhaps focus on our shared heritage of justice, freedom of thought, the search for knowledge and the quest for personal liberty.



1 Comment

    Author

    If you're mad enough to want to know about me, click 'About me'!.  It's in the menu bar. You can return to the Home Page here.

    Archives

    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012

    Categories

    All
    Avant Garde
    Bach
    Barenboim
    Beethoven
    Books
    Boulez
    Censorship
    Chief Rabbi
    Circumcision Ban
    Criticism
    Education
    Erotica
    Facebook
    Fifty Shades Of Grey
    Grosse Fuge
    Grosse Fugue
    Guardian
    Holocaust
    Identiity
    Israel
    Jewish History
    Judaism
    Letters
    Michael Gove
    Music
    Novel
    Oratory
    Partita
    Politics
    Pornography
    Proms
    Publishing
    String Quartet
    Twitter
    Violin
    Writers
    Writing

    RSS Feed