Confessions of a second hand book addict

Now here's a question: When is it ethical to buy books second hand?

Possibly when the author is already dead, and I'd have to admit that most of my current reading matter falls into that category. Hard-hearted as I am, I don't feel the same pity for the affairs of late authors' estates as I might for the living. Nonetheless, I may be an outlier among readers in my dustier literary interests at the moment, and it's an accepted wisdom of publishing that if readers buy books second hand, they are denying proceeds to the (living) author and thus undermining publishing. In a forum on the ethics of book buying on the writing site WriteWords, I came across one particular comment that encapsulated this view, and a little more:

"I would never buy a book second hand if it's available new, as I'd be depriving the author of a sale they'd otherwise have had - and that'll be me soon. That's the realisation on which PLR was founded, after all. Just as I never use pirated software. "

Put like that, it seems clear - new writing must be directly impeded if it is no longer possible to make a good living from it. This does seem to ignore the fact that most aspiring writers are educated enough about the state of publishing to know that very few published writers do make a living from it; and the motivations of writers may have more to do with art or status than financial reward. It could be argued that to reduce the proceeds of writing might even encourage those who are writing for higher reasons than profit.

The piracy claim is a new one to me though. I'd always assumed that if a book is sold second hand that this might inherently be a comment on the (perhaps disappointing) quality of the book, and that it might be expecting a bit much for the author to be expect to be paid again on account of their book being less worth holding onto. Certainly there are many goods that we do buy second hand without scruple. Is there reason to suppose that the trade in second hand cars is piracy, for example? Was I tearing bread from the mouths of assembly line workers when I bought my chav-white Renault Clio second hand? Well, yes, I suppose I was.

Perhaps I have learned something today. It may even encourage me to buy new books a little more often, when I can find it within me to trust an author sufficiently. One of the reasons I've always been prepared to experiment with an author I might not like is that if I buy their book second hand, I'm not risking rewarding bad writing, which in my (admittedly disproportionate) mind is a crime comparable to funding terrorism.

So I admit I may have done my part to keep other writers penniless/honest. Shoot me now. Before I die though, allow me these parting words - I feel for fellow writers, and I feel for publishing. But it turns out I really hate William Gaddis. If he were alive, I'd hate him too.

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Bullying (for the purposes of fiction...)

Since I started being more prim about my coffee instake, my life can no longer accurately be measured in coffee spoons. Nonetheless a week rarely goes by without me feeling the need to bore someone with my grand unified theory of Life And Fiction, and this is a sufficiently regular event that it might do just as well. The thought is this - that a good life makes for bad fiction, and vice versa, and if your life resembles a particularly boring novel then you are probably much the happier for it.

Clearly, bullying is A Good Thing*. Plenty of novels succeed without it, but the inclusion of a bully is a pretty good way to establish sympathy with a protagonist, particulary when that protagonist is no angel him or herself. One of the most blatant but nonetheless effective examples is the opening of Wolf Hall, in which Thomas Cromwell is kicked and beaten by his father. There is a crucial caveat here though: a hero cannot be a victim without putting the story in great peril. Thomas Cromwell may be beaten* only because he is a brave youth who will not be cowed, and we see his courage and quality from the manner in which he takes his beating. We know, or a least strongly suspect, the tables will be turned in time. If he had been established as an innocent, doe-eyed child with watery eyes, we might have had a different novel altogether; specifically, a less interesting one. One thing strikes me though - we have rather less patience for victims now* than perhaps we had in the past. This seems most obvious in our national culture.

Take for example Trollope's The Way We Live Now. It is built around the central bullying character of the recent immigrant Augustus Melmotte, who is arguably rivalled in a more personal context by the 'wildcat' American Mrs Hurtle. A modern reader is liable to find the native English characters so insipid and long suffering that there would be almost greater satisfaction in them being successfully crushed or manipulated by their foreign superiors* than in triumphing at the last. There is far more to be admired in Mrs Hurtle's threats to whip her fiance for his cowardice* than in Paul Montague or Roger Carbury's ethical mithering, or in their hand-wringing fear of a female planet.

Our traditional identification with decent and timid protagonists carries through in the novels of Patrick Hamilton. In The Slaves of Solitude his heroine Miss Roach is bullied equally by a German emigre and a blustering old Englishman, but in particular it is the constraints of English manners that stops her from fighting back. When she finally escapes her tormentors, it is only by providence. In Hangover Square, George Harvey Bone eventually takes a murderous revenge, but it is neither a triumph of righteousness nor courage. Unlike his enemies, he has not even lived well by his own code, and only exacts revenge through a mental illness that prevents him being conscious of his actions. Far from overcoming his tormentors, he can then only commit suicide.

So does that mean that in fiction, fire must always fight fire? Surely conflict is what it's all about? Well, yes. Up to a point. Stepping beyond that point, that's when I encounter the epically tedious violence of Cormac McCarthy, or Bukowski's alter-ego Henry Chinaski trapped in an endless cycle of sad fisticuffs. Me, I just want the bullying* - not a bloody martial arts movie.
* for the purposes of fiction

Ten Openings That Never Went Anywhere - #2

The First Sixty Seconds of A Searcher

He'd heard it said that sometimes - in other people's lives, this would be - an adventure starts with a knock on the door. Which might have been a lovely thought for people who didn't get out much, but it wasn’t quite the same when he was the one doing the knocking.

This, here, now, was a matter of getting out on his feet and walking. Initiative. Journeying. Coming to the mountain. Mike knew that real adventures didn’t start that way. Only Outward Bound trips started that way. He was on the wrong side of the door. Fate abhors initiative. The universe hates a searcher.

Through the frosted glass, a shadow grew within a shadow, and the door opened. A short, slightly stocky man answered the door and looked at him; immediately he realised he’d be a stranger here.

‘Mike Briggs,’ he muttered by way of introduction, and flashed the wallet containing his Oystercard as if he’d done this a thousand times. ‘Cake Police.’

‘You can leave chuck your stuff in that room there,’ said the man regardless – possibly one of his cousins? – at any rate, the figure shuffled off towards a handful of people drinking from paper cups in the living room.

Mike didn’t have a bag. It wasn’t his way, and nor was a polite drinks session in the living room; which was odd, because nothing he’d ever done in his life would have remotely suggested otherwise. He went into the kitchen instead, and looked for signs of life. Nothing doing. An empty kitchen? At a party?

Some fifteen seconds or so after entering the party, he saw the kitchen door. He took it. Within thirty, he was round the back of the house and slumped in a plastic chair in the garden. He puffed his cheeks, and looked up. Shades of grey hung in the sky, not even mixing. It seemed set like concrete. Through the patio doors, he could see more shades of grey talking inside. No chemistry there. One test tube of water was being poured into another.

T+35 seconds after first entry, he realised he wasn’t alone. A man in a dufflecoat sat huddled atop of a large black rubbish bin in the corner.

‘Random,’ Mike muttered to himself.

Five more seconds passed. In the background, he could hear the passing traffic just the other side of the house. Slow, doleful rumblings. He watched the man, hoping for some sign of animation. The man watched him back, with no little suspicion. Perhaps he should introduce himself. Maybe this time he could avoid complimenting the house, asking the guy where he was from, talking about the weather, pretending he wasn’t just here for the refuelling. Was that too much to hope for?

‘Fucking delayed gratification,’ Mike finally said. Quietly, of course; he was pretty much a virgin when it came to free speech. Still, the chattering of the birds seemed to cease that moment, as if they were shocked by his language. He looked at the man more closely. A gold watch peeked out from under his sleeve. He was round shouldered, with slender hands. An accountant perhaps? A lawyer? A squash racket in its soft case, presumably his, lay leaning against the wall next to him. Possibly no-one had ever said such a thing in this man's hearing before. Almost certainly, in fact. He was probably someone’s husband. Involved in the community. Respected. But also, sitting on a rubbish bin.

The silence ended. It seemed like the dawn of a new age.

‘Word,’ said the accountant.
‘Not enough people here who could say fuck.’
‘Fuck no,’ said the accountant.

A thought struck Mike.

‘Are you cousin Vinny?’
‘Yeah. You Mike?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Fuck, we’re predictable.’
‘Your lot going on about the weather too? The delays on Junction 14? Their lovely holiday?’
‘I expect so.’
‘And you fit in with it too? Nicey nicey?’
‘Like a fucking glove. And I wear the marigolds when I’m washing up. Practically grafted now.’
‘You swear like this normally?’
‘Fuck, no.’
‘We’re back yard people, Vinny. Under our sensible coats, anyway. We’re not house people.’
‘Cousin, let’s liberate a bottle from the wine rack. Something with a dusty label.’
‘Oh baby, we’re so good for each other.’

Slot Together Animals

It's not only that I'm lazy this particular week. I'd always hoped to have more of this thng in my blog, if nothing else to guard against solipsism - but one must have standards of course. Have a look at the works of Tom Sears, whose illustrations and short stories have an imagination and life about them that is distinctively his own. Me, I like the slot together animals. Particularly the gorilla.

Ten Openings That Never Went Anywhere - #1

(or, Why My Enthusiasm About Other People's Promising First Chapters Is Inevitably Tempered By Premonition Of Later Disappointment)

The Squareness of Cows *

Chapter One - On First Looking Into Loxton’s Cow

 It occurred to him, while leaning over his neighbour's rusty farm gate, that this spectacularly squarish animal in front of him, its back and arse forming a perfect right angle, its spine rigid and straight, its four equal legs at the four corners of a body the proportions of a standard bale, and a neck that allowed it to tidily fold its head right down to the ground - above all, this animal was designed to be stackable, much like the chairs in the village hall, and farmers before him had missed a trick in not realising the space-saving potential of the bovine form.

It further occurred to him that such intelligent design was evidence of the existence of God; possibly a Swedish one, at that. Evolution could not possibly provide an account of why cows would need to be stackable by more than the cow-plus-bull configuration necessary for mating purposes, and even that arrangement, when he thought about it, was more like a lean-to than a proper stack. This was no accident of biology. Yes, there was a God, he was sure; and a personal one too; and most importantly, He was going to make him very rich.

* A traditional X of Y formula; see this post for more details