AUTHONOMY

I've just uploaded my first three chapters to HarperCollins AUTHONOMY; wish me luck, and check it out if you haven't yet http://www.authonomy.com/ViewBook.aspx?bookid=14277

Article thirty-three - THE ROAD

Literature │The Road to Hope
The Road by Cormac McCarthy

(published in "Avrupa" )

Breath-taking, mesmerising and poetic are only a few words which can describe Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. An aspiring writer can only hope that they are able to create something, as good as little as a quarter of how well written The Road is. Cormac McCarthy is an entirely different breed of writer, famously known for being a recluse and not minding how many people read his work. He believes that his only job is to write, and not publicize, and write he will. McCarthy’s work came into the limelight with a bang in 2007 when the Coen brothers brought McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men to the screen; the novel itself had been written in 2005. It was also in 2007 that he received the Pulitzer Prize for his post-apocalyptic novel The Road, which shall be gracing our screens on the 25th November 2009.

McCarthy’s style is unique, the first aspect one may note, is the succinct, to the point, strong male voice. It is an inescapable one which booms from beyond the page. Each sentence pierces a membrane of our hearts as his language swoons with poetry. We follow the journey of a man and his son, unnamed as they treed across harsh barren lands, only a few have survived a disaster, which is unknown and irrelevant. They seek safety, avoiding others on the road as people have become dangerous, fighting for the last scarps of food and the flesh of the other.

It is the relationship between the father and son which carry the book. Cormac in fact dedicated this book to his son. In an interview by John Jurgensen for the “Wall St Journal”, he admitted that the relationship between the boy and the father are akin to the relationship he has with his now 13 year old son. It is the importance of this relationship which pulsates and moves the story. The dialogue between the two is incredible, each word and thought are perfectly constructed in such a way that it is as though it is unintentional, yet it must be, it is this magic, the hiding of the strings if you will that captures our thoughts, hearts and imagination. To call the relationship between the two as “pure” would be corny, as calling it “beautiful” would provide a minute amount of justice.

Stepping away from the dialogue and the deliberately unpunctuated text, we are submerged into an incredible environment. One in which the sun has been blocked out by ash which falls from the sky, and the emptiness of the land which is littered with the dead; frozen in postures of escape. The Road deals with the great social issue which we need to stop and ask ourselves, as everything in the end seems to point to the fact that, for the majority of us, we will fall down to our basic animal instincts. The question is how much of your humanity can you hold onto and for how long? Would you, along with the majority of survivors, excluding the nameless man and his son, do anything to survive? Even if it meant turning to your neighbour and feasting upon them?

The Road is a must read, I am yet to meet someone who has not sighed with a heavy heart at the end of this novel. When Paul Sweeny said, “You know you’ve read a good book when you turn to the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend,” you simply understand that he had the likes of this novel in mind. Do your poetic sensibilities justice and reach out for this book, it will stay with you for ever.

©Zehra Mustafa

current read

                                                       The Plague by Albert Camus

Does size matter when picking out a book?

I came across this article today, and can't say that I completely agree with it.
Do you refuse to pick up a book because it looks too short and feel as if you’re being cheated for paying the same price as a bigger book? Does size really matter? Does content not mean anything anymore?

Have a read and see how you feel.

http://terryodell.blogspot.com/2009/11/does-size-matter.html

8 Cardinal Sins of Fiction

8 Cardinal Sins of Fiction

Quote of the day

"Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass"  - Anton Chekhov

Article Thirty-Two

Literature│ Notes on a Scandal by Zoë Heller

By Zehra Mustafa

(published in "Avrupa" newspaper)

Notes of a Scandal draws us into the terrifyingly chilling world of the cold, calculating and sardonic world of Barbara Covett. Heller’s story is a psychological thriller which is disturbing enough to leave you sitting still with your mouth gaping in astonishment as you watch disastrous events unfold before your very eyes.
Notes of a Scandal follows the disturbing consequences of what happens when Barbara finds out that the new art teacher, Sheba Hart, is having an affair with one of the students. This unforgivable behavior on Sheba’s behalf is horrific, but it is what Sheba’s supposed friend, Barbara does with this knowledge which is truly jaw-drooping. Thanks to Sheba’s ‘airy-fairy” mind and inconceivable behavior, she becomes a fly trapped in Barbara’s gargantuan tarantula web. Sheba grows to trust her colleague Barbara, but her trust in her friend becomes a dependency, and the only one who knows her secret, What Sheba does not know, is that her friend is secretly chronicling her affair, by doing so, Barbara takes a firm hold of Sheba’s life in her cold hands.

At first, a foggy picture is created when one questions what it is exactly that Barbara wants from Sheba; is it friendship? Companionship? Love? In fact, it is all of these things that Barbara is after, she wants her soul, her essence, she wants Sheba entirely, and she will not stop at anything until she has consumed her whole.

Heller’s novel is most definitely an addictive read; it has that shocking element which turns us, my fellow reader, into that blood-sucking fiend that only the fateful elements supplied by the writer can fulfill. Sheba is presented as an inept character who we feel very little pity for, until much later on in the novel. Yet, it’s not so much pity that one feels for Sheba, but distress and fear that one experiences when feeling and hearing the inner workings of cold and bitter Barbara.

Although this read is an enslaving one, I can’t say that it brings out the best in one’s reaction to it, which is to revel in the pain and utter breakdown of a fellow human being, no matter how foolish and blind they are. The scandalous behavior on display is liken to today’s obsession and participation with the downfall of our celebrities, something that one really should avoid at all costs. It’s this nasty part of one’s nature, which causes such relishing, which one finds themselves in the throes of when reading this novel, which works in favour as well as against Heller’s story.

©Zehra Mustafa

LISTEN TO..

WRITE LINES on BBC iPLAYER

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p004yprz/Write_Lines_08_11_2009/

14 Best-Selling Books Repeatedly Rejected by Publishers

Here's a post which should lift your spirits this Saturday morning, a list of best selling books which were famously rejected,

1. Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis

2. Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach

3. Chicken Soup for the Soul by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen
4. Kon-Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl

5.The Peter Principle by Laurence Peter

6. Dubliners by James Joyce
7. Lorna Doone by Richard Doddridge Blackmore

8. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig

9. M*A*S*H by Richard Hooker

10. Carrie by Stephen King

11. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

12. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

13. Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison by Charles Shaw

14. Dune by Frank Herbert

For the article, go here: http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/14-best-selling-books-repeatedly-rejected-by-publishers.htm

Art which can't be missed!

http://www.wix.com/sifaleylamustafa/art

NOW I’M SCARED!

I've become a tad nervous about literary agents. Now, I know I was wary about them in the first instance, but it’s something else. It’s something far more sinister than the knowledge that they seem to hold too much power. At first I considered them to be some sort of hybrid of super-beings, but I’m becoming more terrified about the fact that they….they seem to be terribly human.

I have decided to go through the entire editing process again with my first book Shadows as my writing style has become stronger with the second book, and I have therefore been checking out blogs that Literary Agents have written, and too many of them have too many pet peeves. With all these agents having all sorts of ‘no zone’s’ our chances of finding that right agent becomes slimmer. Even the ones that say they want to let in new writers with a new style, and are more open, are in fact just like the next one. Too many great writers slip through the net because they are at the bottom of a pile, and the agent is tiered, and it’s the end of the day, and in that mere second, that writer is tossed straight into the ‘not today please’ pile.

It’s all a little disheartening, and feels too much like it’s up to too much luck; as I can see it, it goes something like this: you may lose out if;

1. The agent is too tiered / hangover from too many parties

2. The agent doesn’t like the word ‘misanthropic’

3. If you write a warming query letter

4. If your query letter is too formal

5. If you have too much / too little background story

6. If your work isn’t a vampire story

7. If your writing isn’t glitzy / weird / straight enough

And there are so many more that I’ve come across, what one agent wants, the other doesn’t, and then there’s a mix and match, a this and a that, confusion and madness, then some more confusion, with a tad more of madness!

It’s all a bit too much like luck against the fates!

current read

                                          Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon

5 WAYS TO NOT GET YOUR NOVEL PUBLISED by Gary Smailes