Keepsake book

Long before I had any pretentions about getting published I kept a book of quotes that amused and inspired me and - in searching out some moving prose to celebrate a life - I opened this book for the first time in many years.

This is how I rediscovered the wonderful lilting Norman MacCaig (1910 - 1996)....

Sounds of the Day

When a clatter came,

it was horses crossing the ford.

When the air creaked, it was a lapwing

a lapwing seeing us off the premises

of its private marsh. A snuffling puff

ten yards from the boat was the tide blocking and

unblocking a hole in the rock.

When the door

scraped shut, it was the end

of all the sounds there are.

You left me

beside the quietest fire in the world.

I thought I was hurt in my pride only,

forgetting that

when you plunge your hand in freezing water,

you feel

a bangle of ice round your wrist

before the whole hand goes numb.

Literary landmark

One of my writer-friends was pleased to have achieved a landmark recently and proudly announced she felt qualified to call herself an author. The landmark? Her first rejection from a publisher. Personally I collect them and enjoy analysing the care with which they have been crafted – or not. My favourite so far was from the late John G Murray of that publishing dynasty, who in reviewing my proposal for the Madagascar memoir, actually apologised for not taking my book. He said, ‘I don’t feel we could make a success of it for you’ – as if was his fault. How wonderfully gentlemanly is that!

Another notable rejection was from Duckworth. I sent a synopsis and opening chapters of a novel for children so long ago I couldn’t even find a record of my submission. The very nice rejection letter dated December 2008 demonstrated that the Submissions Editor had read my words and considered my proposal seriously, but... and there’s always a but.... ‘at this moment in time I’m afraid....’ The remarkable thing about this very nice letter was that for some unknown reason it arrived just a few weeks ago! Apparently it had been lost on some postal system for three years.

People who know about submitting book proposals to agents and publishers say that one shouldn’t saturation-bomb publishers. Sending out multiple mailings isn’t viewed well, but if I was to wait three years between each submission it is likely that dementia would have set in by the time I received a contract for my next book. 


So... ‘What to do?’ As they say in Nepal.

Encounter on the Cam

Our cox shouts ‘Easy oars,’ and we glide in to the bank to hear better what our coach has to say.

I’m distracted, again. Mr Asbo looks angry this morning. Patrolling his patch of the river, his gleaming pure-white feathers reflect in the still water beneath the weeping willow. With wings slightly raised in authority, he cruises downstream towards another swan, a swan with a slender neck. With her is a signet from last year; two-thirds white now, he’s almost lost his grey fluff.

The alpha male approaches the other adult swan. I expect a fight, a showdown at least. They bow to each other. From where I sit, their curved necks describe a heart-shape. They touch bills and chatter them together, uttering tender, intimate sounds. When they part, Mr Asbo is calm, his wings furled. He moves at the tip of an arrowhead of ripples. He is serene. He won’t go for us as we row on down to Bait’s Bite Lock this morning. Not this time.

Jane Wilson-Howarth (www.wilson-howarth.com) rowed for Corpus (Oxford) in the Dark Ages probably in the first year there was a Corpus womens boat. She has rowed with Champs town club in Cambridge for the last seven years. This snippet was read as part of a celebration of literary Cambridge at the WordFest yesterday

Last word in an Indy piece

Most satisfying to have the last word in an Independent piece on travel health... http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/sun-sea--and-psychiatric-evaluations-travel-deal-proves-theres-no-such-thing-as-a-free-holiday-7643991.html

Lost in translation?

I was fortunate enough to share lunch with a gathering of East Anglian Writers yesterday and we were treated to an inspirational presentation by renowned academic and writer Sandra Smith, whose translation of Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky has received many plaudits. Sandra talked - fascinatingly - about the challenges and responsibilities of translating, especially posthumous works, and about how it is not just about changing French words for English ones. Idiomatic expressions in particular just don't always literally translate, even between European languages, and context can need 'adjusting'. Clearly in Sandra's work, she must also consider historical settings too.

When I asked Sandra what she does when expressions are untranslatable she said that the emotional essence of an expression is what has to be communicated. Sometimes a completely different metaphor needs to be found.

This made me consider what I do when I write reconstructed dialogue generated from an conversation in the Nepali language, for example. In Kathmandu, people talk of pulling another's leg and the first few times I heard this I presumed that it meant something like the English expression - a tease. But this is very far from what is meant.

To appreciate the idea of pulling someone's leg in Nepal, you should to imagine that the target of the leg-pull is up a ladder and you grab them from below and pull them off the ladder so that you can succeed in their place. It isn't a kind, friendly or generous act. When I discovered this translation I wondered how many other 'difficult' expressions I might have misunderstood and used inappropriately. Oh there is so much scope for misunderstanding, and it seems to me that the better you think you understand a culture, the more hot water you can get into.

Idiom (“Don’t call me an idiom”) and idiomatic expressions are one problem area but in addition I face to the challenge of trying to communicate the poetry and syntax of an unfamiliar language, without making anyone sound retarded when I translate it into English.

I strive to get humour into my prose wherever I can but trying to communicate what I personally find hilariously funny, can fall really flat. For example, the Nepali word for aubergine, baanta, is so similar to bhaanta (vomit) that I find them pretty much indistinguishable so when people talk of cooking or eating baanta I'd find it difficult to suppress silly playground giggles. Consequently I'm sure my Nepali friends and acquaintances think I'm a little unhinged. Similarly my son was especially delighted in what he saw as an almost-pun - the word hissab meaning bill rhymes deliciously with pissab, to urinate. More pausing for tittering.


Meanwhile, what I find odd is why my friends think I have a filthy sense of humour.... especially when it is often a case of the pot calling the kettle black.... or a leg-pull, perhaps

Lent bumps

Final division of the university Lent bumps last evening 

The March sunshine enticed us out onto our bicycles and we reached the A14 bridge as the one-minute canon went off for the Lent bumps.

I'd not been that close to the starting cannons before, and it nearly scared the juice out of me.

I hope that the oarsman who was injured during one of the bumps - in a pile up in The Gut presumably - is fully recovered by now.

I'm expecting

It was almost as exciting as an antenatal scan... seeing outline drawings of the cover of the new, northern hemisphere edition of A Glimpse of Eternal Snows. The artist, Neil Gower, had cleverly evoked Tharu designs, as well as lots of other elements of the story. Gratifyingly Bradt Publications listen and are interested in their authors (not all publishers are like this) and responded to my feedback. I asked if the designs could be slightly simplified, to mirror the almost child-like style of Tharu artwork making it look more ‘primitive’, more like the stylised forms we were used to seeing in western Nepal. I eagerly awaited the artist’s reaction to my suggestions (I wondered if he might not like what I said), but he absorbed my ideas and made lots of changes including turning the sunflowers into lollypops. THEN I couldn’t wait to see what this would look like once colour had been added.

I didn't have to wait long. The artist added suitably rich colours, in combinations of green, orange, pink and blue that conjure the vibrancy of the Gangetic Plains. It is finished and I'm delighted.

The crazy thing about publishing - and about anything to do with publishing - is that there are bursts of frenetic activity than total silence, until the next mad phase. Today I sent the tweaked typescript of the book to the lovely Commissioning Editor at Bradt so that an independent editor can go through it and see how it can be further improved. Now I predict that there will be a lull while the new editor gets to work. Meanwhile I continue to slowly sift through photos from our six years living in Nepal and have posted more in my Glimpse photo-gallery. I've organised them so that the order of the pictures follow the chapters of the book.