“Writing, writers, do not come out of houses without books … it is common for young men and women … to know nothing of the world, to have read nothing. We never thought to ask how will our lives, our way of thinking, be changed by the internet, which has seduced a whole generation with its inanities… and they may find a whole day has passed in blogging.

Heaven forbid! And you’ve read that quote in an inane blog about books. What a paradox…

The article goes on to mention how, conversely, Lessing’s classic novel the Golden Compass is being used in a new online project to “encourage and enable a culture of collaborative learning.” Beginning on 10th November, seven women are reading Lessing’s book online – you can find it, and their project, here – and swapping comments, opinions and insights.

The project, effectively and online book group, may not be earth shattering, but it does offer an encouraging vision of how literature can prosper and benefit from the Internet – particularly when many question if it can even survive the Internet.

Behold, the Sony Reader

As this very blog aims to encourage and illustrate, books are perhaps more susceptible to word-of-mouth and associate than films or music. In other words, the communications potential of Web 3.0 could easily enhance the ways we view literature. As Ian McDonald’s The People’s Music led me to Lessing’s Briefing for a Descent into Hell – a novel more untrumpeted than The Golden Notebook – the so-called “Golden Notebook Project” can draw readers to a novel while enhancing and expanding upon it.

Elsewhere, flicking through the comments of online commentators reveals that, generally, views towards the future of technology and literature are more optimistic than the future of music and downloading (although the number of people who argue against the quality of mp3 downloads, oblivious to the fact that technology is ever evolving, is astounding).

While some are voicing quibbles over technology’s capacity to replace the good ol’ browned paperback, a future for literature entwined with the possibilities of the Internet, overall, looks bright.

(And there’ll be less links to the Guardian site in future blogs, I promise.)

Nevertheless, I needed a new machine, fast. So causality prompted me to purchase this bad boy:

The Acer Aspire One A110-Aw Netbook

Phwaaor etc… Folded up, the Acer is tiny – not much larger than a DVD case – and a proffered rival to things like the Asus Eee notebook. It has 512mb ram, and an 8GB flash hard drive which, admittedly, isn’t much and won’t cater for my love of downloading music in .flac format (although I can expand it to 16 or 32gb later on with a SDHC card). But I needed a new work PC asap, and at £184 (including a tenner postage for next-day delivery), the Acer looked like a steal.

The Acer comes in seashell white, blue, pink, brown (!) and, contrary to popular belief, good ol’ traditional black. If i was a 65 year old Manhattan penthouse-dwelling millionaire, then I would have chosen the brown to match my leather furniture and collection of finest cigars and whiskeys. But I’m not. So I went for the iBook-esque white instead, predictable bugger that I am.

As a speed typist, I love using the small keyboard; although it may cause problems if you have fat fingers. The sensitivity of the touch pad can be turned down, or semi-disabled, to avoid sending the cursor ballistic with your thumb whilst typing. My first impressions of a the screen: a little small, but I’ve since adapted. Personally, I find it much nicer to type letters and long documents on such a wee device.

My only major problem is the Acer’s tendency to slow-down – it frequently stalls when I’m using multiple applications. Another issue is Linux – but this stems from my Linux cretinism. Basically, I need things like Photoshop, and a version of Word that makes documents compatible with most people’s OS. Fortunately, here, Crossover answers my problems. Otherwise known as WINE, Crossover is a nifty little free tool that lets you run things like Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft Office in a “mock XP c:/ drive” hidden within your Linux file system.

A downside is that I suspect that my meddling has slightly slowed the system. My Netbook crash once in its first week of use, and I’m pretty sure that a computer nerd friend once told me that Linux isn’t supposed to crash. Ah well… Nevertheless, the thirteen-second Linux startup time still pisses all over anything Bill Gates has offered to date.

"F***ing nerd!" etc etc

Despite my cretinous failure to fully embrace the more nerd-ish aspects of Linux, the world of open source does seem rather wonderful. A kid of socialist cell for computer geeks, where everything is free and everyone’s ideas count. How marvellous! However, my attempts to download the Linux Photoshop equivalent – called (ahem) The GIMP – were unsuccessful. Is this because the Acer uses Linux Lite instead of the normal Linux desktop? Or because I am rubbish? Anyway, I eventually gave-up and installed Photoshop CS2 with Crossover, as time was of the essence.

Finding a Linux music player that supports .flac files is another issue. Someone has helpfully compiled a review of some players here. However, contrary to what the article says, I have found that MS Player, while playing .flacs, is prone to glitching and bizarre leaps in volume. For the time being, I am using Winamp via Crossover – although only the playlist editor window works, with Winamp’s other windows “bouncing” all over the screen. But apparently Windows Media Player can also work well.

Even though my insistence on using Microsoft applications via Crossover will get me lynched by Linux heads, the Acer has proven itself a great purchase for a home worker caught in dire straights. Despite the odd system slowdowns, it perfect as a small working machine; particularly for its main design emphasis on easy web connectivity. I am looking forward to using it on trains and in fancy bohemian cafes (*coughs*).

Robocop

The jury is out as to whether Rives’ skit is clever or annoying, but the resulting comments are interesting. People argue that the smilies, ROFLs and LMAOs of “teh interweb speak” are simply language evolving, get over it; that it is ironic; or that is reducing our language and writing to pre-school levels. One poster claims that he actually knows someone who uses the abreviation ROFLMAO in his speech (it sounds like “roffle mayo,” apparently).

But if you really want to cause debate, try applying these concepts to the classics. Satirist Martin Braum’s book, To Be or Not To Be, Innit – mixing Shakespeare with “yoof speak” – was generally embraced as a bit of fun upon its release, and even commended by the RSC as a humorous way of turning kids onto the Bard.

Elsewhere, in 2005, Professor John Sutherland of University College London (and that year’s Man Booker Prize chairman) had the somewhat barmy idea of abbreviating the entire works of Shakespeare into text speak:

“Take the ending to Jane Eyre, ‘MadwyfSetsFyr2Haus’. Was ever a climax better compressed? You can shrink the whole five-act text of Hamlet into a few thousand characters serving as an aide memoire, enabling you to back translate into the original’s golden syllables. The educational opportunities offered by texting are immense.”

Sutherland believed that text messages could illustrate Shakespeare’s pioneering and masterly storytelling devices. A similar idea was employed by the BBC in the same year, with the TV series ShakespeaRe-told, translating the Bard’s writings into contemporary speech and settings. Starring the likes of Damien Lewis and James McCavoy – Much Ado About Nothing, for instance, became a story of love between two TV executives – the results were mixed, though interesting.

Whatever the intentions behind these “updates”, it seems that the actual writing and language takes a back seat. Instead, the priority is, apparently, to make the works more engaging and ”relevant” to modern audiences. Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, of course, did this with considerable success 12 years ago – but in Luhrmann’s project, crucially, the words remained all Shakespeare’s.

A particularly unsettling reading experience I had a couple of years ago involved the accidental purchase of a volume of Kafka’s works translated into “idiomatic American English.” In these versions, Gregor Samsa turns not into a giant insect, but instead a giant “bug”, and Kafka’s double entendres are delivered with a sledgehammer-like subtlety.

These “idiomatic American” versions of Kafka’s works did not settle well in my stomach. But that is just my opinion, and doesn’t help to answer a possibly unaswerable question: where should the line be drawn when updating classic works? My preference of the 1940s English translations of Kafka’s works, for instance, is just personal taste. It is absurd to suggest that these versions are “truer” when the originals were not even English.

On the other hand, can updates of classic literature – particularly novels and poems, where details are key – have the same affect as Professor Sutherland’s text messages? That is, debasing art for the sake of accessibility?

Arguably, one solution could be that updates aim to ensure acknowledgement and respect; not only of the author’s original intentions, but of the era in which the work was produced. The foreward to my Kafka makes it quite clear that its intention was to promote the literary merits of “idiomatic American

English” as much as Kafka’s works. The obvious question here is, “why?” Surely the ideal way to promote 21st Century North American language and writing is through 21st Century North American writers?

…it could happen (image: www.b3ta.com)

 The Disney co-produced remake of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five is a case in point. Here, the orginal characters and period is replaced with a modern setting, and the “descendants” of the original Five. According to the BBC news site:

…characters include Allie, a 12-year-old Californian “shopaholic” who enjoys going out and getting “glammed up”… [The new Five's] enemies include a DVD bootlegger and they sport modern gadgets like iPods and mobile phones.

Is it surprising that an iPod had to be involved somewhere? Disney’s remake claims to “remain faithful” to Blyton’s original themes. But the overall message is common one: today’s young people can only appreciate what they can relate to, and anything that precedes their own birthdate is boring. It is easy of prophesise doom in this rush to encourage us – especially children – to revise, update or simply ignore the past. But the really important question is: what do the kids think of this themselves?

In his BBC4 programme, Screenwhipe, writer and journalist Charlie Brooker showed a focus group of teenagers a bumper crop of the latest shakey-cam “yoof” TV, in order to gauge their opinions. Afterwards, he asked the group for their opinions: to name a programme would top their ideal television schedule. Their answer? Blackadder.

The People's Music by Ian McDonald

Today, perhaps the most striking aspect of McDonald’s writings is the obsession he and his fellow journos had with content within the music. Nick Drake’s time was also the time of Dylan, Neil Young and a whole host of other artists for whom music equaled a true, unequivocal message.

This would perhaps seem quaint to the modern reader – with eyeballs hardened with cynicism from decades of incendiary, sharp shooter-exact marketing campaigns – where it not for the erudition and fine composition of McDonald’s words.

With McDonald, what starts as a dissection on a folk singer evolves into a treatise on the very essence of the ‘60s counterculture, psychedelia, the way of Zen, the rot of consumerism and, finally, the death of music.

Here, Drake’s music and guitar phrases are entwined as true art, with the the repetitive guitar passages of River Man and Parasite serenading the melancholy passage of time. The “pink moon” sung of by Drake, according to McDonald, represented the artist’s fears of humanities descent into empty materialism, arbitrary isolationism and spiritual bareness.

It is this supposed absence of narrative that, for McDonald, makes largely instrumental musical phenomena such as acid house and drum ‘n’ bass so unpalatable. He writes:

Quote to be inserted here.

Of course, it is near impossible for the modern reader to agree with such sentiments. However, it is also possible to find oneself mourning an era where the musical and the literary went so undeniably hand-in-hand. McDonald’s journey into Drake is signposted by the staple literary tastes of the then musical establishment, including Alan Watts’ The Way of Zen and the Wisdom of Insecurity (both read by Bowie) and, of particular interest, Doris Lessing’s Briefing for a Descent Into Hell.

Watts’ writings are evidently suited to the tour bus needs of a bored rock star in search of enlightenment and fresh inspiration, funneling Eastern philosophies into a self-help guide palatable to ‘60s scenesters – a digestible history of Eastern philosophy and easy ‘how to’ book combined. But Lessing’s …Descent into Hell is noteworthy for its contrariness to its era. For Lessing, the science fiction-inflected musings that so attracted people to Bowie were invites for critical rebuttal. Her “science fiction period” courted professional alienation and loss of respect from her audience and peers.

…Descent into Hell is perhaps less full-on than Lessing’s other works, despite it opening with an the novel’s protagonist experiencing an alien abduction. Fortunately, for hostile readers, this merely exists in the mind of the central character, Professor Charles Watkins, as he battles a coma, amnesia upon awakening and damaging medications inflicted upon him.

Naturally, Lessing – perhaps in keeping with the drugs-as-enlightenment “tune in, drop out” sentiments of the time – uses Watkin’s psychosis as a device with which to peer up to something not dissimilar to Drake’s Pink Moon. That is, the corruption and unavoidable conflicts that marr the human condition.

Nick Drake, 1970 (photo: Keith Morris)

Particularly arresting are Lessing’s stunningly vivid and evocative descriptions of Watkin’s internal landscapes. Watkin’s internal psychosis, of course, represents personal enlightenment; his visions taking the reader into the cosmos, where we visit aliens who assign a chosen few to come to Earth and enlighten the masses (the implication being that Watkin’s visions are, of course, ultimately driven by his ego; that he believes himself to be one of these beings).

In Briefing… Lessing embraces both the promise and ultimate futility of enlightenment. And this is a path shared by both Nick Drake and McDonald himself. Drake’s path, of course, led to apparent suicide. How accidental his overdose on prescription medication was had long been downplayed by the music press’s beloved fetishisation of death.

In his Drake essay, McDonald arguably shares such a fascination. His summary of Drake as the forever misunderstood troubadour and visionary – so misunderstood as to be doomed – is almost uncomfortably sympathetic. McDonald follows these sympathies to a tragic extend, taking his own life only months after his Drake deconstruction was written.

McDonald’s death leaves readers to debate the truths unintentionally exposed by his article and subsequent passing. Certainly, many psychologists imply that music fans – and journalists, super fans that they are – idolise music fans for living out our fantasies, transcending our pain (by translating it to music, art) and rising above – but perhaps most often glamorising – the shackles of despair.

However, one must take issue with McDonald’s dismissal of music’s progression beyond his favourite era. In writing-off house music and other instrumental art forms, he makes a fundamental mistake: to classify all music as “music”, as all the same. To do so is to render a Michael Hanake film as no different to the latest Adam Sandler vehicle.

In doing so, McDonald adopts the true folly of the depressive: to close one’s mind to possibilities and surrender to cynicism. Music with no obvious textual narrative is surely better than none at all? Nevertheless, a lessen can be found in McDonald’s work not dissimilar to that mentioned in my previous post on New Journalism. In McDonald’s age, music journalism and intellectual thought were inseparable, hand-in-hand. Today’s writers should perhaps take note.

In a story of partying hard, relentless gambling, serial womanising (with a healthy degree of misogyny), fast cars, toga and beach parties and possession of contraband, the article alleges that McCain found time to crash three fighter jets (and plowed another into a Spanish power line while pulling a daredevil stunt, causing a district-wide blackout).

He was still in training, in Texas, when he crashed his first plane into Corpus Christi Bay during a routine practice landing. The plane stalled, and McCain was knocked cold on impact. When he came to, the plane was underwater, and he had to swim to the surface to be rescued. Some might take such a near-death experience as a wake-up call: McCain took some painkillers and a nap, and then went out carousing that night.

There is more serious stuff, too; pertraining to McCain’s behaviour during his captivity in Vietnam, abandonment of a flaming aircraft carrier to cavort with journalists in a helicopter, and numerous other tales of total grade-A punk-assed behaviour! Awlrite!

But, for his years of unbridled don’t-give-a-fuck mega-bastard hedonism, John McCain wins this post’s Gonzo Award. Not sure I’d want him as President though…

A prime example is a book that may be unknown to most non-sports fans. The Sweet Science by legendary New York sports reporter A.J. Liebling is, as the title suggests, about boxing. But it is classic and definitive ‘New Journalism’ – and written two decades before Tom Wolfe coined the famous term.

A typical Liebling article does not merely narrate a boxing match. He also visits the surrounding bars, chats to cabbies and chronicles people’s hopes, anxieties and even their dress styles to produce an immersive period representation of 1940s New York.

In one report, Liebling details an encounter with some English boxing fans:

I nearly bumped into three men who turned out to be sailors from the Elizabeth, and though they were wearing Turpin buttons in the lapels of their land clothes, they were all laughing. ‘I feel like ‘iding my face,’ one of them was saying. ‘What a ‘iding ‘e took!’ ‘What I’m laughing at,’ said another, ‘was old Bill ‘ere. ‘Go right in, Randy,’ ‘e says. ‘What are you afraid of?’’ They were, I felt, devoid of proper patriotic sentiment.

Liebling’s talents as a writer and reporter closely resemble those of another legendary journalist: Joseph Mitchell. Mitchell was Liebling’s colleague at The New Yorker and author of the seminal reportage novel, Joe Gould’s Secret. (Fans of The Wire will have heard Mitchell get a mention in Series Five.)

Mitchell’s novel began life as a low-key feature article on a local homeless person (Gould) who had gained infamy through his eccentricities. As Gould and Mitchell’s tempestuous relationship grew, so did the book – and it is today regarded as a leading example of 20^th Century journalistic non-fiction.

Liebling’s and Mitchell’s novels demonstrate journalism’s potential to transcend its remit with great writing and erudite thinking. But no discussion of New Journalism can pass without mentioning an especially controversial figure…

Hunter S. Thompson is loved or loathed by many. Indeed, my exposure to Joseph Mitchell came thanks to a blog written by Guardian journalist John Keenan, entitled, ‘Loathing Hunter S. Thompson: Whey exactly is there so much respect for a burnt-out, homophobic misogynist?’

But two of Thompson’s major works stand-up as prime examples of the journalism novel: Hell’s Angels and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72. Both books represent, arguably, his greatest writing achievements.

Hell’s Angels has many moments of beautiful and ballsy writing – see its final chapter for proof. Fear and Loathing… ’72, meanwhile, exemplifies the full spectrum of all that was legendary and tragic about Thompson.

For the most part, Fear and Loathing… ’72 is a revelation. Thompson brilliantly introduces the tenacity of sports reporting to politics; traversing the Nixon vs. McGovern campaign trail with the adrenalin – and, ahem, speed – of a man whose team are perpetually on the verge of a home run.

But the book’s great highs are accompanied by cavernous lows. Thompson’s demons – cited in the text, at least, as depression, alcohol and amphetamines – bring both he and the book to gibbering breakdown. A great writer’s singular talents are lost to narcotics, and a myth is born.

Nevertheless, Thompson’s, Mitchell’s and Liebling’s novelistic contributions to New Journalism highlight one arguable difference between journalism ‘back then’ and journalism now. As Robert Anasi states in his forward to The Sweet Science: back then, journalists were allowed to really write.

They had the space – and presumably the indulgence of trusting editors – to expound on whatever inspired them. Anasi argues that such freedom cannot be found in today’s money ‘n’ scandal driven newspaper market, where ‘every article must reduce to a one sentence ‘idea’, and fact is king.’

In The Sweet Science, Liebling writes of television with wonderful contempt; citing it as the death knell for his beloved sport and also society in general. With the future of the press inevitably destined for online, one final question: what Liebling have thought of the Internet?