An African Julius Caesar

If you visit Shakespeare: staging the world at the British Museum, the last object you will see as you walk round is the Robben Island ‘Bible’. 

This is a copy of The Complete Words of Shakespeare owned by Sonny Venkatrathnam, a prisoner on Robben Island at the same time as Nelson Mandela.  In order to be able to lend the book to the other prisoners, Venkatrathnam disguised its cover with Divali cards sent to him by his family.  The book was then passed from hand to hand, and the prisoners wrote in the margins next to passages that meant something special to them.

Nelson Mandela signed his name next to a passage from Julius Caesar:

Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.

Anthony Sampson, Mandela’s biographer, wrote, “in South Africa the play had a deeper resonance, for it vividly described how an oppressed people can realise their potential against tyranny and escape from their sense of inferiority.” 

It was this that inspired Gregory Doran of the RSC to produce a Pan-African’ Julius Caesar as part of this summer’s World Shakespeare Festival.  I was lucky enough to get tickets for one of the last performances in London before they begin a short national tour.

The Noel Coward theatre is quite small – with three gilded tiers of seats above the stalls, but shallow, so none are very far from the stage.  The set was a stone archway and a series of steep stone steps, allowing the action to take place at different levels. As we walked in, well before the play was due to start, there were already actors on the stage – the crowd in an African market shortly before an election.  A band was playing, men were dancing.  There were flags and election posters – a festive mood.

The act of transplating a play like Julius Caesar from its familiar surroundings into somewhere new can, when it works, shake you up and make you see it in a whole new way. And this one certainly worked.  The setting forces you to remember that the world is still plagued with once-loved leaders whose ambition over-reaches itself, and with clever demagogues who manipulate the population with their honeyed words.  

Here the soothsayer becomes a witch doctor, his hair in dreadlocks and his body smeared with white clay.  When Cinna the Poet is mistaken for Cinna the Consipirator and the crowd force a tyre over his head and arms, the audience gasps in horror at they recognise the implication. When the action moves from the Forum to the battlefield, the dust coloured uniforms seem to evoke every civil war that has raged across the Continent for the last sixty years.

Caesar himself plays quite a small part in the play that carries his name.  The drama is carried principally by three characters – Brutus and Cassius, the leaders of the conspiracy against Caesar, and Mark Anthony, Caesar’s friend. In Doran’s all black cast, these parts were played by Paterson Joseph, Cyril Nri and Ray Fearon.

The play hinges on the two speeches given at Caesar’s funeral – the first by Brutus, justifying Caesar’s murder, and the second by Mark Anthony, turning the crowd against the conspirators.  The performances here are electric, taking the well-worn words and delivering them as if no one has heard them before.  Every time Fearon delivers the line, ‘But Brutus is an honourable man,’ it’s another twist of the knife in the wound that will destroy him as he destroyed Caesar.

I have to admit there were a few times when the combination of Shakespearean language with African accents made the speech hard to follow.  Joseph’s Brutus is a carefully modulated speaker and I never had trouble understanding him. Nri’s Cassius is passionate and fast-spoken and therefore sometimes harder to follow.  But the energy and passion of the production carry it through. At the end I felt as if I had lived through a violent storm - exhausted and invigorated at the same time.

Julius Caesar begins the last part of its national tour on 19^th September. The next play in the RSC’s World Shakespeare Festival is an ‘Indian’ production of Much Ado About Nothing, starring Meera Syall, which runs at the Noel Coward theatre from 22^nd September to 27^th October.

The basic components of writing fiction: Beginnings by Sarah Bower

So, let’s begin with a few ideas about where ideas come from and how to get started moulding them into story shape. The first tool every writer needs is:

The Notebook: All writers need a notebook. It might be a beautiful Moleskine or the back of a bus ticket, a smartphone or an ipad, or even in your head if you have very good recall. Whatever suits you, learn to make a space in your life for story ideas. Get into the habit of noticing off-beat news stories, jotting down overheard conversations or odd things you see in the street. Often it’s not just a single thing but the juxtaposition of words, events and images so listing them all in the same place can be a creative act in itself. Inspiration for fiction is all around, but the writer has to train her imagination to be aware of it, and the notebook is your first step.

Next you need: A Daily Writing Regime: Writing is a discipline like any other. The writing muscle needs regular exercise. Write every day, preferably at the same time and in an environment specially created for it (even if this only means clearing a space on the kitchen table for the laptop or always using the same pen), even if it’s only for 15 minutes and what you come out with appears to make no sense at all. Plough on however difficult and mundane it seems – just because writing is classified as an art form, don’t kid yourself that you can sit around waiting for inspiration. The Muse helps those who help themselves!

Exercises can be really helpful in getting started, whether you’ve never written before or are coming back to it after a break. Here are a couple of suggestions:-

MORNING PAGES

Set your alarm fifteen minutes’ earlier than usual. As soon as you get out of bed in the morning, sit down in your writing space and write for ten minutes. Don’t pause before you begin or stop to think while you’re writing, just let the words flow on to the page. You need have no regard for spelling, punctuation or any of the other constraints which we can sometimes find inhibiting. Remind yourself this work is private – no-one is going to see it but you.

This is brilliant for freeing up creativity and reassuring yourself that you can get words down on paper. Even many experienced writers do this exercise regularly because it can, in itself, be a source of inspiration, helping to unearth ideas which have been buried deep and blocked from coming to the surface by the preoccupations of everyday life, whether that be other work or family commitments.

ONCE UPON A TIME

Sit in a cafe, or at a window overlooking your street or garden, anywhere where there is something to watch. Note down everything you experience – using all the senses, not just sight. What do you hear, smell, taste, touch? Once you’re satisfied you’ve recorded everything your senses are telling you, go back to the beginning of your passage of writing and add the line, ‘Once upon a time...’

You have begun a story. This opening line will work its magic on the jumble of impressions you’ve written down. It will start to impose order. Once upon a time, something happened, then something else happened. Your opening line forces you to begin sorting your observations into some sort of order.

Next time, we’ll look at the difference between plot and story and consider more closely how we order a narrative and what effect our decisions have on it.

Suggested Reading

Goldberg, Natalie, Writing Down the Bones, Shambhala 1986
King, Stephen, On Writing: A Memoir, Hodder & Stoughton, 2000 

Sarah Bower is a prize-winning novelist and short story writer. She is a regular contributor to the Historical Novels Review and Ink, Sweat and Tears as well as Words With Jam. She works as a mentor to other writers, and teaches creative writing at the University of East Anglia, the Open University and the Unthank School of Writing. She holds an MA in creative writing from the University of East Anglia where she is now based in her role as co-ordinator of the mentorship scheme for literary translators run by the British Centre for Literary Translation.

Sarah is the author of THE NEEDLE IN THE BLOOD and SINS OF THE HOUSE OF BORGIA (originally published in the UK as THE BOOK OF LOVE) and is currently working on the second of two contemporary psychological mysteries. Her work has been published in eight countries.

You can find Sarah on Facebook and follow her on Twitter @SarahBower

New Podcast: Imagine by Libby O'Loghlin

Everyone remembers what they were doing when the news broke: when Kennedy was shot, when Princess Diana died, when the first plane crashed into the World Trade Centre. Yet everyday lives continued with their own ups and downs. The Bridge House anthology On This Day brings us a collection of short stories about those everyday lives and how they are gently connected with a world-shattering event.  

Imagine is one of these stories. It follows young Cleopatra Smith as she navigates school friendships, the demise of a terminally ill aunt and the death of John Lennon. 

Libby O'Loghlin is an Australian who lives in Switzerland. A writer and editor by trade, she has taught scriptwriting at university level and writes regular reviews for UK gaming site, GamePeople. She is co-founder of the Nuance Words collective and co-curator of The Woolf literary e-zine.  

You can listen to the podcast here:  http://wordswithjam.podomatic.com/entry/2012-08-20T01_29_45-07_00.  If you enjoy what you hear, please let us know.

An Erotic Conversation with JJ Marsh and Barbie Scott

“Those pleasures so lightly called physical.” – Colette.

When the Ed suggested I write a blog post recommending erotica, I immediately turned to one of my favourite eroticists for help – Barbie Scott.

‘I can’t do this on my own, I bleated, I’ve not read much at all.’ Then I made a list and realised I’d read more than I thought. Here’s a random selection with comments from Barbie and me.

Fanny Hill: The Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure – John Cleland

JJ: I thought this was so saucy on first read. Fanny, the accidental prostitute, upended through luck and lust ends up well and truly satisfied.

BS: This was probably the very first erotic book I ever read – and I found it great fun though not especially arousing.

Delta of Venus – Anaïs Nin

JJ: A revelation. This book was a shock and a delight. Whilst describing all kinds of kink, the perspective is both feminine and literary. I read this as a teenager and some of Nin’s stories still sit in my subconscious.

BS: These stories are fascinating to me because some of them are delightfully transgressive. Nin sometimes touches on aspects of sexuality which are very much proscribed nowadays, yet does so with delicacy and humour.

JJ: And so intelligent in terms of her recognition of the differences between male/female arousal, don’t you think?

BS: Yes, and seeing the difference between erotica and pornography in terms of the way it’s written – erotica being generally more poetic and elegant. A lesson for me there, I think!

The She-Devils – Pierre Louÿs

JJ: I still have a soft spot for this one. Mainly because I was so wide-eyed when I first read it. It’s so energetically lusty and as much story as sex. The word ‘romp’ was invented for just such a book. It’s absolutely a male fantasy, but openly so.

BS: I only read the first 20-odd pages of this and though it was certainly energetic, I didn’t find it at all erotic. This is another account of transgressive sexuality but told with a certain amount of coarse humour; it put me in mind of Greek satyr plays.

JJ: Yes, you’re right. Lots of so-called erotica, regardless of origin, has that Carry-On, saucy postcard, slap-and-tickle tone. But some of it has moved on.

BS: I’m remembering all those seventies’ films that treated sex as a joke – Confessions of a Window Cleaner and such like. Perhaps we’re more sophisticated now.

Parachutes and Kisses – Erica Jong

JJ: This one I found extreme, but not in an erotic sense. It made me laugh more than anything else. As if she was hell-bent on shocking her reader. That tampon scene – ach y fi.

BS: Haven’t read this one – and your comment doesn’t inspire me to!

The Story of O – Pauline Reage

JJ: I read this in university, probably the first time I consciously became aware of the politics of sex. I am still awed by the brilliance of that title. Then I re-read it while directing a production of Spring Awakening. It’s not for the faint-hearted. But as for something that pushes boundaries ... I’m glad I read it.

BS: I’m in two minds about this one – it’s arousing, certainly but I also found it quite an uncomfortable read. We never seem to learn whether O gets any pleasure from the experience herself – she’s only willing to have these things done to her because it’s what her lover wants.

JJ: Well put. This is exactly why I have problems with de Sade, Saló and to an extent, Anastasia Steele.

BS: I’ve been dipping into de Sade (for research purposes, of course) and some of it is so extreme it becomes laughable. ‘O’ isn’t risible in that way, nor is it as extreme, but is more disturbing, in my view, because of that.

Exit to Eden – Anne Rampling

JJ: Oh, I enjoyed this one. Steamy and intense. I still remember a couple of scenes from that book which can still raise my temperature. She conveys exactly what extreme lust does to the mind.

BS: This one was an eye-opener for me – sensual rather than sexual really, and touching on the same deep fantasies as The Story of O but in this one we know the participants have given their consent and that they get something from the experience personally. Probably my favourite.

Tipping the Velvet – Sarah Waters

JJ: Sarah Waters is an amazing talent. This blend of historical, erotic and adventure left me breathless in every sense. Intensely erotic.

BS: I haven’t actually read this one but I did see the TV series and I have to confess women dressing as men in that effeminate guy sort of way certainly does it for me. I’ve just read the free chapter on Amazon and love the way the book opens with a description of Whitstable oysters and music hall. This one looks like great fun so it will be added to my ‘to be read’ list immediately.

JJ: And then get yourself a copy of Fingersmith. I wouldn’t describe it as erotica, but it’s hugely sensual and so beautifully written.

BS: Writing can be erotic even when it’s not about sex. Voluptuous description and characterisation can be just as thrilling as the depiction of sexual arousal.

The Dirty Bits for Girls – India Knight

JJ: A collection and commentary by India Knight, who reminds us of the saucy bits we loved as schoolgirls. It’s light-hearted and giggly, and more memorabilia than erotica.

BS: Haven’t read this one either but the chances are I’ll have read many of the dirty bits mentioned.

JJ: Have you got, if I may coin such a phrase, a favourite dirty bit? From your own work or others’?

BS: Oh, that’s a hard one. Oh sorry, pun not intended. A difficult one! I can’t think of a specific favourite phrase but the anticipatory moments – the moments before things start to happen – in Exit to Eden do it for me every time. I think as far as my own erotica is concerned, I need to infuse it with more sexual tension, as that’s what turns me on.

JJ: Which is why many women are still panting over Mr Darcy. For me, I think Anaïs Nin. She sums it up in this line – How much do you lose by this periscope at the tip of your sex, when you could enjoy a harem of distinct and never-repeated wonders?


www.barbiescotterotica.blogspot.com
www.beatrice-stubbs.com

Shakespeare: staging the world

A few weeks ago, I was privileged to interview two of the curators behind the British Museum’s new exhibition, Shakespeare: staging the world. Ever since, I have been on tenterhooks to see the finished exhibition, and yesterday, at the press launch, I had my opportunity. Did it live up to my expectations?  No question.

The concept behind the exhibition is that of using Shakespeare’s imagined places as a spine for a journey that takes you around the world from within the ‘Wooden O’ of the theatre. The design, by Alan Farlie of RFK Architects and Tom Piper of the RSC, takes full advantage of the circular form of the Round Reading Room.  The curved walls of the different exhibition spaces scroll round one another, while the colour scheme and lighting changes subtly as you move from one ‘world’ to another. 

All through the exhibition, the objects on display are given context through Shakespeare’s words.  At the same time Shakespeare’s words are brought to life through specially recorded performances by actors from the RSC, including Antony Sher as Shylock, Ian McKellan as Prospero and (my personal favourite) an achingly beautiful performance by Harriet Walter of Cleopatra’s speech, ‘Death, like a lover’s pinch...’

You begin the journey in ‘London’, where the wood panelling most explicitly evokes the ‘Wooden O’ of the theatre. The rest of the world was opening up to Elizabethan England. Sir Francis Drake first circumnavigated the globe in 1580. As objects on display show, trade was reaching out to China, India, Turkey, Africa and the Americas. A portrait of the Moroccan ambassador, at court with his retinue when Shakespeare’s company performed there, shows a possible model for the figure of Othello.

Not only were the Elizabethans moving out into the world around them; the world was coming to England.  In Shakespeare’s time, 900 black Africans lived in London, concentrated in areas around the court and the playhouses.  There is no doubt that Shakespeare was aware of the pressures this created.  The one surviving fragment of his handwriting, on display here, is a scene from the banned play Sir Thomas More.  In it, a young Thomas More confronts a crowd rioting over the presence of foreigners in London (an actual event from the year 1517) and exhorts them to imagine what it must be like for:

The wretched strangers
Their babies at their back
With their poor luggage
Plodding to the ports and coasts
For transportation.

From London, you travel back into Shakespeare’s origins in rural Warwickshire.  The ‘Forest of Arden’ is portrayed with mottled panels suspended from the ceiling, the words of Jaques’ ‘melancholy’ speech projected onto them. Objects on display here range from rich tapestries to a homely drainage spade and a ceramic watering pot.

Shakespeare used the past – England’s own medieval past and the classical worlds of Rome and Egypt – to explore political themes too dangerous to examine in a contemporary setting.  Here he examined the nature of kingship, loyalty and the building of a nation.  He often had to skirt carefully.  An earlier play about Cleopatra by Fulke Greville, for example, was destroyed because of the dangerous parallels with Elizabeth’s relationship with her general the Earl of Essex.  Shakespeare’s play wasn't written until the reign of James I.  Pride of place in this part of the exhibition are the ‘funeral achievements’ – helmet, sword, shield and saddle – of Henry V, which have never before left Westminster Cathedral.  On the back of the shield, you can see the worn red velvet arm pad and a fragment of the blue Chinese silk that once lined it.

Venice is a world where Shakespeare examines themes of virtue and sexuality, but also the ‘otherness’ of figures like Shylock and Othello.  Looking up here, at the heart of the exhibition, the sumptious domed ceiling of the Reading Room is fully visible.  The colour scheme of red and purple sets off stunning glass and silverware – but also erotic items like the ‘chopines’, the platform shoes worn by Venetian courtesans. 

The next space is an exploration of treason and rebellion.  Here the walls are black, with blood red recesses for the exhibits.  Guy Fawkes lantern sits alongside a disturbing reliquary containing the eye of a Jesuit priest, publicly executed in the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot.  The voices of Macbeth’s three witches whisper to you from the walls.

The exhibition ends in the fantasy world of The Tempest.  The lighting is brighter and the walls stark white.  Exhibits include the polished obsidian ‘scrying mirror’ from South American belonging to Doctor Dee (the Elizabethan magus who may have been a model for Prospero) and a narwhal tusk once held to be proof that unicorns existed.

The final exhibit is the’ Robben Island Bible.’  This is a copy of The Complete Works of Shakespeare that belonged to Sonny Venkatrathnam, who was a prisoner on Robben Island for twelve years.  The only other books allowed on Robben Island were religious texts, and in order to persuade the guards to let him lend it to other prisoners, Sonny pasted Divali cards over the cover and convinced them it was a ‘Hindu Bible’.  The book was passed among the prisoners and 32 of them annotated the text, marking passages that had particular meaning for them.

Here, the book is open at the passage from marked Julius Caesar by Nelson Mandela:

“Cowards die many times before their deaths,
The valiant never taste of death but once.”

It is in part this inscription that persuaded Gregory Doran to see Julius Caesar as Shakespeare’s ‘Africa play’.  His production, with Paterson Joseph as Brutus, is currently playing at Stratford and will transfer to the Noël Coward Theatre in London in August before beginning a nationwide tour.

It is particularly appropriate, then, that the exhibition opened on Mandela Day, and that Sonny Venkatrathnam was there to see it. It is, as museum director Neil MacGregor said in his welcome, “an extraordinary demonstration of why Shakespeare matters.”

Shakespeare:  staging the world opens today (July 19^th 2012) in the Reading Room at the British Museum and runs until 25^th November.  Tickets can be booked online at http://www.britishmuseumshoponline.org/invt/mexshake#book-now.

Catriona Troth’s interview with curators Dora Thornton and Rebecca Allen will appear in the August edition of Words with Jam.

Podcast: Spirit of Lost Angels

Our latest podcast is an extract from the novel, Spirit of Lost Angels by Liza Perrat, read by the author.

Spirit of Lost Angels traces the journey of a bone angel talisman passed down through generations.  The women of L'Auberge des Anges face tragedy and betrayal in a world where their gift can be their curse. Amidst the tumult of revolutionary France, this is a story of courage, hope and love.

You can listen to the podcast here:  http://wordswithjam.podomatic.com/entry/2012-07-17T02_39_10-07_00

You can read more about Spirit of Lost Angels and at Liza Perrat at www.lizaperrat.com.  Liza is a member of the exciting new writers' collective, Triskele Books.

The Creative Process - working on a book cover with our competition winner

by JD Smith

A few months ago I launched a competition: Win a Professionally Designed, Bespoke Book Cover. I had so many entries on my Facebook page and website, I was relieved I only had to pick a winner at random, and not judge entries.

Linzé Brandon won with her book, Keeper of the Dragon Sword, in need of a cover design.  Linzé  knew which elements she wanted on her cover, and her husband was able to take original photographs of a sword (below) which is detailed in the book.

The rest of the images I found online from royalty free stock image libraries. There are plenty to be found, with stunning shots to choose from, but many covers require something more complex and layered than a single, readily-available image. 

When I first supply images for clients browse, I tend to warn them not to pay too much attention to what they will look like on the finished cover. I know each one I have selected will work, either on its own or amalgamated with others. I have ideas and know that toning down here, brightening there, and pulling a specific colour to the forefront of the image will give it the impact needed to make the cover stand out. I ask the author or publisher choose a selection that resonate with them and that work for the book, leaving the rest to me.

Below are two images Linzé chose, together with the additional image of a dragon outline that we would need to place on the back of the male model.

From there I mocked up various front cover suggestions; the start of the truly creative process, bringing together fonts and stylish typography, whilst bending and manipulating images to work in unison with one another. This was my favourite part. Here you can see the selection of cover variations for Keeper of the Dragon Sword ...

Linzé decided to go with the third option (far right) and from there I designed the spine and back cover. Below is both the final front cover for ebook publication and the full paperback cover for printed books, to be published later this year.

www.jdsmith-design.com/bookcovers