Katheryn Thompson's Blog, page 22

In 1875 #OnThisDay (24th of January), Camille Saint-Saens' 'Danse Macabre' premiered.
The name roughly translates as 'Dance of Death', and I love the piece because it vividly tells the tale of Death arriving at midnight on Halloween.
This old superstition is apparently French in origin, and the piece opens with a single note played twelve times, to represent the twelve strikes of the clock at midnight. Skeletons then rise from their graves and join Death, dancing to the music of the violin (played by Death, or sometimes interpreted as representing Death). The music builds in volume and suspense, as the skeletons dance all night until dawn. If you close your eyes you can imagine the scene, Death dancing through the graveyard inviting the skeletons to join him. The music reaches a furious climax, and is then broken off by a cock crowing, signalling the break of dawn. The skeletons are compelled to return to their graves until the following year, and the piece ends with Death alone playing a lonely lament on his violin.
It's beautiful and evocative, and I think even more incredible when you know the story behind it. It's also the theme tune for Jonathan Creek...so what's not to love?
I'll leave you with a quote from Stephen King's 'Danse Macabre', which is equally eloquent and thought provoking: "This book is only my ramble through that world, through all the worlds of fantasy and horror that have delighted and terrified me...It’s a dance. And sometimes they turn off the lights in this ballroom. But we’ll dance anyway, you and I. Even in the dark. Especially in the dark. May I have the pleasure?"

Ever since I read 'The Picture of Dorian Gray', Lord Henry Wotton has been on the invite list for my imaginary dinner party, but I recently read 'The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays', and couldn't help but wonder how all of Wilde's 'dandies' would interact with one another. I would love to invite them all to a dinner party and watch the sparks fly! Can anyone else imagine it?

They would all arrive fashionably late: "He was always late on principle, his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time." (Lord Henry, The Picture of Dorian Gray)

They would all be fabulously dressed: "I will speak to the florist, my lord. She has had a loss in her family lately, which perhaps accounts for the lack of triviality your lordship complains of in the buttonhole." (Lord Goring, An Ideal Husband)

And the conversation would naturally be sensational: "Oh! talk to every woman as if you loved her, and to every man as if he bored you, and at the end of your first season you will have the reputation of possessing the most perfect social tact." (Lord Illingworth, A Woman of No Importance)

Who would you invite to your imaginary dinner party?

“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.” - Plato

I have a rather eclectic taste in music (playing my ipod on shuffle is usually surreal - Johann Pachelbel's 'Canon in D' followed by 'Music is the Victim' from Scissor Sisters anybody?), but I listen to different music depending on what mood I'm in. I also like listening to music when I write. Sometimes I choose music which I think reflects a certain character, or which I could imagine a particular character listening to, to help me get into their mind. Or sometimes I choose an artist or album which creates a particular mood, so if I'm writing a section of my book which is quite fast-paced and tense, then I listen to music that reflects that...maybe Beethoven's 'Moonlight' sonata (I have a beautiful version subtitled 'presto agitato').

Do you do this when you're writing? If not then maybe it's something that you should try? I find that if I'm struggling for inspiration, listening to music can really help me to get into the mind of a character or place myself in a certain situation.

Right now I'm feeling pretty chilled (it is Saturday afternoon after all), so I'm listening to this gorgeous album called 'Power and Soul' along with a bit of Annie Lennox...and maybe some M People...and I might throw in some of The Drifters. That's my afternoon sorted.

What are you listening to now?

“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.” ― Aldous Huxley

Did you know: The 'character' with the most epigrams out of the top 50 most quoted epigrams (according to a survey by the Guardian in 2012) is Oscar Wilde himself (who has 12)? The second is one of my favourite fictional characters of all time: Lord Henry Wotton in 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' with 10.

It won't come as a surprise to anyone who has read any of my previous blog posts, or Brown Leather Shoes (in which one of the protagonists, William, frequently quotes Wilde), but I love Oscar Wilde especially his enduring epigrams. I am currently reading 'The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays', and constantly finding new and familiar epigrams to tweet! Everyone has their favourite, but according to the Guardian the most quoted epigram of all time is "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars" (from Lady Windermere's Fan which, coincidentally, I have just finished reading - interestingly the top 3 are all from Lady Windermere's Fan). Being a Northerner I especially love Joey Boswell citing this quotation in 'Bread'!



What's your favourite?

That's autumn in case you were wondering: "that season which has drawn from every poet worthy of being read some attempt at description, or some lines of feeling" - Jane Austen, Persuasion.
There's something magical about autumn...or at least there is in novels and poems. Right now where I am it's not very magical, just very grey and very wet. I don't know what it is - maybe the way your breath mists in the air when you breathe, or the beautiful rusty colours of the leaves, and that crunch they have when you walk on them.
I'm sat at home with the heating on, my blinds are shut because it is pitch-black outside, and I can hear the wind howling and the rain smacking against my window, and I love it! It's the perfect reading weather, especially when so many books are set in autumn (including Brown Leather Shoes). One of my favourite autumn stories is Agatha Christie's Hallowe'en Party, but then again I think that most of Christie's novels are perfect for this time of year. There's something very cozy and satisfying about them. Writing this I now really want to sit down and read them all again. In fact I just might...

"Deprivation is for me what daffodils were to Wordsworth" - Philip Larkin.
As well as being a superb quote, and summing up beautifully what Larkin's poems are all about, this hits on a key point when it comes to writing. What inspires you?

I get inspired by all sorts of things, most of them suprisingly mundane: a conversation I overhear on the bus, something that I read that really strikes a chord with me, or just the world around me. For the murder mystery genre, the large majority of the time reality is extremely important. Yes it's fictional, but readers want something that's believable; it's not fantasy and often what is so effective about a novel is that it is plausible, that it could happen.

Often I base events, places, and people on real life - that's not to say that I copy real life, but more that I'm inspired by it. One of the settings in Brown Leather Shoes, for example, is Domsville Park. There's a park near where my family live, as there is in many towns, with a boating lake and flower beds and a park for children, the expected features, and I had this park and many others that I've visited in mind when I created Domsville Park...although obviously I added my own touches. It's the same with the characters; I choose character traits from real life, and weave them into my own creations.
"When creating a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature" - Ernest Hemingway.

Whether it's daffodils or deprivation, every writer is inspired by something (even if they're not aware of it), and I think that in many ways that helps to create their unique style of writing. So what inspires you?

I assume this is because of my age, but when I talk to friends/family members who've read my book they often ask if the characters are people I know. No offence intended for anyone who does base characters on people they know, but I find this a bit offensive...I grew out of that in primary school. The names of the characters in Brown Leather Shoes (and the sequel currently under construction) all mean something that I think is appropriate for their character, or maybe just sound the way that I want them to, or connote something particular. Names of characters aren't something that I just choose randomly, but something that I give a lot of thought to. This is because the characters are really important to me, and I have a very specific idea of what they're like in my mind.

For example: the protagonist (or one of them) is called Andrew Isaac Arling. Andrew is Greek for 'courageous' or 'manly'; Isaac is Hebrew for 'he will laugh'; and Arling is a patronymic from Old French/Old German which combines the Germanic elements "erl", meaning 'warrior', and "wine", meaning 'friend'. His middle name will become clear when you read BLS (Brown Leather Shoes), but the others are self-explanatory. His name is one of the more obvious ones, because I liked the names and their meanings (both of which are important to me).

What about you? What do you think about character's names, either as a reader or a writer (or both)?

Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern WorldThe print boom during Enlightenment bred new varieties of men of letters, including the familar Mr Critic, Reviewer, and Spectator. I thought that it was fascinating, and particularly relevant for a website devoted to reviewing books.
Roy Porter (in 'Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World') describes the critic as “that self-appointed judge, censor and reformer of the republic of letters – and object of vilification”. However, while critics have always been unpopular (William Cobbett described critics as "a base and hireling crew"), Porter claims that “the critic was enlightened man incarnate, the caustic Restoration wit purified into the more civilised character required in the age of politeness, standing for freedom of speech and rational argument against dogmatism and absolutism”. Is your respect for critics growing?
I think that some of these descriptions are hilarious, even if we can see some truth behind them. Mr Critic's younger brother, Mr Reviewer, was equally unpopular. Samuel Johnson slighted reviewing as an “epidemical conspiracy for the destruction of paper” (well it made me laugh). Being on Goodreads though, surely we don't agree? I've reviewed a fair number of books on Goodreads and will continue to do so. Similarly, people have reviewed my book and more people will hopefully do so.
I think I agree more with Porter, when he argues that reviewing (and criticism) nurtured a “much-desired (if despised) cultural narcissism”.
Porter concludes that “These literary identities were part and parcel of the key Enlightenment reinvention of the persona of the thinker”. What do you think?

My sincere apologies for the title; it seemed funny at the time.

I love Oscar Wilde's 'The Picture of Dorian Gray', and find his eloquent, daring, and sensual style both inspiring and enjoyable. However, I recently read 'Tales from Ovid' by Ted Hughes (which I would definitely recommend, especially to people who particularly like either poet), and found a fascinating parallel with the tale of 'Echo and Narcissus'. Wilde was a Classicist (he studied Literae Humaniores at Magdalen College, Oxford after winning a scholarship from Trinity College, Dublin), so any similarities between his work and Ovid's (and Plato's, but that's a whole other discussion) are likely to be intentional.

There are references to Echo and Narcissus throughout Dorian Gray, one of the more obvious being: "He has leaned over the still pool of some Greek woodland, and seen in the waters' silent silver the wonder of his own beauty." While Dorian can clearly be likened to Narcissus, so can Sybil to Echo (perhaps slightly more obscurely). The flower-like descriptions of all four characters are particularly interesting to compare.

For anyone who enjoyed either Dorian Gray or Echo and Narcissus, I would definitely recommend reading the other and comparing notes. It makes for a fascinating read, and shows both tales in a new light (excuse the cliche).

Andrew had no idea where the shoes had come from or why he was wearing them. He wished he wasn’t wearing them, but because he seemed to be somewhat frozen it was impossible for him to remove them and consequently, he was stuck with them. The brown leather shoes were one of a few things that Andrew couldn’t fathom; along with his running clothes, which he shouldn’t still be wearing, and his running shoes, which were misplaced, why was Margaret missing? Why was his memory distorted? Why couldn’t he move? And why was there an extremely annoying, high-pitched beeping noise continually repeating in the background somewhere. The latter was annoying Andrew greatly, especially since he couldn’t find the source of it. It wasn’t a doorbell because they didn’t have one (they had an old-fashioned brass door knocker which Margaret had, naturally, chosen and which Andrew secretly loved), and it was distinctly different to a car or house alarm. The incessant beeping, however, whatever it was, was annoying Andrew almost as much as the fact that he couldn’t move from his armchair, and almost as much as those hideous brown leather, designer shoes currently on his feet.

Whatever Andrew’s feelings were towards the shoes, however, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he had seen them somewhere before, and recently, and that they were important somehow.


If you’re as desperate as Andrew to find out just why those brown leather shoes are so important, Brown Leather Shoes is now available to buy in paperback or as an ebook.