A Font of One's Own

Minor it may be, but what's this new fascination with fonts all of a sudden in the book world? 

A few books I noticed lately have a note on the font used - a short explanation of why the author has chosen the specific font used. 

The book I'm reading at the moment, The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker has such a note - The book was set in Transitional 521, a Bitstream version of Calledonia, designed by William A. Dwiggins in 1938. He descibed the face as having "something of that simple, hard-working, feet-on-the-ground quality" as well as a "liveliness of action." I'm thinking she chose it for the implications of its name, seeing since the theme of the novel is transition. Maybe it's a case of matching your font to your theme?

Also, The Song of Achilles which I mentioned previously here has a quite lengthy 'Note on the Type' at the end of the book,  going into the history of its chosen font - Baskerville - and a detailed analysis of its physical stylistics. But no reason as to why it was used. Which got me to thinking - what is the point of such notes on font? Is it a new publishing necessity? The beginning of a new trend?

Have any other readers out there come across this? 

And I wonder about E-readers. Do they display all the different fonts of different books? Or is it one-font-fits-all for digital readers? Oh, I don't think I'd like that. Because I suppose the font of a book characterises it in some way.

Notice how all the classics have that dense dark tightly-packed font which seems to deem them as old before they even begin? And the new modern Penguin classics have quite a 'classic' font, immortalising the stories in a print that screams of literary sophistication and a suave coolness that entices you to read them. 

Yes, it's not just the cover of the book that entices you to read it anymore - but the inside print style. Imagine that!

But on a personal typing note, I suppose every one of us has our personal favourites. I use Georgia for these posts. Why? Hmm, because it was the best that Blogger had to offer..? I suppose I just like it. I like the slight curvature of the letters, the neat structure of them, the medium pleasant plumpness of its characters. And  because it didn't seem so stiff and formal. 

Like Times New Roman for example. I'll never forget at a writing workshop once, one of my classmates reading out a short story about a student who mentioned that they hated the 'clinical starchy feel' of Times New Roman. That it was restrictive of creativity. Ha! But yes, I would have to agree there. It feels too formal and timid - too much the font of college essays and formal letters and perfectly proofread prognosis.

Then there was the Comic Sans phase I went through. It was the preferred font of my teaching and tutoring notes. Because it seemed clear and explanatory and easy to digest, a veritable casual and friendly sort of font that I hoped suited my casual and friendly and explanatory teaching/tutoring style. But I soon realised it seemed too notes-y and too immature for anything other than teaching materials. (This was confirmed for me when I recently saw a post on Facebook ridiculing a Comic Sans printed poster in an office - saying it should be kept in the classroom! More suitable for ABCs than memos. )

See, a font can say a lot about the nature of what is written in it. 

And from what I've seen of writing workshops and meetings, every writer has their own preferred font, and to write in another one, just wouldn't feel right. My own preferred writing font (for poetry and prose) is Garamond. I like the old-style bookish feel of it. I couldn't write a poem in anything else, no siree. My poems demand it! Tempus Sans? Too weak and wobbly and whimsical.  Verdana? Too plain and scientific- like. For facts only. Or business presentations.

For articles, I prefer something more straight-up, more clear and precise like Calibri. Or sometimes, if I'm in a real 'writer' mood -  Courier Sans. It has all the drama and tension of journalism and wide-spaced urgency of real key-thudding type or a telegram's frantic stop-stop print.

Strange isn't it, this font obsession? In the days of handwritten manuscripts (which some writers still prefer) there was no such decisions or preferences.  But then our handwriting took care of all that. It says a lot about us too. And I suppose fonts are just an extension of this. Just look at the many fonts that mimic handwriting: Monotype corsiva, lucida handwriting and the title of this blog, Homemade Apple (which I can't replicate here darn it! But you can just glance up and see it.)

What about you? What's your preferred font? Do tell! And better still, for what reasons? It may prove handy to know in the case of having your book published and wanting to put that personal touch on the script, as seems most en-vogue at the minute. 

Well for now I'm signing off in a quite posh Lucida Calligraphy  - and off to Word to doodle in a grand variety of fonts... 

How far the quill and ink has come!

~ Siobhán

Wherefore Art Thou Readers?? SOS

Where, oh where, have all my readers gone?? 

Sometimes it feels like I'm blogging into the silent ether. I feel like no one's out there, no one's listening or reading. All's quiet on the blogging front.

Is anyone out there?? Anyone willing to share their views???  SOS - Speak Out Soon! (and please.)

Or if they are, maybe this is all just too bland to comment on. Is it? Do I need more spice? Suggestions would be helpful! 

But I get it. This is cyberland, totally random. I have a lot of traffic on this blog which  I am so grateful for, but I just can't help but wonder, how come this traffic doesn't speak, leave comments, react. 

And I get that this is not typical blog etiquette, but I just need to ask. Readers, where are you? 

(Maybe I shouldn't be writing this right now, because I'm in a bit of a mood...a malevolent, miserable, moody mood. But I can't help it. It seems on every writing front right now, I'm firing blanks, throwing stones into a still lake that won't ripple. And expressing this aching emptiness does somewhat alleviate the symptoms...) 

I give people my work to read and they don't reply. Why?

I wouldn't mind (hmpf), but I am always replying to others work and giving feedback! It seems a give-give situation. And it's very tiring. Giving and giving and no receiving.

On most days, it doesn't matter really. But some days it does. Some days it quite frankly sucks! :(

But oh, 'tis the life of a writer I suppose. We don't do it for other people. Have to be made of a tough skin and all that.

Still, some feedback would be nice...

Still, onwards and upwards and onwards I shall write regardless. (Regardless...)

moribund & miserable,

~ Siobhán

The Big Book Hangover: Cloud Atlas

 'visionary...engrossing...virtuosic...thrillingly original...stunning...a masterful feast'

I just have to post about the amazing Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell that I have been completely and utterly wowed by. 

From time to time, a book comes along that completely stuns its reader on all fronts: theme, language, style, structure, originality, meaning. It seems nothing can compare. Cloud Atlas is such a book.

It's not a recent book by any means - no, it was released in 2004 and nominated for the Booker then - but I've just gotten around to reading it recently (although the film version is due for release this October). 

What drew me to the book was all the brilliant reviews it got. Google it and you'll see it sparkling in critics and readers reviews alike. And they are not wrong. What a book! I can't remember when I read a book that has hung over me for days since I finished it. It's an all-consuming book, an amazing feat of originality, a hugely stunning one in scope and stature.

I don't really know how to describe it. It's like nothing I've read before.  It's such an unusual book, encompassing so many different genres - from historical to suspense thriller to sci-fi and dystopian. But don't dear readers, let any of these labels put you off! Because in truth, you can't label this book. It surpasses all labels of genre into a general profound parable on humanity. 

What I can tell you is that the book consists of six different stories all inter-related. From 19th century high-seas drama to inter-war years Europe and the existential ruminations of a young classical music composer, to an old slightly barmy but quick-witted publisher being chased by thugs across rural England, to a journalist on the trail of a nuclear story bust, to an escaped clone in a future corporate-ruled dystopia, to a post-apocalyptic village in Hawaii living in threat of war and destruction - there is something to suit every reader in this story! (And that's all I'm going to say about the plot!)

But no, this is not a medley or mosaic where everything connects so harmoniously at the end. It's so much more subtle than that. You'll have to look closely and deeply to see the connections, and they are so shifting and allusive, as to change and transform constantly. Clouds suggest vagueness and this is most certainly true in the interpretation of the story of the novel. 

Mitchell himself refuses to give any definitive explanation, preferring to let the story speak for itself (which it does, most exquisitely) but it is clear he was influenced by Nietzsche (mentioned in one story) who famously wrote “There are no facts, only interpretations.” This certainly applies to the novel which is so open to a myriad of interpretations. The novel also works to illustrate Nietzsche’s hypothesis of 'eternal recurrence' - the idea that we live our lives again and again. It certainly seems that each of the central characters in Cloud Atlas‘s six sections seems to be a reincarnation of a previous one and certain quotes by characters would seem to confirm this, 'souls cross ages like clouds cross skies' and 'we cross, criss-cross and recross our old tracks like figure skaters.' 

The title of the book is coined by one of the characters in one of the stories, a young composer, as a name he gives to his new composition that has come upon him out of nowhere - "Spent the fortnight gone in the music room, reworking my year’s fragments into a “sextet for overlapping soloists”: piano, clarinet, ‘cello, flute, oboe, and violin, each in its own language of key, scale, and color. In the first set, each solo is interrupted by its successor: in the second, each interruption is recontinued, in order. Revolutionary or gimmicky?" This slight meta-fiction telling is in fact Mitchell's premise for the novel. And I'm sure most people would agree it's quite revolutionary.

At its core the novel offers a treatise on humanity's will to power and ultimately self-destruction 'one fine day, a truly predatory world shall consume itself'. The first story of Adam Ewing's journal takes place in the early 19th century in the colonised isles of the South Seas. By the time the book is finished, we have come full circle to the future and back, and it seems that humanity has learned nothing in between. The final story comes back to where it started with Adam Ewing, ending the book on an affecting contemplative deduction of all that has gone on in its pages - namely the central fundamental debate between civilisation and savagery, peace and violence, weakness and power, revolving on the specifics of racial and gender inequality, the conflict between classes and ages, the strong and the weak, morality and corruption and ultimately, good and evil - as Mitchell puts it - 'the many-headed hydra of human nature.'

Sounds like pretty run-of-the-mill literature themes right? Yes, but there is nothing ordinary about the way the author presents these. Stunning, to say the least. This is a full rollercoaster ride of a book - you honestly don't know what's coming next, but the theme and the style entwine so perfectly as to make it a mystery, a philosophy, an adventure, a shocking vision, an emotionally moving tour-de-force, a tremendous tapestry of cause and effect, consequence and meaning. 

And the litmus test of a good book surely - a great book - is that we become so absorbed in its world as to be removed from our own while simultaneously placed in a better viewing position of it - more able to see all the pressing issues of humanity in a brighter, most dazzling light.

To paraphrase a review I read online - 'Cloud Atlas flips the plot and the world as we know it on its head, offering an imaginative discourse on the repercussions of our actions in this world, our human flaws and good points, all in the aim of pointing out to us a truth.' And what might that truth be? That we are all responsible for the type of world we live in and our means to shape that world. That what we believe of the world is what we will see of it, good or bad.

This is a book that should be read. One that will leave a lasting impression on you. Open your eyes that little bit wider to the world we live in, the world that goes on around us, with all its good and evil and tragedy and beauty. 

A book, that Kafka termed as 'takes an axe to the frozen sea inside of us.' 

Read it! Read it! Read it! Or if you have already done so - do share your thoughts and opinions!  I'd love to hear!

~ Siobhán

****

'Mitchell is, clearly, a genius. He writes as though at the helm of some perpetual dream machine, can evidently do anything, and his ambition is written in magma across this novel’s every page.' - The New York Times Book Review

'An elegiac, radiant festival of prescience, meditation and entertainment.' - The Times

'This isn't just one brilliant book, it's a collection of six completely different brilliant books, each 80 pages long and each one so good you could see it being published to ecstatic reviews... History, thriller, comedy, sci-fi - David Mitchell makes each of them look easy, and then combines them into a work that is much more than a sum of its parts.' - Sunday Independent

Read more here:

http://www.conceptualfiction.com/cloud_atlas.html

Film Release Date October 26 2012 (From the directors of The Matrix and Run Lola Run)

Sunday Morning Musing: Feeling at Home in the World

I love reading interviews with writers. They're so interesting and revealing. It seems writers choose their words as truly and precisely in spoken interviews as they do on their pages. And I find that each writer always has something fascinating and new to say about writing, and the world of writing. 

Like this interview I came across with Andrea Barrett in a random edition of Paris Review - always a great source for writer interviews.  I was struck by what she had to say about writers not feeling at home in the world. Is this true for all writers I wonder? Or has she just made some gross unfair sweeping generalisation? 

Personally, I agree. The world to a writer is to be observed first and foremost. The world we live in is mostly one of our own making, with narrations and descriptions, observations, plot and page-marking epiphanies. Words are where we feel at home. And I would most definitely agree with her view that we write about the world to make sense of it, to translate it to ourselves. To feel more at home in it.

INTERVIEWER

Do you think this feeling of not being at home is part of what made you into a writer? 

BARRETT

Sure. I’ve never known a writer who didn’t feel ill at ease in the world. Have you? We all feel unhoused in some sense. That’s part of why we write. We feel we don’t fit in, that this world is not our world, that though we may move in it, we’re not of it. Different experiences in our lives may enforce or ameliorate that, but I think if they ameliorate it totally, we stop writing. You don’t need to write a novel if you feel at home in the world. We write about the world because it doesn’t make sense to us. Through writing, maybe we can penetrate it, elucidate it, somehow make it comprehensible. If I had ever found the place where I was perfectly at home, who knows what I would have done? Maybe I would have been a biologist after all. No great loss if that had been the case, but it didn’t work out that way.

Read the entire script here:

http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/79/the-art-of-fiction-no-180-andrea-barrett 

~ Siobhán