 I did some of this For every reader who bemoans the end of the book, there’s another announcing the advent of the future book. There are in fact two separate issues here. The first is how books are read (old-fashioned pages, Kindle, iPad) and the second is how books are written. I’ve offered my opinion on reading platforms here, but whether for Kindle or paper pages the writer’s job remains essentially unchanged. Characterisation in a hardback will also work as characterisation on a hand-held backlit reading device. New gadget, same old reading experience.
The iPad has more potential, both for readers and writers. The digital design studio ustwo recognised this some time ago, and used traditional nursery rhymes as experimental texts. By adding interactive animation, they were hoping to reach at a new way of telling stories.
Their Nursery Rhymes are quite fun, but they barely scratch the surface of artistic effects that the platform makes possible. What ustwo needed was some contemporary literature. Oh yes. Some writers who could answer back, and test the limits of the form. Length was the first consideration. It costs money to do this stuff, and therefore it seemed sense to start with short stories. Ustwo therefore teamed up with Shortfire Press, itself an interesting outfit that sells e-stories one-at-a-time over the internet. Shortfire Press had already made my story James Joyce, EFL Teacher available as a download, and this was one of three stories chosen for the experiment.
Jonas Lennermo at ustwo is the man who makes everything happen (you can see him making things happening, and giving his own explanation of Papercut here) and he explained to me the capabilities of the technology the company had developed. This was the essential step forward: as the reader scrolls the text down the page, sounds and images can be triggered depending on where the reader is in the story.
The initial idea was to take a story and then ‘illustrate’ it in this way. However, for me, the audio-visual element was more interesting than that – I immediately wanted to re-write the story specifically for this new medium, and that’s what I did. And I do think it’s a new medium for writers, somewhere between the page and a film. The imaginative leap, it seems to me, is to understand that the audio-visual additions aren’t there to illustrate the text. Too boring. They’re there to enhance it, but genuinely, to add something new. The writer should keep faith in the writing, and then use the sounds and images to play with the meanings and rhythms and connotations sparked by the text. The interactivity isn’t only a complement to the words – it needs to be allowed to contradict the story and play with it and make additional layers and jokes of its own.
My kind of writing has always had a low reliance on realist devices. It’s suited to this type of experimentation. And now that I have a working idea of how effective the Papercut technology can be, I see no reason why the next step shouldn’t be the first interactive iPad ‘novel’, written exclusively as a new form for a new format.
All three stories are included on the Papercut application available for iPad (£3.99).
(Papercut is currently #1 in the Story Apps charts and Apple app of the week)
 In 2003, I went to Japan as Visiting Professor at the University of Tokyo, a post that had evolved from the Professorship held in 1924 by the First World War poet Edmund Blunden. Blunden wrote the prose account of his wartime experiences, Undertones of War, in the shadow of the University’s grand Red Gate referring only to some trench-maps and his anxious unforgetting.
Blunden’s time in Tokyo was immensely productive, inspiring new poems, edited texts, critical commentaries. He also kept up with his beloved cricket (there is a separate chapter on Cricket in Barry Webb’s definitive biography). However, my own combination of interests meant that while teaching in his shadow I was presented with a literary scoop, or so I hope.
I had largely forgotten about this until now, but in one of my classes I had the pleasure of teaching Mr Iba, a mature student and former President of the Tokyo University Rugby Club. He had read Muddied Oafs, and enthusiastically introduced me to a spirited live version of the Tokyo University Rugby Club song. I was intrigued that it should be in English, and before long we were both researching its provenance.
We eventually discovered that the poem had been written in 1924 and presented to Mr Kayama, a rugby enthusiast who had written the first book about the sport’s development in Japan.
[A mini-extract, as kindly translated by Mr Iba:
1. We play Rugby to satisfy our Fighting Spirits sleeping in our blood.
2. But, We have to control it by our Gentlemanship.]
Blunden scholars will surely let me know if this lyric has surfaced in the past. If not, I hesitantly claim the rediscovery of a lost work by Edmund Blunden, two verses of poetry that remain a living force in twenty-first century Japan.
Up, Up!
I hear from winters long ago
Resounding to the frosty sky
The shouts of “Feet, feet, feet!” “Go low!”
The splendid roar that hailed the try.
I hear from winters yet to come
Those old glad cries from new throats hurled,
And feel, when you and I are dumb,
Still Rugby will refresh the world.
Friend, may this book of yours advance
This noble sport in old Japan
Till your disciples take on France,
England, New Zealand; when they can,
May we be there to swell the cheers
That loud and brilliant will proclaim
‘Japan’s first try!’ In after years,
Could your heart wish a happier fame?
I hope I can contribute to the happy posthumous fame of Mr Kayama, who was an apostle for rugby in the early days in Japan. The optimistic, global sentiment of the last line of Blunden’s first verse also seems fitting in a World Cup Year.
 The poem is still sung boisterously to round off Tokyo University Rugby Club functions, to the tune shown here (and Mr Iba intends to have it sung at his funeral). The music was composed by Mr Ryo Watanabe, in 1925, so the song (or Yell, as it is now known by the rugby club) was written soon after Blunden’s arrival. Perhaps he had a few hours to fill: later he would design his own cricket net, and set it up in the local park to await visits from anyone who had ever held a bat.
Edmund Blunden, sports nut, I salute you.
 Not one or the other At last. Christmas has gone away. Now that the advertising has died down, it might be a good time to say something reasonable about the Kindle, or at least more measured than their own trumpet-blowing that was everywhere during the gift-giving season. ‘Think of a book. Sixty seconds later you can be reading it.’ Possibly, but there’s another step in between. You have to hand over some money.
Instead of getting annoyed by this separation between source and consumer (‘Think of a cow. An hour later you can be eating it.’) the advertising made me think of a much older campaign, for razors, which provides an excellent analogy for the contest between books and e-readers.
Despite what the techies would have us believe, this is not the same battle as CD’s vs Ipods, with only one winner. The nature of the exchange is different, simply because I can’t transfer the books on my shelf into the Kindle. I can’t read what I already own, or not electronically, without buying it again. I don’t think I want to do that.
So it’s not the same ring, not the same fight. The contest is more like Gillette vs Braun, and the ad I remember was shown on television probably in the early eighties. Three handsome young men are on holiday. For the purposes of the ad, there is a line of wash-basins outside on the beach. Exotic golden light reflects from bare (hairless) chests, and collectively the men decide that now is the time for a shave. All three of them rub their stubble, and exude a competitive smugness. They eye each other up.
The first man, wielding an expensive-looking electric razor with a cable, saunters towards the row of basins. Horror! There’s no electrical socket. HIs life crumbles around him; the other two smirk.
The second man approaches the row of basins wielding his shaving foam and trusty safety razor. He turns the tap. Double horror! There is no water! The gurgle of the empty pipes accompanies the ruin of his hopes.
The third man has a battery-operated electric razor. He doesn’t even approach the basins. He stays where he is and shaves, looking into the sunset, the alpha male forever after.
Here’s my point: Gillette did not collapse with the invention of the electric razor, even though it can be used on exotic foreign beaches where there’s no electricity or water. In fact, according to Marketing magazine, nine million of the UK’s 15.9 million wetshavers use Gillette. Despite the fact that a Braun is undoubtedly easier to use on a train.
The Braun has its moments, just as the Kindle will. But a razor still gives a better shave, just as a book gives a better read – it’s more reliable and the batteries don’t run out. The two formats can exist side-by-side. I own a razor AND a Braun. When the Kindle improves (I tried one before Christmas and the Fisher-Price buttons put me off) then I may well end up with one, possibly as a present that occasionally comes in useful when travelling.
But as far as analogies go, here’s the killer: Braun and Gillette are both owned by Procter and Gamble. P & G don’t care how you shave – they get your money either way. The same is true for the Amazon Kindle. And for writers.
 While stocks last I’ve always understood that one of the key revolutions of the internet is to allow small but disparate voices to join together to make a louder noise than would otherwise be possible.
I like public libraries. This is a quiet like, but it is one shared by hundreds of thousands of people across the country. We will probably not be marching on Milbank anytime soon, but I’d like my quiet voice to be heard, and perhaps to join with other quiet voices elsewhere.
I spent Friday in the British Library at St Pancras, where I read some nineteenth century books about political arrangements in first-century Rome. Later, back at my computer, I received a circular email from the BL chief executive.
It was about the public sector spending review settlement, more commonly known as ‘the cuts’. After a 3% cut in 2010/11, the library has already made savings in the areas of acquisitions, preservation, and routine maintenance. The cuts now mean a further reduction in spending of 15% over four years, while the annual capital budget has been halved. This means that by 2014/15 the British Library will be funded at the lowest level since its creation in 1972.
This is Britain’s flagship library, a symbol of what we mean by civilisation. Our national library will acquire fewer books, will be less able to look after the documents it already has, and will skimp on door hinges and light-fittings and escalators that work. There will be ‘reductions in staffing numbers’.
If these cuts fail to have the desired effect on the wider economy, or if the banks need another bail-out, then the British Library is already projecting further measures such as closing the Library one or more days a week and charging for Reader Passes.
Instead of pointing out that more than 50% of the electorate voted against making these kind of drastic cuts, I think it’s worth asking George Osbourne or David Cameron when they last used a public library in earnest – borrowing a book, or slipping in to read the paper. Either answer is depressing. If so long ago that they can’t remember, then they know nothing of what the country stands to lose. If it was recently, then they know and don’t care.
I suspect, as I think we all suspect, that the answer is more likely to be the former than the latter. This is the Tory way. We could ask them when they last played tennis on a municipal court or attended a drop-in music session laid on by the local council – photo-ops for political advantage don’t count.
They think they know what they’re doing. They tell us they have no choice. And soon, when the libraries close, the people they claim to lead will be less likely to share what I learned in the library on Friday. The Romans, too, thought that with all their learning, their philosophy and poets and religions, that civilisation could never again go backwards. That’s what they said before a thousand years of the Dark Ages – we’ve come far enough, the world can’t go backwards now.
 New French Stash I know I keep promising to post up the first pages of J’suis pas plus con, or rather, I promised once and I always keep my promises.
I have, however, been distracted by two issues. Computer malfunctions, which are boring. And stash.
As an ambitious rugby player, I used to have the same hunger for stash as everyone else. ’Stash’ was the stuff that came with selection to a team. Stash is the extras, the perks, the over-and-aboves, and in those days, before the ease of printing onto synthetic materials, stash was expensive and therefore reserved most often for representative teams. It was worth having.
Typical items would be tracksuits, training tops, match shorts, maybe even a team-branded bag. It was the players’ version of been there, done that. Or if you were picked on the bench, been there, haven’t done that, but got some stash so my time wasn’t completely wasted.
Stash in sport is now out of control. There is even a company called Stash, who provide exactly the kind of accessory gear I’m talking about it (as well as this magnificent design for a rugby shirt, as enabled by modern print technology) . Every team in the land, turning their backs on natural fibres, gets personalised stuff because … well, because they can.
What happens to all this gear? It gets used for its original purpose, just out of the packet for the important match. Then it doesn’t get used because you’re dropped from the team, or move regions and don’t want to make enemies. Then it’s worn once more for validation when you’re training juniors, as a reminder of who you once were (both to them and to yourself.)
After that the stash stays in the attic for sentimental reasons until time drains it of meaning. I have a collection of fading sportswear emblazoned with the names of forgotten sponsors, usually local accountants or providers of ‘building services’.
 Those were the days Well this week I was reminded that stash also exists for writers. I’m immensely pleased with the bookmarks and the posters made for the French edition of Dry Bones by In Octavo. Stash for the writer, like stash for the rugby player, is confirmation that the core activity (the writing/playing) doesn’t come anywhere near reflecting the amount of work that goes into even the smallest triumph. Stash is tangible evidence that the effort was intended to create a world that can grow, that is growing, that can generate clothing and stationery and (why not?) cigarette lighters.
My X 20 Zippo cigarette lighter, the brainchild of Harper Collins, remains the best bit of writer’s stash I’ve ever had.
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About Me
About Richard Beard
I'm a novelist and non-fiction writer, and Director of The National Academy of Writing in London. As time goes by I'm gradually transferring the material from the old site (stories, articles, squibs) into the categories tabbed above. There's information on each of my books, with summaries and reviews, and now that I'm permanently back in the country I'm available for events and readings. Email me using Contact, below. I'll get back to you.
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