Which Rules Rule?

And deep breath….

Hello! This post I would like to talk to you about this book.

The Rules by Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider. There it is, all red and judgemental and 90s.

Now. You may well ask: “Siouxsie, this seems like a radical departure from your usual blog content. What gives?’

You, bless your heart.

And I would agree with you. As a rule, I keep a respectful distance between myself and the self-help department unless it is to gaze with fascinated horror at the shelf of David Icke conspiracy theories or to pick up useful looking books on improving my dog’s self-esteem. (None of which have worked, by the way. He’s currently in a co-dependant relationship with a bikini clad rubber chicken).

We're all very worried.

My knowledge of The Rules, therefore, was formerly limited to a vague cultural awareness and a suspicion that I may or may not have seen Carrie Bradshaw waffling on about them in a breathless-type way whilst slobbing around an apartment large enough to make you believe in the Tardis. (No otherwise unemployed newspaper columnist could afford that many square feet in central Manhattan, surely?)

Yeah, my freelance writing job totally pays for this

My life could have continued happily in this semi-ignorant state but for my mother. The same mother that once put shampoo in the washing machine, my DVD rentals in the airing cupboard and a Christmas holly wreath on my head came home with this bizarre offering from our local charity shop.

At this point, it should be noted that I have been in a stable relationship for three years. Of which she approves. My mother took a left turn at the traffic lights of reason many years ago and has never looked back.

Anyway. Back to The Rules. This edition is a bitesize version of the actual book. It contains maxims and handy pocket-sized advice on sticking to the programme.  It took me a little while to realise I had met my nemesis.

So far so good.

That seems reasonable.

Erm… What?

This little book served as a gateway drug to the real thing. The entire programme surfs the addictive crest between common sense and total batshit lunacy.

For example: One of the book’s main ‘Rules’ states:

Try not to overshare during the first stages of dating.

Ok. Yes. I can back this one. Don’t you hate it when you meet someone for the first time and within twenty minutes could write the first draft of their biography? Yeah, that really gets on my…

Wait. Were you saying something? Sorry, do go on…

I’m sorry? Are these people for real? Have they ever met a woman? Is this based on their own pre-rules dating lives? Did their diaries read:

Dear Diary,

Met up with Frank tonight. Went to a lovely Italian restaurant. I wore my tight jeans and a cute top. Everything seemed to be going so well! But diary, as soon as I mentioned I might need to pop into the little girls’ room every half hour to top up on magical fairy pixie dust, he seemed to go cold on me! I just don’t understand! What am I doing wrong here?

Oops, got to go, my septum just fell out again.

Oh well. YOLO. LOL.

Who is the person who needed to purchase this in order to realise that that’s where they were going wrong?

"The rule is don't talk about your inner shame? Damn. messed up again!"

 

But perhaps this says more about the authors’ attitude towards alcohol than a real problem in the New York dating scene of the 1990s. It swiftly becomes clear that Fein and Schneider would perhaps have been happier living and loving during the prohibition era. In the multitude of scenarios presented to us in the book, hawt sexy singletons are delicately sipping Perriers on dates and in clubs. Alcohol is presented as an unsafe topic of conversation during a first date – remember, you’re trying to hide your dependency –  or as a signifier of a potential bad catch: he’s downed a whole bottle of wine to himself during the date… might he be…. An alcoholic?!?

This man thinks he is.

In reality, of course, it’s less likely that your sozzled date has a dependency problem. You’re just boring him to tears.

Tips for a first date, Rules style:

-          Avoid looking at him.

-         Be quiet and mysterious.

-          Cross your legs and smile.

-         Don’t talk so much.

-         Hike up your skirt to show some stocking.

-         Never go Dutch.

-          Don’t tell sarcastic jokes.

-          Don’t be a loud, knee slapping (?), hysterically funny girl.

Remember, you might feel like this will suppress your intelligence and personality… but men will love it!

Oh good. Glad we don’t have to compromise there, then. But there is light at the end of the tunnel. By date four, we are told, it is appropriate to show sympathy if his football team loses or his dog dies. Oh. Four dates in I’m allowed to act like a human being if someone’s fucking pet kicks the bucket?  Lovely.  It was really awkward on that first date when he told me his fish died and I had to try and be quiet and mysterious about it. I think he thought I killed it.

How can he commit to you and not to me? This will not stand, Rex.

But maybe we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. We’re starting on a date. How does one acquire such a rendezvous, one might ask?

In the freakiest manner possible, it transpires.

Firstly, one must never initiate a date. Men are aggressors apparently. Any sign of interest from the weaker sex will cause this man-beast’s brain to short-circuit. He may say yes, they say sniffily:  but he will resent it forever – EVEN IF HE MARRIES YOU.

Don't be fooled, Mrs. Bear. He's seething with raging hatred. Quick, check he's not crossing his fingers.... or holding a shiv.

So. To catch a man without showing any apparent interest in him at all:

-           If you have a bad nose, get a nose job. (Because seriously, fuck self-esteem).

-       Grow your hair long: Men prefer long hair. It doesn’t matter what your friends think. (Or you. But you should know that by now. Your opinions are worthless in the face of superior man-knowledge, fool. Snip-snip and you may just get the old chop-chop!)

-     Don’t leave the house without wearing makeup. Even to go jogging. (…Ew.)

-         Never make eye contact. Smile at the room. (unfocussed joy is sexy, ladies.)

-     If no one asks you to dance, (because it’s so awkward when even Elizabeth Bennett gets a dance before you *cringe*): go to the bathroom five times if you have to, reapply your lipstick, powder your nose, order more water from the bar (whoa there, don’t go crazy), think happy thoughts and walk around the room in circles until someone notices you.

    Yup. If you’re having a bad night, don’t go and dance with your girlfriends…

    go and walk around the room in circles like a normal person.

The party was a disaster. No one had invited any men, but two women collapsed from exhaustion.

   What a wonderful evening out. I wish I lived like that. But then, the authors seem to thrive on the concept of healthy exercise whilst at social gatherings. Here’s another scenario:

   He’s noticed you and you’re talking. But, being the tedious creature that you are, you may not wish to carry on speaking for too long. Far too forward. Your voice is offensive to the race of man. You may start talking about shoes. Don't lie, you were thinking about shoes... bloody woman.

Politely make your bid for freedom by announcing: ‘I think I’ll walk around now’.

Byee!

 I just can’t process this. We’re not taking a turn around the room at the bloody Bath Pump Rooms in an Austen novel. Could everyone just stand still a minute?

So. You’ve caught a man’s attention. Maybe he’s an obsessive rambler who mistakes you for a kindred spirit with all that bloody leg-work you’re doing. You went on a date and somehow managed to avoid honking like a performing seal whilst disclosing your inner drugs turmoil. Well done. Chances are he’ll ask you out again.

Fantastic. Logic dictates you should start acting like a rational human being now, right?

WRONG!

Sister, if he ain’t put a ring on it, you’re doing jack. You don’t return his calls. You continue to act demure and mysterious, and above all you resist contributing to the progression of the relationship in any way. Like the idea of checking out that new Japanese place? Forget it. That’s his call. And he likes pizza, the swine.

Got two tickets to an awesome show? Nuh-uh. Shows you’re thinking about him. Plus you’ll have committed the cardinal sin of opening your wallet and paying for something. Shocked intake of breath ladies and gentlemen if you please.

So why the games? Because, according to the book, you’re trying to get a ring on it within a year. Maximum two. It is taken as read that the minute you start to date a man, any rational female will be starting to plan the wedding cake. This, apparently, is healthy as long as you keep it well hidden. But be warned. Some men, it transpires, may date for up to five years!

Five years?! No! The Philistines!

And before you set the date you can kiss goodbye to sharing a flat, you hussy. Want to go on holiday for more than a few days? Forget it. It’s honeymoon or nothing, buster.

(To be honest, holidays are a topic best avoided. If a man is falling out of love with you, be warned: he may say something along the lines of ‘Lose weight and I’ll take you on holiday’. Wow. I'll sure miss that one when I'm burying the body.) 

There’s even a confusing paragraph about continuing to date other men right up until the proposal.

Yup. Commitment’s for suckers.

But finally, the ring is superglued into place. The church bells have rung and Bridezilla here has made three flower girls cry. It's been a long two (*snort*) years, but it's worth it. We've reached the end of the line games-wise, surely?

Oh no, no, no, no, no! Are you crazy? You're going to let out all that raw personality you've been bottling up? Bad move, darlin'. He may start abusing you. (No, I'm not exaggerating too much here. Rules girls never get beaten, apparently. The others... well the others take their lives into their own hands.) Try to be interested in his hobbies. Don't expect him to see things from your point of view all the time. Try not to be too resentful when he comes home stressed and you've been cleaning all day.

Seriously. It's like the Pankhursts, voting rights and the Spice Girls never happened. 

And Heterosexual ladies past the legal age aren’t the only targets. No. People of the LGBT community must also conform. In a hideously patronising section (have you, gay men and women, gone through a lifetime of hurt?) it is suggested that even being on the same biological keel as your partner should not stop you acting like a complete head-case. This raises the question of what would happen if two people both following The Rules were to go on a date. Both staring demurely at their food, trying not to be funny and subtly trying to show off a bit more underwear. Fun times. Let’s just hope no-one mentions any dead pets.

The perfect crime...

Speaking of conformity, those of you under the legal marriageable age aren’t forgotten! Nope. Best to get some practice in early, ladies! Nip that personality in the bud.

-          Notice what kinds of clothes, shoes, bags, jewellery and hair-styles the most popular kids in school are wearing. Don’t try to be too different or frugal in this area. You’ll feel lousy, so it’s not worth it. Don’t let your mind tell you that all of this is superficial and beneath you. Don’t you like boys who wear polo shirts and cowboy boots when that’s in fashion? Well, they like girls who wear what’s on MTV and in the magazines.

I'm blinded by my own inanity.

I’m going to have to stop soon because, really, reading this once was enough without flicking back through the pages for references.

And the sad thing is, it won’t even make a dent. This isn’t the first edition of this Bible of dating for psychotics. And, in the interim, the authors have noticed that not a lot of people like what they’re saying. So they’ve sewn it up pretty tight.

Men who say they don’t date Rules girls are lying.

Women who argue against the rules are well-meaning but ultimately misguided feminists whose own relationships are bound to be riddled with neglect and sadness.

This is a common theme in the book. Fein and Schneider have more case studies than David Cameron come election time.

BRB. Off to meet some peepz.

Cindy did the rules and is now perched on an actual physical pedestal made of gold where her loving and slightly Stockholm-syndrome husband scatters petals over her serenely smiling figure hourly.

Katie didn’t do the rules and now she’s living in an abandoned caravan in Swindon with chewing gum in her hair being relentlessly pelted with eggs by songbirds and small cherubic children.

Swindon.

Take heed, my friends, take heed.

And They All Lived Happily Ever After...

It’ll come as no surprise to anyone who’s met me that I like talking about books. I like talking about books a lot. When it comes to novels, I can – and often do – talk the hind leg off a donkey (then sell it to Findus for a reasonable fee).

Horses for main courses. I'll get my coat.

My job does little to curb this habit, and as a result it’s no surprise that the same phrases pop up over and over again. Case in point #1: ‘Unputdownable’.  I hate this one. That is NOT a word.

 Case in point #2: ‘I never wanted it to end’. This one I understand. It is a fascinating feature of the human brain that, when faced with a narrative construct; be it a book, film or play, it voluntarily overrides its capacity for disbelief and encourages you to react emotionally to the story.

With a well written book, this naturally means that you form quasi-emotional attachments to the characters. 300-odd pages later, you are wrenched from their lives, never to meet them again. Life is cruel, and Hollywood adaptations are often crueller, distorting characters, plot points and story-arcs beyond all recognition. Of course you don’t want the book to end.

Ugh. Ricky Gervais.

But end they must. If not, you end up with one of those bloated series of books that even the fans are dying for closure from.

Thank... GOD.

A book’s ending can mark it for life. I’m going to make a confession here. I HATE Jane Eyre. Loathe it. And to prove this to you I’m not even going to touch the central relationship between Jane and Mr. Rochester. The VILE relationship between Jane and Mr. Rochester. 

Jane Eyre’s ending is one of the most dissatisfying conclusions of any novel I have ever read. Let’s take a look at the final chapter. It begins with the line ‘Reader, I married him’. Cue swooning, fireworks and uncomfortable questions as to how healthy a decision this actually is. 

We are then subjected to that trope of narrative fiction – the ten-years-on retrospective epilogue. Flying in the face of the golden rule ‘show, don’t tell’, every bit part player gets a paragraph or two summarising their own happy ending (or lack of). It’s a tedious, unimaginative and frankly ridiculous way to end a novel. I’ve just picked up my old GCSE copy of the text, and scrawled under each paragraph is scribbled and angry face and ‘WHO CARES?!’ Safe to say, ten years distance has not changed my opinion.

Why am I picking on Jane Eyre, though? The retrospective epilogue is a widely used format, and there are infinitely more sprawling versions widely (and sadly) available. Here’s why. This whole, horrible, sickly ending was made possible by…

------------------------------ MASSIVE 19^th CENTURY PLOT SPOILER-------------------

Mr. Rochester’s mad wife burning to death in attic in which he has her locked.

Charming.

Let’s recap: One of English Literature’s greatest romantic heroes is a man who locks women up at the slightest sign of mental illness.

What else was he to do? Oh, well, you know… Divorce?

Seriously. Henry VIII made humping and dumping legal in the 16^th Century. It was never revoked. Yet In lots of the great love stories written between that time and the Twentieth Century, a wife or husband is presented as an unmovable obstacle to Twu Wuv. What did authors in the mean-time think divorce was? A stupid horse?

Divorce, geddit? Div Horse? ... I'll get me coat.

Now it’s obvious that having Rochester serving legal papers to his wife would have made for a slightly less dramatic story, but there’s a whole sea of possible solutions between that and enforced captivity.

Sign these. Or it's the attic for you.

In conclusion, the only positive that I can take from Jane Eyre is that it serves as very useful context for Jean Rhys’ excellent novel Wide Sargasso Sea.

--------- END OF MASSIVE 19^TH CENTURY PLOT SPOILER ----

Moving on, I hope that by ripping shreds into one of our best-loved classics, I have started to make my extremely ranty point. No matter how engaging the characters, how thrilling the plot, end with a fizzle and everything goes out of the window. Long boring epilogues are by no means the only way to achieve this. I have just finished reading Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff.

 And I really really enjoyed it. It’s a fun, high-octane romp through a world where good and evil have organised, mad old bag ladies have made beneficial deals with God when it comes to scratch cards, and bubble guns shoot out death by natural causes. In the middle of this is a pervading theme of pedophilia which could have easily come across as exploitative, but somehow holds the plot together perfectly.

I was racing through this story at high speed, desperate for closure for what becomes a very tense narrative when I hit the brakes hard. Twice. There they were…

Not one, but two perfectly unnecessary and woefully underdeveloped plot twists that hit hard, one after the other, in an M Night Shyamalan-esque display of ‘twist for twist’s sake’. They threw the story horribly off-kilter and brought all of the intrigue to a screeching halt. Puzzled, I put the book down. Why does this happen? I’ve worked in publishing for long enough to know that novels are not like coursework essays. They aren’t written chronologically, leaving the author on deadline-eve high on caffeine and Ben&Jerry’s desperately trying to bring the plot to any conclusion possible. Not in any publishing company I’ve come across, anyway. Somewhere there might be an editor waiting with a stop-watch and red pen at the ready, waiting to scrawl a big F in the margins, and possibly even the terrifying ‘See Me’ at the bottom – but I doubt it. 

Sorry, Mr. Dickens, but we have some concerns about the ending...

If this blog post serves any purpose, I hope it will be to encourage its very limited readership to demand MORE from their fiction, and to put it out there that ‘Classic’ does not necessarily equal ‘Flawless’. Like all consumer products, fiction is constantly shifting and evolving to meet the demands of the consumer (hence our shop’s bewildering array of 50 Shades-alikes mouldering on a shelf).

Endings should not be consigned to a few throw-away lines. They serve as the final impression a reader will have of the book. Make them count.

The End

Epilogue:

The author went on to have a very satisfying dinner of salmon and rice and is now eyeing the chocolate biscuits with interest.

Jane Eyre remained unaffected by the author’s criticism and still resides in the classic literature section with Mr. Rochester.

Henry VIII is still dead.

M Night Shyamalan is probably working on a twist within a twist within a twist.  

Cover Girl

So, it’s been a while. 

To be frank, I have no excuse but for a spectacular case of writer’s block. To put this into perspective, please note that before my previous hard drive fritzed itself into oblivion, (taking with it 10 years of photos and music), there was a word doc permanently open, waiting for my thoughts and feelings regarding a book. One specific book: The Rules According to JWOWW!

I wonder what she's measuring?

I never thought that there would be a barrel I wouldn’t scrape in order to secure an easy laugh. But this book, by Jersey Shore ‘Guidette’ Jeni  Farley, proved to be my Waterloo. I read the book from cover to cover, I really did. And honestly, it was exactly what you’d expect. There’s very little fun to be had (as I discovered) in attempting to mock something you knew would be completely mockable.  And so, for two months the document sat accusingly in my task bar as I gradually deleted its contents. When my hard drive gave up the ghost, only one part of my review remained. A quote taken from the book, along with the only picture that could possibly do it any justice. Before moving on, therefore, I present you with my review of The Rules According to JWOWW! – A.K.A: The Unsnarkable rules of Jeni Farley .

‘Hanging with the hottest gorilla in the club’.

There. With that out of the way, let’s move on to something ENTIRELY unexpected.

Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar is celebrating (is that the right word?) its fiftieth year of publication. It’s a sad truth that despite its brilliance, it never received the attention or praise of her poetic works. Nevertheless, if the words ‘Sylvia Plath’ are in any way familiar to you, you won’t need to have read the novel to know it’s not a feel-good romp. Frolics, hi-jinks and humorous lessons on life, love and shopping are notably absent. Throw in the biographical detail that her suicide followed publication by a few short months and the clouds darken ever further over the novel. In an extract from a letter written to her mother Plath writes: “…I think it will show how isolated a person feels when he is suffering a breakdown... I've tried to picture my world and the people in it as seen through the distorting lens of a bell jar.”

So imagine my surprise when the new, 50^th anniversary edition of the book plopped merrily onto my trolley.

Look back at the quote, now back at the cover. Quote… cover… quote… cover…

… I know, right?

Many column inches have been filled over the weekend on this topic. The the cover has been ridiculed almost unanimously for missing the point by a very wide margin indeed.

I have to admit that the vitriol expressed has been slightly unwarranted. Yes, it bears no relevance to the book’s contents in the slightest, but the wailing and gnashing of teeth is, let’s face it, ever so slightly Over The Top.

Just tell me WHY?!?

It has been accused of being anti-feminist.

It’s a woman wearing make-up.

A woman wearing make-up is not by definition anti-feminist

.

I would cheerfully kick anyone who questioned my feminist credentials in the groin. But I would also do so to anyone attempting to rob me of my blusher and eyeliner. 

Preciousss....

Crotch kicking all round. That’s feminism.

 (nb:  please note that that is not the definition of feminism. Quote me on that and I’ll kick you i….. etc. etc.)

Insensitive? Yes. Bizarre? Yes. Demeaning? No.

I would argue that we have been heading in this direction for a very long time. Having worked with books all of my adult life, I have seen book covers of all types cross my desk and counter, and have hated a good 60% of them. Anodyne, boring and frankly bizarre, they often do the book’s contents a huge disservice. I am not alone. My colleague who runs the SciFi section of our shop emits audible groans when yet another book lands on her trolley with a mysterious cloaked figure in profile or middle distance, often accompanied by the outline of a weapon. In silhouette.

The adventures of one man and his dressing gown.

 Her point is a good one. For a bookseller passionate about extolling the virtues of science fiction to readers wary of the clichés and tropes of the genre, these covers do her no favours whatsoever.  It is painfully obvious that in many cases, no one beyond a couple of editors have bothered reading the contents before deciding on the cover. Now that’s marketing for you.

I could go on...

In my opinion, the ridiculous cover gracing The Bell Jar is the logical conclusion to years and years of awful artwork decisions. It is only because the subject is so well known for being the polar opposite to the spirit of the cover that it has attracted this level of press attention.

There are, I think, two directions in which the publishing industry can now head. Either a sea change occurs; with an increase of money, resources and (frankly) imagination going into cover art… OR we take it to the other extreme: contrapuntal jacket design.

I would genuinely love to see publishers attempt to smooth over their mistakes of the past by producing series of book jackets which deliberately and heroically miss the point. With The Bell Jar as an iconic trailblazer, the books would each be decorated with a photograph or piece of artwork which either bares absolutely no resemblance to the book’s contents, or instead focuses on entirely the wrong aspect of the story.

So taken was I by this idea that I have taken the liberty of using my prodigious Microsoft Paint skills to get the ball rolling on this one. Enjoy.

Admit it, you're all jealous of my mad Paint skillz

Sorry, I couldn't resist...

Having got the ball rolling, I'll quit whilst I'm ahead. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------- EDIT ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

This landed on my trolley today. Coincidence?!? (clearly I bought it).

Lies, And The People Who Write Them

The article below was written over the past few days, over which I have been ingesting large amounts of pain medication for a frozen back. This may have added or detracted from the quality. Feel free to let me know which...

When I think back on my childhood, it often strikes me that I was potentially a little bit… strange. Quite delusional, in fact.  I was once so jealous of a neighbour’s holiday to Italy (I had spent three weeks eating midge sandwiches and falling off roadside cliffs near a rainy loch in Scotland), that, in order to ‘glam up’ the situation somewhat, I convinced his entire family that the trip had been as a result of a rare genetic disease which could only be treated in a remote area of the Highlands. My rave reviews of the Scottish NHS proved so credible that his poor mother came over bearing gifts and sympathy, to the total bemusement of my own family.

Scottish summer: you can see why I lied...

I am sure, however, that the lies I told were never malicious. I lived half in / half out of an extraordinary world of children’s literature – and it seemed to me that my suburban English life just didn’t match up. It was all very unfair.

My parents steadfastly refused to become anything other than what they were. Although they displayed a level of eccentricity, this was somewhat limited to my dad playing the recorder and developing an unfortunate taste for socks with sandals. My mother seemed more promising. She  had a Gallic temper prone to wild tantrums, a belief that all products with the word ‘conditioner’ were interchangeable and laboured under the misapprehension that sending me to school with a bowl haircut somehow didn’t constitute child cruelty. In the end, though, they remained quintessentially embarrassing rather than mysterious.

Ever walked in to find your mum happily pouring shampoo into the washing machine? I have!

When a nanny arrived at my house, I had just finished reading the Mary Poppins series. I eyed the new arrival with hopefulness and suspicion. Sadly, she spent less time taking me on fantastical adventures through a London I never knew existed and rather more time running up exorbitant phone bills and patiently ignoring my attempts to produce lampshades from her knock-off Louis Vuitton handbag.

Perhaps my metropolitan upbringing was the problem, then? According to Enid Blyton, the countryside was dotted with ne’er-do-wells, just waiting for a small pudgy child like me to foil their plans. Conveniently, one of my grandmothers lived in an inhospitable part of the North Yorkshire Moors. After several summers spent fruitlessly searching for adventure, however, I sadly concluded that the countryside, in Yorkshire at least, was as full with sheep and their droppings, craft fairs and old people who mysteriously knew my name as it was devoid of menacing pirate-type figures.

I don't know, maybe they're just very well disguised smugglers?

It is because of this, I think, that I started to lie to myself and to those around me regarding the finer details of my life. I once gave a school presentation about my side-line job as a lion-tamer. I may have fooled precisely no one, but my classmates and teachers were nice enough to play along, at least to my face.

It may only have lasted a couple of years, but thinking of my career as an extraordinarily inept fibber makes me squirm with embarrassment. It is with some degree of relief, therefore, that I have just discovered that one of the major sources of my self-delusion was, in fact, somewhat inaccurate.

 My Family and Other Animals, by Gerald Durrell, was, is and will remain one of my favourite books of all. An autobiographical account of the great zoologist’s childhood spent roaming in a semi-feral state around Corfu, it cheerfully makes no distinction between its human and animal cast of characters. All are treated with a sort of wry amusement, deep affection and a meticulous dissemination of their strengths and foibles. 

One character with more foibles to exploit than any other is his eldest brother, Larry. A character of enormous self-importance, he stalks in a grandiose manner through the pages, doling out unwanted advice, taking almost hysterical exception to any perceived offence or challenge and displaying an attitude more commonly associated with maiden aunts in Richmal Crompton books when confronted with any of Gerry’s vast array of pets.

Having principally read this book as a child, Larry took a back seat in my affections. He was too adult a character, patronising and aloof. I preferred reading about the bird and mammal life which Gerry scooped up on his travels and inflicted upon his long-suffering family. Amongst these were Quasimodo the Pigeon, Alecko the gull, Widdle, Puke and Roger the dogs, and the magenpies. All of these served to infuriate Larry, and I sided with them wholeheartedly. I was a little sceptical when reading about Gerry’s attempts to smuggle in a family of scorpions, but when they turned on the older brother in question, I cheered them on quite happily.

In short, Larry was, if not an antagonist (he was presented with far too much humour and affection to assume that role), then certainly a model of an older brother I was so glad not to have. I couldn’t fathom how difficult it must have been to live with him. Until a few days ago.

I recently picked up The Bitter Lemons of Cyprus. A few pages in, I realised that instead of taking in the details of the story, I was instead being nagged by a feeling that I had missed a connection.  Finally, it hit me. The author, Lawrence Durrell, was Larry.

Tada!

At first, this delighted me. How much better would the world be if all giants of the literary scene were presented to us as flawed personalities, bathed in the harsh-spotlight of a child’s -eye-view?  Instead of the awed tones of literary biographies, how much more fun would it be to discover that Hilary Mantel once threw a tantrum whilst riding a donkey on Blackpool beach? Or that Will Self collected Beanie Babies until an embarrassingly advanced age? If I owned a publishing company, those would be the authors I’d seek to recruit.

That's pretty impressive, Will. But you know they're not worth anything if you cut the tags off, right?

But perhaps it’s best that I don’t. On doing a little research, I discovered that it wasn’t quite that simple. Like me, (and this is a bit of a stretch, comparison-wise), Gerald Durrell was a bit of a fibber. The Durrells did live in Corfu, and Larry did live with them. For a while. But firstly, he was married. Secondly, he only lived with the rest of his family immediately after their arrival. Shortly afterwards, he and his wife (who is never mentioned in MFaOA) moved out – and who can blame them, in an environment where a little boy was not unknown to hoard vicious and/or venomous creatures inside the house?

Should we be disappointed by this? I don’t think so. Authors (and small children) often exaggerate scenarios for comic effect, and the reading experience is all the more pleasurable for it. It may be more fashionable these days to advertise embellishments ‘on the tin’ so to speak; Jenny Lawson calls her autobiographical collection of blog posts a ‘mostly true memoir’ and Miles Kington hinted at it in the title of his book ‘Someone Like Me: Stories From a Borrowed Childhood’, but the tactic is exactly the same: enhancing comic scenarios for the benefit of the reader. Furthermore, the only potential loser from the situation would have been Lawrence himself, but he was clear-eyed enough about it all to see that, at its heart, his brother’s book captured family life with the Durrells pretty well, saying:

"This is a very wicked, very funny, and I'm afraid rather truthful book — the best argument I know for keeping thirteen-year-olds at boarding-schools and not letting them hang about the house listening in to conversations of their elders and betters."  

In other news:  vampires don’t sparkle, Hogwarts doesn't exist, owls aren't scared of the dark, inviting tigers round to tea leads to rather more than being eaten out of house and home - and I never required specialist Scottish surgery...