My most recent five minute review can be viewed here: http://www.theswindonian.co.uk/five-minute-review-how-to-get-filthy-rich-in-rising-asia-by-mohsin-hamid/
Review
An Honest Rejection
Yesterday I experienced my first authorship rejection. It also marked the first time that a group of people didn’t consider my work to be truly, fabulously, awesome. Weirdos.
The piece was short, a 500 word review which described a recent experience I had at a local restaurant. After working through a few drafts, I finally submitted the piece to the web content editor and moved on to the next mini-saga that is my life. In truth the post was quickly forgotten because a) I spew out a lot of waffle articles and b) like all my work it was a mini masterpiece, something that children will look at in the years to come and think “wow, Swindon really had some rubbish eateries in 2017”.
And therein lies why my article was rejected. The email that I had expected to contain a link to my work contained instead a put down. The web content editor had made the decision not to publish my review due to the tongue-in-cheek negativity portrayed in the copy. I forced myself to read the email again to be certain that I’d read the electronic text correctly. Realising that my article had indeed been rejected I shoved my laptop under the bed and grumbled into a cup of tea. You know, the kind of response mature people adopt.
A couple of hours later, after a sufficient amount of tea and biscuits had been consumed, I calmly reread the short email again. This time I was able to gain some reassurance at least that the quality of my writing wasn’t to blame. Essentially I had been rejected for not pampering to a catering outlet which, in my mind, didn’t quite reach the mark on the night I visited. I still stand by my views and remain of a firm opinion that any venue, author or artist should be open to both positive and negative criticism. I know that my reader base would quickly bore of my writing or disbelieve its authenticity if everything I wrote was a falsehood of how wonderfully magical everything is underneath our blue skies. Free speech and my own personal sanity is dependent on balance.
Like hitting writer’s block and slowly improving my work over time, I don’t view this rejection as a bad experience but a new one. I now know that that whilst this particular outlet has no qualms with the quality of my work, they only want to hear good news stories, not controversial. I wish they’d told me that before but at least I understand the lay of the land. What can I say? Haters gonna hate…negative writing. Besides, they’re not paying me anyway.
On the flipside, the other news outlet I freelance for love balance and spicy writing so they have happily published my work (huzzah!) You can check out the rejected review here:
http://www.theswindonian.co.uk/girl-about-town-biplob-tandoori-old-town/
Girl About Town: Biplob Tandoori (Old Town)
My recent review on a local Tandoori restaurant gave burns hotter than their curries.
http://www.theswindonian.co.uk/24429/271585/a/girl-about-town-biplob-tandoori-old-town
Five Minute Review: Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
One classic novel, five modern minutes to write up its review…
Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy is a novel which depicts the relaxed pace of life in the countryside of 19th century England. It essentially tells the tale of three men from different backgrounds fighting for the love of one woman. You come to dislike them all to more or lesser degrees. Bathsheba (yes, that is her name) is a character with little warmth to her personality and, like all urban dwellers of the period, treats her rural tenants like dirt on her shoe. There’s Gabriel Oak, a hapless shepherd which following disaster finds himself working for the rich and snobbish Bathsheba. To say Oak is obsessed with Bathsheba would be a vast understatement. It’s no plot spoiler to say he proposes to Bathsheba and gets turned down within the first couple of chapters (keen much?). Then you’ve got the more maturely aged farmer Boldwood who, after receiving a wicked joke Valentine’s card, becomes infatuated with our female lead. Finally there’s Sergeant Troy, a passing army figure and notorious womaniser. Guess which one Bathsheba takes a shine to?
People often get doe eyed with the English rural landscapes depicted in this novel, but I don’t see it. To me this novel depicted country folk as a backwards breed who spend all their time rambling on and on about nothing at all. One of the few times I felt sympathy for Oak was when he was trying to get urgent help but had to contend with a bunch of idiotic drunkards in a pub. Who is going to give you money for booze if your mistress is dead Mr. Poorgrass, WHO?
Like a lot of literature from this period of writing, footnotes take dominance across most pages and the copy had religious and general ‘thing’ references which I imagine very few people would be able to understand two centuries later. I started off trying to read all the footnotes but quickly gave up when I found I was spending more time reading footnotes than I was when I was at university. Unfortunately it meant that supposedly hilarious jokes and witty comments made absolutely no sense.
If you’re a fan of Austen you’ll like this but Stephen King obsessives keep well away.
Girl About Town: 20 at The Kings
Alongside news outlet The Swindonian, I’ve started doing freelance work for the ‘what’s on’ website Total Swindon too. Check out my recent review on Swindon based restaurant, 20 at The Kings, here:
Five Minute Review: The Food of Love by Anthony Capella
Ergh, do I have to spend five minutes on this? Ok, fine.
The Food of Love by Anthony Capella is a rom-com novel, based in and around the streets of Rome, Italy. The plot follows the story of two Italian men who work in the restaurant industry, as they fight for the love of one woman (what’s new there?) The more attractive of the two, self-styled player Tommaso, woos the fair American student, Laura, first by convincing her of his extraordinary culinary skills. The catch? He cannot cook to save his life. However his roommate, the less attractive and uncharismatic chef Bruno, can. Secondary catch, he too is in love with Laura (dun, dun, duuun). So instead of confessing his love what does he do? He helps his player friend by teaching him culinary skills to charm the fair lady, thus becoming the ultimate wing man/gooseberry. Unsurprisingly as the lie gets bigger so too does the (supposedly) hilarious consequences.
As my sister noted when I told her the synopsis, The Food of Love story is basically an Italian version of the Disney film Ratatouille. If you liked that story, but wanted something with more sex, swearing and over sexualisation of mushrooms then you’ll probably enjoy this. *
I should have known that this book would not be an Austen or Orwell when I picked it up in a charity shop for 50p (on sale). At the time I needed a light read as a rest bite from more serious subject matter. No guesses for where my copy will be swiftly going back to in the next week.
*FYI rats and bestiality do not feature in this novel, at least the author didn’t stoop to that level.
Girl About Town: Swindon Town Centre in Review
Click below to read the controversial article that has sparked comments such as “Born and Bred Here. Even I say the Town is Crap”, “It’s like Syria with 99p shops” and, my favourite, “This is a poorly written article with a plethora of spelling errors”.
http://www.theswindonian.co.uk/20429/262176/a/girl-about-town-swindon-town-centre-in-review
Five Minute Review: Five Go on a Strategy Away Day (Parody) by Bruno Vincent
Five little minutes, one little book. This one should be easy…
Five Go on a Strategy Away Day (hereafter “Five Go…“) by Bruno Vincent is a short story based on the original Famous Five classics written by Enid Blyton in the 1940s/50s. At only 105 pages long, Five Go… is a quick book to pick up and complete in one sitting. As a slightly slower reader I was able to read this title cover to cover during my train commute (and that’s with two train changes in between). Perfect if you want something to easily tackle in one go, less of an interest if you’re looking for a more long term investment that you’ll come back to time and time again.
The story follows Julian, Dick, George, Anne and Timmy the dog as they tackle the nightmares of a poorly managed team away day. As I read this there were certainly some laugh out loud moments. More than anything because, as someone who has previously had to help organise team building days on a budget, I can heavily relate to some of the scenarios contained in these pages (Eg, “I’ve got 485 unread emails back at the office, so why am I here?” [sic]).
Five Go… isn’t a book to go for if you’re looking for value for money, no doubt my copy will stay on the shelf for a number of months before it gets relegated to a charity shop (as per the millions of other copies in circulation around the country), however it was a nice little pick up to cheer me up and take my mind off work and world issues, even if for just an hour or two.
Five Minute Review: The Garden In The Clouds by Antony Woodward
Five minutes, one book, one review.
The Garden in the Clouds by Antony Woodward is an autobiographical novel depicting the author’s move from London to the Welsh borders. Woodward’s narration of events takes the reader down the rocky journey he personally experienced in his attempts to get his five-acre plot into the famous National Gardens Scheme (alias ‘the Yellow Book’).
Whilst this book is humorous and light hearted, you get a strong feeling of the inner frustration, difficultly and financial resources ploughed into what I personally thought was a rather unattractive house and garden to start with. I felt the author’s London background resulted in a writing style that overly romanticised country life to a point where it sounded like all rural folk are cheery, friendly people, happy to assist with demolished walls caused by clumsy urban folk wanting a taste of ‘the good life’. I’ll save you the trouble of finding out for yourself, we’re not.
This was a nice little read when sat in the bleakness of January, but I wouldn’t view The Garden in the Clouds as a particularly inspiring tale. It paints a sickly, unrealistic, image of rural life that has not existed for fifty years. Woodward’s need to become ‘at one’ with the landscape seemed so stereotypical you’d think he’d Googled ‘country life’ and adopted all the hobbies that came up on the listing. The National Garden’s Scheme, using a vintage tractor to make hay, keeping bees, in fact all that was missing was sheep farming (unfortunately his neighbour beat him to that one). If I was him I’d have saved myself the time, money and stress and bought myself somewhere in the South of France.
Five Minute Review: Empire of The Sun by JG Ballard
Five minutes to write a review on a recent read. Here we go:
Empire of The Sun by JG Ballard is a semi-autobiographical novel set in Shanghai (China) during the Japanese occupation of the 1940s.
The novel and centres itself Jim, a young boy born and raised in the Western ex-pat district of the city. Setting the scene on the eve of the Pearl Harbour bombings, what follows is a dramatic series of events resulting in Jim’s separation from his family and the experiences faced by the pre-teen as he fends for himself in Shanghai and in a series of labour camps. Despite all the horrors unfurling around him, Jim maintains an eerie calmness throughout, which is perhaps more disturbing at points than the war crimes themselves. The bright light of an atomic bomb takes the plot down a somewhat more dystopian route as the Japanese soldiers flee and the Western survivors and Chinese communists fight over what little remains. Ultimately Jim comes out of the War alive but a markedly changed person from the little boy we’re introduced to at the start.
Ballard’s novel is by no means an easy read. As the plot progressed I found myself increasingly frustrated by Jim’s naivety towards the growingly desperate situation, especially when it opened him up for other prisoners to take advantage. I am prepared to accept though that if I was a 11 year old in a work camp I might have adopted a similar coping mechanism. Regardless of this Empire of The Sun paints a fair reflection of the often overlooked period of Japanese occupation in China and the work camps. When so much has been written about World War Two in the West it was refreshing to read something with an Eastern focus.
My Housemate's a Mermaid 