Dipped back into poetry for a spell. What started as a uni task turned into something that inspired a full story…

Some of you may have come here by way of Instagram or Facebook, and if that’s the case, then great! Either way, you probably know I’m not normally one for poetry. I was once upon a time, when it was the only real creative writing you got to do in school. But after GCSE English, I was so focused on writing the Berylford books (plus I didn’t do English Literature at A-Level), my love and competence for poetry just vanished. Until now, where I present something I’m calling A Modern Wasteland.

A few weeks ago, as part of my Masters, I was required to read T.S. Eliot’s famous The Waste Land. To sum up a rather complex and important Modernist piece, it is a 434-line blending of various episodes of British society, cultural references and different languages. Furthermore, it is broken up into five sections, each with their own tones, narrators, themes and so on. I do actually urge poetry lovers to give it a go. Its deeper meanings might not be clear from the outset, but isn’t that half the fun? Anyway, we were asked to write versions of our own. And after writing the first segment GIVE NOT WHAT IS HOLY TO DOGS, I enjoyed it so much (and the feedback received), I decided to finish the remaining three.

A MODERN WASTELAND

I. GIVE NOT WHAT IS HOLY TO DOGS

Herein lies the lesson

That my father confirmed upon me

That no solace may be taken

In hapless acts of generosity

With the landscape mired in vagrancy

Aggressive begging and

The self-righteous shouting after

The lords and ladies of the land

Who oblige them with little less

Than the silent contempt they deem them due

But never resort to rehome their coins

Stay cold as they pass through.

Are there no prisons? No poorhouses?

The homeless should go there.

If they’d rather die, they’d better do it:

Their fate’s their own affair.

Confer upon them no funds:

No shilling, penny, or pound

For honour is rare in their intentions

Booze and drugs are what’s to be found.

Admittedly, not too many cultural references in there. Two, to be frank, and one is in the title of the segment. Give Not What is Holy to Dogs comes from The Sermon on the Mount — the only part of it that I actually know. And so the three lines that follow it form the titles for the succeeding segments of this poem. The other reference some may know if you’re big fans of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Three lines in there that are quite applicable to the attitudes towards the poor and homeless in the UK.

FUTURE

I’m likely to publish the remaining parts on my channels in due course. But the best thing to come out of this, apart from a renewed interest in poetry, is the decision to expand the entire storyline into a prose piece. More likely a short story or novel, rather than a Berylford Scandal-length novel. Tentatively titled Ode of a Godless Man, I may begin work on that in and around my continuation of You Can Hear Chopin from the Attic, and the projects I’ve committed to for uni.

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It’s been a while since we discussed the wartime thriller. So let’s bring you all up to speed…!

Too often on this blog do I seem to be saying, “It’s been a while!” Apologies — been gone a few months. Needed a bit of a break from the fiction side of things while things picked up on the journalism side. Sales of Sin & Secrecy have been disappointing, to put not too fine a point on it — I’m putting that down to people being careful with money due to the pandemic. And also, I started a Masters in Creative Writing & Publishing at Bournemouth University, which has been taking up my time too. More on that if you’d care to hear it, but in a future post. This update is to be dedicated to my latest major project, You Can Hear Chopin from the Attic.

The last in-depth update I issued about this project was back in January 2019. And the main reason that nothing noteworthy happened to it in all that time is that I ended up revising and publishing Sin & Secrecy instead. It was always my plan to come back to it, and now, after a hiatus of nearly six months, I finally got back into it last weekend.

WHAT IS YOU CAN HEAR CHOPIN FROM THE ATTIC ABOUT?

In a departure from the settings explored in The Berylford Scandals, i.e. Regency period England, this new novel, You Can Hear Chopin from the Attic transports us to Berlin in 1943. Most of the action is set at the Heinrichsturme Hotel, one of the last luxury establishments in the city neither doubling as a hospital or a barracks, nor blown apart by bombs. The story follows Heinrich Oeunhausen, the precocious young manager of the hotel, whose duties are divided between keeping his guests satisfied, his business operational, and his staff safe. All of these are impeded by the presence of a gaggle of SS officers and other Nazi Party members, led by the formidable Standartenführer Leopold Upfauer.

Heinrich is pressured to join the Party himself, but is reluctant to do so for a number of reasons, not least because his young wife Sofie is mentally ill and a target of the Nazis. For her protection, he has her shut away within the hotel, her condition placated only by music provided by Itzhak Zylberman, an elderly Jewish musician who must play endlessly for the sake of his life. As if all these secrets weren’t enough, Heinrich’s latest trouble comes in the form of glamorous and impetuous journalist Cordelia Knesebeck, whose snooping quickly risks exposing everything he has set out to hide. But she has an agenda of her own, and soon enough, one is forced to help the other, with no shortage of casualties along the way.

 INFLUENCES AND INSPIRATIONS

Originally the idea came in a dream – literally the image of a pair of people climbing up to an attic, where they find an old man playing Chopin on the piano – specifically the Nocturne in G Major (one of my favourites). That slowly developed the more I thought about it into a story of false imprisonment – I don’t know when that all warped into the wartime thriller it has become now. Some of you may think there’s a parallel there with Roman Polanski’s The Pianist, the story of classical musician Władysław Szpilman. The story is a light inspiration, admittedly, but my Itzhak Zylberman will be an entirely different kind of character in the grand scheme of things.

The hotel setting is partly down to familiarity, as I have spent a lot of my working life in such establishments, so there are plenty of experiences to draw from. Both dramatic and comedic (there will be some light moments in this novel or it’s going to be awfully heavy). The decision was also made from an intellectual perspective — how hotels in Germany ran during the war is a largely unexplored topic (in fiction, anyway). As such, it will be fun to research.

Meanwhile, the characters’ appearances, personalities, and interrelationships are partly inspired by the people I was closest to at the time — my friends and colleagues from my days working at Nationwide Building Society.

Want to know more? Let me know if you want a Chapter Preview or a Character Profile for the next post about You Can Hear Chopin from the Attic. Why not let me know in the comments? For more author news and views, my Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages are here.