NO LESS THAN THE JOURNEY - Book review

E.V. Thompson’s novel No Less Than the Journey was published in 2008. To all intents and purposes it’s a western

The epigraph is ‘I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars’ from Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself: ‘the poet implied in the scheme of things a blade of grass is no less important in its way than the stars in the heavens’ (p331).

The tale primarily concerns young Cornish miner Wesley Curnow who has arrived in the United States in order to seek out his uncle who is working in the mines in Missouri and find work. On his way he befriends US Marshal Aaron Berryman. While sailing on the riverboat Missouri Belle the pair get to know two Mexican women working at the casino tables – Anabelita and Lola – and become close...

Wes’s journey takes him to the mountains where he learns to handle a sixgun with the help of mountainman Old Charlie, and then travels to a number of towns where he puts the guns to use helping the innocent.

The geographical and political background sound solid – some ten years after the end of the Civil War, and the characters are interesting but I wasn’t invested enough in Wes or Aaron. The writing is not as involving or as descriptive as his earlier works, the people are not as fleshed-out as others he has created. Still a worthwhile read, but having enjoyed several of his books, this one didn’t grab me nearly so much.

Sadly, the novel pales in comparison to Thompson’s other book set in the West, Cry Once Alone (which I read in 2012). I felt that there was too much repetitive explication. The ending seemed rushed – and while it may have given a nod to the stark realism of those days, I found it was unsatisfactory. Four more of his books were published after this; two of them in the year he died (2012) aged 81.  

(The cover, while well-painted, seems slightly off; the saddle doesn’t appear to have a cantle; Wes wore a gunbelt with two holsters, none of which is in evidence; the cowboy is wearing chaps but at no time was this apparel worn by Wes...)

Editorial comment:

Thompson relates how the Missouri Belle sailed the river at night. Yet as a rule riverboats didn’t attempt passage at night, it was too dangerous – hidden snags and rocks had claimed too many boats over the years.  (Explained in my book Death for a Dove...)

Wonderful to be

Life is to celebrate, not to destroy

For many years I’ve been interested in, among other things, the miracle of life. In a bygone age I derived information from books – notably The Body (1968) and The Mind (1984), both by Anthony Smith (1968) and then I completed a couple of Open University courses, Brain Biology and Behaviour and Psychology.

There’s a quotation I used in my out-of-print book Pain Wears No Mask; it’s from Robert Boyle: It is highly dishonourable for a reasonable soul to live in so divinely built a mansion as the body she resides in altogether unacquainted with the exquisite structure of it. [The gender used here is immaterial; the bottom line is we all take our bodies for granted; for example, once it starts in the womb, our beating heart never stops until we quit this mortal coil.]

Last night’s BBC2 Countdown to Life: the Extraordinary Making of You was the first of three documentaries and featured the initial eight weeks after conception – a time, as presenter Michael Mosley pointed out, when some women may not even realise they’re pregnant. Yet while there may be no obvious external signs, inside the body hundreds of changes and processes that could determine the rest of our lives are already under way, and this was the point of the engaging programme. [In my co-written fantasy quest, women know at the instant of conception; the first Chronicle of Floreskand is Wings of the Overlord.]

Mosley showed us the identical quads Holly, Jessica, Georgie and Ellie, who were the result of a 64-million-to one chance. Their single egg divided to create four genetically identical sisters – this process happened just five days after conception.

Then there was basketball star Randy, whose life changed just nineteen days after he was conceived. All of his organs are on the wrong sides – he is a perfect mirror image of most human beings. This was due to some tiny structures called cilia that come to life on day 19, spinning clockwise to create a leftward current to activate genes that will tell the organs where to go, but they failed to spin in his case. [In my out of print vampire thriller set in Malta, Death is Another Life, my two vampire brothers are mirror twins – a crucial plot point.]

Supernumerary digits and other body parts occur from time to time; Ian Fleming’s The Man With The Golden Gun villain Francisco Scaramanga had a third nipple. Amazingly, in Brazil, fourteen of twenty six individuals in the De Silva family possess six digits on each hand; as a result of the so-called sonic hedgehog protein (yes, it was named after the Sega game, Sonic the Hedgehog). It’s difficult enough to draw the usual human hand – that’s why cartoon characters generally only have three fingers; fascinatingly, those six digits looked normal, as the hands were larger to accommodate the extra finger.

Studies over seventy years in Gambia have revealed how babies conceived in the wet season – when pregnant mothers eat plenty of greens – are seven times more likely to live longer than those conceived in the dry season, when their mothers eat less healthily.

Mosley met Nell, a seven-year-old who received a double dose of her father’s growth gene in the womb and so towered over her classmates; happily, the growth spurt seems to be stabilising now. He also met Melanie Gaydos, who suffered from a unique genetic slip-up in the womb which caused catastrophic damage to her hair and teeth, transforming her facial features; she has bravely carved out a life as a striking model in New York.

Mosley was enthusiastic, charming and filled with wonder. He described a body scan as ‘a work of art’, which it is.

And no political points were being made, and no reference to Climate Change either.

As Walt Whitman said, I Sing the Body Electric. Wondrous to behold. Wonderful to be.

Dear Editor - rejection

All writers have to get used to rejection. It's a rare writer who has never been rejected. You need to don a thick skin in the morning, especially before the mail arrives (snail or e).

You won't be surprised to learn that many subsequently famous authors received their fair share of 'thanks, but no thanks' notes. Here are a few:

Crash (1973 by J.G. Ballard - 'The author of this book is beyond psychiatric help.'

A Study in Scarlet (1887) by Arthur Conan Doyle, introducing Sherlock Holmes to the world - 'Neither long enough for a serial nor short enough for a single story.'

The Last of the Plainsmen (1908) by Zane Grey - 'I do not see anything in this to convince me you can write either narrative or fiction.'

The Blessing Way (1970) by Tony Hillerman - 'If you insist on rewriting this, get rid of all that Indian stuff.'

The Rainbow (1915) by D.H. Lawrence - 'It is unpublishable as it stands because of its flagrant love passages.'

Peyton Place (1955) by Grace Metalious - 'Definitely too racy for us.'

Animal Farm (1945) by George Orwell - 'It is impossible to sell animal stories in the U.S.A.'

Leaves of Grass (1855) by Walt Whitman - 'We deem it injudicious to commit ourselves.'

and two of my favourites:

The Time Machine (1895) by H.G. Wells - 'It is not interesting enough for the general reader and not thorough enough for the scientific reader.'

The War of the Worlds (1898) by H.G. Wells - 'An endless nightmare. I do not believe it would take... I think the verdict would be "Oh don't read this horrid book".'

However, if you do get rejected, I do recommend you don't respond with any invective or abuse, such as our alien wannabe scribe:

Beat to a Pulp - I Celebrate Myself

Beat to a Pulp is a webzine that features a great variety of stories in a number of genres. You'll find a broad range and a lot of good writing. Each week a new story is featured; earlier tales are still accessible, either on the page or in the Archive. The writers also benefit from feedback from the readers, which is a real bonus.

This week's 'punch' is one of my short stories, 'I Celebrate Myself' - the title is taken from Walt Whitman; his poetry lends itself to story titles, I reckon. Anyone reading The $300 Man will know that he - along with Christina Rossetti - is quoted by the two main characters.

Anyway, 'I Celebrate Myself' is about a NY cop faced with an unusual dilemma and it can be found at

http://www.beattoapulp.com/stor/2009/0809_nm_ICelebrateMyself.cfm

complete with readers' comments; feel free to drop in, read and leave a comment.

Nik