Before I change my Mind

I stumbled across this film purely by accident and was instantlyu knocked out by it. Before I Change My Mind is a Canadian coming-of-age film. Set in the 1980s, the film stars Vaughan Murrae as Robin, a non-binary teenager who moves with their family to small town ALberta, where they navigate the challenges of fitting into a new environment. They befrend Carter (Dominic Lippa), the school bully. The depiction of the relartionship between these two is a revelation, Carter turns from bully to friend (a bit spiky at times) and they get up to typical teen mischief together. Are they or are they not an 'item' is not clear, although I would like to think they are by the end of the film. Do watch this if you can, I found it an uplifting experience of how otherness can be more than doom and gloom.

Close (2022

I watched this on BBC4 last night and loved it but as always, I was left wondering, what if events had taken another turn? I will try not to give too much away. Close is about two 13 year old Belgian boys who have a very close friendship, but changing schools threatens this relationship as their new school mates sense their closeness might be more than meets the eye. This bit of the story is handled well (or rather how I would like it to be handled had it happened to me). Three female class mates question them about their friendship and whether in fact they are gay. The truth is out there. These films are always painful if you have been through a similar experience at a tender age. Leo (Eden Dambrine) and Remi (Gustav De Waele) are both perfectly cast. They are both sensitive boys at a crucial period when they change schools, form new friendships and start to grow up (although fortunately the casting means they are absolutely right for the 13 year olds they portray). Close went on to win the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival omn release and was nominated for the 2023 Academy Awards. Apart from the story, the depiction of the rural area where they live is startling although (spoiler alert) it was filmed in the Netherlands not Belgium. Give it a try, in the UK it is available on iplayer until August 2024.

Another year

It is a year since I was last hear, retirement has kept me busy with other things. As time goes by I realise that my writing career is over. I have looked on as two friends my age have both written books, very different, one is academic the other is all about 'him' even if he does not realise it himself. Writing is a drug! IAC

Post Lockdown

Like many, the last two or so years has been a bit grim. However. like most I survived and am still here. I thought I might end up returning to the realms of writing during this period but I have not in any form. Meanwhile a friend has written his first fiction book and another is in the final throws of editing his book which is destined to become a standard reference book I suspect. Over the years I have helped both in terms of the basic reasearch work and also in terms of acting as one editor on one. Scarily the fiction author tells me there are potentially five books in the series. He is off now doing research in the place where it is set, always an exciting part of any book writing exercise. Scholarship continues to sell, modestly! Ian

Sigh, another year under full or partial lockdown, I am not the only one, and as you can see, I have not been around much. I have had to delete one 'miracle cure' marketing 'comment' and will continue to do so if I come across them. Fortunately it does not happen too often. Each time I come to the blog, I do have to decide whether to keep the blog or not. Well, since a few people pop in ever so often, it serves its purpose I assume, so here is stays for now. I can be contacted, the information is here and 'Scholarship' will remain available, I hope, for now. Ian

Well here we are under lock down and I realise that I have been somewhat negligent in checking the state of 'Scholarship' through various sources. It is still available is the key message. lulu.com has changed the site but Scholarship is still available there (for a moment I thought not but all they have done is change the site layout). If any problems search under my name as author. The same goes for amazon and otherbook sellers. Lockdown I thought might inspie me if anything would, but actually I seem to be averagely busy with 'other stuff' so I cannnot say there will be a follow up. More and more it looks like Scholarship was a one off, the one book that every person is supposed to have inside them! Well mine has been out for several years now and I am glad to see that many have read it, that was my aim, no more. Ian

Another period of time passes

To my consternation I note that it is about 18 months since I last wrote anything on this blog. Frankly I have been involved in other things such as moving home and settling, finally, into an existence as a 'retired' person. Being retired has not as I thought it would, led me to revisit some old writing projects. I seem to be too busy doing other 'stuff'. One such activity has been to revisit Cornwall last month. Whilst down there I travelled the North Coast route between St Ives and Lands End, which almost passes through Zennor, which is close to the setting for 'The Rocks'. That area is protected fortunately, so nothing can mar the landscape or the setting other than the increasing industrialisation of farming. The weather was not suitable for walking, so I did not walk the North Coast footpath or its inland equivalent (The Coffin Path). Anyway, for now Scholarship remains available and indeed continues to sell, I thank those who have downloaded it, or indeed purchased the paper back version. I intend for it to remain available for as long as the likes of Amazon continue to keep it 'live' Ian

It has been a while

As real life has intervened, I have been less than diligent in checking what is happening to 'Scholarship'. Although lulu.com won't let me look at the sales figures, it is still available, if not there, then at amazon.com (and related national outlets). Amongst the options to buy at amazon there are a number of secondary resellers, they are either at or above the price for a new book, not quite sure why. One seller is quoting in excess of $600 for a copy! As the author I promise you I see absolutely none of that, perhaps it is aimed at 'specialist readers who don't (or won't) use amazon? Anyway, it remains available, I accept Scholarship is a niche read so I am not sure for how long it will be available. If it goes, it goes, at which point I suspect the price will go up, very much as the price for books such as 'The Boys' have escalated to scary levels. Ian

One year on

Here we are, nearly a year after my last post. My life has moved on in some respects, I am now officially retired and travelling a lot. Other than that, I am easing into a post retirement phase, but active with various projects, not least of which is moving home and having to say goodbye to some books etc. Ian

Censorship on Amazon

I have been reading of issues of censorship on Amazon, with some books no longer being visible unless you have selected 'adult content', this includes books such as Alexander's Choice for instance.

I have just checked, and Alexander's Choice does appear, but it will show you no more until you select 'show adult content'. Not a problem but when does a book move into this category?

Alexander's Choice does indeed have some 'adult content' but it is all in the context of the story, not for titilation.

When writing Scholarship, originally there was similar content, but in the end I decided to self censor as to me, 'adult content' was not the main purpose of the book and if had been reasonably truthful to my own experiences, it would have been very repetitive. So I still stick by my decision even though some have asked for more details. Sorry that is unlikely to happen!

Ian

Some Illustrations by Gaston Gloor from Les Amitiés Particulières

There are some nice illustrations from a French version of this classic now available here at http://callumjames.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/gaston-goor-illustrates-les-amities_12.html An example, which many will recognise as forming the basis of a crucial scene in the film:

Mark Behr’s ‘Embrace’, Edmund Marlowe’s ‘Alexander’s Choice’, Roger Payferitte's ‘Les Amitiés Particulières’ and Henry de Monthelant’s ‘Les Garçons’

All of the above are examples of the ‘schoolboy romance’ genre.  This genre homes in on the romantic life that sometimes occurs in the adolescent hot house that is the all male boarding school with boys forming relationships with each other and sometimes with a schoolmaster at the school. Because of the forbidden nature of both types of relationship, these novels normally end in disaster if not actual tragedy. The line ‘and they lived happily ever after’ is not one that would occur in any novel of this nature.

All of these books had an influence on my own contribution to this genre ‘Scholarship’. I missed out on the possibility of a relationship between a boy and one of his masters although my main protagonist Pip has a dim awareness that one of his masters, Mr Barnes, had a more than passing interest in him.

I fear the schoolboy romance genre may be in decline, all boys boarding schools are not as popular as they once were. The other change is social; there is more acceptance of the possibility that boys can be gay. This is the case at one of my old schools where I was delighted to see the celebration of the relationship between two older boys, mentioned in the school magazine. Hard to imagine such a thing would have happened a few years back.

Whilst on a recent holiday, I took the opportunity to re-read Mark Behr’s novel ‘Embrace’ a thick tome of a book that has as its setting some significant autobiographical content, our hero Karl De Mann, like Behr, was born in Arusha Tanzania and then moved with his family to South Africa when a young boy.

Mark Behr’s ‘Embrace’ also has a theme about changing identity and how his main protagonist, Karl De Mann, identity changes as he grows up. As a boy with mixed Irish-Afrikaans parentage, Karl spends his early life crossing from the English to Afrikaans speaking world and has decidedly mixed loyalties as a result. Karl’s loyalties are further confused by hints at an early age that he is bisexual (there are repeated references to one event that defines him that is only fully revealed at the end of the book).

Karl spends the most formative years of his childhood (11-14) at the exclusive Drakensberg Choir School in a remote part of South Africa (see the choir in action above). This is perhaps where fiction is informed by real life as Marc Behr went to the same school aged 10-12 (see the pictures above, he is second from left in the first photograph). In the novel, Karl has a relationship with both a school friend and with his Choir Master. Embrace must make uncomfortable reading at the School, as it is not that large with just 120 pupils and could be read by some as a ‘truthful’ account of Behr’s time at the school, even though no such claims have ever been made.  Like other authors in this genre, the use of a familiar location provides for the authenticity of the novels produced. Certainly, Marlowe’s ‘Alexander’s Choice’ is richer for its detailed description of the day to day running of Eton as an institution.

On reading Embrace for the fourth time, I now appreciate more the central 11-14 year old Karl’s eye view of the World, complete with the adolescent predilection for endless lists and rants that could run through the mind of a boy his age. Large chunks of the book read like a diary or set of letters. Towards the end, the inevitable diary does indeed take centre stage.

Embrace is quite a read as the action moves back and forth in time between early childhood and the present. There is also a central conceit in that Karl threatens to write a book in English but leave chunks in Afrikaans (angry as a boy at how some of the books he reads do the same thing). Embrace is exactly that, written in English with some bits in untranslated Afrikaans (Behr’s first book ’The Smell of Apples’ was written in Afrikaans and then translated into English).

Both Behr’s first two books touch on a boy’s eye view of betrayal and people not being what they seem. This was true of Behr in real life who whilst at Stellenbosch University, spied on his fellow students for the soon to fall apartheid regime. He confessed all it but remained a controversial figure in some circles. Despite this backstory colouring some of the reviews of Embrace, Mark Behr ended up a professor of English Literature and Creative Writing at Rhodes College, Memphis, Tennessee.

After writing The Smell of Apples and Embrace, Behr went on to write one further book ‘Kings of the Water’.

The reason I am writing this now is whilst rereading Embrace I wanted to remind myself of Mark Behr and to see whether he had written anymore, the answer is no as sadly Behr died in December 2015 at the comparatively young age of 52.

If you have not read either ‘The Smell of Apples’ or ‘Embrace’ I would encourage you to do so as both are excellent books about the complexities of boyhood relationships. They have much in common with other books in this genre.

Downloads and continuing sales via Lulu and Amazon

I guess writing has its rewards when others take some of their own time to read the book.

Each time the cash register 'dings' with a new sale of the paper back version, there is a special pleasure even if the reward is in cents (as I assure you it is, I do not make a living out of Scholarship).

For the moment, this blog is reverting to matters relating to Scholarship only. Other projects may emerge but only when I feel it is time for that to happen.  New ideas do occur to me as does the weight of a nearly completed draft of a book that is currently 'resting' near the back of this author's stove.

Season's greetings!

Ian

The Custard Boys by John Rae

I have been asked to provide a link to where one can find this book.

Whenever I am looking for a book the most reliable source for anything rare is abebooks.com.  Sure enough, 'The Custard Boys' is available for a price.

Since I bought my copy, it has shot up in price, that may be due to my publicising it.  It is now on for $45-$250.

The same thing happened after I purchased my copy of Montherlant's  'The Boy's, that now costs $200 and up, it is the most valuable book in my collection.

Good luck, both books had very limited print runs so are climbing in value all the time.

Early Flowering in Cornwall: Amazon Review of Scholarship by Edmund Marlowe

I hope Edmund Marlowe will not mind, but I have taken the liberty of posting his review at Amazon here for others to see.

"This moving story of sensitive Pip Cox's years as a boarder at The Rocks, a fictional prep school in Cornwall, is apparently otherwise only loosely fictionalised autobiography. Though it covers the full span of Pip's time there in the 1960s, most of the story concerns his last year, when he was twelve, and his deeply affecting friendship with slightly younger Sacha in the year below. The author has a remarkable memory of the atmosphere of prep schools and the emotions of young boys which he makes excellent use of, so that by the time we reach the love story at the heart of the novel we are well immersed in the details of life at The Rocks, whether special or mundane. 

On one significant point, I am puzzled. The average age at which boys reach the critical stage of puberty where reproduction is possible has dropped steadily from sixteen in the 19th century, when prep schools were invented, to below thirteen today. The invention is indeed sometimes said to have been occasioned by the need to segregate sexually-innocent pre-pubescents from their lustful elders. As late as 1986, the average age was 13.4. The 12-year-olds of The Rocks, however, were in 1968 at least as developed as boys today (they had to wash away the evidence of masturbation). Their headmaster even tells them a Victorian stable boy their age was "more than capable" of making a woman pregnant, which I suspect was actually impossible.

Why does this matter? The story hinges entirely on the deep suspicion of apparently everyone at the school that Pip's friendship with Sacha was sexual and so immoral on little more grounds than that Sacha was in the year below. The principal characters all conclude (rightly as it turns out) that Pip is queer and it is this perception he was nastily different that poisons the end of his time there.

This image of prep school as so sexually charged is so alien to my own as to demand explanation. Yes, pubescence at mine lent the emotions and friendships of many 12-year-old boys a new intensity, and a few engaged in fondling, but that is all. Boys at my prep school and those of my friends who had reached spermarche were either non-existent or unique. We never heard a suspicion of any boy being queer. The authorities never gave the slightest discouragement to age-discrepant friendships. It is in fact hard to see the rationale for such a taboo at prep school. It sometimes existed at public school because the still androgynous beauty of 13-14 year-olds could bring them to the erotic attention of female-starved older boys to a degree that adolescents with more developed manliness could not.

All these things depicted at The Rocks were by contrast so familiar to us at public school that a friend is convinced Pip's story has been transposed from one, which I doubt because the depiction of prep school otherwise rings so true. Is it possible that the author, having soon later established his sexual orientation and tormented by the sadness unjustly inflicted on him, has read too much into the earlier sexual consciousness of his peers and even himself, easy enough to do? Or is it possible that the headmaster who so brutally attacked Pip and his friendship was by his misplaced and exaggerated suspicion himself guilty of importing into the school an untypical hysteria about sex? Or was extra maturity another bonus of the location, which gave Pip "the typical Rocks look, long-legged and suntanned by years of days in the Cornish sun"? I wish I knew.

None of this in the least detracts, however, from the heart-wrenchingly poignant depiction of loss, which is the author's crowning achievement.

Edmund Marlowe, author of Alexander's Choice, another pubescent boy's love story."

As I have stressed many times, Scholarship is a work of fiction but it is heavily influenced by my own memories of my time at prep school down to the incidents and dialogue that I can recall.

Were age-discrepant friendships discouraged? This is perhaps where I have taken a liberty with facts, I do not recall a deliberate separation of boys because there was a large difference in age, but I do recall that generally it was the boys who policed this aspect. As I was the youngest boy in my year, I drifted between being at the top of the year 'below' or being at the bottom of my real year so I had friends in both years, I recall being an exception, by and large friendships were contained within one's year.

It was very generous of Edmund Marlowe to write a review, I was particularly pleased to see the review from an author whose work I admire.

Writings, scribblings etc

I have also had some more feedback on Scholarship, which is always gratifying.  One thing I have noticed is that if one is minded to buy the paperback version, it is worth checking the prices at Amazon as well as at Lulu as they do seem to fluctuate with Amazon often cheaper.  Quite how, given Amazon takes a third of the published price, I do not know.  But take advantage of it, sales are always very gratifying even if I do not actually receive any money myself.

'Sales' of Scholarship be it downloads or actual books continue steadily, somewhat to my surprise, I was expecting some sort of decaying trend but no things continue at the same pace.  On blogspot I can see where the sources of traffic are, it is predictably UK biased but with a reach into places like the USA, Canada, Australia and Germany.

Ian

Alexander's Choice by Edmund Marlowe

Finally managed to finish reading the above book over the festive season.

The ending hits like a rather unpleasant tackle whilst playing a dominant team, an expected result.

Anyway, I enjoyed some fine writing from Edmund Marlowe. Alexander indeed makes his choice and the plot heads in a familiar direction.  There is no getting away from it, 'school boy' romance tends to be something read through the cracks in one hands as one flinches at the on page action.

Of course when I finished reading, I can understand why our hero was called Alexander, it is all in the Greek references.  My hero nearly had the same name but in the end I went for the slightly more obscure Russian variant Alexei in honour of his slightly fiery nature and because I wanted to use the familiar version of Sacha.

I too nearly came out with the same ending but veered away at the last moment when I realised there was an alternate ending, which most people can relate to.

Anyway I recommend reading Alexander's Choice.

In the mean time, happy new year!

Ian

British Bulldog of Interest

My statistics tell me that there has been a large number of page visits, as usual it is British Bulldog that draws the crowds as does discussion of Edmund Marlowe's "Alexander's Choice".  I am glad I did not see that book before I wrote Scholarship as in some ways the story is not dissimilar, but that is hardly surprising when both are set in boarding schools.

Alexander's Choice by Edmund Marlowe

I have been reading Alexander's Choice by Edmund Marlowe.  This Eton set book has set tongues wagging as to who Alexander might be.  Some have even suggested that he is modelled on Boris Johnson, right era etc.  Seems implausible to me, I could not imagine anyone being attracted to Johnson!  There is a lot of great (and baffling detail) on the running of Eton as a school and how it is organised.  The Old Etonian Association said it was unlikely they would accept an advertisement for it in their annual review (correction provided by Edmund Marlowe himself).  Too close to home I imagine.
I have been watching the series on Harrow School as well.  What impressed me was the ridiculous amount of kit every boy needs.  Still the boys and the masters came over as pleasant people, not something I would have claimed was true in my day at a similar school.  I do recall we had a rowing fixture against Harrow and seeing a boy with bright green hair (or it may have been blonde and he was wearing lime green which made his hair seem green).  I was impressed and I have to say somewhat drawn to him!

A Follow On?

The most requested item is a follow on to Scholarship.

Indeed this remains a possibility. A couple of ideas have come to me in recent weeks, aided by some down time from the real world of working. The ideas that have arisen follow Sacha on the next stage of his life at his new mixed boarding school where of course girls start to play a big part of his life.  Again some of the inspiration will come from my own life as a teenager, the urge to confirm, sexual experimentation and the risk of your whole life falling apart. In other words, a typical teenage experience of life.

Indeed I did start to write a short section of prose based around Sacha's existence at a new school, how a girl comes into it. Whether that was a false start or not I do not know at this stage