The Thief of Time

John Gardner 

John Gardner, travel-writer now living in the South West, explains the reasons he came to France and what he found when he got here.  He describes difficulties with English-language newspapers, with publishers and, not least, with his Gallic hosts. 

When I started writing way back in nineteen canteen two agents gave me advice. One told me to change my address. ‘Who,’ he asked, ‘has ever heard of a writer coming from Twickenham? Get yourself an address in Hampstead!’ He was serious. The second came from a woman who asked me, ‘Who are your people?’ in a voice that sounded as if she had put her tights on back to front then tried to run up a flight of stairs. When she learned ‘my people’ were not from the Gardner clan that wrote James Bond stories her advice to me was to never contact her again. At which point her tights gave out.

So we came to France to escape the prejudice and the clearly obvious erosion of freedom so prevalent in the U.K. I also managed to convince myself, by a perverse trick of mental dexterity, that I would finish a screenplay I had started years ago which,  because of lifestyle and education commitments, I had never finished. In France I continued to work the story but never finished the screenplay because of something quite remarkable: France is an enormous thief of time. Something that takes half an hour in the U.K. can take literally days in France. I fast approached the Monty Python sketch of having to get up before I went to bed in an effort to get anything done. Stirring treacle with string was more productive.

As the days slipped by, almost unnoticed, into weeks and months and finally years I realised what had stopped me from completing my screenplay was the fact that I had to do 101 other things because the French never turned up to do the job. I was lumbered with becoming a jack-of-all-trades just to survive in this most beautiful of countries. The daily stupidity, lying and clear distaste for that thing we Anglo Saxons call work were so obvious it prompted me to write a book about it, that thing I have come to know as, Frenchness.

I’m a Scot which means every day I wake up with three good friends:  work ethic, logic and reason. Not so my Gallic hosts. When I started to write, The A-Z of Frenchness, I was amazed at how quickly my original 20,000 words expanded to 65,000 with no effort at all. Duly completed and polished it then did the rounds of agents and publishers. One publisher waxed lyrical about my humour and how much he liked it but would only publish it if I re-wrote it taking out all things critical of the French. Hardly the object of the exercise but that was the general tone from publishers and agents alike. Apparently they are happy to continue the Francophobe myth that, ‘Year in the Somewhere’ myth where old men always smile, yoof work diligently in the fields and all French women are angels - circa 1934.

One publisher wrote to me, ‘… your comments on for example the French resistance to the Nazis is anything but humorous and would be regarded as distinctly offensive.’ I did not write French history I merely recorded the facts, a great many of which, under de Gaulle, were ‘massaged’ to make France more appealing to a post war world. And do I care if the French would be offended by their inglorious past? No. The truth is what it is.

Parisians, like all people in major cities of the world I have been to, can be inviting, humorous and intelligent but in France the conversation follows clearly defined paths: politics, the economy and French ‘personalities’.  Step off the path and the resultant confusion is not only bizarre, a word I find myself using with more frequency to describe French thinking patterns, it is also hugely entertaining. France is a country that allows foreigners to live on the surface of its society but it never allows them under the skin. That is for French people only and listening to an outside voice is … well… treasonous but it has been a rich source of material. And for this the French must be thanked. They are highly amusing despite their, ‘torn face’ look. They never fail to bring a smile to my lips, a lift to my step and a small prayer of thanks to my parents for creating me an Anglo Saxon /Celt and not a Gaul.

Determined as I was to plough on I started to write for an English language newspaper but I quickly gave it up as I was only ever paid half of my agreed fee - after several months of badgering. Times, they failed to tell me, were tough and, unfortunately, have gotten tougher.

Publishers are facing tougher monetary times and are therefore, not unnaturally, reluctant to try anything or anyone new. They need copious doses of the same old same old for their businesses to survive while they try to come to terms with the power of the web. Fortunately the Internet now offers every writer the chance of a readership and this will become increasingly more important. We have had the phoney crisis but now the real deal is winging its way to a country near you and this is the very time when new, brave, outspoken voices are needed - the very thing publishing houses avoid like a trip to Mexico.

World Governments, long time opponents of the Internet, have now officially declared their intention and ability to snoop on all and sundry and that can only be for one reason: censorship of ideas. So, if you have anything to say, best do it now before the Orwellian chopper descends and cuts off your right to freedom of communication, which will leave established publishing houses as the ‘official’ State publishers towing whatever line they are told to grasp. Will publishing houses resist? I think not, they want the money. Will there be a rash of new independent publishers? I hope so - for everyone’s sake.

 

Writer Beware!

Alison Culliford

British authors are increasingly aware that their rights are not being properly defended and that publishers are not fulfilling their most fundamental duties. Proper defence must surely begin with the authors themselves. Alison Culliford takes a look across the Atlantic to discover an interesting development in the United States.

“Mustn’t grumble,” we are accustomed to saying, but isn’t it about time this wartime attitude had its day? Our US cousins are, as we know, brought up with the right to complain, and British authors could take a leaf from their book at this time when publishers are doing less and less to help authors and expecting us to take on what were their traditional obligations: to sell and promote our books. Americans are also quick to user the power of the net to put things right. Take the Writer Beware site from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA): this organization has created a site and a blog to expose scams and pitfalls that target writers. It is by no means restricted to genre or country and more and more writers are whistle-blowing on it to warn their colleagues of people, companies and practices to avoid. For instance: agents who charge reading fees; publishers who pay royalties on net profit; publishers who make writers responsible for getting their own books into bookstores, or who don’t fulfill their contractual obligations. Have a look: www.sfwa.org. There is stuff to be learnt, and you may feel like contributing. Anyone published in America should also consider joining the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA), who give free legal advice on US contracts – you don’t have to be a US resident to join.