On Waiting, Tim Kreider & Ralph Steadman

Well, my newest disappeared down the email chute a few minutes ago and I now have the nervous wait for judgement. Normally when I finish an article, I feel little except the excitement of what I'll write next. The article I've just sent away is different. It's something I must have been mulling over writing for a long time. When it emerged, it came out better than I hoped.

I am a lousy judge of my own work. The things I like, usually others ignore. The things I write quickly and very throwaway, usually attract attention. This article might attract attention because it has an edge and is partially a defence, homage, commemoration of Christopher Hitchens who dies almost four years ago, 15th December 2011. It might go unremarked but I'd put it up in the top 5% of things I've ever written. To have it rejected would, I think, make me go 'ouch'.

I also drew a cartoon for it or an illustration, depending on how lofty you view the difference between the two. And the illustration was also one of my better efforts. I've always worked well when I have confidence. When I'm down, I can barely punctuate clearly. The illustration will probably go unused and I'll end up posting it here. I was told this week by a reader over at TW&TW that they find the combination of writing and cartoon too much. Not sure why it should be the case. What difference does it make if a writer is also the illustrator. Perhaps it's just because it's such a rare conjunction. Now I think about it, I can only think of Tolkien (not a great illustrator, in The Hobbit, but always sad to see his line drawings replaces in special editions), Mervyn Peake (whose wonderful illustrations for Gormenghast are as dark and twisted as his prose), and then the brilliant essayist and cartoonist, much under-appreciated and, I guess, little known here in the UK, Tim Kreider.

[Scratches head. Opens browser. Hits links to Amazon. Types in 'Twilight of the Assholes' and clicks purchase.]

How stream of consciousness is this? Anyway, it's going to arrive in three days. I had a £10 voucher from my birthday sitting there for two months and I never had any idea what to buy until that moment I thought about Kreider whose website I used to visit daily. I always intended on buying his book but, as is life, simply forgot. Great cartoonist and fine writer. He did, if I recall correctly, a really close analysis of a Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, which is worth a read if, like me, your a bit of  Kurbrick obsessive and think people really never understood the brilliance of that film. I remember sitting in our university common room trying to explain my theory about the use of colour whilst people looked at me like I was crazy trying to rationalise a film with so much female nudity. I am, of course, crazy but that's another story...

Where was I? Oh, yes. Kreider and other writer/illustrators.

No doubt there are more but those are the three that immediately spring to mind.

There is a fourth, of course, but to list him would be to cheat a little. Ralph Steadman is a pretty fine writer and it's easy to overlook the wonderful texts that accompany his drawings. My favourite of his books is his Freud and I'd be hard convinced to say that he has ever done anything better. Hmm... Perhaps his Da Vinci book.

Speaking of Steadman, I was in Waterstones in Liverpool the other day and saw his new book 'Nextinction'. I hate to say it but I find it a little bit depressing every time I see one of his pictures of a 'boid'. Not that they aren't wonderful but... Well, I wish he'd do something else. This is now two huge books of boids and, I'll be honest, I couldn't like the first enough to buy it (plus they are both hugely expensive and usually far outside my finances). I know the environment is something we should care about but if only he'd get back to drawing humans in all our ugly glory.

Ah, in the space it's taken me to write this (straight into the browser, unedited as usual), my article has been accepted for publication, possibly this weekend. Hoo-rah! I'll now take a deep breath and start the next, though knowing my chances of writing anything better (in my eyes, at least) is very slim. But we live in hope...

Post Hobbit Thoughts

Stephen's comment this morning got me thinking about 'The Hobbit'. I recently saw the third part of the trilogy and, though I didn't think it the best of the three, I did think it a fitting end to both the adaptation and Peter Jackson's long sojourn in Middle Earth. I say that having not always been so positive in my thinking. When I first heard about a new big budget version of the 'Lord of the Rings', I felt a mild disappointment. I knew Tolkien would become bigger and even more popular, whereas previously, I knew very few people who'd read the books. I'd read The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion at school and had given a small presentation about it to a class who clearly thought I'd gone mad trying to explain the attraction of hobbits and orcs. I'd loved the Radio 4 adaptation of the Rings and also quite enjoyed Ralph Bakshi's animated version, though he'd only made the first half of the trilogy with a hastily tacked on ending completing the story. My main disappointment with Jackson's films was that John Hurt didn't play Strider. Strider was my favourite character but made special because of Hurt's voice and the gnarly version of the Son of Arathorn in the Bakshi version. Despite so many obvious improvements in other respects, Jackson's Strider was never that good.

Yet given those doubts, I loved Jackson's Rings trilogy as I now love Jackson's Hobbit trilogy. In fact, perhaps I've enjoyed the Hobbit more since my expectations were lower and they've raised the source material and given it a more adult tone.

I know I'm one of a minority who think that way but I think it's hard to be balanced when there's been so much mildly warmed crap written about 'The Hobbit'. I accept I was as cynical as most when I heard that they were turning the relatively slim book into three movies, each the best part of three hours to enjoy. Yet it has worked really wonderfully. Somebody had perceptively recognised early on that the book breaks down quite evenly into three sections and that each section ends with a strong third act. The only reason the third film didn't feel so compelling as the first two was that 'The Battle of the Five Armies' was the only one that didn't end with the underdogs fleeing an overwhelming force (the Orcs of the Misty Mountains in part 1, the elves of Mirkwood and then more orcs in Part 2).

There were, of course, some horribly bad decisions along the way. Stephen Fry gave one of his better performances as the Master of Laketown but that didn't deflect from the problem that it was still Stephen bloody Fry in yet again in a big budget film. When will filmmakers realise that he's simply too big a personality to fit into any role? Thank Christ he's not (as yet) in the new Star Wars movies. I go cold at the thought of his mellow tones coming out from behind a Wookiee mask. The same was true (but to an even more galling degree) when the dwarf legions appeared on the hills of Erebor in Part 3. As the dwarves celebrate the arrival of the reinforcements, their leader rides forward. That was Dain Ironfoot or, as we prefer to call him, Billy Connolly. It completely broke my immersion in the film and I wasn't the only one. 'Oh bloody hell,' I heard at least one person mutter.

The overall sense of the films is one of gratitude. They've made me again fall in love with Middle Earth and, particularly, the Middle Earth I love: the only that lies just beyond the familiar stories and names. If it's at all possible, it's that Middle Earth that exists with a history as yet untold.