The Tragically Disappearing Value of Letters

I have a letter dated 1852. It is written by an ancestor - Reuben Peacher - to his son-in-law Zachariah Elkins and his daughter Nancy Jane. The young couple, who had been married some three or four years by then (she had been only fifteen, but he almost a decade older), were living only a few counties away, but in an age when there was no email, no phone, no motorized vehicle, it was a few days journey. They both came from large, tight-knit families, and it must have been a big decision to leave; in a few years more, they would join the wagon train on the Oregon Trail, going from Independence, Missouri, to a new home at the foot of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado.

The letter tells us a great deal about them. It is written on light blue, unlined paper. The weight and quality is such that it has survived intact for 164 years. The black, uneven ink pen lines belie the use of a fountain pen. The hand is neat and well-schooled, the grammar good but not perfect. Spelling wasn't yet standardized. Reuben was educated. Zachariah was obviously capable of reading it - although he had been raised in the wilderness of Kentucky and later Missouri. I don't know whether Nancy Jane could not read or whether common custom dictated that the men should write to one another and bypass the women.

At any rate, Reuben had a bit to say, over two pages.  Although the details are mundane, they paint a picture of domestic life for a frontier family, and the very real individuals who lived what we can hardly imagine now. Imagine their world, where one couldn't exist without a horse or a plow or an ax or a rifle or a thorough knowledge of agriculture and hunting. Imagine staining your fingers with ink as you wrote, knowing that news of a death in the family or a new baby would take a week to get there. Imagine that visiting on a whim was impossible - a move across country meant saying goodbye for a very, very long time, if not forever. Imagine that our journeys of a few hours took days or weeks. This is the world the letter allows me to visit - and as I hold it in my hands I wonder about the hands that first made the creases in it and sealed it with wax, and then saddled the horse or hitched him to the wagon, to travel several miles to post it.

The point is, these letters can be held in a hand, my experience of it mingling with a man's of 164 years ago, his skin cells mingling with mine. Letters are a tangible piece of the evidence of lives of the past. And they are quickly fading from our experience.

When I was young, letters were a fact of life. There was no internet, no email. I wrote and received

letters from relatives who lived four states away, across the prairies and cornfields of the Midwest and West. I still have a few of those letters. When I was maybe about ten years old - my favorite grandmother taught me about writing a proper letter.  She said it had to begin with some personal news. Then, a good story - which must include some description or drama or something else of entertainment value to the recipient. And it should end with affection and some plan to write again or to see the loved one again. I have a few of her letters in a box; she's been dead for a few decades now. When I look at them I remember the way she formed words, and the slow, careful way she spoke. She had a wonderful, warm chortle in her voice. I marvel at the uniqueness of her hand and her style.  And I experience her again as an individual and miss her. Without those letters, I don't think I could get so close.

The earliest letters I have read were those written between kings in the early medieval period. Such as letters from Charlemagne, king of Franks (and part of what is now France) and the great Mercian (England) king, Offa. They survive on vellum, a material made from lambskin and dried. They are written in Latin, which in that world enjoyed the universality similar to today's English. They show the personalities, the daily concerns, and the world, of two powerful men in the eighth century. Twelve hundred years ago. I envy the researchers who protect these letters, and who have held them in their hands. A part of me believes that the energy of the past world travels through such objects - what a gift it is to reach back through time and touch the eighth century.

Letters exist between family members, friends and lovers, that reveal details of famous lives. Mozart's wife understood the enormous value of letters to reveal secrets: she burned all of the great musician's letters upon his death. I can almost forgive her - Mozart was mentally ill and so difficult to live with that she had left him years before and they lived apart. But in the end she was there, and his friend, and she had the foresight to protect his privacy.  She robbed us all of a glimpse into his mind and genius, of course.

The great Persian poet, Kahlil Gibran, enjoyed a decades-long romance with a woman through letters. It is believed that although their letters are affectionate and romantic and show devotion and respect, they never met face-to-face.

In December of 2015, a New York man was remodeling the fireplace of this vintage home and found letters over a century old - written by the two young children of an Irish immigrant family that had once lived in the house, to Santa Claus. Ten-year-old Mary's words reveal much about their lives, their values, and the thoughts of a generous-hearted little girl:

"Dear Santa Claus . . . My little brother would like you to bring him a wagon which I know you cannot afford. I will ask you to  bring him whatever you think best. Please bring me something nice what you think best. - Mary   P.S. Please do not forget the poor. "

Letters reveal the most intimate relationships of the famous people of the past, and also the lives and cares and dreams of people who no one would remember if not for a surviving letter - a bit of a person that survives for decades or centuries beyond death. What are we losing, as we allow the art of letter-writing - in my generation something so common - to fade from our experience?  What are we sacrificing?  How will people, hundreds of years from now, know how we spoke and how our experience of the world around us differed from theirs?  How will they know the things that letters have preserved for us about our past?

They will have books, of course, but letters are different. They are informal, intensely personal, and reveal personality more clearly than any carefully-written prose ever could.  How sad it is that people in the future won't hold the leaves of a letter, with beautiful handwriting and a lingering scent of perfume, in their hands and glimpse the private life of someone else who has passed away?

From now on people will not know the joy of receiving into their hands a personal letter - its paper once handled by the hands of a distant loved one or a lover, the individual's unique handwriting decorating the front. They won't know the surprise of finding a feather, or a piece of lace or fabric, a lock of hair, or other surprise. Or the familiar welcome scent of cigar smoke or perfume. The intimate nature and privacy of a letter is forever lost in the age of computers and emails.  Now, with schools discontinuing the training of children in handwriting skills, future generations won't be able to write a letter if they want to.

I have made a decision that soon I will have that old letter laminated, so that it will survive for decades to come. I won't be able to touch it anymore in the same way, and that bothers me greatly, but it's time to give that up in favor of its preservation. I hope that someone in a coming generation appreciates it as much as I have, and the view of the past and three pioneers' lives, that it offers.

----------------------------------------------------------

NOTES:

Reuben Peacher lived to old age and is buried in Howard County, Missouri, on the land that once belonged to his farm, from where he wrote the letter and many others. His grave still exists. His own father had come from Virginia and wealth but had been ousted from the family by his father, along with his brother. The two, once the heirs of a rich Eastern family, would eventually be hanged in the wilds of Kentucky for stealing horses. But their children, Reuben and his wife and first cousin Anne, would live the quiet life of farmers in Howard County, Anne preceding her husband in death by a few decades.

Zachariah Elkins took his young family by wagon train to Colorado around 1861. He worked as a cattle rancher on the eastern plains of Colorado Territory, until his death in 1880. In 1870 a census taker asked him what year he was born in, and he wasn't certain, according to a marginal note. But I know now that it was about 1825. Funny that I know and he didn't. He did know that he had been born in Missouri, but when asked where his parents were born he didn't know that either; it was Kentucky - of that I am certain. He died in his fifties, in 1880. His grave has been lost.

Nancy Jane Peacher Elkins was married to the boy who lived on the farm next door, about 1848, at fifteen. It must have been a bittersweet day, because only a few days earlier her 13-year-old brother and 8-year-old sister had both drowned, in the creek that divided the two farms. One can safely assume the brother died trying to save the sister, or the other way around. Several children still survived, including Nancy Jane, and life had to go on. She is buried in Colorado, between her son and his wife on one side, and an infant grandchild on the other. She lived well into her nineties, and was photographed with four younger generations, including my grandmother who is an infant on her lap.

I wonder if they would smile to know that I have and treasure that letter.

The Art of the Short Story, Defined

Back when I was getting my creative writing/classic literature degree, we did a lot of short story writing. Within a class setting it made sense: professors were trying to assess whether we each understood how to develop a plot, characters, etc. and who has time to write a novel, during university?  (Well, not if you take your classwork seriously and are in a demanding program!)

I got a journalism degree at the same time, and pretty much immediately went into news writing and editing. So I put the short story aside for many years and thought little about it. Those years at school had left me with a healthy respect for the form, and I still admire people who do it well.

Recently I had a discussion with a friend about how long a short story needs to be. I suggested to her that it needs to be long enough to develop certain elements - characters, solid conflict, tension, enough description to establish an atmosphere, etc. Personally I have seen someone do that maybe three times through the years, in under say, 1500 words. Skilled writers can do it under 5,000, and many legitimate short story contests ask for stories around that length. But I would say at least 2,000 and up is best. Oh, there are a lot of 1000-word "short stories" out there, and almost all are crap.

But not all. In recent years I ran into a short by British writer Clayton Littlewood that was astounding - it is called Grindr. He used to have it up on his blog, and I recall that when I read it I found my jaw on the floor. I was so moved because of the quality of his writing, but also because the thing was so short. It must be maybe 3-4,000. No more. Here was a short-short story in the hands of a truly skilled storyteller; he knew exactly what he was doing with an often difficult form. He seemed surprised - gracious and humble - when I wrote to express my congratulations on it, but Littlewood is a master of language, and well-versed in building plot and suspense, even within the confines of a small word count. He has removed it from his website now, but has it published within an anthology of short pieces called Six Stories.

One can spend a few hours on Twitter or at writer-oriented blogs and run into a plethora of contests for writing short stories. Lately too many of them involve such silly premises as writing a short story of 250 words or less. I ran into one that wanted short stories less than 100 words!  Ugh! These are not short stories!  They are exercises in writing a succinct paragraph, perhaps, but they are not short stories. Am I being a snob?  Insisting upon a specific, narrow definition?  Or am I protecting the integrity of an ages-old genre?

From before our ancestors were literate, the short story has entertained. It took a bit of imagination, and not a little amount of memorization skills, to hold an audience captive for a bit with a short narrative. In a time before the novel, these narratives involved the necessary elements of characters, plot and structure, atmospheric description.  There had to be a stated conflict, and someone in the story had to move toward resolving that conflict. This has formed the basis of story for us - whether the story happens within a novel, film, or short story. Notice I say "basis" - in the modern era, many influences have changed the structural rules of each of these forms so that there are instances of each which stray from the traditional ideas.

It is said that the advent of photography changed art forever. Where once a painting recorded the scene before the artist's eyes - and used light and color and movement to emphasize certain truths about that scene - photography replaced that function.  The photograph could record reality as never before.  So painting was forced to find a way to convey truths beyond black and white reality. Thus, new forms were born - impressionistic painting, abstract painting, and others.  It is no coincidence that the masters of these styles worked at the forefront of art in the decades following the birth of the photograph.


In the same sense, the advent of film pushed the novel and the short story. I think it may be argued that before the development of cinematography as not only a recording of moving pictures but an art form in its own right - probably by the latter 1930s - novels contained more detailed descriptive passages. But the reading public soon became accustomed to a panoramic atmosphere unfolding before their eyes; they were taken through an entire story in a few hours. Perhaps they lost patience in the end for description in dime store, mainstream novels. (I would argue that this factor diminished forever our ability to imagine detailed visual scenes without the crutch of film - which feeds it to us in such a way that we don't have to do the work, but that is a blog for another day.)

Films did even more to change short stories.  Because most films in the early decades of the medium ran a logical narrative - story with character and traditionally structured plot - short stories were pushed to find a new, innovative path of expression.  This is the root of the modern tendency of the short story to offer alternative and highly unusual structures.

It may be argued that America contributed more to the birth of the short story than most places. The genre rose as the world of magazines grew in America.  It flourished in the late-19th and early-20th century popular magazine bought by a large part of the American population and beyond - where every issue contained either a short story or a piece of serialized novel. Categories such as the romance story, the murder mystery, the sci-fi story, the western, and others - were established during this period. In the early years, the narrative structure was traditional. But, of course, then came film . . .

In more recent decades, writers have experimented with various styles in the short story form. Now, a short story doesn't necessarily need a traditional narrative plot (although many still have one).  So then, what constitutes a short story now, in 2016?  If we have stretched tradition and invited innovation for decades, often very successfully, then what constitutes a true short story? Can it be defined?

Of course. And it is because of this definition that I have to scoff at contests for 250-word "stories".  A quick study of the modern definitions of "story" in various dictionaries might leave the researcher confused: most definitions involve words like "narrative" and "tale", which of course mean the same thing as "story".  But I like this one, from the Cambridge Dictionary: "a description, either true or imagined, of a connected series of events". That gives us something to begin with. Descriptions from every major dictionary go on to add that a "story" informs, teaches, amuses, entertains, and/or changes a reader or listener.  Also inherent is the idea that the narrative somehow evolves.

A writer cannot evolve a narrative in 250 words. A writer cannot successfully persuade or change, either the narrative or the reader. You may amuse. You many even entertain for a few minutes. But you have not used narrative as an art form to guide the reader through any evolution. You have merely written an amusing few paragraphs, and although it is a useful exercise it isn't any great accomplishment fit for a contest! As a writer, you will learn nothing serious about the art of the short story.

So my argument is in the naming of the contest a "short story" contest. A "short story" is far more than that.  If you want to learn the form, and do it well, following these guidelines:

• Establish tension early on. As with any fictional work, you are obligated as a writer to catch the reader's interest early and hold it.  In novel-writing we speak of establishing conflict - you may or may not have time - within the confines of the first few paragraphs of a short story - to attempt something that grand. But you should establish an uncomfortable feeling in the reader and/or a large question in their minds. Drive, which has its birth in conflict, is absolutely necessary in a good short story. 
• Work toward change, above all. Something must evolve.  Either the character must change/grow/learn, or the situation must change in a surprising way. I would suggest that the best stories might combine both.  But you must have a different truth at the end of the story than was present at the beginning. The reader must see the world differently than they did a few pages ago. 
• Don't be overly mindful of length, because it stifles your creative urge; don't try to keep it short nor try to achieve a certain length. If you are gearing it toward a contest where the length is say, 5,000 words for example, you should have a feel as a writer for the difference between 5,000 and 10,000 or 15,000, right from the first word you write.  So you know whether you are in the ballpark as you write. When you finish you can edit to correct word count. But for now, be more mindful of the structure - the drive and the evolution - and just get the story down. 
• Never forget that the same elements which make for a great short story are the same that make a great novel, and don't lose sight of them. Keep in mind elements such as:  description and establishing a mood or atmosphere; narrative drive (already discussed); characterization (strong characters make a strong story); catch and hold the attention of the reader; avoid  clichés and work on being original; employ the use of elements such as metaphor; mind that dialogue sounds true to the characaters, and that each character speaks differently; watch the misspellings and grammar.  You get the picture. Treat your short story with the same technical respect that you would treat a novel. 

Meanwhile, I won't discourage you from participation in the sillier contests for "short story" writing. Just make sure you aren't wasting time; the best of us get caught up in online games and useless exercises that help us avoid the real work of applying ourselves to our writing. And make sure you are truly going to learn something valuable that you can apply to real writing.  If that is to write a more interesting paragraph or scene, fine. But call it a paragraph or scene. Out of respect for an art form that has entertained, taught, and helped us evolve for centuries, call something lesser what it is.

Clayton Littlewood is much underrated short story writer, diarist, journalist and playwright. You can see his Amazon page at Clayton Littlewood .  His personal website is at http://www.claytonlittlewood.com  .  

See my short stories:  Frozen, Lightning (my first attempt at the paranormal!) and Quandary, at Amazon and BarnesandNoble .

BBC Series "The Last Kingdom" Ends With a Battle and a Bang

In 878 A.D. (C.E.) a battle took place in a field in what is now southern England, which determined the very existence of the country. How odd it is now, to consider that of the few thousand fighting men and women present that day, some gave their lives for what they thought was the small kingdom of Wessex - the last remaining stronghold of the Anglo-Saxon peoples, after years of Viking raids - but in the end, they gave their lives so that the United Kingdom would eventually come to be what it was centuries later . . . one of the world's greatest and most productive empires. How surprised they would have been to learn that their sacrifice was the foundation of so much more than what they could have imagined.  

The final battle, with the shield walls dividing enemies.

The Battle of Edington (aka the Battle of Ethandun) was arguably the most important battle in English history, and it is fitting that the first season of the magnificent The Last Kingdom from the BBC gave us this battle as its finale. For many reasons, the first season has been an impressive debut for what has become a standout series, and it has in a short time built a strong fan base who must have been, as I was, cheering a little inside as our hero rode off into the final sunset with a narration promising more adventures ahead. Given the enthusiasm of a growing fanbase, the BBC would be foolish not to be planning for a second season.

The series is based upon the Saxon series of nine (so far) books, from renowned historical novelist Bernard Cornwell. The story follows the adventures of Uhtred of Bebbanburg, the son of a Saxon Northumbrian ealdorman (the precursor of an earl). When the Danes (Vikings) invade and kill his family, he is taken as a child slave into the Danish household of Danish warlord Ragnar, where due to his intelligence, loyalty and charm, he is eventually raised as a son. But fate is not kind to Uhtred, and a warring clan of Danes kills off his adoptive family as well.  Uhtred is left without a country, rejected as a Saxon by Danes and a Viking by Saxons.  He has to fight his way into acceptance by those he must trust - including the future King Alfred "the Great" of Wessex and later of all England - in order to gain back respect and his birthright.  His story is told against the backdrop of the fierce wars of the eighth, ninth and tenth centuries of England against Danish invaders intent on making the British Isles part of a Scandinavian kingdom. This was a time when battle was eye-to-eye brutal, life was cheap and dearly won, and Pagan and Christian strove to coexist.

Lord Guthrum of the Danes is baptized.

The series was produced by the executive producer of Downton Abbey, Gareth Naeme, who obviously understands how to capture and hold an audience. Unlike some of the others in the current parade of Dark Ages and Medieval fantasy series, this one follows much more closely actual historical events and incorporates characters based firmly in historical reality (even Uhtred of Bebbanburg existed, and is a distant ancestor of Cornwell, although little is known of his actual history). As can be expected from the BBC, production values are held to a high standard. 

David Dawson's King Alfred battles for Wessex.

The eight-episode season was shot mostly in Hungary, with some additional work in Wales and Denmark. From the reconstructed villages and wooden/stone palaces of the Saxons, to the costuming (reportedly done with an intentional "modern edge"), to battle scenes, one is easily transported back in time to a place that actually existed, and a people who were caught between two worlds and facing an uncertain future. The film is saturated with warm, rich red tones which bring out firelit interiors, skin, and setting sun, and also green tones which exploit the wild, earthy feel of a time when life took place mostly outdoors. Camerawork is consistently expertly rendered, and interesting without being distracting.

Not enough can be said about the cast. Heading it up is the relatively unknown Alexander Dreymon, whose anonymity will come to a screeching halt with this project. The well-trained young actor has delivered a performance worthy of an epic - always competent, nuanced, and fascinating. He understands the value of accent, the glance of an eye, posture, and all the small moments that raise a performance from passing to mesmerizing. His Uhtred is multi-layered, enigmatic, superbly physical (check out the horseback stunts and the fight scenes - his martial arts training shows) and by turns quietly emotional and fiercely warrior-like, as he cries over a friend's betrayal or his dead child, then rushes into battle swinging a broadsword with an intimidating fury-birthed grimace. He is never less than 100% male, as a ninth century warrior had to be in order to survive.

Also excellent are David Dawson as King Alfred, Adrian Bower as the knight Leofric, Eliza Butterworth as Aelswith, Ian Hart as Father Beocca, Emily Cox as Brida, Harry MacEntire as Athelwold (a fan favorite, to be sure!), Charlie Murphy as Iseult, Rune Temte as Ubba, and many others.

Wessex has finally won everything, while Uhtred has lost all.

Fans of the books will love the series, but may be a little put off by a few instances of straying from the novels' storyline. As a writer and a film fan, I have no issue with the changes: many are necessary in order to make a series play to a film audience without confusing them with too many characters and subplots; after all, film is a much different medium, and must have different requirements for the sake of clear storytelling.  Other changes added to the stories, such as the screenwriter's decision to flesh out Uhtred's love relationships, where in the books they are too often mere mentions. This change in particular makes the film more interesting to a wider audience, and Uhtred's character more multi-dimensional. It also, in this writer's opinion, raises the quality of the story. Like many a male, Cornwell tends to write from a testosterone-laden point of view. In much the same way that some female writers are unwilling to write a great battle scene, he shies away from love scenes or any scene of emotional romantic depth. The screenwriter has understood the value of fixing that, and brings a story accessible and interesting to everyone.

Hild the Nun takes no prisoners.

Which brings us to the battle scenes. These are some of the best you will ever see on television; each battle-cry to raise the shield wall gives the viewer goosebumps. The filmmakers employ stunts and special effects and camera work to increase tension and authenticity -which is expected - but they go further. In an era of television and film when rape and massacre are too often exploited for entertainment (this means you, Game of Thrones), this series neither shies away from tough scenes nor does it present them as purely entertainment. There is brutality, but not the glee of excessive butchery; there is rape, but not a script or camera that lingers over a woman's torture and humiliation for the sake of titillation. These filmmakers understand the difference between realism and exploitation, and it raises the production to a higher level than any other historical out there.

Uhtred and his Danish brother "Young Ragnar" loyal enemies.

Just about the only quarrel I had with the series, and one present also with the books, was resolved in the last episode: that of the treatment of various religions. In the books, Christianity is presented nearly always in a bad light - never as a force for good or the power of justice and peace, against poverty and blind brutality, but as a particularly malicious form of oppression. As an amateur historian of the era, it troubled me because it doesn't give a complete picture. I have always been fascinated in the question of why the new religion swept over a culture as quickly as it did (given that there was no mass communication). Through the years I

have read the suggestions of many historians - it encouraged the value of the individual life, and raised the value of life overall; it offered a way out of a pattern of personal vendetta and inter-clan wars; it raised the value of literacy and learning; it established the first social programs such as orphanages, schools, and soup kitchens; it improved ties to the Continent and the Roman Empire and the rest of Europe, which meant trade and improvement of quality of life. Cornwell has said in interviews that he holds a personal bias against Christianity given his upbringing, and while I can't fault him for that, I do think it's a shame that it kept him from writing more realistically about the gentle slipping away of the pagan world, and the gradual establishment of the Christian. Historians agree that for the vast part, it was a peaceful transition for England, and I for one think it would be a fascinating question for the novels to have explored more. 

But here, the screenwriters have rescued the story from one-dimensional Christian-bashing. In the final episodes, pagan Uhtred comes to reconcile the two philosophies in his own mind, Christian King Alfred comes to appreciate that his god may have a broader point of view than he originally thought, Father Beocca realizes that God works even through pagans, and - as happened in history - the leading warlord of the Danes, Guthrum, offers himself for baptism as part of a peace treaty. (In reality, Alfred stood as Guthum's godfather for baptism, and Guthrum took the Christian name Athelstan, after Alfred's deceased elder brother.)  In the last minutes of the final episode, we have nuns and priests taking up the spear and raising the battle-cry for Wessex and rushing headlong into the battle - a scene which, given the politics of the moment in time, I agree is highly imaginable. Even the religious would have understood that the saving of a way of life demanded every heart and weapon available, and that defending one's life and land was a justification for war when the invaders were at one's doorstep.

As I watched this series, I was often moved not only by the story of Uhtred and his companions, but by the story of England's birth, and the comparisons in my own mind to our political struggles today. Surely the people of Wessex were increasingly frightened as the Viking menace first tickled their shores, and then made its way inland to kill and conquer. Perhaps at first they - preoccupied with everyday survival at their little farms and trades - would have heard stories of the pillaging and murdering and thought of it as a far-off thing, of not much consequence. They would not have understood that it was growing bigger, that it was a force that did not share the values they had embraced with Christianity, and would spare no one until they were all dead or subjected. Even good King Alfred imagined the Danes as people who would be reasonable, could be negotiated with and then trusted to obey a peace agreement. But he was wrong, and it is to England's luck that he learned it in time enough to get serious about defending his people.

Today we face a similar situation, as a force intent on the destruction of our way of life moves closer and grows larger, while still our leaders and a vast majority of our citizens play blithely along at their day-to-day pursuits, without understanding what is at stake and the choices we will have to make in a very near future. I wonder if we still - we peoples of the western world, who have built civilizations on a specific set of values and beliefs, whether we acknowledge that fact or not - possess the courage it will take to keep the right to decide our own path into the future. 

As Uhtred told us in every episode of The Last Kingdom, "Destiny is all."  In the Anglo-Saxon way of thinking, Destiny ("Wyrd") was a reality predetermined before one ever took a first breath. But they believed also that individual choices could affect destiny.  Let's hope that our destiny is as hopeful and kind to us, as was that of the brave Anglo-Saxon men and women who won their future with blood.

Do yourself a favor and watch The Last Kingdom in its entirety. You'll get a great history lesson, a glimpse into the past of a great people and land, and a rollicking good time.

###

Writer Bernard Cornwell with "Uhtred" Alexander Dreymon.

Bernard Cornwell's series can be found at Amazon.com, at bookstores, and elsewhere all over the web. The popular books are well-researched and well-written, and I highly recommend them.

The Last Kingdom is currently finishing up its run in the UK and Europe, but is finished with the first season's run in the US.  It can be purchased online as a DVD, or downloaded from Amazon or ITunes. If you are like me you will be watching each episode about four times.

Review: Gifted Hands, by Ben Carson

Someone handed me this book this morning, when I asked about it out of curiosity.  I find Dr. Carson fascinating. I remember back when he was, as head of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, invited to be the guest speaker at the National Prayer Breakfast, and effectively and politely - with impressive class and finesse - put a stone-faced Obama in his place like a patient older brother scolding a young upstart.

When he first entered the presidential race, I saw him as a breath of fresh air, and a welcome change from the Washington establishment. Over time, when a few things popped up in mainstream media illustrating some of his weirder comments, I started to feel some caution kick in. I resolved to file the reticence away until later in the campaign, and take a second look if he was still in it. But lately he has surged ahead in the polls, his quiet, intelligent demeanor conveying a calm reassurance that many voters respond to.

I took myself to lunch and read most of the book in that one sitting. I have to confess, I was looking for some evidence that he isn't to be trusted, some sign that he isn't as good as he seems.  Another crazy contender masking as the next superman.  But I didn't find it.

Gifted Hands is a memoir, detailing his beginnings as an underprivileged kid growing up in Detroit. He had the same circumstances as many a black child - and too many of all races - he was living in poverty with a single mom, not asking much of himself or his world, falling into a pattern of violent misbehavior. This is a guy who had no advantages. None.

The book reveals how his years through high school found him letting go of anger and violence as a way of life and allowing hope to creep in and inspire him.  It tells how he earned his way into Yale, not as a matter of affirmative action, but by merit of his hard work. It discusses his marriage and the births of his children, and his earning a medical degree and beyond, finding himself rising in one of the most competitive industries and sub-fields in the world.

But the book is so much more than a chronological blow-by-blow of his climb; nor is it merely a

lecture on the ladder to success.  Firstly, it is expertly written. Writers studying the art of memoir would be wise to take a look. The book begins with a critical conversation in the course of his childhood, and is full of stories of his own experience and accounts from within the surgery of some of his cases as a neurosurgeon.

And it's the point of the book that makes it worth a read: while too many very intelligent people get caught up in a pattern of endless self-analysis and world-analysis to the point of constant confusion, Carson has an ability to view the world and life's challenges through a lens of near-childlike simplicity. It has served to form in him a common sense that guides him daily.  The book is peppered with little bits of personal wisdom, that add up to a nice recipe for keeping one's head above water despite diversity and the more unsavory but unavoidable aspects of any lifetime.

The biggest difference in Carson's life, when compared to similar stories, is that his mother was even more impressive than he is. Uneducated, married at thirteen, she found herself a single mom with two boys when she was hardly an adult herself.  But this is a woman with an extraordinary dose of common sense, and an unshakable commitment to put and keep her boys on the path to success, and more importantly, to living a life of service to others.  The book's dedication to this amazing woman is justified as the reader realizes how the early lessons she imposed shaped the course of a life that might have gone in a very different direction. Perhaps the greatest challenge to such a parent, and one that too many fail at, is the challenge to make a bigger impression on a young mind than does the neighborhood, gangs, and financial circumstances.  This woman accomplished that and more.

Carson credits his mother, and his faith, for his sense of and commitment to right conduct. It's refreshing, in this me-centered society and era of self-obsession, to see any man - much less a presidential candidate - embrace basic ethics that used to be common in this society. His story demonstrates how a life dedicated to those values can benefit the individual as well as those with whom his life comes in contact. It demonstrates why those ethics are still valid and even necessary.

At its core, the book is a spoonful of inspiration, with a realistic take on what can change and make a life. In an ideal world, it would be required reading not only for every black student, but for every teen, regardless of background. It's that good, and that valuable. Interesting, it was written in 1990, when Carson was yet at the height of his medical career, and long before he considered a political one.  It would be fascinating to see what a new memoir, after an additional fifteen years of life experience, would look like.

The Serial Craze: When Writers Sacrifice the Story

Not so many years ago, one could view a television drama or pick up a novel, and expect to be told a story.  A complete story. Beginning, middle, end. Can you imagine?  With the exception of daytime soaps, serial stories were the exception, not the rule. As we have entered an era where, across many entertainment platforms, serials are more common - books, movies, television, games - it has often occurred to me that this practice has hurt the quality of stories.

The first time I remember being bored by the serial thing was with the ABC television serial from the 1980s, Twin Peaks. I watched most of it, but grew increasingly annoyed as my writer's intuition (and experience) told me that there was no ending. We were all waiting week after week for a big fat nothing, because the writers hadn't a clue how the thing was going to play itself out. They were making it up as they went, and their ever bringing it to a conclusion seemed to depend upon how long the network was going to keep renewing its call for new episodes.

Apparently I wasn't alone; early in the first season viewership dropped off dramatically. Largely due to great critical reviews based on its innovation, and likely to some ego on the part of ABC, the show was renewed for a second season that proved to be a mess. The key mystery was solved mid-season (a bone-headed decision if ever there was one) and viewership dropped to negligible numbers, financially speaking. The series died a long drawn-out death. Creators later admitted that they never considered that the series was about plot (the murder of Laura Palmer), but more about the interactions between the show's quirky characters - a confession that likely surprised not a single competent writer in viewer land. 

Other shows were smarter; The X Files incorporated a secondary ongoing storyline regarding the relationship between the leads and with their pasts, but still offered a complete story weekly. This was a formula that kept the show alive far longer than producers of Twin Peaks could have dreamt of - several years. 

By the middle of the 1980s, movies that were "sequels" or "prequels" or whatever inanity-du-jour producers came up with were a bit of a joke. (How about that second Indiana Jones story?  The "prequel". Yeah.. that one.) One could expect the sequel to be a lame attempt at money-making on the part of producers, and rarely anything that lived up to the thrill moviegoers had at the original. 

In recent years, the serial craze has crept into the realm of novels. Interestingly, many of the classic novels that we still revere from the late 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries in American and British writing were originally published in serial form in various newspapers. And yet, even that took a different form than it does now. These novels were complete and promised to be so from the beginning: they would be advertised as for example "a novel in four parts".  The reader was reassured every time they began a new installment, that they were reading a real story with a real, logical plot, and that it would have a real ending.

Nowadays there is a lot of laziness in writing all around. While Amazon, I personally believe, has been a godsend in allowing innovative stories to find a place in the marketplace, I abhor the laziness - from people just wanting to make a quick buck who would not take one week to learn to write a plot in any coherent manner, to people who want to call themselves a writer but don't understand that putting a book out there with grammar and spellings issues and a mess of a structure does not a writer make. Of course, the buyer is as responsible as the writer, if not more, for this state of things in the marketplace - and that is another discussion. The point is, I have come to believe that writing serials is another rather cynical attempt to make money with bad writing.  One need only slap together the beginning of a story, and put of having to take it to a logical end. 

Why does this matter to me?  Because 1) we have so little in the way of novels of quality on the already flooded market, and 2) serials as they are currently being presented cheat the reader. And do that quite intentionally.

The best plots - and in my mind the only way to structure a novel - consider the outcome as they go. The author knows the ending and the conflicts and pitfalls, and leads the reader through a maze of clues (foreshadowing) that all contribute to the satisfaction a reader feels as they reach a great ending. If the writer from the get-go has no idea what the plot is or where the conflict is going, they cannot foreshadow, they cannot tease and lead the reader. To me, there is something really low about spoonfeeding a reader little bits of an incomplete meal of a story, allowing him to anticipate for nothing.

Call me old-fashioned, but I believe that whether you are a novelist or a playwright, a screenwriter or a producer for TV, you owe those to whom you are telling the story a well-structured plot. You owe this above all else, because without a good plot, the story doesn't take shape. I talk to too many writers who will tell me all about the great protagonist they have dreamt up for the upcoming series (usually this protagonist is based upon themselves, interestingly), but are unable to articulate any coherent plan for a plot.  "It's a series," is the excuse, "I can figure it out in Book Two."  Oh.  

The problem is, there are too many instances where the first book establishes the lead character and a conflict of sorts, and ties up just a few loose ends by the finish but leaves a few bigger loose ends for the second book, enticing readers to buy in order to be fulfilled. Fine, but too many times the author grows bored by the end of the second book, resorts to dragging it on to a third, or simply doesn't publish a book with the ending. (Can you spell "c.h.e.a.t."?) So what starts out as an enthusiastic following results in a lot of frustrated readers, and rightly so. The author struggles to keep plotting alive, the second and subsequent (God forbid) books lack quality, and the series fizzles out. The problem is that the writer didn't take the time and effort - and perhaps lacked the skill in many instances - to lay out a complete plot structure, and then figure out what would happen in each book.  Experienced writers (and most of them stay away from serials) don't make the mistake of making it up as they go - they know that unless you have plot issues resolved from the beginning, they become potholes that grow into craters, and you may end up without an ending that works, and a failed series.

I find that this scenario usually involves an inexperienced writer, eager to make a paycheck, and unschooled on the finer points of successful plotting.  Often, this is a writer who does characterization well; he or she can come up with a great character and stick them into a book. But that character ends up throwing up his hands and complaining to the author, "What do you want me to do?"  when he becomes hopelessly mired in the chaos of a lack of plot.

A few people - a few - who are experienced writers do serials well. But the ones I can think of all do one important thing that is different from inexperienced writers:  they roll a complete well-plotted story into each book. Each book can stand alone as a good read. And a person can read Book Three and pretty much enjoy a full story, never having read the first two at all.

One good example of this is the wonderful historical novelist Bernard Cornwell. He has done a few different series of novels designed around themes. Each book within a series is a separate story; it may involve an ongoing protagonist observer to the historical period. Bestselling thriller writer Tom Clancy uses the Jack Ryan character as a protagonist through many of his novels, yet each novel contains a complete mystery thriller. Another good example is the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. Each story could be read separately and is complete in and of itself.

Unfortunately, the success of Harry Potter spawned a generation of novels that are badly written as series. Either, as mentioned above, an inexperienced writer is just in over their heads - or worse, the success of a first book prompts the writer to come up with an extension to the story that is never going to live up to the first because the writer doesn't understand the sophistication of plot structure required to pull it off (consider the Twilight story by Stephenie Meyer, or the 50 Shades of Gray books by E.L. James - yes there are three of those trainwrecks). 

The genre of erotic novels, along with "urban fantasy", offers up some of the worst nonsense in series reading. There, you often experience both bad characterization and bad plot structure, all rolled up in one. Why any reader continues to finance an author who can't be bothered to offer those two fundamentals to the reader, is beyond me. 

I'll continue to be annoyed by series writing, and dismayed that it seems to indulge a sort of greed amongst some bad writers, as their naive readers snatch up the first few books in a series before becoming disappointed.  I'll continue to tell the inexperienced writers I work with as an editor that series writing is not a good idea unless you are willing to plot out three novels, before writing a word of the first. You have to be willing to put thought into the last chapter of the third book, before you can presume to be able to successfully write the series or understand character development and conflict - those very things that form the true backbone of good writing and a successful series. 

I'll continue to believe that it's a trend whose life will be limited as people become tired of disappointment. When that day comes, there will be a lot of nervous TV writers, novelists and screenwriters, who will finally have to learn to write a structured plot!

Toward Better Writing: When Crazy Just Doesn't Cut It

Clowns and puppets. Back about ten to fifteen years ago, I noticed a trend in novels that I found infinitely annoying, and I have finally put my finger on why. I hope my observations might be useful.

It got to be predictable, particularly in the literary novel genre, particularly the best-sellers. Nowadays, you find it across genres. Characters had to be outrageous: they had to have almost unbelievable backgrounds; they had difficult to understand dilemmas, usually due to extremely far-fetched situations; they had names that ranged from sounding as if the authors' four-year-olds made up while munching on cereal at breakfast, and sounding as if the author had had one too many cocktails while sitting before the computer. Each of these characters was peppered over with a plethora of quirky habits. These aren't characters; they are so overly made up, so painted with pretty colors, you can't see their faces or souls. They are clowns.

Now you may ask, "What's wrong with that? Crazy characters are fun, Lichen! Some of the best and most memorable characters are like that! You snob!"

This is my problem with it: when you overdo it, you murder the very reasons you might successfully employ it as a creative device. You defeat the purpose - what might have been successful and interesting and drawn the reader in, in a more powerful way. You dilute that which you might have had.

This is why:

First, it is essential to a well-drawn character that your reader is able to relate in some way to her needs or frustrations or experiences or motives. I believe that is always necessary to a successful story. Now, your character might be non-human; he or she might be an anti-hero, possessing what many of us would see as negative traits; he or she might exist in an alternate universe or a time in the far past or distant future that you can't completely imagine. But that character must have traits at his or her core that the reader can relate to on a personal level. The reader must feel, in some important way, at one with the protagonist.  If this doesn't happen, the writer risks losing the reader - either in the bookstore reading the back cover and rolling his eyes before he puts the book back down, or sighing and tossing it aside in the third chapter as he sits on a sofa. A character is too far-fetched when he is made up of so much bizarreness (yes, I made that up, but it works here!) that the reader never bonds with him.

On the other hand, a character must possess some idiosyncrasy in order to be a character, and not a mannequin devoid of personality. Every elementary creative writing class teaches you to find something different to add to a character, in order to make him come alive. Maybe he can favor blue shirts only; maybe her shoes are always untied or her red curly hair always unruly; maybe he speaks with a brogue or a southern American, or British accent. Maybe she has lots of dogs or cats. Or walks ten miles to work every day. No one is interesting if they are like everyone else in the world, right? So a writer must find what can be unique about the character and emphasize that, in order to draw in the reader's interest.  But . . . too much weirdness, too many quirks, causes a character to feel overdone, overcooked, contrived, and well. . . phony. This is when the reader starts to disbelieve in the character. And thus lose interest in the character's plight. Bad news for your book!


In the art of writing for the screen or stage, when we learn the basics of plotting (and of course all of this applies to a novel or short story) we speak about the element of Suspension of Disbelief.  Have you ever been sitting in a theatre to see a play, and as the curtain rises you see that the set is very minimalist - maybe just a few chairs where you know there should be an entire room. Or a character's walk through what is supposed to be a forest, is a few risers or a ramp and some shadow scattered about the stage. But later in the production, you might realize that you have lost track of your initial worry about the set, because you have been engrossed in the story.  This is due to successful performance of a successfully-constructed script. The director, actors and writer(s) have achieved Suspension of Disbelief for the audience. In other words, the elements that might have caused the audience to disbelieve the story as it goes have been overshadowed by the larger story itself. The reasons for the audience to believe the plot being set before them - the obstacles before the characters and the motives they have as they fight for that which they desire most - are so powerful, that anything prohibiting that tendency to question, has been obliterated for a time.

Or have you ever sat and watched a film, and thought to yourself, "This is so stupid. This person would never do that. People don't act like that." You are bothered because the Suspension of Disbelief has not been successfully achieved; those elements that cause doubt in your mind have not been overcome by the plot or performances, and thus the film has failed to properly engage your imagination.

When you throw in too much of the bizarre into a character, your reader's ability to employ Suspension of Disbelief is impeded. If the reader already doesn't find your character believable (and to be relatable she must be a little believable after all!), why would he believe your plot?

To put all this simply: don't write characters that are so overboard weird that they sink into seeming silly. That is easier said than done, if you are a writer that loves quirkiness. So in the interest of the writers out there who may be in love with the Weird, let's set down some common sense guidelines:

• If you are going to name people silly names from the depths of your imagination, do that to only one character. One character with a silly/quirky nickname or a name that only they could have inherited from Great Grandpappy Pinecone, is enough.  Let people around that character have more mainstream, geographically/ethnically/era appropriate names. That way, your odd character really stands out and your story doesn't seem populated by people your reader can't relate to or believe (and if everyone in town is named ridiculously, can the reader believe the town is well. . . sane?).  An exception would be a group of siblings who were all given odd names to make a point, and in order to allow you to say something about family dynamics. 
  
• And let's say you do that. You have three sisters all with silly names their perpetually-drunken sire insisted upon. Then do it, but have one of them comment on the names within the narrative, because if the characters themselves acknowledge the ridiculousness, the reader will respect them and accept the reasoning, and thus believe in them and in the story. 
• Don't give your character fifteen quirks. Give him three, tops. Those three will stand out enough, will keep your character within the bounds of logic, and allow him to still be believable if a little . . . unique. 
• If you are giving your character an odd name, inexplicable quirks, and a crazy family, for Heaven's sake, make his background and dilemma believable.  Not that there is ever an excuse for a badly-constructed plot, but especially when you are demanding a lot of Suspension of Disbelief of your reader in the way of your character's very construction, do allow him a relatable situation to deal with.
• Keep this in mind:  Most of us in our day-to-day lives are a little (or a lot) turned off by phoniness. We can smell it a mile away by our thirties or so. And it bores us. Phonies wear a smell of trying too hard, of displaying their oddness like a badge, along with a silent, "I'm too cool for you all. . . see how weird I am?"  You know what I mean. Don't let your characters be that. Keep them real. Write a real character who happens to have an odd name and be dealing with a weird life circumstance. Don't use a character to parade around your favorite weird name, personal quirks, and idea for the weirdest plot ever. That is phony, and it isn't going to lead to good writing. Believe me on that. Don't make a character your puppet. Rather, write a well-rounded, believable, relatable character from the beginning and then let the character carry the story. You record the actions of the character as he guides you, you don't manipulate the strings.
• Cardinal rule: When the author is trying too hard to be cute, the readers feel it. Leave that in fifth grade, and just write a character the reader can respect (not necessarily like, but respect) and relate to in some major way. 

Respect your characters enough - whether they be animal or human, alien or not - to make them real so that the reader is drawn to them.  Bring each to life with a few points of uniqueness - a few odd habits, a few favorite turns of phrase, an interesting family member or two, one slightly odd experience in their past. Stop there. That's enough. 

Know when enough is enough, and never forget that less is more. And over-the-top is . . . well . . . just annoyingly hard for your reader to swallow. 

For more on writing good characters, see previous article: Characters: The Inspiration of Attraction.

Film Review: The Riot Club

I have been looking forward to seeing this film for quite a while. It is based on an award-winning play, POSH, by British playwright Laura Wade. As did the play, the film has garnered some good reviews, and in particular, its ensemble cast of ten of Great Britain's best young male actors have received positive attention for their roles. As some of you know, I became a fan of upcoming actor and former model Max Irons, after seeing his performance as King Edward IV of England in made-for-cable miniseries, The White Queen. His performance has been one of those singled out for praise in The Riot Club. And so I was excited to see him in this film. Because I am a fan of stage plays, and fascinating by the art of writing for theatre, I am always interested to see how a play has been adapted for the big screen.

The Riot Club was released first in the UK, and subsequently across Europe from early fall until present. The cast and producers have put in a lot of time with personal appearances at various premieres, and it has been met with good energy everywhere, including in Canada where it premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in November of 2014. Its U.S. release is set for late March. It was directed by Danish director/producer Lone Scherfig.

The film is well-produced and adequately filmed. Not one performance is lacking, from the least - lasting a few seconds - to those of the ensemble cast of eleven men and two women, each of whom plays a major role. I found the structure of the plot rather odd, and had to settle in a bit to it: this was no doubt a result of the adaptation from stage. I'm not certain whether editing could have remedied the feeling that the build-up was too short and the debauchery scene very long. It seems that the balance achieved was necessary to the success of the plot.

The story follows two freshmen at Oxford University, Miles (Max Irons) and Alistair (Sam Claflin). Both

Sam Claflin (left); Max Irons

are approached almost immediately by a mysterious underground by-invite-only "social club" known as the Riot Club - named after a 17th-century nobleman who engaged in abandonned and continuous debauchery, and was stabbed in the stomach for it by a cuckholded husband. The boys see this history as terribly romantic and exciting and use it as an excuse to engage in a carpe diem lifestyle while at school which includes playing various pranks that are so extreme that they are more disgusting than amusing. But these kids are rich, and it's old money. They simply pay their way out of scrapes with wads of bills from their pockets and the help of Daddy's lawyers.

I know, you're imagining the horror stories we hear coming out of frat house hazings, right?  In most countries, the children of the financial elite sometimes get away with horrible behavior, and pay and/or intimidate their way out of it. But forget all that: the antics of this crowd would make the most hardened frat boys' jaws drop. They are truly out of control. The viewer feels the situation veering out of hand from early in the film, and the thing is that it never really careens until all Hell breaks loose well past the hour-long mark - it just crawls slowly to an increasingly dark inevitability, and it keeps the viewer mesmerized. It is the horror show you can't look away from - even as you know you don't want to see it.

Stories came out of the set during production that the cast itself was often uncomfortable with the subject matter. The male ensemble discussed it together at length, took time to bond so that filming the worst would be easier on them mentally. Actresses Holliday Grainger and Jessica Brown-Findlay have spoken about struggling with the tension of the misogynistic scenes in the film. Max Irons has told the press a few times that when first presented with the script, he felt he would decline the role, feeling that he didn't want to do something "so disgusting". But he thought about it further, considered that clubs such as the one depicted in the film have been the stuff of university legend for years;  a few years back some of the elite in the British government were discovered to have participated in such behavior themselves, and there was quite the scandal at the time. Irons decided that it was "an important story" and "a discussion that needs to happen" in the greater social context, and he agreed to participate.

Much is made in the film, and during interviews with the cast and director, about this social context. Most of Europe is deeply entrenched in the realities of social class differences, to a greater extent than Americans and Canadians experience. It seems to infiltrate so much of the way of looking at life. I say this as one who has lived in Europe, and was married into a European family for near two decades. To understand - as we do in America - that a lot of money brings what is sometimes too much privilege, and to as a Brit understand it as a sort of wall built over hundreds of years that cannot be scaled, is two different sensibilities.  And so perhaps my appreciation of the film from that perspective was a bit limited.

I think that perhaps my experience of the film was also affected by my gender. Why is it that young men, when they assume their ugliest personas, have to be so damned ugly toward women?  It would be funny if it weren't so horrid: the notion that a male somehow raises himself in the eyes of other males by demeaning those most vulnerable to testosterone-out-of-control, is something I have never been able to understand. The scenes which depict this particular behavior are so vile, that Holliday Grainger describes a sort of dream state she entered during filming the worst, when the line between what was the set and what was real seemed to blur. At one point she describes how one of the actors laid a kind hand on her to ask if she were all right, and she shivered, unable to stand him touching her. She rushes to explain that all the male actors involved were kind people and spoke of their own disgust as well, but it didn't make the filming of it any easier.

Of all the heinous behaviors depicted in the film, perhaps this one was the worst: the harassment of
women. Let me describe what I mean: some of the boys are frustrated that a high-priced call girl they hired to perform oral sex on them all under the dinner table has told them where to stick it (er..them) and walked out without the boys getting their fun. Later, Miles' girlfriend - having been tricked into coming to the restaurant - stumbles upon the drunken orgy at hand. The male mob turns on her, openly taunting her with language meant to intimidate and then terrify her into believing she will be raped, as they physically restrain her (and restrain a horrified Miles, who has let it go this far before trying to intervene). The girl finally escapes, but of course, nothing will ever be the same for the two lovers.

Which brings me to the point of the film. The behavior of the boys escalates over much of the film - each time the viewer hopes that we have seen the worst - and many times it seems that it is in fact enough to get the point - it keeps getting worse. It is ratcheted up yet another notch. Is destroying a working family's place of business enough?  Destroying a treasured collection of artwork? Vomiting under tables? Breaking literally everything in a room?  Is humiliating an escort enough?  Or a young woman who means no harm, and comes into the room expecting no harm to herself? Is terrifying her in an intimately, primal sexual way for one's amusement enough? How about beating a man senseless, as a gang, because you can?

As I write, it's been one day since the world was horrified by the act of a terrorist gang of thugs in Syria burning a young man alive in a cage. This gang has, over a year, gotten more and more brazen in terms of how it tortures and kills. From hangings to beheadings. From stonings to throwing people off buildings. And now we are back in the Middle Ages, burning people alive. As one news pundit said today - we have to understand that these are young men who are enjoying what they are doing. They are enjoying the victim's suffering and they are enjoying the horror we feel at seeing what they have done.  I thought a lot about this as I watched The Riot Club.

I thought about the nature of power - whether political or monetary, by virtue of terror or by inherited wealth.  I thought about human nature too.  I thought about what Miles' girlfriend says to him, tears streaming and body shaking, as she throws cold water on his effort to seek her forgiveness, "You were THERE. You had a choice, Miles, and you chose to do NOTHING."

The ugliest behavior humans can engage in are wrapped up in the under two hours of this film. When intimidation and power is used to destroy another - whether by the horrible psychological torture suggested in this film, or by setting fire to a person - I have to believe that the gods weep for us all: both for those who do it, and those who stand by and do nothing.

In the end, what is really the difference between the minds of young men engaged in a gang rape or beating a man blind in the back room of a pub, and the minds of a Middle Eastern thug?  What are we going to do about these acts, in our own societies, behind the doors of our governments, and within our universities? How much is too much for us as a species to bear, before we stop turning our faces away and excusing it? Before we stop refusing to be emotionally present, before we stop doing nothing?

These are questions this haunting film leaves us. I didn't enjoy it. I never want to see it again. But I'm glad I did see it once, and that it made me think about things that perhaps we all should be giving thought to from time to time.  As Mr. Irons observed, the story is important on many levels, depending on one's perspective, and it certainly is a place to start a much needed discussion. The most relevant films are those that make us look in the mirror, and for that, The Riot Club deserves accolades.