It's not hush hush, at least if it is, Headline haven't told me, but it's not easy to summarise. It's called The Mathematics of Love.

A plot summary's hopeless in this kind of space, so I can only offer you the other kind: it's about war, love, photography, voyeurism, reflections, images, monochrome and positive/negative, transgressive sex, lost children, light and time and space, friendship... oh, and decent coffee.

Other than that, it's hard to say more than that it's got one foot in 1819, starting at the Peterloo Massacre, and the other in the drought summer of 1976. Much of both stories is set in the same house in Suffolk, and the earlier story travels to Brussels, and northern Spain. There are complicated webs of ideas and images netting the two together, but also a set of letters, written to a friend by my post-Waterloo soldier Stephen in one story, and read by my disaffected, abandoned 15 year old Anna in the other.

It's difficult to say more without writing reams, which wouldn't help much. I also find I know what I've put in there, but I don't really know which bits readers will bring away with them at the end.

Emma

Sounds intriguing

Thank you! I always think summaries make it sound dire. I start wishing I'd never written it. Fortunately I'll soon be able to ignore it for a while.

Emma

Going back to the original question I cannot see any sensible reader using such a lame excuse 'not to connect' with the MC in a story simply because that MC started an affair with a married man. For Heavens sake, get a life. This happens every day and there are a thousand and one reasons why two people decide to tango.

If the writer knows his or her craft, the most heinous of characters could be written in such a way that the reader 'connects' instantly with them.

What they say and what they do may be foreign to the acceptable standards and morals of the reader but everyone knows that people are a complex mixture of emotions and we are all capable of singing with the angels or dining with the devils.

While the art and craft of a writer is expressed in black and white, we know that this does not apply to real people. We only have to look within ourselves.

If a writer wishes to portray stereotypes, so predictable in their reaction to any situation then that writer has only to turn to the soaps, where black and white characteristics are so important.

I have the feeling that Angie's friend needs to grow up.

Len

I do think that your main character MUST be, in some perhaps incalculable sense, someone the reader can sympathise with. It doesn’t, of course, follow that that character has to be morally pristine (whatever that means), but it does mean that the reader must be engaged by the character’s morals (and that, to me, is what ‘being sympathetic towards’ is all about). Think Madame Bovary, or Anna Karenina, or Gatsby. In my own case, an agent described my first-person narrator as ‘flawed but entirely sympathetic’ and this is someone who, one night, cowardly walked out on his wife and young daughter for the promise of another woman… the narrator I mean, not the agent - well, maybe the agent, I wouldn’t know. The point is that if your reader is indifferent towards your principal character and doesn’t care whether or not they drop dead, then they’d probably feel the same way towards the novel.

Yes, Sammy's right, it's not caring that's the real turn-off, and I think that's often caused by the character being generalised, not fully-imagined enough, lacking all the oddities and uncertainties and evasions that real humans have. It may even be the result of them not having a real physical presence in the novel. Doesn't matter if the result is what for shorthand you'd call a 'good' or 'bad' person.

Emma

It is the skill of the writer that captures and holds the reader, whether to induce sympathy, empathy, curiosity, or any other intended emotional reaction on the part of the reader.

Any competent writer knows this and develops his or her skill with the pen.

We know that there are readers who are 'put off' by the most innocuous of words. For example the use of an expletive like 'damn' would cause many readers of yesteryear to close the book.

Nowadays one has to bear in mind political correctness and, in particular, the sensibilities of religious people. However I think that to complain that she could not connect with the main character because of the reason stated reflects more on the reader that the writer.

Len

I'm inclined to agree with Len. Having read Poppy Z Brite's Exquisite Corpse in which the MC and the co star are both serial killers, I disagree you need to 'sympathise'.

Sometimes, getting a glimpse into the dark side, and looking through the eyes of a character you fear and loathe, is just as edifying an experience.

JB

In it's proper use, you could argue that 'sympathise with' is much the same as 'see through the eyes of'. It means feel with (not at all necessarily feel sorry for). I think you need to feel with a character however morally reprehensible, in the sense that you have to understand the emotional underpinnings of their actions, and you have to feel those emotions in the same way that you have to feel the roughness of the planks under their feet. I think if you don't have some emotional apprehension of them, then they're just a blank - a robot - and you couldn't care less about them. You can be cheering as they plummet screaming into the fiery abyss, or dreading what they'll do as they say 'leave it to me, oh master', but that's still entering into an engagement with their emotional existence.

Emma

I accept that, but surely so much of it is dependent on the reader's imagination?

Len

“It is the skill of the writer that captures and holds the reader, whether to induce sympathy, empathy, curiosity, or any other intended emotional reaction on the part of the reader.” - well, yes, stating the bleedin’ obvious

“Any competent writer knows this and develops his or her skill with the pen.” - who’d have thought!

“We know that there are readers who are 'put off' by the most innocuous of words. For example the use of an expletive like 'damn' would cause many readers of yesteryear to close the book.” - WOULD have MANY…? What a preposterous statement.

“Nowadays one has to bear in mind political correctness and, in particular, the sensibilities of religious people.” - NO! nowadays, as always, one should eschew anything that is in danger of curbing, hindering, editing, or watering down your writing; anything that puts obstacles on that path between what’s in your mind and what goes down on paper is, and always has been, an affront to imagination. (Read Houllebecq) It comes down to morality - I do (and hope any right-thinking person would too) think that the novel is a deeply moral exercise. However I also believe (and here we seem to disagree) that the processes by which we produce our ‘moral’ novel can be as devoid of morality as we wish. It’s a paradox that has always existed and tied up in knots many writers far, far cleverer than I.

“However I think that to complain that she could not connect with the main character because of the reason stated reflects more on the reader that the writer.” - Agreed.

JB

As I said, by sympathise with I mean ‘be engaged in the morals of’ - so, according to my definition, of course I can sympathise with the serial killers. I’ve not read the book but in order for it to be a sustained piece of literature I’d hope the writer had made an attempt to understand her protagonists; their psychology and motivation. Otherwise, I’d guess the writer was just paddling in the shallow end, and being gratuitous purely for the sake of it.

Emma

Your novel’s outline reminded me of Byatt’s Possession… an influence? (“Roughness of the planks under their feet” - cool line!)

Cheers!

Sammy

Wow Len, you don't like the apparent being explained much do you?

Yes, Exquisite Corpse is drawn from the whole cloth, about two gay serial killers - one English, one American - who meet by chance in New Orleans and have a torrid affair. It's typically gore drenched, but very disturbing. Especially when some rent boy gets a screwdriver shoved up his bum.

Not dinner time reading.

JB

<Added>

I meant Wow Sammy.

Sammy,
When you have uploaded any of your own work then I think we shall all be in a better position to get some idea of your own writing prowess and critical abilities.

I think you are so wrong when you attempt to raise the flag of writers' freedom through this particular discussion. It started out from one of our newer and younger Members who stated that a reader friend of hers didn't feel that she could connect with the principal character as that MC had started an affair with a married man. A single point that I thought was unjustified.

I stand by my statement on the question of sensibility, of appreciating how and why people react in the way they do. I think this is an important point if one has the aim of being published.

Your tone of reaction is akin to the inflammatory language that one can read in political leaflets and certain public relations writing. If you disagree - just say so and come away from the impression that you are trying to make a name for yourself.

Len

Sammy, you're right in one sense, but I didn't read 'Possession' until I'd written my novel, and was looking for a subject for the critical paper part of the MPhil, which was about parallel narratives. When I read it I did notice all sorts of correspondences in one way, but only because we had both set ourselves the same problem: we wanted to draw similarities and differences between two wholly separate times, and had to work out how then to connect the plots, themes, etc.

A couple of people have said 'Birdsong' to me, which I haven't read either, but the little I've tasted of his prose makes me not specially want to try!

Emma

Emma,

I can't tell you what a dream come true it would be if someone compared something I'd written to 'Birdsong'. Shame it does nothing for you.

Your summary sounds very appealing to me; I'm glad you didn't give too much away.

Myrtle