Review of Brigid Brophy's 'In Transit' by Charles Wheeler

Author’s note: This article features heavy use of “they/them/their” as a gender-neutral pronoun. This is a) necessary, for reasons explained within, b) entirely consistent with historical use, and c) only technically incorrect by recent convention.

Brigid Brophy was never one to mince her words. Her lifetime saw her undertake staunch activism for the rights of both authors and animals, and her most famous foray into non-fiction was co-authoring the gleefully antagonistic Fifty Works of English Literature We Could Do Without (including Moby Dick, Wuthering Heights and Hamlet, if you were wondering). But while that work may be somewhat of a throwaway gag, that same spirit of boldly confronting the status quo with mocking wit underpins the staggering literary and cultural brilliance of her 1969 novel, In Transit.

Told from the perspective of Pat O’Rooley, an introspective, awkward Irish person who forgets their gender while trapped in an airport, this “Heroi-cyclic novel” is an unforgiving deconstruction of gender roles, binary essentialism, and wider notions of identity. Pat (Evelyn Hilary, officially) experiences this crisis in the form of an engrossingly labyrinthine internal monologue, in which their thoughts move at breakneck speed and jump to conclusions from the smallest piece of evidence.

Pat’s interactions with other characters are often brief and fraught, as Pat scours every sentence, every bit of body language, every tangible action or reaction for clues. Brophy lays out a tight yet wild narrative, putting Pat through myriad trials ranging from simple social awkwardness to actual physical danger and pseudo-espionage. It’s a rollercoaster ride that is, when viewed objectively, considered and well-structured, but in the moment feels utterly out of control and even frightening. Even a chance meeting with an old friend’s husband and an unexpected appearance on a television panel show being filmed in the airport raise more questions than they answer, as Pat’s observations and assumptions contradict, mislead, and confuse.

Through this, Pat develops into a reliably unreliable narrator – we see their thought processes in explicit detail, and furthermore, we see the issues therein. Pat’s willingness to over-extrapolate conclusiveness from any clue with which they are presented is a clear shot at the frenzied binary essentialism and heteronormativity which dictates social gender and sexuality conventions – the central edict of which is that Pat, and indeed everyone, must be a boy or a girl, and that this identity is easily established from simple cues and behaviours. Brophy is having none of it, and Pat’s clawing towards one extreme or the other is a cutting parody of these attitudes which lays their sheer ridiculousness bare.

However well In Transit’s narrative is put together, though, it’s the language and physical structure of text in which Brophy’s true genius lies. Saturated with puns and wordplay, the novel does at times stray towards being offputtingly dense, but is always worth the extra effort – some passages may only reveal their virtues after a couple of reads, at which point I found myself questioning the point of sentences one can understand instantly. Where’s the fun in that?

Along with the challenging plain text, there are also plenty of stylistic quirks employed. They’re never mere bells and whistles, though – as with the more challenging passages, the effort of digging deeper pays off. Consider:

I now regretted having so cavalierly {^l_p^e_a^t_{s s}^g_e^o_d  ^b_u^y_p  ^t_t^h_h^e_e  ^b_v^o_a^a_l^r_i^d_{d i t y  o f}} my boardingpass.

Brophy employs this multiple-choice trick several times, along with several others – quoting operas, splitting text into multiple columns, puns with foreign words – the lasting inference being that both action and meaning are fluid, changeable, and ultimately a performance. As Pat explores their gender, grasping for any plausible truths, Brophy’s true intent is abundantly clear.

Even with the commentaries on gender norms he cultural commentary of In Transit is never more acerbic than in the novel’s closing section. The airport plays host to a revolution, started by the lesbian subculture of manual workers we meet earlier in the novel, but gradually adopted by the majority of passengers. As they give speeches, play music and make grand yet empty declarations over the PA, Pat’s crisis continues unseen. The revolution is aimless and self-congratulatory, and does nothing to solve the problems faced by Pat – in fact, it facilitates them being ignored entirely. The parallels with numerous facets of 21st century political activism are so stark that the novel would seem ahead of its time had its 2002 reissue been its initial release. For commentary from 1969 to ring so true today is as astonishing as it is upsetting – Brophy observed and criticised so much, and the world did so little.

As a work of fiction and as a work of criticism, in spirit and in execution, In Transit remains cutting-edge 45 years after its release. Brophy’s desire to pull apart accepted meanings of gender identity results in a brutal and hilarious work which lets no assumption or convention escape unexamined. It’s political art which sacrifices neither art nor politics for the sake of the other. It is balanced, challenging and absolutely vital.

Only Write What Only You Can Write, by Jayne Stanton

(Photo of Cathy Grindrod, by Writing East Midlands)

This review is also published on Jayne Stanton's blog here.

With National Poetry Day falling slap-bang in the middle of Leicester’s Everybody’s Reading festival, I wish I could send out little pieces of me to all the concurrent events I’m missing, in order to attend/participate in others.  Buy, hey, what a social whirl it makes for (and, for those who know me well, my poetry social life is a standing joke – in a nice way, of course)!

Last night, nine women attended Cathy Grindrod’s workshop, Only Write What Only You Can Write, hosted by Soundswrite women’s poetry group as part of Everybody’s Reading festival – one of two free and open-to-all events we received funding for, this year.  (2013’s ER workshop with Kim Moore was packed to the rafters).

Cathy Grindrod is a widely-published poet and former Derbyshire Poet Laureate.  She also writes plays, scripts and literary fiction and works as a literature consultant, poetry tutor and mentor.  I met her a couple of years ago when she ran a workshop for shortlisted candidates for a mentorship programme.  (Under her guidance, I was able to hone my rather vague aspirations as an ‘emerging poet’ into a finite list of achievable short-term aims).

By way of introduction, we shared ways in which we, as writers, ‘keep the faith.’ These included attending writing groups to give and receive honest feedback, co-mentoring, and reading/sharing published work by others.  During the course of the two and a half hour workshop, we explored ten ways that Cathy has found useful in her writing life.

We spent some time reflecting on our personal beliefs and whether we felt these were evident in our writing.  We were also invited to consider who we write for, and writing with the reader in mind.  For me, this was a reminder of how easy it is too become too inwardly focused, to say nothing of the lure of publication in highly-regarded poetry magazines.

And we discussed the importance of being ‘in the world’ and learning from others.  I know I’ve benefitted most from writing groups that are outward-looking and have a keen interest in all that is current in the world of poetry, as well as the wealth of its past.

At number four on the list was ‘recognising poetic snobbery’ – how refreshing!  We each had our own view of what this constitutes.  If we recognise it for what it is, we can set it aside.

We also engaged in some short writing exercises.  As well as coming away with a nugget or two, I’ve discovered new ways into a poem that I’m keen to use again.  For now, will I be able to leave those nuggets alone for long enough to come back to them with a reader’s objectivity?

 

About the reviewer 
Jayne Stanton is a poet, teacher, tutor and musician.  Her work appears widely in print and online poetry magazines.  Her pamphlet, Beyond the Tune (2014), is available from Soundswrite Press.  She blogs at jaynestantonpoetry.wordpress.com and tweets @stantonjayne.

I Can't Wait for Friday: Review by Liz Gray of Nicci French's "Blue Monday" Series

I first came across Nicci French in my local library: I had joined a crime reading group because I wanted to widen my circle of crime fiction and to discuss books with other readers.  At that point I had only read Ian Rankin and Val McDermid, and the crime shelves were so packed with writers that I didn't know where to begin.  But the group facilitator produced a list, and early on we picked out a Nicci French novel, Blue Monday.

 

Nicci French is in fact a pair of writers, husband Sean French and his wife Nicci Gerard: and together they write very successful crime fiction.  Blue Monday is the first of a sequence of novels featuring the psychotherapist Frieda Stark who works with the police in much the same way as Tony Hill in Val McDermid's Wire in the Blood series.  So far the sequence has got as far as Thursday and includes Tuesday's Gone, Waiting for Wednesday and Thursday's Children.

The novels are hard-hitting and often feature highly disturbing scenarios: the abduction of a small child; the murder of a popular local woman who turns out to have had a secret double life; a confused young woman trying to serve tea to a rotting corpse – these books do not pull their punches, but there is always a resolution and that is what makes them satisfying: that, and the fact that it's impossible to guess the outcome.  Nicci French is a master of narrative twists: there's always more than one plot-line and the pace rattles on, interspersed by glimpses into Klein's largely dysfunctional personal life.  She is typical of the therapist who can't sort out their own emotional life: clear-sighted and helpful with her patients, she is unable to sustain a long-term relationship herself, and in the latest book, Thursday's Children, she abruptly finishes with Sandy, the lovely, understanding man who has given up a life in America to be with her.  I'm sure this is not the end of the story; but we'll have to wait for Friday's book to find out.

Setting is very important in crime fiction, and the area of London where Frieda lives is evoked in vivid clarity, as is her basement flat which houses a number of strays passing through, such as Josef, the Polish builder who becomes her friend and confidant.  But the novels sometimes step outside London as well, to the Suffolk coast where Frieda grew up and where she is forced to return in order to investigate a case.

The appeal of the psychotherapist is that, unlike with police dramas where we see the who, the what and the where, here we are able to see something of the why.  And that is something we all surely cry out to know: when we hear of terrible murders or abductions or attacks or even senseless robberies, more than finding out whodunnit we want to know why they dunnit.  And here's where the psychotherapist scores over the policeman: though Frieda Stark is modest about her achievements, she does give us a window on the inner workings of the criminal mind; and that, to me, is more fascinating than any number of car chases.

If you haven't caught up with these stories I urge you to give them a go.  Personally, I can't wait for Friday ...

About the reviewer

Liz Gray is a well-known Leicestershire poet.  She has performed at Word!, Simon Says and more recently has featured in the Everybody's Reading event, 'Women's Words.'  She is a published writer and reviewer and has led poetry workshops at the Richard Attenborough Centre and at local libraries. Her blog can be found at: lizardyoga.wordpress.com.

Review by Jonathan Taylor of "Pelt" and "Work Horses"

A version of this review was first published in Leicester's own New Walk Magazine.
 

Reviews of Sarah Jackson, Pelt, Northumberland: Bloodaxe, 2012, ISBN 9781852249311, 64pp, £8.95, and David Cooke, Work Horses, London: Ward Wood, ISBN 9781908742001, 73pp, £8.99.

In his 1921 essay, ‘Psycho-analysis and Telepathy’ (1921), Freud tentatively suggests a connection between the ‘science’ of psychoanalysis and certain forms of ‘occultism’: 'It no longer seems possible to keep away from the study of what are known as “occult” phenomena .... It does not follow as a matter of course that an intensified interest in occultism must involve a danger to psychoanalysis. We should, on the contrary, be prepared to find reciprocal sympathy between them …. Alliance and co-operation between analysts and occultists might … appear both plausible and promising.'

 

In various ways, Sarah Jackson’s fascinating new collection, Pelt, might be said to take its cue from Freud’s suggestion: many of her poems, that is, seem to investigate a ‘plausible and promising’ alliance between psychoanalytic and occult imagery. In her prose poem ‘The Red Telephone,’ for instance, there mingles a Freudian, infantile wish-fulfilment with an occult, telekinetic violence:

The boy stands at the bottom of the stairs clutching an apricot in his right hand so tightly that the juice runs down between his fingers. In his left hand he holds a toy telephone. It is red plastic with a curly white cord. It rings when you pull it along the ground by its string.

           

The boy pretends to telephone his mother who is upstairs in the bathroom, changing her tights because she has a ladder in her heel. Fall down, he whispers. Fall down. And I swear to you, when her kneecaps crack the bathroom tiles, the small red telephone rings.

 
 Jackson’s poems often seek to visualise such moments of psychic violence between parent and child; to give another example, in ‘What Daddy Built,’ the daughter, ‘wanting to be still-small ... climbed inside the doll’s house / that Daddy built’:

                        You stroked its door, finger-felt its floor,

            placed your cheek on glossy gables. You ran your tongue-tip
            all up the walls, bit down, the wood splinters sweet, cool.
 

            You licked the shiny red roof and it was so slick it slid nearly

            deep inside you. Truly, you could eat this doll’s house that Daddy built
            or it could eat you ....
         

                        Finally you slept,

            your head in the kitchen window, a doll in your teeth.

The eroticised imagery here demonstrates a brave willingness to tackle some of the more disturbing aspects of Freudian and post-Freudian conceptions of father-daughter relationships – what she calls elsewhere ‘the watery / secrets of daughters’ – and this is a bravery which distinguishes much of Jackson’s poetry. The poem visualises an erotic and nostalgic desire for a lost union with the father, symbolised by the doll’s house ‘that Daddy built’ – a desire, that is, to be ‘still-small’ and un-alienated from the close bonds between father and daughter of early childhood. Concomitant with this desire, though, is a kind of violence: the longing for union with the father is also a longing to be ‘eaten,’ or consumed by the doll’s house; and, in this respect, the poem demonstrates that psychic self-survival for the daughter becomes a matter of eat-or-be-eaten: ‘Truly, you could eat this doll’s house that Daddy built / or it could eat you.’ As with many of her poems, Jackson exposes the Darwinian subtext of the Elektra and, indeed, Oedipus complexes: self-survival becomes a matter of psychic violence towards ‘the other.’

Such psychic violence, then, is part of the child’s experience in splitting from the parent; and, although this violence is usually repressed in the unconscious, Freud argues that it can be glimpsed in displaced and symbolic form through dream imagery, and, indeed, in the work of ‘creative writers and day-dreamers.’ In much of Jackson’s collection, poetry takes on the mantle of the Freudian dream-work, and becomes ‘the royal road to the unconscious.’ In Jackson’s imagery, we glimpse, in displaced form, the desires, horrors and, indeed, occult-ish forces of the unconscious. As Freud makes clear in late works such as ‘The Uncanny’ and Beyond the Pleasure Principle, the unconscious is the place not only of repressed desires, but also of the irrational, of ‘primitive’ rituals and superstitions, of the infantile and occult-ish belief in psychic omnipotence – of, that is, the infantile and occult-ish belief in a kind of psychic power, which might make a mother fall to the bathroom floor just by wishing it.

If Jackson’s collection is primarily about the vengeful psychic violence exercised by children on their parents, David Cooke’s new collection, Work Horses, might well be read as its mirror image, in its recurrent concern with the attempts by parents and, indeed, past generations to control the future. Whilst Jackson writes about the ways in which children split from their parents, Cooke’s recurrent concern is with the attempts by parents and, more generally, past generations to control their offspring. Throughout the collection, fathers, teachers, priests and rulers loom large, attempting to shape the future in their own image. In ‘Faith of Our Fathers,’ for example, Cooke writes of his Catholic heritage:

            The creed we’d inherited, it was unambiguous
            and always claimed us as its own ....

            Behind it all were generations

            who had prayed like us and chanted,
            professing faith in our creed.

            Sustained by desperation and the certainty

            that human ties will cease,
            they had sought continuance,
            their dreamscapes

            shimmering through isolation.

 
This seeking after ‘continuance’ on the part of past generations – past ‘fathers’ – is a recurrent concern of Cooke, and in poems like ‘St. James Primary, Reading,’ he feels ‘swamped / by history’:

            In our tiny enclave we were swamped

            by history: a Victorian church,
            where we crocodiled to Mass on Wednesdays,
            interceding for the re-conversion of Russia ....

            Boys and girls, we never discovered

            the mysteries of the others’ playground,
            but chanted tables daily –
            our paean to the god of rote learning.

In this poem, there is no release from the past, from ‘rote learning,’ history and religion; other poems in the collection, though, do offer poignant moments of resistance, in which the future tries to escape from the shadow of history. This is Cooke’s strength: his ability to encapsulate powerful moments of tension between past and future, both on political and individual levels. The poem ‘Shadow Boxing’ deals with the latter, recounting an episode from childhood when Cooke was persuaded by his father to take up boxing:  

            I, too, might have been

            a contender when I did my stint
            in the ring, my dad convinced
            I had the style and the stamp of a winner.
            But in the end I just got bored.
            You had to have a killer’s instinct
            to do much better than a draw.

If, in this stanza, the poem captures the moment that Cooke gave up boxing – and hence moved away from his father’s desires – the final stanza generalises the experience into a metaphor about father-son conflict:

            In the gym the lights are low.

            It’s after hours. I’m on my own ....
                        Shadow boxing
            like the best of them, I will show
            him feints, a classic stance,
            trying always to keep up my guard.

Shadow boxing here becomes a powerful image of the relationship between father and son, past and present: an image of reflection and resistance to an absent figure. The father figure may be gone, but is still there – to be echoed and resisted – in shadow form.

Absent-present father figures haunt Cooke’s collection in other forms as well. In ‘The Bronze Horseman,’ the father of St. Petersburg, Peter the Great, haunts the future not as a shadow, but as a statue:

            Gazing implacably into a future
            that only he has willed, he is seated
            squarely on his mount in what might be heroic
            poise, or a pose of self-aggrandizement.

The rider might be ‘about to fly,’ Cooke writes at the end of the poem, ‘were he not restrained / by the invisible ropes of the air.’ The poem, that is, both acknowledges the power and grandeur of the statue, whilst also undercutting its hubris: despite appearances, it cannot defy gravity, and nor, by extension, can Peter really ‘will’ the future in his own image. The subsequent poem, ‘An Irish Maid in St. Petersburg,’ makes this even clearer, providing a satirical counterpart to ‘The Bronze Horseman’:

            [She] looked across a river

            five times as wide as the Lee –

            until the heart was put

            across her by the vision
            of a horseman leaping a rock,
            who it seemed was only a statue,
            a fool of an emperor called Pater,
            Pater the Great, or something like that.

Though his statue can still momentarily put ‘the heart / across’ the viewer, this is hardly the future willed by Peter the Great: rather, this is an Ozymandias-ish future, where Peter is now ‘only a statue’ and a ‘fool’ whose name is not even remembered properly. This is a future where ‘fool’ and ‘Pater’ – that is, of course, ‘father’ – are compounded. This is a future which has wholly escaped from the father’s shadow.

About the reviewer

Jonathan Taylor's books include the novel Entertaining Strangers (Salt, 2012), and the memoir Take Me Home (Granta Books, 2007). His website is www.jonathanptaylor.co.uk.

 

Words, Woodbines and Milk Wood, by Sally Jack

Words, Woodbines and Milk Wood

By Sally Jack

 

 

There have been many references to 1914 this year, with words such as war, destruction, slaughter, and suffering unfortunately mentioned all too frequently.

It is right we mark the centenary of World War I and consider the effect these events had on our ancestors’ lives. However, it is also nice to be involved in something a little more joyous associated with that particular year. On the opening day of Leicester’s unique Everybody’s Reading festival,  the Sied Ysgrifennu ar Daith (Dylan Thomas Writing Shed) rolled into town and opened its doors to the life of one of the UK’s most inventive writers, Dylan Thomas. This replica of his writing shed is on tour around the country, marking another centenary as 1914 was also the year of Thomas’ birth.

Muted egg-shell and chocolate tones on the outer walls invite you in to a bright space packed with detail, a snapshot of the life of this well-loved writer from Wales and the place where Thomas wrote perhaps his most famous work, Under Milk Wood. Toffees on the table, empty bottles, books everywhere and an ashtray full of Woodbines tell their own stories. Copies of Dylan’s notes in his neat hand layer his desk, pictures and writing are tacked on the walls; I loved seeing his lists of words, looking for rhymes and rhythms as he brainstormed the letter ‘b’ in this instance. Pictures of friends are stuck haphazardly around his desk: W H Auden, Edith Sitwell, Louis MacNeice. Not bad as networking circles go. I asked about the significance of some of the pictures - famous paintings of crowd scenes, photos of locals in different countries. “He loved people,” I was told.

Dylan Thomas was also a lover of language and to celebrate the centenary of his birth, we are all invited to contribute a made up word to the Dictionary for Dylan. Visit www.dylanthomasboathouse.com/dictionaryfordylan to take part in this brilliant idea.

It was then on to the official launch of the fifth Everybody’s Reading festival at The Guildhall.  Teachers, librarians, writers and performers gathered, all with a common purpose: to get everybody reading, whatever it takes. Cuts to library services and the appeal of computer games are just some of the barriers to getting children reading so it was inspiring to hear compelling arguments by Leicester-based writers and performers such as Bali Rai, Carol Leeming and Jess Green enthusing about their love of reading, their points made in speech, song and performance poetry. However, two of Leicestershire and Everybody's Reading's greatest advocates could not attend - writers Sue Townsend and Graham Joyce both sadly died earlier this year; their words have given pleasure and escape to millions throughout the world.

With wine coiffed and nibbles nibbled we return to Dylan Thomas and a screening of the 1972 film of Under Milk Wood. Thomas finished writing his play for voices just a few months before his death in November 1953 and before its first radio broadcast in January 1954. Following a day in the life of small, Welsh village Llaregyb, it is alive with lilting and lusty language and big, bawdy characters. Pleasure is had from listening to the vivid dialogue or reading and re-reading the words on the page and I can't resist how Thomas puts words together: 'bridesmaided by glow-worms', 'Samson-syrup-gold-maned' or the imagery of 'the town ripples like a lake in the waking haze'.

And so, awash with these wonderful words, another Everybody's Reading festival has begun. I am grateful for my ability to read and the emotional journeys books have taken me over the years. There are many imaginative events going on throughout the county this week encouraging everyone to read and enjoy the magic of books. As Everybody’s Reading’s patron Sue Townsend wrote in The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year: “Books need to be read. The pages need to be turned.”

About the reviewer

Sally is a writer and editor based in Leicester and currently reviews for the British Theatre Guide.  She is also Media Manager of Off the Fence Theatre Company and Upstairs at the Western, Leicester's first pub theatre. Follow Sally's blog at www.punctualsally.wordpress.com.

"Meatspace" reviewed by Jessica Berkery

Meatspace

By Nikesh Shukla

Published by The Friday Project

ISBN: 9780007565061

Reviewed by Jessica Berkery

Meatspace

Noun.

A term, originating from cyberpunk fiction and culture, referring to the real (that is, not virtual) world, the world of flesh and blood. Somewhat tongue-in-cheek. The opposite of cyberspace.

Meatspace, Nikesh Shukla’s second novel, delves into the digital age of the here and now, exploring the way that our lives on the internet can at times be more successful than the lives we lead in real life.

Kitab Balasubramanyam is a character in crisis, living a dual life. Online, he is a confident writer with a novel published with thousands of followers reading his online, ‘cool’ banter. In real life, he is a writer-in-crisis with a novel published, suffers from writer’s block, an ex-girlfriend and his messy brother, Aziz, living in his spare bedroom.

“The first and last thing I do everyday is see what strangers are saying about me.”

Both Kitab and Aziz are internet obsessed. They must be connected at all times and be prepared to live-tweet any mundane detail that could make them look hip. Kitab’s life starts to unravel as soon as Aziz decides he must travel to America to discover his doppelganger. Kitab is left alone, with feelings of abandonment encroaching into this life. This book doesn’t paint social media in a good way in fact it shows how being tuned into the internet can amplify the loneliness of real life and the urgent need to fit in with society can make a person more dislocated from real life and from their true self.

Kitab must face up to his neglected real life, having become detached from his family, friends, his writing and his home. Kitab’s fear of achievement and the need to fit into society reminded me of Douglas Coupland’s earlier novel, Generation X. Just like Coupland, Shukla explores the way people deal and also not deal with emotions especially grief. This is done in a touching, tender way especially at the end (which I won’t reveal as I don’t want to spoil the plot for anyone).

“I flick through my social media streams at great speed, expecting an ease to overcome me.”

Yet when his doppelganger, Kitab 2, turns up, full of details about Kitab’s online life, makes him reconsider his carelessness of posting every small detail about his everyday life as it slowly starts to come back and haunt him in the shape of Kitab 2. Shukla delves into the way the internet especially social media has changed the way we conduct ourselves to the public and the way it changes the concept of relationships. There are no boundaries online and this has seeped into Kitab’s real life. The internet has blended with real life. Real life has blended with the internet. Shukla has created a novel that combines Fight Club with an overgrown character from The Inbetweeners.

This is a funny, enjoyable satire of today’s obsession with social media. At times its close to the bone and at other times its far-fetched but it will definitely make you laugh, cringe and roll your eyes.

About the reviewer

Jessica has a novel buried on her hard-drive, another one in progress and several short stories published. She reviews books at www.writerslittlehelper.blogspot.com. She lives in Bedfordshire, UK.

"Vision on Reading" by Ineke Poultney

Hello there! We're still in the process of getting the site together before the festival commences this weekend, so to tide you over, here's a tremendous short essay submitted to us by Ineke Poultney. Enjoy! - Charles


Vision on Reading
 

I wonder if there is a school subject which causes more discussions and arguments among the politicians and academic elite of this country than "Reading".  I also wonder if there is a skill which allows more active and passive discrimination of people than "Reading" does.

I can read and understand literature and signage in more than one language so I am hardly illiterate.  Although I know people who have dyslexia I am not one of them.

So why do I feel discriminated against when it comes to one of my favourite hobbies?

I am seriously shortsighted - to the point of being Registered Partially Sighted! Being brought up to work around and hide my difficulties means that I don't look that much different from the rest of the population (no White Stick, Magnifying Glasses, etc) apart from the glasses on my nose.  This is unless you put me in a situation where I am forced to read what I would call "small print" or any other kind of reading material which my eyes cannot really cope with.  This is where life gets interesting - both for me and for anybody else who has to deal with me as a result.

If I had my way all books and newspapers would be printed two font sizes bigger.  Times New Roman 12 point is too small for me to read comfortably.

I also suffer from something called "Photophobia".  This means my eyes don't like bright lights - which makes any kind of PowerPoint presentation involving a white background torture for me to look at for a long period.  The white background shrinks the size of the font.  However, I am always amazed by the attitude of some people when I ask for a printed handout so I can follow the proceedings.  According to most people I have eyes in my head and glasses on my nose so I should be able to read the same as everyone else.  I wish I could.

There is another thing which people don't realise.  Colour plays a big part in reading as well.  Red writing hurts my eyes when I try to read it.  (There are certain other colours which have a slightly less painful effect too.)  Not everyone can read writing in all colours of the rainbow (just think of the colourblind).

There is one final thing which can make reading difficult - after considering your font size and colour (font and background) - how much information am I supposed to get from the page?  More to the point - how much of the information is immediately relevant to what I intend to do next?  There is no point in having a magazine with its price buried in a corner in a font which I need a microscope to read - especially when you have "sold" me the magazine by advertising your main feature in print large enough to be read by passing aircraft.

When it comes to reading (unless it is for pleasure) I want to be able to see, read, and comprehend what I am reading in the same amount of time as a literate person with normal sight and in the same way as them if possible.

With a little consideration EVERYBODY can enjoy reading without being made to feel like an outsider just because of their sight.

The views expressed in essays and reviews on everybodysreading.blogspot.com are those of their respective authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Everybody's Reading or its associated organisations.

Welcome!

Good afternoon, readers of Leicestershire!

My name is Charles Wheeler, and I've been handed the keys to a brand new component of Leicester's Everybody's Reading festival: Everybody's Reviewing! The aim of this blog is to build on Everybody's Reading's clear mission statement ("whatever it takes to get everybody reading!"), and go one step further - we want some feedback!

We want to know what books you loved, hated, or were ambivalent about. We want to know what gripped you,  unsettled you, confused you, or made you shut your book in the basement and drag a cupboard in front of the door so it couldn't get out. We want to know if your book inspired you to start a revolution, or had you weeping into its unrepentant pages. Whatever you thought, however any book made you feel, we want to know.

We'll also be reviewing events from the festival itself (27th September - 5th October), and we want to hear your thoughts too!

We'll be recruiting reviewers from across Leicester, the UK, and the world to review books, and we'd love to have you on board too. If you want to review an event from this year's festival or a book (any book, even if you read it years ago!), please get in touch. We're contactable at everybodysreviewing@gmail.com, via @everybodyreview on Twitter, or in the comments here.

We'll be updating this blog soon with a new look and more posts. Thanks for stopping by, and we hope to hear from some of you soon.

Charles