Alex Bell - fantasy author

What’s more important – that a book is well written or that it has an engaging story? I’ve always been firmly on the side of story. If the story isn’t compelling then it surely doesn’t matter how beautifully it’s been written. That’s what I’ve always thought, at least. However, I am now reading a book that’s making me rethink my position. I managed to get my greedy fingers on not one, but two, of the titles for World Book Night, one of which was Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It is 348 pages and I am up to page 116, and I am completely and utterly gripped – not by the story, but by the writing. It is one of the most exquisitely written books I have ever come across – and I do consider myself to be pretty well read. There is an effortlessness in every sentence and I feel like this book is showing me just how great the written word can be.

So far this year I have read a lot of just-released books, and have found many of them to be insipid and bland, and now that I am reading Marquez, those other books seem even more insubstantial and unsatisfying – like having a glass of water for dinner as opposed to a three course meal. Time of Cholera is something to really get your teeth into and, right now – just over 100 pages in – I feel like the book is nourishing my reader’s soul. I am not massively engaged with the characters or their story (although I suppose that could still change), but, with this book, it honestly doesn’t matter. I feel almost hungry for Marquez’s words. How refreshing to read a book that is not a fast-driven frenzy of activity from beginning to end. What a welcome change for there to not be some sort of fight scene or car chase on every page. This is a book that allows itself to breathe – and is all the better for it.

Pace is something I am painfully aware of with my own writing. I’m aware of a constant pressure to make sure the action doesn’t slow down, even for a second, in case – God forbid – the reader gets bored, and the reviewers begin baying for your blood etc etc. Surely we have not sunk so low as a society that all we want to see is pretty people running away from explosions? It is a notion that I dislike intensely. Not so much for Lex Trent or other comic fantasies because they’re naturally more fast-paced – but for serious adult books I find it very frustrating that there should be such a single-minded focus on grabbing the reader’s attention by doing the writing equivalent of bashing them over the head with a heavy object. Personally, I generally dislike books that start with action scenes or fights or chases. They bore me. If I don’t know the characters yet then I couldn’t care less what happens to them as they run madly through the house whilst being pursued by a werewolf/man with gun/love-sick sparkly vampire. Still, I am told that this is what most people want in an opening chapter.

In the story versus style debate I would hold up Dan Brown as a brilliant example of the former. I realise it’s dreadfully unfashionable of me to like Dan Brown, and many people (some of whom openly admit to having never even picked up one of his books) seem to almost fall over themselves in their eagerness to proclaim that the man cannot write, or that his writing style is clumsy at best. I do not accept this. I think Dan Brown is a very skilled and intelligent thriller writer, and no aspirations to literary snobbery will make me say otherwise. Dan Brown does not write beautifully but the stories he tells do not require that he should. I enjoyed The Da Vinci Code but I absolutely loved The Lost Symbol. I devoured it because every time I got to the end of a chapter I couldn’t wait to learn what was going to happen next. It gripped me very differently from the way Time of Cholera is gripping me now.

I am in awe of Marquez’s writing – literally, I am in awe of him – but I’m still more likely to take a Dan Brown book on holiday with me, or reread a Dan Brown book, or rush to the cinema to see a film adaptation. I am still more likely to eagerly seek out other work of Brown’s that I have not yet read – not because I think his books are better than Marquez’s but because, for me, story is still more important than style. I read Brown’s books – and others like them – for a different reason. Fundamentally, I read those books to enjoy them as a reader, whereas a book like Love in the Time of Cholera I’m reading mainly as something to aspire to as a writer – a fondly nurtured dream that perhaps if one worked at it solidly for fifty years or more, one might become even half as good.

And now, as a post script to this post, for anyone who hasn’t heard about this yet, my good pal, and blogger extraordinaire, Amanda Rutter, along with several other very fine people, have organised and set up an auction in aid of the Red Cross Japanese Tsunami Appeal. I’d like to encourage you to head on over to http://genreforjapan.wordpress.com/ where you can bid on all manner of exciting things, including rare signed books, critiques from authors and the chance to have your name in an author’s upcoming book. There is some super exciting stuff up for grabs – and, as a genre fan, some of the lots have left my fingers itching to reach for my credit card. As an example, if you’d like to be a baddie who dies horribly, but has some great powers (and who wouldn’t?!), in my friend Suzanne McLeod’s upcoming Spellcrackers novel then go here http://genreforjapan.wordpress.com/2011/03/24/item-27-appearance-in-the-next-suzanne-mcleod-novel/ and place your bid. I’d bid on this myself if I hadn’t just donated to Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support. Sadly, animals tend to get overlooked in natural disasters of this type but they are just as much in need of aid as their human counterparts. If I and my whole family were killed in an earthquake and my spoilt, pampered pets were left to fend for themselves I would hope to God that there would be someone there to help them. If you’d like to donate to their ongoing efforts on behalf of animals in Japan then you can do so here: http://japanearthquakeanimalrelief.chipin.com/japan-earthquake-animal-rescue-and-support/

It seems hard to believe now that I never used to wear heels. I think I was frightened of them – frightened that I’d fall over, or that I wouldn’t be able to walk in them, or that the heel would snap as soon as I put my weight on it. I remember my friend at college sternly lecturing me when I was seventeen about the fact that I only ever wore ugly trainers. So, one day, I took the plunge and bought a pair of ankle boots. They had the smallest heel you could imagine but they seemed pretty daring to me at the time and I felt immensely proud of myself as I wobbled into college the next day.

I’ve moved on from that since then. I can even navigate heels when I’m drunk now - a fact of which I am immensely proud. At the Lex Trent launch party in October, I left the bar at 5am (4am if you count the clocks going back), and walked all the way back upstairs to my room in 10 cm heels without falling over once! That’s the mark of the true professional, that is. No more bruised knees for me (I’ll never forget the look of horror on the faces of my Mum and Aunt the time I got undressed at the spa only to give away that both my knees were black – an unfortunate consequence of trying to navigate a cobbled street in heels outside a pub after a night of drinking). Here is the fantastically named Jezebel shoe:

Yep, I’m a dab hand at the high heel thing now. I’ve got a weakness for a pretty shoe. It tends to play out like this:

But then, just as I’m reaching for my wallet to buy the shoes, I realise that they’re made of leather or suede or that they’re almost vegan but not quite because they have leather soles. And I have to put them back on the shelf and weep because my ethics prohibit me from buying the shoe no matter how pretty it is. So, for a long time after discovering my love of heels, I had to stick to ugly flat shoes because there were no pretty vegan heels. That’s not the case anymore, however. The Jezebel shoe above is entirely vegan and came from Dune, which is a great place to find dressy animal-friendly heels. I also got the shoes for my Jasmyn party there, as blogged about here.

Sadly, many of my shoes have met a messy end since I got my Great Dane (sob! I had to learn to keep my shoes away from her the hard way) but one of my favourite pairs to have survived Moose are these Vivienne Westwood Melissa Lady Dragon heels, made entirely from rubber plastic that smells like bubblegum:

And then, of course, there is Beyond Skin, which makes the best selection of the most beautiful vegan shoes I have ever seen anywhere. I have never seen an ugly shoe on their website.

I went to a baby shower last weekend and was going to buy a babygro or something but then I found these:

A teeny tiny pair of Ugg lookalike booties. So, so cute. I couldn’t stop taking them out of the bag and looking at ‘em once I got home. And whilst browsing the Vivienne Westwood website today I found these:

Are they not gorgeous? The Vivienne Westwood Mini Melissa. I feel like I must have a baby at once in order to be able to buy these shoes. Still, perhaps that’s taking the love of high heels just a little bit too far. Splashing out a week’s wages or suffering from toe blisters is one thing - a proportionate sort of sacrifice. Getting knocked up for the sake of a shoe is probably in a different league of shoe obsession altogether. A slippery slope into madness, no less. And if you’re going to go crazy then it ought rightly to be for reasons a bit more lofty and impressive than the love of a baby Viv Westwood shoe, no matter how fabulous it is.

Here’s a photo of my poor cat Mitsi after watching the Mary Bale video:

She hid under that blanket for hours, quaking with fear, even after I explained to her that Mary didn’t know where we lived. Moose even tried to talk her out but it was no good – she wasn’t to be moved:

As for Siamese Suki and fluffy pal, Chloe, they just looked understandably annoyed by the footage:

Ace and Cindy, the other two members of the Bell cat gang, were unavailable for comment.

This Mary Bale thing puzzles me for two different reasons. For starters – like most other sane people in the world – I don’t understand why Mary Bale took it upon herself, entirely unprovoked, to throw a friendly moggy into a bin. The simple explanation is that she’s a mean old bat, and a little bit bonkers (and bears more than a passing resemblance to the Bigoted Woman of election notoriety . . .) But that’s not the only thing that puzzles me about this whole affair. Indeed, what puzzles me the most is the general public’s reaction to it.

As an animal rights activist and ardent cat lover, I understand why I dislike Mary Bale but, as for the rest of society, I’m not entirely sure. I would like to think it’s because, when an act of cruelty towards animals is brought to peoples’ attention in this way, they, quite rightly, condemn it. And yet it seems incongruous for anyone who eats meat, or who buys Fairy Liquid or Head and Shoulders or Pringles or any other product manufactured by an animal testing company such as Proctor and Gamble, to claim to be outraged by Mary Bale’s act – and I strongly suspect that the vast majority of people who joined the Facebook hate groups fall into both those categories.

I read an article (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/28/cat-litter-pets-protected-and-persecuted) yesterday by Guardian journalist, Michele Hanson, commenting on the Mary Bale/wheelie bin incident, in which she states, quite correctly, that we are a confused nation when it comes to animal rights. We claim to be a nation of animal lovers but, sadly, many people seem wholly incapable of putting their money where their mouths are. Naomi Campbell, for example, was quite happy to pose naked for a Peta anti-fur advert – presumably because she got to take her clothes off and look all sexy and sultry and stuff – but then, fifteen years later she’s photographed pouting alluringly in a fur coat (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1210423/Naomi-Campbell-models-sable-coat-15-years-Peta-anti-fur-advert.html). Many, many people only identify themselves as animal rights activists, or animal lovers, when it is fashionable – or easy – to do so. When it simply involves condemning another person, for example, and not inconveniencing their own lives in any way by giving up something they love or changing the way they behave.

There seems to be a disturbing tendency amongst the British public (and probably any other country’s public) to cherry-pick which causes to be excessively outraged about, and which to merely shrug shoulders over and say: ‘It’s only an animal.’ I do not expect other people to feel the way I do about animal rights issues but, for God’s sake, can’t there at least be a little bit more consistency and a little less hypocrisy?

For example, I read an article a while back about a man who killed his neighbour’s little border terrier, Wurzel, after it got into his garden (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1209475/Company-boss-battered-neighbours-barking-pet-dog-death-hoe.html). The dog was hit over the head with a shovel. The RSPCA chose not to prosecute because, they said, Wurzel did not experience “undue pain” (a requisite for prosecution under the Animal Welfare Act 2006). Let’s be clear about this – Wurzel did not die instantly. He was tossed over the wall back into his own garden, where his owner later found him lying on the porch shaking and covered in blood. He had to be put down later that same day. If that’s not “undue pain” then what is? Since the RSPCA declined to press charges, the dog’s owner was forced to spend her own money bringing a private action for the only charge available to her – that of criminal damage to private property (since, legally, that’s all a pet is – property). She lost. Animals are woefully under-protected by the law, and charities like the RSPCA can only do so much when they are continually fighting an uphill battle with limited funds.

I’ve seen several commentators over the last few days suggesting that people get more worked up about cruelty to animals than cruelty to people. This is utter nonsense. As Wurzel’s case so aptly proves - people don’t get more outraged about cruelty to animals than cruelty to people - they get more outraged over cruelty they can actually see. Wurzel’s case infuriated me when I read about it and, although it was covered in the news, it certainly was not highlighted the way that Lola’s case has been. The explanation, I suspect, is that Mary Bale was caught on tape, whereas Neville Hill’s monstrous act of hitting a little dog on the head with a shovel was not. If his cowardly attack upon the dog had been filmed then I have to assume people would be even more incensed over this than they were over Lola. Surely that’s the only sensible explanation, isn’t it? I mean, surely everyone agrees that killing a dog with a spade is worse than putting a cat in a bin? So it would seem that, sadly, people are only able to feel outrage over the injustices they can actually see. I don’t understand this. Obviously, as a writer of fantasy fiction, imagination is supposed to be my forte and all that, but I wouldn’t have thought it beyond the realms of possibility for ordinary people to imagine a scenario such as the one reported with Wurzel.

So to all those people getting their knickers in a twist over Mary Bale, rushing to join online hate groups and so on, I would remind them that there are many, many injustices to animals that we do not see but that exist nonetheless. If you eat meat, if you buy Fairy Liquid (or any other product that has been used to torture rabbits), or barn eggs from caged hens, then you actively perpetuate those injustices. There is no softer way of putting it. Perhaps such people might reflect for a moment on the wise words of Albert Schweitzer: ‘Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.’ And let’s cease indulging in this fiction that Mary Bale is significantly worse than the average British citizen out there. She isn’t really. The difference is that she got caught.

Having said that, I would be much more shocked to see a CCTV video of an acquaintance of mine throwing a cat in a bin than I would to see a video of them eating a burger. Since I believe that eating meat is ethically worse than what Mary Bale did (because slaughtering an animal – whether you do it yourself, or pay someone else to do it for you – is worse than putting an animal in a bin), I’m not really sure why this should be. It’s a strange cultural by-product, I suppose, of the society we live in. Eating meat is considered socially acceptable – binning random moggies is not. And it seems that I can’t help but be affected by this social norm, even when I don’t want to be. I suppose, in addition, even though Lola was not seriously hurt, Mary Bale’s act was deliberately and maliciously cruel, whereas most meat eaters and Fairy Liquid users – I hope – are not. People know animals have to be slaughtered in order to end up a slab of meat on their plate, but they try not to think about it. Or perhaps they are incapable of properly imagining it.

Sir Paul McCartney said that ‘if slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian.” I hope this is true. I dearly hope that it is. Because it if isn’t, it means that people don’t ignore the many injustices to animals that are so prevalent in our world because of the fact that they fool themselves into thinking they don’t exist, it means they ignore the injustices because they simply don’t care. And I would like to hope that deep, deep down, people are better than that.

In conclusion, then, logically I don’t think Mary Bale is any worse than the average meat-eating Briton but, emotionally, I can’t help but condemn her more than I condemn them. Nevertheless, there is a moral inconsistency here, and one that should be recognised in amidst all the hysterical outrage and excessive condemnation.

On that note, here’s one last snap of Suki, my tiny Siamese:

She knows I live to serve her. And if anyone ever attempted to grab Suki by the scruff of her neck and throw her into a bin, I’m afraid that I would lose my rag rather spectacularly. She may be wonky, she may be bent, she may be ever so very neurotic, but that cat is the absolute apple of my eye and I won’t pretend to be anything less than completely and utterly besotted with her, and her big blue eyes, and her teeny, tiny feet.

Last night I was watching an old episode of Dragons’ Den and I’ve come to the conclusion that this is something I must stop doing, for the simple reason that it is just costing me too much money. As soon as I saw the Scents of Time range of perfumes, I wanted one. I mean, who wouldn’t want a recreation of the perfume Cleopatra herself wore? Or one that elegant ladies onboard the Titanic might have worn? It’s just such a cool idea. It’s unique, and it’s classy. And – as it turns out – it is ethical.

I resolved to Google the product as soon as I’d finished the episode, but I didn’t hold out much hope of being able to order one for the simple reason that the vast majority of perfumes seem to be animal tested. The very suggestion that testing cosmetics on animals can be in any way justified is patently absurd. And – to be quite honest – disgusting. I would never buy any product from animal testing companies such as Proctor and Gamble (producers of Fairy Liquid, Head & Shoulders, Crest, Daz, Vicks, Iams, and many other household brands). I will probably blog about this in greater detail at some point but, in the meantime, more info can be found at http://www.uncaged.co.uk/pg.htm. The website states that: ‘It’s hard to think of anything more vicious than poisoning and killing animals for the sake of tinkering with cosmetics and washing powder formulations. P&G are responsible for relentless cruelty at its most calculating.’ I agree entirely, and I boycott companies such as this for the plain, simple reason that they make me sick to my stomach, and I have no wish to contribute to their already massive profits in any way whatsoever.

But, happily, there are companies out there who do not torture countless animals every year in the name of beauty (which just goes to show that those who do, do so unnecessarily). When it comes to perfume I have mostly been limited to Donna Karan – a brand I love, and who do not test their perfumes or ingredients on animals. But it’s nice to have a change every now and then. Imagine my delight, therefore, when I looked at the Scents of Time website (http://www.scentsoftime.co.uk/) and found in their FAQ’s that they do not test on animals! Yay!! I ordered a bottle of the Night Star perfume on the spot, partly because I think it’s a cool idea, and partly because I would always want to support any business that chose to be ethical in this way. Thank you very much, Mr Pybus – the Indiana Jones of the perfume industry – for not testing on animals, and for therefore enabling me to buy your products!