The literature of self defence - Steven Conte
Posted by: Steven Conte
2 December 2008
At the age of 12 I went to live, for various complicated reasons, in a boys’ boarding school, and for the next few years I read in self-defence. This is no exaggeration. With novels, I attempted to protect a self that was reeling from sporadic beatings by other boys, as well as canings inflicted haphazardly by men. Whenever gaps appeared in the institutional routine I would escape behind weather sheds or pine-tree windbreaks and read books such as The Hobbit, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, The Dark is Rising and Lord of the Rings.
At 14, seeking other lengthy books to dwell in, I read War and Peace, which I’d earlier encountered in the form of a BBC television series. Much of the novel must have gone over my head (I haven’t returned to yet it to check), but I retain vivid impressions of many scenes, including one in which Pierre Bezukhov, a Russian aristocrat held captive by the retreating French army, ponders his pleasure at being given a pinch of gunpowder to spice his daily ration of horsemeat.
From Tolstoy I moved on to John Wyndham’s various visions of disaster – The Day of the Triffids, The Midwich Cuckoos, The Kraken Wakes – recognising in all of them, as I had in War and Peace, a vision of society reduced to chaos and at times to savagery (a scenario that readers of The Zookeeper’s War will also find familiar).
Of course, not all of my adolescent reading was self-directed, and since leaving school I’ve had to ruefully admit that I received a first-rate literary education there. Shakespeare, Austin, Dickens, Lawrence, Steinbeck, Greene, Huxley, Orwell (in 1984 I studied 1984) were some of the writers I encountered in class. By this stage, fiction was no longer just a form of self-defence; it was also a powerful method of self-fashioning. From fiction I reinforced or modified the values, beliefs, philosophies and opinions I’d formed in childhood, and of course I also discovered entirely new ones. Fiction was at the centre of my inner life, and at the age of 16 I resolved to become a novelist, never imagining that 25 years would have to pass for this ambition to become a reality.
The 1973 BBC television adaptation of War and Peace, starring Anthony Hopkins as Pierre.
John Wydham’s stinging indictment of our addiction to vegetable oil.
December 2, 2008 at 2:13 pm
I’m jumping in here because I was a huge Wyndham fan too! Those books used to terrify me, I loved it!! I remember reading the Chrysalids when I was about 11 and desperately testing out my telepathy with my best friend, needless to say, we sucked. We had to go back to the old cans with string in between to communicate. I shoudl tell my kids that, they’ll think I’m so old!!
As for Day of the Triffids, I remember reading that on summer holidays at around the same age, maybe a bit older and every night I had to go from the beach house to this sleepout room where all the kids slept (our family had the right idea!) and there were these huge plants with giant leaves that grew way over my head and covered the path to the sleepout, and I would run squealing all the way until I was safely under my blankets. It was exhilarating. Mind you if they were really triffids all the squealing would have done me in.
Really enjoying the blogging everyone!
December 2, 2008 at 2:05 pm
I remember seeing Sean Connery being interviewed once and he said that what saved his life as a child growing up in Depression era Edinburgh, was all the time he spent in his local library.
Books have been a shelter and a salvation for a lot of us over the years. I really felt for you as I read your post Steven as my father had a similar experience in his youth. Some of it at the hands of so called “teachers”. He too began a life long love affair with reading, and in his later years (he’s 75) it still continues. Longer than a lot of marriages!
I also loved the Chrysalids, although it freaked me out a lot. I remember the charachter called Sophie too, and how she had to keep her sixth toe a secret. I think I need to re-read it as I wonder if my reaction will be the same all these years later.
December 2, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Hi Sophie. I read all the Wyndham books including The Chrysalids. My very sketchy memory of the book is that the radioactively-cursed inhabitants of the future England of the novel have by necessity developed a habit of mercilessly destroying mutations of any kind, and that the adolescent heroes and heroines of the book only survive because their mutation isn’t physical but mental (ie. they’re telepathic), but I could be mistaken about this. In any case, it makes an interesting companion novel to The Midwich Cuckoos, in which telepathy is portrayed in a much more sinister light - the other side of the story, as it were. At the end of The Crysalids (future readers, shut your eyes) I remember being struck by how the characters take refuge in a civilisation of fellow telepaths, located in a wondrous place call New Sealand.
Steven
December 2, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Steven, I’m so envious of your literary education–I would have loved one, first rate or otherwise. And you’re right, self direction is the key. I’m ashamed to admit I’ve never read Tolstoy (even the idea of Anthony Hopkins as Pierre doesn’t turn me off), and never heard of John Wyndham until your post. Also I’ve never read Huxley, Greene, Steinbeck or Lawrence. So I’m making a pledge. This summer will be my Summer of Classics.
December 2, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Hello again, Jacinta, and thanks for your kind words. One of the things I’d like to show with this micro memoir of my reading is that writers are typically very fortunate and privilaged people who often happen to experience some adversity along the way. If a person grows up with no significant obstacles, they’re unlikely to be motivated to write (at least that’s true, I think, of writers of literary fiction), whereas if they only experience hardship they’re unlikely to have the emotional and mental resources to write. If I’ve managed to turn various difficulties to good account, much of the credit goes to the people who have lavished me with affection and/or a literary education along the way.
Steven
December 2, 2008 at 11:31 am
I decided to be a writer in grade 1, aged 6. Because I basically didn’t read any non-fic until my early twenties, being a novellist was always the dream I envisioned for myself. Although now I’ve had non-fic books published, I still work on my fiction - I’ll really think I’ve made it if (when?) my novella gets picked up!
I’m very jealous of your literary education. Mine was mostly self-taught.
December 2, 2008 at 11:02 am
I was obsessed with John Wyndham novels when I was a teenager. You don’t mention The Chrysalids - that one is vivid for me because the main character was called Sophie. She was persecuted because she had six toes. Anyway, he’s an extraordinary writer. You’ve found a great version of the Triffids cover to upload by the way.
December 2, 2008 at 10:14 am
Hi Steven
I was sorry to hear of the beatings you endured at boarding school. How resourceful of you to use that time to read, and to essentialy turn something negative into something useful and productive. It is testament to your resourcefulness and sense of self that you have now published a wonderful novel that others will read and learn from.
Cheers
Jacinta