INFLUENCES

Why I write and how
I write because I must. It’s the only valid reason for doing something that’s so antisocial.

I used to write the first draft of a book in long hand, on one side only of a pad of white, rules, A4 paper with a Pilot V5 Extra Fine pen. I enjoyed the scoring sound of the nib, the triumph of turning over a completed page, the formation of certain letters of the alphabet. But there came a time when my writing became too hard to decipher. What on earth had I intended by this or that mark on the paper? Was I being just plain pretentious writing by pen? When it reaches a point where a writer has to wonder what he was trying to express, alternatives must be considered. Now I use a PC, having previously scorned them.
Writing is not a burden to me: I find no need to offer myself bribes to do it. My only necessity is to be facing a blank wall: a window or picture is fatal.

With White Blood, my third novel, came a break with my normal practice: I began to write in very short chapters, maximum four pages. This appears to suit the attention span of readers – and not only modern ones: I was interested to note in Pride & Prejudice that Jane Austen also favours this approach to story-telling.

I regret that I cannot give a wholly satisfactory answer to those who want to know how I do my research. I make sure of the basic historical facts – of course. But to bring a period to life is not something that can be done from history books. For that you have to go to travellers’ accounts and to the diaries of contemporaries (other than politicians). Obviously some are fuller than others. One may have to read an awful lot to find a single nugget. But in general these are unsurpassable as sources of detail, especially of hardship. The key, I think, is not to regard research as work (which is what many people think it must be) but rather as one of the pleasures of having an inquisitive mind.

There is one research book that I must mention in connection with the Charlie Doig novels: Baedeker’s Russia, published in 1914. It contains every conceivable detail that a tourist of that time would have needed to know, including city maps. After all, a novelist is a form of tourist himself.

One source of information that I treat with the greatest caution: Google, whose content is dictated by popularity and not accuracy. Moreover, using it reminds me how much dross there is around.

The influences on my writing
The fiction writers whose style or method of exposition have influenced me most include several Russians: Nabokov, Tolstoy, Bulgakov, Isaac Babel, Chekhov. Add to these Robert Louis Stevenson, Conrad, Joyce Cary, Camus, Saul Bellow and the most individual of all writers in English – Laurence Sterne. I’m talking here not about the casual enjoyment of a text but about beauty and authenticity, and thus a feeling of absolute truthfulness in every single aspect of the story that’s being told.
All good fiction will have some basis of morality. The philosopher whom I most enjoy is Isaiah Berlin.

My top poets are the Polish Nobel winners, Wisława Szymborska and Czesław Miłosz. Dylan Thomas has a special section in my mind. I admire the work of Derek Walcott, Larkin, Roethke and the staider poems of Octavio Paz. A world without fiction would be intolerable but without poetry it would be uninhabitable.

Let me not omit the ‘adventure’ writers in their many forms. John Buchan and C.S.Forester were my daily companions in my teens – the latter for some years after: I enjoyed reading the Hornblower stories to my boys as much as they enjoyed hearing them. Later came the Bond books, of course – we, the children, would fight to get our hands on the copy that my uncle Ian always sent my father. Later still came the Martin Beck series and Elmore Leonard’s thrillers – Cuba Libre is my favourite. Many novelists have learnt from this man, especially in their handling of dialogue, and I’m one of them.

The final question: why do I write historical fiction? At heart, because I suppose that I have a firmer grip on the past than I do on contemporary life – by which I mean that the technology, the motives, the concerns, even the language of previous times are accessible to me. Because I have more sympathy for the past than I do for the modern world. And because it is the past that always appears on my screen when I close my eyes. There is one more reason: to imagine how I would have behaved myself if caught at a great turning point in history such as the Russian Revolution of 1917, is irresistibly frightening.