In memoriam to Steven Room, and contentment.

Perhaps you have been jarred by the title of this blog? 

Perhaps these 2 elements sound conflicting and you think me insensitive; this isn't the intention so I hope that the juxtaposition will become apparent as you read on…

                                                                                                 

It is a sad fact that this year our annual Christmas rituals were replaced by funeral arrangements following the sudden loss of my father-in-law, Steven Room; sympathy cards stood in place of the usual jolly Santa, and celebratory proceedings were replaced by dark emotions: I have thus been avoiding writing at all.

However, when I discussed the dread of writing, and turning this blog into an emotional outpouring, my husband gave me one piece of advice…

”Then don’t,” he said, “Write of contentment instead”.

So, here goes…

I first met Steve over 20 years ago; petrified is the first word that springs to mind when I recall the booming articulations that could have belonged to a radio 4 presenter! His eloquence and breadth of knowledge highlighted my ignorance, and broad Leicester accent, and  sent me heading straight to a thesaurus…did I drop an ‘H’, should I have placed the emphasis on the first vowel of that word, or the second! I was ready to wear the dunce hat for evermore, but I soon discovered that the voice belonged to a gentle, humble man who indeed was incredibly intelligent, but also kind, generous and supportive. This Cambridge graduate was Captain of the Sport’s Team; he majored in Chaucer, spoke fluent French, and eventually went on to become a highly respected high-school teacher. However, he was unwilling to champion his own achievements: his modesty was a great part of his charm. A Facebook tribute page is further testimony to this humble man; his teaching skills and enthusiasm have reached hundreds of students who have recalled experiences in his class; the amount of people he encouraged to achieve is, quite simply, astounding. As you see, Steve had many enviable qualities; for one, he taught Catcher in the Rye for many years and this in itself deserves a medal!! You remember how I despise this book (see previous post!)  He apparently managed to compare the Cratch in the Eye to Dances with Wolves!!! Oh I do wish I’d been in his English class!

Although I wasn’t fortunate enough to have been taught by Steve, when I decided to become a teacher and study through the OU, Steve was there buoying me on, championing my efforts to anyone who would listen, spell checking my assignments, correcting my grammar, reading my stories and encouraging me to write more! (At this point only my tutor and I were privy to my stories, so when this legend of a man said he actually liked my stories…well, you can imagine…)

He did, however, constantly correct my punctuation and try to reign in my over-use of adjectives!! And he didn’t just correct essays …oh no… texting too!! I have never known a person text so syntactically correct!! This was just one of his many endearing qualities!

Steve was a greatly loved husband, father, Grandfather, teacher and friend. He will be sadly missed; too short a life, but I’m sure he would agree that he has had some glorious moments of contentment.

Amongst other things, I know that contentment for Steve was literature, and the teaching of;  music; admiring his garden in both France and England, after a hard days toil and labour; sitting in the sun with a beer and a fag; watching a myriad of foreign language films with Lone (intellectual not the other!); Scandinavian crime thrillers; cakes and sweet things; Rugby (the sport!); visiting family and friends in Denmark and France; laughing with his family and friends; being with his family (most of the time!).

Many simple pleasures, but I’m sure you’ll agree, contentment lives in the small things.

And contentment for me, well, I have just returned from a windswept stroll on Cromer beach with my long suffering other, and our dog; the children are happily playing with their Christmas presents; I’ve just finished the 6th Jo Nesbo (Harry Hole) book, this morning; I’m currently sitting here writing this, whilst eating chocolate as the sun sets over the garden; and I’m looking forward to the writing group which re-opens for business on Thursday (we are working on our first group anthology!); there’s a bottle of whiskey in the cupboard, a bottle of sparkly on ice and an ever expanding range of literature to digest!

What does contentment mean for you? Let me know!

I couldn’t, of course, mention Mr Room without his wife, Lone; being a Dane she is an advocate of all things Scandinavian, and by marital decree I am bound to champion the nation! This however isn’t difficult, especially if you enjoy Scandinavian crime writing! As I mentioned earlier, I have just finished the 6^th Harry Hole novel and although I’m hooked on Nesbo, I recommend you explore the wider brilliance of this popular genre:

I began by reading one of the Wallander novels by Henning Mankell- an easier, gentler read than Nesbo and larsson, the action is more rural in feel than globe trotting-the essence is far more Morse than Bond! The books are a great read, but do also try to watch the addictive, original, Swedish series on DVD-go for the original rather than the painfully, brooding kenneth Branagh remakes-he’s a poor substitute for the huge charisma that is Fredrik Gunnarsson!

After Mankell, I then moved on Steig Larsson with the awesome Millennium Trilogy-I actually couldn’t put these down (clichéd but true) and read them over a few days on the beach-developing a nice book-shaped tan line across my chest! The series was absolutely awesome, a whirlwind trip (action relying heavily on the use of technology and dodgy associates!), the action is at times brutal and gruesome (at times hard to stomach), the believable characters, thrilling plot twists and of-course an amazing female lead-Lisbeth Salander-ensure that many Scandinavian thriller writers will be compared to him for years to come. Read the books first, then watch the ORIGINAL films- Daniel Craig does have great biceps, but once again something is lost in the translation and too much detail is cut by the necessity of editing for a movie length film.

After reading Larsson, and aware that these books were his last, I found Nesbo: The sticker on the front of his books calls him THE NEXT STEIG LARSSON-Yes, his books are a gripping read, but Nesbo cannot compete with Larsson’s intricacies of characterization and plot. However, saying this, I’d still thoroughly recommend reading the Jo Nesbo books , his interweaving of plot threads is extremely clever, yet wholly conceivable. Once you’ve read one you do have the basic formula, but there are some great plot twists and the lead character Harry Hole is indeed a loveable rogue!

On initial reading I thought that these books were written by a woman- an opinion I’m told is shared-the men I spoke to found the Nesbo books a little pretentious and felt that he was trying to hard to be lyrical; women I have spoken to however love the books, or is that, they love Harry Hole!!

Although you can just pick up any one of Nesbo’s books and go with them (it’s not complicated to grasp the character and his life/lack of social skills; many themes are recurrent: his colleagues tend to murdered and he’s a battling alcoholic with an attitude, oh and there’s a relationship that he keeps screwing up) it is best to read them in order-I didn’t, and it meant a few spoilers for me!

So, as the books aren’t numbered, here’s the order (a couple of texts aren’t yet readily available):

The Bat (only available in hardback/as an eBook at the minute so I haven’t read it!)

The Cockroaches (can’t even find this on Amazon!)

The Redbreast (success seems to have started here)

Nemesis

The Devil’s Star

The Redeemer

The Snowman (This is where they get quite gruesome!)

The Leopard

Phantom

Headhunters

Give them a go and let me know what you think.

After I’ve given the first draft of my friend’s sci-fi novel a read (thanks, John), I’ll try another Scandi-Crime writer, as recommended by Lone…I’ll let you know what I think to both!!

If you have any recommendations please let me know by either leaving a comment where it says ‘comments’ or email me on:

walshamwritersgroup@gmail.com

Happy reading, and have a happy and contented start to 2013.

Hayley xx