Sapphire and Steel (1979-82)

My rating: *****
See my other post reflecting at more length on Sapphire and Steel

Sapphire and Steel is my favourite science fiction series and I have watched quite a few. Starring the blond duo Joanna Lumley and David McCallum, it was broadcast in Britain from 1979 to 1982 and then, like the characters at the end of the series, assigned to oblivion. Precious, but poor quality tapes circulated amongst the fan community for some years after that: the snowy lack of picture definition and the muffled sound only adding to the mystery. I purchased the VHS tapes which were released in 1992 in the late 1990s, and then the later two DVD releases in the first decade of the new millenium.

The premise is that Sapphire and Steel are two non human agents who arrive from somewhere that is never specified. Their job it is to maintain the integrity of the flow of time which is all too often under assault by malevolent forces. The destruction of the integrity of time can have disastrous and final consequences for life on earth.

My interest in the series is not fueled by nostalgia which is often the case amongst the viewership of older cult TV series. I didn’t see the series when it first came out. I first came across it in the late 1990s and watched it then in an endless loop. Ten years later, I find myself once again absolutely rivetted by its minimalism, by the chemistry between the two attractive leads and the sheer unexplained mystery of some of the events and actions of the characters.

If the series moves at a slow pace by current standards, this merely builds the very considerable atmosphere of menace and danger and allows one to study the character interactions at leisure. The effects were achieved with creative effort and ingenuity rather than with the blithe facility of some current CGI effects. As the director Shaun O’Riordan points out – this gives the series a weight that comes from that investment of creative invention.

I have been watching the 2008 re-release of the series which is quite an improvement in quality over the earlier DVD release. It also includes a documentary which puts together a series of interviews with the director producer Shaun O’Riordan, the writer PJ Hammond – who writes with a truth that comes from the heart and utter conviction – and McCallum and Lumley. All involved in the series – crew, actors, director, writer – were passionate about it and did their very best work and all came up with creative ideas which enhanced the series. The lighting, camera work, special effects, sound and music are all noteworthy in creating the very unique atmosphere of this series.

It is evident from the documentary that those involved remain intensely and genuinely proud of their work and would willingly do more if the opportunity ever arose – which, alas, looks unlikely. All the stories are strong with the possible exception of Assignment 5, which was not written by Hammond but by two writers who penned many Dr. Who scripts. Assignment 5 introduces ill-advised humour (read downright silliness) and lacks the menacing intensity, truth and sheer alien strangeness that P.J. Hammond invested in the rest of the series with the aid of all involved. But even this assignment has its attractions, notably the interplay between the two main characters and a brief but fascinating scene with Steel teleporting – a small masterpiece of lighting and camera work.

My main regret in viewing this series is that there are not more episodes. There is an ongoing audio series with cult stalwart David Warner playing Steel and Susanna Harker as Saphhire, but I am hesitant to risk tampering with the sheer perfection of the original series by listening to it. In addition, much of the attraction of the series for me is the odd disjunction between what you are seeing and the words that are being spoken. This is something that only works in a visual medium and would be impossible to render on audio.

The most notable way in which this disjunction works is in the relationship between Sapphire and Steel. The content of what they are saying and the visual indications of their emotional connection are often not related in obvious ways. John Kenneth Muir puts it very nicely in his blog:

Although the actors’ deliver their lines deadpan and non-emotionally, a whole universe of subtle emotion flourishes between the lines; in their eye-contact; in their physicality; in their tone, in Sapphire’s occasional smile, even in their proximity to one another. These are amazing performances which strongly “hint” alien, but are also filled with a kind of nuanced complexity and humanity.

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Imaginative Writing (2007)

Janet Burroway, Imaginative Writing. The Elements of Craft. New York: Penguin Academics, 2007.
My rating: ***

Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft by Janet Burroway

This is a large and detailed book on how to engage in creative writing. Each chapter contains explanations of various elements such as ‘image’, ‘voice’, ‘character’. It covers techniques of fiction writing, creative non fiction, poetry and drama.

Each chapter contains short exercises scattered throughout the text but handily enclosed in highlighted text boxes. These can be undertaken in writing workshops or by an individual writer. At the end of each chapter, there are short stories, short pieces of creative non fiction, poems and short drama scripts.

The exercises are very useful and the explanations of the various categories are detailed and useful as well. This is a great textbook for use in creative writing workshops.

I only have a few relatively minor quibbles. The first is that it is not always clear how the pieces of writing at the end of the chapter form examples of what has just been discussed. The second is that as the book goes on, the selections of material become a veritable gloom fest leading into serious slit your wrist territory. Some of poetry on the other hand is a bit less maudlin and I found some of the pieces quite clever and amusing.

Another problem is a purely geographical one. Working with this book in an Australian context the overwhelming focus on North American examples and literature has a rather alienating effect. But this can be easily remedied by modfiying the exercises to give them a more local flavour and choosing different short stories as examples.

All in all, this is a wonderfully comprehensive text which can be used at both the introductory and advanced levels in teaching creative writing.

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Searching for the Secret River (2006)

Kate Grenville, Searching for the Secret River, Melbourne: Text Publishing Company, 2006.
My rating: ***

Searching for the Secret River by Kate Grenville

In this book the Australian writer Kate Grenville explains the process – both in terms of research and creative composition – that she went through in the writing of her award winning novel The Secret River.

I am always interested in the mechanics of how writers actually produce their work and this makes for a fascinating read. It shows that writing is by no means a breezily easy process.

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The Writing Book (1990)

Kate Grenville, The Writing Book. A Workbook for Fiction Writers. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, 1990.
My rating: ****
The Writing Book: A Workbook for Fiction Writers by Kate Grenville

This is a really excellent work book for people who want to write or who are currently writing fiction. It is also an incredibly useful book for people like myself who are running workshops on creative writing.

Each chapter is divided into 3 sections. The first section explains the category – eg character, voice, point of view, dialogue, the second section offers examples and the third offers large numbers of practical exercises which can be used either by the solitary writer or in a workshop.

The other thing I like about this book is that it uses Australian material which makes it easier to engage my students, who are of course all doing the course in Australia. Kate Grenville also writes in an easy conversational style which makes for enjoyable reading.

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Foucault, identity and writing

Posted on my site michel-foucault.com

If identity becomes the problem of sexual existence, and if people think they have to ‘uncover’ their ‘own identity’ and that their own identity has to become the law, the principle, the code of their existence; if the perennial question they ask is ‘Does this thing conform to my identity?’ then, I think, they will turn back to a kind of ethics very close to the old heterosexual virility. If we are asked to relate to the question of identity, it has to be an identity to our unique selves. But the relationships we have to have with ourselves are not ones of identity, rather they must be relationships of differentiation, of creation, of innovation. To be the same is really boring.

[Michel Foucault. (1996) [1984]. Sex, Power and the Politics of Identity. In Foucault Live. collected Interviews, 1961-1984. Sylvere Lotringer (Ed.). New York: Semiotext(e), p. 385.]

Random thoughts in response

Foucault is talking specifically about homosexual identity here but what he says can be applied to his views on all forms of identity, something which is borne out by other remarks in the rest of his work. These remarks all share the common theme that identities are a trap which limit who you are and make you subject to power relations. We need to continually escape from identity formation, not try and aspire to an identity. This position is clear in his famous remark from The Archaeology of Knowledge:

I am probably not the only one who writes in order to be faceless. Don’t ask who I am, or tell me to stay the same: that is the bureaucratic morality, which ensures that our papers are kept in order. It ought to let us be when it comes to writing
(AS:28, AK:17). Translation by Clare O’Farrell

Speaking at a personal level (I can afford such luxuries in this blog format!), I have found Foucault’s position particularly useful recently in thinking through problems of writer’s block. Why has writing been so difficult, and a problem that has haunted my existence for decades, its spectral presence never completely out of my vision? Perhaps the answer is simple. I have been aspiring to what I have perceived as the desirable identity of ‘writer’, a hugely constraining and complex set of rules which constantly provokes the question in relation to any writing activity: ‘does this thing conform to my identity?’

This question becomes particularly restrictive in the academic context which strongly polices what is regarded as suitable subject matter for academic discussion and the form in which this is delivered. The academy, for all the admirable and worthwhile rigour of its approach can also operate terrorist effects on those who have been trained to accept its norms and principles. It is an environment which is both enabling and limiting.

To further complicate this scenario, the modernist view of the academic writer and intellectual, one which I grew up with and breathed in every day, was that such a writer had a sacred mission to the world, to save mankind from its excesses, to reveal the truth, to make an important contribution to the well-being and advancement of society. Your success on this front was measured by your ‘reputation’, by the numbers of acolytes hanging on your every utterance and the volume of citations in a variety of citation indexes. There is no doubt that writers such as Foucault have definitely more than stepped up to the mark here, even if Foucault himself was by no means reticent in drawing attention to the flaws of such missionary pretensions. For example, one can refer to his remarks on the ‘specific’ versus the ‘universal’ intellectual and to his personal doubts about the social efficacy of writing as an activity.

Is this model of writing, this writerly identity, one that is productive for everyone? There is no doubt that it has been highly successful for many, but in my own case this poorly articulated lifelong quest to ‘uncover’ my identity as a writer, to somehow make it the governing principle of my existence has been constraining to the point of paralysis. Seeking to solidify an identity which would forevermore mark a place and a concrete presence in the world, like some kind of public monument, has been a shaky premise on which to operate. Aspiring to monumental status, no matter how grand, is a recipe for grinding boredom and paralysed inactivity.

So where does this leave me and my own writing activity? I can only come to one conclusion. Writing works for me when I regard it as fun, easy and disposable. I am able to write because of the cultural capital provided by my education and family background. Nothing else. There is no ‘mission’. It is a hobby not an identity. My own enjoyment and engagement, and the enjoyment of a few others observing my attempts as ‘a unique self’ (to use Foucault’s phrase) at ‘differentiation, creation and innovation’ is what makes it all worthwhile.

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