Understanding Dick Francis
09/03/10 19:30 Filed in: Reading
I finished Odds Against yesterday and came
away amazed, yet again, at Dick Francis' skill as a
writer. This is a great book and the climactic scene
between hero Sid Halley and the four villains is
absolutely, painfully, devastatingly effective.
It occurred to me, after I had read the final pages of the novel, that in all my years of being a Francis fan I have never actually heard the man's voice nor seen video of him. So I went to Google and checked him out. First, I found his own webpage (not surprisingly, www.dickfrancis.com) which is clean, clear and filled with interesting stuff, neatly presented. There are a couple of videotaped interviews on there but, unfortunately, nothing I saw in my brief perusal involved Francis in his prime: most were recent chats involving both Dick and his son Felix.
In one interview, however, Dick refers back to his worst riding moment, aboard a horse called Devon Loch in the Grand National steeplechase race at Aintree Racecourse in 1956. So I went to Youtube and found this:
It's a brief tribute to Francis shown on British television after his death and it shows the end of that race, which is the biggest steeplechase race of season (the Daytona 500 of British steeplechase racing, so to speak). Francis, a champion jockey at the time, is riding one of the co-favourites in the race, Devon Loch, which is owned by the Queen Mother. Francis and Devon Loch come off the last jump and the final turn with a five-length lead before devastation happens. It's amazing and painful to watch.
I watched that video several times with a pain in my stomach and I realised I had gained a little bit of an insight into how Francis, a man who otherwise led a charmed life, could make the pain his heroes feel (and they all have their own private torment) so real to the reader.
Then I looked further on Youtube and found a much less clear video of the entire race from 1956, my first viewing of an actual steeplechase race. It's just amazing to watch. Thirty or so horses start out and the pace is incredibly fast. Perhaps even more incredible, the race lasts almost seven minutes! I'm so used to watching horse races that last a minute or two but apparently steeplechases are much longer.
The experience has made me appreciate both Francis' achievements as a jockey and the action he describes in his books even more. I wish I had done this kind of research long ago.
It occurred to me, after I had read the final pages of the novel, that in all my years of being a Francis fan I have never actually heard the man's voice nor seen video of him. So I went to Google and checked him out. First, I found his own webpage (not surprisingly, www.dickfrancis.com) which is clean, clear and filled with interesting stuff, neatly presented. There are a couple of videotaped interviews on there but, unfortunately, nothing I saw in my brief perusal involved Francis in his prime: most were recent chats involving both Dick and his son Felix.
In one interview, however, Dick refers back to his worst riding moment, aboard a horse called Devon Loch in the Grand National steeplechase race at Aintree Racecourse in 1956. So I went to Youtube and found this:
It's a brief tribute to Francis shown on British television after his death and it shows the end of that race, which is the biggest steeplechase race of season (the Daytona 500 of British steeplechase racing, so to speak). Francis, a champion jockey at the time, is riding one of the co-favourites in the race, Devon Loch, which is owned by the Queen Mother. Francis and Devon Loch come off the last jump and the final turn with a five-length lead before devastation happens. It's amazing and painful to watch.
I watched that video several times with a pain in my stomach and I realised I had gained a little bit of an insight into how Francis, a man who otherwise led a charmed life, could make the pain his heroes feel (and they all have their own private torment) so real to the reader.
Then I looked further on Youtube and found a much less clear video of the entire race from 1956, my first viewing of an actual steeplechase race. It's just amazing to watch. Thirty or so horses start out and the pace is incredibly fast. Perhaps even more incredible, the race lasts almost seven minutes! I'm so used to watching horse races that last a minute or two but apparently steeplechases are much longer.
The experience has made me appreciate both Francis' achievements as a jockey and the action he describes in his books even more. I wish I had done this kind of research long ago.
Enter Sid Halley
07/03/10 19:21 Filed in: Reading
I'm not sure if you can plan a better Sunday evening: a
great home-cooked dinner, a strong rye-and-ginger,
Chantal Kreviazuk on the CD player and the Oscars on
deck in about an hour. Life can be really good, even as
I approach the frightening age of 45.
Chantal is belting out the tunes on her break-out disc, Under These Rocks and Stones, with it lyrical repetitions of "green apples" and "cotton candy" throughout the album. Her two early hits, "Wayne" and "Surrounded", are stirring happy memories of our recent encounter with Kreviazuk at the Fredericton Playhouse in a spectacular concert.
I can't say I've seen many (if any) of the movies that are up for Academy Awards tonight but I still love the show. A couple of years ago, Patti and I caught the broadcast with about 300 other people at the Bloor Cinema in Toronto, probably my favourite mode of Oscar watching! Tonight I'm looking forward to Steve Martin as host. Should be fun.
Meanwhile, I've moved on to Dick Francis' fourth novel, 1965's Odds Against. For Kicks was as good as advertised, featuring DF's first really cruel villain, but was a little heavy on the self-justification by protagonist Daniel Roke. Odds Against is significant because it first introduces Sid Halley, arguably Francis' most successful, most complex and most interesting hero. It also features one of the most memorable, horrifying scenes he wrote but I'll tell you more about that when I get to it. I'm still only about 70 pages in so there's lots more to come.
Halley is an ex-jockey, a champion, who had to give it up when he lost the use of one hand in a messy steeplechase accident. Scarred, both inside and out, Halley slowly works himself out of a deep depression to discover he's actually pretty good at the detection business. Maybe, just maybe, life is worth living after all, even if the life of a champion jockey is forever lost to him.
In Odds Against, Francis flexes his creative muscles while keeping the action galloping along. Halley proved so popular, meanwhile, that Francis brought him back in at least one later novel (Whip Hand), something he resisted doing with almost every other hero he created (for some reason, I think one other hero made a second appearance but I can't remember which: we'll figure it all out as I keep reading).
Chantal is belting out the tunes on her break-out disc, Under These Rocks and Stones, with it lyrical repetitions of "green apples" and "cotton candy" throughout the album. Her two early hits, "Wayne" and "Surrounded", are stirring happy memories of our recent encounter with Kreviazuk at the Fredericton Playhouse in a spectacular concert.
I can't say I've seen many (if any) of the movies that are up for Academy Awards tonight but I still love the show. A couple of years ago, Patti and I caught the broadcast with about 300 other people at the Bloor Cinema in Toronto, probably my favourite mode of Oscar watching! Tonight I'm looking forward to Steve Martin as host. Should be fun.
Meanwhile, I've moved on to Dick Francis' fourth novel, 1965's Odds Against. For Kicks was as good as advertised, featuring DF's first really cruel villain, but was a little heavy on the self-justification by protagonist Daniel Roke. Odds Against is significant because it first introduces Sid Halley, arguably Francis' most successful, most complex and most interesting hero. It also features one of the most memorable, horrifying scenes he wrote but I'll tell you more about that when I get to it. I'm still only about 70 pages in so there's lots more to come.
Halley is an ex-jockey, a champion, who had to give it up when he lost the use of one hand in a messy steeplechase accident. Scarred, both inside and out, Halley slowly works himself out of a deep depression to discover he's actually pretty good at the detection business. Maybe, just maybe, life is worth living after all, even if the life of a champion jockey is forever lost to him.
In Odds Against, Francis flexes his creative muscles while keeping the action galloping along. Halley proved so popular, meanwhile, that Francis brought him back in at least one later novel (Whip Hand), something he resisted doing with almost every other hero he created (for some reason, I think one other hero made a second appearance but I can't remember which: we'll figure it all out as I keep reading).
Catching Up With Writing Friends
04/03/10 21:38 Filed in: Writing
Over the past couple of weeks, I have had the chance to
get back into contact with some old writing friends:
Rickie Pattenden, Ross Pennie and John Hewson. I met
all three of these talented people through writers'
groups in the Hamilton area and am fortunate enough to
have been able to keep in touch with them, even after I
left Ontario. I miss the meetings, the support and the
camaraderie of those groups so it's nice to be able to
catch up with my old friends from time to time.
Rickie is a wonderful writer, whose short stories are excellent and whose major project has been writing her mother's life story. Rickie is still in Burlington and has been writing poetry of late, a great way to take advantage of the lyrical quality of her writing.
Ross, meanwhile, is busy completing the first draft of his second novel, which is expected to be published by ECW Press later this year. His first novel, Tainted, came out early in 2009 and is still selling very well. Ross tells me he's putting in two separate sessions of writing each day to try to meet his deadline for the draft. I'm looking forward to reading a new Zol Szabo mystery from start to finish, since John and I workshopped Tainted as it was being written, several years ago.
As for John, he continues to work on his wonderful novel, Corbett's Daughter. One of John's writing mentors has suggested some major revisions to this book and John has leapt right in to making those changes; I'm interested to read the revised draft since I thought the original version was pretty spectacular.
I'm trying not to let the industriousness of my friends make me feel guilty for my ever-lengthening hiatus from writing. Ideas continue to pop into my head but I'm not yet able to get myself in front of the computer for a serious stint. Luke, my next Phillip Gold novel, is on hold while plans for Abigail Massey, another young adult novel and The Way Forward, the Rowling-world sequel, are all in the offing. Distantly in the offing.
There's a play-writing contest here in Fredericton that I'm considering trying to enter but, beyond some ideas on interesting character for a play, I'm getting nowhere on a plot. I've got four more weeks before the deadline so I'll keep trying but, to be frank, I seem to be stuck right now.
I'm not complaining. Sometimes fallow times are as important as periods of great creative production.
Yeah, Mark. Keep telling yourself that.
Rickie is a wonderful writer, whose short stories are excellent and whose major project has been writing her mother's life story. Rickie is still in Burlington and has been writing poetry of late, a great way to take advantage of the lyrical quality of her writing.
Ross, meanwhile, is busy completing the first draft of his second novel, which is expected to be published by ECW Press later this year. His first novel, Tainted, came out early in 2009 and is still selling very well. Ross tells me he's putting in two separate sessions of writing each day to try to meet his deadline for the draft. I'm looking forward to reading a new Zol Szabo mystery from start to finish, since John and I workshopped Tainted as it was being written, several years ago.
As for John, he continues to work on his wonderful novel, Corbett's Daughter. One of John's writing mentors has suggested some major revisions to this book and John has leapt right in to making those changes; I'm interested to read the revised draft since I thought the original version was pretty spectacular.
I'm trying not to let the industriousness of my friends make me feel guilty for my ever-lengthening hiatus from writing. Ideas continue to pop into my head but I'm not yet able to get myself in front of the computer for a serious stint. Luke, my next Phillip Gold novel, is on hold while plans for Abigail Massey, another young adult novel and The Way Forward, the Rowling-world sequel, are all in the offing. Distantly in the offing.
There's a play-writing contest here in Fredericton that I'm considering trying to enter but, beyond some ideas on interesting character for a play, I'm getting nowhere on a plot. I've got four more weeks before the deadline so I'll keep trying but, to be frank, I seem to be stuck right now.
I'm not complaining. Sometimes fallow times are as important as periods of great creative production.
Yeah, Mark. Keep telling yourself that.
Francis Delivers Excitement
02/03/10 06:49 Filed in: Reading
It's now been a month since British thriller writer
Dick Francis passed away at age 89. In honour of his
death, I have decided to re-read his entire collection
of novels (more than 40 in total) from first to last.
Though I've read every one of them before, often
several times, I am trying this time to read them more
slowly and more thoroughly, to appreciate the writing
rather than simply getting caught up in the action.
I'm now on the third novel, For Kicks, and I have to admit: I haven't been very successful on the whole slowing down bit.
Dead Cert, Francis' first novel published in 1962, blew me away. The first ten pages are practically perfect —Francis launches the book in the middle of an intense steeple chase, adds a mysterious and deadly fall, introduces evidence of nefarious deeds, then manages to leave our mild-mannered hero all on his own to sort things out — and the rest of the book gallops along unrelentingly from there.
I can't imagine a more perfect opening salvo for a thriller writer and am in awe that this was Francis' first attempt at writing a novel. Amazing. Effortless. Perfect.
His second novel, Nerve, is almost as good. With a more complicated plot, it suffers only from the fact that the main character solves the mystery early and much of the second half of the book focuses on his campaign to bring the villain to justice. Here, Francis introduces his life-long interest in the psychology of evil while continuing to set first-rate thrillers against the background of the British horse racing industry.
I read and re-read the first part of Dead Cert, just to get clear in my mind what impressed me about it, but then got caught up in the plot and raced through the rest of the book. It took me longer to get into Nerve, mainly because I had a strong recollection of the intense suffering the hero endures and simply couldn't face it, but, once I was hooked, the pages flew past.
I have now stepped into the third novel, For Kicks, and am, once again, trying to force myself to go slow. In this book, Francis introduces his first protagonist who is not actually a jockey. Daniel Roke, an Australian horse breeder, agrees to take on an investigation on behalf of the English racing authorities simply for a change of scenery, going undercover as a stable lad to look into a new kind of doping.
With For Kicks, Francis delivers his third straight "cracker" of a novel. I wonder when I'll come across a weak link in his chain of mysteries.
I'm now on the third novel, For Kicks, and I have to admit: I haven't been very successful on the whole slowing down bit.
Dead Cert, Francis' first novel published in 1962, blew me away. The first ten pages are practically perfect —Francis launches the book in the middle of an intense steeple chase, adds a mysterious and deadly fall, introduces evidence of nefarious deeds, then manages to leave our mild-mannered hero all on his own to sort things out — and the rest of the book gallops along unrelentingly from there.
I can't imagine a more perfect opening salvo for a thriller writer and am in awe that this was Francis' first attempt at writing a novel. Amazing. Effortless. Perfect.
His second novel, Nerve, is almost as good. With a more complicated plot, it suffers only from the fact that the main character solves the mystery early and much of the second half of the book focuses on his campaign to bring the villain to justice. Here, Francis introduces his life-long interest in the psychology of evil while continuing to set first-rate thrillers against the background of the British horse racing industry.
I read and re-read the first part of Dead Cert, just to get clear in my mind what impressed me about it, but then got caught up in the plot and raced through the rest of the book. It took me longer to get into Nerve, mainly because I had a strong recollection of the intense suffering the hero endures and simply couldn't face it, but, once I was hooked, the pages flew past.
I have now stepped into the third novel, For Kicks, and am, once again, trying to force myself to go slow. In this book, Francis introduces his first protagonist who is not actually a jockey. Daniel Roke, an Australian horse breeder, agrees to take on an investigation on behalf of the English racing authorities simply for a change of scenery, going undercover as a stable lad to look into a new kind of doping.
With For Kicks, Francis delivers his third straight "cracker" of a novel. I wonder when I'll come across a weak link in his chain of mysteries.