McCall Smith
November 24th 2008 09:31
I'm quite a fan of Alexander McCall Smith's books, having read pretty much everything he's produced over the last decade, including the Isabel Dalhousie series, which haven't grabbed quite so much as his other books.
McCall Smith made publishing history a few years back when he began writing one of his novels in serialized form in a Scottish newspaper, The Scotsman. Each day a chapter would appear in the paper, a shortish chapter of around a 1000 words. And he went on to produce three more books, using the same characters, in the same way. This method of writing has some perils: you can't go back and fix anything (not even when the story is published as a 'proper' book), and the first in the series had some odd holes. On the other hand, it had some wonderful humour, and brought to life Bertie, the
five-year-old saxophone-playing, Italian-speaking son of a woman with ambitions to live her life through him. He is one of McCall Smith's great creations.
Now the author has moved up a notch; his current serial, Corduroy Mansions, is being written online (not quite literally) and has been appearing via the Daily Telegraph's website.
This allows him greater scope in some ways - or at least the marketing of the book has increased exponentially.
You can listen to the book as well as read it (the reader is Andrew Sachs, who played the much-maligned Manuel in Fawlty Towers),
you can read up on McCall Smith's approach to writing in serial form,
you can have the chapters sent by email or feed,
you can read the author's responses to readers' comments (the readers have been invited to suggest directions the story might go in),
you can compete with McCall Smith and write a story in twenty weeks yourself,
you can be part of the Facebook Corduroy Mansions community,
you can find Corduroy Mansions on a Google map,
you can read up about the illustrator, Ian McIntosh, and view his sketches of the main characters,
and no doubt plenty more.
Who said the book was dead? This whole process is doing its darndest to keep the book, and storytelling, alive and well. In spite of the book having been serialized here, there will still be a (bestselling) print version of it in the near future. Can't you just see it being one of the bestsellers of the century, because of all the hype that already surrounds it?
Fantastic.
McCall Smith made publishing history a few years back when he began writing one of his novels in serialized form in a Scottish newspaper, The Scotsman. Each day a chapter would appear in the paper, a shortish chapter of around a 1000 words. And he went on to produce three more books, using the same characters, in the same way. This method of writing has some perils: you can't go back and fix anything (not even when the story is published as a 'proper' book), and the first in the series had some odd holes. On the other hand, it had some wonderful humour, and brought to life Bertie, the
Now the author has moved up a notch; his current serial, Corduroy Mansions, is being written online (not quite literally) and has been appearing via the Daily Telegraph's website.
This allows him greater scope in some ways - or at least the marketing of the book has increased exponentially.
You can listen to the book as well as read it (the reader is Andrew Sachs, who played the much-maligned Manuel in Fawlty Towers),
you can read up on McCall Smith's approach to writing in serial form,
you can have the chapters sent by email or feed,
you can read the author's responses to readers' comments (the readers have been invited to suggest directions the story might go in),
you can compete with McCall Smith and write a story in twenty weeks yourself,
you can be part of the Facebook Corduroy Mansions community,
you can find Corduroy Mansions on a Google map,
you can read up about the illustrator, Ian McIntosh, and view his sketches of the main characters,
and no doubt plenty more.
Who said the book was dead? This whole process is doing its darndest to keep the book, and storytelling, alive and well. In spite of the book having been serialized here, there will still be a (bestselling) print version of it in the near future. Can't you just see it being one of the bestsellers of the century, because of all the hype that already surrounds it?
Fantastic.
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Comment by David O'Connell
Screen Fanatic
I like Alexander McCall Smith too, I've read the first 3 in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, and really enjoy the elegant simplicity and wisdom of his characters and the feel of Botswana that he imbues them with.
Comment by Mike Crowl
Webitz
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