Tom Ripley Is An Author

Posted on May 5, 2024 by Teodor Reljic under Books, Reading, Writing

I’ve just finished reading The Talented Mr Ripley for the first time and I can’t help but think of the story as being essentially about what it takes to carry a narrative to full term.

I remain convinced that Patricia Highsmith was essentially transferring the challenges of writing a novel onto a character who has no qualms about committing murder to further his hedonistic aims, but who is then also burdened with having to cover his tracks after the deeds have been done.

Like an author of fiction, he responds to creative prompts emerging from aspirational ideas of aesthetic fulfilment: here, compare the novelist’s desire to craft a masterpiece that recalls and respects their aloof influences and predecessors, with Ripley’s murderously driving urge to be in a position to soak in the fruits of high culture at his own leisurely pace, no matter the cost.

But what follows after you’ve responded to the initial call is the far more careful and laborious work of follow-through, where impulse must be supplemented with a quick-thinking application of intelligence, sensitivity and rigour.

I’ve never watched any of the Ripley film/TV adaptations — I was waiting to finish the book — but of course I was familiar with the overall premise by osmosis. What surprised me about Highsmith’s novel when I finally got down to it was how prone to emotional hissy fits Tom Ripley is, against the calculating, Hannibal Lecter-style sociopath that I had previously pictured. It’s like he does actually have the full range of human emotions at his disposal. He just parcels that energy out in a way that’s generally at odds with how you and I would manage it.

This aspect of the story speaks to how artists — we’ll consider writers as the main focus here — will tend to isolate themselves by proxy, at least while they’re cultivating and executed any given work. I’m not pushing the misunderstood, outsider artist cliché here — I have good reason to be deeply sceptical of that cultural trope — but it’s true that a certain degree of observational distance is necessary for an artist to really focus and get stuck into the work.

And for writers, in particular, this can take on the tenor of detached people-watching. You’re putting characters in your story, and characters are proxy humans who need to feel more human than human for the reader: the reader will, in fact, be compelled to become one and the same with them for the book to really live up to the full potential of the phenomenon of fictional narrative… in exactly the same way that Ripley assumes and then subsumes Dickie Greenleaf’s entire persona (an act of cannibalism so insidious it may even make the aforementioned Mr Lecter blush).

Which means that while the people you’re watching go about their routines, your own will be thrown off-piste for a bit, and you’ll be venting either through the characters you’re puppeteering, or in oblique ways and habits that will register as strange to the outsider.

But much like Tom Ripley’s own ‘bliss of evil’, there is something to be said about the plan finally coming together. Putting Tom’s shocking callousness to one side — which you will as you’re reading anyway, because Highsmith is a master at all of the above — the pleasure of the novel comes with watching with morbid fascination at how our man not only covers up the bodies, but spins a story that convinces everyone: from an international array of law enforcement officials down to the victims’ nearest and dearest.

Like any writer worth their salt, Ripley knows what makes his cast of characters tick, and he knows when to tug at their strings and when to release. The most naked display of this allegory comes to the fore not through Ripley the murderer but Ripley the letter-writer. That’s when his cunning and skill at manipulation reveals the author’s brain at work.

The pen is mightier than the sword, indeed: or rather, it can serve as the civilised supplement to the sword’s blunt-force damage; providing an escape hatch from the animal realm of the murderous impulse and back to the showered, shaven and fragrant world of the cocktail-sipping chattering classes.

Of course, no novel is perfect, and neither is Ripley’s plan. Rerouting and improvisation is often necessary, and the utter unravelling of this delicate tapestry is never not on the table.

Consequently, another constant is the intermittent reappearance of blind panic: that demonic pulse at the core of us all — writers included — which beats out a tattoo that says ‘why did you even attempt this? It’s built to fall apart, and you know it’.

The fact that Ripley gets away with it means that Highsmith has given us a perennial cheerleader for our projects. If you’ve looking for a pep talk to motivate you while you plough through your drafts but (rightly) have no truck with superficial slogans and toxic positivity, the talented (and hardworking) Tom Ripley might just be your man.

Keep your feasts and keep your famine

Posted on October 20, 2023 by Teodor Reljic under Books, Comics, Life, Malta, Memory, Music, Reading

There’s something surreal about still being able to glut on a banquet of streaming material as the Hollywood strikes rage on in the background.

Add to that the ‘feast or famine’ vibe of my own personal summer vs autumn streaming experience: there was very little new stuff I wanted to watch over the summer, and then October came along and I’m once again spoilt for choice.

Not that this is a new mood for me. For all the economic chaos we’ve been labouring under in the Western world since 2007 or so, that doesn’t really seem to apply to cultural consumption. Audio-visual “content” is piped in at a regular pace through our obedient army* of trusted apps.

The “TBR” pile only grows and grows, and in my case, twists and morphs into Cronenbergian variants as I give up on one pile to forge another, confident in my prediction that this time, this will be the one that gets devoured.

This all stands in marked contrast to how I remember experiencing culture in the ’90s. As a geeky son of emigres who lived in Malta and spent summers back in native Serbia, but who was trained to desire the globalised products of the Anglophone sphere, I was often left blue-balled by my inability to grasp at all the stuff I wanted — nay needed — and required to consume. Consume, of course, on the basis of an imagined diet whose prescription was as vague as it was specific.

Getting comics in Malta was nigh impossible at the time, though there was a grassroots ‘comics club’ established by a pair of passionate — though often frustrated — friends who often treated its members as foundlings… which, in many ways, we were: orphaned in our need to latch onto story-products which would not otherwise have reached us were it not for their benediction.

The lack of a foundational cultural identity — or rather, a fragmented one that I wasn’t particularly keen to embrace or even poke at, given that Serbians were officially the aggressors in the nineties’ most significant conflict, rudely blotting the End of History with its own traumatic fallout — is perhaps what led me to latch onto various subcultures: comics were one, metal music was another.

Funnily enough, our trips to Serbia were particularly useful when it came to the latter. The mess of the post-Milosevic era meant that bootlegs could proliferate with impunity — public television channels even aired brand new cinema releases on their evening schedule — so we’d end up taking a bunch of CDs home and gain some degree of bragging rights with out metal head buddies.

Because for all that it was still struggling under the weight of a post-war depression, Belgrade in particular remained a European cities, and subcultures still functioned with an historic sense of purpose, and kindred spirits could be found if you knew where to look. Malta, for all its aspirations of being an up-and-coming place, still operated on a provincial logic.

This was also why the rapid rise and fall of Napster — whose fall was made largely redundant by the floodgates opening up to handily-available variants — was a balm to us in Malta. Suddenly, we could all be on the same page as our international counterparts. Metal Hammer and Kerrang were no longer dispatches from the future.

And yet, fast-forward to the present day, and what I look forward to most re-read season. This is how I’ve unofficially dubbed autumn, over and above its many reliefs and delights (ostensibly cooler weather at some point — climate change permitting — the excuse to binge on horror faves ‘cos Halloween, etc etc.).

It’s about acknowledging a split. On the one hand, there’s so much desirable stuff to consume. On the other, all of that noise is just so piercingly alienating. And caring for the self is all about remembering what makes you, you. The foundations built by all those things that left an impact, for some reason.

This runs counter to the prevailing cultural narrative, of course, which is probably why I always feel an internal pushback whenever I try to implement it. But the relief of re-reading a favourite book is immediate, and immense. It’s a relief akin to the best of drug-free hedonistic pursuits: sex, swimming and a volcanic eruption of laughter during a friends catch-up.

Consumption is what sold us the end of history. But we were nowhere near the end, of course. And regardless, there’s always been a ton of history to feast on in the meantime.

*though a master-slave dialectic may be the more appropriate metaphor here.

Words will wait

Posted on August 27, 2023 by Teodor Reljic under Books, Malta, Writing, Writing habits

Writing hasn’t been easy lately.

That’s not to say I haven’t been able to jot things down. And neither am I “out of ideas” or bereft of the required energy or confidence to keep on ploughing through the sentences and drafts.

It’s just that my current project is at a point where the drafts, the ideas and the characters need some time to get to know each other better. They’re talking at cross-purposes and on a vague, sun-bleached plan, which was mapped out by a remote authority seated in a comfy office and simply left out to the elements and the drafts, the ideas and the characters are forced to squint to make out the shapes which were once words or diagrams meant to take them to the next stage of their journey.

This probably just means that I need to take a break.

Which is funny to consider, when my writing schedule is essentially “whatever you manage in the one hour before you have to head out to go to work”. But a mental break from a specific strand from writing doesn’t necessarily mean stopping to write altogether. Even switching projects works, though arguably swapping over an ingrained, long-term writing practice for some experimental noodling could have an even greater restive (or restorative) effect.

***

Freedom in writing is always a relative term, for me… I’m deeply sceptical of the idea that an artistic practice implies a sense of spontaneous, intuitive and even anarchic liberation away from the strictures of mainstream society. If anything, I find that it actually requires a deeper and more neurotic commitment to some of these tenets, with the anarchism only made evident in the obsessive streak with which you double-down on them.

You can zone out at work, and go for the umpteenth cigarette or coffee. Household chores have definitive parameters, and even the most byzantine of bureaucratic tasks have some kind of ceiling. Clients will have deadlines, and even lovers have their ultimatums. Lovers, partners and friends also have physical bodies that tick away to sometimes endless-seeming, but ultimately finite desires and frustrations. They may be erratic but they’re never truly, entirely unpredictable for those of us who know a thing or two about how humans operate in general. And while they may expect a certain degree of telepathy on your end — and as annoying as such an expectation may be — they will never ask you to create and recreate them anew.

But your characters will. And this is why I think that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein will always remain a reference point. I’m sure there’s a flurry of doctoral theses and obscure articles out there to prove the following statement wrong, but I’m always surprised that so much of our processing of that pioneering piece of sci-fi gothic literature is focused on the ‘scientific hubris’ reading, and so little on how it’s also a commentary on the act of creation. Yes, I’m sure the theological implications have often been made as well, but I’m referring specifically to how Victor Frankenstein could also be seen as the neurotic and nervous artist trying to come to terms with the horror of a first draft. (And also, how that first draft threatens to morph into something unexpected, and demands that more of these mutations be facilitated by dint of a fertile co-partner).

(I’m not trying to claim this interpretation as original. Those of you have links and PDFs, please pass them on. They are more than welcome).

So yeah, for me, writing is never about freedom but about finding the right straitjacket for the right moment. Or rather, the correct protective suit for whichever uncharted territory you happen to be traversing at the time. Because the territory will always BE uncharted, and populated by monsters to whom you’d not only have to teach language, but whose independence you’d have to facilitate and reassure. Let Victor Frankenstein’s fate be a cautionary tale.

***

Apart from being literally one of two or three annual events I legitimately look forward to each year, the Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival, organised by Inizjamed, often offers me a chance to experience writing in a looser and more immediate way to my default mode. More poetry, less novels. More of experimental prose, and less of the three-act structure.

It often results in me buzzing with a renewed fervour for the written word, experiencing precisely the kind of ‘break-that-is-not-a-break’ that I’d mentioned earlier. You encounter new writers without the aid of an algorithm: better still, right in the flesh. This adds wrinkles to your programme; unexpected experiences that open new doorways.

But there was a dash of welcome familiarity in this year’s edition of the festival. As an honorary member of the extender Inizjamed family, I’d assumed that I had some dibs on suggesting future festival guests. So a couple of years ago I started lobbying for the inclusion of Karin Tidbeck to the roster. Of course, as a subculture-rat since my early teens, my allegiance to specific groups will always trump pretty much all else: in this case, it’s the genre/speculative fiction community. I will always aim to advocate and represent of that literary class in my local stomping grounds, much in the same way I managed to do for Kali Wallace and Jon Courtenay Grimwood.

But I also felt Karin to be germane to Inizjamed’s festival in particular for more specific reasons related to their artistic practice and MO. A festival that comes with its own translation workshop attached, a multi-lingual, self-translating author is practically catnip. And a writer who so keenly identifies with liminal spaces can’t help but feel at home in any festival that deigns to include ‘Mediterranean’ in its title, and this particular one does so with a degree of conviction: operating with both intellectual rigour and humane generosity to create authentic spaces of encounter.

***

All of this largely a preamble to celebrate this year’s edition of the festival (as I did when I was lucky enough to participate back in 2018); to remind you that I got a chance to chat with Karin in print about their uncategorisable nature in the run up to the event; to brag about being allowed to ventriloquise for Karin in her absence from the grand finale due to a ridiculously early wake-up call the following morning; and to hopefully open this space back up for more regular, and looser, writings of this kind.

Especially now that I’m starting a new job in a field that’s relevant to my experience once again. Which is the perfect push and pull of the familiar and the new.

***

I mentioned the prolific (and gentlemanly) Jon Courtenay Grimwood above. During one of our in-person conversations (either during his Malta visit or a follow-up meeting in London, I can’t recall), I spoke admiringly of his substantial output, a lot of it filtered through different noms de plume.

He responded by stating simply, “Well, if I don’t write, I can’t think.”

Increasingly, I find this to be true in my case. It doesn’t necessarily mean that whatever I write will have any value at all; at least not in that early stage. And neither does it have to be some sort of revelatory, epiphanic distillation of the self at that given moment.

The mechanics of writing are their own reward. This is why every single shift away from the programme has value. Words remain words. They will serve you in different ways at different times, but they remain at your disposal.

Featured image: Authors performing at the final night of the 18th edition of the Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival, on 26 August 2023. From left: Tanja Bakic, Claudia Gauci, Karin Tidbeck, Simone Inguanez and Virginia Monteforte (photographer)

In Defense of Escapism

Posted on November 28, 2022 by Teodor Reljic under Art, Books, Films, Storytelling

Following the annual horror binge of October, I tend to slip back into fantasy favourites during the subsequent months in an attempt to close off the year with something of a cosily immersive lilt; to both weather and take advantage for what passes for autumn and winter in this warm part of the world, and to plug into its wellspring of restorative nostalgia.

This often gets me thinking about the vilification of the fantasy genre — broadly speaking — as ‘escapist’, which tag tends to be loaded and, as is often the case, flung around in a dismissive and rather unreconstructed way.

The implication being that, the further we are from a cleanly mimetic representation of reality in fiction, the more ‘irresponsible’ we become in its consumption. That such a mode encourages us to forget the world as it is now, in favour of an ethereal indulgence that numbs us to our day-to-day realities and leaves us in a torpid stupor, the kind that Tennyson detailed in The Lotos-eaters.

There’s of course been endless shadings and nuancing of this argument over the years, but I believe that the core of it has remained with us — throbbing like a planetary core that has lodged itself and become essential to historical ecosytem of the discourse, much like any other ossified truism.

I find it to be endlessly faulty, and not just because I’m a fan of fantasy literature (and therefore don’t appreciate being characterised as some sort of head-in-the-sand naive idiot by proxy).

My issue here is far more fundamental. To put it as plainly as I can manage: it assumes that reality is a flat, clearly definable surface, and that we can posit a clean reality : fantasy binary.

The popularity of such an assumption is hardly surprising, given that it’s taken root primarily within the confines of a materialist, capitalist western society. This is a mode of living which at best compartmentalises all that is not tangibly measurable, rendering it peripheral to the day-to-day workings which make the machinery tick.

So that religious practice is tolerated, as long as it can be woven into the fabric of the day-to-day without causing too much offence (and crucially, it is called upon to occasionally prop up the agendas of certain politicians and ratify certain acts of exclusion and social inequality).

**Acceptable escapism? Naked Lunch (1991) by David Cronenberg, adapted from the William S. Burroughs novel**

Perhaps we accept the intangible when it relates to issues of mental health. There is, at the very least, an understanding that — medication-based psychiatric help aside — the mental realm needs tending to in ways that are suspiciously apposite to the kind of treatments and rituals we would associate with religious and/or magical practice.

But even then — the overarching practise is to simply ‘treat’ any mental health anguish in a way that’ll make it go away so that you can resume being a healthy cog that can help keep the system chugging along. We are hardly encouraged to take its wider implications — that there’s more to life than what’s in front of us — and run with it.

In the same way, fantasy is also compartmentalised, only to be richly consumed by all of us. Literature aside, its popular adaptations litter our screens and the streaming services that have latched onto them like eager barnacles. Adaptations of the works of JRR Tolkien, George RR Martin and Neil Gaiman were some of the most-watched (or at least most talked about) shows of the past year or so.

**Chloë Grace Moretz in The Peripheral (Amazon)**

Even something like Amazon’s take on William Gibson’s The Peripheral — ostensibly a work of ‘hard’ neo-cyberpunk from the grandfather of that subgenre — ultimately partakes of fantasy tropes at its root: it’s a portal fantasy with virtual reality and cyborg stand-ins only superficially replacing the mechanics of magic and its adepts.

Ultimately, branding fantasy more escapist than its supposedly ‘realistic’ counterparts is bound to devolve into a fool’s errand animated into being solely by the assumptions of a category error.

**Still from The Company of Wolves (1984), directed by Neil Jordan and adapted from the Angela Carter short story**

If you’re reading, watching or hearing something — anything — for an extended period of time, you’re lost in that experience, and at least somewhat disconnected from the real world, by proxy. Whether this is an epic adventure quest populated by dragons, elves and goblins, or a kitchen-sink drama of an immigrant family trying to make ends meet in present-day Munich, is really beside the point.

That’s not to say that there are no distinctions to be made within the minutae of experience to be had in each, of course. But the moralistic tone that is often taken against the allegedly more ‘escapist’ of the two still betrays at least a hint of lazy thinking.

For all that the more grimily realist fiction can illuminate and raise awareness — political awareness which, it must be said, is thinner on the ground(s) of that genre’s more navel-gazing counterparts — the fantastic acts as an extension of that experience.

Let’s give voice to what’s easier to defend here, for starters. Boundary-pushing works of the fantastical — the kind you’ll find among the likes of Kafka, Angela Carter or David Cronenberg — will exaggerate and amplify with the aim of exploring loftier points. The flinty realists are largely on the side of these non-escapist works of the fantastical.

**Tom Sturridge as Morpheus/Dream in the Netflix adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman**

But I would submit that even the most reactionary or nostalgic of fantasy works can have a purpose which isn’t simply redolent of intellectual vacuity or laziness, of a kind of distracted quietism that numbs the intellect and reduces its consumers to little more than sludge.

At the end of the day, even the knockiest of Tolkien knock-offs will be better for your mental hygiene than hours spent doomscrolling through the social media platform/s of your choice… and the degree of actual, conscious choice involved in that experience is questionable to begin with.

Because if distraction from reality is what makes fantasy such an ‘irresponsible’ intellectual pursuit, what is the doomscrolling impulse of the 24/7 news cycle, which has now emigrated beyond the relatively confined space of the television screen to also latch themselves onto our mobile phones? (Yes, Gibson and Cronenberg have been warning us of this with grotesque gusto for decades).

Haunted by this reality, I submit that anything which promotes immersion of any kind is a better and more meditative alternative.

***

Re-read of the season: The King of Elfland’s Daughter by Lord Dunsany
Currently reading: The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson

Lifting the Lid on the Vipers’ Pit

Posted on August 4, 2021 by Teodor Reljic under Books, Films, Writing

Starting from this Friday (6 August), those of you based in Malta can watch a film I wrote at Eden Cinemas in St Julian’s.

This is the first feature film script of mine to be produced, and suffice it to say that I’m excited about how audiences are going to react to our adaptation of Is-Sriep Regghu Saru Velenuzi (literal translation: ‘The Snakes Are Venomous Again’; our translation, ‘A Vipers’ Pit’) by Alex Vella Gera, a novel whose trajectory I’ve followed from a very early stage back in 2012.

Director-producer Martin Bonnici called me up to ask if I’d be on board with adapting the novel back in late 2015, by which point the book had been established as a landmark of contemporary Maltese literature. This had partly to do with its thrilling core conceit – a group of ultra-Catholic nationalist insurgents plan the assassinaton of firebrand socialist prime minister of Malta, Dom Mintoff, in the 1980s – but also for more formal reasons.

Vella Gera’s novel is written in the bilingual register which reflects how a large part of the Maltese population speak; a linguistic schizophrenia that stands in for the binaries of social class on the island. The middle classes speak English, the working classes speak Maltese. At least, that’s the boilerplate belief, which has of course always been more nuanced on the ground than on paper. Middle-class born Noel Sammut Petri decides to break with that tradition after a move to Brussels, insisting on speaking Maltese in Maltese company.

It may seem like a small detail, but it speaks volumes. Where the English-speaking Maltese are either coded as elites or subject to gentle (and not-so-gentle) ridicule for the most part, Vella Gera chooses to depict this reality honestly, filtering some of this understandable distaste through the now liminal figure of Noel.

It’s one of the many ways in which the book resists an earnest, try-hard attempt to flaunt an idea of Malteseness that can be packaged and sold, and it’s probably the reason why it felt so refreshing to so many. Despite the attention-grabbing Mintoff plot, at its core the story is about the emotional landscape of the people trying to navigate the uncertain morass that is Malta: an infant Republic in its early segment set in the 1980s – following Noel’s father Richard as he’s pushed to serve as triggerman for the Mintoff assassination – and an EU member state at the cusp of regime change in 2012.

Vella Gera himself told me as much while we were conducting an email interview about the book prior to its publication in 20 October, 2012. Here’s a quote that didn’t make the final cut:

“I wanted to steer away from narratives dictated by the political parties. In a way, this book is a direct challenge to that bipolarism. Not that I’m propagating a “third way”, which is really conservatism by another name. However, like Noel, I too am aloof from the tug of war of local politics, so if my book were to be “unofficially boycotted” I think in a way it would be a success because it would underline that aloofness and continued lack of understanding of where I really come from

[…]

“Obviously, I have my political opinions, which to a certain extent continue to validate that aloofness, because I find very little in Maltese politics to rejoice over. I wonder who Noel would vote for. Probably [Green Party] AD, or perhaps he wouldn’t vote at all, or then again, he’d vote Labour just to spite [his property magnate friend] Roger. But I never get into these intricacies, because I find them very dull to deal with […] Personally I tried to steer away from getting too specific about anything except the gut feelings of people, which is what I’ve always felt is missing in most Maltese political fiction. That gut feeling that cannot be brushed aside or censored, or made more palatable with a joke or a witty aside, or some satirical tone.”

Despite its many changes to the source novel, I also sincerely hope that our film adaptation manages to convey a similar commitment to the complex emotional spaces the characters occupy, in favour of safely packaged assumptions, and jingoism by any other name.

Is-Sriep Regghu Saru Velenuzi (A Vipers’ Pit) will be screening at Eden Cinemas, St Julian’s, from 6 August. True to its bilingual source novel, the film will be in both Maltese and English, andcome with English subtitles. Book your tickets here.

Quarantine Prayers and Offerings

Posted on March 20, 2020 by Teodor Reljic under Books, Films, Life, Malta, Two, Work, Writing

Prayers

Just like many other freelancers the world over, the economic fallout of the covid-19 epidemic has left me scrambling for work that would ensure my livelihood in the coming months. Scrambling is something out tribe is accustomed to, of course, and I’ve often been in this situation before and have emerged (relatively) unscathed.

But of course, these are extraordinary times, during which some old clients will scram any prospective ones suddenly find themselves denuded of any lust for adventurous new collaborations.

Freelancing in marginally less trying times, with thought bubble lamp for added effect

To this end, I would like to invite anyone who does retain a sense of adventure during these trying times to consider taking on my services as a freelance writer with experience in various fields — journalism, content writing and scriptwriting being the main three, though I’d be more than happy to work on anything you’ve got going as long as it’s in English and the deadlines are humane.

Neither is there any need to simply take my own word for it, however: do take a look at what some kindly but exacting professionals had to say about my work in various fields by popping over to the ‘Services‘ section of this very site.

***

Offerings

Though it’s hardly the Netflix back (and front) catalogue, some of my own work could very easily keep you company while you’re social distancing away at home.

Novel: Two

My debut novel started life as a piece of flash fiction, tumbled into larger and more mottled being thanks to the steady encouragement of Merlin Publishers’ Chris Gruppetta and was released into the little slice of world that would have it at the beautiful Cafe Wignacourt in Rabat, my Maltese town-crush.

Very much a debut novel in spirit, tone and theme, it is a labour of equal parts love and pain: deeply autobiographical and largely told from the POV of a young child, for gods’ sake. Does it get any more debut novel-y than that?!

You can find out more about it here. Those of you in Malta and Gozo can currently avail themselves of a 25% discount from Merlin Publishers — a covid-solidarity move that applies to all of their books. Do also check out Awguri, Giovanni Bonello, featuring a vampire-tinged historical fiction tale that was a blast to write, and which dovetails nicely into our next item…

Short Film: Camilla

Literary film adaptation and vampires are just about two of my favourite things, so it was an honour and a pleasure to be able to adapt Clare Azzopardi’s ‘Camilla’ into a short film, together with Stephanie Sant (who co-wrote and directed) and under the ever-intrepid auspices of producer Martin Bonnici (Shadeena Entertainment). The film was made possible thanks to a competitive fund awarded to us by the National Book Council, whose sterling work can, I hope, continue unabated after all this mess is over.

Meanwhile, please feel free to enjoy our 21-minute slice of Mediterranean Gothic, cross-generational romantic intrigue and sexual discovery, all wrapped up in a coming-of-age story featuring a wide-eyed but hardly bushy-tailed protagonist, brought to entrancing life by Steffi Thake, working under the austere shadow cast by the inimitable Irene Christ.

Camilla & Castillo | Engaging with Clare Azzopardi

Posted on November 25, 2019 by Teodor Reljic under book review, Books, Films, Malta, Writing

To say that my adoptive home country is going through some turbulent stuff right now would be the understatement of an already-overstated century, but that doesn’t mean that wallowing in the chaotic morass is in any way productive or desirable… addictive as it may be.

Irreconcilable paradoxes and hastily grasped-at truths and half-truths are often the hallmark of great fiction, for the very reason that they tend to bug and scare us most of the time. This is where writers (and artists of every ilk) can actually step in to do some undeniable Good Work that affects Society at Large. By giving these ambiguities a thorough airing, they can allow us to point at our condition and feel truly ‘seen’.

Clare Azzopardi‘s latest novel Castillo is many things, but at its root is a desire to express the ever-relevant – and now, sadly, even topical – helplessness we feel when faced with endemic corruption and apparently sanctified violence. Amanda Barbara seeks out her estranged mother following the death of the father who raised her, only to learn that the matriarch was errant as well as absent: almost off-hand, she confesses to committing two murders a couple of decades ago and feels not a little bit of guilt about her actions.

The real twist in the tale in many ways is the involvement of Cathy ‘K.’ Penza, also recently deceased and by all accounts the ‘cool aunt’ figure for Amanda… not least thanks to her side-career as the celebrated writer behind the ‘Castillo’ crime novels, extracts from which Azzopardi regales us with in interspersed chapters that deftly and joyfully display a masterful grasp of cross-genre pastiche.

It’s not just because of the novels-within-a-novel device – though this may be the most explicit manifestation of this strand of Azzopardi’s many talents – but with Castillo, Clare Azzopardi once again proves herself as one of the most engaging and full-rounded authors in the local sphere.

A novel about gender, motherhood, the reverberating and unresolved echoes of political violence past, Castillo always remains very much a detective novel through and through, albeit one with a ‘twist’, relegating the conventional cloak-and-dagger and noir trappings to the embedded fictional detective, but leaving plenty of work for Amanda to do.

This, to my mind, is the true strength of Azzopardi’s novel: never once does she drop the ball, never once does she forget to do the necessary TLC that ensures this aesthetic cohesion that makes the novel such a solidly held-together experience. The ‘Castillo’ chapters aren’t just a clever garnish, they are firmly rooted to it all. The spectre of violence made manifest. If journalism is the first draft of history, the detective is its first archaeologist, digging up bones marked with streaks of fresh flesh.

Here’s hoping Castillo is translated thick, wide and fast.

***

Some shameless self-promotion now, though not unrelated to the author under discussion. Last year, we’ve had the privilege of adapting a short story by Clare Azzopardi into a short film, and we brought in a landmark work by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu to help along.

‘Camilla‘ was co-written by its director Stephanie Sant and myself, produced by Martin Bonnici of Shadeena Entertainment and made possible thanks to the National Book Council (Malta), after it won its Short Film Contest in 2018. The source material is taken from Azzopardi’s award-winning, female-centered anthology Kulhadd Halla Isem Warajh, and in adapting the story I did a bit of archaeology of my own, calling up Laura from Le Fanu’s ‘Carmilla’ to serve as an audience stand-in and ultimately, protagonist, in the interest of keeping the enigma at the root of the titular character intact.

Both roles were played with sensitivity, grace and quiet potency by Steffi Thake and Irene Christ, and I couldn’t be happier with the end result.

‘Camilla’ is now free for all to see on YouTube, and I hope you enjoy it.

Literary Homes Away From Home | TIFA & Malta Book Festival

Posted on October 19, 2019 by Teodor Reljic under Books, Malta, Travel, Two, Work, Writing

The life of the freelance writer can be nasty, brutish and long… at least it certainly feels that way as the deadline trenches continue to spew up new nasties and your trusted friends and allies get lost on the way, or are thrown into their own mix of churny nastiness.

All of this is to say that I haven’t quite been able to keep this blog up and updated as often as I’d wished (a perennial excuse/complaint by those of my ilk), which this time was particularly regretful given the awesome stuff that lies ahead.

Namely…

The Toronto International Festival of Authors

Thanks to the kind collaboration/collusion between Merlin Publishers and the Consulate General of the Republic of Malta, I was able to say “yes” to the kind offer by the organisers behind the Toronto International Festival of Authors, a truly prestigious literary event that this year will feature guests like Angela Davis, John Irving, Adam Foulds, Adam Gopnik, Emma Donoghue and a plethora of intimidating-sounding others for what will be its 40th anniversary edition.

It still feels a little bit unreal to me, and I’m sure it’ll remain so right until we actually land in the beautiful-seeming city after what will be my first trip outside of Europe.

The grounding factor are of course the events I will be participating in, which are the following:

Reading & Conversation: Karen McBride, Teodor Reljić and Drew Hayden Taylor

Saturday, October 26, 2019 – 4:00 PM
Lakeside Terrace, Harbourfront Centre

These three authors examine the hidden secrets with which we live, in family life and in our hometowns. Karen McBride presents her first novel, Crow Winter. She is an Algonquin Anishinaabe writer from the Timiskaming First Nation in the territory that is now Quebec. Drew Hayden Taylor presents Chasing Painted Horses. He is a playwright, short story writer, novelist, journalist, activist for Indigenous rights and TV scriptwriter. Teodor Relijić presents Two. He is a writer of fiction, a freelance feature writer, and culture editor and film critic at MaltaToday. The conversation will be moderated by Wendy O’Brien. Hosted by Tunchai Redvers.

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Europe On Tour: Reading & Reception

Sunday, October 27, 2019 – 7:00 PM
Lakeside Terrace, Harbourfront Centre

No passport needed to meet, hear and learn from the European Union’s leaders in contemporary literature at this special event. For the second year running, the Festival is thrilled to present this rare chance to hear acclaimed works recited live in the languages in which they were originally written and in the authors’ own voices.

Spotlighted countries include Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain. This event is presented in conjunction with the European Union National Institutes for Culture. Written English translations will be available. Readings will be followed by a licensed reception and the event will be hosted by Laetitia Delemarre.

Featured authors include:

Kai Aareleid (Burning Cities),

Esad Babačić (Every Child is Beautiful When Born),

Helena Janeczek (The Girl with the Leica),

Frido Mann,

Wilfried N’Sondé (Concrete Flowers),

Inês Pedrosa (Still I Miss You),

Rein Raud (The Death of a Perfect Sentence),

Teodor Reljić (Two),

Teresa Solana (The First Prehistoric Serial Killer),

Benedek Totth (Dead Heat),

and Gabriela Ybarra (The Dinner Guest).

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Authors on Tour at Union Station – Day 3

Monday, October 28, 2019 – 12 PM – 2 PM

The Toronto International Festival of Authors has partnered with Toronto’s Union Station once again to bring spirited author readings to Toronto’s busiest commuter interchange.
Hosted by Antanas Sileika, the events will spotlight a select lineup of authors, as well as a “Books On Tour” Library of favourite Festival titles of the past 40 years, which passersby are welcome to take home with them free of charge. Each author will present from their latest book on the topic of “travel” or “journeys” and interact with the audience. The event will take place in the West Wing of Union Station, immediately off the Great Hall at street level.

Next…

The Malta Book Festival

A beloved event that is only growing from strength to strength with each passing year (much like Malta Comic Con, whose second day I’ll be attending pretty much after my Toronto-via-Rome plane back home lands on the Luqa gravel), this year’s edition of the Malta Book Festival is especially exciting for me.

Its chosen theme of speculative fiction is obviously close to my heart, and it is for this reason that its organising body, the National Book Council, kindly allowed me to pitch a couple of names into the ring of their then-burgeoning programme.

Happily, this resulted in both Jon Courtenay Grimwood and Kali Wallace to be selected for participation in a few events at the festival, both of whom I’ve met and made friends with at Cons in the Scarborough and Helsinki, respectively. They round out a set of international guests which also include Dave Rudden and none other than Judge Rosemarie Aquilina. My contributions to the Malta Book Festival, which runs from November 6-10 at the Mediterranean Conference Centre, will be the following:

Kali Wallace at the National Book Festival

I will be interviewing Kali Wallace on November 7th at 18:00 about her already-prolific and eclectic range of novels, which span from horror to sci-fi, YA to middle-grade to adult fiction, and the latest of which has just been optioned for a big-budget film adaptation.

Official event description:

U.S. author Kali Wallace will be talking to Teodor Reljić about her already prolific output, which includes the Young Adult cult favourites ‘Shallow Graves’, ‘The Memory Trees’ and ‘City of Islands’. Their talk will touch upon the dynamics of genre fiction and publishing, the difference between writing for young adults and adults, the legacy of space-horror thrillers such the ‘Alien’ franchise and their influence on her most recent work and debut novel for adults, ‘Salvation Day’. Because it is only right, a portion of the conversation will also be dedicated to a consideration of both interlocutors’ undeniably adorable fluffy cats.

Official Facebook Event

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Literary Speed Dating

Prior to that, I will also be participating in the inaugural edition of the Literary Speed Dating event, which according to the National Book Council, “will take place at the Authors’ Hub, a space specifically designated for one-to-one meetings during the Malta Book Festival.

“The idea behind this initiative is to get individuals from the public to meet you as an exhibitor/participant/important stakeholder in the book industry at the Malta Book Festival, in a setting which is more private than the usual ‘from behind the counter at the stand in a festival attended by thousands”.

My own slot will be on Wednesday, 6 November from 17:30 to 18:30, right before the Festival’s annual conference, which will this year feature Loranne Vella, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Kali Wallace and Dave Rudden in a discussion of the ‘strange new worlds’ propsed by sci-fi and fantasy fiction, as moderated by author and translator Mark Anthony Fenech.

Okay, time to strap in, literally and metaphorically. Hope to meet a bunch of you in the flesh!

Book Reviews | Ancient Gods, Fallen Angels and Other Dissolute Beings Awaiting the End of the World

Posted on March 3, 2019 by Teodor Reljic under book review, Books, Recent Reads

I’ve stopped logging my reading into Goodreads, mainly because I felt it was gamifying the experience for me far too much, and this really not the kind of headspace I want to be in when considering what I Wish to Read, what I’m Currently Reading and what I’ve just Finished Reading.

As with most pseudo-social and insidiously easy-to-use interfaces, the Goodreads model only appears to respect the fluid ebb and flow that characterises the reading experience for most people. But in actual fact, asking us to list and show off our reading is just another way of adding undue pressure and exhibitionism over something that should be experienced in the deep inner recesses of our mind.

So rather than ‘clocking in’ – an even better term than logging in, I think, implying an employee-like schedule/adherence to the gods of social media – I thought I’d chat a little bit about some of the books I’ve recently enjoyed, in a way that’s hopefully more germane to the intuitive and flowing pleasure that reading them implies.

Mythos by Stephen Fry

Perhaps opting to go for the audio route with this one was the best decision I could possibly make, as Stephen Fry’s self-narrated jaunt across the annals of Greek mythology is delivered in the lilting, bordering-on-placid notes that make him such a becalming yet enriching presence for many.

As regards the content itself, the tales are of course unbeatable in their timelessness, though Fry’s expansive approach is friendly and accessible, even if it risks ending up on the wrong side of avuncluar some of the time.

Much has been made of Mythos being published roughly around the same time as Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology, and the comparison illustrates precisely what I mean: where Gaiman retells key episodes from Nordic myth in lean, seductive cuts of self-contained story, Fry plays the encyclopedic know-it-all card. Not content to simply give us the stories, he will emphasise the linguistic and cultural strands that characterise the gods and personages that populate the myths.

It makes for a far ‘baggier’ affair than what Gaiman has to offer in his shoring up of the deities from up north, but it’s no less entertaining for it, and Fry made for an amiable companion during my self-administered work commute.

A History of Heavy Metal by Andrew O’Neill

While I did not go for the audiobook route when it came to this hilarious and unputdownable trip across a music genre that defined me as a young man (it was a chance find at a local bookstore — quite rare, given that Malta is rapidly becoming swallowed up by a giant chain on that front), O’Neill’s voice quickly burrowed its way into my brain.

Unapologetically subjective (“Whitesnake can fuck off”) and in no way a conventionally authoritative, sober historical tome, it nonetheless reads like an impassioned and thoroughly lived-in love letter to an expansive, beguiling and often problematic musical genre whose intensity is often impossible to recapture in any other medium.

And that’s just it: a sober analysis would not have passed muster — it would have failed to capture the knotted, abrasive wall of sound that characterises that amorphous term, ‘metal’*. O’Neill is our man for the job. A black magic-practicing stand-up comedian who is also the vocalist and guitarist for the Victorian-themed hardcore punk band The Men That Will Not Be Blamed for Nothing. Can you really think of anyone else able to take up that mantle with the requisite amount of jagged style and grace?

The book made me ‘LOL irl’ in a way that only the likes of Terry Pratchett have done for me in the past, and it was also a contributing factor to me saying ‘fuck yeah!’ when a couple of friends suggested we go see Slayer in Glasgow on a month’s notice. Never underestimate the power of literature to influence impressionable young minds, folks.

Lucifer: Princeps by Peter Grey

While Lucifer may feature heavily in all things (or at least, most things) metal, Peter Grey’s careful and thorough exploration of the evolution of the figure we’ve come to know as Lucifer sternly discourages any such shallow appropriation. Published in a gorgeous edition from Scarlet Imprint (which Grey runs with his partner Alkistis Dimech), Lucifer: Princeps is a beguiling and not-easy read, cleaving close to Biblical sources in an attempt to closely trace the most significant instances of the Lucifer figure, in what also serves as a preamble volume for Grey’s upcoming, Lucifer: Praxis.

With scholarly precision and an impatience for romanticised reimaginings of Lucifer and all he stands for, neither is Grey dismissive of the figure he considers to be the repository of Western witchcraft. Instead, as he writes in the introductory chapter (aptly titled ‘A History of Error), “My aim is to be effective in sorcery, rather than be ensorcelled”.

Long John Silver by Björn Larsson

A life of itinerant freedom has always held a fascination for me, mainly because it represented a brighter flip-side to the many limitations otherwise imposed on a former ‘third country national’ such as myself. So of course, I will be magnetically drawn towards pirate narratives, and Larsson’s novel, which I found in a gorgeous bookstore in Rome after having Googled it as Black Sails withdrawal kicked in, provided that… and more.

Indeed, this novel may have been published in the early nineties, but its gritty revisionism is closer to the spirit of something like Black Sails — and the plethora of unapologetically violent anti-hero narratives that populate the crates of contemporary ‘prestige TV’ — while also using a seductive first-person narration to draw us into the story of Long John Silver, both before and after the events of Treasure Island.

In fact, the true genius of Larsson’s book is not its apt emulation of old-school adventure literature, and neither is it his evocative and often disturbing ‘maturation’ of the same (the slave ship segments don’t make for an easy read, for one thing, but this only helps Silver rise in our estimation: he is a no-bullshit narrator, at the very least). It is that Larsson’s Silver plays the same trick he played on young Jim Hawkins. He gets you on his side.

The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay

Ever since his twisty, layered, rich and creepily satisfying fourth novel A Head Full of Ghosts, Paul Tremblay has been on top of the list of writers to read for horror fans of all stripes, down from little old me and up to the likes of Stephen King himself.

The Cabin at the End of the World strips down his approach from the formally ambitious acrobatics of ‘Ghosts’ and is even more close-hewn and minimal than its immediate predecessor, The Disappearance at Devil’s Creek (which shows up in a sneaky cameo, an Easter Egg for true Tremblay fans).

Telling the increasingly harrowing story of a small family whose vacation at a remote rural cabin is cut short by a group of seemingly ‘well-meaning’ cultists, Tremblay’s latest initially reads like a screenplay, with his present-tense sentences flitting perspective from one character to another while maintaining a fluid third-person narration throughout.

It’s a shrewd formal choice that fits both the apocalyptic ticking clock that characterises the story — a looming axe that’s about to drop (or is it?) — that generates both basic suspense while providing a rich fount of thematically-relevant ambiguity. But what really impressed me is that in the end, it actually feels less like a film than a harrowing stage play: something Sarah Kane or Philip Ridley could have written.

The limited setting and cast of characters makes it so: there’s something classically Greek about how this all pans out — all in real time, and forcing us to ask hard questions to ourselves, and our culture at large.

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If you enjoyed these mini book reviews, please consider buying my own novel, Two. It’s a coming-of-age story set in Malta that blends realism and fantasy, and it has been described as “dreamy, and poetic and often exquisite“. Find out more about it here.

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*Though I humbly put forward the ‘Thor vs Surtur‘ scene at the beginning of Thor: Ragnarok (2017), set to Led Zeppelin’s ‘Immigrant Song’, as a pretty apposite distillation of what metal at its best should be all about.

[WATCH] Literature in the Diaspora & Interview with Nikola Petković

Posted on November 19, 2018 by Teodor Reljic under Books, Films, Interview, Malta, Reading, Writing

The National Book Council of Malta has uploaded two events that I was happy to be involved in during the National Book Festival, which this year took place — as ever — at the Mediterranean Conference Centre in Valletta between November 7 and 11.

First, there’s the recording of ‘Literature in the Diaspora’ — a conference on the subject that I chaired and which included an eclectic selection of speakers, among them Lou Drofenik (Malta/Australia), Nikola Petković (Croatia), Vera Duarte (Cape Verde) and Philip Ò Ceallaigh (Ireland).

It is of course a huge subject to have to tackle, a fact that becomes even more challenging once you consider your time limit and the desire to accommodate the various viewpoints on offer. But the main take-away from it all, I think, is an embrace of the inherent variety that lies in the diaspora, and a need to resist cut-and-dried ideas of what narratives about nationality should be about, and how we should respond to them.

Next, I was happy to get a chance to ‘zoom in’ on one of the speakers at the conference — the Croatian author and academic Nikola Petković, during a chat about his novel ‘How to Tie Your Shoes’ — which was significantly translated into English by the author himself.

The dynamics of self-translation were one of the many subjects we touched upon, in a conversation which I’d like to think ran as wide a thematic gamut as the prickly, bitter and wrenching ‘confessional’ novel itself, which uses a heavily autobiographical story to touch upon the patriarchy, national identity and the fallout of the Yugoslav Wars.

When you’re done with those, do check out the remaining videos from this year’s edition of the Malta Book Festival, uploaded on the National Book Council’s YouTube channel — an interview with special guest Naomi Klein conducted by my colleague Matthew Vella being among them.

Of course, it’s hard to deny that the highlight of the festival for me, however, was the premiere of Camilla, the short film that I co-wrote with director Stephanie Sant and adapted from the short story of the same name by Clare Azzopardi, with a dash of Sheridan Le Fanu’s ‘Carmilla’ thrown in to help the shift from page to screen and indulge our vampiric tendencies further.

Brought to sumptuous life by producer Martin Bonnici and his team at Shadeena Entertainment — a process aided in no small part by the National Book Council’s funds — it was a pleasure to finally debut the film to an enthusiastic audience on November 10, and I look forward to the next stages of its distribution. Watch this space.

A representative sample of the team behind ‘Camilla’ (dir. Stephanie Sant, centre)

Soft Disturbances

by Teodor Reljić

Category Archives: Books