We’re pleased as punch to introduce our second author blog – by award-winning Canadian writer, Kenneth Oppel.

There’s a scene in my new book, Half Brother, that some people have found very uncomfortable. I won’t tell you what it is; you’ll have to read the book to find out – and maybe you won’t find it uncomfortable at all. But it’s made me think about how differently people can respond to the same material – and most importantly, how much I’ve come to appreciate those moments – in a movie, or a book, or simply watching Ricky Gervais host an awards show – that have pushed me beyond my comfort zone, or violated my expectations in some way.

Because it’s inevitably these moments that stay with me the longest. It might be something as simple as the scenes in the movie Castaway where Tom Hanks names and starts talking to the volleyball – annoyingly absurd I thought at the outset, but then realized how brilliant and moving it was – a man so lonely and desperate to cling to sanity, he finds companionship however he can. Or the scene in Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of Frankenstein where, having birthed the creature, he’s unable to lift its giant frame from the floor, and staggers and slips about for a prolonged period in a slick of “amniotic” fluid – at first it seemed farcical and gratuitously slimy, but then in my mind it became brilliantly primal, and a metaphorical wrestling with the boundaries of science and morality. Or it might be the literal ringing of bells in heaven when the heroine is “martyred” at the end of Breaking the Waves – a moment which several of my friends said utterly ruined the entire movie for them, but which I think is brilliant.

At their best, uncomfortable moments aren’t just shocking and interesting; they can challenge our convictions. As readers, viewers, citizens, we tend to prefer the same menu. There’s a comfort in it, a sense of security, but sometimes also an almost self-righteous complacency: See, everyone thinks exactly the same thing as me! But what I think is so valuable about a work of art is how it can confront you with a new opinion, a new moral or political idea, that you’d never considered. Novels as disparate as Never Let Me Go, Cider House Rules, Feed, Frankenstein, and Wolf Hall have introduced me to new and uncomfortable ideas, and forced me to think about life in different ways – and while my personal reactions and reflections might not have been those intended by the author –perhaps quite the opposite in some cases – the important thing is the process: an opening to ideas rather than a closing.

So, long live uncomfortable scenes!

Ken Oppel

Review of HALF BROTHER, published Jan 2011:

Oppel is pleasingly unafraid to ask awkward questions, often right at the point where readers might have made up their minds. What a particular joy for a teenage reader, to be challenged rather than instructed. Parents might be surprised at the passionate discussions Half Brother ends up inspiring, along with a healthy new respect for our closest genetic cousins. – Patrick Ness in The Guardian, 22.1.11 

Ross Fraser – who has been helping out in the DFB office – has written a fantastically fresh post below – do take a look!

I hope you have all had a wonderful start to the New Year, and long may it continue. Having hibernated for the Christmas period, whereby I lost all track of everything including what day of the week it was (embarrassingly I had to refer to the radio times to keep me on track) in a haze of chocolate and glitter I finally resurfaced to inhale the new year and catch up with the recent happenings in the world.

One story that I’m sure you are all aware of is the continuing issues surrounding refuse collections across the UK. Apparently due to a combination of the weather and the festive period there is a vast back log of rubbish awaiting collection in many pockets of the country. I do however hope that none of you are suffering as a result.

Personally I have been incredibly fortunate enough to avoid this affluence of effluence currently plaguing many homes and my own relationship with trash has started somewhat differently. Last week at DFB I was introduced and consequently read Andy Mulligan’s Trash…voraciously, cover to cover, I might add.

Trash follows the tale of three young boys, who discover a dangerous secret which will lead them through a captivating adventure involving a government conspiracy, police brutality, and the harsh realities of poverty stricken families who serve their life sifting through foul smelling, rat infested, dangerous landfills. The three must evade police capture using only their quick thinking and wits to ensure the philanthropic wish of an innocent murdered man is complete. 

It seems a difficult question but after reading the book and what with the recent trash related news, I felt inclined to ask myself could I really imagine myself spending every waking hour living in, on and with trash? Sleeping in it? Walking in it? Breathing it? Living it? Even being it?

This is the harsh reality of Andy Mulligan’s Behala – ‘rubbish town’ the scene of his beautifully written novel Trash, and the home of the three boys that I fell in love with; Raphael, Gardo and Rat. It is an honest and touching world that Mulligan draws you into, that is captivating in all of its vivacity and humbling in its reality.

Yet for me personally, in addition to its originality of the story, it was the relationship between the three boys and their unfailing endeavour to reach the end of their journey that I found most striking.  Now perhaps this is just one final surge of sugar in my system from the insufferable quantities of sweets that I consumed over the festive period, but this got me thinking about the New Year and the obligatory resolutions that we all endeavour to keep.

As Mark Twain once said when referring to the New Year ‘Now is the accepted time to make regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual’. Perhaps this has proved true for many of you as we are now halfway through January. If this is the case and you are struggling to keep those resolutions, may I offer a suggestion? Try not to worry, read a good book, lay aside some spare time for yourself and curl up to something that will set you glowing…if you need any suggestions I whole heartedly suggest Trash, it’s not just any old rubbish.