Nick Bantock
An Appearance at Printer's Inc. in Palo Alto, CA
8 October 1996
Imagine my surprise and delight when a friend sent me an email note about a flyer he'd gotten from local book store Printer's Inc., announcing an exclusive Bay area appearance of Nick Bantock, who's making the rounds to promote his new book, The Venetian's Wife. I made darned sure my calendar was clear for that night. I even dragged a friend who was visiting me from out of town to the appearance (not unwillingly; she's an artist and a fan too, more so now).
Being as bad a judge as I am with driving times, I arrived at the bookstore about an hour early. But, I did get a choice seat right in the front (which became a not-so-choice seat, because the fluorescent lights behind him blinded me, although the light did halo him in a neat way. However, I must have looked like a lunatic, darting around, trying to keep the light behind his head).
One thing that is immediately obvious about Mr. Bantock is that he is a charming, unassuming man with a terrific sense of humour (albeit a little dark, perhaps). He began by asking the crowd right off the bat if anyone had any questions about the ending to the trilogy. We all laughed at this prompting but surprisingly hands did not go up all over the room. He said, "Does this mean you all know exactly what happened?" And, he wanted to remind us that he is a liar*, and that if you were to see him the next night or the night after that, he couldn't guarantee he'd give the same answer as he would tonight. We laughed again and the lady behind me said quietly, "What's wonderful about the ending is that every person interprets it differently." Then someone actually raised their hand and asked, "So what does it mean?"
(* = by this he explained that, for example, just because someone looks like they know what they're talking about, then we buy everything they say as being the truth, like a man who talks about patterns on carpets, and then states boldly that these fantastic patterns were the basis for magic carpets and we all go "Ooooh", rather than question how he possibly came to that conclusion. He does this truth-stretching a lot in his books. He in fact sucked the whole audience in with a bit of truth-stretching about one of the main characters of The Venetian's Wife. If nothing else he's really good at this truth-stretching thing. :))
I can't remember everything he said (I wish I had tape recorded it, especially since he hit a very profound point about soul mates — and how someone you see every day of your life could suddenly become your soul mate because you've faced something ("a mirror" as he put it) in yourself . . . it was very poetic and meaningful) but I got the impression that the direction he intended for Griffin & Sabine was more towards the completion of a circle of oneness, a tale of passion and of finding yourself (i.e. the "Romance" angle). He said enough that evening to sway me from leaning towards Madness (I may have to change my analysis somewhat). He mentioned the changing of the styles of handwriting over the last 4 postcards, the reusing of a postcard (I think he meant the image in the stamp), and the inclusion of his name in her own (all of which I had noticed, I'm proud to say) as an indication of their symbolic closing of the circle. However, he still did not give any concrete answers, which is fine by me. As that lady behind me said, every person can interpret it differently.
He spoke of how Griffin & Sabine came to be purely by accident. He had gone to the publisher's to show her something utterly else and at the bottom of his bag was his pet project of these letters, and on top of them were a pair of red socks. Well, the red socks parted ("like something else red that parted," he joked) and she caught a glimpse of it and asked, "What's that?" He insisted it was nothing and she insisted on seeing it. He let her see it; she looked through it, clutched it to her breast and said, "I want it." Shortly afterwards, it became officially accepted for publication, but he was convinced that they would want to have someone else write it. When she told him he was to write it, he was thoroughly surprised. (I wish I had thought to ask him if he had originally intended it to be a trilogy.)
Oh yes — there is a CD-ROM version in the works of Griffin & Sabine, with Isabella Rossellini, Ben Kingsley and I'm not sure who else. Can't wait for that!
Before getting to The Venetian's Wife, he read aloud (in different character voices, like the Snooty Rich British Accent and the Cockney Accent) from his book Averse To Animals. Brilliant stuff, especially the one in honour — or is that dishonour — of Beatrix Potter ("She's just too nice!"). This is a book I need to find.
Then he read from the new book. It's a tale of sensuality and transformation. I'll say no more, other than this book is meant to take the reader to the other end of the spectrum — usually it's sensuality -> erotica -> pornography. He is trying to explore going into the other direction: sensuality -> intimacy -> a sense of oneness with the universe (I forget the exact wording he gave, but the idea's the same). This book is indeed high on sensuality. He read a passage where (in the form of an email journal) Sara Wolfe (the main character) is trying to work up the nerve to ask Marco (an acquaintance) out for a drink (illustrating, as an aside, with his own amusing personal tale of how he had wanted to ask his first girlfriend out for nearly 2 months; then when he did take her out, he was so nervous and stiff (from holding the same position through one and a half movies) that when he went to put his arm around her shoulders, he accidentally boxed her in the ear!). Then he read a longer bit on the acquiring of the Celestial Woman; and then a bit from Niccoli (no comment). I bought a copy and read it almost immediately (more on that below). I wish I could have him read me the whole book!
He mentioned that he was (as of the appearance) about 5 days away from completing his new book (I think he said that the title was The Forgetting Room). However, he made it sound like that was to be his last project for a while. I really hope he's not retiring from the business for good.
Someone asked him what he likes to read, and he replied that the only thing he'll read while he's working are cheap detective novels. He had begun to read a book called "The Chymecal Marriage" by (don't remember) and only read a few pages before throwing the book across the room. "Nobody should be allowed to write that well!" he said, looking exasperated. He also doesn't want to be influenced by other writers, using their phrase patterns and their words, etc. Makes sense to me.
Before leaving he read again from "Averse to Animals" — he mentioned a gory poem about a rabbit's revenge and then went to look for his parting poem. Until, that is, we insisted that he read the revenge of the rabbit! And he did. It was howlingly funny.
 After the talk, Mr. Bantock signs books for the audience. |
As for The Venetian's Wife . . .
When I mentioned above that this is a tale of sensuality and transformation, that's as much of the storyline as you're going to get out of me, other than the story utilizes the whole correspondence thing, though taking it to a totally different level: email (this much is told on the book jacket, so I'm not giving anything major away).
I liked it a lot. It's not the trilogy by any means (which it will inevitably be compared to, and which is a very difficult act to follow), but it's still very good. The story's engaging, and the art is, as usual, way above par (although not nearly as present as in the other books — I could sit and stare at one of the Egyptian Jukebox's 'drawers' for hours). I could completely relate to Sara Wolfe (though I was under the false impression that the story was taking place in London, not San Francisco, perhaps because of the way she was speaking). There were all too many things in her that I have at one time or another seen in myself. I loved the involvement in the story of Shiva, Ganesha and Parvati. And the almost tactile quality of the pages of the Rev. Charles Bacon's notebook — goodness, did it make me long for more of Sabine's artistic penmanship.
The one thing that bothered me about this book, however, was a lack of knowledge of how email works, or rather, an obvious misconception as to how email and internet-like networks work. For example, Niccoli buys Sara a computer because "My computer is finding yours a bit antiquated." For simple email (the only way they are corresponding at this point), it doesn't matter a whit what kind of computer the recipient is using. As I was explaining to an acquaintance, as we learn more about the story, Niccoli's got a solid reason for giving her this specific computer (which I don't dispute), but if someone gave me the reason he gave to Sara, red warning flags would go up all over the place. I would have accepted it more if he said "I would request you use this specific software, which I will supply to you, as well as the platform, and the computer, it runs on". Granted, Sara is obviously not a computer goddess, but, to draw a parallel, you don't write a Civil War story and have someone wear casually wearing a digital watch (unless it's sci fi, but I digress).
And the email, if sent with headers like these:
From: S. Wolfe swintrw@adl.comwould bounce back faster than you could say Oops Dot Com (and yes, I use Eudora with the truncated headers, and some of my email's headers do appear to be that short, but that's not what I mean). The reason for this is because the system would choke on the real name together with the email address. Correct protocol (as I understand it) has either got to be S. Wolfe <swintrw@adl.com> or swintrw@adl.com (S. Wolfe).
To: Mr. N. Conti contifnd@secset.com
Suspension of disbelief is possible, and surely this geeky detail does not hinder the wonderful tale told here. I liken it to seeing a car on the hill behind Ben Hur (or the aforementioned digital watch). It doesn't make the movie better or worse, but once you've noticed it, there it is, sitting in your brain, not going away. (It behooves me to say that I would have been happy to have been a technical advisor in this matter. :D)
Bonus points for the mention of (and a little image of) the Palace of Fine Arts, possibly one of the most beautiful places in all of San Francisco. Whee!
Read about the 20 Jan 2000 appearance at Powell's in Portland OR…
Copyright © 1996-99, by Sandra Guzdek, and you'll respect that unless you want to invoke the wrath of Kali :)