Who is Jane?

Most novelists seem to assume that their readers all have photo-graphic memories and can follow every twist and turn of their books without the author's help. Even if the plot is labyrinthine and the book is overflowing with characters, you're expected to keep track of it all quite effortlessly.

Unfortunately some of us have such appalling memories we find it hard to keep up and could do with a little assistance from the author to ward off galloping confusion.

The sort of thing that bugs me:

• A chapter that starts without naming the character and you're supposed to know who it is by their physical description on page two.
• Mention of a character's tragic accident sometime in the past, and you're meant to remember what was the tragic accident.
• A character who refers to his "harrowing" divorce. Why was it harrowing? Was that explained somewhere?
• A character with a voluminous back story that's impossible to remember but fifty pages on it becomes crucial to the plot and you're meant to be familiar with it.
• A character called Jane suddenly appears on page 77. Is this a new character or was she mentioned earlier in the book?

Well, you get the general idea. Maybe some authors think it's insulting people's intelligence to keep clarifying details you might have forgotten. But that's preferable to finishing a book in a state of confusion because the reader is assumed to be absorbing everything with sponge-like efficiency. I'm afraid not. My memory is more like some slippery surface that things may or may not stick to.

How wonderful it would be if on seeing Jane on page 77 I'd think, Ah yes, she's Tim's cousin, she has short cropped hair, she's allergic to peanuts and her roof leaks.

Fat chance.

Enough already

I like novels that focus on one or two characters and explore their lives and personal-ities in great detail. I get to know them so well they become extremely vivid, almost flesh and blood, and I can really get to love them or hate them.

Novels with too many characters drive me nuts. Firstly I can't keep track of them and I have to keep reminding myself who is who, who's related to who, who's shagging who, who does what job, who died, who has a nasty illness, and so on till I'm thoroughly confused. It doesn't help that I have a memory like a sieve and will forget the character on page 51 once I'm on page 52.

Secondly, when there are so many characters you never get to know them in any depth. They flit in and out and often are little more than shallow caricatures. You know the sort of thing - Jim the controlling husband, Karen the timid wife and their two children, truculent Simon and well-behaved Tessa.

And once they become caricatures, it's hard to tell them apart. Is this uncle one, uncle two or uncle three? They're all grumpy, opinionated and doddery. Which is which?

So why do authors flood their books with so many characters? One author, Anne R Allen, confesses: "One of my personal writing issues is I tend to pack my books and stories with way too many characters. If a fascinating person walks into one of my stories, I feel it would be rude not to let them join the party. This drives my editors batty. They think confusing the reader is worse than being rude to fictional people. And of course they're right."

Right now I'm re-reading Bodily Harm by Margaret Atwood. I love it precisely because it centres on one person - Rennie - and tells you more and more about her.

Rennie sticks in my mind. Not so, uncle three.

Older and wiser?

I expect most younger people dread getting old. As far as they can see, it means only getting more decrepit, getting confused by anything new or complicated, and hankering after "the good old days". But that's a rather jaundiced picture. Getting old also brings plenty of benefits. Such as:

1) You no longer want to drive so fast or so recklessly.
2) It's okay to talk to yourself.
3) You have much clearer priorities.
4) You don't care as much what others think.
5) You can nap whenever you feel like it.
6) You can enjoy rereading old books - or watching TV shows or movies - because you've forgotten the ending and most of the plot.
7) It's easier to manage your emotions.
8) Your secrets are safe because your friends' memories are no better than your own.
9) Almost all the major, difficult decisions in life are behind you.
10) You have a higher sense of self-worth.
11) Much less stress - no more jobs, children now independent.
12) You seldom need to wear formal, uncomfortable clothing.
13) You find it easier to ask for help.

I'm not entirely sure about number four. I still care a lot about what others think - what they think about me, or about other people, or about themselves, or about politics, or about life in general. I certainly don't want to offend or upset people, so I think before I speak. Or stay silent.

But hey, yes, getting old isn't the awful armageddon younger people sometimes think it is. A lot of things get much easier - and much more fun.

Smug and patronising

The story so far: Nick is accused of being smug and patron-ising. He is in a quandary. How exactly should he respond?

1) He could mount a long-winded and defensive explanation of why he isn't at all smug and patronising and never has been.

2) He could pretend he doesn't care less, that the accusations are ridiculous, and anyway it's all water off a duck's back.

3) He could get very upset and hurt, cry on and off for days, wallow in self-pity, and vow never to write another blog post.

4) He could drink himself stupid, take off all his clothes, and run up and down the street shouting "The end of the world is nigh. Prepare to meet thy doom".

5) He could accuse his accusers of being smug and patronising themselves and projecting their own faults onto someone else.

6) He could whistle loudly and go "La la la la la, can't hear you."

7) He could utterly despair of the decency of the human race and their ability to treat other people fairly and sympathetically.

8) He could decide it's all too much, he just can't take it any more, and commit an especially gruesome form of suicide.

9) He could cheer himself up by buying some new nail polish and lipstick and dying his hair blonde.

10) He could take to his bed and refuse to get up until the astrological alignments are more favourable.

Which response will be opt for? How will he resolve this tangled situation? Will his hair turn grey? Will he lose his sanity? Will he resort to cup cakes? Don't miss the next gripping instalment....

What the hell?

The point of religion, according to comedian David Mitchell, is to explain what the hell's going on. The trouble is that each one claims to have the very best version of what the hell's going on. So far from clarifying everything, they make things even more confused. And then we really really don't know what the hell's going on.

Personally I find most religions, and the extraordinary explanations they come up with, totally baffling. Buddhism makes a lot of sense to me, but then it's more of a philosophy than a religion.

But what I admire is the way people have put so much effort into understanding what the hell's going on. Someone sits down one day and asks themself "Just what the hell's going on? There must be some ultimate explanation for all this, if I could only find out what it is."

So they sits and they thinks. And they ask themself all those crucial questions that have been asked since prehistoric times. Like "What happens after we die?", "What the fuck are we doing here?", "Why are my wages so crap I can't even afford a new iPhone?", "Why do I have to wear a tie?", "Who eats pot noodle anyway?". You know, all those absolutely basic questions we're all desperate for an answer to.

And they come up with the ultimate rationale, the all-inclusive, everything-you've-ever-wanted-to-know easy reference guide to what the hell's going on. And it's called the Bible, or the Koran, or the Upanishads or whatever, and bingo, all those mystified souls who were forever scratching their heads in utter bemusement suddenly have The Answer. And they heave a massive sigh of relief and pore gratefully through the pristine pages.

But then as David Mitchell says, some other bearded guy in a robe* comes up with what he insists is A Better Answer, and everything's thrown into the melting pot again.

So we're still none the wiser. And God knows what the hell's going on.

*And why is it invariably a bearded guy in a robe? Doesn't he have some housework to do?

Hard feelings

I do envy those people whose emotions are easily accessible, who know instantly if they're angry or jealous or sad or whatever.

I'm not like that at all. Sometimes my feelings are clear but at other times I have to dig them out from under a thick layer of repression, confusion and politeness.

I have to ask myself, what's going on here? What am I feeling, if anything? Am I really unruffled and unaffected, or am I quietly seething with rage or burning with resentment? What am I hiding in a dark corner somewhere?

Some people may wish they were less visibly emotional, that they weren't a constant maelstrom of violent ups and downs, but personally I'd like to bring a bit more emotion to the surface. I'd like to be a bit less of an unreadable sphinx.

Where this cool exterior somes from I don't know. Maybe it's just my personality. Maybe it's masculine conditioning. Maybe I'm afraid of exposing too much and getting hurt. Whatever it is, it's frustrating. Too often, I'm just unsure what's going on inside me.

I may imagine that by being less emotional, I'm thinking things through more clearly. But that has to be an illusion. I'm simply not aware of how my buried emotions are still affecting my thinking anyway. They'll make their presence felt somehow, whether I like it or not.

If I can just push away all the psychological sludge that's submerging my feelings, they might flow a bit more easily. I might even learn to wear my heart on my sleeve instead of behind my back.

Scatterbrain

I don't have that many friends, which seems like a major failing when most people seem to have dozens and dozens. I'd like to have a few more. On the other hand, I'm such a scatterbrain that if I did have so many friends my life would be total chaos.

I'd be in the wrong place at the wrong time on the wrong day, probably with the wrong person. If I remembered I was meant to be meeting someone. And if I could remember who I was meeting. Was it Sophie or Maxine?

Having finally met up with Sophie, I would then only be half-listening because I would be thinking of another friend I was due to be meeting. Was she the one who was pregnant, had broken up with her boyfriend and bought a ruinously expensive flat or had I mixed her up with Lotte again?

Then Sophie would be asking me what I would do if I were in her place and because I'd only been half-listening I would be totally in the dark so I'd have to confess I was miles away and ask her to run through the problem again. And try to pay closer attention this time as she scowled venomously at me.

Meanwhile Maxine, who I'd accidentally double-booked and had been waiting for me in Caffé Nero for the last 57 minutes, would be trying to ring me but I hardly ever use my mobile phone so she'd be getting no reply and cursing me so viciously a waiter would be discreetly asking her to keep her voice down as she was disturbing the other customers.

Then I'd remember I promised Lotte (or was it Polly) that I'd help her look for a new car as her old one had died on the M1. So I'd ring her up and she'd say she wasn't going out today as her hair looked like a gorse bush but did I think she was mad to spend £150 on a new Fossil handbag and I'd say I can't talk now because I'm with Sophie and I'll ring her back and she gives a long-suffering sigh and I feel guilty but I ring off anyway and find a furious text from Maxine.

And the rest of the day just gets worse.
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Blogging is a bit erratic at the moment as Jenny and I are going to Liverpool for a few days with our friend Kath from Melbourne. You'll just have to be patient....