A word about reading for fun: it should be fun. So whatever floats your literary boat is what you should read. And if you're a fiction writer, you probably want to aim to make what you write fun for other people to read. Your results may vary.

The other day, I happened to be re-reading a work by Mr Mark Twain, who was a very professional sort of writer who in my opinion is a lot of fun to read, called Is Shakespeare Dead?. It's a very funny book – Twain is almost always funny – and it probably has a more commonsense approach to the question of Shakespeare's identity than most of the academic works on the subject. There's one good reason for that: Twain looked at the question from the point of view of a professional writer.

(It also helped that he wasn't British. He didn't own any real estate in Stratford-Upon-Avon.)

Twain gives some excellent examples to demonstrate that a reader can tell whether a writer knows about a subject from personal experience. He pointed out that whoever wrote those plays (and he didn't know who, only that it was unlikely to be the 'second-best bed' guy) had a law degree. He's right.

I have always been convinced that the author of the plays had lived in Italy. He knows his way around. But Twain's discussion of how he knew what kind of mining Bret Harte had and hadn't done made me think about our writers: there's a reason they say, 'Write what you know.' It's kind of obvious when you don't.

For instance, Bluebottle knows all about the Isle of Wight. This makes him an expert. You can tell in his stories. What makes them even better, though, is that he makes it possible for you, the reader, to know more. It's no good using local colour and jargon/dialect if you don't let the reader in on the jokes. They just feel left out. Some writers make you feel that you're being excluded from the in-group by using too much 'insider talk'. Not Bluebottle. I now chuckle every time there's a 'gurt big' anything in the story. I delight in that hospital's public art. You get the idea.

When I was a kid, the library was full of 'sea yarns'. We were told they were great. I found them tedious to read, most of the time. Even the brilliantly-written ones like Treasure Island. Don't get me wrong: I loved Treasure Island. I read it so many times I can still quote the last paragraph almost verbatim. But it was a hard slog to get through all the nautical terminology.

I have lived most of my life in river systems: the Mississippi, the three rivers of Pittsburgh, up here on the Clarion and Allegheny. My first day as a resident of Germany, I rushed to see the legendary Rhein. I was disappointed: I expected it to be as large as the Mississippi. It had so much history, you know.

I never had any problem with Huckleberry Finn. Twain wrote that book in Elmira, New York. My parents moved to Elmira (well, nearby Horseheads) when I was at university. My mother cherished a very deceptive postcard of the place. The postcard showed Mark Twain's pilot-house study, which was then, at least, on the campus of Elmira College, in its original location above the Chemung River. The postcard claimed the Chemung 'reminded him of the Mississippi.'

My mother, a native of the Mississippi Delta, found this incredibly funny. The Chemung River, quite variable in size depending on the season, is a mere wadi in comparison to the Father of Waters. I suspect Mark Twain would have laughed at that postcard, too. He would also have loved the Tom Sawyer motel. A work colleague of my father's stayed there on a business trip and was scathing about the steam heat. Twain would've made a meal out of that.

This is all to say that I understand rivers fine. The ocean, however, is foreign territory. If you start yelling, 'Splice the mainbrace!' and such, I'm clueless. I spent years poring over tomes such as Two Years Before the Mast and the Bounty trilogy – and making wild guesses as to what they were 'belaying' this time.

Kids, be glad there is Google. This is what Google is for: readers. Google, however, is not for writers unless they pass the research test. The research test is when we ask somebody to 'do their own research'. You pass it if you don't come back with some urban legend or conspiracy theory and, when challenged, argue that 'I like to believe. . . ' that one. Most grownups, kids, use the internet to confirm their biases. Don't be like most grownups.

Recently I happened to read a very good Young Adult novel called Blood of the Cutlass, written by Steve Hill. This book is a delight. It's really funny. It's imaginative. It doesn't insult your intelligence, no matter how old you are. It has believable characters in it that you can take an interest in. Oh, yeah: it has a lot of nautical terminology.

And a glossary. That was a brilliant move on the author's part. But you know what? Even before checking to see if I remembered what this or that term meant, which of these loopy pirates were doing what, with which sail, to what purpose? I could tell the guy knew his stuff.

Imagine if I tried to write a sea yarn. Please. Yes, I've spent some time on the Aegean. I've travelled on a few ferries. The one to Patmos almost didn't set out (is it 'sail' if there is no canvas involved?) because the crew (sailors?) fouled their anchor. Fortunately, one of the other passengers was a Norwegian sea captain. He grabbed a boathook and sorted it, and we got over to St John the Theologian's donkey heaven.

I know less than nothing about boats. I know rivers. But even then, I mostly know what it's like to fall out of canoes. Canoes and I do not get along. But you know what? Like Mark Twain, I can tell if the writer knows. And if the writer is willing to share their knowledge – and succeeds in communicating the pleasure of that knowledge to me, the reader? That's what it's all about.

Want a funny pirate story to read? Give Steve Hill's novel a try. And take notes for your next story.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

29.07.24 Front Page

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