Richard Butchins's Blog: Angels stand corrected... - Posts Tagged "novel"

Taking your own life is not easy. I know I’ve tried, and obviously failed. When you commit suicide you haven’t lost a battle with depression or illness or whatever it maybe. No, you have won – you have taken the final step away from an insoluble problem.

One day, I'll take my own life and that’s ok. It’s mine to take (unless I were to hurt others in the process). I am a disabled man with little if anything to look forward to in life; apart from increasing ill health and poverty in a society that’s shown itself to be virulently anti old-age.

My lover took her own life last year, she, like Robin Williams, hung herself. She left no note but I found out from reading her diaries that she felt that life had come to a full stop for her and that she did what she did out of bravery not cowardice.

I have no information around Mr William’s death other than what’s already in the public domain but I suspect he knew all to well what having Parkinson’s disease entails and perhaps that factored into his choice.

People do not commit suicide in the depths of despair. There is not enough energy down inside that trench. It’s on the way out of the despair when you can see things more objectively that you have the energy to take action.

Once I wrote a lengthy suicide note that, in a twist of irony, caused me to carry on living. It became my novel on the futility of existence - Pavement. It’s no surprise to me that many suicides do not leave letters of intent. That much thought often hinders action. I ended up needing to know what would happen in the story my own suicide note had become. I suspect that many more people consider suicide than is commonly known about but the primitive survival instinct inside each of us is hard to overcome. I once attempted suicide by hurling myself from a bridge fully clothed but it’s harder to drown than you might think – if you can swim and you are conscious then you will.


I am not sure why our society has such a sanction on suicide when we seem happy enough to cause and create societal death on a huge scale. Perhaps the freedom inherent in the decision to take your own life is subconsciously felt as a threat – what if everyone realised his or her life is ultimately pointless? I also question the sanction that the religious have against self inflicted death, surely if there is a paradise then we should all promptly top ourselves and hop on the stairway to heaven, but nope, it’s a surefire way to Hell if we kill ourselves. Personally I don’t believe all this nonsense.

When you die it’s over and that’s a thing to be thankful for, I know I will be.

When someone you love dies a sudden and unexpected death, the shock is nauseating. Vomiting occurs.

Everything you had invested in that relationship – everything you shared and perhaps, more important – everything you thought you were going to share is gone; snuffed out like candle, leaving only the acrid smoke of grief, nothing more, nothing.

This is the first extract from my book. It's a short one, after all this is a blog post and I don't want TL:DR to come up...ever.

Enjoy, next one on Friday.



I like the walk along the canal, water is soothing for some reason; even the fetid liquid that squats in the Regent’s Canal is soothing, despite its empty beer cans, tyres and trash. Why is that? The peace offered by bodies of water – perhaps it’s the idea of another world, silent, dark and cold, containing life totally different from us – the strange nature of its substance, both solid and liquid. Life-giving and life-removing, it creates borders and separates us from each other. I think it’s that, and the life-giving nature of water, which is deeply embedded in our souls. We recognise its power and, in an unknowing way, we worship it – it has power over us – we cannot live without it or in it, we cannot tame it or control it. It has us we do not have it. Is that why I love being close to water? Sometimes, on the rare occasions I get to be by the sea, I feel a powerful urge to walk into it and drown, to let it close over my body and remove me from the world. I have heard that drowning is a peaceful way to die.

That is all....

Here's another short passage from my novel Pavement - currently there's a few copies available on a giveaway. In couple of days a bit more....stuff.


He doesn’t cry out, the impact of the cold water has taken his breath away.

He’s trying to swim and find the edge of the canal; he ends up over at the far side where there is just a sheer wall rising out of the water. He claws at the wall with both hands, trying, in vain, to get a grip on the wet slimy stone.

I watch.

He flails about, sinking under the water because of the weight of his waterlogged clothes and boots. He’s now in the middle of the canal, eyes wide with panic, cheeks puffing in and out, hair plastered across his face, which seems pale blue in the sickly neon glow from the strip in the roof of the tunnel. His hand outstretched, he sinks again and then emerges nearer to me on the concrete lip of the canal side. Still clawing, he manages to get one hand over the edge of the concrete. I grasp it and he grips my hand. Once I’ve lifted it free of the edge, I reverse my pull into a push and shove him back into the water. For good measure, I pick up length of wood, which is floating in the water, and push it into his back, thrusting him under the water. He kicks like a dying frog and I push harder. Some bubbles break the surface and one of his hands flaps as if beckoning me to join him. And then he’s still.

Pavement thoughts of serial killer

Well, it seems that true to form and somewhat depressing that you all read the posts about my celebrity interactions rather than extracts from my novel, but such is the way of the modern world.

When I was making my documentary the www.thelastamericanfreakshow.com I was at a loss for music to use. Now you may or may not know that if you use music in a film that is composed by someone else, or is commercially released, you have to pay a license, this can be very expensive indeed. So, what to do? I had a think and as I was living in Oxford at the time and had a passing acquaintance with various members of the band Radiohead (remember them?) and their crew. I was chatting to someone that knew Jonny the guitarist about the fact that I needed banjo playing on my film and they told me that Jonny had recently bought a banjo but that the band wouldn't let him play it with them (snobs....). Well, I happened to bump into him out and about one evening and I just asked him to watch the film and would he mind recoding some banjo for it if her had time - Oh and I couldn't pay him (I was tottally broke and had made the entire film on a credit card). He was fine about it - took the film and a while later sent me some mp3's with his banjo compositions on them. Thing was, they were terrible, really bad. He liked the film but had very little time I suppose (they went on a world tour shortly after) but I still have the recordings somewhere and as a result I had to learn the banjo and play the music myself ....cheers Jonny that was a result.

you can check out my novel here (on the blog) and here Pavement Thoughts of a serial killer

A week or two back I was on a podcast for the UK online magazine Disability Now talking about my book. Here's a link (but I have not listened to it myself)

http://www.disabilitynow.org.uk/podca...

Enjoy (and let me know what I sound like)...

That' s a comment I received about my book Pavement.

He was right....guess you'll just have to read it and see.

Welcome to my nightmare - literally.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I started this book full of anticipation and was quickly let down . The writing is good - technically - and it has that graduate of University of East Anglia creative writing feel to it but the content was tedious and the characters flat and simplistic. It's a romp around a public school dressed as some sort of dystopian epic. I can see why it was short listed for the Man Booker prize it has all the ingredients. Ishiguro is a good writer trapped in a world of middle class angst. To be completely honest I gave up after reading 75% of the book it was so boring - maybe it's me - my life bears no resemblance to the people he writes about and I don't engage with them, like Ian McEwan's Atonement or Amis's London Fields - I just don't care - write well - It's essential but please also write interesting.



View all my reviews

I have not blogged for an age. Sorry. I have and am busy making a documentary for British TV. It's a current affairs hour long film and involves lots of undercover filming in very difficult to access places and so, has been very time consuming. I thought I should float by and tell people that I am going to be blogging and reviewing a lot more after April is done. After all T. S. Eliot said:

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

The book I am writing with Rosa Hoskins has been put back until next year and I am trying to figure out how and what to make into my next novel....April...Huh.