And we’re back.

Apologies to regular readers for the absence. Last year was spent working on a couple of longer-form writing projects — two novels to be precise — so the desire to commit time to a blog receded. And maybe there simply wasn’t too much to inspire the imagination. Post Covid, things fell into something of a rut. Of course stuff happened, but it all felt pretty much more of the same — the same angst, the same turbulence, the same bullshit, the same horror — it was hard to feel energised by any of it. What energy I did feel, I poured into the books I was writing.

One of them tells a tale of a former 80s Pop Star (write what you know etc) now living as a recluse and feasting on nothing but memories. His life is disturbed when a young woman finds her late mother’s teenage diary in which an entry details an abusive incident between the teenager and the former pop star. The young woman then takes it upon herself to find the reclusive the pop star and determine whether what her mother wrote happened.

The second book concerns an author (write what you know etc) who is finding it impossible to come up with anything to write such is the tsunami of information, opinions, and news items, bombarding him every day. Hell, we’ve all been there. At the instigation of a friend, in the hope for inspiration, the writer checks back through some old film screenplays he wrote when he worked in the film business. He discovers one he’d completely forgotten. (This too happened to me such is the amount of verbiage I’ve churned out over the years). Reading back through the script stirs up long-buried memories and the writer sets out to find out what caused him to repress them. It’s an Almodovar-type of story (at least I like think so) set in the present day and the early 1960s.

Writing both novels allowed me to process my relationship with the current state of the world. It’s something all artists do, at least all the ones I like. I was struck when writing both books how I had to go back in time in order do this. It forced me to wonder if this was simply a product of growing old, and that without even realising it we start to stake stock, try to make sense of the shape of our lives and how we’ve arrived where we are. Or maybe it’s simply down to the fact that we’re more active when young, making more of an effort to ‘find out about ourselves’, going to great lengths and travelling huge distances to do so.

Once we’ve arrived at some sort of a destination, or at least a place that feels semi-satisfactory, the need to put ourselves about becomes less of an urge. What’s more, over time we find ourselves repeating ourselves, ending up in situations too reminiscent of something already experienced. Why keep doing the same old thing and learning nothing? It feels a redundant way to be.

Still, we have to keep living, we have to feel engaged, or what else is there? A sense of dwindling obsolescence, of disengagement and boredom?

This need to stay connected with and motivated by the world feels extremely acute at the moment. The political change in America and the excessive craziness it brings, of course can feel overwhelming. A lot of people I’m speaking to have decided to ‘switch off’, to tune everything out for the next four years (as if in truth that’ll be possible). Certainly no one wants to be burdened by the psychic weight such destabilisation evokes.

But even if one did want to behave like a mini-version of Rumpelstiltskin and metaphorically go to sleep ‘until it’s all over’ (it’ll never be truly over) there will still be the aftermath to deal with. And stumbling out of the cave oblivious to what brought the world to whatever state it finds itself in, is hardly going to equip anyone with the knowledge and wisdom needed to fix things.

In an attempt to learn from past experience, from history, I recently read Sebastian Haffner’s memoir ‘Defying Hitler’. I was led to it by the writer Emmanuel Carrère who, in his latest book V13 (an examination of the Bataclan attacks of 2015), stated that Haffner’s book was one of the best examples of explaining how a society sleepwalks into disaster. Having read the book, I agree.

Because what shocked me most when reading about the incremental changes Hitler and his cohorts imposed on the German people, was the manner in which people managed to explain them away, how they dealt with them.

As the bar was continuously raised, the behaviour of Hitler’s men becoming increasingly brutal, the German people tied themselves in knots trying to rationalise what was happening.

This behaviour of course you expect from politicians, always looking to hold onto power. You also expect it from industrialists and businessmen, changing with the weather, only concerned with protecting their own interests and those of their shareholders.

But what took me aback were the people like myself and my friends, what I suppose can be described as the liberal intelligentsia (although that does imply something a lot more high-brow than we are). Nevertheless, the way such people made sense of Hitler was by dismissing him as a blowhard, a madman, an accident waiting to happen. They simply couldn’t believe he’d be able to hold onto power for long, that he was so crazy and inept it was inevitable his project would fall apart.

And it did of course, after fifteen years, after millions were killed and havoc wreaked upon major cities all over Europe.

So it does make me wonder how smart does it pay to be? You may think you have an understanding of the lunacy taking place, but that doesn’t mean simply by writing and talking about it you can stop it.

What it means going forward I don’t as yet know. But it’s on my mind. And I can feel the clock ticking.

Or maybe it’ll just mean yet another novel. Will it be enough? Is it the best one can do? Watch this space I guess.

© Simon Fellowes 23/1/25