The Interview: Bookbag Talks To David Canning

The Interview: Bookbag Talks To David Canning

Summary: Sue enjoyed Out of the Clouds of Deceit despite the fact that she doesn't usaully like reading military fiction. She and author David Canning had quite a lot to chat about when he popped in to see us.

Date: 2 September 2013

Interviewer: Sue Magee

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Sue enjoyed Out of the Clouds of Deceit despite the fact that she doesn't usaully like reading military fiction. She and author David Canning had quite a lot to chat about when he popped in to see us.

• Bookbag: When you close your eyes and imagine your readers, who do you see?

David Canning: People mostly, although I do read to my dogs but that's another story. Out of the Clouds of Deceit is very granular with careful depiction of time and place so on the one hand it appeals to those people who lived through the post Second World War and Cold War period and appreciate a strong story line about ordinary people sometimes in extraordinary situations. But on the other hand the narrative is so much more and I hope readers connect with the male 'voice' and read beyond the story line to the issues I raise. Having a literary academic background I suppose it's inevitable that I like all the usual literary devices and tricks of the trade such as metaphor, image and leitmotif which seem to come quite naturally to me. In fact I surprise myself sometimes in the way, say, the odd leitmotif escapes from the sock drawer - where I usually keep them - and emerges in the narrative seemingly of its own accord. So, to actually answer the question (so I can't be a politician), I suppose I like to think of my readers as those who enjoy making those sorts of connections, although actually buying my book might be a necessary condition as well!

• BB: What was the inspiration behind Out of the Clouds of Deceit?

DC: A number of years ago I read Iron John by Robert Bly and I was struck by what he said about what it is like to be male in our society. I wanted to use some of these ideas such as there being a legitimate male emotional response to situations which is different from, but as equally valid as the female response which is all too often used as a universal measure. I was also interested in the nature of male friendships and how men frequently feel isolated in our society. These ideas don't get too much of an airing in literature and some readers may find them quite novel or even uncomfortable, but I've found that, in particular, men who have read the book tend to say things like bang on chap, that's exactly how I feel. I wanted to combine a story line which addressed these issues and invoked an emotional response and reflection from the reader, with a granular, believable narrative about the Cold War period, a period in history which greatly interests me. And when Aviva eventually kicked me out a few years ago for the heinous crime of having a sense of humour in that most un-jolly of professions, internal auditing, at last I had a chance to write my first novel.

• BB: I was impressed by the detail in the story, particularly about life in the RAF. How did you do the research?

DC: It irritates the hell out of me when the blurb on a book says something like "set in the inter-war period..." and upon reading it I think really, how do they work that one out? All too frequently authors seem to make little effort to detail time and place in their text, and their dialogue does not take into account the vocabulary and idioms of the period (although, I suppose, in part this may be down to pressures from the publishing companies). So my story contains a wealth of detail, usually of a more domestic nature, to ground the narrative; after all, it is through the minutia of our everyday surroundings that we really experience life. I read a lot about the period in question and then there is also my own memory; although I grew up in the 1960's, family life, houses, trains and buses and so on back then were more akin to how things were in the 1940's and 1950's than, say, later decades.

• BB: You do that particularly well too - I had a real shock of recognition when you described how a bus conductor gave a ticket to a passenger. It was spot on.

DC: With regards to the RAF, I have a strong interest in aviation so I guess I have, sponge like, soaked up a lot nerdy detail to use. But other than that, reading extensively came into play, as well as the internet, and in particular anything that I could find that had been written about Operation Grapple in the 1950's, the exercise in the Pacific where Britain tested its first nuclear weapons. But surprisingly little has actually been written about Grapple, despite it being a huge exercise of tremendous military and political importance. I therefore ended up corresponding with Andrew Dennis of the Department of Research and Information Services at the Royal Airforce Museum about Grapple and about other service detail I couldn't find elsewhere.

• BB: I sense that you love words - that you love playing with them - am I right?

DC: Yes, you are, although I suppose we should be clear that when we say playing with words, we don't mean something like going to the pub and playing darts with them, or playing with one's food. I love the sound, look and feel of words (if it is possible to say that one can 'feel' words) and like to employ an extensive vocabulary, not just in the use of technical language, but unusual, even archaic terms, often in a figurative way because that is one way in which writing can come alive and surprise the reader and make the reader think about what I, as a writer am trying to say. Of course, there is a down side to this in that some readers may occasionally need to resort to a dictionary, but this is no bad thing; I don't like dumbing down of language because people couldn't be bothered to make an effort. But if readers do need to check something occasionally in a dictionary, can I make a plea that they use something authoritative like OED or Chambers and avoid most of the crappy on-line ones which are out there.

• BB: Do you feel strongly about the way that Bomber Command was treated after the war and the way that RAF pilots were abandoned after Operation Grapple? Why is so little known about it?

DC: I do feel strongly about it. The shabby way in which Bomber Command was treated actually began before the end of the war, when Churchill distanced himself from the allied bombing campaign even though Air Marshall Harris was carrying out his orders. But I think about how the bomber crews, ordinary men, sometimes still in their teens, were the only effective way the allies could carry the war into Germany in 1942 and 1943 in particular, in awful conditions and with the most appalling losses - proportionately higher than in any other theatre of the war - and I marvel at how they could do it at all. It must have been absolutely terrifying. After the war, most bomber crews felt let-down, to put it mildly, by the Government and tended to keep to themselves.

• BB: Churchill's failure to thank the men of Bomber Command at the end of the war was hardly his finest hour.

DC: It wasn't just the pilots who were exposed to radiation in Operation Grapple, thousands of British servicemen were. This has now become a newsworthy event, here and in Australia, but the British Government still seem to take the tack that not enough was known about the effects of radiation at the time. I find this unlikely not least because of Britain's part in the Manhattan Project developing the atomic bomb in the Second World War, not to mention the high profile Britain's physicists had in this field for many years before. Why isn't so much known about this sort of institutionalised deceit? Well, I suppose the misuse of the Official Secrets Act probably has a lot to do with it.

• BB: Where and how do you write? With or without music?

DC: I write in my study. Sometimes one or both dogs come and join me there, not to write, but to sleep. This is quite cosy, but since the study is quite small and the dogs quite big one can end up extricating oneself only with some difficulty when one needs a coffee or to use the loo. I sit at my computer which is on a desk so positioned that I have a view out of the window so that I can stare aimlessly like a grinning idiot at the street outside at those times when the words aren't flowing as freely as one would like. I write whenever I don't have other commitments, such as tutoring, or stuff to do with my family. I tend to write during the day - mornings are best for me - and I am not one for working late into the night. Oh yes, the study has lots of books and is quite dusty because I don't get around to cleaning it as much as I should.

I need relative quiet to work. Music would distract me (I don't like background music - if it's worth listening to, bloody well listen to it, I say). But when I've finished working I do like to listen to music. On go the headphones and the volume gets turned up loud. I have a wide taste in music and am currently listening to a lot of Amy Winehouse; for my money she ranks alongside the greats such as Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald.

• BB: Did you enjoy reading as a child? Which books have stayed in your mind?

DC: I would like to say I was well-acquainted with the canon of English Literature at an early age, or perhaps had pondered Proust by the time I was eight, but in truth I suspect I did not read a great deal more than any other child. I remember the nice, safe, middle-class Enid Blyton 'Mystery of' books and enjoying the Jennings books. Of all the childhood books I read, the one I remember most fondly is One Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith. Strangely enough, I have recently tried reading this to my dogs, but they're not so keen. I didn't really get the literature bug until my late teens and I think Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh might have been to blame.

• BB: What are you reading now? What's your favourite book from recent years?

DC: I have a pile of books on my bed-side table and it's not unusual for me to be reading three or four different books at the same time (not literally, that would be difficult and just a tad pretentious). Apart from reading some stuff about Hume's epistemology and metaphysics that I need to revisit for my teaching, I am reading and greatly enjoying Anne Applebaum's Iron Curtain which is all about Eastern Europe from 1944 to 1956.

As to what my favourite book might be from recent years, that's a very hard question. But perhaps I would say Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go would be at the top of the list. I read too slowly to have been able to read Never Let Me Go in a single sitting, but if I had been able to I would have done. It is the book that has most moved me, emotionally, to such an extent that I found myself experiencing physical pain at the enormous sadness of it all.

• BB: You've got one wish - what's it to be?

DC: That there should be more compassion in the world.

• BB: What's next for David Canning?

DC: Apart from some teaching and tutoring, I'm on the Board for a charity which gives children who might not otherwise have the chance the opportunity to take part in residential stays and outdoor activities. I'd also like to get involved with mental health charities as mental illnesses are not well understood in general and people still say stuff like "pull yourself together" or "get a hobby to take your mind off things" to people who are, say, suffering from depression. I know, because it's happened to me. Perhaps because mental illness sufferers don't have gaping bloody wounds, or are running a high temperature and have spots, people, even in this day and age, seem to think that there can't be anything wrong with them.

At the moment I'm busy with the next novel. Like Out of the Clouds of Deceit, it is set in the period after the Second World War and also like Out of the Clouds of Deceit is about ordinary people to whom stuff happens and how they deal with it all. Without giving too much away, it centres on a relationship which takes a strange turning. Odd what goes on behind the net curtains of suburban houses, isn't it?

I also write short stories which are great for experimenting with different styles.

• BB: There's a lot for us to look forward to there, David. Thanks for chatting to us.

You can read more about David Canning here.

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