A WAY WITH WORDS
South China Morning Post, Hong Kong
April 29, 2007 Sunday
Brave? Silly? Giles Milton has certainly embarked on an ambitious
journey, writes James Kidd
Most authors struggle to write one book at any given time, so Giles
Milton was being either extremely brave or extremely silly last year
when he decided to take on two. He has finished the first, but the
other – Paradise Lost – remains a work-in-progress. It’s not the first
time a writer named Milton has used the title, but whereas John wrote
an epic poem about the love triangle between Adam, Eve and Satan, Giles
has reconstructed one of the most dramatic and tragic events of the
last century: the destruction of the Turkish city of Smyrna in 1922.
Possibly his most ambitious project to date, Paradise Lost at least
placed the 40 year-old Milton on familiar literary terrain: that
of accessible and page-turning popular history. Beginning with the
much-admired and frequently purchased Nathaniel’s Nutmeg, this is a
sub-genre he has done more than most to refine and refresh.
Subsequent best-sellers include Samurai William and 2003’s White Gold.
So sustained is his success that one wonders what could tempt Milton
away from this winning formula. Yet that’s exactly what his other
venture achieved last year, inspiring him to step into the unknown and
break new creative ground. Edward Trencom’s Nose is neither a work
of history nor of high seriousness – instead, it’s Giles Milton’s
first novel. And unlike Paradise Lost, it’s funny and eccentric.
Milton may have written a modern novel, but he has much to learn about
behaving like a modern novelist. True, he arrives fashionably late
for our meeting, but he destroys this promising beginning with an
unfitting display of courteous apology. In conversation, too, Milton
proves to be a pleasant disappointment: strangely reluctant to talk
endlessly about himself, he prefers discussions about the challenge
posed by writing fiction to divulging any personal information.
If this makes Milton sound occasionally dry, it also makes him
rather refreshing. In many respects, the epitome of the modern,
professional author, Milton balances an evident love of his job with
candid awareness of what the market wants. Currently living in France
with his wife and three young daughters, Milton says his sensitivity
to the commercial realities of the book industry has raised some
eyebrows among his adopted countrymen.
"Writing is my job," he says. "I have to make money out of it. In
France, they ask, ‘But don’t you write for la gloire?’ Obviously I do,
but I also write to sell books."
Milton’s commercial level-headedness only makes the risk he took by
writing Edward Trencom’s Nose all the more remarkable. The idea began
as a break from the norm, so that Milton could take a well-earned
breather from the grind of his day job. "At the end of White Gold, I’d
written five non-fiction books and I wanted to do something different –
something I really wanted to do. I felt that I’d explored that genre,
and I wanted to write a novel. This idea for Edward Trencom had been
around for ages. He popped into my head and grew from there."
Although Milton admits that his career is far from a treadmill, he
says he was in danger of becoming stale and even typecast. His own
publisher, for instance, decided not to take on his novel. "That’s
definitely a problem across publishing. If you do something
successfully, then they want another one and in the same style. Then
they can market and brand it. After Nathaniel’s Nutmeg, all my covers
were made to look the same."
It does seem strange, nevertheless, that fiction should have been
perceived as anathema to the "Giles Milton Brand". His success as a
historian may be founded on old-fashioned virtues such as archival work
and first- hand research (Milton has travelled extensively throughout
the Far East), but it owes a lot to a racy narrative style that puts
most historical fiction to shame.
"I like a good story," he says. "And characters are important, too.
Most of the ones in my books aren’t famous – they’re ordinary people
who have had very extraordinary things happen to them. It’s not the
history of kings and queens and politicians."
He illustrates his point by recalling his former life as
a journalist. Asked to cover the 50th anniversary of the D-Day
landings, he interviewed men and women who witnessed the allied
fleet’s arrival first-hand. "It was amazing. These were ordinary
people who were marked forever by what they’d seen. It was the most
dramatic moment in their lives. Several burst into tears because it
was so powerful. It’s the same with the East India Company. These
people did amazing things. Many were common sailors, but they ended
up at the court of the Japanese Shogun. They have a story to tell."
Edward Trencom’s story fits this pattern exactly. An unremarkable man,
Edward is led by the nose towards a fantastic and deadly secret buried
deep by both time and space. For hundreds of years, the Trencom family
has shared two special characteristics: an obsessive love of cheese;
and a family curse that now has Edward in its sights.
One part thriller, two parts Ealing comedy (Kind Hearts and Coronets
is an obvious reference), Edward Trencom’s Nose is also a novel
about history – what it teaches us about our past and present. But
Milton says it’s definitely not a historical novel. "Clearly you
utilise what skills you’ve got – I know quite a bit about history,
so there’s quite a bit of history in it. But it’s not a historical
novel, which I don’t like or read. I think half the fun of fiction
is to go off on mad, imaginary journeys. But it’s quite hard to write
a story that’s going completely mad and to keep the reader believing
that it’s actually happening."
Edward Trencom’s Nose goes mad and then some. Having gone to all
the trouble of writing a novel in the first place, Milton decided to
push the form as far as it would go, zigzagging merrily between 1969
(when Edward’s story is set) and, say, the Great Fire of London.
"All I had was Edward Trencom and his absurd love of cheese," Milton
says, describing his improvisational method of composition. "Not
knowing where you’re going can be quite invigorating. It produces a
very fresh and original tone. Of course, you have to go back afterwards
and make sure it all links together."
Milton had to restrain himself from going even further. At one point,
the story featured a narrator who openly fancied Edward’s wife,
Elizabeth. "I tried to be more experimental than I ended up. There
was a narrator who followed Edward around and made comments on what
he was doing. He would watch Elizabeth getting undressed. It was one
whimsy too far."
This approach reflects a writer liberated from the constraints of his
day job and determined to challenge what he sees as the conservative
spirit afflicting contemporary fiction. "That’s the terrible thing
these days. So many novelists read Robert Key’s Story [the influential
guide to "good" script writing] or go to writing courses.
Edward Trencom was a reaction to that."
Milton talks dreamily about a film adaptation (Rowan Atkinson would
make an ideal Edward Trencom, he says), but in the meantime contents
himself with plans for a second novel. Continuing the food theme,
it may or may not feature an obsessive mushroom picker.
Before that, there’s the history book to finish. "Smyrna is a serious
subject," Milton says. "It’s also a relatively recent event. I was
interviewing people who were actually there. With a subject like
Elizabethan swashbucklers, you can have a bit of fun – it’s so
distant. This is the Armenian genocide, the massacre of millions
of Greeks."
Paradise Lost may be a world away from Edward Trencom’s eccentric
adventures, but Milton says the novel has left its mark – above all
on the structure he has used to tell the story. It shows that an old
dog can teach himself new tricks.
"Writing Edward Trencom was a nerve-wracking thrill," he says. "You
really put yourself on the line, and I’m expecting some criticism.
But that’s ridiculous. It’s important to try different things, just
for your own experience. When you write, you’re learning all the time."