The Artist Unleashed: BOXING LESSONS, by Josh Donellan

Why hello there readers of the allomorph! Surprise! It’s me, Josh Donellan, and I’ll be takin’ ovah these here internets for the next few hundred words. Oh the things I could write about! Death! Love! Quantum physics! Built-in obsolescence! The influence of theremin based sonatas on post soviet Russian grocery store inventory assessments! But no, with all the myriad subjects in the world that I could possibly discuss, I have decided to talk you about boxes. Yes, boxes - and the things that should be put inside them as well as, more importantly, the things that should not.

Once, many years ago, when I was working at the Oxfam shop, a woman clad in a grandiose collection of pearls and gold placed a small wooden box on the counter and demanded,

“What. Is. This?”

“That is a box.”

“And what. Can I. PUT. Inside it?”  I scanned the shop for any sign of a hidden camera or punch line but, finding none, I answered with as straight a face as possible,

“Um, anything that is smaller than the box?”

And it’s true. You can put lots of things in boxes. Shoes, presents, knick-knacks, curios, belly button lint, cats belonging to theoretical physicists. But just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. As an author, people are always trying to put you in boxes. This must be true because there pictures below that prove it.

FIG 1. Authors in boxes
Source: The Ministry of Truth

Whenever I tell people I’m a writer, they always ask “What genre do you write?” As if, despite the fact that I could literally choose to write about ANYTHING IN THIS OR ANY OTHER UNIVERSE, I would be content with choosing one style, setting or era. Imagine if someone said to you; “What is the story of your life? Is it a tragedy? A romcom? A political thriller? A work of paranormal erotica?” If you can conclusively answer ‘yes’ to only one of these genres, then clearly YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG (and, if it was to the last one, you may be in need of psychiatric assistance.)

My first book was set in India, which led people to immediately ask “Oh, so it’s like Shantaram?” To which I would reply; “Yes, all stories set in India are essentially identical in theme and structure. Much like all films set in the USA are basically indistinguishable, like Sleepless in Seattle and Terminator 2 for instance.” One of the things that I am most proud of about that book is that is has been filed under everything from philosophy to adventure to comedy to literary fiction. That, and a pretty girl once sent me a photo of herself reading it naked.

FIG  2. Comparative literature and cinema of the last 20 years.

Source: Newsnight with Will McAvoy

Likewise, it seems abundantly strange to me that more authors don’t write for a wider range of ages. Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie and Neil Gaiman all write books for kids as well as adults, and yet there still seems to be a prevailing attitude that authors should write exclusively for one group or the other. When I set out to write a book for a younger audience, I never considered the fact that this should restrict either my vocabulary or thematic content. Zeb and the Great Ruckus is, for the purpose of bookstore shelf filing and Dewey decimal system appeasement, a children’s novel. It is also, however, a novel that essentially warns against the dangers of an overly authoritative government that oppresses its citizens through constant surveillance and restricting individual expression and art. It’s just that it does this through the viewpoint of a pair of twelve year old kids who go on a fantastic and hilarious adventure.  

Books like Harry Potter, the His Dark Materials trilogy, the Hunger Games and Calvin and Hobbes are aimed at younger audiences but, clearly, their appeal massively transcends this demographic. And yet there are adults who will refuse to read a book if it is categorized as ‘Children’s fiction’ or ‘Young Adult fiction.’ In much the same way that some people use ‘foreign film’ as a denotation of genre, as though a Japanese horror film is all but identical to a French romcom.

FIG 3. SPOT THE DIFFERENCE

Source: Bluth Industries

More than 1 000: Congratulations! You are a human with at least moderately functional retinas and cognitive abilities.

750 – 999: You’re a Jersey Shore fan, aren’t you?

50– 749: Please don’t vote.

Les than 50: You are clearly some sort of single celled organism with no ocular facilities that probably reproduces asexually (which I imagine must be rather convenient).

Sometimes we shouldn’t try and fit things into boxes. Think of literature like a bird, you could cram it into a tidy little box and file it away under neat little labels, but you’d be much better off letting it spread its wings and fly. And not just because a dead bird in your filing cabinet is going to stink like hell.

 In conclusion:

From Jessica: If anyone is interested in reading my review of his book, click here.