I had been excited about reading Bleaker House by Nell Stevens ever since I listened to her interview with Miranda Mills on the always excellent Tea and Tattle Podcast.
Nell Stevens had always had a plan to write a novel. Initially this had taken her from her boring office job in London to take up a position as a student at Boston University studying for an MFA in fiction. Of the opinion that to write a good novel she needed to be away from all distractions. She thought Boston would offer be the solution. Of course it wasn’t, there were new friends and tax returns and conversations and sorting out finances, all designed to take her away from what she wanted most. At the end of the year with still no novel written, redemption came in the form of a Global Fellowship. An opportunity to go, anywhere in the world, and spend 3 months, exploring and creating and writing the elusive novel. Nell chose the Falkland Islands.
” ‘The Falklands,’ I say. I think it is the Falklands.’
Even as I make this statement- I want to know how good at life I can be in a place where there are no distractions – I question it. I wonder how naive I am being. Surely by now I should know that wherever I go, however determined I can find ways to distract myself, to procrastinate, to put off the real labour of creating something with words.
It turns out, though, that I am not being naive. As I stand in the sunshine talking on the phone to my mother, watching cars and buses and students with cups of frozen yogurt go past, I cannot begin to conceive of how few distractions there will be on Bleaker Island.”
And so begins Nell’s adventure to the other side of the world and her attempt to write a good novel. As it happens Nell didn’t write a novel. What she did write was an excellent book which skilfully weaves together her own experience of the Falklands, some of her back story and the fiction created whilst she was there. The stories blend beautifully. This works so well because Nell writes really well. The detail she gives to her days on Bleaker, the weather, the landscape, the wildlife, the total isolation is fascinating. She writes of her interactions with penguins, the lack of human contact, her desire to write and fear that she can’t actually produce what she set out to do.
“Bleaker Island is eight square miles of rock off the south-east cost of an area of the Falklands called Lafonia. The land is owned by a farming couple called George and Alison who divide their time between Bleaker and Stanley. Sometimes the, the population of the island will be three including myself and sometimes it will be one, including myself. There are also sea lions, a thousand sheep and a small herd of cows, and a colony of gentoo penguins. There is no road. There are no trees.”
This book appealed to me on so many levels. The Falkland Islands are practically Antarctica. I love Antarctica! I love to write, and like so many, I also dream of the novel I will write. Like most would be / frustrated or fully fledged writers, distractions are the writers worst enemy. Imagining what could be created with out those distractions is tantalising. I am drawn to the challenge of being alone and the discipline required to be productive when you have no reason not to be.
I am interested ted by what it means to be really alone. I truly believe it is possible to be alone and not be lonely and just as possible to be surrounded by people and feel totally alone. This is captured so well in Nell’s own experience.
” In Hong Kong, I understand now, I was lonely. When I moved to Boston for the very first time and knew nobody I would go on long solitary walks by the Charles past couples arm in arm and groups of teenagers smoking on the benches; then I was lonely. Sometimes in London, too when my friends were away and I hadn’t seen anyone for a few days, I’d sit on the 68 bus going over Waterloo Bridge and feel the ache developing. Surrounded by people it is very easy to feel alone. Surrounded by Penguins less so”
This is a novel about self discovery, and loneliness, about survival and about writing even when you don’t know what to write. Anyone who dreams of writing a novel will be drawn to this. Nell lived 8000 miles from home in unbelievably harsh surroundings and survived on just 1085 calories a day. There is something strangely appealing about that. This is a brilliant book about writing, and self discipline required to make the writing happen.
If you would like to know more about Nell Stevens adventure on Bleaker Island than do listen to her interview on Tea and Tattle. You can find it here.
