Bibularity Dipson

John Birmingham has stolen my (Hofstadter’s?) idea for a novel. Question is – is that done now? After one creates something novel, can others follow and be great? Yes, undoubtedly yes I think.

So the idea, as cutted and paste from my previous incarnation (Clarke, 2008*), is follow as,

Wiping a country off a map (physically). Survivors determine how country lives on. Explore certain themes or do a plain what if scenario. US? Hundreds of thousands of troops, diplomats, cultural exports, expats, etc.

True – I haven’t written the book. But it resides in me like a colossus hidden by six walls of marble. Birmingham’s book was spied by me in the airport bookshop, harold be thy name. On the cover was the title Without Warning^ and beneath it the subtitle, or perhaps nonsubtitular explanatory remark America is gone. I picked not the book up, I perused not its contents. But it naturally recollected my original thought and thoughts about my book idea.

I tried to flesh out the idea some more, to put some more meat on it, to breathe life into it, to feed it nutrients so that its dna and proteins could do their tasks etc. But I was interrupted.

I figured you’d need a setup, explaining how the country is erased. The story would then take place afterwards (maybe straight after, maybe a year, maybe longer). as I’ve not yet written a long story, I’m not sure what the main event would be, but it does seem to me to be endearingly ripe with potential.

* Clarke H, 2008, From A5 notebook, Unpublished Manuscript.

^ I semiforgot the title when writing this, and came up with 'Suddenly'. As I was writing a footnote to explain that this is not the title, I remembered the title – I had the impression that my memory was true`.

` The impression of something being true; the feeling of something being significant, meaningful, profoundly deep – I don’t hear people talking about the importance (scientific, everyday...) of these brain reflexes. Imagine you could take a pill to engender that feeling!