Monday, December 1, 2008

QUANTUM OF SOLUTION!

I have spent the last few nights agonising over this post. I have said again and again that this is a literary blog, not a gossip column. But it seems she here's hellbent on distracting me. Who am I to resist putting a noisemaker and rabblerouser where she belongs?

As I promised you in my previous post, there was adventure last Thursday, at the launch of the most famous plagiarised novel in the world, Pink As (Stolen) Perfume.

She showed up, much to my surprise (I had no idea she'd be that shameless to show up as the author of a novel that the entire world knows is not hers).

THE LAST THING YOU WANT TO DO IS BELIEVE HER NARRATION... SHE MIGHT AS WELL HAVE COPIED AND PASTED THAT VERSION FROM WIKIPEDIA!

Carlos and I spent the last hour before the event studying (wildly rewinding) clips of QUANTUM OF SOLACE (he's watched it a million times, and brought it to my attention).

When, a few sentences into her reading, he launched himself onto the stage like a rocket-propelled grenade, he caught her and the entire audience (made up mostly of people who had come to see the adventure I promised) unawares. Strapped like a parachute on his back was a pressurised bag containing her missing dog, Sherlock (whom we had rescued a short while before from her chronic neglect). Upon seeing the body of evidence confronting her:
  1. the maltreated dog
  2. copies of the letters implicating her in Broomington's tragic fate
  3. incriminating extracts from her memoir-in-progress (The Collected Emails of Adorna Shine)
she
  1. COLLAPSED
  2. COGITATED ON HER MISDEMEANOURS, and finally
  3. COOPERATED AND CONFESSED to her heinous crimes against the late Broomington, against the traumatised Desiderus, against abused Sherlock, and against defrauded Carlos.
We MADE her read a confession (which was of course far more interesting than the novel she was attempting to launch), as well as the portions of the novel which she had copied and pasted from 19th century pornographic magazines - all she did was to translate them into 21st century English). After this I kind of got carried away and decided to read a bit from my novel-in-progress. The audience seemed to like it and erupted in wild applause and adulation, and a few people clambered onto the stage to express their delight.

In the minor confusion that followed, Ms. Shine BOLTED. With Sherlock! I admit that Carlos and I were stupid to allow that happen. But I thought I saw someone video-taping the entire incident, and have been searching youtube to see if they've uploaded it.

Before her reading she had talked about being in possession of her original manuscript, and of her desire to auction it at the end of the reading. Alas, that manuscript (which I suspect to be my stolen novel) is nowhere to be found. Either she still has it and bolted with it, or it's fallen into the hands of someone else... either way, bad news. It's the only thing depressing me now... I need to get that manuscript back!

She's been saying some nonsense on her blog about "the words [I have] been scrabbling to hold onto [not being mine] after all."

I thought she had reached the zenith - or nadir - of her mad delusion. I'm OBVIOUSLY wrong. Perhaps her talent lies in writing GHOST FICTION - make that GHOST FICTION "GHOSTWRITTEN" FOR HER. Fancy her saying I was possessed by Broomington, and that it was him writing my first novel using my hands.

Preposterous! Whoever believes such in this Age? If he wrote my first novel why isn't he helping me write this second one? Hah!

PS: Thanks Carlos for helping with the photo above (photoshop i believe it is called)

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