The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
AUTHOR Caroline
Norman Bissell tells Lindsay of the inspiration behind his new George Orwell novel
The thought of George Orwell writing his most famous book, Nineteen Eighty-four, just 15 miles by sea from where Norman Bissell lives on the Isle of Luing, was what inspired Norman’s debut novel Barnhill.
“Barnhill is about the last six years in the life of George Orwell in London, Paris and the Isle of Jura where he went to write what became Nineteen Eightyfour,” he says.
“It’s a tragic love story since his wife Eileen died during a hospital operation and he was left to bring up his baby son Richard Blair while suffering from tuberculosis.
“He struggled desperately to finish Nineteen Eighty-four on the Isle of Jura before his health failed. The story is also told from the point of view of Sonia Brownell who married him just three months before he died in a London hospital,” continues Norman, who received an artist’s bursary from Creative Scotland in 2014 to research and write the book.
“I’m inspired by the world around me, especially the natural world of which we humans are part.
“When I go out I try to be fully aware of my surroundings – the changing clouds and weather, the landscape, whether urban or coastal, the sounds of birds and the sea, and the more distant islands off Luing like Mull, Scarba and the Garvellachs.
“I enjoy haiku walking which involves creating short three-line poems on the move. This is geopoetics, the creative expression of the Earth, in practice and I’ve led workshops and given lots of talks to all age groups about this approach to living in the world,” says Norman, the director of the Scottish Centre for Geopoetics.
“I’ve started writing a memoir about my involvement in geopoetics in Scotland over many years. It tells why I was drawn to live by the coast from a young age and came to live on an island in Argyll. As a student I was greatly influenced by the Scottish poet and thinker Kenneth White who conceived the idea
of geopoetics and I have been advocating its theorypractice in Scotland for many years,” he explains.
“It will include my thoughts on many writers and artists who have worked in this field such as the geologist Hugh Miller, writers Rachel Carson, Thomas Wolfe, Nan Shepherd and Neil Gunn, and the painters William Mctaggart and Joan Eardley.”
Norman believes the key to writing a good book is to find a theme “that truly interests you and that you feel passionate about”. He adds: “It’s going to be the focus of much of your life for often years on end, so you have to love its subject matter and be willing to persist in writing it even when you don’t feel like it.”
While the Covid pandemic has temporarily put paid to book festivals and meeting readers, he says: “After putting years of effort into writing a book, it’s wonderful to hear their questions and opinions about it. Sometimes they come up with observations you haven’t considered – for example, that Orwell was a bit of a Frank Spencer character who often got into scrapes...”