The worst author ever?

One of the things I continually love about ministry is that I get the chance, the privellege of hearing people's stories, stories of lives and what has happened in the past as well as their ambitions and dreams.

For me Thursday nights are a time to relax and do something different (usually). After a friend & Parishioner from Banbridge posted on facebook that she was having the first reading of a new play that she had written in Larne, I enquired of the place and time and headed for a wee trip up.

The title of the blog may seem a bit of criticism ... but this is about the character in the play rather than my friend Doreen McBride the playwright!

Tonights reading of "The Funeral's Off" was held in the Larne Museum and Arts Centre. The script once refined will be performed in the Linen Hall Library in Belfast later on this month. 23rd of March at 7pm when Roma Tomelty will be playing Amanda.

The story a fascinating mix of absurdity, frustration, ambition and dealing with all of life's issues through the eyes of a wannabe author who thinks she is God's gift to the literary world. The author in question, (I must admit I never heard of her), is Larne born, Amanda Kitterick Ros

She is so famous, she even has her own article on Wikipedia!

To give you a sample of her work ... here is the opening to her poem "Visiting Westminister Abbey"

Holy Moses! Have a look!

Flesh decayed in every nook!

Some rare bits of brain lie here,

Mortal loads of beef and beer,

Some of whom are turned to dust,

Every one bids lost to lust;

Royal flesh so tinged with 'blue'

Undergoes the same as you.

When one follows through the various linkages of authors we encounter Tolkien and CS Lewis as readers of her handiwork

Her novels provided the entertainment at gatherings of the Inklings, a group of Oxford dons including Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien who met from the 1930s to 1950s. They competed to see who could read her work aloud for longest before starting to laugh!!!!

Anyway getting back to this evening, Doreen McBride has in this monologue been able to combine the humour of Ros with a bit of study of somebody so awful that I certainly came away feeling a wee touch of sadness that she wasn't successful, another bit of me thinking but it really is bad, and another thinking that there may have been reasons for the writing.

All in all the audience that were there this evening were mostly Larne Locals who knew something about this local (in)famous figure who was remembered in a recent exhibition - so it was great to hear about a local literary figure who is remembered to this day.

So while we may judge Amanda as being bad, her work, her writing still live on well beyond her.

Thanks Doreen :-)

From the BBC in 2006 under the title ... Is this the world's worst Author

Literary critics and readers are being invited to judge if a Northern Ireland woman is the world's worst writer.

Amanda McKittrick Ros, who was born in 1860, has been accused of delivering some of the worst passages of literature ever written.

Described as formidable, she rejected her critics as being the "auctioneering agents of satan".

Now Culture Northern Ireland has challenged "lovers of awful literature" to see if they can read the longest passage from McKittrick Ros's work while keeping a straight face.

Her expectation was that she would "be talked about at the end of 1,000 years" and the organisation hopes the unique nature of her verse can match that.

David Lewis, director of Culture Northern Ireland website, said: "Any writer who is proud of 'disturbing the bowels' of her readers and can describe critics as 'auctioneering agents of Satan' is worthy of praise in my book.

Mocking Angel! The trials of a tortured throng Are naught when weighed in the balance of future anticipations. The living sometimes learn the touchy tricks of the traitor, the tardy, and the tempted; The dead have evaded the flighty earthly future, And form to swell the retinue of retired rights, The righteous school of the invisible, And the rebellious roar of the raging nothing Irene Iddesleigh (1897) Amanda McKittrick Ros

"Ros was an inveterate social climber, claiming to be descended from King Sitrick of Denmark. She even changed her name from Ross to Ros, linking herself with the old family of de Ros.

"In fact, she was a school mistress who married Andrew Ross the station master at Larne Harbour."

It was he who published her debut novel, Irene Iddesleigh, as an anniversary present.

It was the story of a marriage doomed from the first moment by unrequited love.

Sections of the literati in London established special societies which held gatherings to read her verse and Tom Sawyer author Mark Twain, Brave New World author Aldous Huxley and war poet Siegfried Sassoon were said to be fans.

McKittrick Ros, who was born near Ballynahinch, came top in a book entitled In Search of the World's Worst Writers by Nick Page.

Beneath me here in stinking clumps Lies Lawyer Largebones, all in lumps; A rotten mass of clockholed clay, Which grown more honeycombed each day. See how the rats have scratched his face? Now so unlike the human race; I very much regret I can't Assist them in their eager 'bent' The Lawyer Poems of Puncture (1912)

He described her as "the greatest bad writer who ever lived".

Frank Ormsby, editor of Thine in Storm and Calm, an anthology of Ros's work, said "she alliterated obsessively".

He added: "Even if one has forgotten her work for a few years, you only have to read a few paragraphs and you find the smile broadening on your face.

"You begin to realise why her work had such an appeal."

While her critics were many and often acerbic, the County Down writer is still held in great affection by her fans.

She was recognised by the people of Larne, who erected a plaque in her honour in the local library.

Amanda McKittrick Ros died on 3 February 1939