Jump to content

Magnus Mills

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Magnus Mills
Born1954 (age 69–70)
Birmingham,England
OccupationNovelist, short-story author
Period1998–present
Notable worksThe Restraint of Beasts,All Quiet on the Orient Express
Notable awardsMcKitterick Prize
1999The Restraint of Beasts

Magnus Mills(born in 1954 in Birmingham) is an English fiction writer andbus driver.He is best known for his first novel,The Restraint of Beasts,which was shortlisted for theBooker Prizeand praised byThomas Pynchon.

Background[edit]

Magnus Mills was born inBirminghamand brought up inBristol.After graduating with an economics degree fromWolverhampton Polytechnic,he started a master's degree course at theUniversity of Warwickbut dropped out before completion.[1]

Between 1979 and 1986 he built high-tensile fences for a living. In 1986 Mills moved to London and became a bus driver, which continues to be his full-time job alongside writing. During this time he wrote a regular column about being a bus driver forThe Independent,[1]claiming he was replaced by the serialBridget Jones' Diary."[2]In 1998 he drew on his experience as a fence builder for his first novel,The Restraint of Beasts.Some newspapers reported that he received an advance of £1 million for his debut; he later said the real figure was closer to £10,000.[3]The Restraint of Beastswas shortlisted for theBooker Prizeand theWhitbread First Novel Awardin 1998. It won him theMcKitterick Prizein 1999, and earned a rare jacket quote from reclusive authorThomas Pynchon,who called it "a demented, deadpan comic wonder".

Following the surprise success ofThe Restraint of Beastsand its follow-up,All Quiet on the Orient Express,Mills quit work as a bus driver for four months as a "project" to see if he could make it as a full-time writer.Three to See the King,published in 2001, was the result. It received positive reviews. He then worked as a van driver for several years, which resulted inThe Scheme for Full Employment,published in 2003, but which had a more mixed reception. He was laid off from his job due to cutbacks and returned to working as a bus driver. His 2005 novelExplorers of the New Centurywas released to good reviews fromThe Sunday Times,[4]The Independent,[4]The Telegraph,[5]and other papers. Having written his first four novels for Flamingo,Explorers of the New Centurymarked a new partnership withBloomsbury.

Mills has also written two books of very short stories:Once in a Blue MoonandOnly When the Sun Shines Brightlyfor Acorn Books. His experience as a bus driver informed the content of his 2009 novelThe Maintenance of Headway,the title of which refers to keeping buses equally spaced on their routes. His 2011 novelA Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked Indepicts a kingdom whose king has gone missing without explanation, leaving an absurdist realm "lost in an English fairy-tale world."[6]

Mills's 2015 novelThe Field of the Cloth of Goldwas shortlisted for the 2015Goldsmiths Prize.[7]

Style[edit]

Mills's style has been called "deceptively" simple.[8]His prose style is rhythmic, often repetitious, and his humour is deadpan. He favours short sentences, little description and a lot of dialogue. Mills has citedPrimo Levias a key influence.[9]

Themes[edit]

Mills's books usually feature one or more working-class men as protagonists.[10]InThe Restraint of Beasts,an unnamed supervisor works alongside two Scottish fence-builders as they move from location to location building high-tensile steel fences. The theme of repetition is established early on, as the men fall into a routine of working during the day, going to the local pub at night and "accidentally" killing people along the way. The same kind of skewed repetition occurs in Mills's later worksAll Quiet on the Orient ExpressandThe Scheme for Full Employment.All Quiet on the Orient Expressis about a man who stops at a campsite in theLake Districtto kill some time before embarking on a journey on theOrient Express.Gradually, he becomes involved in the local community and is offered jobs until it becomes clear that he may never leave.The Scheme for Full Employmenttells of a "beautiful" scheme whereby people are employed to drive around on set routes, stopping at depots to offload the contents of their vans.

Freedom of will is a key theme in his work.[11]What do the fences inThe Restraint of Beastssuggest? Who, or what are the "beasts"? Can the protagonist ofAll Quiet on the Orient Expressever assert his freedom? Does it exist? This theme is explored most vividly inThree to See the King,whose characters live in a largely allegorical world that lacks many of the identifiable conventions of working-class life – they don't have jobs, pubs or anything more than a rudimentary social network. The main character attempts to establish simple freedom for himself within his small, beloved house, only to find himself at the mercy of unsolicited relationships and the ideology of a charismatic newcomer. Like most of Mills's characters, he remains desperately attached to his routine, attempting to meet each twist with a calm, reasonable approach, until it becomes impossible. InExplorers of the New Century,the characters begin as masters of their mules and the art of exploration, but as their journey continues, the harsh climate and terrain of the land strip them of control over their own destinies. At the outset of the book, the explorers are able to assign or deny freedom to their mules; by the end, most of the explorers are dependent on the mules for their own freedom.

Mills himself has talked about punishment and reward as being key themes in his work, particularly inThe Restraint of Beasts.[12]The leaders of the teams inExplorers of the New Centurystruggle with punishment as a means of encouraging and disciplining their mules, never able to achieve quite the results they desire, but fearful of interacting with the mules by any means more complex than punishment and reward.

Bibliography[edit]

Novels[edit]

Short story collections[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^abJulian Flanagan: "Booker prize winner prefers driving a bus",The Telegraph,11 August 2009.
  2. ^Asthana, Anushka(11 March 2006)."Why my career is back on route".The Times.London.Retrieved12 May2010.
  3. ^Terence Blacker:Lies, damned lies and publishers' advances10 March 2003.
  4. ^abArchived21 October 2012 at theWayback Machine[dead link]
  5. ^Flint, James (28 August 2005)."The games men play".The Daily Telegraph.London.Retrieved12 May2010.[dead link]
  6. ^Smith, Zadie(October 2011)."New Books".Harper's.Vol. 323, no. 1, 937. Harper's Foundation. pp. 75–78.Retrieved6 July2013.(subscription required)
  7. ^Goldsmiths, University of London:Goldsmiths Prize shortlist – six works of fiction at its most novel,http://www.gold.ac.uk/news/goldsmiths-prize-shortlist-2015/.
  8. ^The Complete Review:What others have to say about Magnus Mills,retrieved 27 August 2011.
  9. ^BookRags, Inc.:Magnus Mills Biography,2011.
  10. ^World News Network:Book Review: Three Novels by Magnus Mills,Published: 20 September 2009, Uploaded: 19 June 2011.
  11. ^Kevin Corbett:Great 21st Century Writers You Need to Read: Magnus Mills,26 September 2010.
  12. ^Corbett, 2010.

External links[edit]

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Magnus_Mills&oldid=1213871558"