Sad But True

[Richard Romeo]

Copyright 2001 The Financial Times Limited
                              Financial Times (London)

                       January 13, 2001, Saturday London Edition 1


BOOKS: Strolling players and roving salesmen: UK LITERARY FESTIVALS Once 
upon
a time authors hid in lonely garrets, but not any more. Today's literary 
stars have to be great performers
too. Susanna Rustin reports.

BYLINE: By SUSANNA RUSTIN

BODY:
To watch and listen to Charles Dickens giving one of his public readings was 
an unforgettable experience.
"He rubs and pats his hands, he flourishes all his fingers, he shakes them, 
he points them, he makes them
equal to the whole stage company in the performance of the parts," was how 
one contemporary observer
described the spectacle. The most famous writer of his age exerted a 
"hypnotic power", in the words of his
biographer Peter Ackroyd, and people rushed to hear him. In 1866 3,000 were 
turned away from a hall in
Liverpool; in Glasgow files of police held back the crowds. When he 
travelled to Boston, to give the
first-ever public readings that Americans had seen, the queue for tickets 
was half a mile long.

Dickens, of course, was the consummate performer. As a young man he wanted 
to be an actor, and he
maintained close links with the theatre throughout his life. The specially 
prepared scripts he used for his
readings were covered in stage directions - "Point", "Shudder", "Look Round 
with Terror" - so it was little
wonder that this most charismatic of authors made the powerful impression he 
desired.

Dickens's remarkable example notwithstanding, live performance was not a 
salient feature of 20th-century
literary life. Writers, after all, are not necessarily speakers; and access 
to their thoughts and imaginings
has, for the most part, been confined to the printed page. Over the past 
10-15 years, however, public
reading has enjoyed a remarkable renaissance in the UK. Due to the expansion 
of arts and literary
festivals, and also to the efforts of the bookseller Waterstone's - which 
held its first public reading in 1983,
and now hosts as many as four events a week in its flagship "superstores" - 
authors can routinely be seen
and heard, as well as read.

"Live reading sounds an unlikely proposition in this day and age," says 
Catherine Lockerbie, director of the
Edinburgh International Book Festival, the largest event of its kind in the 
world. "You don't need live
events in order to interact with authors, as it is simpler and quicker than 
ever before to have that
interaction via the internet. If you want to ask them questions, learn more 
about their work and lives,
simply look up their website and send some e-mails."

But technology cannot satisfy the public's "hunger for proximity - the basic 
human curiosity to see the
author in the flesh", and each year sees the creation of more and more 
festivals, while the big three - at
Edinburgh, Hay and Cheltenham - have gone from strength to strength.

"For writers, it is a rare opportunity to meet their readers," suggests 
Helen Ellis, publicity director at
publisher Harper Collins. Ruth Borthwick, head of literature at London's 
South Bank Centre, agrees: "The
writer's life is a solitary one," she explains, and a reading can provide an 
opportunity: "to find out who
they're writing for - to find that they are part of a community of readers 
and writers."

Helen Ellis sees the precursor of today's reading in the literary lunch, 
traditionally hosted by regional
newspapers, and institutionalised by Foyle's at the heart of London's 
bookselling district on Charing Cross
Road. "It was a more formal occasion, and more expensive," she explains, but 
the basic idea was the
same.

The idea, of course, was to sell more books. "A publicity tour used to be 
media, and literary lunches and
dinners," she adds. Today readings have become "an integral part" of a 
campaign, and "they definitely help
sell books".

But while Dickens set off for the US in 1867 in anticipation of a "fortune", 
today's writers can expect to
earn little but a few extra sales from most public appearances. Since 
Waterstone's events are free, authors
are expected to show up for nothing, and in the past festivals have tended 
to pay only a handful of stars,
although this is changing. Waterstone's is keen to emphasise its marketing 
efforts above and beyond the
bald facts of sales figures. "People expect more from bookshops nowadays," 
says PR co-ordinator Kim
Hardie. Events are about "making the shops more accessible", "involving the 
local community" - even "an
integral part of the Waterstone's experience".

For festival organisers, it can be healthy business: a combination of ticket 
sales, sponsorship and grants,
plus the free or almost free participation of authors, has created a new 
breed of professional organisers.

So is all this heightened activity on the part of authors and bookshops a 
reaction to the oft-touted threat to
their livelihoods posed by the larger-than-life dramas and personalities of 
broadcast media, and the
interactive possibilities of the internet? "For a long time the stereotype 
of an author was of a recluse shut
up in a garret," says Catherine Lockerbie. "Today it is completely the norm 
for them to go out promoting
their own wares."

"We know that for first-time authors, it helps if they are young, 
attractive, and very articulate. People
quickly become known if they are good performers." The flip side of all 
this, as she is quick to point out, is
that "if they can't, they're in trouble".

Novelist A.L. Kennedy's first book was published in 1991, but she had been 
reading in public for 10 years
before that, and says she probably makes an average of one public appearance 
per week. "There's much
more of a tradition in Scotland, in libraries, pubs, and writers' groups." 
She suggests an overlap with a folk
music tradition - in which people are used to coming together in an informal 
setting to enjoy each others'
creative work. "It's a performance - you develop a persona and a range of 
stories."

"It's good when you're learning," she adds, "it gives you a much clearer 
sense of rhythm, and it's very
important to have this sense of your voice - because your voice out loud 
sounds quite similar to your voice
inside your head." She finds it helpful to read out work that is finished 
but not yet published, the stage
before the very final draft. "It helps you to understand what's not quite 
working - it's quite difficult to get
feedback in any other way".

This idea of a conversation with the audience is crucial to the thinking of 
festival organisers. "The novelty
value that was there 10 years ago has worn off," Lockerbie says, and 
audiences are looking for more than
the passive scenario in which authors talk and they listen. "Most audiences 
already know the author's
work, and want horse's mouth insights and commentary," says Peter Florence, 
the founder of festivals in
Mantova, London and Hay.

After all, if it's just the reading they are after, there are radio 
programmes and audio books to listen to.
Launched in 1949, Radio 4's Book at Bedtime slot is still going strong: on 
Monday John le Carre fills it,
with the first of several readings from his new novel The Constant Gardener. 
Radio 4 spokeswoman
Marian Greenwood agrees that there is an "added frisson, if you've got an 
author reading their own work",
but points out that since you've only got sound to work with on the radio, 
"you need an interesting enough
voice."

Stephen Fry's marathon Boxing Day rendition of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter 
and the Philosopher's Stone
on Radio 4 may have earned news headlines, but Ruth Borthwick insists that 
"there is no substitute for
hearing the authentic voice. It doesn't matter if the author is a brilliant 
presenter of the work. It's a
different kind of relationship, and a shared experience with the other 
audience members."

That festival organisers can ill afford to take attendances for granted has 
been amply demonstrated by the
teething troubles of the London Festival of Literature, The Word, now in its 
third year and still struggling to
find its feet. Organiser Peter Florence maintains that while the 
long-established tradition of poetry reading
still works well, "there is a real problem with snatching extracts of prose 
in readings. Short short stories
work best, or the rare and wonderful occasions when you get to hear work in 
progress. The best example
of this is Ian McEwan, who always tries out his stuff in Hay 18 months 
before publication."

Such rarities aside, Catherine Lockerbie admits that "there are certain 
authors who are fantastic writers
but who can't read well." Witty, confident performers such as biographer 
Michael Holroyd, and bestselling
novelist Louis de Bernie res, she describes as "gold dust". But while A.L. 
Kennedy's image of the touring
author as "part strolling player, part travelling salesman" is appealing, it 
is worth bearing in mind the altered
demands that the current emphasis on public speaking places on a writer's 
calling.

These literary performances are sermons for a secular age, and pleasing 
reminders of an oral storytelling
tradition. But as reading, so often a private, even lonely activity, 
advances further into the public domain -
with the spread of book clubs, and celebrity authors hogging more and more 
of publishers' attention -
readers must be sure to keep a room in the house of literature for the more 
retiring sorts: the Thomas
Pynchons, J.D. Salingers or Emily Brontes of the future. Otherwise we risk 
that romantic figure, the
recluse, disappearing into a figment of the literary imagination.


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