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Published: February 28th 2010
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Writing upon a human heart
Yesterday, after spending time at home taking polaroids of ramshackled dead and dying tea roses, I turned to look at the clock to see it was 10 past 10 and realised I had only 50 minutes to walk to Foyles on Charring Cross Road for the Harvill Sacker book day. Time slipping, lost in images. Nowhere near ready.
After legging it along Millbank, Parliament Square, past Nelson and around the National Portrait gallery in muggy heavy rain, pushing through endless tourists, I arrived 1 minute early but almost last there to take a seat to sit down in the only seat left - the end of the front row.
I’d somehow forgotten that A S Byatt would be there and the Chinese writer Xiaolu - whom I’d read whilst travelling on the Transiberian into China in ’08.
A boring introduction was droned on and on by a woman from HS on ‘A brief insight to HS’ which I altogether drifted off through and looked intently at the man who was sitting next to me who’s clothes and shoes which were nifty, to say the least. After she’d finished the panel were introduced
Munuel Rivas
drawing in books and when Joseph O’conner was asked how many novels he’d had published he made a crack that it was 6 before coming but after that intro, it was more like 9, which did make me laugh. Whilst the panel spoke, I could hear the wonderful click of a medium format camera in the background taking marketing shots, no doubt.
These are some of the snippets of information from the first panel on the form of the novel and the reader.
‘the intimate form of the novel cannot be replaced by e-books. There are no rules for this form - it holds huge energy. The territory of the novel can hold knights, street thieves, explorers, mad women, hunch backs, madam Bovary - it’s a fantastic party of cells and the most marvellous magic form that will never be replaced. ‘
‘You cannot predict what everyone will get/bring/take from or to the book because everyone alchemises slightly differently.’
‘In a way creating a book for the reader doesn’t work because the reader goes to the party with all these extraordinary characters’
‘Be brutal read only what moves us - we ought to read only the books that
wound and stab us otherwise why continue?’
‘you do find friendships with people in books’
‘Everyone who writes does so in the wake of the ‘Greats’ (passed down from previous novels, poems, prose) and it all becomes part of the furniture of the culture of now. A pebble in your shoe’
Then the next panel was made up of a beautiful Galician man Manuel Rivas and his translator. The whole hour was beautiful to watch as well as listen to. There was very little he said in English. He only told us that he has a cold and has brought ‘gauze’ gorse and that every writer should have problems. His eyes and hands alone told a story. He started by reading a passage from his own book in his mother tongue. His fluid Galician flowed over us and all eyes and ears were on him. The same passage was then read equally richly by his translator - they’re a perfect duo and obviously know each other well. As Manuel listened to the translation, he sat, blinking, swallowed hard and did look ill - almost sad. I listened to the translation but watched the other man.
Tongue writing.
Hand speaking.
Circle story telling.
After lunch came the wonderful A S Byatt who spoke of guilt about writing taking over her life and not her children and grandchildren, passion, visual arts, the rhythm of words, how she makes maps of time to keep the chronology correct in her books and finds herself in some year that she did not want to be in and researches that too. Her command of the English language is exquisite. She talked of how she tried to get everything right. She told us of places that she’d read about and places that she’d been to because her characters went there. One was an old army trench pit that went down and down and had rooms and one room had mirrors stolen from an old chateau and discarded german books and that all the names of the trenches were after characters like Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland because the boys who were dying there had grown up with these stories. It made her sad. It also made me sad. She said those things that no one says anymore ‘ dreadfully failed’ ‘horribly funny’ and she was a delight to listen to on how she’s forgetting names and knows that if she spends 3 hours on trying to remember she will do.
On the last panel at the end of a long day was Xiaolu - who talked of how she thought that the translator should listen to the author not the book when translating - thus she changes parts if she has grown since the first writing. This, in my mind, must be a different book? But I bought ‘Village of Stone’ for Patti and (in mandarin) asked Xiaolu to sign it.
It was a quietly lovely day spent at Foyles - fast becoming one of my favourite places in London.
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