Hay Festival 2018, Part Three

Fiona Sampson spoke to us of her research for her new biography, In Search of Mary Shelley and how she felt comfortable writing a biography of Shelley as she was herself a biographer. She told of the sadness for Mary growing up in the house where her mother died and how her father taught her to write by tracing the letters of her name on the grave, meaning that writing and morbidity were linked from a young age. Despite the fact she came from a family who were very interested in memorializing themselves, no letters to or from Mary in her youth, or any of her juvenilia, survive.

Sampson highlighted what an error Mary made in believing Percy’s lies and running away with him, a mistake she would pay for dearly. Sampson believes that although Mary wanted to write, she wanted a nuclear family, not bohemia. There is also the suggestion that she was innocent of gender politics. When writing Frankenstein she still believed she could do the same as men – her great tragedy was realizing that she couldn’t.

The led nicely into the next event – Margaret Atwood in conversation. We started with the slightly unusual topic of subway adverts which she believes tells you much about the preoccupations of the age – from underwear suggesting you needed some kind of infrastructure in the 1930s and 40s to debt and helplines today.

She spoke of her first experiences of publishing and how crushing her first rejection was, made worse by a poetry book being accepted but not making it past the third editor. Her second novel was then lost by a publisher for two years. A difficult start to a glittering career.

Naturally, it wasn’t long before we got on to The Handmaid’s Tale which she wrote whilst living in West Berlin. She sees it as a warning – don’t walk into that hole, and yet the fact she didn’t put anything in it that hasn’t happened somewhere in the world (the same is true for the TV show) highlights the ongoing need for such warnings. Indeed, many believe the message is more relevant today than when it was written. The handmaid costumes have proved popular in protests. Atwood thinks this is an effective way to protest without having to say anything.

She also spoke of the inspiration for Alias Grace – a real life convict named Grace Marks who she first came to via Susanna Moodie’s writings on the subject. Atwood initially wrote a TV play working only from this, but when she came to write the novel she left no stone unturned, yet still can’t say whether or not Marks was innocent.

It was a fascinating evening with an author who clearly knows what she’s talking about and is incredibly insightful.

Hay Festival 2018, Part Two

Robert Webb spoke openly about childhood and the difficult relationship he had with his dad for most of his life. He commented on the gender stereotypes that can be so damaging to the male mind and how he saw three times over the regret of having missed out on love, friendship, and joy because of them.

The title of his memoir, How Not to Be a Boy, hints at his struggles with the idea of masculinity and naturally the conversation focused on this. He did however also talk about the fact he knew from a very young age what he wanted to do with his life, and despite his shyness was incredibly ambitious. That he has achieved 90% of his childhood aims is heartening and goes to show that no dream is too big.

 

Literary royalty in the form of Ian McEwan was next on the line-up. Ostensibly there to talk about adapting On Chesil Beach for film, we were also treated to a look back over his career and a reading of a recent, unpublished short story. He spoke of how as a young writer he thought British literature provincial and tame and aimed to shock (though he always denied this when suggested by journalists).

It is important, he believes, not to confuse books such as On Chesil Beach with sociology. They are about particular characters, not representative of all of Britain in the 1960s. Bringing the book to the big screen took several years and two different directors. McEwan believes this to have been a blessing as it meant Saoirse Ronan was the right age to play the lead by the time filming began. He also spoke of enjoying being able to add scenes that perhaps he wished he’d put in the novel.

Hay Festival 2018, Part One

Rain clouds loomed menacingly over the Hay Festival this bank holiday, but it did not dampen the spirits of the bibliophiles rifling through books and crowding into tents to listen to thought provoking talks. My first event was Andrew Davies discussing his current work in progress, an adaptation of Les Miserables. I don’t know if I’m the only one, but I book my tickets in a fit of enthusiasm and by the time the festival arrives can remember only what a handful of the events are about. This leads to some nice surprises when the event gets underway.

Davies spoke of his background in teaching and his passion for conveying the joy of literature to others. In adapting so many classics he has continued to do this on a much broader scale. When asked how he goes about adapting such epic tomes as Les Miserables he spoke of boiling them down to their essence, finding the main themes which then allows you to know what you have to keep in. Les Miserables being a complex tale with  many tangents and jumps in time he decided to rearrange events to show them in chronological order. Currently filming on location in Belgium and due to air early 2019, it’s sure to be one to watch.

Next up was Tessa Dunlop discussing her book The Century Girls, a study of six centenarians’ lives.

We had the added treat of one of the ladies, Helena Jones, on stage with Dunlop. Naturally the focus fell on Jones’ story but the other subjects were mentioned where appropriate. What came across strongly was how important family duty was when she was a young woman, keeping her eventual husband waiting six years so she could help look after a younger brother. It is clear that she was always an active, hardworking member of her community and that she reveled in her work as a teacher, which she successfully juggled with household duties and a number of community projects. She remains a well known figure in Brecon and at almost 102 is going strong, delivering two poems from memory for us.

Dunlop highlighted how innocent young women were in the early twentieth century, their mothers not explaining the facts of life to them leading to some alarming situations. What was also painfully apparent was the dearth of men after the war, which meant many women remained unmarried and childless. The thoughtful sentiments of one of the other subjects, that there’s no point worrying about what you don’t have but rather appreciating what you do, is advice that perhaps we should all try to live by.

Rounding off the day was Rowan Williams and Dr Hannah Critchlow discussing consciousness. They talked of the difficulty of defining consciousness but came to an agreement that it is the ability to form your own unique view of the world. They also pointed out its relative infancy and its relevance as something that works for us. The need for a sense of agency has been proved by studies mentioned by Critchlow whereby taking away a sense of free will led to people behaving much more selfishly.

We also had the unusual experience of seeing Rowan Williams’ brainwaves being measured during the conversation, physical activity, and meditation.

Philip Pullman in conversation with Cerys Matthews, London Literature Festival, 20/10/2017

Twenty-two years ago Northern Lights, the first book in Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, was published. Yesterday, the first book in a new trilogy, The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage was published, transporting readers back to the world of Lyra Belacqua, to the great joy of his many fans. When asked how this new series fits into the world of Lyra he claims it could be thought of as a prequel, but he is more inclined to think of it as an equal. After the publication of the final book in His Dark Materials Pullman publicly said the story had ended there and there would be no more. The conversation started with this tonight, asking what changed his mind. He answered that the seed was lodged in his mind with the publication of Lyra’s Oxford in 2003. He knew the story would involve Lyra, but not how. It stayed with him, and finally the world is ready to embrace her return.

Speaking about his writing practice, he told of the importance of poetry, that this was how he first came to writing, in writing bad imitations of Dylan Thomas and Bob Dylan in his youth. He may now have turned his attention to prose but the rhythm of it remains central. He claims to sometimes know the rhythm of the next sentence before he knows what it’s going to say. This is why he cannot write with music on as it disturbs the rhythm of the writing. He spoke also of the many voices that go into making a novel. The voice of the narrator is not that of the author, and the book also has an expected reader, which often of course turns out not to be the actual reader. Pullman describes writing as being a dictator, in control of the characters’ fates, but once it’s out in the world you no longer have control. You don’t know who will read it or how they will respond, and that there is no right or wrong way to read a text. He was adamant that children should be introduced to the magic of reading and not forced to share their responses as is so often the case in primary schools, but to let it stay with them.

Inevitably the conversation turned to religion. His Dark Materials has caused outrage among some religious groups who believe it is about killing God. Pullman is very open about his beliefs, and thinks that ‘the original sin’ is really painting curiosity as a sin. That the Fall happens in everybody’s life during adolescence, this knowledge of good and evil, and it’s important and should be encouraged. He was also asked about his opinions on some of the most well known Christian novelists – C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkein. He has said before that he doesn’t agree with how Lewis concludes the Narnia series, however, today he cited the idea that his books seem more genuine than Tolkein’s in that they have the struggle of faith in them, and that in Tolkein’s there’s never any wavering of intent. This he believes is because Tolkein was a Catholic whereby he had everything theologically sorted, whereas Lewis, as an Irish Protestant, had experience all the associated tumult. He ends with the thought that Tolkein’s works therefore end up feeling somewhat trivial, an unpopular opinion with the audience.

Finally, during the Q&A session there were lots of questions coming in from Twitter regarding the films that never quite made it to the end. Pullman’s explanation for this was that books don’t translate well into films, that if you go to see a film of a book you enjoyed you almost expect to be disappointed. Inevitably huge amounts of detail from the books will be cut to fit into 120 minutes or so, and this is why he believes that long running TV serials such Game of Thrones are a much better way of translating books to screen. To the great delight of the audience he revealed that this kind of project is currently in progress for His Dark Materials.