Dining With The Stars

There is powerful pressure operating on authors, who are essentially private people, to become public figures, and this phenomenon is nowhere more observable than at a Literary Festival.

The recently-held Fairway Galle Literary Festival provided many examples of this, and this Festival was remarkable in that most of the authors held the middle ground with forcefulness, equanimity and grace. The authors were being made available to us in several forms: via public solo performances 'Thinking Out Loud', via conversation-style public chats 'Duets', and Literary Lunches, Dinners and 'Private Affairs' (lunches for authors held at private homes in Galle, but which are available to ticket-buyers).

 While the majority of authors were witty, eloquent and enthusiastic, some were clearly jet-lagged, one or two were grumpy, grudging and ungenerous with themselves, and the schism between public and private showed too clearly at their reluctance to move around and talk to everyone, or even break out a smile, at events for which their fellow guests were paying a baseline Rs. 6,500 per plate, and had been promised a more intimate experience of them, but this was human, and ultimately understandable. The guardian angels protecting authors' rights to privacy were vigilant, ably supported by the volunteers in bright blue shirts.

It is the luck of the draw at these occasions as to where you are seated in relation to the celebrity author, so if the author just sits where they are placed all afternoon or night, getting up only to read out extracts from their books or answer questions at a podium, the majority of guests have no real access to the object of their admiration at all. It takes some brio to approach a person you don't even know to say hello, and compliment them on their award-winning work. Fortunately, empowered by the illusion of intimate access in exchange for rupees paid, and the 'get what you pay for' ethos of contemporary commercialism, the brief window of opportunity provided by these events was taken advantage of by many.

 Levels of access to the authors were graded in economic tiers, so that if you saw them in the Hall de Galle, in a big crowd, it was Rs. 1000, sitting in plastic bucket chairs, at a more intimate venue such as a Poetry Reading or a Workshop it was Rs. 2000 to 4000, and for Lunch or Dinner you pay between 6,500 and 8,000, where the chairs are far more comfortable, and a three course meal is served. If the author is creative, generous and open, the Workshops are great opportunities to see how they work, and be granted access to their creative skills and techniques and insights into literature. You have a real experience of being mentored. But it takes an exceptionally giving author to share themselves at a Literary Lunch or Dinner.

 The authors are private people, of course; but they are also professionals on a public engagement, their accommodation and travel paid for by the event organisers. So they are in a real sense expected to perform, to sing for their supper. Or, in this case, to read and think and emote out loud at our supper.

 They are serious writers, and not dilettantes. They earn their living from writing, and the public performances which showcase them at festivals like this are like actors putting on their glad rags and gorgeous gowns to attend the celebrity-studded gala events which draw attention to the actual work they do. The quality of the written work they actually produce may not suit everyone's taste. The polished (or unpolished) accents of the authors and the moderators and presenters at these events are often criticised. But they show up because it is important that creative people find their form of expression, and that other people listen, read, appreciate and feel inspired or repelled to respond to that expression, each in their own way.

Artists are often accused of pretentiousness, and posturing. The excessive use of superlatives in the introductions and biodata for the authors in this Festival was said by several people to be unnecessary: real quality of work should speak for itself. But this excess was not so much generated by the writers but those who were showcasing them, creating the buzz, the low vibrant hum that intensifies to a crescendo at every successful event.

 There seems to be a particular way of speaking about authors and arts-related events that is adopted: no low modal or understated adjective is used if a high modal one can be substituted for it. The writers are without exception described as 'brilliant' and 'renowned', their work as 'astonishing' and 'riveting'. The attendees speak of what they have witnessed as 'superb' or 'phenomenal'. All the hyperbole collides off every speaker of it, like dodgem cars, reverberating, and because it is continually reinforced it cumulatively drains the reader/listener/lunch and dinner-goer, after a while. All the breathy exclamations start to meld into a sort of one-hued vapour which sucks the oxygen out of the January air.

Several of the writers commented on the hard work they do, the meticulous research involved, the arduous labour of putting pen to paper and hand to keyboard, virtually every day. They clearly spend a lot of time alone, thinking through their plots and dialogue and settings, and above all their characters and the voices in which those characters speak. Lots and lots of alone time is required.

 But future writers, for future events, some advice: when in public, engage with the public. There is a time to be solitary, and a time to merge with the hive mind which does the effortful work of reading and thinking about what you write. It may be an ordeal, but try not to let that show, if possible, to the admiring multitudes whose admiration supports your literary life.