The Festival of Everything

picture from www.chinadaily.com.cn

 

 The Festival of Everything

 

In the middle of October, when squalls of rain are bursting from fast-moving clouds, and first-year literature students are getting ready to read out their poems about the high school graduation in front of the jury of the university creative writing competition, England is proudly counting visitors of literature festivals.

 

The oldest one in the country (“and maybe even in the world”, as they like to say) – The Times Cheltenham Literature Festival, established in 1949.

 

Cheltenham itself is a town in Southwest England, which used to be a famous spa resort in the 19th century, and now is advertising itself as “the most complete regency town” and the festival capital. Cheltenham has got about 110 thousand inhabitants. Similar number of people can be found in the literature ticket sales statistics.

 

In the beginning I didn’t really understand how a literature festival could attract tens of thousands of visitors. In the times when teachers complain that the only book kids do open from time to time is Harry Potter, and when a digital book in a book store is not a miracle anymore… No way.

 

I experienced my first revelation, however, right after I had realized that Gordon Brown was coming to open the festival as a “secret VIP guest”. When the Prime Minister, who is far from being popular, appeared on stage, the audience was astonished for one short moment. Meanwhile officials of local councils were complaining to the newspapers that Mister Brown refused to meet up with them to discuss the Icelandic bank crisis and the fate of their investments into Icelandic banks.

 

He apologized for talking about the economy instead of discussing, as he put it, “some great literary works of our country” or analyzing his new book ‘Wartime Courage’, and the credit crunch story went on like there’s no tomorrow.

 

He left Cheltenham busy as a beehive for the ten coming days.

 

While actors were “rapping” Canterbury Tales in the tent, the queue to get Roger Moore’s signature stretched outside almost to the nearest town. While BBC business editor Robert Peston event’s popularity was growing immensely thanks to the credit crunch, the author of ‘Angelina Ballerina’ was enjoying herself surrounded by three-year-olds with ballerina dresses. While Edward Stourton was attempting to determine the norms of political correctness, journalists of health supplements, together with ex-models, were trying to solve the problem of beauty cult.

 

“Call me and we’ll catch up with all the gossip“, somebody from the audience shouted, and it was the least one could expect from literary audiences.

 

While characters from fairy tales were running around the town, the enthusiastic ones tried to get to the big scene to read their poems. On the other big scene Tony Curtis was struggling to understand the Scottish accent of somebody from the audience. While medics were investigating into how allergies could have affected the works of Marcel Proust, Jonathan Dimbleby was telling public that during his two-year trip through Russia he has not met a single person who would believe in democracy. John Simpson was counting how many times he felt a gun by his chest in South Africa.

 

When possibly the most famous French guy in Britain Raymond Blanc was sharing his recipes with the audience, Janet Street Porter was laughing that her book “was published EVEN in Slovenia.”

 

The issue of the credit crunch was raised in each of these events. All by the same guy.

 

While BBC 4 was recording ‘The News Quiz’, you could hear young voices ready for a Friday night feast outside. “What an idea – to record the programme in the tent!” said the host, and you could only try and guess if she was joking. Authors of another popular radio programme “From our own correspondent” got extremely defensive after they had been asked why there is not much reporting from the Baltic States. “If something happens there, we’ll send somebody straight away. Don’t you worry.” I’m not worried at all, I thought. I have simply heard commentaries from France or Slovakia, where “nothing important” seems to be happening either.

 

“What was once a quite esoteric phenomenon – a literature festival – has now grown into an enormous event” – you could hear guest directors and authors thrilled and delighted.

 

Official data reveals that more than 400 authors came to this year’s literature festival.

 

“I’ve always been interested in how the celebrities and the famous faces are creeping into festivals all over, but what is nice about the Cheltenham festival is that you still have a lot of very literary figures that you really want to just hear rather than just gaze at,” said one of the children’s authors.

 

And this was when I experienced the second revelation. Celebrities. Famous faces. Television.

 

If you dictated your autobiography, which you might have not even read, to your secretary, that means you wrote a book, and half of Britain will want your signature on it (especially if you appear on screen not less than once a week). If you have a cooking reality show, they will want a signature on your newest collection of recipes. And because this collection is in other words referred to as a book, you will be most welcome in the literature festival, which quite correctly could be called the Festival of Everything.

 

It‘s hard to define literature is a phrase that possibly every literature student has heard from their professors. What is not so hard to define anymore, however, is a literature festival, which, at least in the UK, is far from the gathering of two poets reading their manuscripts in the light of a fading lavender candle. 

 

Book groups and other amusements

I had never been in a book group or a book club before, but I certainly had heard of and about them. First I heard about them from one of my professors who was German but always pretended to be English. She said that in Britain book clubs are so popular that even Judy & Richard established one in their show. She said that every library has one, and then there are millions of unofficial book clubs because some just do it at home etc etc. Then she gave us some figure, which I remember being pretty close to the figure of Britain’s population, and I thought: wow.

I had also heard about book groups from the series called The Book Group, in which some guy referred to them as “fucking middle-brow. Yuck”. It was by watching the very same show that I found out that book groups are normally not exactly about books (which I could have figured out myself, knowing that there there’s usually coffee and biscuits).

So I had heard bits and pieces about this phenomenal social activity, but I had never heard that when people who join book groups say “Oh I have read this book centuries ago”, they DO actually literally mean a CENTURY.

When I entered the library, I immediately started patting my pockets, looking for the leaflet of the event, so I could double-check if it didn’t say “over 65 only.” But the grannies seemed pretty happy to see me (and three other young people who came with me) there, so I calmed down. We gathered to discuss Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh.

“A jolly good read!” the bravest one exclaimed. The good thing about old people in the book group, I thought, is that they don’t know how to use internet, so they don’t gather just to quote some universal truths from Wikipedia.

“Oh I thought Sebastian was so delightfully romantic”, another one said and blushed, while others were shyly nodding.

“The more facets you pick up as you read, the more interesting the book becomes”, explained the third granny in an asserting tone, and you immediately knew she had worked as a primary school teacher.

The religious aspect in the book was touched upon, and the discussion about Catholicism was soon in full swing. Somebody suggested that maybe Charles Ryder (the narrator) converted to Catholicism in the end because he found its wicked side acceptable (in Brideshead Revisited Catholics aren’t “true Catholics”). The teacher kindly explained: “That would seem peculiar to adopt religion for such reasons. That is against human nature.”

“I can’t remember the exact bit of the book”, said yet another granny, and pointed at her left hand side neighbour. The neighbour didn’t seem to be able to find what she needed, so the woman started desperately looking for the quote herself. She found it and started quoting after five minutes, when the topic of the discussion had long been changed.

Another one indeed surprised everybody by admitting that she has the book at home but never read it. She still came because she really wanted to, and now she was even more tempted to read the book. “I’m with her”, her husband excused himself, and we moved to the discussion of the screen adaptation of the film.

“Well, I certainly believe the film should have been called Brideshead rather than Brideshead Revisited, if they really skipped the first bit of the book” (which is basically there for the sake of the flashback that follows). Some people laughed, a few others modestly nodded, and you could see how proud the woman was of her recourcefulness.

“Oh I will definitely go and watch the movie, even if it’s only to grumble about it,” said the enthusiastic granny to whom the authorship of the phrase “a jolly good read” belongs. “I just hope all of the actors are British.”

It was also her who answered somebody’s question whether all of the readers are from one and the same group. “These people over there belong to the elderly people’s college book club, these people belong to the library’s book group…”

“And I belong to my wife”, said the grandpa, and by that he revealed one more truth about book groups which I hadn’t heard before.