If I'm to have any hope of providing proper coverage of the Kiran Desai reading (which is looking to be at least a three-part posting extravaganza, SO unexpected as I only attended the event in a moment of...ennui), I must - simply must - get the other readings out of my head, off my proverbial plate and out into the world. What does this mean for you, dear readers? It means Banville notes, hastily wrapped up and an even shorter Jane Smiley post shortly thereafter. The good news with Smiley is that there wasn't ever going to be a long post, so there's no need to feel that my laziness and inability to properly plan ahead will result in you missing gem-like nuances from the reading.
Banville on the other hand...well...we'll see. I had never intended to do a fully detailed post on this (of the DFW four-parter magnitude) because the event didn't lend itself to such observation, such laborious detail. So, without further ado, I bring you a bulleted list of all the things I captured that have not been reported here, or at Mark's, or Book Fox.
- There were MANY Brooke Astor-esque types running about. White-haired sophisticates dressed for the opera dashing too and fro, attending the super secret cocktail party held before the reading. (Why? Why wasn't I invited? I had wondered when I first arrived. Yet when I saw that I would clearly have been so out of place, I was relieved. Thank goodness, I wasn't invited!)
- I'm guessing these Astor types were to do with the library. On the board or the council or some other very important high society type thing. Fine. I can deal with that.
- What I can't deal with is that they were so wrapped up in their own importance that they weren't properly reverential to Banville - whose very presence was no doubt made possible by their busy fund raising, donating, library-chairing endeavors. A bizarre thing to witness: their work made his appearance possible, yet they took little notice of the wonder they'd achieved. I spent much of the pre-discussion, pre-reading time wondering if these people had even read his books. Surely they had...but it irked me nonetheless. It is highly likely that I'm totally off base here, but there is a little nugget, deep down, that tells me I'm not.
- Proof of such silliness: The repeated botching of his name. Twice. (I know, I've mentioned this before but I need to provide proof of my claims or Ed will have my head.) If you know of his work, if you respect the man at all, how could you possibly get that wrong? Twice? Not acceptable. An affront on all accounts.
- Further proof of such silliness: At the very end of the reading & discussion and just before she botched Banville's name again, the announcer jumped onto the stage (as Banville was still speaking) and said "I'm so sorry but I forgot to mention my husband earlier and thank him." !?!?#?!?%$?% How, I ask you, HOW, did that seem like an okay thing to say? That is not how you behave in front of Banville! Ugh. He must have thought we were a bunch of louts. It blew my mind. Banville took it in stride, smiled, carried on. I'm sure he's experienced worse. But how much worse? Truly awful.
- Tara Ison had done research and repeated back to him a few things he'd said in past interviews. I didn't capture those, of course, but after one of her past-quotes, she asked him what he thought now, if his views had changed since he'd said whatever she quoted. His answer: "Look, when you do those interviews, you know you're speaking rubbish." Isn't he the best?
- Banville spoke of still feeling a fraud after all these years of writing, after all these books. He spoke of the discrepancy between the worker and the work that is produced. He spoke of himself writing in a "grubby room, with my grubby coffee" - and how surprising and delightful it is when these grubby musings come to be seen as works of art.
- He said that The Sea was not something he thought would go very far -- was afraid it was just the musings of an old man. Too emotional.
- He said beginning a new book is like creating an alien with claws in your throat.
- He said that his Banville books are about "what it means to be in the world" and that his BB books are about "what it means to act in the world."
- He said we are "born alone, we live alone, we die alone."
- He thought it was marvelous fun that his Christine Falls characters are making it into a second and a third book -- that he's never experienced the continuation of characters that grow, change, become other than how he first conceived them. You could see the twinkle in his eye as he said this - and I got the clear impression that he is simply tickled pink to have found something so wholly different from what he had done before. So different, and yet so important for both sides of the work, the Banville side & the BB side.
- He said Richard Ford's Lay of the Land was a "masterpiece." That Roth & Bellow are divine.
- And finally: When asked about any new fiction/contemporary writers he reads, he remarked that he didn't find new fiction that interesting. He spoke of a book (but didn't specify which) that he was recently asked to review. He read the book and realized that it would have to be a very long review for it to even be worth his time. The publication didn't want a long review so he didn't review it. He ended this bit by saying he finds that a lot of the newer fiction "doesn't have enough meat for me." This is the sentence heard 'round my world. A charge meant to jolt just me. Instantly, as soon as the words were uttered, I felt a shock. A perceptible change in my make-up. A challenge. In that moment, sitting with my leaky green pen in a sea of green thick-pile carpeting, way back in the last row, I made a decision: I must write as if Banville will be reviewing my work. I must write in such a way that there is enough "meat" for such a man. That it would be deemed worthy of his time. A tall task, but one I think any writer would be wise to take up. I am certain it will raise the level of my game.
That is what you can get out of a good reading. Worth it, don't you think?
