I just returned from the Hay festival, where I took this picture. I challenge anybody to look at it and tell me that Book History doesn’t have some interesting things to say:
This is an honesty bookshop in a castle, and it’s sort of by the way – but I did think it was interesting that the Hay festival, which takes place in a series of marquees just outside the famous ‘town of books’, is not really a site for bibliomania at all. There, apart from the Oxfam tent and a stall selling those (academically very interesting) ‘classic penguin’ mugs and deckchairs, the cult of the author reigns supreme. It’s very much a show for people interested in the personalities behind books – and, because this is the twenty-first century, the personalities behind TV, journalism, film, illustration, politics, music. The ‘literaryness’ can often fade into the background, for all the bookish props and slogans.
Would it be better if this wasn’t so? Certainly, ‘loving books’ feels more like an aesthetic choice than anything else at this event, but I’m not sure how good a festival it would be if we were trying to prioritise literary culture all the time. Living authors are a great resource (that ‘living’ is important – we don’t always see ‘life’ in our field, and perhaps its at the heart of what a festival is), and I went to some really interesting, and moving, talks.
On the other hand, I think a ‘Festival of Literature and the Arts’ could usefully stop to think, if only for a moment, about the extent to which it represents those things, and the extent to which it simply represents the people who create and consume them. I think this is a more serious distinction than it sounds, because there’s an opportunity here to really foreground some of the things that are great about books, and writing, and literature. These things, and the study of them, are increasingly being viewed with some scepticism by culture at large, as I noted in my previous post. Consider the public image of the literary arts which Hay brings – the trope of the Guardian reader – and consider the kinds of arguments which you could make for them, given that platform. Books aren’t (just) intrinsically wonderful – nor are they (just) the status accessories we litter our shelves with. Nor, indeed, are they (just) access points into the interesting lives of the famous people we want to know more about. They have a greater power, and a greater relevance, and some of that is being lost at Hay right now.
Don’t get me wrong – I loved the festival. I saw Quentin Blake live, and he drew the Enormous Crocodile, and I’m really never going to deny that I got a lot out of that. But I think there’s room for a deeper kind of public engagement here, and I think that at the moment there’s still lots to be said for popping back to Hay when the festival isn’t in season and poking around the many fabulous bookshops by yourself.
Will Tattersdill
Interesting issue you raise there, my friend! I was at a debate (or what turned into one) at Tate Modern the other day with a lady who works there who talked about her job and certain ‘targets’ she had to reach to make things accessible and, interestingly, how she has to dumb certain things down – though she didn’t use that word – so that a public can understand. I’m particularly thinking about the displays all around that show the ‘progression’ of art from Dada to Surrealism et cetera.
The majority of students criticised her for this ‘target’ approach and this pandering to the ignorant but if these ‘targets’ weren’t there and things were presented as the unintelligible mass of unsorted information they actually are, there would be no – or little guided – reflexivity for the gallery and scum like me wouldn’t be very welcome in the first place!
Could it be something similar to that pattern of behaviour happening at the event you described? If it gives some people an ‘in’, then perhaps it’s worth sacrificing some of the deeper public engagement… I don’t actually agree completely with what I’ve just said… but I’m just thinking aloud (well, on paper [well, on screen])!
Paul,
Thanks for this. I hope I haven’t come across as being *too* elitist – I was actually trying to kind of make the opposite point, because I don’t believe that some of these ‘deeper’ issues you speak of *are* incommunicable, and I think the decision not to try (not that I’m suggesting there’s been a conscious decision) is unfortunate.
I suppose what I’m really commenting on is the encroachment of celebrity gloss onto literary culture. I’m not saying this is a bad thing – on the contrary, it’s been an important part of how books work since at least the nineteenth century – but the negatively-conceived Guardian-reader (or Tate Modern visitor) is ammunition for people who want to argue that literary (or artistic) culture is pretentious, irrelevant, self-congratulating, useless, or whatever else.
However unfair these stereotypes may or may not be (I saw several very unfortunate examples during my time at Hay), they have real consequences when people think about things like funding orchestras and theatres. That’s what I mean when I say ‘public engagement’, really – I think that for all its increasing breadth Hay is still missing an opportunity to reach out and show people that reading books can be about more than having the customised deckchair.
And like you, I’m far from advanced in my views – this was really only a Hay afterthought, and I’m happy to be dissuaded…
Oh no no – I wan’t accusing you of being elitist! Simply thinking aloud and meaning nothing of any real consequence! However, I will say something else of no consequence, too!
You know, I once read an Arts Council Report from 1966 that insisted that orchestras were a PUBLIC SERVICE and, on those grounds, should be funded. Oh, how the language of such discourse has changed!
Also, I think the London Philharmonic have a wonderful public engagement strategy. Actually, I think their whole strategy probably has some rather gaping holes in it, but one aspect is great! If you work in an office, you can actually book a quartet or something to come and play for your workers at lunch time! Great! If I owned a company, I’d definitely do that once in a while!!!
Dear Will,
I noticed some of the Hay Festival coverage in the Guardian and was interested to see that it seemed as though quite a few politicians were quoted from there – I guess they must have been promoting books but that was certainly less important in the media coverage of what they had to say. I’ve only been once but did get to hear John Pilger speak, which was brilliant. It was good to meet the man behind the book but I totally agree that sometimes it seems as though this is more important than the book itself.
I don’t think that festivals and book events need to be like this though. The Manchester Literature Festival is excellent for events where, even if the author is there, the kinds of questions asked concern the text itself, or themes in their writing, or the act of composition. Hay is more of a celebrity styled event I think; perhaps more interesting things are going on in smaller, less famous events.
Sharon