Hay Festival 2006

[dotinthesky]

Hay-on-Wye

I met one of my idols this weekend: Margaret Atwood. It was on Saturday, after a rainy day spent wandering around Hay-on-Wye's many bookstores and watching lectures with writers of varying degrees of fame. Atwood read from her latest book, "The Penelopiad", to an audience of several hundred people. It was impressive how she entered the stage with a smile on her face, immediately joked with the audience and launched into her book without any signs of nervousness or embarrassment. Afterwards, Ms Muffin and I waited for about 20 minutes to get our books signed. I had plans to say a few things to her ("I love your work", etc.) but was dumbstruck by her calm and gentle manner as I approached the table. I barely managed a "thank you".

In contrast to Atwood's talk, Zadie Smith's introduction of George Saunders was a shaky affair, though she quickly made up for her nervousness by asking him very articulate and smart questions. None of us (Kevin, Mr & Ms Muffin) had ever heard of Saunders, but we were sufficiently impressed to leave the tent and roam the little village's bookstores in search of a book of his. We had no luck. We also participated in a "Writer's Question Time", where discussion on writing didn't go past the most obvious questions such as "If I want to be a writer, what do I have to do?" And yesterday, with the sun finally shining down on the Welsh countryside, we sat through a hilarious talk with AA Giles about the English being the most repressed and angry people on the planet (I know a few people who should read his book.) Soon afterwards, we hit the road and arrived in London at 7pm.

What kind of people go to a literary festival? All kinds of people! It's a big family affair, with grandparents buying ice creams for their grandchildren, young couples carrying piles of books, and all types of adults who either love books or survive off them participating in the events. Hay-on-Wye was a very pretty village; we ate some burgers in the castle's courtyard on Saturday and I got to take photos of performance artists dressed in suits, carrying piles of books on their heads. We highly recommed the hotel we stayed in, The Baskerville Arms, and we've already made plans to visit the festival again next year (this time hoping to stay longer and see more talks.)

Comments

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

Haha! Is your mom a Rufus fan too? I guess she must be if she was able to recognize him.

You know, while I was sitting in the audience, I tried to imagine what it would be like if I were up there, having to speak to so many people... and it frightened me! I'm quite shy, so it would really have to be a situation where I was sure of what I'd written to face such a literate crowd. On the other hand, everyone seemed so friendly and laid back that I got the impression you can pretty much get away with murder on stage as long as you are self-deprecating.

As for Atwood, I highly recommend The Blind Assassin. It's the kind of novel where you begin to believe the characters are alive somewhere in the world, to remember their sense of humour, and to even cry in the tube... I also enjoyed Oryx and Crake though it's very different from her other work, and I hear every woman on the planet should read The Robber's Bride just because the main character is the kind of evil bitch that every woman encountered once in their life.

Oh, and she writes great essays and poetry too. :-)