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Can, able and willing to write
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Jeffrey Archer, who was on a two-day Indian trip exclusively to Hyderabad tells SUMANASPATI REDDYthat he’s a ‘story teller, not a writer’
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Photo:Mohammed Yousuf
Making a point Lord Jeffrey Archer during his visit to Hyderabad
“We put them there because we can’t figure out why they’re successful!”
This is from a cartoon in which the manager of a bookshop is explaining why they have displayed the books of Jeffrey Archer, Dan Brown and J.K. Rowling under the label ‘Mystery’!
Figures balk at you even before you confront Jeffrey Archer: 250 million copies sold, Kane and Abel alone 34 million. Sixteen of his books have been on the No.1 spot globally for weeks.
God-given gift
“I am a story teller, not a writer,” is how he loves to describe himself. Okay, but in what sense is story telling different from writing a story? “You can learn writing. But story telling is a God-given gift!” Period.
And now the Daily Telegraph comes out and says, ‘If the Nobel Prize were awarded for storytelling Jeffrey Archer could go collect his prize.’ Or the Washington Post saying, ‘Somerset Maugham never penned anything as good as this. Kane and Abel is a modern classic’.
It hasn’t been easy though for Jeffrey. “This kind of recognition has taken thirty years to come.”
The new Kane and Abel is a very different kind of book. “But with no change whatsoever in the plot. It took nine months, about 500 hours of intense work. It was just that I hadn’t read it for thirty years. And I am a better writer now basically! So I just started. It took over. I added 25,000 new words but in the end it is 7000 words shorter. If you were to compare chapter 27 with the same chapter in the previous editions, you will see the difference.” Check out.
Of late, Archer has been visiting India quite frequently. “I discovered it ten years ago that India has read everything of my books. I have more readers here now than in America”. The experience has been overwhelming. “The first time I had a signing tour last year (for Paths of Glory), and I am not exaggerating I burst into tears. I had to turn away from the audience. I couldn’t believe so many people... were in the streets… were trying to get into the building, in Delhi and Chennai … you don’t think that’s an honour… a privilege?” His voice chokes.
How does one make a saga, like in Kane and Abel so appealing, what’s the trick? “You must love the characters. If by page 40 you don’t give it to your readers, you are finished. They must want to know what is going to happen to Kane, to Abel, to his daughter, son — if they don’t care about the daughter throw the book away.”
And he recites the opening sentences of Kane and Abel, “ ‘She only stopped screaming when she died. It was then that he started to scream.’ You got to get them there. O my God!”
Jeffrey also used the promotion for Kane and Abel in Hyderabad to push his next book, a collection of short stories coming out in May 2010, which features a love story cutting across caste and based in Mumbai and to announce his planned five part magnum opus (“the biggest thing I’ve ever done in my life”), The Clifton Chronicles spanning a century from 1920 to 2020.
Jeffrey’s strong women
Mary Archer
Florentyna Rosnovski, the charming yet steely ambitious daughter of Abel Rosnovski has charmed millions of Archer’s readers. She figures in three novels (the trilogy): Kane and Abel (1980), The Prodigal Daughter (1982) and the reworked Shall We Tell the President?(1999) (The original version of 1977 had Edward Kennedy as the president.)
A decade later, Hillary Clinton could not achieve what he had prefigured. Jeffrey’s mock reaction: “Disgraceful! Mind you, it was very close. If Mrs Clinton had beaten Barak Obama, she would have also won the presidency.”
The inspiration: “Lot of my wife in there. I guess my very strong women come from having lived with a very strong woman for 40 years.”
Mary Archer has stood by Jeffrey through the rise and falls of his political career and the numerous gaffes, controversies and scandals that dogged him. She is reported to have once said, “Jeffrey has a gift for inaccurate precis!”
Originally a scientist specialising in solar power, Mary is at present the Chairman of Cambridge Universitys Hospital. She has repeatedly broken the glass ceiling for women in her professional career.
The character of Florentyna has also been inspired by the successes of Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi (“You have reason to be proud about it”) and Margaret Thatcher.
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