In the 1950s, when J.D. Salinger wrote The Catcher in the Rye , there probably were not many literary festivals. “What really knocks me out,” he wrote, “…is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn’t happen much, though.”
We are still wishing for Margaret Atwood or Alexander McCall Smith to be our “terrific friends”, and they probably wouldn’t appreciate us calling them whenever we feel like just chatting, but at least trotting to a lit fest in town or flying to one in another city to hear them speak is easier on the pocket than going all the way to Canada or the U.K. The good thing about this age of information is that bookworms have been brought closer to their favourite writers. No longer are many authors elusive, unless their name is Elena Ferrante. No longer do we have to wonder how they came up with brilliant works. We don’t just have to imagine their persona through their writing but can see them in flesh and blood at lit fests: shy or confident, gregarious or cold, as readers or as performers. And when writers speak to us about the art of writing, the state of literature, and the craft of storytelling, it’s an exciting time away from the monotony of everyday life.
Enabling discovery
This age has also brought with it the problem of book discovery. Good old bookstores sadly seem to be shutting shop everywhere, so much so that one is compelled to think long and hard when asked where the bookstores in the city are (“there was one there but it’s a restaurant now”). They are forced to close down, with rental increasing and sales dipping. Flipkart and Amazon are hugely popular, but algorithms don’t give you the browsing experience, and limit your choice. The only excitement is when the retail delivery guy rings your doorbell and hands over that brown tightly packed cello taped parcel. There are friends, family, colleagues and social media to give recommendations, but there are only that many people whose choices we trust. Books mentioned in your favourite authors’ interviews are sometimes a great way of knowing who they are reading. But not all interviews contain such revelations. Book reviews don’t help much either. Only a tiny fraction of new titles are reviewed; the rest simply get buried in the mountains of books that sit on editors’ desks around the world.
It may appear paradoxical then that at a time when bookstores are disappearing, lit fests are mushrooming. Every major city in the country has a signature gathering, each giving us the opportunity of discovering new books and authors. But there are too many these days and they are not always about literature, people grumble. Political memoirs, fiction, graphic novels and cookbooks are all discussed in the same breath. But why not call a book a book — each caters to one’s own tastes and preferences and there is enough variety to fill the public’s appetite. The more lit fests there are, the more the number of books on bookshelves, after all. Well, at least that’s the hope.
Talking it out
Plus, lit fests in India serve another purpose. They are more than just the sum of the authors that attend them. They provide a platform for readers to debate and disagree about issues; literature isn’t divorced from society. Given that everyone is on edge these days when anything remotely politically incorrect is brought up, controversy is a natural outcome of such discussion. And so we have Vikram Sampath stirring a hornet’s nest by daring to voice his opinion on writers returning awards, or Ashis Nandy finding himself in trouble for making a statement on caste and corruption. But shut the intolerant ones up and you still have people sitting in sultry tents or air-conditioned auditoriums, waiting to listen to people speak. Discovery, disappointment, excitement, socialisation, gossip — they are all part of the package.
Unlike dancers or musicians who we see on stage, authors are intangible, mysterious. Reading a book tells us nothing about the author really. We can only assume: Wodehouse must have been fun, Rowling is surely a wizard. Nor do we know who else loves the book or hates it and why. To come face-to-face with the writers can therefore be startling, and meeting the community of book lovers reassuring. In a world where social media alienates more than connects, these communities create more of a sense of belonging. For all the hate that lit fests get sometimes (too little literature, too much star-gazing, too snooty a crowd, too random a schedule, too repetitive the authors), they simply don’t get enough credit for creating a literary space, especially at a time when we often hear this refrain from young parents: “Our kids just don’t read anymore.”
radhika.s@thehindu.co.in
