Christ Church College, Sun March 29th - Sun April 5th 2009

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Isabelle Kaufmann April 5, 2009

The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work
Alain de Botton
Sat 4th April

How many love songs do you know? And now how many songs about work? Not many probably. Considering how central work is to our lives and identities, it is odd that it is so underrepresented in music, art and literature.

In his new book The pleasures and sorrows of work Alain de Botton attempts to address this by taking a closer look at the way we earn our livings, inspired partly by his 4-year old son's book 'What do people do all day?' - de Botton liked it so much that he wanted to write a version for adults.

Curious to find out what people do at work de Botton spent two years shadowing biscuit factory workers, City accountants, career counsellors and even professional artists. What were they really doing? What were their motivations? Did they feel fulfilled by their job, or frustrated? Did they live up to the 20th century ambition to combine work with pleasure, rather than just see it as a simple necessity? During the research for his book, de Botton's own career crisis was rumbling away, leading him to question the value of his own work and leaving him wondering whether baking bread wouldn't be a more meaningful occupation.

De Botton delivered his talk with breakneck eloquence, colouring his eclectic erudition with anecdotes and detail, switching perspective from macro to micro, and discovering the telling detail in the unlikeliest of places. He is, it has to be said, an entertaining and thought-provoking speaker. And yet you couldn't help feeling that he operated from behind a veil of irony and playfully looked at the world of work from a safe distance.

He concluded that the modern dream of merging work with pleasure and fulfilment might not have come true for most of us. Still, work was a good and important thing, he said, because it kept you busy and focused, and held at bay the big questions that might otherwise throw you off the trolley. As for de Botton himself: he has booked a baking course for July.

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Isabelle Kaufmann April 5, 2009

Mirror of the World
Julian Bell
Sat 4th April

"Like a frayed stringed hammock" - with this deliberately messy picture of horizontal, vertical, diagonal and intersecting lines, looking a bit like the Bloomsbury group's relationship tangle, the painter and author Julian Bell described the way in which art movements from all cultures and epochs interconnect.

And this was also the message of his book Mirror of the World, around which this LitFest event was based. Bell's approach to art history flies in the face of the traditional linear narrative used by influential figures like Gombrich, who have postulated a Eurocentric art highway littered with canonical milestones, leading from the cave paintings in Lascaux, via classical Greek and Roman art, through the Renaissance masters and on to contemporary New York.

The inspiration for the book came when Bell was teaching art history to a cosmopolitan class of 1st year students at a London art college. How could this mix of highly diverse cultures fit in to the narrow perspective of Western art history?

Blowing his advance from Thames and Hudson on extensive travels, Bell collected images of paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures from as many different cultures as possible. Back home in his studio he then tried to group the pictures and arrange them into series of visually interesting sequences, led more by his own visual intuition as a practising artist, than by considerations of time or place.

Bell's unlikely bedfellows include for instance an Indian erotic sculpture next to a German life-sized wooden Crucifix, a shamanistic stone sculpture from Mexico side by side to an unfinished drawing by Duerer, or a Stone age flint from Norfolk with an Ethiopian painting of 9/11.

Some of Bell's juxtapositions seem natural, others a little forced, and his aim to deconstruct the linear story of art is not entirely new. Yet, it was interesting to hear art history from a painter's perspective, and the message that he left us with, that there isn't one single way only to tell art, but that we all have to construct our own art histories, was in the end, if a little inconclusive, reassuringly bohemian.

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Phil Bloomfield April 5, 2009

A Poet’s Guide to Britain
Preview screening introduced by Owen Sheers
Sat 4th April

A Poet’s Guide to Britain is a new series for BBC Four’s Poetry Season, due to be screened this coming May. This preview screening was introduced by poet Owen Sheers, who has chosen six particularly powerful works, each one having influenced significantly the way that we think about our landscape.

Sheers started off by saying a little about how the series was conceived and how he had chosen the poems featured, with the help of his producer, Rupert Edwards (“the poetry-head”). Then he spoke in more detail about the first poem, Composed on Westminster Bridge, the famous sonnet by William Wordsworth, giving interesting background about just what was happening to WW about the early morning that he rode across the bridge in his carriage in 1802. It turns out that he was with his sister Dorothy en route to France to see his mistress and their 9 year old illegitimate daughter, to seek permission to marry his new love, whom he had left behind in the Lakes.

After this revelation, we watched the programme, which was beautifully shot and interestingly written, and which included a reading of the sonnet line by line by members of the public and also some modern poetry reflecting the themes of Wordsworth. Finally, Sheers and Edwards ran a good double-act for the Q and A, with some style.

These six programmes will be well-worth looking out for in the schedules, as indeed will the whole poetry season, which will run on a huge scale across BBC2 and 4, Radio 3 and 4, and on-line.

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Phil Bloomfield April 5, 2009

Ten Zen Questions
Susan Blackmore
Fri 3rd April

Susan Blackmore, a multi-talented psychologist with a shock of multi-coloured hair, started her talk by asking members of the audience, “Are you conscious?” When they answered, with whatever they said, she followed up with, “How can you tell?” and “What were you conscious of, just then?” She spent the next hour discussing the nature of consciousness and relating it not only to scientific research and the history of the study of consciousness, but to her own 30 year personal practice of Zen meditation. She tried out interesting experiments with the audience on visual illusion and attention in making her points stick. Only a few of us saw the gorilla in the room (you had to be there).

The questions she asked at the beginning are some of the Ten Zen Questions in her book. She admitted that she has many more than ten, but as that figure rhymed with Zen, that’s where she stopped. She described Zen training as brain training, and quoted extensively from the book, using passages where she interestingly described just what it is like to meditate, which she does every day in her shed with her cat.

At the end lots of questions came bubbling out from the packed audience, who had been enthused by Susan’s brilliant talk. I am sure we would have all enjoyed another hour with her.

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Phil Bloomfield April 5, 2009

The Future of Education in England
Mary Warnock, Malcolm Gillies, Guy Claxton
Fri 3rd April

This session was a debate on the major questions being raised at every level in our educational system. It was chaired by Jenny Cuffe, a BBC journalist, who introduced the speakers. Each then spoke briefly before opening out the discussion to questions.

Claxton, a Professor of Learning Sciences, made a plea for a new look at what education is all about, claiming that we currently confuse the regurgitation of facts with the true purpose of learning. He thinks we should aim to make students “confident finder-outers”, by using the many techniques he outlines in his superb book, What’s the Point of School?.

Warnock, probably best known for her report on Special Educational Needs, claimed that schools are letting young people down, as we are as a nation falling behind in scholarship. She said that universities were being increasingly asked to do what schools used to do before A Levels were dumbed down. She repeated her earlier suggestions that examinations should not be linked to chronological age, and that school classes should routinely include adult learners.

Finally, we had Gillies, the Vice-Chancellor of City University, who started off by neatly deconstructing the title. He spoke eloquently on “Education for Life” and “Education with Work”, taking a global context, rather than a narrow English perspective. Being an Aussie probably helped him there. Both Gillies and Warnock emphasised the crucial role of Further Education, which is in many ways the Cinderella of the system, as it remains seriously under funded.

We had a lot of questions from an audience passionate about education, many of whom were retired teachers, continuing to give voluntary support in schools, and there were several trainee teachers there too. The speakers’ answers and consequent discussion finished off what was a fascinating and illuminating session.

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Helen Ward April 5, 2009

The Book is Dead: Long Live the Book
Lucy Atkins,  Brian Appleyard, Chris Meade and Kate Pullinger
Fri 3rd April

“Of making many books there is no end” (Eccl. 12:12, AV) – or is there? This was the question posed by Lucy Atkins of the The Sunday Times to fellow journalist Brian Appleyard, Chris Meade of if:book and Kate Pullinger, author of the multimedia graphic novel inanimatealice .

As well as her web novel, Kate Pullinger has been involved in a number of on-line creative writing projects, including A Million Penguins , which tested out the theory of The Wisdom of Crowds in the context of writing a novel – 1 novel, 80,000 authors …

Chris Meade is clearly passionate about encouraging a love of reading amongst as wide a spectrum of people of possible and one of his projects, (Bookstart), is designed to encourage a love of books in children as young as, well, 0. And this highlights some of the questions that weren’t really answered by the panel. Are a love of books and a love of reading the same thing? When we talk about books, do we really mean novels or should we, as a member of the audience asked, include cookery books and DIY manuals?

This was a disappointingly unfocussed discussion which ranged from the evils of the book business and the future of newspapers to the decline of bookshops (hardly a problem for Oxford audiences). Interestingly, no one mentioned the world’s favourite bookstore, Amazon.

So is it curtains for books? The panel thought that the future probably lay with different kinds of readers, but that the enduring value of books is to give a cultural context which equips people for the internet. Printing began by replicating the work of scribes and photography by imitating painting. At the moment, writers are using the web to do the same things differently: the trick is to do different things.

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Phil Bloomfield April 2, 2009

The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius
Graham Farmelo interviewed by John Carey
Thu 2nd April

In this Lit Fest session, author Graham Farmelo was interviewed about his book, The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac. John Carey, The Sunday Times Chief Critic, was the man asking the pertinent questions.

Dirac was an outstanding physicist and mathematician, a pioneer of quantum mechanics, and the youngest theoretician ever to win a Nobel Prize (in 1933). Farmelo brought together his own specialist knowledge of Physics, his skill as a writer and a considerable amount of psychological insight in writing this first-ever biography of a man regarded by many as an equal to Einstein, for his contributions to our understanding of the Universe. Although undoubtedly a bright man, Dirac was also withdrawn and silent, and he was very difficult to draw out in conversation. Indeed he appears to have been psychologically somewhere on the autistic spectrum.

Farmelo drew heavily from previously undiscovered family papers and copious interviews with surviving relatives, friends and experts in several fields of science in writing his book. Carey conducted the session competently, taking to his role as an intelligent non-specialist in drawing out the various points he wanted Farmelo to make, and the latter responded with many fascinating anecdotes about his subject. The audience, including several physicists and engineers that I recognised, were very interested, although some were disappointed that there was so little time left for questions at the end. There was, nevertheless, a sizeable queue at the book signing.

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Isabelle Kaufmann April 2, 2009

Science and History in Fiction
Rebecca Abrams and Ann Lingard
Thu 2nd April

How do fiction writers research scientific facts? Do fact and fiction make conflicting claims on a novelist? How important is accuracy? These were some of the issues discussed at the event Science and History in Fiction.

The two invited speakers, Rebecca Abrams and Ann Lingard, read from their books Touching Distance and The Embalmer's Book of Recipes, both novels that tell the stories of scientists. The books' use of science however, had not much in common, raising the question whether 'Science in Fiction' is a genre of writing, or whether this was a more administrative categorization - a point also raised by Jim Bennett, Director of the Museum of History of Science and Chair of the event.

Abrams' book is based on the real story of the 18th century Scottish doctor Alec Gordon and his attempts to find the cause for the mysterious deadly epidemic that spread among woman in Aberdeen in the winter of 1789. Lingard, on the other hand, intertwines the life stories of three contemporary women, a taxidermist, a mathematician of genetically determined short stature, and a sheep farmer who lost her stock due to foot-and-mouth disease.

Despite the lack of commonality between their books, the two authors had similar opinions on many points concerning science in fiction. Both considered factual accuracy to be essential and described how they thoroughly researched their stories, travelled to locations, talked to scientists and read 18th century medical protocols. But they also agreed that fiction books should not be didactic and that the science should be woven into a compelling and engaging story that deals, at its heart, with human beings.

Both also commented that the science in their novels works at both a literal and a metaphorical level, and that they way their characters look at science says something about the way they see themselves. In Touching Distance for instance, Alec Gordon not only dissects the bodies of his patients, but also dissects himself and his relationship to his wife. And the taxidermist in The Embalmer's Book of Recipes not only wants to preserve dead squirrels, but really also her memories.

As it is often the case with such events, one hour was not enough to answer all the questions and to have in depth discussions. Overall however, Science and History in Fiction was a stimulating and entertaining event. Abrams' deliciously gruesome extract from her book in particular, describing in great detail how Gordon and his assistants dissect a corpse using 18th century tools, commenting on the bloated intestines and inflamed lungs, the horrible smell, the yellow fluids and gushes of dark liquids coming out of the deformed organs, made me want to go out and read that book straight away – the more accurate, the better.

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Kathryn April 1, 2009

World War Two: Behind Closed Doors
Laurance Rees
Tue 1st April

History – “It’s so in the past”. This was the reaction of a Sixth Former when Laurence Rees gave a talk at a school. Does it matter? Rees believes passionately that it does: our ability to remember the past is one of the few things that distinguishes us from primates and he is shocked that England is one of only two European countries to allow children to give up the study of history at the age of 13.

Laurence Rees is an award-winning maker of historical documentaries and his latest book, Behind Closed Doors, was also a fascinating documentary, shown last year, on the secret machinations that went on between Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt during the Second World War. There is a statue in London depicting ‘two old men talking’: these men are Churchill and Roosevelt and this is the common perception of the Second World War here, that Britain with America won the war. However, there is another old man missing from this statue. 400,000 British soldiers died in WWII – and 27 million Russians, so why is Stalin not on that bench? Simply, Rees says, because he was one of the most loathsome people who ever lived and there is embarrassment that we made pacts and deals with him. Rees describes him as an aggressive listener who created a culture of threats and fear; he had no qualms about killing for the sake of his ambitions. The sad truth is that if you fight an evil man with an evil man, you cannot help but compromise yourself.

Britain did not protect Poland, the ostensible reason for going to war in 1939 (despite the fact that so many Poles fought for Britain in the war) and Poland was carved up after the war. However, the Russians too, felt that they were betrayed; that millions of Russian soldiers were cynically allowed to die instead of British and American soldiers as the Second Front, promised by Roosevelt for 1942, was delayed again and again. The seeds for the cold war were sown in this period.

Rees has built up a wonderful picture of the period through meticulous research and hundreds of interviews with survivors from this period and, although the stories are often harrowing, he is constantly amazed at the strength of character that so often shines through.

We are what our history makes us and we should never forget this.

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Russell Thompson April 1, 2009

Ronald Harwood
in conversation with Maggie Fergusson
Tue 1st April

Ronald Harwood was an award-winning playwright before his recent successes as a screenwriter. His adaptation of The Pianist won and Oscar, and he was nominated last year for another after his adaptation of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. A contemporary of Harold Pinter and Simon Gray, he seems busier than ever, prolific in cinema, and remaining active in theatre too. In front of a mix of people – film buffs, theatre-goers, and those interested in European history – he spoke about his childhood in South Africa and how he ended up in London to study drama.

Harwood is engaging, and is easy company as he talks about the best and worst moments of his career, including the vitriolic and personal reviews he received for Mahler’s Conversion, but also the highs of working with Roman Polanski and finding himself being better paid and more in demand than ever. He spoke about his interest in European Jewish history especially, which he has revisited on stage often, especially in relation to the Second World War.

With Pinter and Gray recently deceased, it is right to treasure this great writer, who will have a new play open in the West End next month. Harwood spoke about a photograph of himself with Pinter and Gray, which he commented on to his wife: “Two down, one to go.” But hopefully not for a long time yet.

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Kathryn March 31, 2009

Black Orchids
Gillian Slovo
Tue 31st March

Gillian Slovo is a novelist living and working in London, but she is also the daughter of Joe Slovo and Ruth First, both political activists who had to flee South Africa in 1963. Ruth First was killed by a letter bomb in 1982 but Joe Slovo lived to return to South Africa and be part of Mandela’s government briefly before he died.

Gillian Slovo’s first books were crime novels but she has since turned to more general fiction and her books have been set in a variety of places such as South Africa (Red Dust) and Leningrad (Ice Road). In her latest book however, Black Orchids, she wanted to build on her memories of coming to London as a teenager and being a foreigner in London. What is it that makes you feel you belong? She talked about landscapes, geographical but also mental. When she arrived in this country, having had to leave South Africa suddenly, she wanted to have nothing to do with South Africa and tried to lose her South African accent. What was harder, though, was getting used to the light – what she called the soft muted gentle light of England after the bright hot open skies of Africa. She can still remember a misty day in Hampstead when she suddenly found she could appreciate the gentleness.

Black Orchids is about this search for belonging. However, she didn’t want to write an autobiographical novel so, remembering a flamboyant Sri Lankan from her childhood, she researched and then wrote a book about an ‘English’ woman in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) who, although brought up in Sri Lanka, considers England as home. She marries a wealthy Sinhalese man and they go to England with their beloved son and the book tells of their journey through a suspicious and prejudiced England.

Gillian Slovo’s talk had a lot of resonances for me and the passage she read shows that she is able to capture the mood of the place and the period about which she is writing.

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Jen Pawsey March 31, 2009

From Heart or Head
Donna Leon and Patrick Neate
Mon 30th March

Unlike at least three quarters of the audience I went to this talk because I love Patrick Neate's Twelve Bar Blues, and I'd never heard of Donna Leon. It was a good introduction to Leon's detective Brunetti, who lives and patrols the streets of Venice, like Leon herself.

The main topic was billed as an exploration of the two writers' approach to location. Leon had lived in Venice for 10 years speaking Italian before embarking on writing about it. Neate has never been to New Orleans, and his research for the city at the turn of the century consisted of finding a map in the library and reading a biography of Louis Armstrong.

Some interesting points were touched on - such as whether crime fiction needs location more than other types of fiction, but we rather whizzed over them, and during the questions from the floor devoted Brunetti fans mainly wanted to know about the recipe book and the walking guide. So what was an interesting (if slightly artificial) premise never really got off the ground, and poor Neate got a bit sidelined. In the end the authors were so different there was not enough overlap, nor enough common fans.

Having said that it was fascinating to see and hear Neate, and most certainly confirms my love of Twelve Bar Blues. It's a wide ranging book, in both time and space, and it was sad we didn't get on to the African village locations, as Neate lived and worked there for some years. I'm not the first person to be surprised he's from Putney, having expected an Afro-American. He raised interesting points about whether the story of ex-slaves and the birth of Jazz is his story or not. (Why not? said Donna Leon. Her detective's a man after all.) Fascinating too that while Neate's voice on the page captures accents, rhythms of speech and different cultural similes perfectly he can't do acents in real life!

All in all not what I expected, and really needed to go on for another couple of hours in a bar somewhere to get to the bottom of all the interesting questions that were raised, but plenty of food for thought. And after all isn't that what the Festival's for?

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Helen Ward March 30, 2009

Darwin - A Life In Poems
Ruth Padel
Mon 30th March

On Monday evening an Oxford audience was treated to a poem about bugs. Blame it on Darwin.

The Darwin in question on this occasion was Ruth Padel, prize winning poet and direct descendent of Charles Darwin, who was at the Oxford Literary Festival to read from her latest collection, Darwin – A Life in Poems. The bug was the Triatomine (South American Kissing Bug), immortalised in Giant Bugs of the Pampas for its role in infecting the great naturalist with the bacteria that probably caused his lifelong bouts of illness. Even the bacteria do not escape the poet’s scrutiny; they are, she says:
“… life-forms occult as Kabbalah or that other secret scripture DNA: …”

The aim of these poems is to explore the emotional dimension of Darwin’s life. Beginning with his boyhood and the start of his passion for collecting (vividly imagined in The Miser). the poetry follows him through his travels, his family life and his intellectual journey.

Padel reads her poetry as well as she writes it. She revels equally in striking sensory imagery - “… fish-stink, gauze covered buckets …” (Plankton) and capturing a moment of wonder in a casually strung together list of words “…Follicle, pinnacle, whorl, bole and thorn…” (Like Giving to a Blind Man Eyes).

Answering questions after the reading, Padel described her approach to writing these poems. Some, she thought, were a question of uncovering Darwin’s own poetry from his prose, in the same way that a sculptor uncovers a figure trapped in marble. Others involved getting a feel for the texture Darwin’s life, such as time spent working at Somerset House, where the young Darwin had worked during a spell as secretary to the Geological Society.

A fascinating evening and a fascinating collection of poems to complement the many Darwin biographies. Darwin – A Life in Poems will appeal to a wide audience, including many who do not normally indulge in modern poetry.

For a taste of the poems, see here.

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Phil Bloomfield March 29, 2009

Henry: Virtuous Prince
Dr David Starkey
Sunday 29th March

David Starkey got the Oxford Literary Festival off to a grand start with a tour de force lecture about the early life of Henry VIII. His talk coincided with the publication of his latest book, the first volume of a two-part life of the king, published in this year of the 500th anniversary of Henry’s accession.

Starkey is a renowned historian and educator, so it was no surprise that his talk was like one of those rare history lessons at school where you find yourself totally wrapped up in the topic and become disappointed when it has to end, and then wonder where the time went. I even forgot to feel uncomfortable. He packed it with well-researched and interesting facts, asides and touches of humour, coming across much more warmly in person that he ever does on TV. He used the classic historian’s phrase, “I have been able to show”, and he did give us many insights into the reasons behind Henry’s later decisions and behaviours.

His book is the product of five months of thinking and researching and three months of writing. (He claims to “hear voices” when writing, so that the words just flow onto the page.) This excellent talk, on the other hand, was the result of a lifetime of historical research, writing and polishing the skills of a consummate teacher.

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Kathryn March 29, 2009

The Storm
Vince Cable
Sun 29th March

The Literary Festival kicked off yesterday and one of the first speakers was Dr. Vince Cable, Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party and their Treasure spokesman. In my view he is the sanest voice to come out of the House of Commons, the man who foretold the property market crash and the banking crisis years ago in a time of plenty when nobody was listening. We are listening now.

He has written his book, The Storm, as a way of clarifying his own thoughts on the current economic climate. We are in a recession, unemployment is rising, 5 out of 10 of the major banks have collapsed, trade has ‘fallen off a cliff’ as he put it. Britain is particularly vulnerable because we are home to so many of the major banks; for instance, RBS has a turnover 1 ½ times the size of the British economy and it has collapsed. However, he made the point several times that all this is not new: from the South Sea Bubble of the 18th century, we have had boom and bust.

The talk was not all doom and gloom: he talked of the present time being the growth pangs of the new order. China, once the greatest economy in the world, is now re-emerging and, together with India and other emerging nations, it must be given more say in world financial and economic matters if it is to help with economic recovery. He believes reform of the banking system is the top priority, getting rid of the present system which rewards thoughtless risk-taking; and he warns against nationalism which is a very natural but unhealthy reaction in times of crisis. The G20 meeting this week is thus very important.

Dr. Cable talked for 40 minutes and then took 40 minutes of questions. My only criticism of the Literary Festival is that no attempts are made to curb the people in the audience who use this opportunity to air their own views rather than to ask questions.

Kate Summerscale came along to the Oxford Literary Festival to promote her absolutely astonishing debut book The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher. Unfortunately for her, the event turned into a simple rehash of the book, a kind of digest filtered through a slow and faltering Q&A between Summerscale, easily capable of a more engaging and interesting discussion, and a chair who made no effort to go beyond the banal – perhaps because he thinks that’s what we, the punters would want. If so, he’s very, very wrong.

Most of the audience were familiar with the book (and were therefore likely as bored as I). It’s an astonishing murder mystery, employing many of the tricks and tactics of typical whodunit storytelling but firmly rooted in fact. Indeed, even though Whicher reads with the page turning urgency of fiction and has the colour of an incredible novel, there isn’t a single word on its pages that isn’t 100% true. This is a very unusual form, but a powerful one. A die-hard cineaste, I think I’d like to see what cinema could make of just about any book but this one, so intricately dependent on its medium, would lose almost everything if fictionalised.

Besides the central murder mystery, Summerscale also fills her book with other parallel stories, including an early history of detective fiction and an inquiry into the origins of public passion for the detectives and detection. Dense, thrilling and complicated stuff that deserved a suitably probing and intelligent discussion. Sadly, this Lit Fest event was little more than a platform for the rehearsal of some of the best bits – dull for those who knew the book already, full of spoilers for those yet to discover it. I wonder how the author felt at the end?

Brendon Connelly 1 Apr 2009

My first event at the Times Oxford Literary festival this year was The Savage - The Art of the Graphic Novel with David Almond, author and Dave McKean, illustrator. The event name was something of a misnomer, as The Savage is hardly a graphic novel at all. Though it does use some of the language of the comic book, it uses far more the language of an illustrated novel. It seems that the notion of a graphic novel is somewhat cooler, or more topical perhaps, than that of an illustrated novel but I think this lack of distinction distracts a little from the very specific achievements of Almond and McKean in this case. The union of text and image works in a very specific way in this book, and that’s without speech bubble, caption box or too much linear juxtaposition of framed images, but more of a free and open way to embed the text where necessary in images, or the images in text. Where pictures are not required, the text lives and breathes in the white space of a typical page.

Almond, if you don’t know, made his big debut with Skellig, published in 1998 and already a tried and tested classic of kid-lit. Skellig has been adapted into a TV film to air over Easter Weekend (at least for those of you with dishes screwed onto the sides of your homes). McKean is a truly wonderful illustrator and designer, not just of children’s books – The Wolves in the Walls, say, or Coraline – but adult books both fiction and non, comic strips, posters and… well, all forms of print media, really. He also directed the feature film Mirrormask. Both David and Dave are storytellers with their own rich and specific vocabulary and their collaboration makes the best of both.

After a session of questions from the chair, the audience had their way with the Davids in a Q&A. As well as telling McKean did some showing and treated the audience to a slideshow of images from projects old and new. His upcoming books include collaborations with the chef Heston Blumenthal, who McKean has dropped into a Winsor McCay styled Little Heston in Breakfastland strip as just a fraction of a huge, densely illustrated recipe-book-come-biography; with Neil Gaiman, for the illustrated poem Crazy Hair; and once again with David Almond for Slog’s Dad. That story can actually be read online now, in an un-illustrated text-only form, and I’d recommend you do. McKean’s strategy in illustrating Slog’s Dad seems somewhat Rashomon-ical, with different styles representing different perspectives on the (deceptively) simple events detailed.

The venue for the discussion was the smaller room up front at the Town Hall, not the main ground floor room. It was perfectly intimate and comfortable and, to a large extent, acoustically sufficient. This year’s festival already has set a high standard with this event, in terms of guests, venue and smoothness of organisation. My only regret is that there were empty chairs – where are you all? Are the prices too high? Or do you simply not know what events are taking place?

Brendon Connelly 29 Mar 2009

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