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Bookshop Readings






I can remember the first reading I attended, a long time ago. It wasn't even in a bookshop. At the venue — some hall, some large dusty room - we filed in and took our seats. I was oddly apprehensive, and it wasn't just because of the oppressive, humid warmth of the room, the big windows hot with summer evening sun; it wasn't either the usual tense geniality disguising the edginess that arises when too many writers, or would-be writers, find themselves in the same place at the same time. No, it was something to do with the very occasion itself. This " reading" lark - it didn't feel right, it was strange and unsettling.

The author sidled self-consciously up to the lectern, then, in a monotone of surpassing dullness, he announced that, in an ideal world, he would have read the entire novel to us this evening but that tonight (nervous stirrings in the audience), for regrettable but obvious reasons of time, he would have to restrict himself to a mere three or four chapters.

We got through it: time slowed to a torpid, snail-like crawl. Subjective aeons passed before we were released to the pleasures of the buffet.

And all the while I kept saying to myself: what are we doing here? Why do we subject ourselves to this ordeal? This is not natural. It will never catch on.

How things have changed. And I admit my reservations were wrong-headed. True, the essential act of reading is still that silent, intimate encounter between writer and reader, as the text unspools in the reader's mind, but the evidence is overwhelming: I have to recognise that there are ancillary, audible.pleasures to be had also. People like to hear a writer read.

" Read" is the key word, too. I assumed readings became popular because of some sneaking curiosity about the writer, a desire to check the original out against the air-brushed, retouched, fetchingly shadowed photo on the bookjacket. To hear the voice, to see the clothes, to scrutinise the flawed and blinking face gives the reader a momentary frisson of what? Power? Reassurance? Clandestine hilarity? I could understand those motives, I thought. I know you, the

reader thinks as the author rises to his or her feet, but you don't know me.

But again, I think I'm on the wrong track. Those needs are satisfied in a second or two, so there must be other factors at stake. Sometimes, remembering my own stupefied boredom at readings, I offer to talk rather than read, assuming that some free-associating reflections on " being a writer" are bound to be more diverting, but I am invariably politely turned down. " People want to hear writers read" is the constant response.

Indeed they do, and to such an extent that we now have an ever-growing circuit, a veritable expanding tour available. Like those minor rock bands in their minibuses moving from university student union to pub to village hall, writers criss-cross the country from bookshop to bookshop, reading from their new novels, story collections, their biographies or whatever. Sometimes dashingly solo, sometimes grouped under catch-all categories (" four Liverpudlian travel writers read from their work in progress"), sometimes celebrating notional anniversaries (Best of Young British Revisited) or new imprints, on any given night in a bookshop, you will find an author or two undergoing a now familiar rite.

The diffident arrival, then the calming drink. Then all those strangers waiting to listen to your voice. Then the relief of the question-and-answer session, the grateful signing of bought copies.

Writers now reminisce and anecdotalise like members of touring theatre companies, swopping information on the good and bad gigs, speculating on the generosity of this manager as opposed to the parsimony of that. Without really being aware of it, we have witnessed a small revolution taking place. The performance side of a writer's life — which 10 years ago was almost non-existent - now dominates the publication of a book to a remarkable degree. Perhaps there is an atavistic undercurrent to the encounter between reader and writer. After all, it was the storyteller who used to hunker down around the campfire with the other members of the tribe and who had to tell a tale that would fascinate and enthral for an hour or so. Today, canape in trembling hand,

microphone at the ready, the writer is fulfilling a similar role - as well as trying to flog as many books as possible. If it goes wrong, all sorts of uncertainties intrude, and never has the lonely security of the ivory tower seemed more appealing. And when it goes well, other more heady temptations accumulate. The reading is a kind of test, and perhaps here is the key to its sly addiction.

The public encounter forcibly reminds us of our origins as story tellers and of the responsibilities — to intrigue, to beguile, to entertain - that the role demands. Here the currency that underpins the tacit contract between writer and reader is on open display, and in front of an audience its quality - or otherwise - can all too easily be discerned.

 

1 How did William Boyd feel about the first reading he attended?

A It was a waste of money.

B The audience was too big.

C The audience could not understand the work being read.

D Such events would not become widely popular.

 

2 Why does he believe people go to readings?

A They want the opportunity to meet someone well-known.

B It gives them a feeling of superiority.

C It's more fulfilling than reading for oneself.

D They enjoy hearing the words in the author's own voice.

 

3 How has the significance of readings altered in recent years?

A They have become an important part of the publishing scene.

B There are now too many of them.

C They have become too much like other forms of entertainment.

D They are a useful way for authors to get together.

 

4 How does the modem author at a reading differ from traditional storytellers?

A He is more likely to be nervous.

B There is competition from other forms of entertainment.

C He has a commercial purpose for what he is doing.

D His audience is more critical.

 

5 What makes writers continue to give readings?

A Writing is a lonely profession.

B It's a good way to assess one's work.

C It pays well.

D They enjoy meeting their fans.

 

Ex 4


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