Not long ago I was invited to a librarians’ event by a lady who cheerfully told me, “We like to think of ourselves as information providers.” I was appalled by this want of ambition; I made my excuses and didn’t go. After all, if you have a choice, why not call yourselves Shining Acolytes of the Sacred Flame of Literacy in a Dark and Encroaching Universe? I admit this is hard to put on a button, so why not abbreviate it to: librarians?
As I am sure some of you know, I boast of the fact that for a couple of years I was a volunteer librarian, working weekends for no more reward than a cup of tea, a sweet biscuit, and a blind eye to the enormous number of books that I was taking home.
It seemed to me, even in those days, that librarians and their ilk were not mere “providers.” Information sleets down on us like confetti; we are knee deep in the stuff.
But I saw my fellow librarians as subtle guides and givers of context, a view which must have taken root when, one day, one of them pushed across the counter three books bound together with string. He said, “We think you might like this.” It was The Lord of the Rings. Now that’s what I call real librarianship.
Postscript: Nation has done the rounds of Hollywood, but apparently is not of interest because it does not leave enough room for hilarious, wisecracking animals. We must be grateful for small mercies.
WATCHING NATION
Daily Telegraph, 16 December 2009
Stage adaptations go wrong when someone thinks they know better than the author—it’s as simple as that. Otherwise, it generally works. Last year, locally, a small company put on Going Postal. They were amateurs, but bloody good and far more professional than the professionals. They got it exactly right, including the music. So I think I’ll stick to amdram—I can beat them up if they get it wrong. But I don’t need to because generally they get it right.
Last Wednesday I went to the National Theatre to see the play Nation, based on my book, which by a happy coincidence was also called Nation. It is, I think, the best book that I have ever written or will write; it is certainly the one that took most effort.
(In short, Nation is set in an alternate nineteenth century, where a tsunami of Krakatoan proportions lays waste the oceans and leaves a native boy, Mau, alone on a devastated island with Daphne, a prim mid-Victorian girl marooned by the same wave. Their shy and difficult relationship becomes the centre of their drive to save the storm-washed refugees who reach the island, in the course of which they have to fight off attackers of all kinds to find the secret hidden in the island’s traditions, that almost literally turns the world upside down.)
That is just an aside; what is important right now is that when the play opened to the press two weeks ago, it got rather more kicks than plaudits. There was praise for the staging, but the play on the whole got such epithets as “racist,” “politically correct” and “fascist,” although to be fair, I think that whoever said that was probably confused.
All this for the play of a book which was universally well received last year and this year won the Printz Medal, given by the American Librarians Association and the highest U.S. award for young adult literature that it is possible for a British author to win! I know some of those librarians. They are tough cookies. Racism, fascism, and overt PC wouldn’t stand a chance.
I was so depressed that fellow authors rallied round as a kind of small support group to say “Don’t take any notice of the critics” and to remind me that the author doesn’t get blamed.
I hadn’t seen the play in the previews. The people at the National said they didn’t want me to see them until the play had been sufficiently tuned. They also made it abundantly clear that I had no say in the production.
The reason for this, apparently, is that “writing a play is different from writing a book.” This is true: it’s different, and is, I suggest, easier. The playwright has got sound, light, movement and music—and a lot of staff—as part of their palette; the book author has one lousy alphabet. And we don’t get previews to help us tighten the work; we give it our best shot, press the send key, and pray.
Quite a large number of spies at the various incarnations fed me back dispatches from the front: it doesn’t flow, difficult to follow, confusing even if you know the book, too much dance, “a curate’s egg,” not enough explanation, not enough explanation, not enough explanation (I put that one in three times because it kept appearing), actors working hard, but it never had a chance to engage. No one was telling me they didn’t like it; they were telling me that liking it took an effort. Mysteriously, they reported that nevertheless it was getting rapturous applause.