Always Hope

In my paper last week (sorry, can't remember which one) there was an interview with the author Michael Frayn who says that he always avoids literary festivals, as a punter or as an author. His point was that he doesn't want to meet the people who write the books he likes, in case they turn out to be less than he hoped they might be. "Authors are so often disappointing in person" I think was the quote. It's an interesting thought. When we read a book, especially a novel, as well as entering into the created world of the book, we also create a world of our own in response. If we are impressed by the book, it's often the voice of the narrator that we warm to, and we can invest a lot of affection or respect in that imagined person. If the author, incarnated, turns out to be less than we hoped for, does this spoil the book for us? Many great authors, of course, have been less than saintly, but that is not necessarily a blow to the reader. What is more fearful is ...

I've just a finished a great book - This Thing of Darkness by Harry Thompson, his first and only novel, as he sadly died shortly after writing it. It's a fictional reconstruction of the famous voyage of the Beagle , and the relationship between Charles Darwin and the brilliant but flawed Captain of the Beagle , Robert FitzRoy. While Darwin has become a landmark in modern history, FitzRoy is hardly known, and is usually thought of as a footnote to Darwin. "Fictional" is hardly the word, though, as Thompson, drawing on meticulous research, sticks mostly to the facts of the account, proving once again that real life is often more gripping than anything an author can make up. This Thing of Darkness was well received when it was published, although not everybody liked it. Setting aside literary snobbery, the most telling criticism is that Thompson was a little ponderous in the moral messages he puts across. This is completely fair, but there is at least something refreshin...