London

Search London

Edinburgh Book Festival
By Rachel Halliburton

Posted: Tue Aug 15 2006
Rachel Halliburton is imbued with calm at the Edinburgh International Book Festival
There inevitably comes a point at the Edinburgh Fringe festival when you want to flee flee flee for the hills, and if anybody gets in your way, you will turn them into haggis. For me this point has been prompted by different incidents over the years. On one occasion I was trapped with a semi-naked man in a lift, as he tried to break down the boundaries of performance, but simply induced in me a desire to buy him some deodorant. On another occasion I fulfilled a dare to go and watch nine hours - or was it nine years? - of Polish theatre, and sat there watching the minutes of my life dribble away as the surtitles shadowed the snail’s pace of the dialogue. Feature continues

Advertisement

This year, as in other years, I perversely decided to get the Fringe festival out of my system by – what else? – going to another festival. Situated at the end of George Street, in Charlotte Square, the Edinburgh International Books Festival is an islet of white-tented calm. Unlike the theatre makers, you’ll never find authors dressed in eye-catching costumes thrusting leaflets with evangelistic ardour into the hands of everyone who passes them: can you imagine Robert Winston dressed as a giant sperm to attract attention, or Charley Boorman pursuing prospective audience members on his motorbike? No – here there’s no need for such LOOK-AT-ME tactics: the names are magnets enough in themselves – every single Booker Winner (and probably even this year’s when the announcement comes) has spoken here, and the vast 2006 line-up includes figures as diverse as Alexei Sayle, AC Grayling, and Rageh Omaar.

If the Book Festival’s calm was of the complacent variety then it would no doubt induce a desire to start hurling scones and cream across the grass, but there’s always a sense that something could erupt at any moment. Like a clear blue continental sky that could suddenly be riven by thunderbolts, the festival’s serenity is always made more attractive by the potential for explosions. In 2001 I saw Gore Vidal give the talk where he controversially described the Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh as a ‘Kipling hero’ who was innocent of the bombing, but making a stand for all the right reasons against the FBI. This year has seen female members of an audience turn on the novelist Irvine Welsh for apparently misogynist passages in his latest book ‘The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs’ where he describes a man in his 20s having sex with an old white witch.

So who knows what dramas will animate the remainder of the festival? Might PD James be seen in a mud-slinging contest with Antonia Frasier? Will Alain de Boton engage in a bit of arm-wrestling with Melvyn Bragg? Almost certainly not, but there’s little doubt that most people who go to this deceptively calm setting will emerge with some stimulating thought or memory.
Add your comment to this feature
- Bookmark
- |
- Print
- Send to a friend