Going to the literary festival at Hay-on-Wye is a bit like going back to
university. While sitting through back-to-back lectures, there is a strong
temptation to cut a class or two, especially when the weather is glorious.
Situated on the River Wye on the border of Wales and England, the small town of
Hay is a lovely place to locate a festival. Housing 40 second-hand bookshops,
Hay has more books per head than anywhere else. I have found many treasures
here, and whenever I could, I made a beeline for one of the many book dealers.
However, this time the organizers pitched the festival tents half a mile away
from town, so it wasn’t easy to come and go, given the congested parking space
and the distance.
I have been going to the festival for well over a decade, and must have attended
seven or eight of the annual literary functions. Each time, the event has been
larger, better organised and more crowded. Tickets are sold out for major events
weeks earlier, and all the local hotels, pubs and bed-and-breakfast places are
booked solid for the fortnight of the festival at the end of May. Sky TV covered
it daily, and the Guardian had reporters writing several stories for its pages
as it was the main sponsor.
The wide range of speakers at the festival gives the public a big choice. From
nine in the morning till late in the evening, there are events in five lecture
areas, so you can pick and choose. This year, the star attraction was Desmond
Tutu, the iconic South African cleric who was at the forefront of the
anti-apartheid movement. His talk was completely sold out, and as he spoke at a
venue with 1,300 seats at fifty quid each, this is saying something. We didn’t
mind shelling out this kind of money as it was going to charity, but in the end,
it was well worth it.
Tutu spoke movingly, but with an unexpected humour and wit. Talking about his
work on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up by Nelson Mandela, he
emphasised the cross-denominational nature of the body. Muslim, Jewish and
Christian clerics served on the body, and worked closely together to end the
bitterness that had marked the long struggle. Modestly, Tutu asked: “How could
we fail when we had a giant like Nelson Mandela to inspire us?” He brought tears
to our eyes with his vivid description of the suffering of the people of Gaza.
He had gone as part of a UN team to enquire into an Israeli atrocity, and was
convinced that the world would remain a dangerous place until the Middle East
problem was resolved to the satisfaction of the Palestinians.
Chris Patten, one-time Governor of Hong Kong and now Chancellor of Oxford
University, spoke about what we could expect in the 21st century. Migration,
food and water shortages as well as technological advances featured in his
vision of the future. Slotting in with this was Martin Jacques’ forecast about
China’s rapid rise in this century. According to projections made before the
present credit crunch, China’s economy would equal the United States’ by 2026,
and double it by 2050. At this point the Indian economy would equal that of the
US. Jacques spoke about the political and cultural implications of this shift,
and advised his audience to get used to a world in which Western values were no
longer the dominant ones.
One of England’s best-loved playwrights is Alan Bennet whose play History Boys
has been hugely popular, and has recently been turned into a film. Last month, I
saw a revival of one of his earlier plays, Enjoy. Despite its static setting and
its unpromising plot, it is a riveting story about old age and change. At Hay,
Bennet read from his diaries to show how they provided him with ideas for his
plots and dialogue.
Stefan Collini, professor of intellectual history at Cambridge, gave a
fascinating account of the current state of reading, writing and publishing.
Contrary to popular perception, he asserted that far from declining, more people
now read than ever before. Although newspaper circulation might be declining in
the West, many young people now received their news on their computers and
cellphones. Reading might be more segmented now, but the numbers did not show
any overall fall. Kamila Shamsie, Pakistan’s well-known novelist, read from her
new book, Burnt Shadows.
One of the most riveting speakers at Hay this year was Reza Aslan. An American
of Iranian origin, Aslan’s first book was There is no God but God. Now, he has
written How to Win a Cosmic War, a book that argues that the jihadis are
fighting to impose their ‘cosmological’ vision on the globe. In his brilliant
talk, Aslan differentiates between nationalistic groups who happen to be Muslim
and are struggling for specific, negotiable goals, and those jihadi
organizations like Al Qaeda that seek to change the world.
But the Hay Festival is not just about heavy lectures. Every year, musicians and
comics are invited to entertain the audience. Jimmy Cobb, the legendary jazz
drummer, spoke about his experience of playing with Miles Davis and Bill Evans
over fifty years ago. Later in the day, he played with his jazz band before an
audience of enthralled fans.
Stand-up comedy is a very English genre, and comics across the country perform
live, on radio and on TV. At Hay were two leading exponents of this in-your-face
form of comedy. Dylan Moran launched into a 90-minute rant that rocketed along
at red-hot speed, with jokes, observations and brilliant insights exploding
onstage like hand grenades. His language was scabrous, and one could almost see
a blue haze around him as he used obscene metaphors and four-letter words with
fluency and wit. While I can’t imagine him being invited to perform on PTV,
Moran was very, very funny. Another brilliant stand-up was Dara O’Briain,
although his humour was of a very different category. Rather than work with any
prepared material, he engaged his audience in his act, using replies from the
crowd to his questions as pegs to build up his hilarious act.
All in all, it was an exhausting few days. As usual, I learned a lot, but left
wishing I had had more time to explore the second-hand bookshops. A few days at
Hay serve to remind us that there’s more to life than politics and civil strife. |
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