...is that they also seem to become society events.
I love books and the city where I live is home to a literary festival. I should be excited and rushing to hang out all the time, right? Instead, I only go to the sessions that feature friends (and there are always several of those) and run back as if escaping from an evil dragon's lair.
I often wonder why. I see people I know so I could have company. There is food. There are toilets, presumably usable. So why am I unable to linger?
Actually, it's the people. In two ways. First, lit fests seem so much about being seen at the lit fest that they don't seem very bookish. They strike me as being about the clothes, the greetings and the air-kissing (okay, the last may be an exaggeration in this town). To be fair, there are also hundreds of quiet book-lovers who sit patiently in the galleries, waiting for one panel after another to speak. They must be the heart of the festival, I am sure.
Second, it's the people. The book-lovers I have known have by and large been introverts, and to be around so many milling, gushing social people when you could be alone with a book, just seems wrong. This is what happens to me. I get that 'alone in a crowd' feeling and I also want to run away really badly from the very same crowd and be truly alone.
Lit fests also sell themselves as places to hear ideas but the reality of scheduling is that the sessions are short and there are too many speakers. You rarely hear more depth than you would in a blurb because there just is no time. How frustrating that must be for writers, unless they have been forced out of their shells into these appearances. But then, can you imagine what a bore it would be without that discipline--with some speakers (I won't specify gender), holding a microphone makes time stand still. Depth or discipline? I think I'll take the latter, thank you, and make a quick escape into my own head.
I wonder whether the money spent on promoting all those books actually makes a difference to their sales. But that's not my problem. The festivals and launches certainly benefit the people who make banners and sell snacks and so on, so someone still does well.
And let's not forget the main reason I go--to see the old friends who fly down for one day to do their session before jet-setting off. This year, I am away and I will miss seeing the people I only see fleetingly before and after their festival appearances. I will miss the odd coffee, every other year, with a Twitter friend who has published a book. I will not miss deep conversations because those do not happen in the rush from session to snack to session to brief selfie schmooze to session.
Anyway, that's my two-paise worth which does not matter.
I love books and the city where I live is home to a literary festival. I should be excited and rushing to hang out all the time, right? Instead, I only go to the sessions that feature friends (and there are always several of those) and run back as if escaping from an evil dragon's lair.
I often wonder why. I see people I know so I could have company. There is food. There are toilets, presumably usable. So why am I unable to linger?
Actually, it's the people. In two ways. First, lit fests seem so much about being seen at the lit fest that they don't seem very bookish. They strike me as being about the clothes, the greetings and the air-kissing (okay, the last may be an exaggeration in this town). To be fair, there are also hundreds of quiet book-lovers who sit patiently in the galleries, waiting for one panel after another to speak. They must be the heart of the festival, I am sure.
Second, it's the people. The book-lovers I have known have by and large been introverts, and to be around so many milling, gushing social people when you could be alone with a book, just seems wrong. This is what happens to me. I get that 'alone in a crowd' feeling and I also want to run away really badly from the very same crowd and be truly alone.
Lit fests also sell themselves as places to hear ideas but the reality of scheduling is that the sessions are short and there are too many speakers. You rarely hear more depth than you would in a blurb because there just is no time. How frustrating that must be for writers, unless they have been forced out of their shells into these appearances. But then, can you imagine what a bore it would be without that discipline--with some speakers (I won't specify gender), holding a microphone makes time stand still. Depth or discipline? I think I'll take the latter, thank you, and make a quick escape into my own head.
I wonder whether the money spent on promoting all those books actually makes a difference to their sales. But that's not my problem. The festivals and launches certainly benefit the people who make banners and sell snacks and so on, so someone still does well.
And let's not forget the main reason I go--to see the old friends who fly down for one day to do their session before jet-setting off. This year, I am away and I will miss seeing the people I only see fleetingly before and after their festival appearances. I will miss the odd coffee, every other year, with a Twitter friend who has published a book. I will not miss deep conversations because those do not happen in the rush from session to snack to session to brief selfie schmooze to session.
Anyway, that's my two-paise worth which does not matter.
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