A Literary Week

yes another busy week...

The highlight of Jewish Book Week for me was Simon McBurney, the main force behind Theatre de Complicite, and what a force. He came across like a hyper-caffeinated cross between Patrick Marber and Boris Johnson, and all the better for that. Ostensibly he was taking part in a discussion about diaspora and Bruno Schultz, but really it was his passion and drive and wonderment for the world of the imagination and of words that shone through, in great contrast to the rest of the rather drab offerings at JBW. Adam Thirlwell, in the same event, came across as a bit plain and somewhat newsnight review-ish. Earllier in the day, Amy Bloom lectured us in how not to write, but seemed to have not heard the the one about not writing historical fiction in the present tense when it came to her own latest offering. And we got a delightful glimpse of Bernard Malamud in an event by his biographer Philip Davis with readings by Janet Suzman, but in an event which drew ties between his writing and his life the absence of anything from the Fidelman stories was a bit of a surprise.

Let us go then, you and I, to the British Library where, as part of a series of events linked to its Breaking the Rules exhibition of European avant-garde book artistry, this month’s Josephine Hart’s Poetry Hour was dedicated to T.S. Eliot. The great and the good were all there. As well as me, I had that Harold Pinter and his lady wife in front of me (I didn’t think it appropriate to ask where he used to get his Pinter Hats from), the Michaels Portillo and Howard were in the cheap seats, and Maurice Saatchi (who it turns out is married to the said Ms Hart) nearly accidentally invited me into the room next door for drinks with the elite. Harriet Walter and Damian Lewis were our readers and a very wonderful job they made too of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, Portrait of a Lady and the Wasteland, though sadly nothing from the Four Quartets nor from Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. There is something about Eliot, those weird and wonderful phrases which once read are somehow never forgotten, for ever liable to lurch into your conscious mind at unexpected moments. Who is the third who walks always beside you?

I was back at the BL later in the week for a performance by Cindy Oswin entitled “A Salon With Gertrude [Stein] and Alice [B. Toklas]” and really rather marvellous it was too. Ms Oswin began with extracts from “The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas” before reporting how Toklas emerged from under the shadow of her lover/patron with the Alice B Toklas cookbook, whereupon an intermission was declared and waiters emerged bearing trays of nibbles from the said cookbook. They were delicious – stuffed aubergine topped with olives and anchovies, cucumber boats bearing cheesy peas, and little round mushroom sandwiches, and some good wine. All for £7.50 and all these extras completely unadvertised. In the second half Ms Toklas was joined on stage by Gertrude Stein in puppet form (jokes about whose hands were going up where were avoided) and we enjoyed tales of the famous Paris Salon, of Picasso and Hemingway, Matisse and Scott Fitzgerald. It made for a wonderful night.

Whilst at the BL I gave the Breaking the Rules exhibition (Breaking the Rules: The Printed Face of the European Avant Garde 1900-1937 to give it its full title) a second go but still found it frustrating, all those books behind glass unable to yield up their secrets. But something else I noticed, a different narrative, emerged from the way that the exhibition was structured around various cities –– Paris, Amsterdam, Vienna, Berlin, Warsaw, Krakow, Vilnius – and so it went on - all names associated with great pre-war Jewish communities - and all leading inevitably to the final “scene” in the exhibition - footage of the Nazis burning ‘degenerate’ books. It seems a shame that nobody picked up on the opportunity to explore the Jewish contribution to the European avant-garde movements when it was lurking so clearly under the surface.