The New Zealand Listener Opening Night

Written by Elizabeth Welsh

The New Zealand Listener Opening Night of the Auckland Readers and Writers Festival is, without fail, a “moveable feast”. This year’s collection of writers was no exception.

When I first heard the combination of distinguished writers expected to ‘open’ the festival I was intrigued. Each literary figure has proven themselves distinct, inimitable and influential. Watching each perform their works one after the other was not at all discordant, it was in fact delightful. The fusion of Thomas Keneally’s poignant historical banter, Emily Perkin’s breathy experiential whispers of motherhood, Colm Toibin’s lugubrious evocation of emigration, Lionel Shriver’s deadpan delight at throwing the audience her one unabashed raw sex scene and William Dalrymple’s booming ability to take the role of raconteur all swirled together producing a tantalizing amalgamation, a “moveable feast” of words.

Our respected Australian neighbour Thomas Keneally opened the floor by reading from his historical novel The People’s Train. As well as showcasing Keneally’s trademark historical authenticity this novel successfully forges that difficult relationship between history as an objective course of development (or dare we say it, progress?) and the individual response. Keneally chose to read a haunting scene of incarceration, comparing the loss of dignity and violence in a Brisbane prison cell pre-first World War with the unintelligible violence experienced in Soviet Russia’s prison system. He also dipped into his recently published Australians: Origins to Eureka, delving into the Aboriginal practice of ceremonial group mapping, which he stated, memorably, it was, and still is, “‘the dreaming’ fulcrum by which the changing universe can be interpreted”.

Following Keneally, our own national icon Emily Perkins, read from her yet to be published novel, a tantalising act of divulgence. The apprehension regarding her choice of text soon visibly wore off as she slipped into the calm assertive persona of her central character, Evelyn. Perkins is a fabulous reader; her voice trembled, silvery and penetrating as she related the minutiae of a young woman’s everyday experiences. As an avid reader of Perkins I am reminded of Gustav Flaubert (and German born architect Mies van der Rohe) who passionately claimed “le bon Dieu est dans le detail”, “God is in the detail”. This encapsulates Perkins writing exactly, and her reading of the chapter ‘Out There’ last night was no exception.

The third speaker, Colm Toibin, delivered a deeply disquieting narrative of Irish emigration . addressing the nuances and implications of migration to America for the Irish . He reflected drolly on the potential for Irish immigrants to become president while British émigrés had no opportunity to succeed to the throne. Reading from Brooklyn Toibin was breathtaking. He shared the intimacy of his émigré character’s growing realization about her rootless existence far from ‘home’ with the reflection that “the rest of her life would be a struggle with the unfamiliar”. The poignancy of these lines remains with me.

As I wrestled with my keeling emotions the fourth writer made her way to the podium dashing the delicacy of the preceding moments by stating that her reading would be about illness, death and money. Lionel Shriver was the poker-faced, darkly humorous figure I had gleefully anticipated. Shriver proceeded to announce that her new novel So Much For That had “hardly any sex at all” but that she had decided to read from the only sex scene in the novel and thus “convince you that this novel is wall to wall smut”. Shriver clearly relished this reading, savouring with each perfectly poised pause the details of a married couple’s most intimate moments. The line that lingered long after her reading was the mocking tease of the wife laying bare her husband’s foolish desire for escape, “How would you have filled your day making fountains?”

The final speaker of the evening was Nine Lives author William Dalrymple. He began by dangling in front of us an intriguing piece of autobiographical bait. Dalrymple experienced a Catholic upbringing by Benedictine Monks, an explanation for the allure of communicating with religious figures. Dalrymple was a booming performer, sharing gems about Debdas and Kanai, two Bauls who wander like minstrels preaching that God is not found in temples but in the human heart. His recitation of an encounter with a Monk on the West Bank was side-splittingly hilarious and the apocalyptic rant concerning the pursuits of the Freemasons was unparalleled as an example of religious intolerance, which nevertheless caused fits of laughter from an audience who appreciated the absurdity of this situation. Dalrymple concluded the evening with an excerpt from In Xanadu and a remarkably familiar cross-cultural customs encounter. The shared slice of conversation exemplified perfectly an experience of travel and the bureaucratic individuals we encounter.

The opening night clearly reflected the theme of this year’s Auckland Readers and Writers Festival, ‘ideas need words’. When the evening was over I felt that I had snared several golden apples of wisdom from each author. I left the Aotea Centre pondering the truth of William Carlos Williams’ words, and how applicable they still are today, in Auckland, at the bottom of the South Pacific, at a festival celebrating reading and writing. He said there are “no ideas but in things”. For me these ‘things’ are always books.