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Al-Ahram Weekly 22 - 28 June 2000 Issue No. 487 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 22 - 28 June 2000 Issue No. 487
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Focus Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Plain Talk
By Mursi Saad El-Din
I remember a BBC Radio Programme from the late 1940s and early 1950s with the title "I was there." Using modern reporting techniques, the programme reenacted historical events as if they were happening then and there. The title appeals to me because now that so many years have passed, I feel I too was there on many and various occasions. Last month saw the most recent round of the Hay Festival, organised by the Sunday Times. An annual event held in a small town on the English-Welsh borders, the festival has turned Hay-on-Wyne (1506 inhabitants) into a gathering of swans -- during the ten days of its duration so much literature, music and art is brought together that the passerby can look forward to events and discussions dealing with, among other things, poetry, novels, biography, history and even gardening. I was happy to found out that travel writer Anthony Sattin, recently profiled in Al-Ahram Weekly, is among this year's participants.
The Festival is now in its 31st year and is well-known for including not only British writers and artists but others from different countries as well. An important, if controversial figure whose presence created a furor this year was Norman Mailer, one of the festival's guests of honour .
Mailer needs no introduction. His adventurous life as much as his writing have solicited much public attention for decades. His image, as the reader well knows, was not always a pleasant one. I recall a PEN Congress in New York in which he managed to make himself Women's Enemy Number One. That was in response to American women writers protesting that the American delegation did not include enough women on the discussion panels. There may be good women writers, he said, but there is no such thing as a female intellectual. The women writers present all walked out of the conference hall.
I also remember talking to him about his novel, Ancient Evenings, a take on ancient Egypt that had just appeared at the time. He explained to me how he was inspired to write it but since I reported his statements at the time, I do not feel the need to repeat it now. To cut a long story short, Norman Mailer was at Hay, surrounded by admirers and signing copies of his books. He also addressed an audience of 1000 people. He was apparently in a good mood; age, one might surmise, has ameliorated his biting cynicism and dry humour.
Mailer was introduced by a leading Welsh writer and he steered his audience through discussions about the Great American Novel, giving Hemingway his dues. "From Hemingway," he said, "I got a notion that went deep into me. I won't evade the imagery here; I was penetrated by his influence."
Mailer went on to reminisce about his first book, describing the blessing which is also a curse of one's first book being wildly successful. "I felt like there was a famous writer out there called Norman Mailer, and I was his secretary, and if you wanted to meet him you had to meet me first."
During that talk some rather sensational ideas emerged. All "history," for example, "is fiction;" and all non-fiction is mere approximation. Questions were fired at Mailer, many of them, the most interesting being, "Mr Mailer, do you like us women better these days or have you always done so really?" To this he answered that he's always liked women, starting with his mother and four aunts, and thought they were the finest thing in creation -- until, that is, the Women's Movement started. That is when he realised they were "as nasty, as competitive, as ugly" as men. Mailer had evidently changed. He signed hundreds of books and was, according to one of the organisers, pleasant to everybody and easily sociable.
While Mailer was, in a way, the star of the festival, there were nonetheless quite a number of famous writers: Susan Sontag, Gore Vidal, Frank Kermode, John Walsh and others. They all spoke, took part in discussions or answered questions about their writing. And it seems that great fun was had by all parties concerned. The Sunday Times reported that everyone said the same: "It was the best festival yet. For 10 exhilarating days, Hay-on-Wyne was the only place to be... everywhere," they concluded, "people are carefully unwrapping sandwiches, struggling with Thermos lids and arguing about the condition of Portuguese poetry. It vividly reflects a mass relish for self-betterment. Hay 2000 showed us a completely different nation from the soap-engorged, low-intention-span one we are supposed to be."
