Love Atwood or Die

A lovely co-worker, Lisa, invited me to attend with her tonight Digitise or Die: What is the Future of the Book? The discussion was chaired by the author Erica Wagner, and featured celebriterary[1] Margaret Atwood *girly fandom squeel*, Stephen Page (a publisher with Faber) and Scottish writer Andrew O'Hagan.

I met fellow Atwood groupie kixie and denalyia outside Queen Elisabeth Hall. We had a few minutes to say hello and make introductions before sitting down in the almost packed auditorium. Soon, the lights went down and the Book People came on stage.

I was expecting most of the discussion to centre around copyright issues involving digital books, now or in the future, but that was not the case; each participant stated his or her view on the future of the book and then a lively and humorous discussion took place on the uses of the book as an object of art, a piece of great technology.

Margaret Atwood, as usual, was down to earth and funny. I love how she uses colourful analogies to make her point. When comparing book reviews to literary criticism, for example, she says that book reviews are like meetings around the village well, where someone tells someone else their opinion on a wedding ("I loved the dress, but did you see her shoes?!"); whereas literary criticism is almost biblical, in the sense that a universal-like statement is given to us, followed by pages of explanation on what that statement means through the use of comparisons. I think Atwood and I share a love of gossip.

Andrew O'Hagan was the only one in the panel who sounded alarms about the demise of the book. He got a little hot under the collar when one of the audience members called on him to explain his statement that people need to be educated to read books. I know he may have come across as elitist, but what I think he meant was that we need to ask ourselves why the Top 10 books in the country are shitty celebrity memoirs rather than important works of fiction and non-fiction. Can we say our culture is healthy if the majority of the population only reads Victoria Beckam's ghost-written words?

I didn't stay behind afterwards to get a second autograph from Margaret Atwood. I'm not sure I could have handled a bout of hyperventilation tonight.

[1] I just coined this term, bitches!