New discoveries and a date with a master

The Writers Festival isn't just about coming out to see your favourite authors, but about discovering new ones,
whether that means new-new or just new to you. As a big fan of South African writer J.M. Coetzee and movies like Cry Freedom (oops, age-and-politics-betraying alert), I wanted to check out Damon Galgut's An intimate evening with, although word on this author is getting out since, as Mr. Galgut pointed out, the evening wasn't all that intimate with a near-full house at PTC on Tuesday night. The event got off to a great start...Galgut is theatre trained, so he's one of those writers who is a real pleasure to listen to as well. We were all quite captivated with a passage he was reading when an older gentleman in one of the front rows had a seizure. He turned out to be alright, but there was quite a commotion with the paramedics and abulance attendants all making an appearance. After he was carted off, with a friendly wave, the reading resumed. The author offered to cut the reading short to accommodate for the lost time, but the audience would have none of it. The passages he read were beautifully written and delivered with the intonations of a fine radio drama. I look forward to reading his books. I think I'll start with The Good Doctor, his Man Booker Prize nominated novel set in post-apartheid South Africa, and then move on to The Impostor, his latest.

This event coincided with Grand Openings, which included Jonathan Raban, of whom I'm a new fan, but I did have a chance to talk with him later that evening in the hospitality suite. Now, the fact that I'm a new fan just means I'm coming late to that parade; he's been a successful writer since the late '60s.  Here's a guy who is a monster intellect and has been writing about his adopted country, the US, with wit and good grace since long before he moved to Seattle in 1990, most notably in his books Old Glory (1981) and Hunting Mr. Heartbreak (1991). I wanted to say a quick 'hello' and move on, not wanting to come across like a fawning groupie, but he's very generous and we had a great discussion about American politics and his nuanced take on the tyranny of city liberals on the countryside. That doesn't mean he isn't an Obama supporter, though it's a mute point from a voter perspective. He's never become an American citizen. No matter; he has more influence as a respected thinker anyway. He also talked about his recent article on Sarah Palin in the London Review of Books, which you can find here. In it, he talks about how todays Republicans seem remarkably like an anti-elite country-against-the-city movement in France in the 1950's, called Poujadism, after populist French politician, Pierre Poujade. But it's his reporting of Palin's history as a politician that's fascinating as I've read nothing else like it in the reams of coverage on her to date. He said he preferred to write this article for the LRB because he can write as long as he needs to ("I find it hard to get excited to write for The New Yorker. Their fact-checking department is just maddening"). Of his many gems, here's one: "Given any question, she reaches into her bag for the readymade sentence that sounds most nearly proximate to an answer, and, rather than speaking it, recites it, in the upsy-downsy voice of a middle-schooler pronouncing the letters of a word in a spelling bee." Well, Mr. Raban was eloquent and fascinating, and it was a privileged moment with a master. What could I offer in return? He mentioned how difficult it is to find a good Indian restaurant in Seattle. He'd been to Vij's, which he appreciated, but it's still of the "nouveau" variety. I suggested one of my favourites, Raga, on Broadway, which he checked out for lunch the next day. I hope their tandoori proved to be sufficient reward for my being regaled with his generous spirit.