Across 17 days in August, approximately 225,000 people visited this year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival in Charlotte Square Gardens – a massive number by any reckoning. Such popularity is perhaps not a surprise; with a programme which featured hundreds of authors, EIBF 2012 really did have something for everyone. But how was the geek community served by this diverse range of literary events? Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror are genres which are slowly garnering some much-deserved recognition in literary circles, or at least are beginning to lose the negative stigma which has dogged them for so long, and the graphic medium of comic books is – through the efforts of writers like Grant Morrison – gradually starting to become accepted as a legitimate art-form by many book readers. Was this new-found respectability of geeky subject matter reflected in the (apparently) diverse programme of EIBF 2012? I took to the muddy fields of Charlotte Square to find out, and found five events in particular that caught my eye….
Neil Gaiman and Chris Riddell were in attendance at the festival to discuss the 10th Anniversary edition of Gaiman’s modern children’s classic Coraline, featuring illustrations by Riddell. Both men were their usual, affable selves, and clearly enjoyed talking at length about the history of the book, a project which Riddell described as “a joy to do”.
Coraline, Gaiman told the audience, was a book he had started to work on back in 1991, in an attempt to fulfil his daughter’s desire for “weird horror for 4-5 year olds”. Owing to a lack of free time he didn’t complete the novel until the turn of the century, but this, he said, only taught him the virtue of putting a project on hold. The UK edition of the book was originally published without illustrations, while the American edition featured the work of artist Dave McKean. Riddell praised Bloomsbury’s decision to publish later editions in the UK with illustrations, as Gaiman’s work, he said, was characterised by the sort of “relish for storytelling” which illustrators find very inspirational.
Asked about his influences when writing Coraline, Gaiman named the obscure Victorian writer Lucy Clifford, a children’s author who wrote rather odd and disturbing stories. In particular, he said, her dark and sinister tale The New Mother had stayed with him during the writing of the book. For his part, Riddell said that it was impossible for him not to be influenced by the previous work of McKean and Henry Selick (director of the Coraline film adaptation) when illustrating the book, but that he hoped he had managed to bring something fresh to the project.
Both men were also able to talk a little about their upcoming releases. Gaiman has two novels coming out in 2013, one intended for children (Fortunately the Milk) and one aimed at the adult market (The Ocean at the End of the Lane). Riddell revealed that he is currently working on what he called “a gothic novel for 8 year-olds”, with the tentative title of Goth Girl. The undoubted highlight of the evening, though, was Gaiman and Riddell’s new “party trick” of live illustration. In an effort to bring a bit of variety to the somewhat tired concept of an author reading, Gaiman read a chapter of Coraline aloud while Riddell rendered an appropriate illustration via paper, pen and projector simultaneously. In this one sequence of madcap originality, the two men managed to encapsulate what it is about their work that continually enchants readers both young and old.
Glaswegian comics legend Grant Morrison opened his talk at the festival by pleading for a expedited signing session at the end of the night, as last year’s mammoth meet-and-greet apparently went on until 2 o’clock in the morning(!). True to form, the graphic novel guru was in high spirits, and kept a rapt audience amused with his outlandish anecdotes and opinions, despite some rather plodding and uninspired questions from chair Adrian Searle. Morrison discussed at length the many themes and ideas which characterise his book Supergods, the paperback edition of which has recently been released, including cyclical trends in comic book fashion, the possible reasons for differences between British and American comics, and the demonisation of comic books during the middle years of the 20th century, when they had, in Morrison’s words, no-one to defend them.
But as well as being a history of superhero comics, Supergods is also part memoir, and Morrison was also able to discuss and answer questions on his own experiences of the industry and his dreams for the future. What fascinates him as a writer, he said, are the epic, symbolic possibilities of superheroes, and their place in the pantheon of “pop mythology”. Such god-like characters can easily take on a life of their own, and their stories can have great allegorical resonance with our own experiences in the real world. Despite this fact, though, Morrison insisted that he has always been more interested in exploring the vast possibilities of fictional comic book universes than attempting to infuse superheroic characters and storylines with the gritty realism that became so popular in the comics medium in the wake of Alan Moore’s Watchmen and Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. Comic books, he insisted, should evoke a feeling, like music does, rather than attempt to deal with specific issues.
Asked about his influences, Morrison explained that he draws inspiration from every medium imaginable, not just other comic books. Prose writing, TV, film, music and painting all featured in his list of influences, with music in particular (as any fan of his work will know) playing a particularly major role. Teasing the audience with promises of many more books to come in the near future, and hinting at some TV work currently in progress, Morrison achieved that rare feat of fulfilling an audience’s desires while still leaving them wanting to hear more.
As well as giving a powerful and provocative speech at the Edinburgh International Writers’ Conference on the future of the novel, China Miéville also found time during his stint at the festival to chat to fellow author Patrick Ness about both his latest novel Railsea and the state of literature in general. He described the young adult novel as his take on Moby Dick, based on two jokes; “moles instead of whales” and “trains instead of ships”. Describing his writing process, Miéville said that instead of starting with the characters and working outwards (as many authors do), he tends to start with an image that has emotional resonance, and then build his story on top of it.
In recent years, Miéville seems to have been elected as the unofficial spokesperson for geek writing in literary circles, almost against his will. That said, he’s a man who enjoys a good debate over controversial issues, and his talk with Ness inevitably turned to the hot topic of literary genres. Miéville insists that ‘genre’ writing (in other words, Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror/Crime etc) has an important role to play within the wider literary experience, due to its capacity for “startling” the reader, and playing with the traditions and protocols that can act as straitjackets for many authors of so-called ‘literary’ fiction. Genres, he said, do not really exist, but they do have a presence, and in spite of their apparently ‘liberated’ nature have their own particular sets of protocols which truly creative writers must be prepared to play around with.
Despite his reputation as a abrasive polemicist, Miéville came across as funny and down-to-earth, quite willing to poke fun at his own self-aggrandising tendencies. Essentially, he said, he’s a man who writes books because he wants “to invent monsters”, and feels that the burden is upon himself to continually prove to readers that his work remains interesting and thus worth picking up. Ever ready with a surprise up his sleeve, when asked about his favourite book the geek guru replied sincerely that it was Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre.
Readers who aren’t long-time fans of the work of Kim Newman (or who perhaps only know him as a film critic) might be surprised to learn that Anno Dracula, the first volume of his planned five-part vampire saga, was actually first published in 1992. The recent republication of the novel by Titan Books (along with its sequels The Bloody Red Baron and Dracula Cha Cha Cha) has drawn new attention to this epic alternate history series, which takes inspiration from myriad fictional works of the last 150 years as well as actual historical events. In anticipation of the publication of the last two books in the series – next year’s Johnny Alucard and an as yet untitled fifth book – Newman discussed his approach to writing with former colleague Rodge Glass at this year’s festival, and also talked about a number of other projects from his long and prestigious career.
According to Newman, his aim when creating the series was to write stories that dealt with real historical events such as Jack the Ripper, the birth of tabloid journalism and society’s drift towards totalitarianism, as well as playing with the various forms of Victorian pulp fiction and celebrating the genre which Bram Stoker began in 1897 with Dracula. His desire to create a more nuanced vision of a vampire/human society had, he said, led him to expand the story begun in the first book into one long “mosaic” of a series, covering the whole of the 20th century and some of the 19th. There are also, Newman explained, some “pretty serious discussions” going on just now about a possible film adaptation of the books, but this, he recognises, will be a long and painful process.
Not content to stick to writing prose fiction, Newman said that he likes to take on something new every year. He and Glass spoke briefly about the plays he has written this year for both stage and radio, both of which have a distinctly horrific vibe to them, as well as the various non-fiction titles that he has produced during a long and fruitful career. The Anno Dracula series, though, of course continues to unfold, and Johnny Alucard (released early 2013) will concern – amongst other, more gruesome things – the making of Dracula movies; surely a subject close to the heart of a man who spends much of his time writing film criticism.
The final geek-worthy event of the festival was Will Brooker’s talk about his new book, Hunting the Dark Knight. As will be obvious from the title, this book is all about Batman, and Brooker (based at Kingston University) is in fact the pre-eminent academic authority on the caped crusader, having previously written the 2001 title Batman Unmasked (originally his PhD thesis), as well as texts on Star Wars and Alice in Wonderland. The time was right, Brooker said, for a second Bat-book because three major developments had occurred in the intervening years which have had a considerable impact on the ways in which Batman is written and interpreted; the September 11th terrorist attacks, Christopher Nolan’s film adaptations of the character, and Grant Morrison’s groundbreaking run on the monthly Batman comics.
Brooker argues that, as Morrison attempted to convey during his tenure on the comic, Batman is not simply a character, but rather “an archive, a matrix, a mosaic”. If we consider the various incarnations of the character during his 73 years in print, from his pulpy origin to his camp ’60s heyday and his dark ’80s rebirth (and beyond to Nolan and Morrison’s versions), it becomes apparent that insisting upon the ‘authenticity’ of one particular version of the character merely reduces or “imprisons” him. The fact that there is not just one Batman, but many Batmen is one of the key reasons why the character has remained a vital part of popular culture over the last eight decades; the flexibility of the “man who walks with gods” (as a member of DC’s Justice League of America) meaning that Batman can be many things to many people. This struggle between the many different Batmen is something which Brooker deals with in his writing, as well as critical literary analysis of the role of authorship in the Batman comics, and cultural commentary concerning what Batman can tell us about the world we live in, and how that world is reflected in the “distorted mirror” of Gotham City. And if Hunting the Dark Knight is half as entertaining as Brooker’s festival talk, it’ll also be a hoot to read.
Superheroes, giant moles, vampires, Batmen?! As the sun set on the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2012, it became apparent to this correspondent that the festival programme had indeed featured a good selection of events to cater to everyone’s inner geek. This annual festival is a tremendous and important undertaking, featuring hundreds of events which attract thousands of visitors, and it is only right that it celebrates the myriad authors who create wonderful and exciting work in what we might call geek-friendly genres and styles. It still seemed to me, however, that such authors were somewhat under-represented at EIBF 2012, and we can only hope that their presence continues to grow at future festivals, for as China Miéville reminded us, so-called ‘genre’ fiction has an important role to play in “startling” readers out of their comfort zone, and sometimes we all need a good startling.
Jim Taylor, Chief Literary Correspondent, www.geekzine.co.uk
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