A round-up of this week's other literary news, in brief ...
When Auster met Sam
The Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown area of Co Dublin has a rich literary heritage, which it is justifiably proud of. Now they’re having a book festival, Mountains to the Sea, in September to celebrate it.
The inaugural event will run from from September 10th to 13th, with a line-up that includes visitors from overseas such as novelists Paul Auster and Sebastian Faulks.
“Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown is unique in being home to some of our most famous literary geniuses, including Joyce, Beckett, Flann O’Brien and Hugh Leonard, while its contemporary literary landscape is second to none,” says Tim Carey event organiser and heritage officer of Dún Laoghaire- Rathdown County Council.
The festival will take place mainly in Dún Laoghaire, building on other cultural events already established in the area – the Festival of World Cultures and the Poetry Now festival.
Paul Auster will give the keynote lecture The Beckett Address, talking about the Irish writer who influenced his own career. Of the connection Auster says: "I had the good fortune to meet Beckett a few times in Paris – several one-on-one conversations with him that lasted hours – and to have corresponded with him over the years. During our first meeting in the early 1970s, Beckett told me that he had just finished translating Mercier et Camier, which was his first French novel; it had been written about 25 years earlier. I had read the book in French and liked it very much, and I said, 'A wonderful book.' I was just a kid, after all. I couldn't suppress my enthusiasm. Beckett shook his head and said, 'Oh no, no, not very good. In fact, I've cut out about 25 per cent of the original. The English version's going to be a lot shorter than the French.' And I said (remember how young I was), 'Why would you do such a thing? It's a wonderful book. You shouldn't have taken a word out.' He shook his head and he said, 'No, no, not very good, not very good'."
The pair went on to talk about other things, and then, out of the blue, 10 or 15 minutes later, Beckett leaned across the table and said to Auster: “You really liked it, huh? You really thought it was good?”
This remember, adds Auster, was Samuel Beckett. “And not even he had any idea of what his work was worth. Good or bad, meaningful or not, no writer ever knows, not even the best ones. And I suppose especially not the best ones.”
Patrick Gale, Douglas Kennedy, Siri Hustvedt and Sadie Jones are also expected to attend, along with local writers Hugo Hamilton, Diarmaid Ferriter, Julie Parsons, Ross O’Carroll-Kelly, Maeve Binchy, Anne Enright and Declan Hughes. Other programmed events include a debate between professors Declan Kiberd and John Carey, and tributes to Hugh Leonard. Books in the Park, a series of readings and activities for children, will take place over two days in the People’s Park. www.mountainstosea.ie
Coole autuman events
James Pethica, professor of English literature at Williams College in Massachusetts, who is working on the authorised biography of Lady Gregory, is among the speakers at the Lady Gregory Autumn Gathering in her home terrain of Coole Park, Gort, Co Galway. This 15th gathering, which takes place from September 25th to 27th, will highlight her relationship with WB Yeats in this, the 70th anniversary of his death.
Although her home at Coole Park is no longer standing, the famous autograph tree in the grounds – where Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Sean O’Casey, John Millington Synge and George Moore carved their initials – is.
Lady Gregory’s great grandnephew Geoffrey O’Byrne White and his daughter Elise will be there. Other speakers will include Adrian Frazier of NUI Galway; author, journalist and biographer Brenda Maddox; and Stella Mew of the Yeats Society in Sligo. Highlights include an event in Yeats’s old home of Thoor Ballylee, and the traditional cutting of the barm brack.
Details from Marion Cox, 086-8053917, monaleen@msn.com