On the Literati Trail

In Melbourne, bespectacled men with merino scarves read The Economist at bus stops.  Hipster girls in clouds of billowing organic cotton float down laneways towards Fairtrade coffee stands.  Runners, glistening in black Skins, dart through parklands as trams creep along webs of tramlines that frame the city sky.

A few weeks ago, I went to the Melbourne Writers Festival in search of inspiration and literati.  

I had two revelations during my trip, the first of which occurred after a poetry reading, when I was shuffling with the throngs towards the exit.  I hoped to chat with someone about what we had just heard.  Many people were debating iambic pentameter with their friends, and those who had come alone were on their phones instructing partners to put the quinoa-stuffed, truffle-infused quail in the oven.  I realised that being on your own in public is like wearing an invisibility cloak, which makes it hard to talk to strangers.  Shyness melted away every remotely interesting conversation kindler from my repertoire; my brain became a Magna Doodle that had just been wiped clean.

I sauntered away from Federation Square like I had somewhere thrilling to be, although I was just returning to my hotel to slouch on the couch in Bonds underwear and eat warm pizza from a box on my lap.  

On the only occasion when I was brave enough to speak to a writer, I had planned to be breezy, light-hearted and amusing.  Instead, I may have declared something along the lines of, “I really love you.  I mean, I love your work.  I think you’re incredible.  Your work, that is.”  I delivered this remarkable speech with intensity akin to the way Sam shot yearning looks at Frodo.  From under his thicket of dark, greying hair, Jonathan Franzen peered kindly at me with bloodshot eyes and thanked me.

That was when I had my second revelation.  I had nurtured an assumption that writers are an exceptional, talented, super-breed, with minds sharp as Furi filleting knives and profound sentences tumbling effortlessly from their pens.  Jonathan Franzen – winner of a National Book Award, invoker of Oprah’s wrath, Pulitzer Prize finalist, and object of my literary worship – looked quite ordinary when he shook my hand.  He seemed very human and incredibly tired. 

 

I came back from Melbourne with new confidence and a suitcase bulging with paperbacks.  I may not feel like a writer, or look like how I imagine writers to look, but I’m going to sit at my computer and bash out the novel that’s churning inside me.  I might never sign copies of it at a festival but I’ll start it anyway because there’s no other way to begin a book.