Sex and the Novel

The Manchester Literature Festival opened this week with a rather tame discussion on sex and the novel featuring Will Self and Martin Amis. Amis pondered the sexual aspects of novels by George Eliot and Jane Austen as if mugging up for an exam, and there was much discussion of Lolita. A shame he didn't talk about his own writing at all. Self was sharp as ever, talking about J.G. Ballard's 'death of affect'. He was scornful of so-called 'transgressive literature' in an age where, as he put it, you can get porn in every hotel room. Good for him - academics get very excited about such things, but honestly, it would be more daring to write a conference paper about an unfashionable writer like Somerset Maugham than deliver something on coprophilic websites. Is sex like writing? Hmm. Maybe. If you can keep your eyes closed.

I'm introducing Chris Beckett and James Lasdun at a festival reading on the 24th. Should be interesting. What is it about Lasdun's work that's so much like Maupassant?

Edge Hill Prizewinners' Reading

This year's winner, the very modest Chris Beckett, read alongside last year's winner, Claire Keegan, last Sunday at the Bluecoat. Claire always has some interesting things to say about the short story, especially what she calls the 'reluctant voice'. She says Irish writers are good at short stories because the Irish talk a lot without saying anything.


See my account of the build-up to the Award Ceremony at http://theshortreview.blogspot.com/. What I don't tell you there is that a certain website accidentally leaked our embargoed press release the day before the winner was announced. It was gone by that evening, but word gets round very fast these days and possibly Chris was the only person in the room who knew that he'd won. That is a genuine look of bemusement on his face the following morning.

Picture: Tim Power