What about a banana prize for men?
Romantic Novelists pipped in quiz final
. . . the Christie saga goes on
PAULA TEGGE writes in this issue on the current furore over positive
discrimination for female writers. Why is it that whenever I hear a wail
that there should be more support for women writers I burst into hysterical
laughter?
Can it be because, until I have to pause for breath, I can name
bookshelves full of them: George Eliot, Jane Austen, the Brontës, Virginia
Woolf, Dorothy L Sayers, Daphne du Maurier, Anya Seton, Margaret Atwood,
Betty Smith, Harper Lee, Nadine Gordimer, Pearl S. Buck, Margaret Mitchell,
Barbara Cartland, Iris Murdoch, Margaret Drabble, P D James, Jilly Cooper,
Catherine Cookson, Maeve Binchy and the biggest seller of all time: Crime
Queen Agatha Christie. Yes, bigger even than J K Rowling or Dan Brown.
Much as it will disappoint many people, books are not rejected because of
gender (ask Gore Vidal, Gertrude Stein or better still Jan Morris), but
because they are either no good or unlucky enough to be read by an editor or
publisher who is off form, angry, fed up or just not in a buying mood.
Perhaps we should have a Banana Prize for Fiction, restricted to men? No.
I don’t think so. And there’s really no need for chaps to don wigs, make-up
and tights to get a publishing contract.
The battle was fought and won years ago. The only worthwhile questions
are: Can you write? Can you entertain?
* * *
WARM congratulations to the Romantic Novelists who reached the final of
University Challenge’s Professional competition on BBC2.
They lost heroically to the Privy Council staff in the final, but were
far from disgraced.
Such snooty lots as the editorial staffs of the Economist and
Times perished along the way. In fact The Times team was awful.
"Still scribbling away," a doctor asked an RNA friend of mine whose last
book sold 75,000 copies.
"Ah, yes doctor," she replied. "Still mixing up bottles of sach. ust?"
The RNA team was Jenny Haddon, Anne Ashurst, Stephen Bowden and Catherine
Jones.
* * *
MENTION of Agatha Christie reminds me that she is still our
best-selling author with more than two billion copies of her books sold.
The National Trust told me recently that they are to open her magnificent
house to the public in three years' time. Greenway House, an eight-bedroomed
mansion on a bend in the River Dart in Devon was bought by Christie in 1938
and owned by her and her family for 60 years.
More than £2 million is to be spent on the property which stands in an
estate of 278 acres given to the National Trust in 2000 by Christie’s
daughter Rosalind Hicks.
The public will be allowed to see the ground floor of what Agatha called
the loveliest place in the world.
One puzzle for visitors will be a frieze in the library painted by
Lieutenant Marshall Lee of the United States Navy in 1944 when the house was
taken over by US servicemen.
He painted the locations where his flotilla had been stationed: Key West,
Morocco and Devon. Christie was so taken with the work she never had it
painted over.
At the moment you can visit the gardens using the ferry from Dartmouth.
Talking of Miss Christie, old film buffs, or even buffs of old films, can
enjoy Witness for the Prosecution at the National Film Theatre
in London in November. Her long running court-room drama was filmed by the
great Billy Wilder with Tyrone Power accused of murder, Marlene Dietrich
standing by him as the conspiratorial wife and Charles Laughton appearing
for the defence.
There’s also a wonderful performance from Elsa Lanchester and I’m tempted
to say "they don’t make films like that any more. . ." It is showing on
November 6 and 27.
* * *
WRITERS are a little like farmers and taxi drivers. Nothing is as good
today as it was yesterday. Every shift in publishing emphasis is to be
deplored. Can’t agree with that. Research is now much easier with the
World Wide Web, the agony of editing and re-typing is no longer the problem
it once was and the number of books published each year continues to
increase.
Furthermore, for those willing to embrace change there are audio editions
and a cheaper route into self-publishing.
Nevertheless there are still some who prefer to write standing up with a
pencil on a pad at a lectern, following in the steps of Papa Hemingway,
while others bash away at an old sit-up-and-beg Imperial typewriter with the
'e' out of alignment and a ribbon more faded than a politician’s promise.
Does it matter? Not at all. If you want to write then do so. But do it
every day. That is really the only way to learn after you have been
introduced to the basics.
That way you teach yourself and find your own voice.
Good luck.
