Lionel Shriver Letters From A Troubled America

Edinburgh Book Festival

Chair Ruth Wishart described Lionel Shriver as “the Mystic Meg of modern fiction” due to her uncanny ability to predict future events, a case in point being her current novel The Mandibles which follows the fortunes – or loss of them – of a wealthy American family from the 2020s to the 2040s.
The US economy has collapsed and drastic measures are put in place to deal with it, a scenario which she says has already happened and which could undoubtedly happen again. In the first extract she reads from the novel, the Latino US President has just announced the renunciation of the US national debt and that all privately held gold will be confiscated by the state. A wall is to be built across the US/Mexican border (this time at the behest of the Mexican Government) to keep out rich Americans fleeing to preserve their wealth. All of this was written long before Donald Trump announced his candidacy for US President and made similar pronouncements on the national debt and the Mexican wall – maybe he reads her books for his ideas, she speculates. She is no fan of Donald Trump, he is “a boor, a bigot, such an unattractive man on every level” and, while she understands why many Americans would be attracted to a demagogue, she is surprised the Republican Party adopted him as their candidate and she does not believe he will be elected. She will vote for Hillary Clinton, albeit unenthusiastically, as she feels she has only got to where she has by the fact she was married to a former President.
The subject matter of her books is pretty dark – We Have to Talk About Kevin looked at the tragic phenomenon of school student shootings, Big Brother looked at morbid obesity and now The Mandibles looking at economic collapse. However, there is also a lot of humour to lighten the darkness. She says she has a duty as a writer of fiction to entertain and she wants her work to be energising and vital, not depressing. She strives to strike the right balance between seriousness and levity otherwise it just wouldn’t work. Given the huge popularity of her books, I think she has found exactly the right balance.
The Q and A session was occasionally in danger of becoming an economics seminar with very technical questions on quantitative easing and the state of the economy. Shriver did a lot of research for her book but she is not an economist and she doesn’t have any solutions for us or advice on how to avoid economic meltdown. What she is, though, is a first class writer who writes unputdownable and thought-provoking novels and this was a highly enjoyable and entertaining event.
Irene Brownlee

Giancarlo De Cataldo When In Rome…

Edinburgh Book Festival

Well that’s the holiday reading sorted then – Giancarlo De Cataldo’s epic Romanzo Criminale could, as in hindsight he ruefully admits, have been published in three parts but instead is a huge thick paperback which will make a serious dent in my baggage allowance. However I know it will be worth it – I’ve already seen both the film and the TV series so I can’t wait to reacquaint myself with Dandi, Freddo, Patrizia, Scialoja and, last but not least, Libano. Based on true events in the turbulent years of terrorism, violence and corruption of seventies Italy, it tells the story of the rise of a violent criminal gang in Rome, their links to influence and political power and the almost impossible struggle to bring them to justice.
The novel was first published in Italy in 2002 and became a huge bestseller but it is a story that almost didn’t get told in that De Cataldo’s publishers told him that a story based on seventies history would never sell since it was a period still too fresh in people’s minds. Eventually they were persuaded to publish and the rest is history as they say. Why, though, has it taken so long for it to be translated and published in the UK? De Cataldo is of the somewhat controversial view that Italian crime fiction is superior to the hugely popular Scandinavian version but the big difference is that the Italian Government doesn’t subsidise translation and promotion. Thanks to the popularity of TV series such as Montalbano and Romanzo Criminale, the genre is becoming much better known and will hopefully lead to more availability.
De Cataldo is a writer but his day job is as a judge and this gives him a unique insight into what he describes as “(seeing) people in their nakedness”, the absolute bottom of the human condition. He isn’t a judge so that he can steal people’s stories for his books – “you are a writer for narcissism, you are a judge to serve the people”, rather he is able to soak up the atmosphere, the language and the characters he meets in his work. The result is a gripping, visceral tale of good versus evil. Chair Russel McLean, himself a noted Scottish crime writer, likened De Cataldo’s style to James Elroy which prompted some amusing anecdotes of when De Cataldo met the great man in Italy.
The translator who accompanied him on stage wasn’t really necessary as his English was so good but it was lovely to hear him occasionally lapse into his beautiful Italian mother tongue. There was only one potentially awkward moment when he described the rape and murder of Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro – the Italian speakers in the audience were able to gently point out to him that the Italian word rapito means kidnapped not raped.
De Cataldo is a very intelligent and interesting man and his work is not just a run of the mill crime novel but something more, a commentary on the human condition and the state of Rome and Italy itself. Once you have finished your latest Scandi noir, give him a try.
Irene Brownlee

TECH HUB & VIRTUAL REALITY STUDIO

Digital Entertainment Festival         Assembly Rooms

I had a wonderful morning at these totally immersive digital experiences! If you were to ask any of my cronies, friends or relations; “What would Markus know about computers?” they would probably tell you something in the vein of “Practically nothing. He’s an idiot!” And I have to tell you that they would be right!

I am something of a self-confessed Luddite. And I’m perfectly content that way. But that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate technology’s potential, and my experience at the Digital Festival felt very similar to when I go to theme parks. I mean I don‘t go all that often, nor would I want to go all the time, but I got the same kind of giddy experience here. Certainly with the Tech Hub, they have quite a few things in the room from Igloo Vision; a 360 degree cinema; Line Wobbler; a sort of old school computer game without any screen but just involving lights on the wall. And then there’s Mix the City; a music program that has you using different clips from all sorts of musicians and singers from Tel Aviv to create your own original piece of music. There is also a lot of virtual reality headsets here, I was quite surprised with that as I was going to be heading into a Virtual Reality Studio shortly after that.

And I have to admit that I had much more fun in the Tech Hubs virtual experiences than the VR Studio itself. In the Tech Hub I got to go wild in an artistic program called Google Tilt Brush, where I was whirling around all over the place drawing 3D Chinese dragons, glowing skulls and even gaseous ghosts. I never truly experienced anything like it before, and I could have honestly spent hours in it! Then there was BBC Home which was a space walking experience and there was even dodgy horror stuff like Hammerhead VR. But all this was very entertaining and almost seemed to be a joyous take on this technology. The people working there were quite affable too.

It’s a bit of a different feeling that you get in the Virtual Reality Studio, the people there seem quite austere and when you go collect your head set and get sent to your seat, it felt like I was in some school from the future. With this one I didn’t think it was all that well set up, but this does come from a personal place. As any previous readers of my reviews may know, I like to experience something I’m reviewing with as little information as possible, that way I can let it engulf me. That certainly works very well with the Tech Hub but not so much with the VR Studio. They gave me a piece of paper with all the films I could see, but to be honest, I didn’t look at it as I wanted to jump straight into the virtual worlds. What I ended up jumping into was quite a lot of documentaries, which sometimes use the medium well for practical purposes but not for immersive ones. I think they should have had a clear picture giving an idea as to what each film was about on the menu, or a least a little tag beside clearly marking whether it’s a drama or a documentary.

Especially since two documentaries I witnessed covered very similar territories. I saw one kind of artistic film Take Flight, that used the medium very well, but the rest were documentaries. I even did a bit a bit of research after my experience and apparently there were only three dramatic films amongst all the documentaries.

After my hour in the VR Studio, the woman rather glibly asked me how I found it to which I replied “It wasn’t really my thing.” She seemed a bit surprised but to honest the VR Studio had the air of the emperor’s new clothes to it whilst the Tech Hub lets you embrace the real thing without all the pomp and pageantry.

Markus Helbig

Puppet Fiction

Laughing Horse  The Newsroom

What can I say, apart from Puppet Fiction is A Free Fringe marionette homage of the Quentin Tarintino film of a very similar name. I’ll be frank off the bat and admit that I’ve always found the film of Pulp Fiction to be overrated, but I thoroughly enjoyed this respectful puppet send up!

They play a different part from the film every other day which I find is a good lure. And I could well be back for another part if time permits. The puppets are very well performed and very affectionately made (In one scene, possibly a bit too affectionate!) If you’re fond of the film, I would say to check it out, and if you’re a bit like myself and not too fussed by the film…definitely check it out!

It kind of enhanced everything for me, and I’ll probably look at the film in a new light if I ever see it again. It could very well be one of the best shows at the Free Fringe if not the Fringe itself!

Markus Helbig