Ode to Isabel Allende

I remember reading The House of Spirits in my teens when I was still at school and falling in love with the level of fantasy and by the eventfulness of the book. But meeting Isabel Allende in real life is a completely different thing.

First of all she is petit - and keeps making jokes about it. She is some sort of small bundle of energy with plenty of stories and jokes and a wonderful understanding of people. She gave a reading of her latest book, her autobiography, on Tuesday at the Southbank Centre. She travels with her American husband Willie, a really nice guy, who is the central part of a good part of her jokes.

Before going I had done some research, visited her homepage and learnt that she despites being Chilean she has lived for a long time first in Venezuela and then in California. Now in her second marriage, she has a son (her daughter died in the early 1990s) and three grandchildren. Her family is very lively and she loves writing letters - which is what some of her novels evolve from. Before she turned a novelist she worked as a journalist (apparently Pablo Neruda refused to be interviewed by her claiming her fantasy is too developed and she should be a novelist instead) and as a literary translator (she was fired because she changed dialogs and endings to make the women in the books sound less "idiotic"). As a matter of fact you never know if something she's telling or writing is true or not, but does it really matter? She truly is a great lady!!

Salman Rushdie

On Sunday night I went to the Southbank Centre with some friends to listen to an interview with Salman Rushdie. He is probably best known for his The Satanic Verses which he wrote 20 year ago and attracted him a lot of enemies, mainly muslims. Some say he did it to attract public and media attention. I believe that fame may be a welcome side effect of an act of freedom of speach - but why would anyone voluntarily put themselves in such a lifechanging and lifethreatening situation.
I haven't read his verses, actually I haven't read any of his books, but after listening to him for over an hour I can call myself his fan! He has a great sense of humor, is a fabulous live reader and is very knowledgable. His ideas on religion, i.e. a collection of accepted norms designed to set a standard of good conduct for a group of people(s), is very close to mine. His writing in the form of stream of though is very interesting and intriguing, analysing a person's thoughts and feelings from all angles. And the idea of an Indian pricess who is "lost on the way" to Europe and finds herself becoming the enchantress of Florence in the 15th century is a magnificent play with fantasy based on widespread historical research.

Easter & books

During this low key Easter weekend spent with Oliver in London, all our four other housemates off to somewhere nice but equally cold and wet, I have dedicated plenty of time to reading newspapers, and book reviews in particular. There has never been a time with more literature prizes. Now even supermarkets and coffe shops give out prizes. And chocolate companies. Maybe an online travel agency will be the next one to invent a book prize, probably for fiction or biography.

The Guardian has dedicated the front page interview of its magazine to Jordan, or Katie Price if you prefer, whom I now find a whole lot more irritatingly horrible than before. And who at the age of 29 has 3 biographies out. Richard Hammond has co-written with his with Mindy a book on before and after his near-fatal car accident in Semptember 2006 during the shooting of Top Gear. And commedian Russel Brand just brought out his biography too, of course. And then Clarissa Dickson Wright, one half of the duo of Two Fat Ladies. At least she has lived long enough to have plenty to tell us... I look at all these biographies and cannot stop thinking it is a mere business. Yes, it is interesting to read about other's people's life, and the occasional one can be inspiring too. But all these many to me simply read like gossip, and this is when I appreciate people like Stephen King who wrote a short memoir of his life (and it is indeed not very long) as the beginning part of his book On Writing, where his autobiography is actually an integral part of the following and main part of the book. Thoughts and tips on writing. In other words, this is a book for the sake of writing, not merely of money.

Contrary to all my expectations I must admit I really like audiobooks. Yes, it's very nice and important to read books yourself, but I decided to give it a go and went to the local library. Among the rather poor selection on offer I found Andrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years by Sue Townsend, loaded it on my iPod and went to the gym. Well, I liked that session a lot more than many others!