Crimefest: History, wisdom, and the reek of fermented shark

 

Because it's almost time for Crimefest 2015, and because history is what I read most when I'm not reading crime, I thought I'd bring back a post about history from Crimefest 2010.   

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Andrew Taylor made trenchant observations during Crimefest 2010's historical-fiction panel, just as he had at last year's Crimefest.

"The 1950s," he said, "are a fascinating time because, I think, it was the end of history for most of us, an eternal present." But, he said, "It became clear to me it was a completely alien time," a world that would have been recognizable to someone who had been around in the 1930s.

Edward Marston, the panel's moderator, spoke of his childhood during the Second World War: "I saw no one between the ages of 18 and 40 because they had all been conscripted. I didn't see my father until I was 6. ... My grandfather lived with us. He'd fought in the First World War," and, Marston said, those who remained at home heard much about how "His war was better than our war."

Marston also made a remark that ought to make all crime readers and authors reflect on the world in which fictional detectives live and work: "Your sleuth must have social mobility."

Ruth Dudley Edwards spiced up the sex, violence and bad language panel with the observation that her Baroness 'Jack' Troutbeck, while willing to avail herself of a carnal romp with whatever sex is available, "would be just as motivated, really, by a good dinner." (My question about sex as a motivating factor in crime fiction, as a means rather than an end, won me a book bag for the session's best question. I won another later the same day, and no one was around to take it away from me.)

Elsewhere, Michael Ridpath, an author new to me who sets his recent novels in Iceland, said that country's financial crisis had forced some rewriting. "I had to change `In Iceland everything is expensive' to `In Iceland, everything is cheap,'" he said. Asked at a different session what she thought of Ridpath's choice of settings, Iceland's own Yrsa Sigurðardóttir said: "That's great. That's just excellent."

Yrsa also brought hákarl, or highly pungent fermented shark, an Icelandic specialty she was eager to share with fellow attendees, along with bracing Icelandic schnapps to wash it down. I enjoyed watching the faces of everyone who tried hákarl. You'll enjoy doing so, too. Says Wikipedia: Hákarl "is an acquired taste and many Icelanders never eat it."

I suspect that after Crimefest 2010, some Canadians, Americans, Englishmen and South Africans may join them.

© Peter Rozovsky 2010

Crimefest memories: Mike Hodges on how to make a classic movie for £7,000

Ted Lewis' great crime novel Get Carter (along with the rest of Lewis' work) is or soon will be back in print and easily available, thanks to those good people at Syndicate Books/Soho Press.  Five years ago, at Crimefest 2010 in Bristol, England, I had the chance to meet Mike Hodges, who directed the excellent and influential movie version of Get Carter. (This is one in an occasional series of blog posts about Crimefests past and present leading up to Crimefest 2015, which takes place May 14-17.)

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Seven thousand pounds. That's how much money Mike Hodges made for writing and directing Get Carter, the classic 1971 hit-man movie starring Michael Caine, and not a penny more.

Hodges made that surprising statement during Friday's pre-screening conversation with Maxim Jakubowski at Bristol's Arnolfini cultural center. He also said the many humorous touches in the otherwise bleak tale encouraged him in the making of his 1972 follow-up, Pulp: "I really thought I would like to hear laughter."

Hodges said after a panel discussion today that yes, there had been pressure from producers and other heavies to have Michael Caine's title character walk away at the end of Get Carter. But Hodges resisted, and Carter gets— but you'll have to watch the movie to see what happens.

© Peter Rozovsky 2010

Late-breaking convention pictures

Here are me and my "Stamp of Death Panel" at Bouchercon 2010.

From top left: your humble blog keeper; Christopher G. Moore; Yrsa Sigurðardóttir; and Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip, known to readers as Michael Stanley.

At left are me and my man Bill James at Crimefest 2010. At right, it's me at the same festival with Ali Karim, who kindly provided these photos and is here pictured for the first time ever without a gin and tonic in his hand.

© Peter Rozovsky 2010

Idol days in England

I did more than just Crimefest on my recent trip. At left is a friend of whimsical mien but serious purpose from the British Museum. At right is a fellow not to be messed with, from the same institution.

Back in Bristol, one more photo (below) that nicely captures the Crimefest atmosphere, especially when the panel's moderator is the entertaining Simon Brett (center).

(From left: Bill James, Ann Cleeves, Brett, Cath Staincliffe, Mike Hodges.)

© Peter Rozovsky 2010

Tonino Benacquista's "Someone Else" plus a provocative question

Tonino Benacquista's Someone Else poses a problem for category mongers.

This tale of two Parisians who meet on a tennis court and agree to shed their identities features crime only incidentally. The plot sounds in outline like a Patricia Highsmith-style psychological thriller, yet the novel is much more a social comedy, though occasionally of a heart-rending kind. And, though the author is French, the novel is no frothy farce.

But call Someone Else a meditation on love, aging, and the cruelties of the corporate world, and you're apt to paint too solemn a picture.

I was carried away with reading the novel and so took few notes. One passage that I did highlight comes close to capturing the book's appeal:

"Trying to find predictable aspects in everyone was to deny the irrational element in each of them, the hint of poetry, absurdity and free will. Some kinds of madness were beyond any logic, and most — like Thierry Blin's — were not recorded in the great books on pathology."

That may not be the world's freshest philosophical statement, but it's quite another matter to take the theory and put it into practice in the form of a story, and an entertaining, occasionally affecting one at that. Benacquista does it here.

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Tonino Benacquista (right) was a guest of honor at Crimefest 2010, where he made the provocative statement that "It must be understood that the dominant source of innovation (in crime fiction) is the U.S."

His interviewer, Ann Cleeves, disagreed. What do you think?

© Peter Rozovsky 2010

Crimefest goes to the world capital of used books

The Hay-on-Wye festival doesn't start until Thursday, so we were able to beat the crowds today.

Your humble blogkeeper's haul in the secondhand-book capital of the world included The Ice Princess by Camilla Läckberg, Strange Loyalties by William McIlvanney and The Caterpillar Cop by James McClure for the modest total of just £8.95.

Thanks for the last of those to Stanley Trollip, one half of the Michael Stanley writing team, whose praise for McClure's seminal Kramer and Zondi series reminded me that it was time to get off my keister and read him. Thanks, too, to my fellow browser Emily Bronstein, who came across the McClure on our Hay expedition and said, "Look what I found."

© Peter Rozovsky 2010

Crimefest pictures, plus why other festivals should get with Crimefest's program

(Contestants in Crimefest 2010's Criminal Mastermind quiz game. From left, Peter Guttridge, Ali Karim, Martin Edwards and Cara Black. In the festival's least surprising development, Edwards won again this year.)

Crimefest 2010 is done except for Monday's excursion to Hay-on-Wye. A tip of the hat to organizers Adrian Muller and Myles Allfrey for another well-organized and exceedingly convivial event, sparked this year by some creative programming that other crime festivals might do well to study.

(Ruth Dudley Edwards and Bill James)

Today's example was a hands-on translation workshop with Ros Schwartz, Dagger award-winning translator of Dominique Manotti. This joins Saturday's self-defense clinic with Zoë Sharp as a clever and worthwhile supplement to panels, signings and discussions.

I'll be back to highlight some of past four days' thought-provoking panels, including Andrew Taylor on writing about the past, Ruth Dudley Edwards on sex and food, and Chris Carter on a bold, clever and free feat of marketing and self-editing.

For now, though, I'll have an early night to recover from three days and nights of crime and carousing. Until then, enjoy the pictures.

© Peter Rozovsky 2010

Crimefest V: Hit 'em where it hurts

Zoë Sharp (far right), author of the Charlie Fox series, offered some practical advice at Crimefest Saturday: Go for the throat.

If an assailant grabs you by the neck with both hands, Sharp said, swing one of your forearms down hard on his wrists, then pivot so your back is to the attacker and whack him in the windpipe with your free elbow.

Using elbows rather than fists confers the dual advantages of disabling the attacker and leaving the innocent victim's fingers and thumbs safe from injury and free to write realistic mystery thrillers.

Sharp spoke at a mini-workshop on self-defense, and this creative bit of programming sparked a discussion at the evening's gala dinner (left): How might future conventions go even further in supplementing the usual fare of panel discussions and interviews?

A lock-picking demonstration, suggested one author whose protagonist is a thief, though the dubious legality of such an undertaking under U.K. law put the kibosh on the possibility.

But you can help! What sorts of practical demonstrations would interest crime-fiction readers, writers, reviewers, editors, agents, fans, and folks who are just there waiting for the hotel bar to open? What would interest you?

© Peter Rozovsky 2010

Crimefest 2010, Day II, Part I: Sex, violence and vuvuzelas

What's a vuvuzela? I'm glad you asked. A vuvuzela (above/right) "is a blowing horn, approximately one metre in length, commonly blown by fans at football matches in South Africa."

I learned about them this morning from Stanley Trollip, one half of the team that writes as Michael Stanley, as we discussed South Africa's upcoming hosting of soccer's World Cup. He says vuvezelas have every chance of driving opposing teams nuts.

In Crimefest 2010 news more directly related to crime fiction, the great Bill James opened this morning's sex and violence panel with the declaration that "I try to smooth [violence] out with style. I think of it as very good boxing journalism ... make it sound like ballet, which it ain't."

That's an apt declaration, and unsurprising from the man who wrote:

"If you knew how to look, a couple of deaths from the past showed now and then in Iles' face."

© Peter Rozovsky 2010

Crimefest I: If this is England, where's the rain?

Everyone remembers who won tons of gold at the Olympics: Michael Phelps. Mark Spitz. Don Schollander (Come on, you remember Don Schollander.)

But who remembers the folks who won silver?

My team finished has just finished second at the Crimefest pub quiz for the second year in a row. This time my teammates were two of the ubiquitous names on the British crime fiction scene, Maxim Jakubowski and Ayo Onatade, but they were not enough to overcome the jet-lagged lump of North American baggage that joined them at the table.

We lost to a team that included Martin Edwards, Ann Cleeves and Karen Meek, just as last year's winning team did. And there were no prizes for runners-up this year, which means fewer books to carry home.

Quizmaster Peter Guttridge said this year's questions would be easy. Lying sack of &(^%!; they were ball-busters.

Tomorrow: Bill James, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Lindsey Davis, Donna Moore, Mike Hodges, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir and more.

© Peter Rozovsky 2010

Crimefest 2010: Blame it on Yrsa

I met Yrsa Sigurðardóttir for the first time at Bouchercon 2008 in Baltimore. While we were there, Iceland's banking system crashed.

We met again at Bouchercon 2009 in Indianapolis, when Yrsa was on my translation panel and everyone's economy had crashed.

Now my attendance at Crimefest 2010 in Bristol next week is imperilled by ash from that damn volcano in Yrsa's damn country. Yrsa, quite naturally, is scheduled to attend the fest.

Here are today's questions: Has any country as small as Iceland ever produced so many good crime writers and so much natural and financial disaster in so short a time? And is it all Yrsa's fault?

And here's the list of Crimefest attendees. It includes Bill James, Colin Dexter, Maxim Jakubowski, Donna Moore, Malcolm Pryce, Martin Edwards, Ruth Dudley Edwards, and many, as the saying goes, more.

I'll join them and provide entertaining and informative accounts, geological upheaval permitting.

© Peter Rozovsky 2010