“In
1956 and 57, there was an explosion in the music charts,” says Ben
Elton. “We took black music back to America. They put Elvis in the
Army to stamp out Rock ‘n’ Roll, but then the Beatles came along
and rejuvenated it.”
Mr.
Elton knows his history. He’s here in Waterstones on Deansgate,
which he describes as “one of the most beautiful bookshops in the
world”, to launch his WW2 novel, Two Brothers. It’s 6 November,
and the book doesn’t officially come out for another 2 days.
Despite the fact that this is his first book event in “ten to
fifteen years,” there are a few spare seats in the arena. I still pick the front row, for some reason.
“I
don’t know whether people are sat in watching the US election,”
he says, “or whether they’re just stuck in traffic like I was.”
Mr.
Elton bucks the book-signing trend by not reading a segment his work.
“Books are so intimate,” he says. “Reading a novel is intensely
private- all there is is words. The images are entirely the gift of
the reader.” That’s also why, he says, his books haven’t been
made into films. Keeping his work in novel form, he says, “leaves
almost everything to the imagination… Oh, and the other reason I’m
not doing a reading is that every Nazi guard would have a cockney
accent.”
“Besides,”
he says, “Two Brothers is a big book- too big to be a film. Take
Bonfire of the Vanities, for example. It’s a great book, but it’s
a terrible movie. But then you can take the 39 Steps, for example,
which is a great book and a great film. But they’ve got absolutely
fuck all in common!”
At
this point Mr. Elton breaks his presentation to-
“Excuse
me- are you a journalist?” he asks.
He can
only be talking to me. I’m sat in the front row furiously
scribbling as much as I can of the presentation. I don’t have
shorthand skills, but my handwriting is bad enough to pass for it.
I look
up from my notebook. “No, I’m a blogger.”
“Oh!”
he says. “I’ll be careful what I say then!”
Mr.
Elton’s presentation, which has been twisting through a number of
different subjects since the opening, takes another detour- via
Twitter. After a quick show of hands to gauge numbers of Twitter
users in the room- about half of us- he explains his problem with
“the tweet”, or as he puts it, “the modern haiku”.
“Sometimes
news on TV will have a little ticker at the bottom of the screen, and
it’ll say, ‘John in Bristol has tweeted saying, “I think this
is appalling…”’ Why?! Why show this? This is when I hate
Twitter- when it starts to share news. I’ve got no problem with the
site itself, but I do when it becomes a news story. It’s either
that or reporters will ask the opinions of what we used to call
‘psycho fans’, y’know, the obsessives.”
Mr.
Elton’s stream-of-consciousness presentation then lands on a
statistic he saw, suggesting that there are more homeless on the UK’s
streets than ever before. He then admits, “But this has nothing to
do with anything.” He moves on, through Strictly Come Dancing,
which he has avoided
participating in against his children’s wishes, and asks why
politicians try to pass off as celebrities in the jungle.
“The holy grail is to be watched all the time,” he says. “To
seek privacy these days is actually a perversity.”
The
speech covers an eclectic range of subjects because he’s “spent
eleven hours talking bout Two Brothers, and I don’t fucking want
to, frankly.” And so he moves quickly on to George Harrison and
Paul McCartney, whom he describes as “the greatest pop artists of
the century,” and on to Olympic medallist Jessica Ennis (“cute
and intimidating at the same time.”)
When
he lands on the war on drugs, which Mr Elton dismisses as “a rout”,
he divulges that he was in fact invited to talk to a group of
Scottish MPs about drug abuse. Mr. Elton told these MPs that,
had he the power, he would legalise crack. The amount of time and
money spent fighting drugs, he suggests, would be better spent
fighting other forms of crime.
I’d
have to agree.
After
talking to these MPs, one of those present approached Mr Elton and
admitted they all knew that legalising crack was the answer. They all
want to slacken off drug prohibition, but they all know it would be a
nightmare if they did.
Eventually,
Mr Elton HAS to touch on the novel, which he describes as “simple
fiction”. The book is actually dedicated to his two uncles- one a
member of the Wehrmarkt, the other in the British Army, and the story
focuses on an adopted Jewish child who is dropped when Hitler comes
to power.
“It’s
inspired by my family, but it’s not about them,” he says. Then to
me, he says, “There are 30 witnesses here, so you’ve got to get
it right!”
The Q
and A session brings some fascinating revelations, including an
amusing impression of his Mancunian editor.
He
first immersed himself in reading at a very early age, starting with
Beanos, Dandies and war comics like Epiphiny. He cites Egg Beans and
Crumpets as a favourite, stating PG Woodhouse as “the greatest
British comic writer. His timing is perfection.”
Growing
older, he dabbled in Conan Doyle and Simon Woodhouse.
His
favourite fictional character is Sherlock Holmes.
His
mum read George Orwell’s Animal Farm to him when he was 7.
When
starting a writing project, he stays motivated by creating a deadline
with his editor and writes into the night to attain it. In his words,
“You have to keep on keeping on.”
He
finds novels easier to write than screenplays, a format he has
dabbled in. With novels, he points out, you don’t have to find
locations.
He’ll
be back up north filming a sitcom at Salford’s Media City at
Christmas, so if you’re in the area, keep your eyes peeled…
The
night ends like this:
Mr
Elton gets my blog card. I get the book signed. If the author is
reading this, please remember that I don't have shorthand and I did
give it my best shot. If I got anything wrong, please get in touch
and correct me.
