Bookworm: ‘With a few grand exceptions...there are very few theatrical versions of the journalist’

Published on 05/05/2012 00:00

Snippets from the past seven days in the literary world

PRESSED FOR CHOICE

As Andrew O’Hagan’s play Enquirer is running with the National Theatre of Scotland, Bookworm was pondering how literature deals with journalism. A cursory glance along the bookshelves reveals a surprising number of journalist characters in classics, from Tom Towers in Trollope’s The Warden to Henrietta Stackpole in Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady to Duroy in Maupassant’s Bel-Ami. In America, of course, it is as a journalist that the Kryptonian Kal-El, also known as Superman, disguises himself. Plays, however, are the poor relation. With a few grand exceptions – Ibsen’s The Enemy of the People for example – there are very few theatrical versions of the journalist. That said, the earliest play featuring one, Ben Jonson’s The Staple of News in 1625, sets much of the later sceptical tone about the profession: in the last act one character denounces “the guilty race of men that dare to stand / No breath of truth”.

SABBAGH’S DAY

A rather surprising letter appears in this quarter’s issue of The Author, the magazine of the Society of Authors. Karl Sabbagh, the noted historian of Palestine, reports receiving a rejection letter from a Scottish publisher, whose blushes we shall spare by not naming them. Not only was the letter addressed to a Mr Sabbahg, it ended by saying that, with regret, they could not publish his husband’s book. But most embarrassing of all is the revelation of when Mr Sabbagh submitted his manuscript for consideration: 2005. Of course publishers must ruminate over whether or not to commit to a book, but seven years seems a tad on the long side.

DISHONEST-E

A third of UK citizens now have some kind of e-book reader; an increase of 21 per cent on last year’s statistic. Nearly 40 per cent, however, say they have no intention of getting such a gizmo. The report does give some justification for those who hold such electronic trinkets in low regard: a third of those who have an e-book reader have used it to download pirated copies of books. This should give us pause for thought, and if not us, at least the producers of e-book readers who are often also the providers of content. I wonder if Amazon would be so keen to send me emails advertising the price of its e-book reader if they knew I’d be bypassing them to get the books I read on it. Since I’ll be doing neither, it’s a moot point.