Alain de Botton and the Terminal
JA
August 27
Fresh from a tussle with a New York Times critic (which famously ended in the words ‘I will hate you until the day I die’), Alain de Botton has pulled a Tom Hanks and moved into Heathrow.
It all began last week as part of the airport’s inaugural Writer in Residence program. De Botton was the first literary luminary off the rank. For seven days, he stayed at the nearby Sofitel hotel, and during business hours took up his post at Terminal 5, where the he was equipped with a public desk, laptop and a giant screen, which showed his writing in real time behind him. De Botton's jottings will later go towards making a short book, entitled A week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary (let’s hope it doesn’t read like an extended version of Hugh Grant’s opening in Love Actually). It will be published in September by Profile Books and 10 000 copies will be made freely available to Heathrow tourists. The rest of the print run will be sold through Amazon, with all royalties going to the author.
This exercise comes largely under the ‘big cultural PR stunt’ banner. Heathrow doesn’t pretend otherwise, although they do, as always, put on the appropriate spin. Dan Glover, creative director of the airport’s PR firm, Mischief London, claimed that the residency was supposed to inspire ‘branded conversations’ among travelers ‘through the experience of seeing a top literary figure at the airport – and potentially being a character in the book – and by receiving an exclusive copy to read on your travels’. ‘If we funded a brochure that said how wonderful the airport was,’ he added, ‘people would switch off because they’d think they’re being marketed to.’ Presumably, people don’t know that they’re being marketed to now. De Botton is also tweeting about the experience, with small nuggets like ‘How much more interesting to observe how an airline meal is prepared than to eat it’.
Creative purists have been less than flattering about the whole affair. Gawker ran a story about it under the heading ‘Boring Airport Book Contract Better Than No Book Contract’ and likened de Botton to ‘a monkey in a cage’. The Guardian also pointed out that De Botton was following in the footsteps of Fay Weldon, who back in 2001 accepted a lucrative sponsorship deal from jewelers Bulgari in exchange for mentioning several of their products in her book.
De Botton, on the other hand, maintains that he has complete editorial freedom: ‘Right from the start I said I can only do this if you don’t even see the text before it goes to print… I said, ‘If I find a cockroach in the restaurant, if someone drops dead at the airport, I’m going to write about it.’’ He also likened his situation to the writer/patron relationships of old: ‘That one of the largest organizations in the UK should take an interest in a book is almost quaint, like sponsoring a poet… On behalf of my fellow beleaguered writers, it’s nice that writers seem to matter.’
You can decide for yourself. Here is one of the early snippets of de Botton’s writings, courtesy of The Faster Times:
Some lovers were parting. She must have been twenty, he a few years older. Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood was in her bag. They had oversize sunglasses and had come of age in the period between SARS and swine flu. They were dressed casually in combat trousers and T-shirts. It was the intensity of their kiss that first attracted my attention, but what had seemed like passion from afar was revealed at closer range to be unusual devastation. She was shaking with sorrowful disbelief, he was cradling her in his arms, stroking her short blonde hair, in which a hairclip in the shape of a tulip had been fastened. Repeatedly, they would look into each other’s eyes and then, as though thereby made newly aware of the catastrophe about to befall them, she would begin weeping once more.
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Comments
27 Aug 09 at 6:17
Ah! Now I understand a piece I read in the Guardian the other day in which a woman journalist set up shop with her laptop in a bus station, and reported on conversations with unemployed and unglamorous travellers.
...27 Aug 09 at 9:36
Not to be a pedant, but it's 'Botton', not 'Bottom'.
Interesting idea - people-watching in the airport is great.
...27 Aug 09 at 9:45
No, no, it's 'Bottom' -- as in 'Arse'. As in 'he who makes an Arse of himself'.
...27 Aug 09 at 10:52
I love the idea. As de Botton said himself, it's wonderful for the writing community in general that people are showing interest in an idea like that.
His visibility is also a great way of inspiring people. So much of the writing process is hidden away from readers, this gives him and the profession a big boost.
I'll be following with interest.
...27 Aug 09 at 11:31
Sorry about the bottom business. I've had Jess shot.
...27 Aug 09 at 12:03
You should give her a medal. That was a highly appropriate and entertaining typographical error.
...27 Aug 09 at 13:58
At first I thought she did it on purpose, as an appropriate comment on the maturity level of Mr 'I'll hate you until the day I die'.
It's an interesting experiment, but not, I think, the ingredients for an interesting book. (Unless he's lucky and there's a majoe international incident at the airport while he's there.) If it was to be a blog, yes. A book ... taking it too far. A bit too much like publishing a writer's shopping list.
...27 Aug 09 at 20:59
ahem apologies for mistaken though entertaining error.
ps: plz dun shoot me.
Personally I think this is pretty much a PR stunt with some writing benefits. It might make some good work, but most likely there's better stuff out there. Although I do agree a blog might've been a better way to go - more suited to the idea.
...01 Sep 09 at 19:56
oh my goodness! I only just clicked through to the 'hate you till I die' story - and the critic in question is Caleb Crain! Caleb Crain!!! Best critic writing today! Holy moley. Always thought there was something phony about A de B and now he's confirmed it himself.
...04 Sep 09 at 11:15
complete comment fail there Rachel.
...04 Sep 09 at 12:26
I thought I'd deleted Rachel's comment- sorry Rachel but what you say is more than off colour. I do moderate comments here and I'm afraid yours crosses a line.
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