Thinking Aloud

The audience erupts in laughter. He goes on: 'Mailer wrote 10 pages reviewing A Man in Full in the New York Review of Books, and Updike six pages in the New Yorker. Both rubbished my book. I think each did it on his own. I was enormously flattered. Both had books around the same time and both sank without a bubble. These two old piles of bones spending all that time and energy on a book review. I think what set both of them off was the Time cover on me. Both were just trying to protect their reputation.'

If Mailer and Updike thought they had the business of hierarchy sorted out till Wolfe arrived on the scene, Rushdie's problem could be his extreme sensitivity to criticism. The festival press office says Rushdie's been giving interviews for three months and doesn't fancy another. I try my luck through Peter Florence, festival director and one of its co-founders.

Florence goes into the green room, and re-emerges to call me aside. 'He doesn't want to talk to Outlook. He said you guys stitched him up a few months ago. He said he didn't quite like the type of journalism Outlook was into. And didn't specially want to give them an interview.' 'Must be that Pankaj Mishra piece,' I say. 'Yeah, whatever,' says Florence.

Meanwhile, Rushdie, who's been tolerant of Outlook's photographer so far (little knowing the rogue publication he works for) brushes him aside now with disdain. Strangely, Outlook's status goes up a few notches in the press office at this villainous branding by Rushdie.I take the opportunity to put in a request for an interview with Wolfe. He's meeting Rushdie. Maybe, he'll tell me what he thinks of Rushdie. That he finds him 'unreadable' or something.

At Rushdie's reading session, I toss him a question from the audience. In what context, I ask, did he talk of his feeling of being betrayed by India. Rushdie's reply: 'India was the first to ban Satanic Verses. Before anyone there had even read it. I felt disappointed that the work I'd done counted for so little. I hope that phase is coming to an end. At least (then) the rift will be breached.' He talks of the music of his generation, rock 'n' roll, the basis of his latest novel The Ground Beneath Her Feet. 'My mother did not like me listening to rock 'n' roll. To me, it didn't seem foreign. Why did it belong to all of us? Maybe it had to do with this rebellious thing.' He hailed James Joyce as the greatest English writer of the century, 'for making an English that didn't belong to the English'. He called Arundhati Roy's piece on the Narmada row (first in Outlook, but he read it in a British paper) a phenomenal piece of journalism. 'It had passion combined with knowledge,' he said.

Rushdie's insights gave way to Seth's asides on the weather. As he rose to read, the rain drummed with fury on the tent. 'It's difficult to read stories of love and loss against the elements,' he said. The day was the 200th birth anniversary of Pushkin, to whom Seth owes much by way of inspiration. On Seth, Florence said: 'He's been to Hay four times. He's the one writer most other writers want to meet. He's genuinely talented, a delight because of his Haiku collection. Also, a great river swimmer.' And Seth knew what was happening in cricket to know of India's poor showing, despite being in the US lately.

Hay on Wye has had a reputation since the '60s. It has 20-25 old bookshops, the oldest started by Richard Booth, who had declared the town independent from the UK! About four Indians writers reading on a single day, Florence says: 'All happened to be available on the same date. But lists now inevitably have Indian writers. They are going through a Golden Age.' While this year the festival invited 220 writers, it's been Florence's regret that Marquez is absent. Though, the other Latin American great, Mario Vargas Llosa, did make a grand entry. Calling to cancel 24 hours before his session, Florence insisted on his presence, flying him in from Heathrow by chopper. Says Florence: 'He gave me an immortal line as he stepped out. He said when he fought polls in Peru, the government gave him a limousine. As a writer, he was getting a chopper.'

It was my session with Wolfe that was most enjoyable. I asked him about Neal Cassidy, on whom Jack Kerouac based his novel On the Road. Cassidy, later in life, had travelled with Ken Kasey's Merry Prankster's group that toured the US by bus. Wolfe, in trademark white suit, was also on the bus. 'Cassidy was such a character in mythology that by then he was expected to be in showman-like fashion always,' says Wolfe. 'He was taking a lot of speed and methedrine, talked to himself continuously, and felt he was always on stage. When he'd come down from drugs, he'd be depressed. There was nothing in between. That time he was into driving from Point A to B without stopping even if it involved driving over people's lawns and travelling in wrong lanes. He did come as advertised. Wild as anyone I've ever known.'

Wolfe talked of new journalism,to use the techniques of fiction to make non-fiction interesting. 'It's to do with four things. Telling the story, using original dialogue as much as possible, noting status details and telling the entire scene through the eyes of one person. Using these, even a mediocre writer can transform himself.'

Has he read Indian writers? 'No,' he says. 'Not even Seth?' No. But adds he: 'If Indian achievements in the medical field in the US is anything to go by, I'm sure they make fantastic writers as well.' Finally, what about his meeting with Rushdie? 'Oh that was just casual, social stuff,' says Wolfe. No luck.

Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities was serialised in Rolling Stone. Says Wolfe: 'I sent it three chapters to start with. The editor decided to have a big splash and published all of them in one issue. I was left with no cushion. It was then I understood how good Dickens was to have serialised his books. You can't go back and change anything.'