Plane and taxi



I went to Victoria on the weekend for a 60th birthday party. It was a lovely event, a barbecue in a picnic grounds off the Great South Road between Airey's Inlet and Lorne, a gathering of several generations and a number of clans. On the way back in the plane, I forgot the dangers of talking about my work, and mentioned to the young woman next to me that I was an editor. She said, 'I've written a children's book,' but my heart had hardly begun to sink before it bobbed right up again as she finished the sentence, 'that's going to be published later this year.' I didn't get to hear any detail of the book, apart from its current title and that it's in verse. But it's a nice story of overnight success, that tries the rule that there's really no such thing: sure, it's the only thing of its kind that she has written; sure, it was accepted by the first publisher she sent it to (one with an excellent track record); but it turns out she did write it ten years ago, when she was at school. She loved writing it, and when she reread recently, she found she still loved it, and ('I don't really know why I thought of sending it off') decided it might have some life outside her bottom drawer. So even though it's not like most 'overnight successes' -- that come after years of hard work -- it's the next best thing, having been laid aside for the nine years recommended by Horace and Pope, plus one for good measure. I hope it's a best seller.

Then I forgot the dangers again, and in the taxi from the airport I told that story to my travelling companions. The driver, his eyes lit with a slightly crazed fire, asked the name of the publisher. When I told him, he said, 'Many people have said that I should write down my ideas about the world into a book and get them published. We could print thousands of them and sell them to schools where all the students would study them, and then I would travel from school to school, explaining my ideas in person.' 'Oh,' I said, 'this publisher probably wouldn't be right for you, because they only do children's books.' When asked, I confess I did give him the names of a couple of grown-up publishing houses. But I didn't write them down, so please don't curse my name if his manuscript turns up in the in-trays of Penguin, Allen & Unwin, or Harper Collins. I won't give you the rest of the conversation, but yes, he did ask if I wanted to hear his views, and yes, I said yes and yes, they were all about the wonders of god as revealed by his creation -- the world as art exhibition. 'Have you ever heard any thinking as excellent as that?' he asked. 'Oh,' I said, with what I like to think was tact, 'I couldn't begin to say.' But in fact, if he was as self-taught as he seemed, I was interested, so I asked what religious tradition he belonged to. It turns out he was brought up Christian but converted to Islam. The prophet Muhammad, he explained, is foretold in a number of places in the bible (Deuteronomy, The Song of Songs, a number of Psalms), but most Jews and Christians don't see it because of their preconceptions. I sincerely hope his book never becomes a reality, but I wished him luck anyhow: he uses his taxi as a little pulpit to encourage people to think about the beauty of the world, and he didn't seem to bear any deliberate ill will towards the unfortunates who don't share his truths. It was a lot better than being forced to listen to Alan Jones, or Kyle and whatsername.

Posted: Mon - March 10, 2008 at 12:02 PM           |

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