Last night Dorothy and I went to Manhattan to see the Return of the Three Musketeers at the 92nd Street Y. this was a reunion of Salman Rushdie, Umberto Eco, and Mario Vargas Llosa, who had appeared together at another literary gathering a few years ago and took to calling themselves the Three Musketeers, at Eco’s suggestion. It was one of the most intellectually thrilling evenings I have ever seen, and I could listen to these three brilliant writers argue about literature, popular culture, and bad writing all night long.
We arrived in Manhattan early enough to grab dinner before the event. We ate at Ecco La on 93rd and 3rd, and, as good as the food was, I cannot recommend it. It has the worst service I have ever had at a Manhattan restaurant. which is truly unforgivable considering how good Italian restaurants are about as hard to find in the city as pigeons.
Once we arrived at the Y, we stood in line for thirty or forty minutes. Shortly before we were allowed into the hall, a bustling entourage of lights and cameras noisily stormed through the lobby. In the bustle, I only managed to see Salman Rushdie before the group whisked away to the backstage area. After they opened to doors, we got great seats, only six or eight rows back.
Each author read a short excerpt of his work. In an interesting innovation, Eco and Vargas Llosa read theirs in their own language, with a translated script flowing past on a large screen above them. Eco read from Foucault’s Pendulum, Rushdie from a soon-to-be-released novel, and Vargas Llosa from a new novel. After the readings the three sat down for a discussion led by Leonard Lopate, who, sadly, seemed to somewhat superfluous once the garrulous authors got going.
One of the most striking things about the evening was the widely divergent personae the three men exhibited. Rushdie was all dry, witty confidence, recounting in a lightly ironic tone his experiences in several movies (including the current Then She Found Me, directed by Helen Hunt). Vargas Llosa, with his dramatic shock of silver hair, appeared stately and calm, befitting a man who, in 1990, ran for president of Peru (but lost). Eco was a ball of fierce energy, the stereotypical Italian with wildly gesticulating hands and words tumbling out of his mouth so quickly they formed a dancing musical tune.
They began discussing Dumas, and the reasons for calling themselves the Three Musketeers. Clearly, each author was deeply familiar with Dumas’ novel, and they showed their erudition by making complicated jokes about the characters, the plot, and the parallels between the characters and themselves–who was Aramis? Porthos? Athos? Then Eco, startlingly, asserted that The Count of Monte Cristo was a bad novel. Although Rushdie and Varga Llosa seemed inclined to disagree, Eco carried his point with boundless energy and enthusiasm, and soon brought the other two to his way of thinking. He was not saying that it was bad as in unreadable, but that it was not Literature. Vargas Llosa finally agreed, saying that good grammar did not make a great story, and that a really great story with bad grammar could be a great thing. Rushdie proposed a difference between great literature and great myth. Hawkeye, he said, from Cooper’s novels, is a great mythic character, but the Leatherstocking novels are, in his opinion, virtually unreadable (as a Cooper scholar, I have to disagree, but I can certainly see his point). Eco, bouncing with energy, agreed heartily.
Lopate then decided that he needed to do his job and started to direct the discussion with some questions about a novelist’s place in the social order, politics, and similar topics. Although I enjoyed this part of the discussion, I wish he had simply faded into the background and let the three authors run with their ideas. Their unstructured talk was a joy to behold.
Another joy was seeing the audience and their reactions. The applauding, the laughter, the energy matched that on the stage, and I wished several times that I could have had my students there to watch real writers talking about books and movies and politics to show them how much boisterous fun real smart conversation could be. It was also a thrill to see who else was in the audience with us. Two rows ahead sat Richard Ford and Jeffrey Eugenides. It was a thrilling moment of literary-celebrity sighting. When it came to the point of the evening when Lopate would read some audience questions, the audience groaned and almost revolted when the first question was almost criminally banal, something along the lines of “how do you write?” Eco did answer in a wonderfully smart ass fashion: “I start on the left and work my way to the right.” He was starting to warm to his topic (“My Israeli friend starts from the right and works to the left…”) when Richard Ford shouted, “Next question!”
It was a brilliant evening.
I just commented on Dorothy’s blog how envious I was that I wasn’t there. Even more so after reading your review.
Damn, why do I live in the German provinces? This sounds like a fascinating evening. Thanks for your great review.
Wow – this sounds absolutely amazing. How wonderful, and how lucky, to have been there!
Sounds stellar–I wonder if anybody’s going to YouTube it anytime soon. Unfortunately, this sort of preeminent literary parade doesn’t roll through my town (Reno) all too often. We’re lucky if we get Hall & Oates.