Conversations With Mr. Prain by Joan Taylor Read Free Book Online

reasons, to examine from all angles.Tied to the tea table, I was in some ways expected to perform. Perhaps he liked games of strategy, I thought. He was making our discourse into a game of chess. He would move one piece of his army of subjects and I would have to respond. He was in control.
    I sighed, attempting to grasp a rush of ideas. How could I put it? “All right, then let us suppose writers do have a prophetic function, because a prophet asked society to see: injustices, history, future possibilities, ambiguities, truth. Back in ancient Israel a prophet roamed about and cried out prophecies to the populace at a city’s gates, where people gathered and discussed things. But the world is too big now. It’s no use shouting aloud at Hyde Park Corner. If you want to communicate a message, you have to publish, or make a film, or broadcast it on television or radio or put it on the internet. In days B.C. you needed just a voice and the air we breathe to transmit it, but now you need mechanical media, and because the media is artificial, it has to be paid for. And because people can make money from owning the media, and want to make money, then they have to think about a market—unless you manage to interest an idiosyncratic small publisher or put it on the web, but actually, despite what we would all hope, I always worry that people only read any poetry or stories there for three minutes of idle curiosity. So supposing Isaiah lived today, he would have to consider whether his prophecy would sell.”
    “Or else become a politician.”
    “Yes,” I said, wondering if he was joking, or perhaps he was talking about the French: poet-politicians like Alphonse Lamartine or, now, the intriguing Dominique de Villepin.
    “Go on,” he said.
    Go on. Go on. Something else was crying, Stop! I did not listen. “The city gates of today are in the hands of people like you, Mr. Prain. It is as if you charged an entrance ticket, and only the most popular prophets were allowed to speak. Despite what you say about the allowances publishers make for ‘quality fiction,’ you’ll always be looking for a financially viable operation. The entertainers amuse the crowd, and if there is a popular ‘prophet’ who also happens to be a true one, that’s more than a rarity. It shows consummate skill to write on two levels. Meanwhile, you’ll pay millions for the rights to publish the paperbacks of Dan Brown or—”
    “Not I,” he replied, with his hand on his heart.
    “Yes, but you see what I mean.”
    “A dismal view, if I may say so.”
    “Is it so very different to what you were saying before?”
    “In what way exactly?”
    I pulled worriedly on a lock of hair, wishing there was a way out of this discussion, not sure what subject there might be which would make me feel comfortable under the circumstances. I was caged, and in a certain panic I accused him. “Prophecy is proven by time. I suppose it’s up to you, in a sense, to be the tester of spirits.”
    “Yes. One needs to distinguish between genuine inspiration and delusion, the true artist from the dilettante. But you say that as if you don’t think I’m qualified for the role.”
    “Of course you’re not. In a way, no one is.”
    An outburst of this sort of flagrant cheek amused him. He felt no threat. “So writing that has no prophetic function is the entertainment of which you are so dismissive, but no one is truly qualified to assess its worth. No one can distinguish between true and false prophets.”
    “You haven’t done, because what you publish at Coymans is mostly from false prophets: writers who have had their novels published, but who have compromised themselves for the sake of sales, and dare not write what they really feel.” He was gaining pleasure from my audacity. “Or you publish writers who are extremely commercial, because their vision is just exactly what the public wants—it confirms the dominant preconceptions. It sounds clever, and