Edinburgh International Book Festival: Frank Cottrell Boyce & Andrew Motion

This event saw two ‘giants of the literary world’ discussing their latest works and their origins in two classic pieces of literature. Their ‘follow-on’ novels Silver (Motion) and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Rides Again (Frank Cottrell Boyce) lend a modern slant to Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson and Ian Fleming's Chitty Chitty Bang Bang respectively. Discussion centred largely on motivations for the novels as well as the question of ownership of the text and characters that are given a new life in these two contemporary novels.

The challenges and expectations that come with re-working was a concern for both authors although motivations were quite different. For Cottrell Boyce, this came in the form of a personal request from the Fleming family, while in Motion's case the novel Silver was something of a slow-burning passion: he first considered the idea over 40 years ago after he first read Treasure Island at university. The original text is driven by a strong narrative and he was seemingly very conscious that he could not follow in Stevenson's footsteps without telling something of a yarn himself. He did feel, however, that there were a lot of unfinished things at the end of the book and he takes up the tale 40 years on: Jim Hawkins is now a drunken bore and Long John Silver an old man and it is their children who take centre stage in another rip-roaring adventure.

Cottrell Boyce was well aware of his story as popular culture – not only as a novel but also a successful film. The text itself is very different – and brings the focus back to the car, as Fleming intended. Cottrell Boyce was clearly animated by the fascinating life of Count Louis Zborowski – a 1920s rally driver who actually owned a racing car which he called Chitty Bang Bang. For him this type of re-work is all about changing the ownership of something and shifting the goal posts of what has gone before. Fleming actually planned about sequels to the original novel and so Cottrell Boyce has merely been passed a vintage car to tinker with and make his own.

Both writers displayed a real sense of fun in playing with truth and ideas of a fixed past being moulded for a modern audience. Rather than perceiving it as a form of literary ventriloquism, both saw their works as an homage to the original works and not, as Motion put it, "sticking chewing gum on a national treasure. One must consciously step away from the original to open things up and create something that is free-standing, with no damage to the original work."  [Megan Agnew]