He’s quite a famous author, let’s just start with that. No longer young, and his great success came well into middle age after years of respectable literary obscurity. International prizes, Hollywood film, all that. He publishes rarely, so it’s an event to see him on stage with an eminent poet interviewing him.

The interview was somehow lackluster; maybe I felt I already knew everything he was saying, or not enough, as I haven’t yet read his latest novel. Or maybe it was the warm weather and the Prosecco I’d had with dinner. The sound was poor and I found myself wishing I were at home listening to the interview on the radio. But I was with a friend and we were still enjoying a nice evening, and had bought copies of the latest book to have signed after the interview.

We left before the end of the Q & A to find a good place in line. Fifth and sixth respectively; we waited perhaps ten minutes before the final burst of applause and the audience began to spill out of the doors. There came the famous author among them, looking somewhat disheveled and harassed. He took his seat at the signing table; the line of admirers stood to attention.

In front of us were an elderly woman and a somewhat younger man; they gushed over the author, seemed to be exchanging some personal anecdote, a mutual acquaintance, an encounter in the past. He obliged them with their pile of books to sign and smiled resentfully for a photo with the woman. My friend and I waited politely. Then it was our turn; we knew we would like to thank him for his books, that have brought us much pleasure. My friend had her copy signed; the famous author did not look at her but merely at the post-it with her name for the dedication; in the meanwhile he was still talking to the elderly woman who hovered and handed him a piece of paper. When it was my turn he did not look up, continued talking to the gushing woman, wrote my name, signed my book; I waited for him to hand it to me with at least a grimace or an acknowledgment from his famous and somewhat sexy blue eyes, but no, he slid my book to the side of the table, assembly-line style, while he went on talking with the elderly woman.

My friend and I hastened to the fresh air; beside myself, I just burst out for whoever might hear, Je suis dégoûtée!! Why I had to say it in French, I don’t know, perhaps out of some sense of discretion, or a peculiarly Gallic outrage reserved for bad behavior of spoilt famous authors. I translated for my friend and she agreed and shared my disgust.

Then on the way home we discussed the implications and repercussions of success. Obviously this distinguished gentleman did not enjoy book tours, or lectures, or interviews, and above all signings. I had seen him in a book store some years ago and he had been affable enough, but it is true the signing was hasty and impersonal—in those days he would not even personalize the dedication (no post-its) and we were hastened along by the book store staff; presumably now publishers and bookstores can exert more pressure on authors, in their desperation to save a dying commerce? My feeling, in the end, turned from disgust to compassion: why should an author have to act like a salesman? And why do people act like groupies around these most private of artists? What is it about his name and his Hollywood associations that brings out the worst in people? He ought to be entitled, with his fame and money, not to have to go on book tours. Better that than sit grouchily for 45 minutes signing books for fawning readers…It should be the author’s choice.

I know a young woman who has had a huge success with her novel in France. At a recent signing she spent on an average five to ten minutes with each reader who wanted their book signed; but that was her choice. She is young and enthusiastic and full of curiosity about people; she wants to know her readers. She too has had the Hollywood (equivalent) film, but so far it hasn’t gone to her head. But staying with her readers is her choice; she likes their attention and likes to give something back. My famous white-haired author clearly had better poems to write. So let him.

How much of owning signed copies of books or exchanging words with famous artists is about us rather than them? So that we can say to others, oh, I have a signed copy of Da Vinci Code (I don’t and never will) or (see below) Seamus Heaney once told me personally that the weather would improve (he did and yes, I am proud to own not one but two signed editions)? Isn’t it really our own ego that is being stroked when we bask in the shadow of the famous and the successful? Isn’t that why a smart man like this white-haired author will see through the enthusiasm and kind words and ultimately become tired of being adulated, often quite transparently?

Celebrity worship and culture has become a terrible thing. When a revolting ninny like Paris Hilton can make the front pages of the BBC news, you know the world is very much out of synch with what is important (unless, like another friend of mine, you ask, Was there a fire at the Paris Hilton or something? Why is everyone talking about the Paris Hilton?)

Inevitably, on our ride home, we compared the famous author to others we had seen recently at the same venue, or elsewhere. How they had interacted with the public. I recalled Seamus Heaney who was gracious and down-to-earth and how we talked about the weather as he was signing my book (it’s a bit intimidating to talk to a Nobel-prize winner, so the weather served nicely; when I apologized for the storms he was having while visiting California he reassured me that the forecast was for an improvement. And with that Irish lilt of his, you do go a bit weak at the knees).

I had briefly thought I might resent the famous author’s offhand behavior, that it might color my reading of his new book. But ultimately you read the book for itself; it has nothing to do anymore, once it’s in your hands and your mind and your emotions, with how or even who the author is. And he knows that too, knows he does not need to promote himself or be kind to people to gain readers, if he has done his job. Which is to write well, and that he does, superbly.