Book festival brings acclaimed author Anthony Doerr to Utah State
Writer Anthony Doerr, author of “All the Light We Cannot See,” lectured at Utah State about “Writing and the Natural World” Tuesday afternoon. Doerr’s speech was part of the 17th annual Utah Humanities Book Festival.
Doerr, who grew up in Ohio, now lives in Boise, Idaho, and calls himself a “dilettante,” or a dabbler. He discussed his lifelong interests in many different categories including animals, history, plants, marine biology, architecture and his favorite childhood literature.
“Though I wasn’t published for a long time, I started by writing down the things that amazed me,” Doerr said. He wrote down everything he found fascinating for a long time before even considering becoming a writer, he said. Doerr spoke passionately about the world around him.
“I try to let my own enthusiasm for the world seep into others’ lives by writing about it,” he said.
In his speech, Doerr discussed how he got the idea for his most popular novel, “All the Light we Cannot See,” a book about a blind French girl’s friendship with a German boy.
He talked about the way he was amazed by the light spectrum and that we are able to communicate via light waves unseen by the human eye. This inspired the unique relationship the blind French girl had with the boy, “the way it is almost as if she can see better than he can in the dark,” Doerr said as he showed a picture of a girl reading Braille.
“Compared to the invisible spectrum of light, the visible spectrum is almost nonexistent,” Doerr said.
He said one of the central themes of his book was inspired by his interest in the Hitler Youth programs, which essentially brainwashed youth into believing in the Nazi cause.
“Is it right to do something just because everyone else is doing it,” Doerr asked the group.
After the lecture, attendees had the opportunity to buy Doerr’s book and he signed them outside of the lecture hall.
Anthony Doerr read from his book on Wednesday evening in the library as well. Morgan Woodcox, a junior in community health, said she enjoyed the reading.
“It was great. He was as descriptive as he was in the book,” Woodcox said. “He uses amazing metaphors to help you see what he says.”
The six-week book festival runs from Sept. 18 to the end of October and features readings and lectures by both national and international authors, slam poetry and events for children. October is National Book Month.
Festival director Michael McLane said the event wasn’t always statewide.
“We started out a fairly small festival localized pretty much to Salt Lake City,” McLane said. Originally held on campus at Westminster College, the festival grew to fill the Salt Lake City Public Library and now happens in communities around the state. McLane, who has worked as a bookseller and also a performer at the festival, said he has witnessed it from all sides, including the side of months of preparation that “never really stops.”
“I am already starting on work for 2015,” McLane said. “I already have a couple of authors booked for next year.” However, McLane refuses to take credit for the festival.
“I’m the director for this thing, but a whole lot of the credit goes to our community partners,” he said. “I know the Salt Lake Valley and the Wasatch front really well, but it’s the librarians and the teachers and the museum people and other people working in Moab and Logan and other people around the state that make these things possible. They deserve credit for that.”
McLane said the festival allows students to engage with authors and literature.
“I think we’re trying to find new ways for audiences to engage with literature in the same way that authors and publishers are trying to find new mediums and new outlets for literature,” he said.
Put on by the Utah Humanities Council, the festival is the only one of its kind in Utah and will have events all over the state including Price, Provo, Salt Lake City, Vernal, Ogden and Brigham City, according to utahhumanities.org.
The website description states the UHC aims to help individuals and groups improve their communities by bringing people a way to actively engage in the humanities. The council provides money and support for local humanities projects ranging from the preservation of oral histories to discussions and interpretive exhibits.
The festival will return to Logan on October 9 at the Logan Library on Main Street with poetry readings from poets Cat Dixon and Natalie Taylor. This event will also be part of Logan’s Helicon West series, an event held on the second and fourth Thursday of every month during the USU fall and spring semesters. Helicon West welcomes members of the community to read from their personal creative works as well as listen to the works of other local writers.
Celebrated annually the last week in September, Banned Books Week is Sept. 21-27, according to the American Library Association website. Banned Books Week promotes the freedom to read all books and the exchange of ideas, “even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular,” according to ala.org.
— zachary.wilson@aggiemail.usu.edu