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encourages readers to identify the author for each section and offers a £100 pound
reward for the correct answer. Individual style was given preference over collaborative co­
ordination, the individual author's realm is still very much preserved, despite the
anonymity of the chapters it is assumed that the authors' voices are strong enough to
present themselves regardless.
The collaborative project did, however, work better than the panel-discussion on TV
suggests. The result is not a cacophony of competing voices, but rather a collection of
distinct voices that work both with and against each other, but, despite all idiosyncrasies,
never lose their overallcoherence, mainly because of the factors outlined earlier (strong
character, tight timeframe) and despite only very little editing by Drabble andJohnson.
We as editors provided the initial time scheme and main character, but we didn't do
much editing afterwards. This is because we think the virtue of this novel is not in
any consistency we might impose on it, but its extreme variety. Most writes have felt
free to be very much themselves, though we've all been a little coloured by each other
as well. Writing novels is a solitary job, and probably none ofus imagined that a great
work of art would emerge from our collective efforts. But that's no reason why
novelists shouldn't try to have a bit offun, and we hope (and anticipate) that readers
will, tOO. 94
It is interesting here that both Updike and Drabble and Johnson do not regard the
results oftheir collaborative efforts as works ofgreat literary quality, but put emphasis on
the fun element, describing their work as some sort ofgame.
This is an attitude also shared by Dermot Bolger, initiator, contributor and chief editor of
Finbar's Hotei", a collaboration between seven Dublin writers, published by Picador in
1997, who sees Finbar's Hotel predominantly "as a piece of mischief?". After Bolger's
initial twenty page SYnopsis of hotel layout, history and staff, each of the writers took it
94 Drabble andJohnson, London Consequences, editors note, P.5.
95 Finbar's Hotel, collaborative novel by: Dermot Bolger, Roddy Dorle, Anne Enright, Hugo Hamilton,
Jennifer Johnston, Joseph O'Connor, Colm Toibfn, devised and edited by Dermot Bolger (London;
Picador, 1997).
e Nicolas Wroe, "The Secret of Finbar's Hotel", The Guardian (September rzth, 1997), G2, p.6.
Chapter 4 - page 161