So the Booker short-list is out. And An Equal Music has been eliminated. Tough. It would seem to be a major setback in Vikram Seth's long-term strategy for this project. You see, I have this theory that An Equal Music was not primarily intended to be a novel. It was intended to be a film-script. And not just any old film-script, but the script for an Oscar-winning film. ("Hell, if Michael Ondaatjie can do it with The English Patient, why can't I?") The book is all very well: very passionate and lyrical, with well-cadenced prose and broad sweeps of erudition. But if you look a little closer, you can detect an almost fiendishly cold-blooded formula behind it. You can almost, in fact, hear Vikram Seth discussing the whole project with James Ivory and Ismail Merchant. "Listen, guys, it's just your kind of film. Very lyrical and civilised and British and all that. Sort of like A Room With A View and Howard's End. "The theme is a winner. It's all about love and loss. And you can't get more emotionally grabbing than that. Should take care of box-office sales from Boston to Bangkok "Now, as for the look of the film. I've deliberately set major sequences in Venice and in Vienna. So we can get lots of ravishing footage. All very sensuous. And then, just for counterpoint, I've put in sequences set in the grim industrial north-of-England, in Michael's hometown (whatever it's called). So that's one Oscar in the bag for us, for Best Cinematography. "Then, we come to the sound-track. This one is a no-brainer. We'll get Andre Previn to do it for us, with the London Philharmonic. Lots of Bach and Schubert and Mozart. So that's another Oscar in the bag, for Best Soundtrack. "Now, coming to the casting. We'll just have to have Emma Thompson. She's always mandatory in films like this (and also, of course, she's always good for another Oscar). For the part of Michael maybe we can think of Ralph Fiennes (he did well enough in The English Patient, after all). But whatever it is, Emma Thompson is compulsory. "There's lots more, but those are just details. I think we've got it all buttoned down. I've done poetry; I've done travel-writing; I've done novels; I've done opera; now it's time I moved up the chain to cinema. And I'm going to do it in style. In fact, I've already started working on my Oscar acceptance speech. "Oh, just one more thing. I think we need to win a Booker for this first. It'll be a help in getting us into the Oscar short-listing (not to mention being a help in all the publicity). Just like The English Patient. I can already see it: 'A Major Motion Picture. Based on the Booker Prize Winning Novel!' More tea, anyone?" Like the Scots say, "The best laid plans of mice and men are often laid agley." Tough luck, Vicky. We hear a certain movie mogul acquainted with aliens, dinosaurs and sharks has taken an option on Anvar Alikhan's latest script.
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