I wasn’t bored by The Secret Agent, I just couldn’t stay. It’s actually a compliment

First, a confession. I walked out of The Secret Agent, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s multi-Oscar-nominated film set in the 1970s, during Brazil’s military dictatorship, and starring a quietly electric Wagner Moura. I was excited to see it – multiple trustworthy sources close to me had proclaimed it one of the best films they’d ever seen, and then there’s all the awards love. So what happened?

I wasn’t bored. I didn’t doubt its quality. (I walked out of Wicked because – well, let’s not go there. Who watches The Wizard of Oz and thinks, but where did the witches go to college? Ahem.) It’s a little hard to explain but take it from me, I had to leave. My body said: get out of here. The film is purposefully disjointed and unsettling, its art drawing the viewer deep into the confusion of the repressive regime it depicts. Its characters don’t have the option I did. In the days when I was teaching, I used to say to my students: if you really don’t like something – rather than just feeling meh about it – it’s acting upon you. It’s doing its work. I’ll return to The Secret Agent when I’m feeling a little stronger. But for now I’ll consider my flight a compliment.

At the London book fair this week, attendees could get hold of a copy of a tome called Don’t Steal This Book, its “empty” apart from the names of thousands of authors (including Kazuo Ishiguro, Malorie Blackman and Mick Herron) who are – rightly – protesting the theft of their work by the companies attempting to flog us the so-called wonders of generative AI. (Hard to tell where I stand on this issue, huh?) The smart stunt was organised by composer Ed Newton-Rex. Other headline news, however, concerned more celebrity book deals: thrillers from Idris Elba, cosy crime from Jeremy Vine. You can probably guess what I think about that, too. Instead, I choose to celebrate Saranya Murthi, whose brilliant novel Ratri was snapped up by Chatto & Windus at the fair: she was the winner of the 2025 Deborah Rogers award for an unpublished writer – I chaired the panel of judges last year. Hurrah for real writers, I say.

And speaking of composers, last Thursday I set off for the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London and the Royal Philharmonic Society awards, with BBC Radio 3 presenters Georgia Mann and Petroc Trelawny doling out the gongs. A bust of Beethoven glowered from the stage – it was the RPS, after all, who commissioned his ninth symphony. “I am now writing a new symphony for the Philharmonic Society, and hope to have it finished within two weeks,” he wrote to Archduke Rudolf in 1823. Mainly my cultural life is focused on books, it’s true, but I love live music, and I am grateful to the musicians who enrich our lives with their gift and hard work. Singer of the Year, soprano Louise Alder, stepped on stage in teetering stilettos and the most fabulous accessory: her two-week-old baby in a sling. She was just emerging, she noted with cheery pointedness, from her unpaid, freelance maternity leave.

Music requires graft and commitment: and the Inspiration award – for a non-professional, self-run ensemble, the winner chosen by more than 6,000 members of the public – did not disappoint. Bravo to Kirkcaldy Orchestral Society, going strong in Fife for 150 years, with 70 musicians “of all stages and ages”. These are hard times. Music, I think, can lift us up as almost no other art form can. In accepting her composition award, Claudia Molitor reminded us that while artists may not be able to change a troubled world, their work can help us imagine a better one. No small thing, as the fog of war thickens.

Photograph by MUBI