Plinth

These readings may seem like any other event in London’s cultural calendar. But they are fuelled by nostalgia: a communal and (at times) awkward attempt by my generation to reconstruct older forms of social and intellectual connection — forms many have never actually experienced, but desire nonetheless.

'People have always been putting on parties in and around literature,’ says Tom Willis, founder of the London-based literary event Soho Reading Series. ‘This is just a continuation, and that's how I like seeing it.' It’s true that in all the excitement, many attendees may feel they’ve stumbled upon something uncharted. Yet with so many dressed in clothes from bygone eras (to the point where a 20th-century dress code seems almost a prerequisite) reading nights seem to announce their link to the past. One evening, before heading to one myself, a friend described a guy she’d been seeing: 'Look out for the one who dresses like a professor from the sixties,' she told us. 'But they all bloody do!' another friend cried in disbelief.

These aesthetic choices seem like a collective unconscious response. Without much good news on the horizon in the press, the current generation has been led to believe that the ‘better’ times lie behind us. This opinion is, in part, fueled by an endless stream of nostalgic content praising the past. We are reminded of historic decades defined by intellectual, radical, and community-centric values - a time of grand parties, great thinkers, and paradigm-shifting conversations. It feels as if a thin pane of glass separates us from a ‘golden age’, allowing us a close-up of its brilliance, but never letting us be part of it. While people can never turn back time, they can do their best to recreate the social atmosphere, and dress the part.

Beyond aesthetics, attendees are hungry for an emotional atmosphere not achievable online, where people come out of their homes to have a chat, have a flirt, be inspired and feel more human. Jack Self, editor of the London contemporary culture magazine Real Review, says, 'These reading nights very closely resemble a political or activist meeting. Someone effectively giving a speech to an assembled audience.'

Of course, these events rarely touch on the topic of capital P politics, if at all. Instead, the most celebrated writing is often punchy, quick-witted, and capable of breaking the silence with a collective laugh - qualities later toasted to at the pub. It is the melding of the two, the comedy club and the reform party, where the allure of reading nights begins: a sense of collective effervescence meets the impression of being part of a movement. The community is marked equally by lightness and intentionality.

However, beyond this promise of a lively, stimulating, and in the words of some, 'sexy' community, the more I go into the field to talk to attendees, the more complicated emotional responses seem. On the one hand, praise for these events is abundant. But so too are feelings of being on edge, self-conscious, and uncertain. 'Culturally, people – especially those under 30 – are deeply skeptical of the advantages of digital technologies,’ says Self, ‘and they are trying to reconstruct a pre-digital society without ever having known one. Of course that leads to a lot of clumsiness and awkwardness. But we should encourage that.'

It's not that gathering to hear written work is inherently pretentious or standoffish – though both in-person attendees and online forum posters sometimes describe it as provoking personal uncertainty. While some articles celebrate the return of the London scene, phoenix from ashes, detractors question whether a ‘scene’ exists at all. Undoubtedly, what many of the people involved are trying to recreate is a subculture or scene they've only ever encountered through screens or secondhand stories. The result is an atmosphere that feels both sincere and uncertain. Bodies bumping up against one another, without shiny screens to mediate our selfhood. It can feel very raw and reddening, like babies learning to play for the first time, only now with egos reminding us how bad we are at it.

Despite it all, the demand for reading nights does not seem to waver. People continue to schedule them into their calendars, often weeks in advance. Attendees show up on time, if not well before to secure a spot. Events sell out, again and again. Often within hours.

The awkwardness is perhaps not a flaw, but exactly the point. Caitlin McLoughlin, director and editor of Worms Magazine, the London-based, female-run indie publisher, positions 'awkwardness' as a catalyst for connection. 'You'll often see people's hands shaking when they're reading. Maybe they stumble and they have to start again,’ she says ‘But in my experience, this almost breaks the barrier between the audience and the reader. It makes it more beautiful.'

Undoubtedly, there are numerous reasons why ‘connection’ remains so elusive today. We are told that the pandemic has screwed up our social skills. That mounting screen fatigue makes us feel bad. We understand that stagnant wages coupled with high inflation has a siloing effect in that it keeps us home. We are taught this - loudly and often: The switch track of history is set toward isolation.

In response, people are hitting a breaking point. They are willing to be very bad at something that once came more easily. People are willing to sit side by side in discomfort – too aware of their bodies, too unsure of what to say – so long as it means they are in fact together. While the concept of a lost golden age or the fantasy of the swinging 60s might seem to provide some surety in the face of an uncertain (unwanted) future, nothing beautiful is built without some shaky moments, and a little nerve.

By Brynn Valentine

Cover image: Soho Reading Series