An American writer friend of mine, late one night in a bar in New York somewhere, leaned over to me once and whispered, 'You know the trouble with readers? They're dumb. You spend a chunk of your life making your books all rich and sophisticated and full of hidden meanings for them to stumble on. And they never do. They just read the story and then they're done.'

Here's another perspective on that viewpoint. Authors can sometimes be very stupid too. They can assume a level of knowledge, sophistication and commitment on the part of their readers that is simply unrealistic. They become obsessed with small details no one notices. They lose themselves in the trees and forget that people are there to see &nbsp;the forest.

An example...

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[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Florian, the grand Venetian café in the Piazza San Marco"]<a href="http://davidhewson.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/florian.jpg"><img src="http://davidhewson.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/florian-tm.jpg" alt="Florian.JPG" width="500" height="375"></a>[/caption]

This is Florian, the famous Venetian café, pictured by me during this year's carnival. I used it -- sparingly -- in <em>The Cemetery of Secrets</em> (or <em>Lucifer's Shadow</em> depending where you are in the world and when you bought the book).

That story got a lot of acclaim. Here's part of the review by one of America's prize veteran critics Dick Adler writing about it in the <em>Chicago Tribune...</em>
<blockquote>Tasty little insider jokes abound: The 1733 hero wonders in a letter why the pompous owner of a popular coffeehouse called Triofante "doesn't just name the place after himself and have done with it." The fact that the 1733 owner's name was Floriano Francesconi, and the present-day coffeehouse (now the home of the $20 cup of espresso) is named Florian's, is part of the book's pleasure. Vivaldi is a sadly grotesque but still powerful musical force, and even the French writer Rousseau comes in for his share of needling.

Add horribly believable scenes of violence, enough sex to ensure the city's reputation for romance, as well as great gobbets of food and scenery both splendid and squalid, and you begin to see why <em>Lucifer's Shadow</em> is unputdownable.</blockquote>
Great review. Dick, though, knows Venice well. He used to live there once (and maybe still does for all I know). I reread that book shortly before it was republished in the UK as <em>The Cemetery of Secrets</em> last year. I was amazed by the number of in-jokes I'd stuffed in. Why did I do it? For the old mountaineer's reason I guess -- because I could. That book was written under extraordinary circumstances, which I will explain here on Wednesday. I seriously believed it might be the last novel I ever managed to publish. So I bunged in everything I could to see what it looked like.

I don't do that now. The problem is that those in-jokes only made sense to someone who knew Venice, and knew it pretty well. No casual visitor was likely to get them. You had to visit the place, read some serious history books, become absorbed entirely in the city. Here's the catch: that's what I'm supposed to be doing on behalf of the reader, then recreating it for their imaginations. They shouldn't have to bring much more to the party themselves except some spare time, a willingness to read, and an open, receptive mind.

It is terribly tempting to be over-sophisticated when writing fiction. To assume a level of knowledge on the part of the reader that is simply impractical. We all live in an overcrowded, rushed world. Readers don't have the time they once had. There are so many other distractions too. Readers in Victorian times could devote themselves to long and complex books because they had nothing else to do. Today they're fighting not to be distracted by something else before they turn the page.

So in-jokes and arcane sophistication are, for me, out. I write fairly long and complex books in the first place. They also demand the reader be willing to imagine themselves into another country, and become acquainted with aspects of history unfamiliar to them. I doubtless tread a fine line and possibly cross over it on occasion. But you can't push them poor souls too far. They simply won't go there.

The rule I try to stick to is simple: no one should need to turn to another book in order to understand mine. That's not to say I hope my work doesn't tempt you to read something else -- or, in the case of <em>Dante's Numbers</em>, look at that great film <em>Vertigo.</em> But that should be your choice -- not a prerequisite to understanding my story.

Sophistication is fine but it needs to be kept under a tight rein. The dividing line between being simply clever and being a smartass is a very fine and grey one at times.