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Sat 05 May 2007Detailed, delicate writing, always defying definitionCulture ShockFintan O'TooleAidan Higgins's first novel received huge acclaim in the 1960s, but his hunger for fame and fortune remained unsatisfiedIn his autobiography, the publisher John Calder describes Aidan Higgins, whose masterly novel Langrishe, Go Down, he accepted on the recommendation of Samuel Beckett, as a young man "greedy for fame and the money he expected to go with it". Higgins would not have been unusual in that regard, and there was every reason, in the early 1960s, to believe he would get what he wanted. Calder describes the reaction to Langrishe, Go Down at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 1962. He found a note awaiting him from Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, who had turned Dr Zhivago and The Leopard into huge commercial, as well as literary, successes. It said "I sat up all night reading Aidan Higgins's marvellous novel. I am willing to make you an important offer for it right away." As he was reading it, Calder was tapped on the shoulder by a Swedish publisher: "I too would like to buy this wonderful novel." By the end of the day, Calder had sold the rights to the novel for virtually every major European country.