In Conversation with Stefan Stern

Stefan will be joined at Wimbledon BookFest by writer, comedian, broadcaster, and podcast host Viv Groskop for Ambition and Macbeth on Saturday 26th October.

For those who haven’t seen your book before, the most striking element when they encounter the front cover is the Lady Macbeth character study through which you explore the various tenants of ambition. What is it you find so affecting about Shakespeare’s writing, and why were you drawn to that as the way of structuring your work?

Well, I first read the play at school forty years ago, and it obviously made a big impression on me. When I was a university student, I directed a production of it. So, Macbeth and its characters have been in my head for a long, long time. I’ve had this 30-odd year-long career and at the back of your mind in a working life you’re always thinking at one point or another, “Am I getting this right?” There’s a big choice here, maybe a crossroads or a fork in the road there. How ambitious am I? What trade-offs am I prepared to make in my life? And so Macbeth has provided a kind of running commentary, or a warning, a lesson, if you like, about things that can go wrong in that sense. If perhaps you aim for the wrong thing or make too many sacrifices, or indeed, sacrifice other people to achieve what you want. I think that’s why it’s always been there as a kind of drum beat background or commentary. In my mind, the voices of, the witches, Macbeth, and Lady Macbeth. 

One of the most striking images that you draw on is this notion of pathologized ambition, the sense that ambition can be an illness? Was that something you’ve always seen in ambition. Or is that something that you’ve made sense of in later life as you consider the likes of literature and art?

Well, I think the reason why the book is called the Lady Macbeth Guides to Ambition comes particularly from that line in Act One Scene Five, when she’s had a letter from Macbeth out in the field and he tells her about his meeting with these weird sisters, these witches. They’ve told him he’s going to become king and she’s very excited about this. And then she addresses him. He’s not back yet but there’s a soliloquy and but she addresses him as if he was still there. She says:

…Yet do I fear thy nature,

It is too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness

To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great,

 Art not without ambition, but without

The illness should attend it.

When I first read those lines forty years ago, they struck me as rather chilling, but also as a rather remarkable thing to say. And so, the first chapter is called “Illness”, because what I’m asking is, “Is she right?” Does she have half a point? This is the really troubling thing. Do the people we see at the top of businesses, in politics, in sport, in the arts, the people who really are the ultra-high achievers. Are they obsessed in some way? Are they driven? Are they entirely mentally well? Is it an illness? And I think that’s a great challenge that she issues to us. I think it’s possible to be very successful, very ambitious and entirely boringly healthy. I’m not saying that you have to be ill to get to the top, but it’s an interesting thought that she plants there.

It’s a fascinating way to begin the book, particularly when it’s immediately followed by considerations of success, wealth, and how we view ambition in a positive light. Can you share your thoughts on the contrast between those two opening chapters?

I think it’s also quite important for a book to be balanced and to reflect the whole range of different types of ambition, the good and the bad. As journalists, we tend to veer towards bad news rather than good news. We have a bias of wanting to tell the dark side rather than the good side. It doesn’t come to us naturally. But I thought a serious book about ambition has got to acknowledge that ambition can be completely healthy and entirely Good. That can be ambition for the common good, for the good of society, or for the planet. Ambition is not always necessarily selfish and narrow. Each of the chapters have a subtitle that is drawn from a few lines from the play. That is my Macbeth leitmotif; a ‘concept album’ for the aging prog rock fans. So, for success, I take the soliloquy in which Macbeth says:

…If th’ assassination

Could trammel up the consequence, and catch

With his surcease, success.

In this chapter I say that we’ve got to ask ourselves, what is success? How do we define it? How do we measure it? It ought to be in our own terms, not other people’s. I think that’s quite an important point about healthy ambition, striving for things that are meaningful to us, not things that we think other people might expect us to achieve. I’m not sure that’s necessarily the route to happiness, but satisfying your own desires and aspirations might be very, very healthy.

The modern world is often criticized for becoming increasingly obsessed with the commodity and quantifying success in terms of what car you have, where you live, and what you wear. While ambitious, Macbeth still operates within a certain strata of society; he’s already a thane by the time that he succumbs to his over-vaulting ambition. Do you think that the present day facilitates more audacious ambition?

Well, in this era of social media, the verb that we all hear is ‘curating’. People curate their lives; they present themselves as a brand. This is a modern manifestation of ambition, and obviously, I’m a bit nervous about where that can lead.

And you worry, you know, apparently, worry about younger people who might want to, you know, present an image, because it’s somehow aspirational. I think it’s impressive. It’s not the reality. You hear that joke, “Oh no, I wish my life was as good as I pretend it is on Facebook or Instagram”, and you wonder if that’s healthy. Someone asked me, “What are you saying in this book? Are you saying be careful what you wish for?” I said, “No, I’m not saying be careful what you wish for, but I am saying be thoughtful about what you wish for.” I think that’s different. The dazzle and glamour (or apparent glamour) of online existence really aren’t the whole truth and that is potentially a trap. And that’s back to my point about trying to aim for things that are meaningful to you personally not that others think you should be trying to achieve.

Finally, you’re returning to the festival this year to speak about your own book. Many people will have seen before chairing discussions and interviewing authors. How does it feel to be on the opposite end of the questions this time?

Journalists, as you know, will probably always tell you they’re not looking forward to it. We’re not used to being asked questions. We do the asking usually, and we don’t always like it when the table is turned. And I will be, of course, happily be doing lots of other sessions where I’m interviewing other people about their books. But yes, it’s a chance to be on the other side of the table, and it’s about time.

Tickets for Ambition and Macbeth on Saturday 26th October at 6.00pm are available here.