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On The Book Review Show tonight, the chems chems, the latest novel | :00:32. | :00:39. | |
from -- the Girls In Tears, the latest novel from Peter Carey. | :00:39. | :00:42. | |
Treasure Island: The Next Generation, by the poet Andrew | :00:42. | :00:49. | |
Motion, and a collection of poetry from the novelist Ben Okri. John | :00:49. | :00:52. | |
O'Farrell's new book, The Man Who Forgot His Wife, and Roger Scruton | :00:52. | :00:57. | |
remembers why he loves the music of Schubert. | :00:57. | :01:01. | |
My Book Club consists of Peter Carey, amongst whose own works is a | :01:01. | :01:06. | |
guide to the 20th century's most enjoyable books, Susan Hitch, the | :01:06. | :01:12. | |
linguist and broadcaster, who like John, taught at Oxford University. | :01:12. | :01:18. | |
Paul Morley, journalist and author of Words and Music. And Sara | :01:18. | :01:21. | |
Churchwell, Professor of American Literature at the university of | :01:21. | :01:27. | |
East Anglia. We're also going to have live music | :01:27. | :01:32. | |
in the studio from Sam Beeton, and don't forget, let us know your | :01:32. | :01:37. | |
thoughts via Twitter. Peter Carey is one of only two | :01:37. | :01:40. | |
writers to have won the Booker Prize twice, for Oscar and Lucinda | :01:40. | :01:44. | |
and True History of the Kelly Gang. He was also shortlisted for his | :01:44. | :01:50. | |
most recent novel, Parry in America. Carey has set his -- Parrot and | :01:50. | :02:00. | |
:02:00. | :02:00. | ||
Olivier in America. Carey has set his books between the two. Girls In | :02:00. | :02:07. | |
Tears, his 12th novel, is a story of love, loss and ingenuity, two | :02:07. | :02:12. | |
characters live 150 years apart. In the friend day there is Catherine | :02:12. | :02:17. | |
Gehrig a clock conserver at the London museum, left devastated of | :02:17. | :02:23. | |
the by the sudden death of her secret lover. Henry Brandling, from | :02:23. | :02:27. | |
Victorian London, who travels to the clock making centre of the | :02:27. | :02:31. | |
Black Forest, to commission an extravagant and expensive clock in | :02:31. | :02:37. | |
the form of a duck,s as an imaginative amusement for his son, | :02:38. | :02:45. | |
who is suffering from consumption. When my son saw the design, a great | :02:45. | :02:48. | |
shout went up from him, the ten sheets of plans covered his bed. He | :02:48. | :02:55. | |
said it is a wonder. That wonder, resurfaces in the 21st | :02:55. | :03:02. | |
century, when Katherine is given the task of restoring Henry's | :03:02. | :03:05. | |
elaborate contraption, rebuilding it from a collection of parts. | :03:05. | :03:09. | |
Alongside the mechanism, she discovers Henry's journals, as she | :03:09. | :03:16. | |
reads the accounts of his ventures, she draws consolation for his act | :03:16. | :03:21. | |
of devotion. Now I read, slowly and carefully, giving all my attention | :03:21. | :03:27. | |
to the puzzle on the page. I could not doubt Henry Brandling's real | :03:27. | :03:30. | |
desire to keep his promise to his son. But he did not seem to have | :03:30. | :03:33. | |
imagined what would happen when the duck was finally made. Did he | :03:33. | :03:38. | |
really expect his wife to fall in love with him again? Or was he, | :03:38. | :03:42. | |
without knowing it building a mad monument to grief, a clockwork Taj | :03:42. | :03:48. | |
Mahal, or was that me? This clockwork Taj Mahal. The whole book | :03:48. | :03:51. | |
is really about the relationship between humanity and machines? | :03:51. | :03:55. | |
and it is put together a little bit like that in a way. The sense that | :03:55. | :04:00. | |
the book itself is so beautifully constructed, it is like a piece of | :04:00. | :04:05. | |
mechanism, it is mechanical. By, oddly enough, contributes to a kind | :04:05. | :04:10. | |
of coldness to an extent, some of the stories are quite moving, they | :04:10. | :04:13. | |
should be moving, they are about grief, there is something about | :04:13. | :04:18. | |
them that is quite distant. But the overall idea of finding a way into | :04:18. | :04:21. | |
the consequences of the Industrial Revolution, by going back to the | :04:22. | :04:25. | |
source, this wonderful duck, and the thing that the book starts to | :04:25. | :04:29. | |
develop, this idea that you cannot see what you can see. It is almost | :04:29. | :04:34. | |
as if the book itself becomes a bit like that. This novel, if you don't | :04:35. | :04:38. | |
know what it is, you can see it is something, but if you don't know | :04:38. | :04:43. | |
how to use it, you won't know what it is. That, for me, was the most | :04:43. | :04:47. | |
transcendant thing about the book. Did you engage with the idea of | :04:48. | :04:53. | |
people being intricate machines? Very much, you can't tell if they | :04:53. | :04:57. | |
are or are not intricate machines. One part of you thinks, no we feel | :04:57. | :05:01. | |
and we think, and machines can't do that. And Katherine in the novel | :05:01. | :05:06. | |
says that our skin has four million receptors, but that may just mean | :05:06. | :05:12. | |
we are very complicated machines, and machines none the less. I agree | :05:12. | :05:15. | |
with Paul, it is a slightly cold book, but plays beautifully with | :05:16. | :05:25. | |
:05:26. | :05:28. | ||
this idea right throughout. I found it a croix decur that we | :05:28. | :05:33. | |
could be machines and it not take for our emotional value at all to | :05:33. | :05:37. | |
love art and music. I found the account of her grief screechingly | :05:38. | :05:44. | |
painful, I was absolutely devastated by it. This is Katherine, | :05:44. | :05:50. | |
the conservor, mourning the loss of her lover? More so because it is | :05:50. | :05:54. | |
unacknowledged. I was disappointed by the mechanism. I like mechanisms, | :05:54. | :05:59. | |
I like descriptions of glass rods with mirrors under them which will | :05:59. | :06:05. | |
be water, I'm excited that I will have explained to me what screws | :06:05. | :06:10. | |
will do. I'm disappointed when the door is shut against me and that is | :06:10. | :06:14. | |
not explained to me, and the novel is a machine that you won't | :06:14. | :06:24. | |
:06:24. | :06:27. | ||
understand it. It is a process of devolution, I thought the book was | :06:27. | :06:31. | |
a masterpiece, the philosophical questions with a painful story, a | :06:31. | :06:33. | |
direct and immediate story about grief, where you really feel for | :06:33. | :06:43. | |
this woman. I thought he did it beautifully. One of his metaphor, - | :06:43. | :06:50. | |
- metaphors is about heat death, the book starts to fall apart inen | :06:50. | :07:00. | |
:07:00. | :07:00. | ||
an -- in an ananthropic sort of way. Part of my sense of distance, which | :07:00. | :07:04. | |
I agree about, is Henry is narrating three or four different | :07:04. | :07:09. | |
stories as he goes. He's telling the story of the mechanic, and his | :07:09. | :07:16. | |
teacher who he calls the genius, and layers, it unravelled for me. | :07:16. | :07:19. | |
haven't enjoyed a novel by Peter Carey so much until Oscar and | :07:19. | :07:22. | |
Lucinda. He maybe tries to get too much in. Because what he wants to | :07:22. | :07:26. | |
get in is the computer. This chap called Herr Sumper, who has worked | :07:26. | :07:36. | |
:07:36. | :07:38. | ||
in the 1850s, with a man who is called The Genius, he's actually | :07:38. | :07:45. | |
Charles Babbaidg e, he pole vaults into Buckingham Palace and tries to | :07:45. | :07:48. | |
get Prince Albert to develop the computer. The idea that the | :07:48. | :07:55. | |
computer will transform us all, is set begins Amanda, Katherine's | :07:55. | :08:02. | |
assistant, with a hearing aid, is worried the machine will destroy | :08:02. | :08:05. | |
the world. These two huge opposing views, a bit on the edge of the | :08:05. | :08:10. | |
novel. We do see the consequences of the Industrial Revolution. | :08:10. | :08:14. | |
also being in the middle of the computer revolution as well. Also | :08:14. | :08:19. | |
sourcing them way back to their early beginnings. The idea of these | :08:19. | :08:21. | |
obsessive tinkering with things that can't be seen at the time, | :08:21. | :08:25. | |
because they don't know what they are. I thought that was beautifully | :08:25. | :08:29. | |
done, that what is going on with this duck is the combust I don't | :08:29. | :08:39. | |
:08:39. | :08:42. | ||
know engine, they don't know what that is. My problem with the book | :08:42. | :08:48. | |
is it isn't long enough. He didn't let the reflections be seen. What | :08:49. | :08:53. | |
do we think, third Booker Prize? hope so. For all I don't think it | :08:53. | :08:59. | |
is perfect it is wonderful. Nomination, certainly. There were | :08:59. | :09:03. | |
deeply grieving things, the wonderful bit where Katherine is | :09:03. | :09:08. | |
thinking about Matthew is dying, knowing he has become a factory | :09:08. | :09:13. | |
manufacturing gas of methane and carbon dioxide, the view of in the | :09:13. | :09:17. | |
end being machines and rotting. There it is, three out of four | :09:17. | :09:22. | |
think it should win the Booker Prize and one thinks it should be | :09:22. | :09:26. | |
nominated. That is outstanding. The Chemistry of Tears is out on the | :09:26. | :09:30. | |
5th of April. If you have wanted to know what happened next at the end | :09:30. | :09:33. | |
of your favourite classic novel, the chances are somebody else has | :09:33. | :09:38. | |
always written it for you. John Holmes and James Bond are having | :09:38. | :09:45. | |
new adventure -- Sherlock Homes Under The Hammer and James Bond are | :09:45. | :09:54. | |
having new adventures. Andrew Motion has written new adventures | :09:54. | :10:00. | |
for Silver. One day in July 1802, long John | :10:00. | :10:07. | |
silver's daughter, Nattyy, appears at the house of Jim Hawkins Junior, | :10:07. | :10:11. | |
and persuades him to steal one of his father's most prized position, | :10:11. | :10:16. | |
a map of Treasure Island. They embark on a voyage across the world | :10:16. | :10:21. | |
to retrieve the remaining treasure and make their fortune. When did | :10:22. | :10:26. | |
you first read Treasure Island? would like to say as a child, I | :10:26. | :10:31. | |
didn't read much as a child, my family didn't. I read it as an | :10:31. | :10:34. | |
undergraduate at university. I think quite a lot of things about | :10:34. | :10:40. | |
it then, which I have thought more deeply over the years. It is | :10:40. | :10:43. | |
incredibly good, especially the first half, before they get to the | :10:43. | :10:47. | |
island. There are a number of loose ends, aren't there, in Treasure | :10:47. | :10:52. | |
Island, is that what made the idea of writing a sequel seem attractive | :10:52. | :10:56. | |
to you? Absolutely, there is a scene very early on in my book, | :10:56. | :11:01. | |
where Nattyy, Mr Silver's daughter, appears outside Jimmy's window, | :11:01. | :11:05. | |
they are 18 these character, and beckons to him. The story begins. I | :11:05. | :11:09. | |
felt for years thinking about Treasure Island that Stevenson | :11:09. | :11:14. | |
himself is sitting in the middle of the book saying come and finish the | :11:14. | :11:19. | |
story for him and continue the story. There is lots of resolved | :11:19. | :11:24. | |
things, all the silver left there, long John silver hopping off at the | :11:24. | :11:31. | |
end. And most bewitching of all, the maroon, the three pirates left | :11:31. | :11:36. | |
behind. You only -- the maroons, the three pirates left behind. You | :11:36. | :11:39. | |
only have to start thinking about it for a second, and think it is | :11:39. | :11:44. | |
not just an adventure story, but it is Lord of the Flies. When I face | :11:44. | :11:49. | |
the horizon stkpwin, I thought Mr Tickle might -- again, I thought Mr | :11:49. | :11:53. | |
Tickle might have been deceiving himself and us again. Although I | :11:53. | :11:58. | |
narrowed my eyes, I could not find an interruption between sky and sea. | :11:58. | :12:02. | |
Yet such was my eagerness, I persuaded myself there was a vague | :12:02. | :12:07. | |
outline in the extreme distance. Once I had noticed this, a kiefrpbd | :12:07. | :12:12. | |
of miracle occurred, the breath prime minister -- a kind of miracle | :12:12. | :12:18. | |
occurred, the breath became an eye, then a mountain, then three | :12:18. | :12:21. | |
mountains, running up clear in mountains of rock, there was no | :12:21. | :12:26. | |
doubt left in my mind, we had found Treasure Island. How much of the | :12:26. | :12:30. | |
characters of the originals in the book, did you want to draw out in | :12:30. | :12:37. | |
their offspring? That is a very nice question. I think the road to | :12:37. | :12:45. | |
damation is paveed with bad sequels, I'm allergic to the word "sequel", | :12:45. | :12:49. | |
I have not used it with the book. It is a return to, 40 years later, | :12:50. | :12:54. | |
and hopefully for readers as well, these children are most French | :12:54. | :12:56. | |
Revolution, they are Enlightenment children, they think the world is a | :12:56. | :13:00. | |
better place. When they get to the island something dreadful has | :13:00. | :13:05. | |
happened, they find bad stuff is happening as ever, that becomes a | :13:05. | :13:10. | |
crucial challenge for them. Whether they can get the silver and hop off | :13:10. | :13:13. | |
back to England, or square up to this moral difficulty, which is | :13:13. | :13:20. | |
confronting them. I was conscious of the lurking | :13:20. | :13:23. | |
themes in Treasure Island, and the character of Mr Silver, as he | :13:23. | :13:31. | |
becomes in my book, a very old man by the time we meet Silver himself. | :13:31. | :13:36. | |
Thanks to my father's stories of Treasure Island, Long John Silver | :13:36. | :13:39. | |
first came into my mind with the habits and appearance of demons, | :13:39. | :13:43. | |
his only saving grace was the trick of expediency, in all other | :13:43. | :13:49. | |
respects he was entirely evil, a horror, my father used to say, of | :13:49. | :13:56. | |
cruelty, DUP policity and power. The -- duplicity and power. The | :13:56. | :14:02. | |
screeching of his parrots, "pieces of eight, pieces of eight" was the | :14:02. | :14:09. | |
stuff of my nightmares. Your publisher described this as | :14:09. | :14:15. | |
literary ventriloquism? I didn't want to vein thrill qies it, I | :14:15. | :14:23. | |
wanted it to be -- vein thrill qiez with it -- vein thrill qies with it, | :14:23. | :14:30. | |
I wanted it to be akin to it. Jim II had a high quality education, | :14:30. | :14:35. | |
which put me in a license to write in a more literary way than | :14:35. | :14:40. | |
Stevenson narrates. Did you enjoy having the larger canvas, | :14:40. | :14:46. | |
particularly I suppose the sense of the 19th century is imbued in it? | :14:46. | :14:49. | |
loved that, I don't think I have ever, I have never written anything | :14:49. | :14:54. | |
with such pleasure as this. I began writing it at a very peculiar time | :14:54. | :15:00. | |
in my life, I had just stood down as Laureate, my dad had recently | :15:00. | :15:04. | |
died, I could get at feelings about him and our relationship that I | :15:04. | :15:08. | |
hadn't been able to do while he was alive. I had recently got married | :15:08. | :15:12. | |
again. We had moved house. Just about everything in my life was | :15:12. | :15:18. | |
changed. I felt a huge surge of energy and pleasure, such as I have | :15:18. | :15:23. | |
never felt before in my life. I spent a couple of years getting up | :15:23. | :15:26. | |
at 5.30am and writing this, saying to myself every morning, go and | :15:26. | :15:31. | |
have fun, serious fun, that is what I wanted to have. | :15:31. | :15:35. | |
Susan, were you intrigued by the idea of this return to Treasure | :15:35. | :15:39. | |
Island? Absolutely, has got those loose ends inviting you to come | :15:39. | :15:45. | |
back to Treasure Island, hasn't it. But you wo expect it would be old - | :15:45. | :15:50. | |
- would expect it to be old Jim coming back, the idea of it being | :15:50. | :15:54. | |
the younger generation is great. It is a book of enormous charm, | :15:54. | :16:00. | |
because the person writing it has had such fun. The voice picks up, | :16:00. | :16:10. | |
:16:10. | :16:15. | ||
it is more vent thrill qiesing, -- ventriloquizing than he thinks. | :16:15. | :16:23. | |
says he's not trying to do that, he sees sea lions and says they are | :16:23. | :16:27. | |
slimey monsters, in this book the new Jim is swimming and is nuzzled | :16:27. | :16:32. | |
by sea lions, and then one of them saves him from drowning and carries | :16:32. | :16:37. | |
him back to the shore. He says it is the greatest epiphany he has had | :16:37. | :16:42. | |
in his life, and he thanks got for it, it is not Enlightenment | :16:42. | :16:48. | |
children, it is children from the 20st century, that ecological point | :16:48. | :16:53. | |
is nothing like Stevenson. The ecological is the least of it. | :16:53. | :16:57. | |
The real problem for me was the racial and sexual attitudes, the | :16:57. | :17:03. | |
sailors on the boat, when Jim and Nattyy, who is Silver's daughter, | :17:03. | :17:13. | |
:17:13. | :17:13. | ||
they sail through the car ribbian, there is notes a -- car ribbian, | :17:13. | :17:19. | |
they don't behave badly. There is no swearing, there is no problem, | :17:19. | :17:23. | |
she disguises herself as a boy, the implication that there is a problem | :17:23. | :17:28. | |
with sexual violence, not on this boat, it never crosses anybody's | :17:28. | :17:35. | |
mind. The real problem for me is Nattyy is mixed race, nobody bats | :17:35. | :17:41. | |
an eye on that. Motion introduces a story on slavery, the good guys in | :17:41. | :17:49. | |
the book are 20th century progressives about slavery, and the | :17:49. | :17:54. | |
baddies are racist. It wasn't post French Revolution and post light | :17:54. | :18:01. | |
loyalty? From what Sara says, from the problem I had was is it for | :18:01. | :18:05. | |
children or not. There is no explanation, if it is a grand form | :18:05. | :18:08. | |
of nostalgia for his youth, that is fair enough. There were other | :18:09. | :18:12. | |
disconnects, the overliterary way which he applies himself, | :18:12. | :18:16. | |
brilliantly, the mist over London, the River Thames is beautifully | :18:16. | :18:21. | |
done. It is all applied to a yarn about pirates, the disconnect | :18:21. | :18:25. | |
starts to happen, that starts to takeover the book, it starts to | :18:25. | :18:29. | |
fall apart. If it is for children the literary style is too much, if | :18:29. | :18:37. | |
it is for grown-ups, it is for pirates. It is for you and me who | :18:37. | :18:43. | |
loved Treasure Island as children, it will be bought by auoints. | :18:43. | :18:48. | |
want an adventure story to end with the good people rewarded and bad | :18:48. | :18:52. | |
people punished. I won't say how it ends, but it doesn't end like that, | :18:52. | :18:58. | |
it end in a way that for me is amazingly perverse and shocking. | :18:58. | :19:07. | |
Again a 21st century ending. seems to apply that to want gold | :19:07. | :19:12. | |
and silver or anything, the Lord of the Rings, and now we are told some | :19:12. | :19:18. | |
how even the good people are corrupted by wanting silver. | :19:18. | :19:22. | |
In exploiting the death of his own father, Andrew Motion, the way he | :19:22. | :19:26. | |
explores the relationships between the new Jim and his father, and | :19:26. | :19:34. | |
Nattyy and Long John Silver. I wish he had been able to pour his | :19:34. | :19:40. | |
writing into a contemporary subject and not the safety net of this. | :19:40. | :19:46. | |
Natty's bird says "let me alone, let me alone", Natty is hugging her | :19:46. | :19:50. | |
father, Jim is watching, "let me alone", there is a suggestion of | :19:50. | :19:54. | |
child abuse, surely isn't there. And yet she is completely devoted | :19:54. | :19:59. | |
to him. It is all unexplored, the father and child stuff is there, | :19:59. | :20:03. | |
given space but not enough is done. He spends most of his energy on | :20:03. | :20:10. | |
decribing them walking up and down Treasure Island, you get an | :20:10. | :20:14. | |
enormous amount of energy about the trip over land. You have no | :20:14. | :20:20. | |
psychological ambiguity here. like a piece of virtuoso guitar | :20:20. | :20:25. | |
solo playing, going on for a whole album, interesting but long. | :20:25. | :20:31. | |
Interesting that you say triple album, sequel to the sequel. Maybe | :20:31. | :20:36. | |
not the musical. Any way Silver is out now. From a novel by one of our | :20:36. | :20:41. | |
loading poets to a collection of poetry, by a celebrated novelist. | :20:41. | :20:44. | |
Okri is our second Booker Prize winner of the night, for The | :20:44. | :20:50. | |
Famished Road in 1991. His new collection of poems, his third, is | :20:50. | :20:56. | |
called Wild. We asked which came first, poetry or prose. I got to be | :20:56. | :21:05. | |
known as a proz writer first, through The Famished Road. In | :21:05. | :21:12. | |
Nigeria people knew me first as a poet, my first response is a poetic | :21:12. | :21:17. | |
response, which is not in terms of meeting, it is an angle of looking | :21:17. | :21:23. | |
at things, a way of seeing. For me poetry is my primary response to | :21:23. | :21:27. | |
life. Civilisation depends as much on wild things as on tame things. | :21:27. | :21:37. | |
:21:37. | :21:37. | ||
Many of our forms are domesticated forms. For me there is the edge of | :21:37. | :21:42. | |
orthodoxy, it is the shimering territory, between what we know and | :21:42. | :21:51. | |
accept, and what we are not completely sure of. Managers there | :21:51. | :21:55. | |
is a surprise at the end, everything should reflect with | :21:55. | :22:00. | |
everything, the brain cools the blood and the blood cools thought. | :22:00. | :22:05. | |
Those ancients saw the world as it is, a system of co-operation, where | :22:05. | :22:10. | |
things are both themselves unsymbols, uncorrespondences. Might | :22:10. | :22:19. | |
it not be, that a movement of paint here on plain wood is a retreat on | :22:19. | :22:26. | |
a distant battlefield, or that a child moving encounter on a tree | :22:26. | :22:33. | |
top, is an upward curve in a moment of sleeping civilisation. I like | :22:33. | :22:41. | |
poetry to be simple but collect all the roots of pain, struggle and | :22:41. | :22:45. | |
courage that happens to be there at the time. I'm not determine native | :22:45. | :22:51. | |
in my poetry. I let the poetry collect. | :22:51. | :22:56. | |
- determinative in my poetry, I let the poetry collect. And then I have | :22:56. | :23:04. | |
to go through the long suffering of shaping, taking lines for a walk. | :23:04. | :23:10. | |
In Ben Okri's novel, The Famished Road, he was really phrased for his | :23:10. | :23:19. | |
poetic style, how does this compare? I have to say I was quite | :23:19. | :23:22. | |
disappointed in this. I kept thinking of the word "nice", that | :23:22. | :23:27. | |
is the kiss of death. The more of it I read, the more of it I thought, | :23:27. | :23:30. | |
there is something not happening on the level of language here that | :23:30. | :23:36. | |
needs to happen. There was a falling into be a straxs and into | :23:36. | :23:40. | |
banalties. I don't want to be mean, but the language was so. I started | :23:40. | :23:50. | |
:23:50. | :23:52. | ||
to take a list of the kind of be a straxs, humanity, eternity and -- | :23:52. | :23:57. | |
moon beams, I had a teacher who said poetry should never use love, | :23:57. | :24:03. | |
soul, hate, he started to use the word, soul, and it became banal. | :24:03. | :24:07. | |
What is wrong with writing about soul? You have to evoke it in a | :24:07. | :24:10. | |
different way without the word. makes the argument for doing it | :24:10. | :24:14. | |
differently. In one of the peoples he writes about the oblige, where | :24:14. | :24:21. | |
he explains why you need it, -- oblique, where he explains why you | :24:21. | :24:27. | |
need it, and metaphor, then he writes why you don't need it. The | :24:27. | :24:30. | |
reason why The Famished Road was so exciting for many of us, we didn't | :24:30. | :24:35. | |
come to it easily, it is not our kind of fiction. It is repetitive, | :24:35. | :24:42. | |
it is highly pyrotatic, and difficult to love and he did it so | :24:42. | :24:46. | |
beautifully. He turns it on its head and you don't know what it is | :24:46. | :24:51. | |
there for. Is there a sensability? I agree with what is said. I find | :24:51. | :25:00. | |
an odd alterate between the symbolism, and the banality, as | :25:01. | :25:05. | |
Sara says. Where he writes, "I say the world is rich with love unfound, | :25:05. | :25:12. | |
it is inside us and all around". There used to be a poet called | :25:12. | :25:20. | |
Patience Strong. I used to read it in Woman's Own, and I would say it | :25:20. | :25:25. | |
is her people. It is mixed up with the pretentious. It is moved to the | :25:25. | :25:32. | |
side of Random House, for spiritual and inspirational books. Which is, | :25:32. | :25:36. | |
I think, a terrible thing to do, that is pushing it into that ar I | :25:36. | :25:45. | |
was disappointed enough to still want to keep it circumstanceled for | :25:45. | :25:48. | |
something to happen. With 20 -- circumstanceled for something to | :25:48. | :25:56. | |
happen. Do you think it would have worked | :25:56. | :26:02. | |
better as song lyrics? Songs talk about love and soul? What is | :26:02. | :26:05. | |
interesting is they are for a lot of people, dedicated for a lot of | :26:05. | :26:09. | |
people. If you got them as a gift on your marriage or birthday that | :26:10. | :26:14. | |
would be a nice, charming thing. There is a wedding one. These are | :26:14. | :26:17. | |
read, designed to be read at weddings, that is what these are | :26:17. | :26:21. | |
for. So people can have things they read at weddings. A couple would be | :26:21. | :26:25. | |
very good for that. They were very nice. I believed them more than | :26:25. | :26:30. | |
that, I believed they were written for a particular wedding. I had | :26:30. | :26:36. | |
most sympathy when I could think of Ben Okri as writing them for a | :26:36. | :26:40. | |
wedding. I thought they were best when they weren't for a particular | :26:40. | :26:45. | |
occasion. Best one was The Age Of Magic, when he describes in a | :26:46. | :26:53. | |
playful way, on a particular night, a meermmaid sang on the Thames, an | :26:53. | :26:57. | |
alchemist turned a pigeon into gold, all these strange, fairytale things. | :26:57. | :27:01. | |
As a child's people it is lovely, it doesn't say anything but it | :27:01. | :27:11. | |
:27:11. | :27:12. | ||
plays. It is the only one you could say it of. As John O'Farrell made | :27:12. | :27:17. | |
his mark as a comedy writer on Spitting Image, and alas Smith and | :27:17. | :27:23. | |
Jones. It is no surprise his novels major on life. | :27:23. | :27:27. | |
The Man Who Forgot His Wife, his latest book, total amnesia, in his | :27:27. | :27:32. | |
hands it is not an homage to Oliver Sacks, but a comic exploration of | :27:32. | :27:35. | |
marriage. The Man Who Forgot His Wife is a | :27:35. | :27:39. | |
Noel that asks the question, what would it be like to meet your | :27:39. | :27:46. | |
spouse, your partner of 20 years for the very first time. Vaughan, | :27:46. | :27:51. | |
the hero, has had a complete memory wipe. He has to try to win the | :27:51. | :27:56. | |
heart of a girl who has already been married to him for 20 years, | :27:56. | :27:59. | |
and doesn't want to go through all that again. | :27:59. | :28:05. | |
"wow, who is that, I whispered, she is gorgeous. The woman stopped to | :28:05. | :28:08. | |
remove a couple of dead flowers from the window box, tucked a | :28:08. | :28:15. | |
strand of her behind her ear, and paused as if to check the weather. | :28:15. | :28:20. | |
Was she living there when I was, shall we go and say hello. Blimey, | :28:20. | :28:25. | |
you have gone bright red. We should probably not hang about, we don't | :28:25. | :28:31. | |
want to see us hanging about her. Hang on, we haven't explained | :28:31. | :28:35. | |
anything, where are we, who was that beautiful woman. That, Vaughan, | :28:35. | :28:39. | |
is the house you lived in for 20 years, and that was Madelaine, that | :28:39. | :28:44. | |
was the woman you are about to diverse vo. Vaughan has the | :28:44. | :28:48. | |
opportunity to start -- Divorce. Vaughan has the opportunity to | :28:48. | :28:55. | |
start again, and that is an appealing idea for many people who | :28:55. | :29:00. | |
are at a turning point in their life. I was interested? The nurture, | :29:00. | :29:04. | |
are our characters experience, or is there a core personality that | :29:04. | :29:08. | |
gets bumped and bashed around by the successes and disappointments | :29:08. | :29:15. | |
of life. My hero has all his experiences and memories wiped. | :29:15. | :29:20. | |
Does he revert to a more happier person. "Gary, something incredible | :29:20. | :29:25. | |
has happened, he think I have fallen in love. What is her name, | :29:25. | :29:29. | |
Madeline, I have just met my wife, and she's something else, isn't she. | :29:29. | :29:38. | |
Gary growned and tossed down his tiny crew driver, and said she's | :29:38. | :29:43. | |
your ex-wife, you split up." Underneath all the jokes I was | :29:43. | :29:51. | |
doing an investigation into history and what is true. I made the hero a | :29:51. | :29:55. | |
history teacher with no history of his own. It made an opportunity of | :29:55. | :30:01. | |
how others saw him and how he would like to have changed that. | :30:01. | :30:06. | |
John, I wouldn't normal low associate this kind of book for you, | :30:06. | :30:10. | |
due -- normally associate this kind of book for you, did you find it | :30:10. | :30:14. | |
funny? I laughed and laughed, right from the start. It tugged the | :30:15. | :30:18. | |
heartstrings and it was very astute about marriage, men and women. | :30:18. | :30:22. | |
About how we all feel the same things. There is a wonderful scene | :30:22. | :30:26. | |
where Vaughan is in a gentleman's lavatory, he's furious with himself, | :30:26. | :30:30. | |
he's looking in the mirror and saying, you don't know your own | :30:30. | :30:35. | |
kids, your wife hates rb u and a voice from one of the cub -- your | :30:35. | :30:40. | |
wife hates you, and a voice from one of the cubicles shouts out, how | :30:40. | :30:43. | |
do you know so much about me, who are you. | :30:43. | :30:48. | |
I found it funny, this is disappointing, this is the man who | :30:48. | :30:53. | |
wrote Spitting Image, and this is dopely conservative comedy, all rom | :30:53. | :30:56. | |
coms are arguably very conservative, they allow the carnival of | :30:56. | :31:02. | |
inversion for a little while, and then the status quo is reset and | :31:02. | :31:06. | |
re-established. This book sets up married life, one man, one woman, | :31:06. | :31:11. | |
two children, as the source of all happiness. And everybody in the | :31:11. | :31:16. | |
book joins in, there is no other possibility allowed. They do | :31:17. | :31:22. | |
celebrate a divorce, it is more ironic than that. To live in | :31:22. | :31:28. | |
unwedded police bliss, they say. I have to agree with John. I thought | :31:28. | :31:31. | |
it was, it is very funny. It is a rom com, it sets out to be one. You | :31:31. | :31:35. | |
have to take it on its own terms and let it be a rom comand | :31:35. | :31:42. | |
conservative, that is what it is. I felt I was reading, half the time a | :31:42. | :31:45. | |
Hollywood chick-flick version of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless | :31:46. | :31:55. | |
Mind, and the other was A sense Of An Ending, he wants to ask | :31:55. | :31:57. | |
intelligent questions about relationship and identity. About | :31:57. | :32:01. | |
the fact that we have never done anything bad, we think, and benign, | :32:01. | :32:06. | |
and realise we have been guilty of unkindness. And also, can you be | :32:06. | :32:11. | |
the same person when you have lost all your memory? He flirts with | :32:11. | :32:17. | |
exploring some of these ideas about memory and history, and how your | :32:17. | :32:21. | |
personality is, your identity being constructed on Wikipedia. There is | :32:21. | :32:27. | |
frustrations of if being a serious book. I didn't -- it being a | :32:27. | :32:30. | |
serious book. I didn't find it so much as funny but fun. I say that | :32:30. | :32:36. | |
in a different way. I don't want this kind of fun, | :32:36. | :32:40. | |
there is a new medium for it, I would like him to tell me the story | :32:40. | :32:44. | |
in a pub over a few drinks. That is the medium I would like to hear the | :32:44. | :32:49. | |
book in. It reminded me of a second rate edition of My Family. | :32:49. | :32:57. | |
Occasional good gags, running gags, quite nice. Ultimately fun and | :32:57. | :33:03. | |
efficient. I don't disagree with that. It is interesting about the | :33:03. | :33:08. | |
way in which modern assumptions of twisting the way we think. There is | :33:08. | :33:16. | |
a lovely bit where Vaughan tries to woo mad yie back by buying 50 red - | :33:16. | :33:23. | |
- Maddy back by buying 50 red roses, she refuses them, he sees an | :33:24. | :33:29. | |
elderly lady with a stick and he asks could she have the red roses, | :33:29. | :33:37. | |
and she says, pervert. My favourite book is when his | :33:37. | :33:44. | |
terrible friend Gary gives him a comdom, and he says that is a part | :33:44. | :33:53. | |
of life and he says, I didn't do the casual sex badge. I find it fun | :33:53. | :33:58. | |
and funny, in the end I want to scream. I want something that is | :33:58. | :34:02. | |
fierce, bad and wild. Before you scream, I'm afraid that is all we | :34:02. | :34:05. | |
have time for. The Man Who Forgot His Wife is out now. Having already | :34:05. | :34:12. | |
brought us the complete works of composers like Beethoven, Mo start | :34:12. | :34:19. | |
and Bach, Radio 3 is turning its attention to Schubert, all his | :34:19. | :34:23. | |
works programmed over eight days, starting today. We ask why Schubert | :34:23. | :34:33. | |
:34:33. | :34:41. | ||
Schubert died aged 31 in 1828, had he lived as long as MoT start, who | :34:41. | :34:51. | |
reached the rape age -- MoT start, who reached the dMozart who reached | :34:51. | :34:59. | |
the age of 35. He left operatic and lit turpblgic fabric as urgent as | :34:59. | :35:03. | |
anything in the repetoir. When it comes to songs Schubert has no | :35:03. | :35:07. | |
equal, his expressive power is apparent from the very beginning of | :35:07. | :35:13. | |
his career, with the two famous settings, Gretchen am Spinnrad and | :35:13. | :35:18. | |
the other works dating from his teens, by the time of his death he | :35:18. | :35:26. | |
had written more than 60 songs, most of them masterpieces. | :35:26. | :35:32. | |
Some of them counted among the sacred and irreplacable treasures | :35:32. | :35:40. | |
of our nation. -- civilisation. | :35:40. | :35:50. | |
Schubert has been overshadowed by his immediate predecessors, Haydn, | :35:50. | :35:58. | |
Mozart and Beethoven. He wrote no concertos, and his two symphonies | :35:58. | :36:04. | |
were not performed in his lifetime. He is a constant presence in the | :36:04. | :36:08. | |
home, wherever music is made in the home, Schubert will be esteemed | :36:08. | :36:14. | |
above all classical composers, he's the poet of home and the loss of | :36:14. | :36:18. | |
home. He shows every nuance of love and settlement, and through the | :36:18. | :36:23. | |
grief which we pay for them. Death lurks beneath the surface, in | :36:23. | :36:27. | |
ambiguous harmonies and constant changes of key. Schubert's music | :36:27. | :36:31. | |
tells no lies, either about life or about death. It simply points us | :36:31. | :36:36. | |
back to our home, telling us that we belong here on this earth, and | :36:36. | :36:41. | |
that our griefs and fears are dedeemed by our loves. And maybe | :36:41. | :36:46. | |
that is why Schubert's music contains more consolation for our | :36:46. | :36:56. | |
:36:56. | :37:02. | ||
loneliness than any other human creation. | :37:02. | :37:06. | |
The Spirit of Schubert continues on Radio 3 until the 31st of March. | :37:06. | :37:11. | |
More about that and all the books on the website. | :37:11. | :37:16. | |
Before our own musical offering, I must thank Susan and Sara John and | :37:16. | :37:22. | |
Paul for joining me tonight. Next week we will be visiting the London | :37:22. | :37:25. | |
Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, and an exhibition about the human brain | :37:25. | :37:29. | |
at the Wellcome Collection. Now continuing our collaboration with | :37:29. | :37:33. | |
BBC Introducing, here is singer songwriter Sam Beeton, with his new | :37:33. | :37:43. | |
:37:43. | :37:47. | ||
single that comes out on Monday. # Bleeding from the head and from | :37:47. | :37:51. | |
the heart Now I don't know the finish from | :37:51. | :37:59. | |
the start # Just what does it matter | :37:59. | :38:09. | |
:38:09. | :38:12. | ||
# To you now Storyteller hang on every word | :38:12. | :38:18. | |
# Burn down every book store in the world | :38:18. | :38:24. | |
# That's when I need you most # That's when I see your ghost | :38:24. | :38:34. | |
:38:34. | :38:34. | ||
# That's when I need you most # I don't want ever give it up | :38:34. | :38:41. | |
# With a love like your's # What can I do | :38:41. | :38:51. | |
:38:51. | :38:59. | ||
# If we all burn out # Tonight | :38:59. | :39:09. | |
:39:09. | :39:12. | ||
# Empty place beside # Me has me thrown | :39:12. | :39:22. | |
:39:22. | :39:24. | ||
# Undiscovered foreigner unknown # What does it matter to you now | :39:24. | :39:31. | |
# Now I'm staring at the stations of the cross | :39:31. | :39:39. | |
# And I won't forget her face # At any cost | :39:39. | :39:45. | |
# That's when I need you most # That's when I see your ghost | :39:46. | :39:52. | |
# That's when I need you most # And I don't ever want to | :39:52. | :39:57. | |
# Ever give it up # With a love like your's | :39:57. | :40:07. | |
:40:07. | :40:08. | ||
# What can I do What can I do | :40:08. | :40:13. | |
# If we all # Burn up | :40:13. | :40:20. |