23/03/2012 The Review Show


23/03/2012

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On The Book Review Show tonight, the chems chems, the latest novel

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from -- the Girls In Tears, the latest novel from Peter Carey.

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Treasure Island: The Next Generation, by the poet Andrew

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Motion, and a collection of poetry from the novelist Ben Okri. John

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O'Farrell's new book, The Man Who Forgot His Wife, and Roger Scruton

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remembers why he loves the music of Schubert.

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My Book Club consists of Peter Carey, amongst whose own works is a

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guide to the 20th century's most enjoyable books, Susan Hitch, the

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linguist and broadcaster, who like John, taught at Oxford University.

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Paul Morley, journalist and author of Words and Music. And Sara

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Churchwell, Professor of American Literature at the university of

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East Anglia. We're also going to have live music

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in the studio from Sam Beeton, and don't forget, let us know your

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thoughts via Twitter. Peter Carey is one of only two

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writers to have won the Booker Prize twice, for Oscar and Lucinda

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and True History of the Kelly Gang. He was also shortlisted for his

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most recent novel, Parry in America. Carey has set his -- Parrot and

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Olivier in America. Carey has set his books between the two. Girls In

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Tears, his 12th novel, is a story of love, loss and ingenuity, two

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characters live 150 years apart. In the friend day there is Catherine

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Gehrig a clock conserver at the London museum, left devastated of

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the by the sudden death of her secret lover. Henry Brandling, from

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Victorian London, who travels to the clock making centre of the

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Black Forest, to commission an extravagant and expensive clock in

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the form of a duck,s as an imaginative amusement for his son,

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who is suffering from consumption. When my son saw the design, a great

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shout went up from him, the ten sheets of plans covered his bed. He

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said it is a wonder. That wonder, resurfaces in the 21st

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century, when Katherine is given the task of restoring Henry's

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elaborate contraption, rebuilding it from a collection of parts.

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Alongside the mechanism, she discovers Henry's journals, as she

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reads the accounts of his ventures, she draws consolation for his act

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of devotion. Now I read, slowly and carefully, giving all my attention

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to the puzzle on the page. I could not doubt Henry Brandling's real

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desire to keep his promise to his son. But he did not seem to have

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imagined what would happen when the duck was finally made. Did he

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really expect his wife to fall in love with him again? Or was he,

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without knowing it building a mad monument to grief, a clockwork Taj

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Mahal, or was that me? This clockwork Taj Mahal. The whole book

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is really about the relationship between humanity and machines?

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and it is put together a little bit like that in a way. The sense that

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the book itself is so beautifully constructed, it is like a piece of

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mechanism, it is mechanical. By, oddly enough, contributes to a kind

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of coldness to an extent, some of the stories are quite moving, they

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should be moving, they are about grief, there is something about

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them that is quite distant. But the overall idea of finding a way into

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the consequences of the Industrial Revolution, by going back to the

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source, this wonderful duck, and the thing that the book starts to

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develop, this idea that you cannot see what you can see. It is almost

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as if the book itself becomes a bit like that. This novel, if you don't

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know what it is, you can see it is something, but if you don't know

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how to use it, you won't know what it is. That, for me, was the most

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transcendant thing about the book. Did you engage with the idea of

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people being intricate machines? Very much, you can't tell if they

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are or are not intricate machines. One part of you thinks, no we feel

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and we think, and machines can't do that. And Katherine in the novel

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says that our skin has four million receptors, but that may just mean

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we are very complicated machines, and machines none the less. I agree

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with Paul, it is a slightly cold book, but plays beautifully with

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this idea right throughout. I found it a croix decur that we

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could be machines and it not take for our emotional value at all to

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love art and music. I found the account of her grief screechingly

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painful, I was absolutely devastated by it. This is Katherine,

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the conservor, mourning the loss of her lover? More so because it is

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unacknowledged. I was disappointed by the mechanism. I like mechanisms,

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I like descriptions of glass rods with mirrors under them which will

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be water, I'm excited that I will have explained to me what screws

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will do. I'm disappointed when the door is shut against me and that is

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not explained to me, and the novel is a machine that you won't

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understand it. It is a process of devolution, I thought the book was

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a masterpiece, the philosophical questions with a painful story, a

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direct and immediate story about grief, where you really feel for

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this woman. I thought he did it beautifully. One of his metaphor, -

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- metaphors is about heat death, the book starts to fall apart inen

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an -- in an ananthropic sort of way. Part of my sense of distance, which

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I agree about, is Henry is narrating three or four different

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stories as he goes. He's telling the story of the mechanic, and his

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teacher who he calls the genius, and layers, it unravelled for me.

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haven't enjoyed a novel by Peter Carey so much until Oscar and

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Lucinda. He maybe tries to get too much in. Because what he wants to

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get in is the computer. This chap called Herr Sumper, who has worked

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in the 1850s, with a man who is called The Genius, he's actually

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Charles Babbaidg e, he pole vaults into Buckingham Palace and tries to

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get Prince Albert to develop the computer. The idea that the

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computer will transform us all, is set begins Amanda, Katherine's

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assistant, with a hearing aid, is worried the machine will destroy

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the world. These two huge opposing views, a bit on the edge of the

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novel. We do see the consequences of the Industrial Revolution.

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also being in the middle of the computer revolution as well. Also

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sourcing them way back to their early beginnings. The idea of these

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obsessive tinkering with things that can't be seen at the time,

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because they don't know what they are. I thought that was beautifully

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done, that what is going on with this duck is the combust I don't

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know engine, they don't know what that is. My problem with the book

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is it isn't long enough. He didn't let the reflections be seen. What

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do we think, third Booker Prize? hope so. For all I don't think it

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is perfect it is wonderful. Nomination, certainly. There were

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deeply grieving things, the wonderful bit where Katherine is

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thinking about Matthew is dying, knowing he has become a factory

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manufacturing gas of methane and carbon dioxide, the view of in the

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end being machines and rotting. There it is, three out of four

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think it should win the Booker Prize and one thinks it should be

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nominated. That is outstanding. The Chemistry of Tears is out on the

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5th of April. If you have wanted to know what happened next at the end

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of your favourite classic novel, the chances are somebody else has

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always written it for you. John Holmes and James Bond are having

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new adventure -- Sherlock Homes Under The Hammer and James Bond are

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having new adventures. Andrew Motion has written new adventures

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for Silver. One day in July 1802, long John

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silver's daughter, Nattyy, appears at the house of Jim Hawkins Junior,

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and persuades him to steal one of his father's most prized position,

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a map of Treasure Island. They embark on a voyage across the world

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to retrieve the remaining treasure and make their fortune. When did

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you first read Treasure Island? would like to say as a child, I

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didn't read much as a child, my family didn't. I read it as an

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undergraduate at university. I think quite a lot of things about

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it then, which I have thought more deeply over the years. It is

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incredibly good, especially the first half, before they get to the

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island. There are a number of loose ends, aren't there, in Treasure

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Island, is that what made the idea of writing a sequel seem attractive

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to you? Absolutely, there is a scene very early on in my book,

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where Nattyy, Mr Silver's daughter, appears outside Jimmy's window,

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they are 18 these character, and beckons to him. The story begins. I

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felt for years thinking about Treasure Island that Stevenson

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himself is sitting in the middle of the book saying come and finish the

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story for him and continue the story. There is lots of resolved

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things, all the silver left there, long John silver hopping off at the

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end. And most bewitching of all, the maroon, the three pirates left

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behind. You only -- the maroons, the three pirates left behind. You

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only have to start thinking about it for a second, and think it is

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not just an adventure story, but it is Lord of the Flies. When I face

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the horizon stkpwin, I thought Mr Tickle might -- again, I thought Mr

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Tickle might have been deceiving himself and us again. Although I

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narrowed my eyes, I could not find an interruption between sky and sea.

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Yet such was my eagerness, I persuaded myself there was a vague

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outline in the extreme distance. Once I had noticed this, a kiefrpbd

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of miracle occurred, the breath prime minister -- a kind of miracle

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occurred, the breath became an eye, then a mountain, then three

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mountains, running up clear in mountains of rock, there was no

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doubt left in my mind, we had found Treasure Island. How much of the

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characters of the originals in the book, did you want to draw out in

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their offspring? That is a very nice question. I think the road to

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damation is paveed with bad sequels, I'm allergic to the word "sequel",

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I have not used it with the book. It is a return to, 40 years later,

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and hopefully for readers as well, these children are most French

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Revolution, they are Enlightenment children, they think the world is a

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better place. When they get to the island something dreadful has

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happened, they find bad stuff is happening as ever, that becomes a

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crucial challenge for them. Whether they can get the silver and hop off

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back to England, or square up to this moral difficulty, which is

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confronting them. I was conscious of the lurking

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themes in Treasure Island, and the character of Mr Silver, as he

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becomes in my book, a very old man by the time we meet Silver himself.

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Thanks to my father's stories of Treasure Island, Long John Silver

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first came into my mind with the habits and appearance of demons,

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his only saving grace was the trick of expediency, in all other

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respects he was entirely evil, a horror, my father used to say, of

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cruelty, DUP policity and power. The -- duplicity and power. The

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screeching of his parrots, "pieces of eight, pieces of eight" was the

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stuff of my nightmares. Your publisher described this as

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literary ventriloquism? I didn't want to vein thrill qies it, I

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wanted it to be -- vein thrill qiez with it -- vein thrill qies with it,

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I wanted it to be akin to it. Jim II had a high quality education,

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which put me in a license to write in a more literary way than

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Stevenson narrates. Did you enjoy having the larger canvas,

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particularly I suppose the sense of the 19th century is imbued in it?

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loved that, I don't think I have ever, I have never written anything

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with such pleasure as this. I began writing it at a very peculiar time

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in my life, I had just stood down as Laureate, my dad had recently

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died, I could get at feelings about him and our relationship that I

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hadn't been able to do while he was alive. I had recently got married

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again. We had moved house. Just about everything in my life was

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changed. I felt a huge surge of energy and pleasure, such as I have

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never felt before in my life. I spent a couple of years getting up

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at 5.30am and writing this, saying to myself every morning, go and

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have fun, serious fun, that is what I wanted to have.

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Susan, were you intrigued by the idea of this return to Treasure

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Island? Absolutely, has got those loose ends inviting you to come

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back to Treasure Island, hasn't it. But you wo expect it would be old -

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- would expect it to be old Jim coming back, the idea of it being

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the younger generation is great. It is a book of enormous charm,

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because the person writing it has had such fun. The voice picks up,

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it is more vent thrill qiesing, -- ventriloquizing than he thinks.

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says he's not trying to do that, he sees sea lions and says they are

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slimey monsters, in this book the new Jim is swimming and is nuzzled

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by sea lions, and then one of them saves him from drowning and carries

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him back to the shore. He says it is the greatest epiphany he has had

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in his life, and he thanks got for it, it is not Enlightenment

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children, it is children from the 20st century, that ecological point

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is nothing like Stevenson. The ecological is the least of it.

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The real problem for me was the racial and sexual attitudes, the

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sailors on the boat, when Jim and Nattyy, who is Silver's daughter,

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they sail through the car ribbian, there is notes a -- car ribbian,

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they don't behave badly. There is no swearing, there is no problem,

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she disguises herself as a boy, the implication that there is a problem

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with sexual violence, not on this boat, it never crosses anybody's

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mind. The real problem for me is Nattyy is mixed race, nobody bats

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an eye on that. Motion introduces a story on slavery, the good guys in

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the book are 20th century progressives about slavery, and the

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baddies are racist. It wasn't post French Revolution and post light

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loyalty? From what Sara says, from the problem I had was is it for

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children or not. There is no explanation, if it is a grand form

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of nostalgia for his youth, that is fair enough. There were other

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disconnects, the overliterary way which he applies himself,

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brilliantly, the mist over London, the River Thames is beautifully

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done. It is all applied to a yarn about pirates, the disconnect

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starts to happen, that starts to takeover the book, it starts to

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fall apart. If it is for children the literary style is too much, if

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it is for grown-ups, it is for pirates. It is for you and me who

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loved Treasure Island as children, it will be bought by auoints.

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want an adventure story to end with the good people rewarded and bad

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people punished. I won't say how it ends, but it doesn't end like that,

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it end in a way that for me is amazingly perverse and shocking.

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Again a 21st century ending. seems to apply that to want gold

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and silver or anything, the Lord of the Rings, and now we are told some

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how even the good people are corrupted by wanting silver.

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In exploiting the death of his own father, Andrew Motion, the way he

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explores the relationships between the new Jim and his father, and

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Nattyy and Long John Silver. I wish he had been able to pour his

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writing into a contemporary subject and not the safety net of this.

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Natty's bird says "let me alone, let me alone", Natty is hugging her

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father, Jim is watching, "let me alone", there is a suggestion of

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child abuse, surely isn't there. And yet she is completely devoted

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to him. It is all unexplored, the father and child stuff is there,

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given space but not enough is done. He spends most of his energy on

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decribing them walking up and down Treasure Island, you get an

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enormous amount of energy about the trip over land. You have no

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psychological ambiguity here. like a piece of virtuoso guitar

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solo playing, going on for a whole album, interesting but long.

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Interesting that you say triple album, sequel to the sequel. Maybe

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not the musical. Any way Silver is out now. From a novel by one of our

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loading poets to a collection of poetry, by a celebrated novelist.

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Okri is our second Booker Prize winner of the night, for The

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Famished Road in 1991. His new collection of poems, his third, is

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called Wild. We asked which came first, poetry or prose. I got to be

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known as a proz writer first, through The Famished Road. In

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Nigeria people knew me first as a poet, my first response is a poetic

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response, which is not in terms of meeting, it is an angle of looking

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at things, a way of seeing. For me poetry is my primary response to

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life. Civilisation depends as much on wild things as on tame things.

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:21:37.:21:37.

Many of our forms are domesticated forms. For me there is the edge of

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orthodoxy, it is the shimering territory, between what we know and

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accept, and what we are not completely sure of. Managers there

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is a surprise at the end, everything should reflect with

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everything, the brain cools the blood and the blood cools thought.

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Those ancients saw the world as it is, a system of co-operation, where

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things are both themselves unsymbols, uncorrespondences. Might

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it not be, that a movement of paint here on plain wood is a retreat on

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a distant battlefield, or that a child moving encounter on a tree

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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.

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- determinative in my poetry, I let the poetry collect. And then I have

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to go through the long suffering of shaping, taking lines for a walk.

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In Ben Okri's novel, The Famished Road, he was really phrased for his

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poetic style, how does this compare? I have to say I was quite

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disappointed in this. I kept thinking of the word "nice", that

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is the kiss of death. The more of it I read, the more of it I thought,

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there is something not happening on the level of language here that

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needs to happen. There was a falling into be a straxs and into

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banalties. I don't want to be mean, but the language was so. I started

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to take a list of the kind of be a straxs, humanity, eternity and --

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moon beams, I had a teacher who said poetry should never use love,

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soul, hate, he started to use the word, soul, and it became banal.

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What is wrong with writing about soul? You have to evoke it in a

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different way without the word. makes the argument for doing it

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differently. In one of the peoples he writes about the oblige, where

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he explains why you need it, -- oblique, where he explains why you

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need it, and metaphor, then he writes why you don't need it. The

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reason why The Famished Road was so exciting for many of us, we didn't

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come to it easily, it is not our kind of fiction. It is repetitive,

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it is highly pyrotatic, and difficult to love and he did it so

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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

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an odd alterate between the symbolism, and the banality, as

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Sara says. Where he writes, "I say the world is rich with love unfound,

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it is inside us and all around". There used to be a poet called

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Patience Strong. I used to read it in Woman's Own, and I would say it

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is her people. It is mixed up with the pretentious. It is moved to the

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side of Random House, for spiritual and inspirational books. Which is,

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I think, a terrible thing to do, that is pushing it into that ar I

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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.

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