:00:00. > :00:37.We talk to Peter Carey at this year's Hay Festival.
:00:38. > :00:45.Welcome to Talking Books here at Hay, in Wales. Described by some as
:00:46. > :00:49.the most important literary festival in the Western world and a book
:00:50. > :00:53.lover's paradise, ringing together the greatest writers and thinkers
:00:54. > :00:58.alongside musicians and scientists. -- bringing. It is my great pleasure
:00:59. > :01:09.to welcome Peter Carey. APPLAUSE. Peter Carey is that rather
:01:10. > :01:15.read East, a writer who has won the man Booker prize not just once but
:01:16. > :01:19.twice. -- rare beast. Born in Australia, as I am sure everybody
:01:20. > :01:23.here knows, his native land is often the back drop and indeed the full
:01:24. > :01:31.ground for many of his novels. But he has lived in New York for many
:01:32. > :01:34.years. -- foreground. His latest novel Amnesia is also set in
:01:35. > :01:42.Australia. A writer who requires several bottles of wine to find his
:01:43. > :01:49.muse, sadistically autobiographical? -- strictly. Very close. Explain to
:01:50. > :01:55.me why your novels have such a wide audience. You said, if I have a
:01:56. > :02:01.pattern I would rather I didn't have a pattern. I would rather every book
:02:02. > :02:05.the new and unpredictable, damn it. Sometimes I look at something I have
:02:06. > :02:10.done which I think is so original, something I have never done before,
:02:11. > :02:14.and I think, oh my God. I am me and there are certain days when I repeat
:02:15. > :02:19.myself and I am just hoping people don't notice. They clearly don't.
:02:20. > :02:26.You are also someone who likes to do a huge amount of research before any
:02:27. > :02:31.new book? Well... Yes. I don't know whether I really like to do it, but
:02:32. > :02:40.I've become accustomed to doing it. One of the first times I really did
:02:41. > :02:44.it was with Oscar and Lucinda and the idea was so strong that it would
:02:45. > :02:49.involve writing about Victorian times in this country and in
:02:50. > :02:55.Australia and I thought, I can't do this. The characters were meant to
:02:56. > :02:59.have gone to Oxford University and I flunked out of Monash university
:03:00. > :03:05.after one year and I was rather frightened about writing about
:03:06. > :03:10.Oxford in the 19th century. I was terrified. I began to accessible in
:03:11. > :03:16.research at = U I had to. And then I found that you can do this and write
:03:17. > :03:19.about things that you would -- were not there to witness and if you do
:03:20. > :03:24.and you work hard enough then you can make up all sorts of weird stuff
:03:25. > :03:29.that will be acceptable to people who know the history, but never
:03:30. > :03:35.really happened, but might have happened. So in the end rather than
:03:36. > :03:44.being a restriction it is an encouragement. And there is clearly
:03:45. > :03:47.a lot of research but the book wears it very lightly. Sometimes when
:03:48. > :03:50.writers to research they are so keen for you to know that everything is
:03:51. > :03:54.described in ludicrous detail, what you do it in a light hand I think.
:03:55. > :04:02.The most important thing is the story and characters, not the
:04:03. > :04:15.research. There was another book, an historical novel, actually I hate
:04:16. > :04:17.historical novels, set in the past. That was Jack Maggs. I suddenly
:04:18. > :04:20.thought that if the character was writing he had to use a quill and
:04:21. > :04:26.that would affect how the character thinks. What does that mean to write
:04:27. > :04:33.with a quill? You have to know if the character is going to use it. I
:04:34. > :04:36.found in the end A4 page description from exactly the year of the book
:04:37. > :04:42.which talks about how to choose a quill, how to cut it. --A four page.
:04:43. > :04:50.In the end in the novel it probably end up being six words, a very minor
:04:51. > :04:56.part. But I was writing from a position of strength. Did you try it
:04:57. > :05:00.yourself? Certainly not. Now you do and interesting distinction between
:05:01. > :05:04.an historical novel and one set in the past. What is the difference? An
:05:05. > :05:11.historical novel is something I don't want to read. I think of my
:05:12. > :05:16.novels as modern novels. Jonathan Miller said a fabulous thing. Not
:05:17. > :05:22.that I used to hang out with him all the time, but I was in a radio show
:05:23. > :05:30.once. I think it was Oscar and Lucinda and he said, oh, I get it. I
:05:31. > :05:34.see. It's a science fiction of the past. And I still don't totally get
:05:35. > :05:38.it in that I can explain it, and yet it feels completely right to me.
:05:39. > :05:45.Your latest novel has a much more modern setting, so at the heart of
:05:46. > :05:47.Amnesia there are these controversial political events which
:05:48. > :05:56.you describe, but then there is also the idea of what technology...
:05:57. > :06:00.Impacts technology can have on people's lives. I was living in New
:06:01. > :06:12.York at a time when Julian Assange was arrested. One of many people
:06:13. > :06:16.whom the land of the free wants to see in jail, for a long time.
:06:17. > :06:20.Although he is an Australian citizen. In the United States
:06:21. > :06:24.somehow he became a traitor. I still can't see how that really works, how
:06:25. > :06:29.an Australian citizen can be a traitor in the US, but they believe
:06:30. > :06:32.that to be true. Because he is Australian no one really remarkable
:06:33. > :06:36.fact that he was Australian, and yet I heard him speak and I knew the
:06:37. > :06:41.Aireys Inlet he had lived. I knew something about his mother. I think
:06:42. > :06:49.she had been a counterculture hippie sort of person. She was certainly a
:06:50. > :06:55.puppeteer. She had been on the left during the period I'm talking about.
:06:56. > :07:02.I.e. Read that she had been harassed by police. So I sort of "Julian
:07:03. > :07:05.Assange's mother must have been really distressed about what
:07:06. > :07:12.happened in 1975 and that would have been close to his life. From then on
:07:13. > :07:16.I am dancing to fiction. So you wanted a very different character to
:07:17. > :07:23.be the hacker. First of all, a lot of people in making a novel like
:07:24. > :07:33.this is mechanical in the beginning. So while the first things is he
:07:34. > :07:38.can't be Julian Assange. She is a she. That is pretty obvious thing to
:07:39. > :07:41.do, but it's a start at least in the way you are going to differentiate
:07:42. > :07:57.your character. The character is also going to be... By necessity be
:07:58. > :08:05.the child of a Melbourne-based Australian Labor Party family, who
:08:06. > :08:09.are there to see Labour come to power and the father will be a young
:08:10. > :08:17.politician who was elected and who will be there long enough for his
:08:18. > :08:21.daughter to see... Fail to do what he thinks she should do. So out of
:08:22. > :08:27.all of those things you begin to build a family dynamic and you start
:08:28. > :08:31.to see through this young woman will be. How hard was it for you to get
:08:32. > :08:37.into the voice, into the inner character, of a teenage girl? It is
:08:38. > :08:46.not hard when... Firstly we've all been young, so even though to look
:08:47. > :08:50.at us no one would end -- think that. That's not something anybody
:08:51. > :08:55.forgets, especially writers. We all feed on the past all the time. But
:08:56. > :08:58.the thing to be really whereof is the present and what people are
:08:59. > :09:04.going through and the presence of it. One is looking at all of the
:09:05. > :09:09.social and individual forces. Always being anxious, thinking, I can't do
:09:10. > :09:15.this. How I going to write about sex with a... Say 16, 17, 18-year-old?
:09:16. > :09:20.How am I going to do that without being a creep or being read as a
:09:21. > :09:24.creep? These are things that one is anxious about all the time and then
:09:25. > :09:34.I hope resolves satisfactorily in the end. So the book has twin lines.
:09:35. > :09:43.There is Gaby, and then the older writer. Tell us about him. Felix is
:09:44. > :09:50.the sort of character who I am sure was very common in the United
:09:51. > :09:55.Kingdom in that period. I am talking about through the 60s and 70s. In
:09:56. > :10:02.other words, he is a writer who drink is an enormous amount. He has
:10:03. > :10:13.very passionate political views. He is certainly of the left. His
:10:14. > :10:20.personal life is wildly imperfect. And yet there is something true
:10:21. > :10:22.about the things that he believes that he felt constantly in his
:10:23. > :10:28.personal life and compromises himself continuously. Americans find
:10:29. > :10:32.it a little bit difficult to find a character like that lovable but
:10:33. > :10:36.think it is still possible here, I hope. I think you can tell us a bit
:10:37. > :10:43.more about him from the reading you have picked. Some of the twist in
:10:44. > :10:49.the plot are brought to light. He is brought to an island so he is able
:10:50. > :10:55.to write. He is kidnapped and locked up to write what he have to write.
:10:56. > :11:07.And, by the way, for the record, it was not my idea to read this at all.
:11:08. > :11:10.He was tired and hot and his heavy lids and fleshy nose shone with
:11:11. > :11:16.perspiration. Yet when he arrived on the threshold he was not
:11:17. > :11:20.particularly giddy. This 1-room hut it would lead to shake and shudder
:11:21. > :11:26.in the westerly winds, rippling in the gusts like a sailing boat, was
:11:27. > :11:29.on that sunny morning opened to the benign south-easterly. And when the
:11:30. > :11:37.dishevelled fugitive arrived on the top of the steps he was surprised to
:11:38. > :11:40.find his quarters were actually hospitable. Of the many things his
:11:41. > :11:44.eyes might alight upon he did see the garden spade hanging from a hawk
:11:45. > :11:50.inside the door, but there was much else to look at. The glass was
:11:51. > :11:54.window, if you could call it that, above the old porcelain sink was
:11:55. > :12:01.occupied by a huge elephant skinned and what are, ghost gum, he thought.
:12:02. > :12:05.This move, pink and grey bark was luminous in the sun and the
:12:06. > :12:08.characteristic rusty blemish on the trunk harmonised so well with the
:12:09. > :12:14.same sink that the latter seemed artfully intentional. He kept his
:12:15. > :12:18.box clutched against his soft stomach, staring at the tree which
:12:19. > :12:23.he would later know in quite another way. I'll take that, the boy said,
:12:24. > :12:29.meaning the visitor's possessions. But the man's litter and attention
:12:30. > :12:33.had now shifted to some half-dozen shelves that had been fixed in place
:12:34. > :12:40.beside the window. On one of the lower shelves and assortment of
:12:41. > :12:46.canned beans and Campbell soups, a number of four litre casks labelled
:12:47. > :12:50.Hunter Valley red. The description that gave no assurance that the wine
:12:51. > :12:55.inside had not been worked with a shovel full of chips, stirred with a
:12:56. > :13:04.garden rake and strained to reach its present market niche. The
:13:05. > :13:09.visitor made a dull sound, his cheeks hollowed briefly and his
:13:10. > :13:15.mouth puckered privately. He placed his box on the rough countertop
:13:16. > :13:20.beside the sink and, being unconscious of his own side, plunged
:13:21. > :13:29.his hand deep in his pocket. -- own sigh.
:13:30. > :13:35.What I think is intriguing is that you share some things with Felix,
:13:36. > :13:44.but you have him coming from your own home town. What was it like
:13:45. > :13:49.rowing up in Bacchus Marsh? It was a town of about 5000 people in the
:13:50. > :13:58.late 40s, when I was a kid in the early 50s. The class... I thought we
:13:59. > :14:08.were really posh, because my mum and dad had a small General Motors
:14:09. > :14:15.dealership, and the people with staters with the doctor and the guy
:14:16. > :14:22.who owned the quarry -- status. It was a heavily working-class sort of
:14:23. > :14:29.town, so towards the end of my time in the Bacchus Marsh state school,
:14:30. > :14:33.there were kids that had been kept back a few years, so we were
:14:34. > :14:35.probably nine or ten. A kid would stand up and start to walk out of
:14:36. > :14:41.the schoolroom and the teacher would say, hey, where are you going? They
:14:42. > :14:50.would say, I've turned 14, you can't bloody touch me. Bacchus Marsh was
:14:51. > :14:53.sort of like that. The poor of those kids would get all of their teeth
:14:54. > :14:57.pulled out to save themselves trouble later. I'm sure that would
:14:58. > :15:02.not be unheard of in the United Kingdom in that period, that poorer
:15:03. > :15:12.people, knowing what it would gust for their teeth, would have them...
:15:13. > :15:16.-- cost. I'm not saying this was the whole town, these were things that
:15:17. > :15:20.happened that I remembered. And I remember all of that very vividly as
:15:21. > :15:27.my parents, who were in no way posh, decided to send me to do longer.
:15:28. > :15:40.That is a boarding school. Yes, entered it did go there. -- Geelong
:15:41. > :15:44.Grammar. The gentry went there. When I left the school, I was a happy and
:15:45. > :15:49.surviving different sort of person. It was only after I left that I sort
:15:50. > :16:01.of quite realised where I had been. I had been in school with the people
:16:02. > :16:09.who ruined Australia, and when Charles was an assistant teacher at
:16:10. > :16:15.the map. -- Prince Charles. I had an experience of growing up not quite
:16:16. > :16:18.knowing where I lived. I never thought I'd quite belonged in
:16:19. > :16:22.Bacchus Marsh, because we were far too posh. I didn't quite belong at
:16:23. > :16:27.Geelong Grammar because I was far too vulgar and comment. My life has
:16:28. > :16:33.sort of been like that -- comment. It has been comparatively easy to
:16:34. > :16:38.unpack my bags in New York City and hang up my clothes, because I think
:16:39. > :16:45.I have sort of been doing that all my life. What might have been very
:16:46. > :16:48.difficult for someone else was comparatively easy for someone like
:16:49. > :16:55.me. That idea of being an outsider, do you think that can be an official
:16:56. > :17:07.for a writer? I think it is very common for writers -- beneficial. I
:17:08. > :17:12.mean, it doesn't hurt to spend some time being outside and looking in
:17:13. > :17:15.and seeing how they are, and seeing how you are, how you are different
:17:16. > :17:24.and how you can fit in or not fitting. Again and again, you return
:17:25. > :17:27.to Australia. You are living in New York, yet the detail of the
:17:28. > :17:39.Australian landscape, the homeland, is very close to you. Well, I don't
:17:40. > :17:51.think this response would be alien to anybody here. I think I left
:17:52. > :17:59.Australia in about 1990, when I was 47. So I had lived for 47 years in a
:18:00. > :18:07.place. Some of that time here, but mostly there. And if anybody here is
:18:08. > :18:12.old enough to look back on the first 47 years, I'm sure they are very
:18:13. > :18:20.vivid, and I'm sure you remember them and they have a lot to do with
:18:21. > :18:24.who you are now. Where you were born and what your childhood was like has
:18:25. > :18:32.a great deal to do with what you are like now. I'm sure also, to make the
:18:33. > :18:37.point and not just talk about the novel, you probably think about your
:18:38. > :18:43.parents every day, or at least many times a week. So all of those past
:18:44. > :18:51.things which make us, which include country in my case, and did yours,
:18:52. > :18:56.and place, what makes us who we are. Although I have not been living in
:18:57. > :19:01.Australia for a long time, these are vivid things. When I first went to
:19:02. > :19:10.the United States, I was very anxious. That these things would be
:19:11. > :19:15.boss Jimmy because all my life, that is what sustained me -- lost to me.
:19:16. > :19:21.One of the thrilling things is what little had been lost. What you have
:19:22. > :19:24.done is for an international audience, you have given us a real
:19:25. > :19:32.sense of many aspects of Australian life, and through your book on
:19:33. > :19:36.Mexicali, an idea of what place he has in the national consciousness of
:19:37. > :19:44.Australia, which is very interesting -- Ned Kelly. It is hard to transmit
:19:45. > :19:51.to people from other countries. I did think when I was doing the book,
:19:52. > :20:04.there are all of these run-on sentences. There are not a lot of,
:20:05. > :20:10.-- commas in the book. Ned Kelly dictated a number of letters. It was
:20:11. > :20:18.a 50 page letter he wrote after a rank robbery. The sweeping about him
:20:19. > :20:23.-- the sweet thing about him is they were kind of heroes among poor
:20:24. > :20:28.people, but he writes a letter and gives it to the public, and he
:20:29. > :20:33.really thinks they were printed and distributed it to people to explain
:20:34. > :20:38.the wrongs that have been done to them and so on. Of course the police
:20:39. > :20:47.force are not going to print his better and do that. Anyway, the
:20:48. > :20:52.style of this, it is a hard letter to read, but it has a wonderful,
:20:53. > :21:00.breathless, Irish Australian voice full of grievance and spectacular
:21:01. > :21:07.language. About Ned Kelly fighting a policeman, riding him to the ground
:21:08. > :21:15.and clinging to him like a did volunteer. One of the essential
:21:16. > :21:20.things about Ned Kelly is that Australia in the early 90s was a
:21:21. > :21:26.terribly social space. We were a penal colony, and were anxious
:21:27. > :21:33.ourselves whether we could have a decent society. We of course had
:21:34. > :21:37.been visiting English contingent. They thought nothing decent could
:21:38. > :21:44.happen in this place. We in fact with the fruits of the conflict seed
:21:45. > :21:49.-- convict seed, and we had the convict Stein, and these ideas
:21:50. > :21:56.continued to trouble my country for a long time. When Ned Kelly began
:21:57. > :22:00.these series of bank robberies and when the whole of the Victorian
:22:01. > :22:02.police force were trying to find him, he distinguished himself
:22:03. > :22:07.firstly by the immense wit and cleverness of his bank robberies.
:22:08. > :22:13.Secondly by his decency and committing these crimes, where the
:22:14. > :22:19.bank manager's wife said he was a real gentleman, and after they
:22:20. > :22:23.finished that robbery, the gang did a display of trick riding, and
:22:24. > :22:27.people would say things like if he had not been an outlaw, he could
:22:28. > :22:34.have been a great general. If he is the convict seed, it shows that we
:22:35. > :22:40.as a people can be truly prescient, and that is one of the other things
:22:41. > :22:46.we have a deep of Ned Kelly for -- deep love. Peter Carey, thank you
:22:47. > :22:52.indeed.