:00:32. > :00:39.On The Book Review Show tonight, the chems chems, the latest novel
:00:39. > :00:42.from -- the Girls In Tears, the latest novel from Peter Carey.
:00:42. > :00:49.Treasure Island: The Next Generation, by the poet Andrew
:00:49. > :00:52.Motion, and a collection of poetry from the novelist Ben Okri. John
:00:52. > :00:57.O'Farrell's new book, The Man Who Forgot His Wife, and Roger Scruton
:00:57. > :01:01.remembers why he loves the music of Schubert.
:01:01. > :01:06.My Book Club consists of Peter Carey, amongst whose own works is a
:01:06. > :01:12.guide to the 20th century's most enjoyable books, Susan Hitch, the
:01:12. > :01:18.linguist and broadcaster, who like John, taught at Oxford University.
:01:18. > :01:21.Paul Morley, journalist and author of Words and Music. And Sara
:01:21. > :01:27.Churchwell, Professor of American Literature at the university of
:01:27. > :01:32.East Anglia. We're also going to have live music
:01:32. > :01:37.in the studio from Sam Beeton, and don't forget, let us know your
:01:37. > :01:40.thoughts via Twitter. Peter Carey is one of only two
:01:40. > :01:44.writers to have won the Booker Prize twice, for Oscar and Lucinda
:01:44. > :01:50.and True History of the Kelly Gang. He was also shortlisted for his
:01:50. > :02:00.most recent novel, Parry in America. Carey has set his -- Parrot and
:02:00. > :02:00.
:02:00. > :02:07.Olivier in America. Carey has set his books between the two. Girls In
:02:07. > :02:12.Tears, his 12th novel, is a story of love, loss and ingenuity, two
:02:12. > :02:17.characters live 150 years apart. In the friend day there is Catherine
:02:17. > :02:23.Gehrig a clock conserver at the London museum, left devastated of
:02:23. > :02:27.the by the sudden death of her secret lover. Henry Brandling, from
:02:27. > :02:31.Victorian London, who travels to the clock making centre of the
:02:31. > :02:37.Black Forest, to commission an extravagant and expensive clock in
:02:38. > :02:45.the form of a duck,s as an imaginative amusement for his son,
:02:45. > :02:48.who is suffering from consumption. When my son saw the design, a great
:02:48. > :02:55.shout went up from him, the ten sheets of plans covered his bed. He
:02:55. > :03:02.said it is a wonder. That wonder, resurfaces in the 21st
:03:02. > :03:05.century, when Katherine is given the task of restoring Henry's
:03:05. > :03:09.elaborate contraption, rebuilding it from a collection of parts.
:03:09. > :03:16.Alongside the mechanism, she discovers Henry's journals, as she
:03:16. > :03:21.reads the accounts of his ventures, she draws consolation for his act
:03:21. > :03:27.of devotion. Now I read, slowly and carefully, giving all my attention
:03:27. > :03:30.to the puzzle on the page. I could not doubt Henry Brandling's real
:03:30. > :03:33.desire to keep his promise to his son. But he did not seem to have
:03:33. > :03:38.imagined what would happen when the duck was finally made. Did he
:03:38. > :03:42.really expect his wife to fall in love with him again? Or was he,
:03:42. > :03:48.without knowing it building a mad monument to grief, a clockwork Taj
:03:48. > :03:51.Mahal, or was that me? This clockwork Taj Mahal. The whole book
:03:51. > :03:55.is really about the relationship between humanity and machines?
:03:55. > :04:00.and it is put together a little bit like that in a way. The sense that
:04:00. > :04:05.the book itself is so beautifully constructed, it is like a piece of
:04:05. > :04:10.mechanism, it is mechanical. By, oddly enough, contributes to a kind
:04:10. > :04:13.of coldness to an extent, some of the stories are quite moving, they
:04:13. > :04:18.should be moving, they are about grief, there is something about
:04:18. > :04:21.them that is quite distant. But the overall idea of finding a way into
:04:22. > :04:25.the consequences of the Industrial Revolution, by going back to the
:04:25. > :04:29.source, this wonderful duck, and the thing that the book starts to
:04:29. > :04:34.develop, this idea that you cannot see what you can see. It is almost
:04:35. > :04:38.as if the book itself becomes a bit like that. This novel, if you don't
:04:38. > :04:43.know what it is, you can see it is something, but if you don't know
:04:43. > :04:47.how to use it, you won't know what it is. That, for me, was the most
:04:48. > :04:53.transcendant thing about the book. Did you engage with the idea of
:04:53. > :04:57.people being intricate machines? Very much, you can't tell if they
:04:57. > :05:01.are or are not intricate machines. One part of you thinks, no we feel
:05:01. > :05:06.and we think, and machines can't do that. And Katherine in the novel
:05:06. > :05:12.says that our skin has four million receptors, but that may just mean
:05:12. > :05:15.we are very complicated machines, and machines none the less. I agree
:05:16. > :05:25.with Paul, it is a slightly cold book, but plays beautifully with
:05:26. > :05:28.
:05:28. > :05:33.this idea right throughout. I found it a croix decur that we
:05:33. > :05:37.could be machines and it not take for our emotional value at all to
:05:38. > :05:44.love art and music. I found the account of her grief screechingly
:05:44. > :05:50.painful, I was absolutely devastated by it. This is Katherine,
:05:50. > :05:54.the conservor, mourning the loss of her lover? More so because it is
:05:54. > :05:59.unacknowledged. I was disappointed by the mechanism. I like mechanisms,
:05:59. > :06:05.I like descriptions of glass rods with mirrors under them which will
:06:05. > :06:10.be water, I'm excited that I will have explained to me what screws
:06:10. > :06:14.will do. I'm disappointed when the door is shut against me and that is
:06:14. > :06:24.not explained to me, and the novel is a machine that you won't
:06:24. > :06:27.
:06:27. > :06:31.understand it. It is a process of devolution, I thought the book was
:06:31. > :06:33.a masterpiece, the philosophical questions with a painful story, a
:06:33. > :06:43.direct and immediate story about grief, where you really feel for
:06:43. > :06:50.this woman. I thought he did it beautifully. One of his metaphor, -
:06:50. > :07:00.- metaphors is about heat death, the book starts to fall apart inen
:07:00. > :07:00.
:07:00. > :07:04.an -- in an ananthropic sort of way. Part of my sense of distance, which
:07:04. > :07:09.I agree about, is Henry is narrating three or four different
:07:09. > :07:16.stories as he goes. He's telling the story of the mechanic, and his
:07:16. > :07:19.teacher who he calls the genius, and layers, it unravelled for me.
:07:19. > :07:22.haven't enjoyed a novel by Peter Carey so much until Oscar and
:07:22. > :07:26.Lucinda. He maybe tries to get too much in. Because what he wants to
:07:26. > :07:36.get in is the computer. This chap called Herr Sumper, who has worked
:07:36. > :07:38.
:07:38. > :07:45.in the 1850s, with a man who is called The Genius, he's actually
:07:45. > :07:48.Charles Babbaidg e, he pole vaults into Buckingham Palace and tries to
:07:48. > :07:55.get Prince Albert to develop the computer. The idea that the
:07:55. > :08:02.computer will transform us all, is set begins Amanda, Katherine's
:08:02. > :08:05.assistant, with a hearing aid, is worried the machine will destroy
:08:05. > :08:10.the world. These two huge opposing views, a bit on the edge of the
:08:10. > :08:14.novel. We do see the consequences of the Industrial Revolution.
:08:14. > :08:19.also being in the middle of the computer revolution as well. Also
:08:19. > :08:21.sourcing them way back to their early beginnings. The idea of these
:08:21. > :08:25.obsessive tinkering with things that can't be seen at the time,
:08:25. > :08:29.because they don't know what they are. I thought that was beautifully
:08:29. > :08:39.done, that what is going on with this duck is the combust I don't
:08:39. > :08:42.
:08:42. > :08:48.know engine, they don't know what that is. My problem with the book
:08:49. > :08:53.is it isn't long enough. He didn't let the reflections be seen. What
:08:53. > :08:59.do we think, third Booker Prize? hope so. For all I don't think it
:08:59. > :09:03.is perfect it is wonderful. Nomination, certainly. There were
:09:03. > :09:08.deeply grieving things, the wonderful bit where Katherine is
:09:08. > :09:13.thinking about Matthew is dying, knowing he has become a factory
:09:13. > :09:17.manufacturing gas of methane and carbon dioxide, the view of in the
:09:17. > :09:22.end being machines and rotting. There it is, three out of four
:09:22. > :09:26.think it should win the Booker Prize and one thinks it should be
:09:26. > :09:30.nominated. That is outstanding. The Chemistry of Tears is out on the
:09:30. > :09:33.5th of April. If you have wanted to know what happened next at the end
:09:33. > :09:38.of your favourite classic novel, the chances are somebody else has
:09:38. > :09:45.always written it for you. John Holmes and James Bond are having
:09:45. > :09:54.new adventure -- Sherlock Homes Under The Hammer and James Bond are
:09:54. > :10:00.having new adventures. Andrew Motion has written new adventures
:10:00. > :10:07.for Silver. One day in July 1802, long John
:10:07. > :10:11.silver's daughter, Nattyy, appears at the house of Jim Hawkins Junior,
:10:11. > :10:16.and persuades him to steal one of his father's most prized position,
:10:16. > :10:21.a map of Treasure Island. They embark on a voyage across the world
:10:22. > :10:26.to retrieve the remaining treasure and make their fortune. When did
:10:26. > :10:31.you first read Treasure Island? would like to say as a child, I
:10:31. > :10:34.didn't read much as a child, my family didn't. I read it as an
:10:34. > :10:40.undergraduate at university. I think quite a lot of things about
:10:40. > :10:43.it then, which I have thought more deeply over the years. It is
:10:43. > :10:47.incredibly good, especially the first half, before they get to the
:10:47. > :10:52.island. There are a number of loose ends, aren't there, in Treasure
:10:52. > :10:56.Island, is that what made the idea of writing a sequel seem attractive
:10:56. > :11:01.to you? Absolutely, there is a scene very early on in my book,
:11:01. > :11:05.where Nattyy, Mr Silver's daughter, appears outside Jimmy's window,
:11:05. > :11:09.they are 18 these character, and beckons to him. The story begins. I
:11:09. > :11:14.felt for years thinking about Treasure Island that Stevenson
:11:14. > :11:19.himself is sitting in the middle of the book saying come and finish the
:11:19. > :11:24.story for him and continue the story. There is lots of resolved
:11:24. > :11:31.things, all the silver left there, long John silver hopping off at the
:11:31. > :11:36.end. And most bewitching of all, the maroon, the three pirates left
:11:36. > :11:39.behind. You only -- the maroons, the three pirates left behind. You
:11:39. > :11:44.only have to start thinking about it for a second, and think it is
:11:44. > :11:49.not just an adventure story, but it is Lord of the Flies. When I face
:11:49. > :11:53.the horizon stkpwin, I thought Mr Tickle might -- again, I thought Mr
:11:53. > :11:58.Tickle might have been deceiving himself and us again. Although I
:11:58. > :12:02.narrowed my eyes, I could not find an interruption between sky and sea.
:12:02. > :12:07.Yet such was my eagerness, I persuaded myself there was a vague
:12:07. > :12:12.outline in the extreme distance. Once I had noticed this, a kiefrpbd
:12:12. > :12:18.of miracle occurred, the breath prime minister -- a kind of miracle
:12:18. > :12:21.occurred, the breath became an eye, then a mountain, then three
:12:21. > :12:26.mountains, running up clear in mountains of rock, there was no
:12:26. > :12:30.doubt left in my mind, we had found Treasure Island. How much of the
:12:30. > :12:37.characters of the originals in the book, did you want to draw out in
:12:37. > :12:45.their offspring? That is a very nice question. I think the road to
:12:45. > :12:49.damation is paveed with bad sequels, I'm allergic to the word "sequel",
:12:50. > :12:54.I have not used it with the book. It is a return to, 40 years later,
:12:54. > :12:56.and hopefully for readers as well, these children are most French
:12:56. > :13:00.Revolution, they are Enlightenment children, they think the world is a
:13:00. > :13:05.better place. When they get to the island something dreadful has
:13:05. > :13:10.happened, they find bad stuff is happening as ever, that becomes a
:13:10. > :13:13.crucial challenge for them. Whether they can get the silver and hop off
:13:13. > :13:20.back to England, or square up to this moral difficulty, which is
:13:20. > :13:23.confronting them. I was conscious of the lurking
:13:23. > :13:31.themes in Treasure Island, and the character of Mr Silver, as he
:13:31. > :13:36.becomes in my book, a very old man by the time we meet Silver himself.
:13:36. > :13:39.Thanks to my father's stories of Treasure Island, Long John Silver
:13:39. > :13:43.first came into my mind with the habits and appearance of demons,
:13:43. > :13:49.his only saving grace was the trick of expediency, in all other
:13:49. > :13:56.respects he was entirely evil, a horror, my father used to say, of
:13:56. > :14:02.cruelty, DUP policity and power. The -- duplicity and power. The
:14:02. > :14:09.screeching of his parrots, "pieces of eight, pieces of eight" was the
:14:09. > :14:15.stuff of my nightmares. Your publisher described this as
:14:15. > :14:23.literary ventriloquism? I didn't want to vein thrill qies it, I
:14:23. > :14:30.wanted it to be -- vein thrill qiez with it -- vein thrill qies with it,
:14:30. > :14:35.I wanted it to be akin to it. Jim II had a high quality education,
:14:35. > :14:40.which put me in a license to write in a more literary way than
:14:40. > :14:46.Stevenson narrates. Did you enjoy having the larger canvas,
:14:46. > :14:49.particularly I suppose the sense of the 19th century is imbued in it?
:14:49. > :14:54.loved that, I don't think I have ever, I have never written anything
:14:54. > :15:00.with such pleasure as this. I began writing it at a very peculiar time
:15:00. > :15:04.in my life, I had just stood down as Laureate, my dad had recently
:15:04. > :15:08.died, I could get at feelings about him and our relationship that I
:15:08. > :15:12.hadn't been able to do while he was alive. I had recently got married
:15:12. > :15:18.again. We had moved house. Just about everything in my life was
:15:18. > :15:23.changed. I felt a huge surge of energy and pleasure, such as I have
:15:23. > :15:26.never felt before in my life. I spent a couple of years getting up
:15:26. > :15:31.at 5.30am and writing this, saying to myself every morning, go and
:15:31. > :15:35.have fun, serious fun, that is what I wanted to have.
:15:35. > :15:39.Susan, were you intrigued by the idea of this return to Treasure
:15:39. > :15:45.Island? Absolutely, has got those loose ends inviting you to come
:15:45. > :15:50.back to Treasure Island, hasn't it. But you wo expect it would be old -
:15:50. > :15:54.- would expect it to be old Jim coming back, the idea of it being
:15:54. > :16:00.the younger generation is great. It is a book of enormous charm,
:16:00. > :16:10.because the person writing it has had such fun. The voice picks up,
:16:10. > :16:15.
:16:15. > :16:23.it is more vent thrill qiesing, -- ventriloquizing than he thinks.
:16:23. > :16:27.says he's not trying to do that, he sees sea lions and says they are
:16:27. > :16:32.slimey monsters, in this book the new Jim is swimming and is nuzzled
:16:32. > :16:37.by sea lions, and then one of them saves him from drowning and carries
:16:37. > :16:42.him back to the shore. He says it is the greatest epiphany he has had
:16:42. > :16:48.in his life, and he thanks got for it, it is not Enlightenment
:16:48. > :16:53.children, it is children from the 20st century, that ecological point
:16:53. > :16:57.is nothing like Stevenson. The ecological is the least of it.
:16:57. > :17:03.The real problem for me was the racial and sexual attitudes, the
:17:03. > :17:13.sailors on the boat, when Jim and Nattyy, who is Silver's daughter,
:17:13. > :17:13.
:17:13. > :17:19.they sail through the car ribbian, there is notes a -- car ribbian,
:17:19. > :17:23.they don't behave badly. There is no swearing, there is no problem,
:17:23. > :17:28.she disguises herself as a boy, the implication that there is a problem
:17:28. > :17:35.with sexual violence, not on this boat, it never crosses anybody's
:17:35. > :17:41.mind. The real problem for me is Nattyy is mixed race, nobody bats
:17:41. > :17:49.an eye on that. Motion introduces a story on slavery, the good guys in
:17:49. > :17:54.the book are 20th century progressives about slavery, and the
:17:54. > :18:01.baddies are racist. It wasn't post French Revolution and post light
:18:01. > :18:05.loyalty? From what Sara says, from the problem I had was is it for
:18:05. > :18:08.children or not. There is no explanation, if it is a grand form
:18:09. > :18:12.of nostalgia for his youth, that is fair enough. There were other
:18:12. > :18:16.disconnects, the overliterary way which he applies himself,
:18:16. > :18:21.brilliantly, the mist over London, the River Thames is beautifully
:18:21. > :18:25.done. It is all applied to a yarn about pirates, the disconnect
:18:25. > :18:29.starts to happen, that starts to takeover the book, it starts to
:18:29. > :18:37.fall apart. If it is for children the literary style is too much, if
:18:37. > :18:43.it is for grown-ups, it is for pirates. It is for you and me who
:18:43. > :18:48.loved Treasure Island as children, it will be bought by auoints.
:18:48. > :18:52.want an adventure story to end with the good people rewarded and bad
:18:52. > :18:58.people punished. I won't say how it ends, but it doesn't end like that,
:18:58. > :19:07.it end in a way that for me is amazingly perverse and shocking.
:19:07. > :19:12.Again a 21st century ending. seems to apply that to want gold
:19:12. > :19:18.and silver or anything, the Lord of the Rings, and now we are told some
:19:18. > :19:22.how even the good people are corrupted by wanting silver.
:19:22. > :19:26.In exploiting the death of his own father, Andrew Motion, the way he
:19:26. > :19:34.explores the relationships between the new Jim and his father, and
:19:34. > :19:40.Nattyy and Long John Silver. I wish he had been able to pour his
:19:40. > :19:46.writing into a contemporary subject and not the safety net of this.
:19:46. > :19:50.Natty's bird says "let me alone, let me alone", Natty is hugging her
:19:50. > :19:54.father, Jim is watching, "let me alone", there is a suggestion of
:19:54. > :19:59.child abuse, surely isn't there. And yet she is completely devoted
:19:59. > :20:03.to him. It is all unexplored, the father and child stuff is there,
:20:03. > :20:10.given space but not enough is done. He spends most of his energy on
:20:10. > :20:14.decribing them walking up and down Treasure Island, you get an
:20:14. > :20:20.enormous amount of energy about the trip over land. You have no
:20:20. > :20:25.psychological ambiguity here. like a piece of virtuoso guitar
:20:25. > :20:31.solo playing, going on for a whole album, interesting but long.
:20:31. > :20:36.Interesting that you say triple album, sequel to the sequel. Maybe
:20:36. > :20:41.not the musical. Any way Silver is out now. From a novel by one of our
:20:41. > :20:44.loading poets to a collection of poetry, by a celebrated novelist.
:20:44. > :20:50.Okri is our second Booker Prize winner of the night, for The
:20:50. > :20:56.Famished Road in 1991. His new collection of poems, his third, is
:20:56. > :21:05.called Wild. We asked which came first, poetry or prose. I got to be
:21:05. > :21:12.known as a proz writer first, through The Famished Road. In
:21:12. > :21:17.Nigeria people knew me first as a poet, my first response is a poetic
:21:17. > :21:23.response, which is not in terms of meeting, it is an angle of looking
:21:23. > :21:27.at things, a way of seeing. For me poetry is my primary response to
:21:27. > :21:37.life. Civilisation depends as much on wild things as on tame things.
:21:37. > :21:37.
:21:37. > :21:42.Many of our forms are domesticated forms. For me there is the edge of
:21:42. > :21:51.orthodoxy, it is the shimering territory, between what we know and
:21:51. > :21:55.accept, and what we are not completely sure of. Managers there
:21:55. > :22:00.is a surprise at the end, everything should reflect with
:22:00. > :22:05.everything, the brain cools the blood and the blood cools thought.
:22:05. > :22:10.Those ancients saw the world as it is, a system of co-operation, where
:22:10. > :22:19.things are both themselves unsymbols, uncorrespondences. Might
:22:19. > :22:26.it not be, that a movement of paint here on plain wood is a retreat on
:22:26. > :22:33.a distant battlefield, or that a child moving encounter on a tree
:22:33. > :22:41.top, is an upward curve in a moment of sleeping civilisation. I like
:22:41. > :22:45.poetry to be simple but collect all the roots of pain, struggle and
:22:45. > :22:51.courage that happens to be there at the time. I'm not determine native
:22:51. > :22:56.in my poetry. I let the poetry collect.
:22:56. > :23:04.- determinative in my poetry, I let the poetry collect. And then I have
:23:04. > :23:10.to go through the long suffering of shaping, taking lines for a walk.
:23:10. > :23:19.In Ben Okri's novel, The Famished Road, he was really phrased for his
:23:19. > :23:22.poetic style, how does this compare? I have to say I was quite
:23:22. > :23:27.disappointed in this. I kept thinking of the word "nice", that
:23:27. > :23:30.is the kiss of death. The more of it I read, the more of it I thought,
:23:30. > :23:36.there is something not happening on the level of language here that
:23:36. > :23:40.needs to happen. There was a falling into be a straxs and into
:23:40. > :23:50.banalties. I don't want to be mean, but the language was so. I started
:23:50. > :23:52.
:23:52. > :23:57.to take a list of the kind of be a straxs, humanity, eternity and --
:23:57. > :24:03.moon beams, I had a teacher who said poetry should never use love,
:24:03. > :24:07.soul, hate, he started to use the word, soul, and it became banal.
:24:07. > :24:10.What is wrong with writing about soul? You have to evoke it in a
:24:10. > :24:14.different way without the word. makes the argument for doing it
:24:14. > :24:21.differently. In one of the peoples he writes about the oblige, where
:24:21. > :24:27.he explains why you need it, -- oblique, where he explains why you
:24:27. > :24:30.need it, and metaphor, then he writes why you don't need it. The
:24:30. > :24:35.reason why The Famished Road was so exciting for many of us, we didn't
:24:35. > :24:42.come to it easily, it is not our kind of fiction. It is repetitive,
:24:42. > :24:46.it is highly pyrotatic, and difficult to love and he did it so
:24:46. > :24:51.beautifully. He turns it on its head and you don't know what it is
:24:51. > :25:00.there for. Is there a sensability? I agree with what is said. I find
:25:01. > :25:05.an odd alterate between the symbolism, and the banality, as
:25:05. > :25:12.Sara says. Where he writes, "I say the world is rich with love unfound,
:25:12. > :25:20.it is inside us and all around". There used to be a poet called
:25:20. > :25:25.Patience Strong. I used to read it in Woman's Own, and I would say it
:25:25. > :25:32.is her people. It is mixed up with the pretentious. It is moved to the
:25:32. > :25:36.side of Random House, for spiritual and inspirational books. Which is,
:25:36. > :25:45.I think, a terrible thing to do, that is pushing it into that ar I
:25:45. > :25:48.was disappointed enough to still want to keep it circumstanceled for
:25:48. > :25:56.something to happen. With 20 -- circumstanceled for something to
:25:56. > :26:02.happen. Do you think it would have worked
:26:02. > :26:05.better as song lyrics? Songs talk about love and soul? What is
:26:05. > :26:09.interesting is they are for a lot of people, dedicated for a lot of
:26:10. > :26:14.people. If you got them as a gift on your marriage or birthday that
:26:14. > :26:17.would be a nice, charming thing. There is a wedding one. These are
:26:17. > :26:21.read, designed to be read at weddings, that is what these are
:26:21. > :26:25.for. So people can have things they read at weddings. A couple would be
:26:25. > :26:30.very good for that. They were very nice. I believed them more than
:26:30. > :26:36.that, I believed they were written for a particular wedding. I had
:26:36. > :26:40.most sympathy when I could think of Ben Okri as writing them for a
:26:40. > :26:45.wedding. I thought they were best when they weren't for a particular
:26:46. > :26:53.occasion. Best one was The Age Of Magic, when he describes in a
:26:53. > :26:57.playful way, on a particular night, a meermmaid sang on the Thames, an
:26:57. > :27:01.alchemist turned a pigeon into gold, all these strange, fairytale things.
:27:01. > :27:11.As a child's people it is lovely, it doesn't say anything but it
:27:11. > :27:12.
:27:12. > :27:17.plays. It is the only one you could say it of. As John O'Farrell made
:27:17. > :27:23.his mark as a comedy writer on Spitting Image, and alas Smith and
:27:23. > :27:27.Jones. It is no surprise his novels major on life.
:27:27. > :27:32.The Man Who Forgot His Wife, his latest book, total amnesia, in his
:27:32. > :27:35.hands it is not an homage to Oliver Sacks, but a comic exploration of
:27:35. > :27:39.marriage. The Man Who Forgot His Wife is a
:27:39. > :27:46.Noel that asks the question, what would it be like to meet your
:27:46. > :27:51.spouse, your partner of 20 years for the very first time. Vaughan,
:27:51. > :27:56.the hero, has had a complete memory wipe. He has to try to win the
:27:56. > :27:59.heart of a girl who has already been married to him for 20 years,
:27:59. > :28:05.and doesn't want to go through all that again.
:28:05. > :28:08."wow, who is that, I whispered, she is gorgeous. The woman stopped to
:28:08. > :28:15.remove a couple of dead flowers from the window box, tucked a
:28:15. > :28:20.strand of her behind her ear, and paused as if to check the weather.
:28:20. > :28:25.Was she living there when I was, shall we go and say hello. Blimey,
:28:25. > :28:31.you have gone bright red. We should probably not hang about, we don't
:28:31. > :28:35.want to see us hanging about her. Hang on, we haven't explained
:28:35. > :28:39.anything, where are we, who was that beautiful woman. That, Vaughan,
:28:39. > :28:44.is the house you lived in for 20 years, and that was Madelaine, that
:28:44. > :28:48.was the woman you are about to diverse vo. Vaughan has the
:28:48. > :28:55.opportunity to start -- Divorce. Vaughan has the opportunity to
:28:55. > :29:00.start again, and that is an appealing idea for many people who
:29:00. > :29:04.are at a turning point in their life. I was interested? The nurture,
:29:04. > :29:08.are our characters experience, or is there a core personality that
:29:08. > :29:15.gets bumped and bashed around by the successes and disappointments
:29:15. > :29:20.of life. My hero has all his experiences and memories wiped.
:29:20. > :29:25.Does he revert to a more happier person. "Gary, something incredible
:29:25. > :29:29.has happened, he think I have fallen in love. What is her name,
:29:29. > :29:38.Madeline, I have just met my wife, and she's something else, isn't she.
:29:38. > :29:43.Gary growned and tossed down his tiny crew driver, and said she's
:29:43. > :29:51.your ex-wife, you split up." Underneath all the jokes I was
:29:51. > :29:55.doing an investigation into history and what is true. I made the hero a
:29:55. > :30:01.history teacher with no history of his own. It made an opportunity of
:30:01. > :30:06.how others saw him and how he would like to have changed that.
:30:06. > :30:10.John, I wouldn't normal low associate this kind of book for you,
:30:10. > :30:14.due -- normally associate this kind of book for you, did you find it
:30:15. > :30:18.funny? I laughed and laughed, right from the start. It tugged the
:30:18. > :30:22.heartstrings and it was very astute about marriage, men and women.
:30:22. > :30:26.About how we all feel the same things. There is a wonderful scene
:30:26. > :30:30.where Vaughan is in a gentleman's lavatory, he's furious with himself,
:30:30. > :30:35.he's looking in the mirror and saying, you don't know your own
:30:35. > :30:40.kids, your wife hates rb u and a voice from one of the cub -- your
:30:40. > :30:43.wife hates you, and a voice from one of the cubicles shouts out, how
:30:43. > :30:48.do you know so much about me, who are you.
:30:48. > :30:53.I found it funny, this is disappointing, this is the man who
:30:53. > :30:56.wrote Spitting Image, and this is dopely conservative comedy, all rom
:30:56. > :31:02.coms are arguably very conservative, they allow the carnival of
:31:02. > :31:06.inversion for a little while, and then the status quo is reset and
:31:06. > :31:11.re-established. This book sets up married life, one man, one woman,
:31:11. > :31:16.two children, as the source of all happiness. And everybody in the
:31:17. > :31:22.book joins in, there is no other possibility allowed. They do
:31:22. > :31:28.celebrate a divorce, it is more ironic than that. To live in
:31:28. > :31:31.unwedded police bliss, they say. I have to agree with John. I thought
:31:31. > :31:35.it was, it is very funny. It is a rom com, it sets out to be one. You
:31:35. > :31:42.have to take it on its own terms and let it be a rom comand
:31:42. > :31:45.conservative, that is what it is. I felt I was reading, half the time a
:31:46. > :31:55.Hollywood chick-flick version of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless
:31:55. > :31:57.Mind, and the other was A sense Of An Ending, he wants to ask
:31:57. > :32:01.intelligent questions about relationship and identity. About
:32:01. > :32:06.the fact that we have never done anything bad, we think, and benign,
:32:06. > :32:11.and realise we have been guilty of unkindness. And also, can you be
:32:11. > :32:17.the same person when you have lost all your memory? He flirts with
:32:17. > :32:21.exploring some of these ideas about memory and history, and how your
:32:21. > :32:27.personality is, your identity being constructed on Wikipedia. There is
:32:27. > :32:30.frustrations of if being a serious book. I didn't -- it being a
:32:30. > :32:36.serious book. I didn't find it so much as funny but fun. I say that
:32:36. > :32:40.in a different way. I don't want this kind of fun,
:32:40. > :32:44.there is a new medium for it, I would like him to tell me the story
:32:44. > :32:49.in a pub over a few drinks. That is the medium I would like to hear the
:32:49. > :32:57.book in. It reminded me of a second rate edition of My Family.
:32:57. > :33:03.Occasional good gags, running gags, quite nice. Ultimately fun and
:33:03. > :33:08.efficient. I don't disagree with that. It is interesting about the
:33:08. > :33:16.way in which modern assumptions of twisting the way we think. There is
:33:16. > :33:23.a lovely bit where Vaughan tries to woo mad yie back by buying 50 red -
:33:24. > :33:29.- Maddy back by buying 50 red roses, she refuses them, he sees an
:33:29. > :33:37.elderly lady with a stick and he asks could she have the red roses,
:33:37. > :33:44.and she says, pervert. My favourite book is when his
:33:44. > :33:53.terrible friend Gary gives him a comdom, and he says that is a part
:33:53. > :33:58.of life and he says, I didn't do the casual sex badge. I find it fun
:33:58. > :34:02.and funny, in the end I want to scream. I want something that is
:34:02. > :34:05.fierce, bad and wild. Before you scream, I'm afraid that is all we
:34:05. > :34:12.have time for. The Man Who Forgot His Wife is out now. Having already
:34:12. > :34:19.brought us the complete works of composers like Beethoven, Mo start
:34:19. > :34:23.and Bach, Radio 3 is turning its attention to Schubert, all his
:34:23. > :34:33.works programmed over eight days, starting today. We ask why Schubert
:34:33. > :34:41.
:34:41. > :34:51.Schubert died aged 31 in 1828, had he lived as long as MoT start, who
:34:51. > :34:59.reached the rape age -- MoT start, who reached the dMozart who reached
:34:59. > :35:03.the age of 35. He left operatic and lit turpblgic fabric as urgent as
:35:03. > :35:07.anything in the repetoir. When it comes to songs Schubert has no
:35:07. > :35:13.equal, his expressive power is apparent from the very beginning of
:35:13. > :35:18.his career, with the two famous settings, Gretchen am Spinnrad and
:35:18. > :35:26.the other works dating from his teens, by the time of his death he
:35:26. > :35:32.had written more than 60 songs, most of them masterpieces.
:35:32. > :35:40.Some of them counted among the sacred and irreplacable treasures
:35:40. > :35:50.of our nation. -- civilisation.
:35:50. > :35:58.Schubert has been overshadowed by his immediate predecessors, Haydn,
:35:58. > :36:04.Mozart and Beethoven. He wrote no concertos, and his two symphonies
:36:04. > :36:08.were not performed in his lifetime. He is a constant presence in the
:36:08. > :36:14.home, wherever music is made in the home, Schubert will be esteemed
:36:14. > :36:18.above all classical composers, he's the poet of home and the loss of
:36:18. > :36:23.home. He shows every nuance of love and settlement, and through the
:36:23. > :36:27.grief which we pay for them. Death lurks beneath the surface, in
:36:27. > :36:31.ambiguous harmonies and constant changes of key. Schubert's music
:36:31. > :36:36.tells no lies, either about life or about death. It simply points us
:36:36. > :36:41.back to our home, telling us that we belong here on this earth, and
:36:41. > :36:46.that our griefs and fears are dedeemed by our loves. And maybe
:36:46. > :36:56.that is why Schubert's music contains more consolation for our
:36:56. > :37:02.
:37:02. > :37:06.loneliness than any other human creation.
:37:06. > :37:11.The Spirit of Schubert continues on Radio 3 until the 31st of March.
:37:11. > :37:16.More about that and all the books on the website.
:37:16. > :37:22.Before our own musical offering, I must thank Susan and Sara John and
:37:22. > :37:25.Paul for joining me tonight. Next week we will be visiting the London
:37:25. > :37:29.Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, and an exhibition about the human brain
:37:29. > :37:33.at the Wellcome Collection. Now continuing our collaboration with
:37:33. > :37:43.BBC Introducing, here is singer songwriter Sam Beeton, with his new
:37:43. > :37:47.
:37:47. > :37:51.single that comes out on Monday. # Bleeding from the head and from
:37:51. > :37:59.the heart Now I don't know the finish from
:37:59. > :38:09.the start # Just what does it matter
:38:09. > :38:12.
:38:12. > :38:18.# To you now Storyteller hang on every word
:38:18. > :38:24.# Burn down every book store in the world
:38:24. > :38:34.# That's when I need you most # That's when I see your ghost
:38:34. > :38:34.
:38:34. > :38:41.# That's when I need you most # I don't want ever give it up
:38:41. > :38:51.# With a love like your's # What can I do
:38:51. > :38:59.
:38:59. > :39:09.# If we all burn out # Tonight
:39:09. > :39:12.
:39:12. > :39:22.# Empty place beside # Me has me thrown
:39:22. > :39:24.
:39:24. > :39:31.# Undiscovered foreigner unknown # What does it matter to you now
:39:31. > :39:39.# Now I'm staring at the stations of the cross
:39:39. > :39:45.# And I won't forget her face # At any cost
:39:46. > :39:52.# That's when I need you most # That's when I see your ghost
:39:52. > :39:57.# That's when I need you most # And I don't ever want to
:39:57. > :40:07.# Ever give it up # With a love like your's
:40:07. > :40:08.
:40:08. > :40:13.# What can I do What can I do
:40:13. > :40:20.# If we all # Burn up