0:00:00 > 0:00:03Now it's time for Meet the Author.
0:00:03 > 0:00:06An old man with great power - he runs a media empire -
0:00:06 > 0:00:08sees his influence crumbling away.
0:00:08 > 0:00:11He's losing his grip, his family, perhaps even his sanity.
0:00:11 > 0:00:17What becomes of him?
0:00:17 > 0:00:18Edward St Aubyn's novel, Dunbar, is a retelling
0:00:18 > 0:00:21of the story of King Lear, as a contemporary novel.
0:00:21 > 0:00:29Funny and melancholy by turns, the author of the celebrated series
0:00:29 > 0:00:32of novels about Patrick Melrose, is back on his favourite territory,
0:00:32 > 0:00:35dealing with a life touched and changed by tragedy.
0:00:35 > 0:00:45Welcome.
0:00:51 > 0:00:54The inspiration for this story, the start of the novel in a way,
0:00:54 > 0:00:57was the idea that you should take the King Lear story
0:00:57 > 0:01:02and do something with it.
0:01:02 > 0:01:05Now, is it easy to leave the thought of that fundamental story behind,
0:01:05 > 0:01:10and take off on your own?
0:01:10 > 0:01:15At first, I suffered from a "Don't mess with the Bard" angst,
0:01:15 > 0:01:20because I was in the face of a sort of monument of world literature,
0:01:20 > 0:01:24but I was asked to be inspired by Shakespeare,
0:01:24 > 0:01:27not to be intimidated by him, and it's impossible not to be
0:01:27 > 0:01:29inspired by Shakespeare.
0:01:29 > 0:01:34Anyone writing in English is inspired by Shakespeare.
0:01:34 > 0:01:39And in this case, a particular pretext in King Lear,
0:01:39 > 0:01:47I found that quite soon I left the play behind, and became
0:01:47 > 0:01:49involved in the novel, and it was like all my novels,
0:01:49 > 0:01:55I wanted to write the next sentence and the next scene.
0:01:55 > 0:01:57And you've got a central character, Dunbar himself,
0:01:57 > 0:02:01who is a media mogul, an immensely powerful man,
0:02:01 > 0:02:04who sees everything slipping away.
0:02:04 > 0:02:09I mean, his power, but also his mind, and we are with him
0:02:09 > 0:02:12as he becomes entrapped, really, in a world in which he can
0:02:12 > 0:02:17no longer understand, in which he tries to exercise power.
0:02:17 > 0:02:19It's a very contemporary story, isn't it?
0:02:19 > 0:02:23Yes, I wanted to find the modern analogue for a king,
0:02:23 > 0:02:27and it wasn't a king, obviously, or an elected politician,
0:02:27 > 0:02:30but someone who is part of the permafrost of power,
0:02:30 > 0:02:34the people who are there decade after decade, influencing
0:02:34 > 0:02:35decisions, and elections.
0:02:35 > 0:02:37And Dunbar is such a person.
0:02:37 > 0:02:41But what the novel can do, that is very difficult for a play
0:02:41 > 0:02:44to do, except through monologues, is to show the interior
0:02:44 > 0:02:47life of a character, and there are no monologues
0:02:47 > 0:02:54in King Lear, as against Hamlet, who is always rushing
0:02:54 > 0:02:57front of stage to tell us what he is thinking and feeling.
0:02:57 > 0:03:01Lear can't do that because his whole problem is he has no self-knowledge.
0:03:01 > 0:03:06So characterising the mind of someone in that situation
0:03:06 > 0:03:09was a new opportunity.
0:03:09 > 0:03:11And characterising the mind when it is beginning
0:03:11 > 0:03:14to break up, in a way.
0:03:14 > 0:03:16I mean, he is losing it...
0:03:16 > 0:03:17Yes.
0:03:17 > 0:03:19As we would say, and he's having conversations,
0:03:19 > 0:03:23particularly with Peter in the place where he is, not exactly
0:03:23 > 0:03:29incarcerated, but living, that are, ones that don't make any
0:03:29 > 0:03:32sense any longer.
0:03:32 > 0:03:34They make sense to us by inference, but they are incoherent
0:03:34 > 0:03:37in themselves, yes.
0:03:37 > 0:03:41And Peter is a professional comedian.
0:03:41 > 0:03:43He's terribly funny.
0:03:43 > 0:03:47He's also, unfortunately, an alcoholic.
0:03:47 > 0:03:52And in that sense I also departed from King Lear,
0:03:52 > 0:03:54because I thought there should be a fool who was funny,
0:03:54 > 0:03:59rather than a moralising monster.
0:03:59 > 0:04:01How much sympathy do you have for Dunbar,
0:04:01 > 0:04:04because in many ways he is a grotesque character.
0:04:04 > 0:04:08You don't indicate any sympathy for the kind of power
0:04:08 > 0:04:11that he wielded or how he weilded it.
0:04:11 > 0:04:15On the other hand, there is human sympathy for someone who is not
0:04:15 > 0:04:18exactly cracking up but beginning to fail in the way that he is?
0:04:18 > 0:04:23The way in which his acquired power is repulsive, but we feel compassion
0:04:23 > 0:04:28for the way he's losing power, and it's also true that
0:04:28 > 0:04:32it's very difficult, as you get closer and closer
0:04:32 > 0:04:40to someone's mind and its workings, not to feel a growing leniency.
0:04:40 > 0:04:44And I suppose there's a feeling in this story,
0:04:44 > 0:04:48because of where it is set, and the fact he's starting to,
0:04:48 > 0:04:51you know, talk a fair bit of nonsense, although he's still got
0:04:51 > 0:04:56some of his faculties, that we all feel that there
0:04:56 > 0:04:58but for the grace of God, or there is where we
0:04:58 > 0:05:00are bound to end up.
0:05:00 > 0:05:02So in that sense, you're confronting the reader with a real truth
0:05:02 > 0:05:05about our condition?
0:05:05 > 0:05:07Yes.
0:05:07 > 0:05:11I think that's true.
0:05:11 > 0:05:16I think there is a huge contemporary dread of losing our minds
0:05:16 > 0:05:23before we lose our life, and having years of mindless life,
0:05:23 > 0:05:25and that is one of the great phenomena of our time.
0:05:25 > 0:05:28Although I don't think that Dunbar, or indeed Lear was demented.
0:05:28 > 0:05:30I think if they have dementia as a proper
0:05:30 > 0:05:34constitutional condition, it weakens the tragedy,
0:05:34 > 0:05:37it weakens the possibility of recovery and self-knowledge,
0:05:37 > 0:05:39which he does acquire.
0:05:39 > 0:05:42He is temporally psychotic through pressure.
0:05:42 > 0:05:44And he escapes.
0:05:44 > 0:05:46But to what, we don't know.
0:05:46 > 0:05:47We don't know.
0:05:47 > 0:05:52What do you think he escapes to, any kind of redemption?
0:05:52 > 0:05:56Is he going to be a less repulsive individual in the way that he wields
0:05:56 > 0:05:59power after this experience or not?
0:05:59 > 0:06:06There has to be some redemption in order for tragedy to exist,
0:06:06 > 0:06:09because if there is nothing but absurdity, if it is just about
0:06:09 > 0:06:13the meaninglessness and bleakness...
0:06:13 > 0:06:15It is just walking in the dark.
0:06:15 > 0:06:18Then it is absurd and absurd is not tragic.
0:06:18 > 0:06:21To be tragic, there has to be a gain in self-knowledge,
0:06:21 > 0:06:27a gain in understanding, a gain in understanding the nature
0:06:27 > 0:06:33of love, and the nature of power and how he's misspent his time.
0:06:33 > 0:06:40And then to be deprived of those insights, at inception, is tragic.
0:06:40 > 0:06:41If that's what happens.
0:06:41 > 0:06:44I'm not spoiling the book for you.
0:06:44 > 0:06:47No, we're not in the business of spoiling books.
0:06:47 > 0:06:53But that terrible moment, when you do have the ability
0:06:53 > 0:06:58to see inside yourself, in a way that you haven't before,
0:06:58 > 0:07:04is one of the terrifying things that we all probably will face
0:07:04 > 0:07:07at some stage.
0:07:07 > 0:07:13Absolutely, although some people have, are doomed to be introspective
0:07:13 > 0:07:16from quite an early age.
0:07:16 > 0:07:22But I agree with you that, that this is a story about someone
0:07:22 > 0:07:28having self-knowledge thrust upon them reluctantly, very late
0:07:28 > 0:07:33in life, when their circuitry is barely able to take the charge.
0:07:33 > 0:07:39When you finish this story about Dunbar and his experience,
0:07:39 > 0:07:44and his wanderings and the bleakness of the fells, and then what happens
0:07:44 > 0:07:49at the end of the book, did you feel a sense of satisfaction
0:07:49 > 0:07:54about the way in which his life had found its course?
0:07:54 > 0:07:58Did it feel right?
0:07:58 > 0:08:00It did feel, it felt poignant to me.
0:08:00 > 0:08:04I was surprised by how fond I became of Dunbar.
0:08:04 > 0:08:08You didn't set out wanting to become fond of him?
0:08:08 > 0:08:13It just happened, in the course of describing what he went through.
0:08:13 > 0:08:16It became very poignant to me that he got a glimpse
0:08:16 > 0:08:21of something before he died, that he never would have seen
0:08:21 > 0:08:25without this immense stress and destruction in his life.
0:08:25 > 0:08:29And if we're lucky enough to get that, you're saying
0:08:29 > 0:08:31it is a very precious thing?
0:08:31 > 0:08:33It is.
0:08:33 > 0:08:36It is a jewel, yes.
0:08:36 > 0:08:38Edward St Aubyn, author of Dunbar, thank you very much.
0:08:38 > 0:08:42Thank you.