0:00:00 > 0:00:09Now it's time for Meet the Author.
0:00:09 > 0:00:17William Boyd isn't much at home with the short story is the novel. Events
0:00:17 > 0:00:22and collisions of events that take you straight to the heart of things.
0:00:22 > 0:00:27Is a collection with a novella surrounded by eight short stories.
0:00:27 > 0:00:31They have a loosely interlocking theme and the characters and all the
0:00:31 > 0:00:35weight of their past as they try to find the confidence to look ahead.
0:00:35 > 0:00:44Disordered lives, meat and drink to a writer like William Boyd.
0:00:56 > 0:01:00You've published collections of short stories before and it strikes
0:01:00 > 0:01:04me that maybe you find writing a short story when you're in the
0:01:04 > 0:01:08middle of a whacking great novel, some kind of relief, a change of
0:01:08 > 0:01:13pace?It is true because I think different mental gears are engaged
0:01:13 > 0:01:17when you write a short story as opposed to a novel and sometimes you
0:01:17 > 0:01:21get an idea which can't function as a novel and you think it'd make a
0:01:21 > 0:01:24perfect short story and the other thing is you can experiment with the
0:01:24 > 0:01:28short story anyway you want with the novel, because of it all goes
0:01:28 > 0:01:34terribly wrong you haven't a year! Like admitting that starts to
0:01:34 > 0:01:45unravel.To participate from time to time as of great interest.He talked
0:01:45 > 0:01:50about what makes a great short story, what does make one?It is
0:01:50 > 0:01:55very hard to define. I think there are seven types. I constructed this
0:01:55 > 0:02:03taxonomy but the key one is the Anton Chekhov model, at the end of
0:02:03 > 0:02:06the 19th century developing this slice of life, without the
0:02:06 > 0:02:11beginning, middle and end, presenting an episode of the
0:02:11 > 0:02:14character and often very open-ended and I think that now is the dominant
0:02:14 > 0:02:21kind of short story. Eight piece of a life presented.And you like that
0:02:21 > 0:02:31for them. You are often concerned with random things, chance
0:02:31 > 0:02:37happenings and random recollections, one life that is seen backwards or
0:02:37 > 0:02:45two lives in one story, that make up a life. So fragments come together.
0:02:45 > 0:02:52It is obviously an idea that you enjoy?Yes, and in a short story you
0:02:52 > 0:02:56can fragment narrative and present a series of shorts and the reader
0:02:56 > 0:03:02makes the plot. There is something about the form's generosity in which
0:03:02 > 0:03:06you can take a series of random incidents and because it is short
0:03:06 > 0:03:11and very discreet it does the work itself. It brings it all together in
0:03:11 > 0:03:18the way that a lyric pawn might. Let's talk about the central story
0:03:18 > 0:03:23and it is about a 24-year-old girl in contemporary London whose life is
0:03:23 > 0:03:29if not a mess, but a life that is not really going anywhere. She is
0:03:29 > 0:03:37sort of floating and doesn't know where the tide will take her.
0:03:37 > 0:03:40Probably another reason for writing short stories as you can do the key
0:03:40 > 0:03:47and know very well. I wandered around London looking and I see
0:03:47 > 0:03:51young people and in a way construct short stories for them and I am
0:03:51 > 0:03:55aware of people drifting a lot nowadays, trying out different jobs
0:03:55 > 0:04:03and locations and moving, different ambitions, so I tried to distil this
0:04:03 > 0:04:07contemporary phenomenon of drifting through life.There are some
0:04:07 > 0:04:12interlocking ideas and the character who pops in another story but they
0:04:12 > 0:04:18are not really bolted together in any serious way. But this theme of
0:04:18 > 0:04:21fragments or to floating around them and some magnetic way coming
0:04:21 > 0:04:25together is something that pops up a lot, and the chance happening, the
0:04:25 > 0:04:30last story, a man whose name is mistaken for somebody else and he
0:04:30 > 0:04:35ends up in a kind of romp across the Highlands. It is an adventure story
0:04:35 > 0:04:42about because of a mistake.You could say that good luck and bad
0:04:42 > 0:04:44luck is a theme that runs through all the stories and probably through
0:04:44 > 0:04:50all my novels as well, something that obsesses me, the way life can
0:04:50 > 0:04:53turn so quickly and personal happiness can be fragmented so
0:04:53 > 0:05:01suddenly. I always feel inclined to point that out to people who don't
0:05:01 > 0:05:05take anything for granted because it can all go horribly wrong, and the
0:05:05 > 0:05:08short story allows you to take these little moments and seaweed in
0:05:08 > 0:05:13narrative can turn are life can turn like that.It is almost like a
0:05:13 > 0:05:19collection of lyric poetry, a collection of individual pawns.I
0:05:19 > 0:05:22take great care in the order they are set out in the book, just as a
0:05:22 > 0:05:30port doesn't just throw the work down.What thinking goes into that?
0:05:30 > 0:05:34Some of it is pragmatic because you don't want three first person
0:05:34 > 0:05:37singular stories together, and another one as you want to set a
0:05:37 > 0:05:42tone of voice at the beginning of a collection, to say here is how I see
0:05:42 > 0:05:46the world and fewer more examples, so it depends on the stories you
0:05:46 > 0:05:50have to hand.One of the great things about short story collections
0:05:50 > 0:05:53is you get this cataract of characters, somebody new coming
0:05:53 > 0:06:00along every 20 minutes whereas the novel you have to deal with a gap
0:06:00 > 0:06:05you create and then follow them through. Here you can pick someone
0:06:05 > 0:06:09up and follow them for a bit and put them down, a man whose life is
0:06:09 > 0:06:14defined by the things he has stolen, largely from friends. Many of them
0:06:14 > 0:06:22rather than but all none the less acts of theft.It is an example of
0:06:22 > 0:06:28things you can do in a short story, can you define a life by the things
0:06:28 > 0:06:32a person has stolen. I wouldn't attempt a novel like that, and
0:06:32 > 0:06:36different sets of mental gears are engaged. It is a different type of
0:06:36 > 0:06:42writing in a way.And two people on here look at their lives in reverse,
0:06:42 > 0:06:48which again is something you can pull off in a 30 page story.
0:06:48 > 0:06:53Exactly, and it doesn't become tedious, and the conception is quite
0:06:53 > 0:06:56intriguing because they view backwards is always clear and
0:06:56 > 0:07:01distinct whereas ahead is a shimmering void of potential.And it
0:07:01 > 0:07:04is fair to say that in this volume what you're suggesting is dispute
0:07:04 > 0:07:11about the world, but quite a bit of wry amusement?I think I am
0:07:11 > 0:07:17essentially a serious comic writer. I see the world as a kind of absurd
0:07:17 > 0:07:20comedy and inevitably as a writer constructing stories are telling
0:07:20 > 0:07:32stories about characters, that point of view filters down and I always
0:07:32 > 0:07:41quote Nabokov, who said that a good laugh is the best pesticide.You
0:07:41 > 0:07:44have Scottish background and the Scottish with a rich edition is
0:07:44 > 0:07:47still love people with a much darker conception about what the world does
0:07:47 > 0:07:55to people and the vengeance wreaks on individual psychologies.It does
0:07:55 > 0:08:00and I assume, I was born in Africa, my parents are Scots, and my
0:08:00 > 0:08:05formation is entirely Scottish. There is a strong ironic absurdist
0:08:05 > 0:08:09view of the world which is also very Scottish and very Russian
0:08:09 > 0:08:13interestingly. Nothing makes much sense you might as get on with
0:08:13 > 0:08:21things.And after a long career as a writer with continues with your
0:08:21 > 0:08:30writing as furiously as ever. That hasn't cooled at all for you.
0:08:30 > 0:08:35Absolutely. Sometimes I can't believe my good luck, to be still
0:08:35 > 0:08:41writing, still having my books published. My first novel was
0:08:41 > 0:08:46published 35 years ago. I never take it for granted and again to quote
0:08:46 > 0:08:50Anton Chekhov, to be a free artist is possibly the best thing you can
0:08:50 > 0:08:54possibly be on this small planet. William Boyd, author of The Dreams
0:08:54 > 0:08:57of Bethany Mellmoth, thank you.