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READING ROOM MAY 24 · The Reading Room

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Babe the Bag Ride. So read. Hello, Hello, welcome to this
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month's reading room. I'm here Christa, and I'm with Barry. Hello,
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and we've got Sue on the line. Hello, Sue, Hell Chris.
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Hi, Glad you made it, Sue. Yes. So this month's book
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was The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. I'll just do a lot of
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briefing on the book. So it was published, it's it's published in It
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was written in eighteen sixty and set from eighteen forty nine to eighteen fifty.
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It started its publication on the twenty sixth of November eighteen fifty nine, and
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it was completed on the twenty fifth of August eighteen sixty. It's a mystery
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novel and falls under the genre of sensational sensation novels. So The Woman in
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White at Wilkie Collins. He's a British writer. It can be seen as
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an early example of detective fiction, with protagonist Walter Hartwright employing many of the
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sleuthing techniques of later private detectives. The use of multiple narratives, including nearly
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all the principal characters, draws on Collins' legal training, and, as he
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points out in his preamble, the story here presented will be told by more
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than one pen as the story of an offense against the laws is told in
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court by more than one witness. So it was a very long book,
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historical novel. So I'm going to start with you, because you did choose
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the book, tell us a bit about what you thought about it, right,
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Well, is something I've wanted to read for a long time, and
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I know it was on telling. I watched the TV version a few years
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ago, performing if I can't remember very much about it, and that's why
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I chose the book, because it was something that I wanted to read.
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With the TV versions sometimes they don't stick exactly to the script of the book.
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So as I thought, I must try and read this, and I
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found it an interesting read. I found it was very well crafted and in
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many ways it dealt with the psychological aspect of the situations, so the events
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are not just stated but interpreted. It and the way it's still interpreted by
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several different characters, and I think it does a good job of leading a
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reader down the path. I thought towards a solution to have the book character
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usually Walter, who was following the same rhyme. I thought, dismiss it,
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and then I view the truth. So I thought that was very clever,
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and I do agree that it is. It does form part of an
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early detective story, and I have to say I didn't see some aspects of
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the story and was quite blindsided when they were revealed. I thought it was
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tightly plotted, and I thought that everything there was no surprise ending in the
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sense of sometimes you've got a book and the small holes in the plot than
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a fishing net. But this all fitted the information. It was given to
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you but discreetely hidden, and it was whether you could work it out or
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not. Christa, yeah, yeah, under you, Barry Yeah, well,
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I mean, certainly there's a lot a lot about it to be admired.
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I think that from the writer aspect, that idea of of of writing
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the narrative, as as as a lot of the protagonists in the first person,
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it was was very cleverly done. That there were some downsides to it,
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I thought, mind you, because some of the characters were a right
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pain, particularly Frederick Fairley, who is the sort of hypochondriac character and what
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what he actually does Collins is actually sort of writing the voice of the person,
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and when he was writing that aspect of it, I found it as
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tedious to read as the as the as the character himself was. And while
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that's very clever, it's not necessarily an enjoyable experience, you know. So,
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and I thought similarly count Fosco. He wrote in his sort of fairly
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florid style, which was again clever in the in the in the in the
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characterization, but not necessarily a good reading experience, if you know what I
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mean. So, I think there were, like I say, a lot
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to be admired sort of cut into the chase. You know, I'm not
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the biggest fan of Victorian novels as you as you well know, Krista,
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you see, I am. I do like Victorian novels. But what I
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do I do find that really not a lot happens nowadays. There's so much
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that goes on in life, and it really brings you back to the age.
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It's a really kind of it has its place in history. It does,
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and you know, I'm you know, and certainly you know, people
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have their have a right to like that, and people do, you know,
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and it's like people like watch Downton and people watch you know, Bridgeton
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and people watch those sort of things and enjoy them and mentally and it's it's
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not for me to have you know, you know, people are absolutely within
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their rights to do so. The thing which which sticks with me, unfortunately
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in most of these Victorian novels, is that it tends to be about rich
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people. And so you know, there's probably I don't know, two or
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three percent of the people in those sort of circumstances who live in big houses,
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have you know, ladies whose only aim in life is to marry well,
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you know, and who sit there sewing, whereas there's probably ninety five
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percent of the rest of the population, of the female population, who are
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probably working very hard and don't get a look in, you know. And
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so without being a sort of a plot spoiler, you know, the plot
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itself is god and as Sue said, it's it's very well constructed and there's
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there's very few gaps. But at the end of it, the sort of
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the day, New Month, if you like, the happy ending, is
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that the woman basically reinherits what her birthright is and so she you know,
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all this, so it's still about inherited wealth and we're supposed to sort of
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rejoice that and see that as a happy ending, whereas I don't really care
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whether rich people get their money back at the end, you know. So
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that's like, that's just my view on outlook on life. Really, So
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reading about it does really thrilled me in the way that it might thrill people
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who are looking for that sort of escapism soon. Do you want to add
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to that, Yes, well, I think I do agree with varying that
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sense, because the thing that I found at the end of the book was
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I'd actually forgotten about the woman in white in her life, which had been
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a very hard life, and a mother's life had been a hard life,
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and i'd actually she had been, if you like, pushed out of the
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Realmit brought the characters, and I do think it's a novel of its time.
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I think it's techniques I used today, and I think in that sense
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it crosses the time barriers. But I also think that it's a novel of
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its time. I mean, I really liked maryon Holcome because I say it
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was a very modern woman despite her situation, but I was irritated by lava
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and her inability to cope with any fleet back in her life. I found
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that she was a little bit insipid, but I think Collins was writing about
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the society that he knew well in that sense, he did give us the
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best of both wills, because he gave us a woman in Marry who I
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think would be able to survive and prosper and Lata who were just furried away.
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And of course I would have liked to have had the viewpoint of the
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woman in white as well. Yeah. Yeah, because the title didn't seem
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to go with the novel, I don't think really in a way. But
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also I felt like the women in the Victorian times were very weak and it
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really quite irritated me. Laura did irritate me too, And when Marion got
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sick and you know, she couldn't get out of bed, and I just
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I it did irritate me as well. That But also the big secret which
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kept coming up, I'm still not sure what it was. Was it that
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he actually wrote in the book and he lied about the marriage. Was that
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the big secret? Because I didn't quite grasp that. Yeah. Now,
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the big secret was the fact that her husband was was illegitimate, so he
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and he therefore shouldn't have inherited that the family estate you know, he listened
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to me talking about family of stays as if it's you, you know,
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but he shouldn't have you know, it should have gone to some distant cousin
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or whatever. And that the reason then because they hadn't been married. She
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it turns out she had been married to somebody else, yeah, previously,
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and so she wasn't in a position to get married his mother that is,
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And so he actually went to the place where the marriage could have taken place,
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not where it actually because nothing took place, but you know, where
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they were living at around about that time, and wrote in a space in
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the Ledger, yeah, that about the marriage. One of the plot spoilers
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being that somebody else had already had a copy of the Ledger and that wasn't
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in there. So he was in trouble anyway, but it ended up causing
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his demise anyway. Just on that particular thing that you mentioned, su,
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I mean, yes, the Marion Holcombe character was was was like a very
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strong character and certainly you know, probably quite out of its time really I
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think for you know, for that for that era, but it still comes
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back that, you know, the reason why she was sort of strong and
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capable was partly because she was able to like cook for them and do the
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shopping and what have you when they were living, you know, in penury,
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when he was going back doing his work, you know, which is
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a you know, it's unremarkable in normal terms. It might be very remarkable
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for for rich inherited inherited people to do something like that, but everybody else
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was doing it, if you know what I mean. That goes back to
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my point from previously. Really, yes, soon do you want to add
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something to that? Yes, well, I thought what was a surprise to
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me as well that mister Farley was actually the woman in White's father. Now,
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I didn't see that coming at all, because he seemed to be in
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desire fly Tower just saying that he was very he wasn't well, And I
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think again he irritated me because he was allowed to feel like that because he
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didn't have any responsibilities in the sense of earning a living as it were.
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Yeah, no, sorry, can I can I just can I just interrupt
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there? So sorry? I thought it was clever. But sometimes I'd just
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settled into one one person's viewpoint honoration, and then suddenly had gone and someone
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else had come in. So I found that when it was perfect, it
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sometimes made the book a bit bitty. Yeah, I agree what we're going
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to say about that. Sorry, I was just going to say, it
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wasn't the It wasn't the hypochondriac guy. He was the brother of the of
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the father. He was the brother of Laura and Anne's father was was was
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was Frederick's brother, the hypochondriac's brother. He had the point being that Laura's
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father had actually requested that or sort of betrothed to to Perceval, Sir Percival
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on his deathbed, and and he was the character who was the father of
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both, which is why they had that familial resemblance. So Anne Catherick was
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the woman in white, yeah, and Kathrick was the woman in white.
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But her father was the same father Laura as Laura's. Yeah, I got
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confused. It's not It's easy for me to get confused. But that's why
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they did resemble each other. I get the feeling that Frederick wasn't capable of
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that sort of thing, you know, I wasn't wouldn't be interested in that
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sort of thing. I think he was a confirmed bachelor. So yeah,
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but did he know that Anne was his niece? No, I don't think
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so. I don't think anybody knew his and Ann's mother had been a domestic
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in a in a place where he had been residing at one time, and
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that's that's how that came about. Because there was a lot of characters and
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there was a lot happening. So I did get a bit confused, which
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is, as I say, quite easy for me. So did you want
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to add something? Yeah, I think that that was why they looked alike,
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but iners he looked so unlike. Part of it made me think they
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must be related. Yes, I thought that who was and Cathcart's father?
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And when it came out it was a bit of a surprise to me,
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I have to say. But for me, one of my personal preferences is
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I would have like to have seen Walter marry marry him. Yeah, I
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thought that was going to happen, actually, because Laura was so weak and
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he was very close to marry and I thought that might happen, But he
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stuck with it, didn't He married the helpless woman. What it makes me
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think about, I mean, Walter was obviously intelligence and he wasn't afraid of
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danger the hard work because he went off on his expedition. But it makes
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me see how different a world it was. And although part of the book
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was slow paced, he decides to go on an expedition in next page is
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Gone, So a lot of it was quite fast in that sense. It
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was it needed to be, though, I think, didn't it because you
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know, she was they were waiting, she was mating, waiting to be
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married. And I mean I suppose as well Marian may have had some because
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she was advising him to go when when they when she realized that they were,
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the two of them were in love, you know, so, but
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yes, I think that Marion actually loved him and probably would have been a
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better bet as well. Oh, absolutely, much more interesting than Laura.
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And just another thing at the It was the mafia, wasn't it? Like
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the count was the part of the mafia? Is that right? No,
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well, I don't I'm not sure that it was the mafia. And the
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indication to me was it was more like a sort of a Masonic thing,
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you know, like which is it was very very strong in Italy and that
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time, you know, the mafia was was more of a sort of Sicilian
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based thing, you know, I think that it was. It was it
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hinted and talked about sort of freemasonry really, which is you know, as
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a come back up in the Dan Brown novels and all of those sorts of
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things, you know. So yeah, I mean that surprised me a little
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bit, to be honest, that without because it didn't go into much detail.
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But that was the that was the implication, That was the inference that
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I took from it anyway. So and I was really confused at the end
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too, So who killed him? Why? And why was he killed?
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And what was the mistake he had done? Realize that he was that the
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guy who introduced Walter to the to the to the family, the Fairly family
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in the first place, was an Italian professor, and so it was only
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when he it was only when Walter went with Professor Pesca to the theater and
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pointed out Count Ye the Count, that he realized that the Count knew Professor
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Pescer, but Pfessor Pesca didn't know him. But he was part of that
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the brotherhood the called it, you know. And so in the end it
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was the brotherhood that murdered Count Fosco. And do we know why for some
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previous misdemeanor that they didn't go into any great detail about because he left and
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came to England and he for some reason, Yeah, he was obviously on
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the run, just you know, he needed to be and he needed to
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be in England rather than in Italy. But no, he was done for
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in the end, you know, which I suppose is like a fitting end
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for him anyway. I mean, the character I really didn't like, and
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the reason why I didn't like her was because she was so well portrayed was
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his wife, which was Fairley's sister or Laura's aunt, and the fact that
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she was a sort of a shrew like woman and most distrustful. I thought
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she was characterized very well, that she was very you know, she was
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a really convincing character to me, you know. And she changed, hadn't
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she when she got married? Because she rior to marriage. She was kind
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of like wall for woman's rights and everything. So do you want to add
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something? I agree with very on that, and I do think it reflects
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that my feelings on that some of the characters are very well drawn, unbelievable,
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and others are a bit pallid, a bit sort of weak. And
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I think you for me, that was a sharp contrast in the book that
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some are sort of coming to you from the perache and others are just sort
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of touching your consciousness. And you know, with Laura, she was sort
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of, I think, just sort of putting in a box of insipid female
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cartcot with anything. Yeah. I would like to have thought there was more
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to Laura than that. Yeah, And I thought I found it frustrating too,
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when you know Walter, he says he's going to selling her paintings and
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he's doing everything for her. Yeah, and he still loves I. Just
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it's in his time, isn't it. You know, I think these days
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it works both ways in a relationship. Obviously at that time he was like
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her dad almost wasn't he, you know, just protected to protect it from
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everything. Barry, were you going to add to that, No, I
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was going to I was actually going to make the same point when he was
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pretending to sell her drawings, you know, in order that he could give
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us some you know, pocket money, so she felt better about herself,
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you know, which was which was you know, good from his perspective,
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but she was. Yeah, she was a fairly dull character, really,
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And I think it's one of those things. And obviously it's a precursor to
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those sort of detective novels and you only have to watch things like you know,
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Poro or Midsummer Murders and whatever. But I mean all of the characters
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are introduced in a way that they could have some barring and they could be
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the people who were going to cause the death of somebody else, you know,
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because that that's the way these these these these things work, you know.
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I mean, if you knew who was going to do it from the
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word go, there wouldn't be much point to it. So they introduced these
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sort of different characters, and in this particular book, it was done very
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well. I mean the way that they were outlined, even the idea of
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having the solicitor Gilroy, who was sort of a friend of the family and
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probably could have done more after having been introduced and sort of think you're thinking
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that, well, he's like the good guy and he's going to help help
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them out, you know, through illness, then had to go and live
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in Germany to convalesce, so then they had to take a different lawyer who
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was doing that or it was still working on their behalf but didn't have that
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family background, you know. I think all of those things were part of
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that, you know, a fairly intricate plot which was done very well,
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you know, I mean, I certainly I can understand why people see it
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as being one of the top twenty novels in the English language. But again
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it's that whole idea that any of these books which just talk about you know,
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rich people, and you know that their happy endings being them getting their
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money back, you know, sort of just just bypass me a bit somehow
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soon. And I think I particularly agreed about it on the way it was
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plotted, because you think there's a resolution, and then something happens and then
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it goes up in a different direction, so you never for me, I
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could never predict the whole thing because Collins had so many aces up his sleeves,
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so to speak, where the plotting came along. And I also think
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he managed to tight the ends together, as you know, as I said
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earlier, everything was there if you could see it, but he didn't cheat
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by introducing a new character that changed the whole thing on the last page.
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So I thought it was it's a very interesting need and you know, I
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enjoyed it, I mean, he did. I will I agree with you.
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I think it was very well written. I love the language that he
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used. I always do with Victorian novels. I think the language is superb.
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It's so descriptive. And you're right when you think back and he's writing
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that by hand, isn't he? You know, he can't just got copy
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and paste and delete and change paragraphs. You know, it's a very long
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novel. And you're right, he never he never faltered in the plot and
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the characters. So for his time, and you think the eighteen hundreds,
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what a mission, what a mission to do? Yeah, Barry got something.
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No. I think that, you know, it's a key point for
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that type of book in that the use of having the different characters narrate their
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view on what's going on is a really really good way of adding those little
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bit extra bits of information. If you think in terms of a lot of
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novels, you know, have an overview and like describe what's going on in
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all the different scenarios to all the different characters, you know, and and
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so that in like a general control of what's going on in the plot.
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But to have it sort of, you know, bits of it revealed as
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you went along, and without having that the dreadful aspect of Sue's just mentioned,
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you know, of having somebody turn up at the end who you find
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out, you know, is you know, the long lost cousin or something.
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Who do you know whose family had been murdered by them? You know,
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I mean, there was none of that, All of this, all
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of the plot was there from the start and it was just revealed, you
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know, piecemeal, and and you know, masterful from that perspective, I
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have absolutely yes, Sue, I think that masterful is the right word.
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And I think to also for Collins to keep slack of all those characters,
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because I know from perfect news characters do to ent, to go off and
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do the wrong thing despite what you want them to do, and I think
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to keep control of that and not it was balanced because every character had the
24:30
correct parts of the novel for the role they were playing in the story.
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So no one had too much to say and no one had too little to
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say in terms of the plotting and the reveal. Yeah, and I think
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it really did show like life in those times, which for me was fascinating,
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you know, with all the rides on the carriages and the way the
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letters had to be delivered. As a communication, and also the way that
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they were you know, they were intercepted, and you know, there was
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times in that novel when I was like really anxious and thinking, I hope,
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I hope that gets to you know, that person when they were writing
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the letters, and then they didn't, they didn't get there, and the
25:15
letter that she opened was empty. So I thought it was really interesting to
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show how things worked in that day and age when he compare it to now
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and everything. An email sent in a matter of seconds, How it was,
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Barry, Did you have something to say about it? Only? I
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thought that the postal service was very effective. You know, they were getting
25:33
getting letters in the same day, which I thought was pretty impressive really,
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you know, so, but they were never quite sure whether they'd get them
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or whether somebody would steal them. And I think there was you know,
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if I was going to be a picky about one thing, and this was
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you know, there was there was one sort of hole in the plot which
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I didn't think was quite particularly well described, was that when he was going
25:56
to to front Count Fosco, which he did with his he'd written a letter
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which was held and sealed by Professor Pesker, you know, to so that
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has his sort of security, as you know, so that Count Fosco couldn't
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just murder him, you know, because I think he's had that sort of
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background. But then when he came to a deal with him, the deal
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was that they went and got the letter and it was like ripped up in
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front of him, you know, in front of Count Fosco. And I
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couldn't understand then why having ripped up the letter in the morning that Count Fosco
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did just didn't do him in because nobody else would have known, really apart
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from because Professor Pesco wouldn't have the letter anymore. I get that, and
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I thought the same thing, But it was kind of like the Gentleman's work.
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It just seemed like a bit bizarre. Really. I thought, well,
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you know, had I been Count Fosco, I think I would have
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gone, aha, you know, I've got the letter now you can yes,
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so can you add to something? Yeah? No, I agree with
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that. And I just wondered if it was just something of the day,
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something that people would do in those times but not today. Maybe yeah,
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yeah, the Gentleman's word was more Now I kind of reasoned it that perhaps
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it was again something of its time when Collins was writing, and of course
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his readers would expect certain things to happen because that was the way they were
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they were brought up. That's what I thought, But you know it is
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it is a strange one that has put it that way. And I was
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quite interested in the way people did travel. Then you think, gosh,
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you know in that time, they were traveling all over the place, and
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then when they went when they went to Paris, and what I thought was
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interesting too. And then the county died and people were queuing up to see
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the dead body. And they actually did that in Paris, didn't they There
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was a whole thing when they really did, and maybe over here too,
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but they looked at that. They were fascinated by dead bodies, and so
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I thought it was it was good to see the bit of history coming out.
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And I did done that really really interesting, Yeah, Barry, I
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mean I originally, you know, I felt that because it was released and
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it was published in Charles Dickens's publication, wasn't it And it was sort of
28:33
it was done over three sections, you know, and I originally thought that
28:38
that might have been, you know, a sort of a construct too far,
28:41
really, But I think that. I can imagine that if it had
28:45
come in three bits, I would have enjoyed reading it, you know,
28:48
to me, And if it was coming like a trilogy, I think I
28:52
might have even enjoyed it, reading it more than it was. It was
28:56
quite a formidable book to read all the way through from the starts, you
28:59
know, I mean three hundred page chunks. It might have been easier.
29:03
Wow, I sound quite surprised, Barry, you're changing. I never thought
29:07
you'd say something like that. Yeah. No, I think it was a
29:11
good reflectional life because people, you know, when you look back, they
29:17
they didn't travel a lot, and we turned to think of them as keen
29:21
stuck in one place for eternity. But when you look at the what we
29:26
see, I mean this is going back earlier in time, but the king's
29:29
progress, of the queen's progress, where they would travel all around the country
29:33
with their retinue bankrupt in local laldlaws who had to put them up. And
29:42
I think we forget that they did travel a lot, and one section of
29:48
the society experienced things that other other classes of that society would never even dream
29:55
of. I know, Yes, interesting, wasn't it. And there was
29:59
foreigners in Britain and you know, they were they were abroad. It was
30:03
there. It was really quite interesting. It must have been amazing to travel
30:07
in that time though, to see that, I think, I mean,
30:10
I think that that the key to it really was that was was the railway,
30:14
you know, I think that, I mean, that was that was
30:17
the thing which spread out so quickly and and and and altered that the everything
30:25
about travel. You know, that taken less than a day to go somewhere
30:30
that might have taken you know, four or five days, I think so,
30:33
I think that, you know, that the train was was probably much
30:37
of a key to the to the pace of the novel, you know,
30:40
which which which only took place over about sort of six or maybe twelve months
30:45
or something, didn't it you know? Interesting? And Walter went off to
30:49
the Americas, didn't he honors an expedition what we call an expedition, which
31:00
I think that makes me think that he was kind of a go ahead person,
31:06
a courageous pray person who wasn't afraid of the challenges of you know,
31:11
an unknown as relatively unknown continent, which then made me think he's taught ways
31:18
to settling for Laura me too, I couldn't get that either, you know,
31:22
I think, well, I think one of the things and we haven't
31:25
really mentioned it, you know, to you know, because you take it
31:27
as a given and what have you. But the reason behind that whole plot
31:33
line was that, you know, she was high born and he was just
31:37
a commoner, and so it was unforgivable that that they would have got together.
31:44
And that's why it couldn't have happened, you know. So it's very
31:47
much about a cast system, you know, which you know, we just
31:51
accepting the storytelling. But it's nonsense anyway, isn't it. You know,
31:55
that's the you know, that the idea that there are people who are better
32:00
than other people and you couldn't possibly, couldn't possibly marry beneath the station.
32:04
But the irony was in the end he was making the money, wasn't he
32:07
Well, he was lost it all until the happy ending. Yeah, although
32:12
it's it's hardly it's hardly a socialist process, like I say, at the
32:15
end of the day, you know, the fact that he married her and
32:19
then their children would would inherit the estate, you know, was like so
32:25
he was he was marrying up up if you like, when as you know,
32:30
as we probably all realized, he was a far better person than they
32:36
were. And you know, I don't I don't even see really why being
32:39
a draftsman or whatever, you know, should be a low caste profession,
32:45
you know, I mean it's it's like it's like being a teacher or whatever,
32:50
why it should be a lower caste of society. Yeah, I mean
32:53
I did feel Laura's pain and Marryan's pain when they were kind of lied to
32:59
and separate rated. That was quite dramatic, I think. And they were
33:04
alive and they were separated, were they And I did feel like how alone
33:09
the women were because they really couldn't show their affection, They couldn't do anything
33:15
without their husband or their father's permission. That really kind of made me think
33:20
how times have changed? What do you think? So? I mean women
33:24
were very it was such a very vulnerable within some talents. There was a
33:30
couple of raiders because once the woman married, the property went to a husband.
33:37
Yeah, and she could be the harss. I mean, I think
33:42
Colin's touched on this that the husband couldn't seem to have money but more picks
33:47
and martyr than you know, cash in hand. But once the wife marries
33:54
his should she decided to leave, then basically she's no where to go.
34:00
She's disgraced because she's getting your goals, left her husband and she has no
34:06
money. She's all independent money in governments. The Pilkington's going back, you
34:12
know quite a while now and where they were both suffrages and they chose not
34:19
to marry because they didn't want their money going to a husband, and there
34:24
would then if they was divorce going along they left with nothing. Yeah.
34:30
Yeah, interesting. I think while where the women had should we say their
34:37
role in society that once the marriagy was so dependent on their husband and the
34:43
way their husband treated them. Yeah, but they couldn't really show any feelings
34:49
because if they did, they were stuck in the asylum, weren't they as
34:52
well? You know very Joseph's teach them said both to teach them, he
35:00
had his wife committed to asylum. He actually was her children Thomas speak to
35:08
the conductor and his sister, who's got the money out of your selling?
35:13
Because there was nothing wrong with her? Yeah, and it led to splat
35:17
in the family basically, But that's how easy it was for a husband to
35:23
do that to the wife. He couldn't show any signs of, you know,
35:28
being a bit emotional. Again, I'm pretty sure that that's only in
35:32
particular echelons of society. I mean, it's not as if, you know,
35:37
people could afford just to pay asylums to house the troublesome wives, you
35:43
know what I mean. Yeah, it was. It was kind of rich,
35:45
wasn't it. Yeah, And I think that this is where we you
35:46
know, we have the same sort of thing within Thomas Hardy, and it
35:51
comes back to this idea of the eighteenth century, you know, novels that
35:57
you know the role of women in them, And again the subject matter is
36:00
a very limited amount of society and very limited strata stratus of society. So
36:07
I think, yeah, I'd be more interested to hear about, you know,
36:13
the ordinary people, you know. I mean, I think the ordinary
36:17
women had a better life in a way because they could enjoy sex, They
36:22
could you know, they could have a laugh and go out there and have
36:25
a drink, and they weren't confined to like all that kind of etiquette of
36:30
the higher class. So I think in a way maybe they were a bit
36:32
happy. They had to work hard. But so did you add what was
36:38
that? Yeah, Yeah, so in a way you wonder who were the
36:45
lucky ones. Anyway, guys, we've got an interview coming up, Levi
36:49
toofar I interview. But before we have the interview, I'm going to ask,
36:52
out of ten, what did you think of the novel? Barry,
36:58
I'd give it eight. I'm really surprised. Yeah, Sue, what would
37:02
you give I'd give it a seven. So we'll have we'll play the interview,
37:08
and then we'll come back and we can pick up the next book for
37:13
next month. So I'll just played the Levi to Farai interview. Don't go
37:16
away hither. It's Christa from the Reading Room. And every month we have
37:22
a guest who's something to do with literature, and this month we have the
37:27
wonderful Levi to Fari. He's going to be here answering a few questions and
37:31
then he's going to read out one of his poems or his stories. Hi,
37:36
lev welcome to the show. Good to have you, Yeah, really
37:42
good to have you here. You've actually got a very interesting start to your
37:45
career because you started off being a chef, didn't you. Can you tell
37:50
me about a little bit about your journey from chef to poet? Yeah.
37:53
When I was a chef, it was food for the stomach. I'm going
37:57
to food for thought is even more powerful. But the reason why I left
38:04
catering and you ventured into poetry was that the American influence and the fast food
38:10
thing, and what we'd learned at college in terms of learning to cook classical
38:16
French cuisine, cooking everything from scratch, was the American influence brought with it
38:23
this thing of convenience food an instant. So you just so we would make
38:30
a sauce from a root, yes, yeah, and you'd put all your
38:35
flavors and stuff and then all of a sudden you just open a pocket,
38:38
you add water, and there's no skill in that. Yeah, I like
38:43
to I like to cook Caribbean food and Asian food, lots of flavor.
38:49
See, people misunderstand Caribbean food because they think it's full of sugar and everything's
38:54
boiled, but it's not. You know, there's different types of dishes because
39:00
the Caribbean has a lot of ingredients, a lot of spices and herbs.
39:07
Then it makes for good food, the same way Indian food. Because when
39:13
the British controlled Jamaica in particular, and they had brought enslaved Africans into the
39:19
island to work the sugar plantations and to generate money for the West. At
39:25
one point there were lots of rebellions, you know, some sharp William Gordon
39:32
and different people who fought any of the Maroons who fought against the British,
39:38
and eventually the slaves or the enslaved people went on strike and refused to work.
39:45
So what did the British do. They went to India, which was
39:50
part of the Empire, and they brought an indentured workers from India into the
39:55
Caribbean, into Jamaica. And so those Indian workers brought with them lots of
40:02
different spices. In Jamaica. You can get curried chicken and curried good.
40:08
Yes, you know what I mean, check it. African people don't make
40:12
curry Corey and the people that were there were African people along with the Tino
40:16
people. So it was that Indian influence. Okay, a couple more questions.
40:21
Actually, you know what you do. You do a lot of performances.
40:23
How do you feel when you're about to perform? Do you still get
40:27
nervous or do you think you've just been doing it so Long's it's fairly easy.
40:32
Yeah, I've been doing it for that long. But I don't get
40:36
complacent. I don't get nervous, but I don't get complacent. I think
40:40
I've got this. I respect the audience that I'm performing to and I respect
40:46
the people who have booked me to do a performance. So you know,
40:51
so I'm conscious in that respect, but I don't really get nervous as in
40:55
a sense. But I have some good training from Ebony, you know,
41:00
cal Carol Williams Rip. She was great Ebony and she kind of took me
41:07
through a series of exercises before you go to perform and how to bring that
41:15
adrenaline and control it. So I'll give you thanks. So you write poems
41:20
and you write short stories, but you also do workshops, don't you.
41:24
Yeah, how old were you when you wrote your first poem? Well,
41:30
we used to write poetry at school, but I wasn't into the poetry that
41:35
we've done at school. It didn't seem relative to why at the time,
41:38
because when you're you fourteen sixteen, because I knew about some of the Jamaican
41:44
poets and that was more relevant to I. Doctor Louise Bennett, and it
41:47
was funny, you know, it was cultural in the sense that it related
41:52
to the culture I could identify with. And so after just while I was
42:00
a college studying to be a chef, I kind of picked up the pen
42:07
and started writing. Because I used to DJ on a sound system, and
42:10
when I started college, because we had to write essays and do projects and
42:15
so forth, there was no time to do the DJ and the toasting on
42:21
a sound system. So I started to write my ideas down and they took
42:24
the shape of poetry. And so I was introduced to the Liverpool eight Writers
42:31
Workshop by a very good friend of mine, Carli Montout, who was a
42:36
member of the workshop. And when I went to the workshop, there was
42:39
Dave Evans, Olive Rogers and Ken sheven They ran the workshop. Dave Evans
42:49
was a white South African who was a member of the a n C who
42:52
was in exile in Britain and they lived here in Liverpool. Olive Rodgers was
42:58
a you know, a white Scouser of Irish origin from Liverpool. And Ken
43:07
Shevns was a Jamaican writer who fought for Britain during the Second World War who
43:14
resided in Liverpool. So I had three really good we as a workshop had
43:20
three really good leaders to leaders on. And it was the three of them
43:25
who told me that I was a good writer that encouraged me and you know,
43:30
to continue writing. Because when I first started writing and I read it
43:34
to people in the area talking about l eight now, people used to laugh
43:38
at me. I used to think I was crazy. Black people don't write
43:43
poetry. And there's all these mad notions about who we were supposed to be,
43:49
you know, and were you good at poetry or were you good at
43:52
English in school? What's ironic is when I first started writing, though I
43:55
didn't write and standard English, I wrote in Jamaican Nation and language. Yeah,
44:01
well, people call it patois. But like I said, the same
44:05
doctor Louise Benitoua mentioned earlier. She said, you know, it isn't a
44:09
patwa. It's its own language with its own grammatical structure. Because Jamaica Nation
44:15
language, the basis of it is a Ghanean language called Twi because the majority
44:22
of people who were enslaved and taken to Jamaica were from Ghana. Then it
44:30
was mixed with Spanish because the Spanish got to Jamaica before the British, and
44:36
the British wrestled Jamaica from the Spanish, so the Spanish got there. Columbus
44:42
got there in fourteen ninety five, so three years after he went to what
44:47
is now America, Yes, so that was fourteen ninety two, and then
44:52
he went to Jamaica fourteen ninety five and captured it for the Spanish for Isabella
44:59
and third and they controlled it for a while and then it was I think
45:04
it was fifteen fifty five that the British wrestled it from Spanish and then English
45:13
was implemented. But what was interesting is that English wasn't standardized at the time
45:19
because there was no check and no scus sound because they came later from the
45:23
Germanic influences the French. So things like chicken was kicking there was no check
45:32
yeah, and like school or schedule didn't exist. So people need to know
45:38
these things to understand why people say. Like in Jamaica, if someone was
45:45
talking to one person, they'd say I'm talking to you, And if they
45:51
were talking to a group of people, they'd say I'm talking to UNUK,
45:55
which means a group in tree. Now, if an English person is speaking,
46:00
they would do one person, they say I'm talking to you, yes,
46:05
And if they're talking to a group of people. They said, I'm
46:08
talking to what Jamaicans make the difference or the West Africans made the difference between
46:15
the individual and the group. Thing is what people forget is that there were
46:19
different peoples. There was the Mandinka, the wallaf you know, there were
46:24
Ebo, there was Euraba, and all of them spoke different languages. Again,
46:30
because they were different people, people just saw them as all the same,
46:35
the same way people see us as a monolith. Now, you know
46:39
you under I remember a school locks me to go in and talk about they
46:44
were doing the Caribbean and the teacher phoned me up and said, we're concentrated.
46:50
Each class was doing something different, a different islands. Sorry. And
46:53
this one particular teacher wanted me to talk about Trinidad. And I said to
46:59
her, you know, my family is from Jamaica. I'm not from Trinidad,
47:02
and there's a different dynamic. Yes, you know, she goes but
47:07
LEVI, but they're all the same. And I said, there not,
47:10
because if you was asked for your Europeans to come in and talk, you
47:14
wouldn't ask a French person to come in and talk about Spain. You would
47:20
ask someone from Norway to come and talk about Portugal and they're all you European,
47:24
but they're different because one they speak different languages. Because like I said,
47:30
the dynamic in Trinidad, Trinidad has more of an East African sably not
47:37
East African, more of an East Indian influence because a lot of East Indians
47:43
and they do things like roti whereas Jamaica we love putties, which are more
47:51
pasties, which is more busy. You see what I'm saying. Okay,
47:54
just a couple more questions actually on your career path, do you have any
48:00
more future dreams or ambitions? Filled? Quite a lot read the world and
48:05
I've met various people's you know, interesting people, done a lot of interesting
48:12
things. As you said earlier, you know I inspired yourself. You did
48:17
for me. For someone that started off not liking poetry in school to then
48:23
write in poetry and inspiring other people to write poetry amazing and become poets and
48:30
perform and tour and do things. You know, has gone way beyond my
48:35
expectation because I never thought it would take me this far because I just started
48:39
writing for myself really out because I had something to say, and it was
48:45
when I was introduced to the Liverpool Late Writers Workshop. That people were exposed
48:51
to the way I thought and what I had to say, and they loved
48:54
it. Is there any advice you could give to people who want to be,
48:59
you know, looking and being poets or writers? Anything from you know,
49:02
your experience? What I would say is to start writing. You've just
49:07
got to start writing, and to start off with write about things that you're
49:14
comfortable with and things that you know. Yes, And I would say also
49:22
to explore an experiment and don't get caught up in a box, you know,
49:29
just break the walls at that box and flourish with people who you wouldn't
49:35
normally interact with, because then you're getting a different experience. It's like tasting
49:40
a new food, isn't it. It's movement. Cleave to them and try
49:45
to perpetuate them. That would have really helped. To have that influence in
49:52
your life from somebody who was intelligent to carry on with your goals. You'd
49:55
need that because otherwise you Okay, LEVI, that's great. Yeah. Could
50:00
you read out your Is it a poem? Yeah? Yeah? Yeah?
50:04
And this poem. One of the things about poetry is that it helps us
50:09
to make sense of things because it taps into the five senses. Yes,
50:16
so there are things in a poem that you can see. There are things
50:21
in a poem you can hear, or sounds in a poem you can hear.
50:25
There are things in a poem. Yeah, we can taste and stuff
50:29
and it does tap into all the five senses. And I always say to
50:34
students in terms of being prejudice or racist or sexist or whatever, if you
50:42
met someone from birth, if you met someone who was blind from birth,
50:46
how do you describe the color of your skin to that person, Never mind
50:52
the difference between your skin tone and somebody else's skin. You just can't.
50:59
You can't. We use poetry as a way to because we can't even describe
51:02
the color red to a sighted person. How do you describe the color red?
51:07
Trail? I've based this one on our five senses and it's called it
51:13
makes Sense, and it goes like this. Can you see the thunder roaring
51:20
like a beast? And can you see the wind as he drifts to the
51:22
east. Can you see your breath on a hot, sizzling summer's day.
51:27
And can you see the ozone layer as she slowly fades away? Can you
51:31
smell the sunshine beating down on your face? And can you smell the music
51:37
that is gyrating your waist? Can you smell the lightning zigzagging across the sky?
51:43
And can you smell the pain when a baby cries? Can you hear
51:47
a mango growing on a tree? And can you hear the coral singing in
51:52
the Caribbean sea? Can you hear a rainbow radiant and bright? And can
51:59
you hear them moon as she sheds her light at night? Can you taste
52:02
the words as they roll off your tongue? And can you taste all the
52:07
songs that you have ever sung? Can you taste the memories roaming around in
52:13
your head? And can you taste the slumber as you sleep in your bed?
52:17
Can you feel the love that is flowing from this poem? And can
52:22
you feel the unity that this poem is showing? Can you feel the energy
52:28
that this poem is giving. If you can feel this poem, you are
52:34
alive and truly living. Oh my goodness, wow, that's amazing, well
52:39
done, Well done. Listen, Thank you, thank you so much Lee
52:43
Bafarai for coming in, welcome having this interview. It's been brilliant and yeah,
52:47
keep in touch, Thank you so much. One love to each and
52:51
everyone out there, stay safe, look after each other. Were one family,
52:55
a human family. That was a really good interview with Levi Tofara.
53:01
He's one of Liverpool's finest poets and a member of the Spoken Word Society in
53:08
the Northwest. So here we are back at the reading room, back with
53:14
Barry and Sue and myself Christa. We've just been analyzing the Wilkie Collins The
53:19
Woman in White and giving our opinions, which I think we all enjoyed.
53:22
And I was quite surprised that Barry gave him a higher mark than I did.
53:27
He gave it eight out of ten. I gave it seven and Sue
53:29
gave it eight. And now it's that time to choose next month's book.
53:34
Matty's here, Matty, you choose it. We can't find the tambourine,
53:37
so it's in the hat. Next month's reading book. What is it?
53:44
It is Honorary Consul Graham Green and that must be Barry's. Yeah, that
53:49
looks that sounds really good. Actually, I wanted to read a Graham Green
53:52
one and Barry looks very happy. So I want to thank Sefton Park Library
54:00
for giving us the books. We get all the books from the Reading section
54:05
in Sefton Park Library. We are Liverpool Community Radio and we are here once
54:08
a month doing the Reading Room. I hope you've enjoyed the show and we'll
54:14
see you next month. Bye. From now bye, I'm going to say
54:16
goodbye guys. Bye, thanks for listening. Thank you,