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READING ROOM AUG 25 · The Reading Room

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Speaker 1: Babe Rite, Hello, and welcome to this month's reading room.
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I'm here Cosmic Christa, and we've got Barry Hi and
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Sue Bhi and we're all here to discuss this month's book,
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which was and is Any Human Heart by William Boyd,
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written in two thousand and two. So I'm going to
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start with you, Barry. I'm excited to know what you
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all thought about it. So what give us the lowdown?
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All right?
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Speaker 2: Well, I mean I enjoyed it up to a point.
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I found it fairly self indulgent. I found the mixture
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of fiction and fact quite puzzling at times. I suppose
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that's the self indulgence. Really, it did intrigue me to
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go and follow down different rabbit holes, following stuff which
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I found I needed to because the way they were
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entered into the to the narrative quite often just stopped
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abruptly and didn't continue. And I found that sort of,
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I don't know, not disconcerting as such, but certainly a
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bit frustrating. But yeah, I mean I I wouldn't I
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wouldn't be I wouldn't. I wouldn't commend it too much.
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I think it's like a brief the briefest thing I
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can say at this stage.
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Speaker 1: Okay, all right, that's good. We'll come back to you,
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Barry Sue. What your what are your views?
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Speaker 3: Right? Well, when you first charge this book, Christ, I
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never heard of roam Bride.
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Speaker 1: No I have either.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, but I have to say, well, i'd not heard
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of the author, William Boyd. The only William Boyd I'd
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heard of went back to my childhood days because it
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was the actual who played hop Long Cassidy in a
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series of films from nineteen thirty five to forty eight
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and radio own television until nineteen fifty two. And although
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I'm not old enough to actually remember it, it sort
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of came down the annals of time. So and I
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have to say as well, Christ, when I picked this
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book up from the library and it was four hundred
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and ninety pages long, I remember thinking that I hoped
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it would be a really good book. I have to
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say I was not disappointed. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed
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the fact that it was done. It did include, you know,
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it went to every decade and included some of the
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events that were going on in his life against the
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wider canvas such as World War two and the assassination
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of John Kennedy, although sometimes they were just sort of
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put in, maybe as a footnote because he was too
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absorbed with his own life, because I think it actually was.
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You know, he was a self absorbed person, so he
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would write a self absorbed journal and not much touched
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him from the outside within his world. It's written in
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diary style, and I've done a novel which part of
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it is in diary style. It's called Ghostwriters, and it's
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very difficult because the author has to totally immerse themselves
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in that character for better or words, because everything revolves
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around the way that they look at things rather than
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being third person. I thought that boy did it really successfully.
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And I also think that part you know, the beginning
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and part way through the book, I thought that Mount
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Stewart could actually be a real person, dipping in and depending.
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I thought he could be a real person. But I
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didn't want to sort of dismiss this because I know
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there are things in there which set were a bit
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sort of off kilter with wider mind, halfen and so on.
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But stranger things have happened in life, so I wanted
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to keep alive, so I didn't I didn't want to
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google it. I didn't google it until I've finished it
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because I wanted to test really whether Boyd had actually
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been able to totally adopt another person's character. And it's
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testimony to him that in fact, he did this. And
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I also think it was the amount of research that
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he put into the book, the facts and the descriptions,
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talent with history, and they lend credence to the story.
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And I loved at the end was the list of
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the novels of other works at the back of the book,
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which were supposedly written by Mount Jewett. So I thought
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it was I thought it was very clever and very
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very well written.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I must say I loved it. I absolutely loved it.
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I couldn't put it down. And I agree with you,
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but I did think it was a bit unbelievable for
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one person's life, you know, the things that happened to him,
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and it was like almost like another book. When you
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got to halfway through, it was like a different person,
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a different book. So that was that's a slight criticism.
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But I just found the way he wrote you couldn't
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put it down, and the way he was very personal
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about his life and his love life and his sex life,
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and you know, it was really very intimate. He wrote
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very intimately, and but for me it was very believable
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as well. I did think, like you know, is it
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kind of semi autobiographical?
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Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, I think parts of it were. There are
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parallels with boys life and not Jewart's life.
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Speaker 1: Absolutely, so. I hadn't heard of him too. I just
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picked him out randomly, and I'm definitely going to read
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some more of his books. Barry back to you. You've
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got anything else to say about it? I hope you have.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I've got plenty to say, to be honest, I
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didn't want to launch too early, really okay, And I'm
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glad that you both enjoyed it that much. I found
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that there were so many aspects of it which I
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just really didn't I was uncomfortable with. As you say,
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it's a journal, it covers from nineteen oh six to
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nineteen ninety one. It's one person's life a person once again,
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and a lot of these books that we've read over
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the last few years, you know, are very privileged background,
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you know, houses with servants off the board in school
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age seven, you know, and then after school then a
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sort of an automatic pass into Oxford or Cambridge where
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he comes out with a third degree, a third class
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degree in history, which just made me feel that whole
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privileged class thing once more, that people had these sort
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of easy lives into those sort of circumstances and then
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could choose to do what he did. So having a
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third class degree in history, he was writing a book
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about Shelley, which was very well received and sort of
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launched him into into literary circles. I felt that, you know,
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the games that they played at school, which were challengers
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where he had to get into the first eleven of
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rugby and his friend had to seduce the farmer's daughter,
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and all of those things were again sort of very
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privileged class japes, if you like. The one where they
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were trying to get the Jewish guy to persuade the
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Roman Catholic priece that he wanted to convert to Catholicism
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seemed fairly inappropriate. And then the actual character himself was
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a dissolute character. I don't know, you know, there wasn't
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much to commend him to me really, in as much
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as you know, he slept with his friend's girlfriend, and
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he was he was unfaithful to his first wife, you know,
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he was a fairly dreadful character, and then to go
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from that privilege to being at the end, you know,
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eating cat food, being really down on his look and
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and and selling newspapers for the Bard and Mine off gang,
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you know, was just a massive non secutur for me.
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For for a manner. I mean, there word parallels in
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his life. He based on quite a lot of it
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on the writer Cyril Connolly, who had graduated with a
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third degree in history from Oxford, and a lot of
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those sort of facts came from him, and he had
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researched him massively in the writing of the book. But
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I mean, I don't want to come across as being
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too negative about it, because I felt that the other
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bits which you said, you know, like seemed like another book.
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Like when he was talking about espionage, when he was
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talking about having met Ian Fleming and the role which
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he played in intelligence during the war. I found he
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wrote very well, and so I did because a friend
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of mine was actually reading another of his books. I
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decided to have a go at that, which was a
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recent book called Gabriel's Moon, which is a sort of
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it's part of a trilogy which is going to be
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about intelligence and I found that very convincing.
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Speaker 1: In a William Boyd Willian Boyd book.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so, and so that reinforced my view that
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he could write about those sort of things in terms
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of the actual the chronology and everything. I enjoyed the
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idea of the people that he would meet, like Virginia
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Wolf and those sort of people, and the discussed the
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things that which you hadn't with Edward the Eighth and
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his wife and what have you were intriguing, but I
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found that they were irritating, and as much as you
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didn't know what was true and what wasn't, so it
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was like he was just you know, it's like the
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whole thing seemed to be I don't know how best
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to describe it, really, other than it's like it's not
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the truth, you know. And so in order to sort
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of find out what the truth you have to go
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and do the proper research, and you know, you in
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order to find out what he's made up, which it
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just seems like a fairly pointless exercise really, So I
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really didn't like that aspect of it, you know.
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Speaker 1: So and meeting all the painters he met Picasso, didn't
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he and yeah.
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Speaker 2: But this is one of the things, you know, because
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it was part of a chronology of literature and of
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painting and arts, and he managed a gallery and what
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have you. And he gets back in contact with his
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estranged son from his first married to a judgess, you
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know what I mean. Here we go again, you know,
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with the class thing, you know, a happy marriage, which
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is a far away from him eating cat food out
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of a tin, you know. But anyway, he gets back
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in touch with his son, who in the sixties is
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managing a group, you know, and his son dies and
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he ends up sleeping with his son's girlfriend, who it
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turns out to be under sixteen or whatever, which again
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you know, isn't isn't exactly the much to commend him either.
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But I found that the biggest a mission from the
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whole book is to deal with the whole of the
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sense of the twentieth century and deal with the sixties
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and not even mentioned at all, like the Beatles or
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the pop music, you know, the fact that his son
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was involved with it, but they still didn't mention it,
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you know, even notwithstanding the fact that he was in
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New York and you know, there might be bands like
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Developed Underground and what have you. But none of them
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would have happened without the sixties revolution, which happened, you know.
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And I felt to some extent that it was the
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sort of thing where people say, oh, I never listened
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to pop music anyway. I only listened to classical music,
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you know, and only watched the proms. And so I
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felt that that from a sort of a human touch
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of a chronology of the twentieth century was a massive gap.
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Speaker 1: Interesting, sir, what can you add?
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Speaker 3: Well, I agree with you, know, so of what Barris said.
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I did try to like the character, but I found
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him very self centered, with a massive ego, and I
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think he was definitely the center of his own universe.
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People like planets resolving around in and coming in and
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out of orbit when it seated him. And I also
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have to think as a writer, like a writer that's
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worked full time, you know, as well as written. I
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had to think about what a charm life he lived.
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And although he's trying to portray ordinary emotions, his problems
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seem to be those born a privilege, and then he
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is bewildered when the privileges cease and he really does
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become ordinary. And for privilege, I mean read money, read
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a situation where his friends owned the galleries, so he
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gets a job. Such a body knows the publishers, so
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his manuscript's taken in and I think, maybe you know
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he was in a situation that allowed other people to
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keep him either by money or by favor. And then
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when that's when he found the dream that he couldn't
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sustain it. I did have to smile page one seventy
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five when he's talking about Bean Fleming having everything in
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life come easy to him, And that was what I
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was thinking about Mount Stewart when I looked at me
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and I thought, you don't know you're born. And then
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there was also the callousness when you looked at on
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page four hundred and ten when he's talking about he
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needed a benefactor of real substance that would leave him
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something that was worth having, rather than being grateful for
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what he had been left, considering he did very little
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for anybody through the whole of his life.
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Speaker 1: Sorry.
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Speaker 3: But an interesting sideline with Ian Fleming was that Ian
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Fleming was not initially successful as a writer. His brother
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Peter Fleming, was the right of the family, and Peter
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Fleming because he was trying to sort of help his
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brother out, introduced Ian to his publisher, and that's when
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James Bond took off.
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Speaker 1: Interesting that so Peter.
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Speaker 3: Fleming was the one that was, you know, the star,
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and so Ian Fleming just didn't walk into being a
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successful writer as is suggested in the book. But then
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I think the book is from mount Stewart's point of
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view and how he perceived things rather than what actually happened.
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So I think to sort of air bush any problems
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the Ian Fleming had was part of mount Stewart's character when
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he thought everybody was getting everything and he was getting nothing.
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So I think it's another indication of his character.
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Speaker 1: I think so too. But don't you think a diary
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does revolve around you. If you're writing a journal, you
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are the center of the universe in that journal. So
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that's why I think he got away with doing that,
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you know, writing about himself like that. But I also
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what I liked is that when he was married to
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the Duchess and he had everything he wanted, it didn't work.
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He wasn't in love, he wasn't happy. He longed to
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go to Europe, didn't he he wanted to travel. I
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can relate to that, and I'm sure you can sue
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as well, so that, you know, and I love that
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about it shows that money can't buy your happiness. I mean,
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he was he wasn't nice, and he was having the
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affair behind his wife's back, and that was all awful,
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you know, But he was like stuck in that rich
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with her parents. Wasn't he for the summer and longing
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to be in Europe? So that I liked all that
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kind of stuff with the novel. And he was a
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writer and you know, struggled with it, and so I
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just thought it was he was entitled to be the
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center of the universe in his own journal. So I
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didn't mind that.
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Speaker 3: I think, you know, I thought it was part of
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his curentter development. I think, you know, the journal is
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it's about you and your feelings. But throughout the writings,
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customer men back to what I kept a diary, and
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I did refer to, oh, it's a shame that this
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has happened to such a body. But I never got
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any sense of anybody else existing in his mind other
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than himself and the way people related to him.
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Speaker 1: And so much tragedy as well. Married. Yeah, sorry, do
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you want to continue, Mary, I.
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Speaker 2: Don't know I mean, I'm my thoughts continue to be negative, really,
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and so I don't know whether that's particularly helpful, but
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it's like, yes, a diary, you know, if you're going
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to write in a diary format, then then yes, it's
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it is going to center around a person, because that's
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It's like when we've we've we've said in previous books,
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you know, if you're writing from the first person and
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you don't see what else is happening elsewhere, it's not
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like just a normal story where someone's unfolding something else
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as that's going along. You know, the only stuff that
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unfolds is like the news and whatever happens that he's
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aware of that everybody would be aware of through the news.
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But it's like, you know, he took the opporittunity in it,
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and whether this is just then William Boyd, but he
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took the opportunity to be to be quite scathing about
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a lot of people like say Picasso and Ernest Hemingway
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and what have you. I have no reason to disagree,
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you know, because I didn't know them, you know, so
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I don't know what the truth was. But I sort
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of as the book progressed, I began to value less
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his opinion on things, you know. Like I say, I
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come back to the to the bit where it was
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down on his look, you know, and he gets knocked
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over in the street, and he's sort of really in
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a fairly bad way, you know, and like I say,
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resorting to I mean going into detail about how he
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prepared his cat food to eat and what have you.
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Whereas at the same time, a French poet who had
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written a book about some thirty or forty years before,
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I'd left him a villa in the in the south
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of France, you know, And and at a certain point
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later he decides that he'll go and live there, you know,
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which is hardly like. It reminds me of of Jeffrey
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Archer when he was saying he was hard up because
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he was down to his last fifty pounds, you know.
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Speaker 1: It's like.
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Speaker 2: And so it occupied that world, And I mean, I
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liked the world of writers, and I like the world
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of musicians and painters and artists. I found out quite
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a lot about the art world from it. So it
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was interesting from that perspective. But I didn't like him
19:36
in it. He was like a loose, sort of rue
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type character that I certainly didn't want to identify with.
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Speaker 1: You know, see I quite I'm the only one that
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quite liked him. I just thought he was very, very
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vulnerable and just searching in life, very lost, very lost character.
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And then all the tragedy touched you.
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Speaker 3: Christ I don't know, very kind, very kind.
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Speaker 1: Not always so carry on to what do you think?
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Speaker 3: Well, I think I found some of them other very believable,
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and then I sort of delirious where it went off
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into sort of a bit too much fantasy. But I
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also like some of the possibly resumor in it, when
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he thought he was helping, you know, a patient survey,
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not joining a terrorist group. So I thought some of
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some of the some of the if you like, the
20:33
pressure on him and the tragedy was like the reader
20:37
was writing by some of the humor. And I do
20:40
think he did have tragedy, but I also think that
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he did create a lot of his own tragedy. He
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didn't see some who died young. But also that was
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his fault because he distanced himself from the mother, so
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a lot of the it was sort of self imposed.
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I did feel some slight sympathy when his friends seemed
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to have left him in the shadows with their achievements,
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and he wanted to be a writer, but his other
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friend superseded him as a very well known successful writer,
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and then his other friend owned a gallery. And I
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think that his achievements never really matured into his later life.
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And I think part of it was he wanted to
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be a writer, but he never actually spent a lot
21:40
of time writing. As he matured, he spent less and
21:44
less time writing, and perhaps he just wanted to be
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acknowledged as a writer rather than writing for the love
21:52
of it, rather.
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Speaker 2: Than actually doing it. I think, so, I mean he
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actually because I mean he wrote the book about Shelley
22:00
at university, and then he wrote a salacious novel about
22:03
that he was of prostitutes, which was purely from his
22:07
personal experience and which did very well for him. And
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then he wrote this book about about the French poets,
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which was very well received and it seemed to be
22:17
more like an intellectual book, which then ended up with
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him being left this villa in the south of France.
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So I mean, apart from book reviews and things that,
22:27
I don't think he actually achieved anything else in his life,
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So I mean, and they were all probably written before
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the age of thirty.
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Speaker 3: So yeah, he was.
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Speaker 2: Trying to live on the royalties for a long time.
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Speaker 1: I think which kid didn't He did live on the royalties.
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Speaker 3: And I think he's also trying to live off the
22:42
reputation as well. Yeah, yeah, you know a writer in
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his last book was published thirty years ago, and he
22:51
was sort of always waiting. He was always going to
22:54
start the next book. He was always waiting for an idea.
22:58
And I think that's possibly one of the try of
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his life that he liked being a writer but didn't
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particularly want to put the work in to be a writer.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I think that in his first marriage,
23:11
his ex wife stopped him from seeing his son because
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the whole family turned against him because when they found
23:17
out he was having an affair, because I think he
23:19
really wanted to, but he just found it very awkward,
23:21
didn't he as well? He didn't really he couldn't be
23:23
a father.
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Speaker 2: I think you're seeing far too much into him and man, Christ,
23:29
I don't think he actually gave him monkeys about his wife.
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Speaker 1: With his son. I think he did with his.
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Speaker 2: Son turned against them though, because and he didn't really
23:38
at one stage. You spent some time with his son
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who was sickly and he didn't want anything to do
23:43
with him anymore. He did have that opportunity. I think
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you've just rose tinted some of the excerpts.
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Speaker 1: Of the book. Maybe I have, but I also but
23:52
you can't say this wasn't tragic that he lost his wife,
23:55
the love of his life, and his daughter in London.
23:59
That was a shock when that happened. I was shocked.
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But also when he was in the prison and he
24:05
couldn't get news to her, that was gripping to me.
24:09
That was really emotional. I was kind of like really
24:11
wanting him to be able to contact her.
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Speaker 2: That was part of his espionage thing, wasn't it. That
24:16
was you know, he was parachuted into Switzerland and you
24:19
know he was captured and whatever you and like I say,
24:21
I think that you know those aspects of his book.
24:24
I mean I would probably read the next one in
24:26
the trilogy of the of Gabriel's Moon because you know,
24:30
in a way like sort of John Lecarrey and and
24:33
Ian mcew, and he writes knowledgeably about that, and it
24:37
has enough of those subplots and things going on in
24:41
his in his stories about the intelligence world to be
24:46
really intriguing. But I mean that was a highlight. That
24:50
bit of it was a highlight of the book for me,
24:52
whereas a lot of it was was I find really tawdry.
24:56
Speaker 1: I liked all the personal relationship bits, and I found
24:59
that bit when he parachuted into Switzerland was a bit
25:01
unbelievable coming from you know, an Oxford degree history to
25:06
parachuting into Switzerland. And I liked it, but for me
25:10
it just was a little.
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Speaker 2: I think that's one of the point if you look
25:14
at you know, because we tend to look at at
25:18
things like intelligence differently these days, because you know, we're
25:21
in a position where people know exactly where you are
25:24
all the time and can read your stuff on your
25:26
mobile phones and what have you. Intelligence and intelligence work
25:31
during the Second World War was an entirely different thing,
25:34
you know, and people would go and infiltrate into different
25:40
areas and try and maintain an existence undetected. And he
25:46
because he had language skills, because he'd been born in Uruguay,
25:51
he did have those sort of skills which were interchangeable.
25:54
And I think that this is where truth is often
25:58
stranger than fiction. I think were those stories around about
26:02
the Second World war and the intelligence and even like
26:05
post that you know, and during the Cold War, intelligence
26:08
gathering before the technology that we had at the moment
26:11
is a fascinating area. And I think that was very believable.
26:13
Speaker 1: So now is not interesting? What about you? So what
26:15
can you add?
26:17
Speaker 3: Well? I thought I thought it was interesting. I also
26:20
thought it was possible. I do remember a story of
26:25
someone in sort of the Second Gulft War who was
26:30
in territorial army and one week he was mending a
26:34
kind of garage. Next week he was on the front
26:37
line in the war, and he and all the regular
26:42
soldiers were saying, just follow us, just stay behind us.
26:45
You know you're you're it's not really helpful for you
26:49
to be here unless you're He was a mechanic, but
26:52
now as a soldier because you don't know what you're doing.
26:55
And this guy was completely dramatized, really because you'd just
26:59
gone within a week, he's got ta volunteered thinking he
27:03
would go off when he would being a garage as
27:06
a mechanic and next thing's on the front line. Because
27:09
it was, you know, a bit of an appening mixed
27:11
up really, But I think things like that do happen
27:14
in more time.
27:16
Speaker 2: I was going to say sorry for interrupting too, but
27:18
I mean, I don't know whether either of you watched
27:20
Foyle's War or.
27:21
Speaker 1: Not in Liverpool, isn't it's filmed in Liverpool now, some
27:25
of it.
27:26
Speaker 2: Was filmed in West Kirkby. They used the West Kirkby
27:29
Arts Center for some of it, I don't know, the
27:31
Three Graces, and some of it when they were filming
27:32
Liverpool London. They filmed in Liverpool. But I mean, obviously
27:36
it's it's it's some years ago now, but it's being
27:38
rerun on Channel ten and it's fascinating and they often
27:41
look at stuff about espionage and what have you, and
27:44
it's fascinating.
27:46
Speaker 3: You know.
27:46
Speaker 1: It sounds really interesting interesting that the title of this novel,
27:52
Any Human Heart, taken from Henry James quote. Doesn't it
27:55
never say you know the last word about any Human Heart?
27:59
Has any ever read Henry James?
28:01
Speaker 3: Yes, I've read The Turn of the Screw.
28:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, is a good It's a good writer, but it's laborious.
28:11
Speaker 3: Christ I found it very I think it was. I
28:17
think it was called one of the first psychological novels
28:21
in the sense that you don't know whether it's I
28:26
don't give too much away, but you don't know whether
28:28
it's all in the governess's mind, so that in that
28:33
sense it does it does lead you to it does
28:40
lead you into a lot of thoughts of her thoughts,
28:42
and even she thinks some of it at times it's
28:45
all in her own mind, so you never quite show.
28:48
And when you see the TV adaptations, you're seeing what
28:52
she's seen, but you believe it to be true. In
28:55
the book, you're not sure. And I think it's well
28:58
worth reading it. But it is a long, intense read.
29:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's intrigued me to read Henry James, because I
29:05
did enjoy the book so much.
29:07
Speaker 3: I think, you know, I think it's it's that's only
29:09
one of the I've seen a couple of stage adaptions.
29:13
But it is quite brutal, Henry James. I think it's
29:18
the dove wing of a dove. I think it is,
29:23
and I saw a play version of that in Blackpool,
29:26
and really the underlying theme of it is very brutal.
29:32
So it's but it's but I did enjoy and the
29:35
quality of writing is very good. The way it gives
29:37
up suspense is very good. But I think it would
29:42
be something that I would read when I was in
29:46
the mood. Let's put it that way, you know, because
29:49
but then I think novels were used to read in,
29:53
you know, shorter novels and if you like cricket place
29:57
novels than when that was that was written. But I do,
30:04
but I was intrigued with the quotes, having sort of
30:07
read read that book of Henry James. But I have
30:11
to the same with you. I do agree quest to that.
30:14
I felt quite sad when I'd finished the book.
30:18
Speaker 1: It was a long book. You said it was a
30:19
very long book.
30:21
Speaker 3: Yes, but I didn't find it wrong.
30:23
Speaker 1: No, I didn't.
30:24
Speaker 3: You know, once I'd got into it, I used to
30:28
look forward to saying where he was up to next,
30:31
and what was going to happen to him, and you know,
30:34
where there was some some wonderful new woman going to
30:38
walk into his wife? Or was he going to finally
30:41
write his last novel? And I suppose in a way
30:45
you could say that the Journal was his last book.
30:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you know that.
30:51
Speaker 3: Was his success book, successful that he did have talent
30:54
as a writer because he wrote this journal, so or
31:00
maybe he did write a successful book at the end.
31:04
Courtesy of William Boyd By the way, but I did,
31:08
I did enjoy. I did enjoy reading it, and I would,
31:12
you know, I would definitely read some more William Boyd
31:15
because I do think it's a very good storyteller and
31:18
a very good writer and has a way of engaging
31:21
you and keeping things fresh. You know. You never I
31:26
wasn't quite sure what was going to happen next, so
31:28
I always wanted to turn the next page.
31:30
Speaker 1: Same here, and anything could happen.
31:32
Speaker 3: You knew that, yes, yeah, and it's yeah, yeah.
31:36
Speaker 1: I'm just going to tell you a little bit about
31:37
William Boyd. So he was born in nineteen fifty two
31:42
and he's a novelist, a short story writer, screenwriter and
31:45
film director. So he's got a lot of skills, a
31:50
lot of talent. He was actually born on the Gold
31:54
Coast present day Garner to Scottish parents both from Fife
31:59
and so and he's still alive. Went to Oxford, so
32:06
we did go. He went to sent Hilder's College, Oxford
32:09
and that's when he wrote his first novel, A good
32:12
Man in Africa, in nineteen eighty one. So he's done.
32:14
He's done quite a lot, and he's got very very
32:17
good reviews. He was actually shortlisted for the Booker Prize
32:20
for Fiction in nineteen eighty two. So yeah, so that.
32:26
Speaker 3: Was the book that we were shortlisted for, becaus on
32:29
my library copy the saying shortlisted for the book of Prize.
32:37
Speaker 1: Wow, he should have won it, He should have won. Yeah.
32:41
I don't agree with that very he doesn't agree with it,
32:45
but hey.
32:46
Speaker 2: The thing I'd written on my about it was impersonating
32:50
real literature in a commercial way, but pandering to the
32:54
salacious with the self abuse, et cetera, and the use
32:57
of prostitutes, the lives of the rich and famous servants
33:00
well off trying to be of the people. This was
33:03
a man who during the General Styke joined up to
33:05
be a special policeman.
33:07
Speaker 1: You know.
33:07
Speaker 2: He wasn't one of my sort of people.
33:09
Speaker 1: No, No, he was very very flawed. But he was human.
33:15
Any human heart, isn't it? But I wonder what that
33:17
means though? What does that mean? Any human heart? What
33:19
does that quote actually mean? As anyone know, I took.
33:23
Speaker 3: It to me that you never really know a person.
33:28
You might think you know them, but you actually don't
33:30
know what's going on in their heart.
33:32
Speaker 2: I agree entirely with that. So that's what that's exactly
33:35
what I would.
33:35
Speaker 3: Have said, That's what I thought. Yeah, yeah, yes, some
33:40
people who have a good heart have a black heart,
33:43
and some people who you think are evil actually have
33:46
a good heart.
33:47
Speaker 2: And do you think he had a good heart or
33:48
a black heart?
33:49
Speaker 3: Then, Sue, I think it was great.
33:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it was Yeah, just lost a lost
33:59
heart on the black side of gray.
34:01
Speaker 3: I think, well, you're very christ I'm just going to
34:08
say to me. The point is, one of the great
34:13
things about this was that, you know, I again have
34:17
to thank the reading room for introducing me to a
34:19
writer and a book. I would never started taking off
34:23
the shelves.
34:24
Speaker 1: Same here. Yeah, but there is so many books, isn't there.
34:27
We've got to get through a lot.
34:30
Speaker 3: Yes, so yes, So for me there was a plus.
34:33
It was a wind and I did enjoy it. I did.
34:37
Speaker 1: I did okay out of ten Barry, I we looked
34:42
on seven. Oh, seven is quite high. Now not really,
34:46
it's over halfway, so.
34:49
Speaker 3: I think I go eight.
34:52
Speaker 1: I'll go nine. I think really really enjoyed it. It's
34:56
one of my favorite authors now and I'll probably read
34:59
some more. So we're at that time. Should we now
35:02
pick the next book?
35:05
Speaker 3: Right?
35:05
Speaker 1: Yes, we've got the nominations here. Very are you going
35:09
to pick one? You go?
35:10
Speaker 2: I picked, I picked less time, so.
35:13
Speaker 1: We'll go and you picked again because I've written them down.
35:20
Speaker 2: On the Black Hill by Bruce Chatwin.
35:23
Speaker 1: Oh okay, it's yours. Okay, that should be interesting. Okay.
35:29
Is that like a modern book? It probably is because I.
35:31
Speaker 2: Have no idea. I just thought I have never read
35:33
any Bruce Chatwin and I've always wanted to.
35:37
Speaker 1: So very interesting. Yeah. So there's anybody out there, anybody
35:40
out in the real world, not in the studio world.
35:44
Everyone's very welcome to get the book, to read it,
35:48
to come into the studio. We can let you know
35:50
when you're going to come in. Just contact Liverpool Community
35:53
Radio oh seven seven six one nine eight o six
35:58
three and you can join us on the reading room.
36:02
Or you could just read the book and listen to
36:04
what we thought and see whether you agree from the
36:06
comfort of your home. Let's just finish off anything else
36:10
to add Barry to the amazing any human Heart.
36:17
Speaker 2: Only if I can still carry on being negative, Yes,
36:20
of course she can. I thought that the final story
36:24
in the book, where he decides to live in is
36:27
in the villa that he inherited. And then he makes
36:32
friends with a woman who lives nearby who was convinced
36:36
that her father was a hero in the resistance in
36:41
France in the Second World War, and so she put
36:45
up a plaque on the wall, which was immediately defaced
36:51
by people, and then he can she continued to put
36:56
it back up again, and it took like several it
36:59
as of this before he found out that he'd actually
37:03
the guy had actually been like a really bad lot
37:06
her farm, and that like was a.
37:08
Speaker 1: Collaborator and what you and she didn't know.
37:10
Speaker 2: And she didn't know. But the fact that it took
37:14
so many times, I just felt that he was just
37:16
filling it out because it seemed fairly obvious from the
37:18
first time that it was defaced that there was a
37:21
story behind it, which he hadn't and it seemed fairly
37:25
easy to find out what it was when he decided
37:27
to go and have a look after staying out all
37:29
night in order to see the people who were doing it.
37:31
Speaker 1: You know. So I didn't pick that up, Well I didn't.
37:34
I was shocked, and I.
37:36
Speaker 2: Just thought it was really clumsy, you know, So.
37:40
Speaker 1: What about you? What do you think? Last?
37:43
Speaker 3: I think I think in many, many cases, the character
37:47
was clumsy. I think he made a lot of errors
37:51
or thought that he knew more than he did, and
37:55
I think that was just his personality. And I think,
37:59
too well the book, his personality was more or less consistent,
38:06
and I think maybe that's just a continuation of his
38:10
early errors when he did things that he shouldn't have
38:15
done and then sort of the consequences, as if he
38:20
just disowned the consequences and moved on when a lot
38:24
of it was his way. And I also think he
38:27
wanted to believe the woman. I think the part of
38:31
it is he was romanticizing her, and he wanted to
38:35
believe that a father was a hero, and he wanted
38:38
to have a role in the woman's life. Yeah, so
38:41
I think maybe he did have an inkling but didn't
38:46
actually want to admit it to himself.
38:50
Speaker 2: Maybe. I mean, I think, you know, there is a
38:52
point there which is like in that writing of the book,
38:56
you know that there's an art in writing a book
38:58
that's a dissolute character that people might not like, you know,
39:01
I mean, it's not it's not it's not all about
39:03
writing characters that people think, Oh, he's a proper good guy,
39:07
you know, so so to that to that extent, it worked,
39:10
but that result of as a reader is still feeling
39:15
dissatisfied because you couldn't like him, you know. I mean,
39:18
there are plenty of writers who can and write about
39:22
bad characters and you end up reluctantly liking them, you know,
39:25
like a clockwork orange in the case in point, you know,
39:28
where the real bad he gets the sympathy of the
39:31
of the reader, you know. But in this case, he
39:35
didn't get.
39:35
Speaker 1: My sympathy, so he got mine. It's not interesting he
39:38
did get mine. I thought I could sometimes, like with
39:40
the European thing and with his bad marriage and everything,
39:43
I really felt sorry for him. I could kind of
39:44
relate to the fact that he just wanted to be
39:46
free and tragic things happened. He just wanted love, didn't
39:52
he really? I think, And I think he wanted love
39:57
on his own terms.
39:58
Speaker 2: Kristen, I think so, yeah, he was prepared to give much.
40:01
Speaker 1: I don't think what he did with his wife that
40:03
he truly loved.
40:04
Speaker 2: That was a very briefing.
40:06
Speaker 1: It was brief because she died. Oh sorry, I shouldn't
40:09
really do the plotspoiled plot spoiler.
40:11
Speaker 2: It's impossible to do a book review for forty five
40:14
minutes without doing plots. I think we have to. We
40:17
have to put that to one.
40:18
Speaker 1: You know, I've actually forgotten the end of it. Well,
40:20
how does he die in the end, much Hardtack? He
40:28
dies of hard attack in France, doesn't he He's in France,
40:31
in his chair in the garden. Oh yes, he's sitting
40:35
in his chair.
40:36
Speaker 3: A nice end.
40:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, in France, in the sun.
40:42
Speaker 2: Eyes picked out by the crows.
40:45
Speaker 1: I wish for thinking that that's my ending of the book.
40:52
You're entitled to. Okay, Well, that's great, so we might
40:55
leave it there. And couldn't you just repeat the book
40:57
that we're doing next month, Barry. It's called On the
41:00
Black Hill by Bruce Chatwin. Okay, and hopefully you've enjoyed
41:05
the show, everyone, and we'll see you all next month.
41:09
Bye from me, Bye.
41:12
Speaker 3: From me, and bye from me.
41:14
Speaker 1: All right, bye everyone, Bye,