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READING ROOM JULY 23 · The Reading Room

• 0:00
  Baber bad Rid based on a job. Oh Hello, hello, hello,
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  and welcome to this edition of the Reading Room. I'm Christa Schaeffer and on
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  today's edition of the Reading Room will be looking at um Ian McEwen Sweet Tooth,
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  which is a novel and it was written in two thousand and twelve.
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  Thank you, Allen. So we'll be looking at that. I'm just going
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  to introduce the panel. So we have Alan Now, Alan, he's also
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  a radio presenter. He's a very knowledgeable person. I think his his top
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  um gift is speaking for England. Is that right? You could actually win
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  the Olympics. So we have and then we have Barry. Hello, Barry.
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  Barry is a singer songwriter. He's an avid reader and he's also been
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  a few films I would say, a policeman and Coronation Street, um security
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  guard, a policeman, fruit and vege deliveryman, car car salesman. I've
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  done quite a few. And he walks amongst us as well. And then
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  we have Joe Anna Ze. Now she's a short story writer but also a
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  teacher of English as well, So welcome to the program. Hello there,
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  hi. And then we've got Sue Gerrard who is a writer, a poet,
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  an actress. Sue what else are you? Hello? Hi, super
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  and everybody? So yes, So Sue has been on the show for a
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  while, and she's also an avid reader. So we're here to discus the
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  Immcuan, which I think was yours, Barry, Wasn't it was your choice?
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  So it's a novel based in nineteen seventy The protagonist is a female,
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  a young female, isn't it yes? Sort of sort of? So yeah,
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  because it jumps backwards and fors Actually, Barry, can you start on
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  what you think of the novel? M Okay, Well, I mean I've
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  been a fan of immcun for quite some time, so I've quite a lot
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  of his novels, but I sort of fell out with him for a little
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  bit. So I actually made this choice because I wanted to sort of reacquaint
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  myself with him, and I enjoyed it up to a point. It's a
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  it's a tale set in nineteen seventy two. It's it goes into sort of
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  fairly old im mcan territory of espionage and um and counter espionage of course,
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  and yes, on the face of it that the protagonist written in the first
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  parton is a female. Um. But without giving too much of the plot
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  away. UM, that does change towards the end of the book, which
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  I found quite frustrating. I have to say, so us a bit of
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  a bit of a bit of a thing from that. But um, in
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  terms of a sort of a plot summary, Um, she is. UM.
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  She goes she's a she's a maths wizard Asian originally, and goes to
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  Cambridge to do maths and then she realizes she's not that actually good at it.
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  What she does like to do is read books, and she's an avid
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  reader. But she has an affair with one of her professors who's quite an
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  older man, UM, and he ends up dumping her in a labi basically
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  not literally but well um. And it turns out that he is being part
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  of m I five and and so he makes introductions to her and she gets
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  employed by m I five. Um. It turns out later down the line
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  that he is actually a spy. So I wasn't fully sure why that sort
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  of introduction took place. But UM, the people in m I five,
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  although she was in their sort of as a secretary. I think they gave
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  her a role running agents. But it was slightly different from just running agents
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  in as much as the agent didn't know that they were being run because he
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  was a novelist, um and so um. She ends up having an affair
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  with him, which causes major complications, and and and towards the end she
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  still thinks that he's running she's running him and he and he doesn't know anything
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  about it, but of course he does so, and so it's quite convoluted
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  in the meantime. Just from from my perspective, there were there were certain
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  aspects of the book which I found irritated me, and one of them was
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  because he was a writer, large extracts of what she'd written was inserted in
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  the text so that we could get the context of what she was sort of
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  what he was doing. And I found that extremely distracting, I have to
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  say, because it was like suddenly getting into a new plot right the way
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  through and not you know, depending on when you're reading it, whether you're
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  reading it continuously or whether you were just reading it a bit at nighttime,
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  it was a bit confusing. Yeah, good, Joanna, what do you
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  think? Then? Well, I will say that I enjoyed it for the
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  most part, but with a few reservations. But first of all, I'll
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  talk about some of the things that are alike. I mean, first of
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  all, I've you know, I was very pleased to find I found it
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  quite refreshing actually that it was set in the nineteen seventies, the early nineteen
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  seventies in particular, because you know, given the current fixation with you know,
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  that ghastly arsat Er, sat Silver Frost sting decade of the eighties,
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  it was quite refreshing to go a bit further back, you know, for
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  me personally, because it seems to be it's all eighties, nineties, is
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  ubiquitous everywhere. But that was just me. I like dad too. I
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  love it as I grew up in the seventies, so I really could relate
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  to it. I love that good about Yeah. Yeah, I was like
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  small in the seventies, so I think that's where the partially maybe where the
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  idealization comes in. And I think as well, because it's kind of disappearing
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  down a hill now, it's getting further and further away, So it's good
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  too. Another thing I liked about it is that many of the references that
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  he drops, they're not the obvious seventies references. You know that it's the
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  more obscure things, things like pub rock and that kind of thing, you
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  know in the Incredible String Band, you know, stuff like that. I
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  just go on to Alan for a bit. What about your import Did you
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  enjoy the novel? Yeah? I thought it's been a cut at sake.
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  Um. Yeah, I like the sartonic humor because it's the humans sort of
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  sort of across the pub table with your friends, sort of throw away one
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  liners. Well, I did take extreme offense too. Is the way that
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  the way that women were treated throughout the book? Yeah, it was the
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  seventies, that's exactly. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think that's Ian McEwan,
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  is it. I think that's Ian McEwan trying to demonstrate when were treated
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  in the civil service in the nineteen seventies. That's the period. I mean,
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  women just kept their heads down. And you know, that's a book.
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  It kind of reminded me of a VSLP. You've spent far too long
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  trying to prove how good of music you are with actually playing good music,
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  and can I just invite to on as well? Then? So Sue,
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  what about you? What's what's your impression of this? The novel? Right
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  well after weading and very much enjoying on Chiselo Beach by the same author.
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  I was really looking forward to reading this book, but I have to say
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  that the certain aspects I was disappointed. I think it's a complex storyline,
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  and I think the research the author was put into what happened in the nineteen
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  seventies first class, and I think it helps to authenticate the narrative. I
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  think it's a very it's a cleverly woven plot, but I have to say
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  I was disappointed in the ending, and I thought that there were big leaks
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  between the narrative, which was sometimes difficult to follow. And in the end
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  everything was resolved, but I felt the ending was far too neat for the
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  chaotic world as Serena. Yeah, it was a big glib, wasn't it.
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  I think that hosted as well early on exactly the point as a book.
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  There's one quotation there that summed it up perfectly for me, and that's
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  when Serena said, um, I don't like tricks, and there she was
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  both guilty of playing head games with Tom and basically betraying him. But that's
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  the tension within, that's part of the narrative. Tension within the novel.
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  It's yeah, but I mean the thing is, it's on the one hand,
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  she's on the one hand, she's saying this, and on the other
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  hand she's actually delivering it in stad which it doesn't do. Okay. I
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  know it's I know it's the zeitgeist thing, but it doesn't do society any
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  good if you think about it. Yeah, and the fact that it came
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  so so easily makes me wonder if the book was based loosely around McEwan's own
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  apperiences At the well they say it was Tom Haley was based on Ian McEwan,
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  Weley on himself. I think there's a little bit of an issue with
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  it in as much as it's it's told in the first person by Serena,
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  but it's very difficult to emphathize with Serena. I thought I didn't sort of
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  identify it. I mean, obviously it's not a sort of male fieldmale thing,
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  but I didn't identify with her as a character because I thought she was
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  sort of mendacious in a lot of ways and certainly very self centered. But
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  then with the then the day nuement of the of the of the book,
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  it's sort of when it turns around, it's you know, it's him.
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  It's it's him painting her that way, which is like, which was what
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  I found, you know, really a bit difficult to do, you know
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  though, well you know what you're trying to do to us as a reader.
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  Really, you know, it's a bit too clever for its own good
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  time. I really liked it. I'll just bring Sue back on again.
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  Sue' do you want to add anything? Um? Yes, I think the
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  part went through. I did have a question with the stories, and I
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  found the stories were very much like the writing of McEwan and if they were
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  supposed to be very different, answer they should have a different voice. But
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  then I thought this could be deliberate, and in the end I found out
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  it was deliberate and Nita made it made sense. I think sometimes I was
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  struggling to keep going, but the strong characters and I think wondering how it
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  was are going to result made me keep reading it, as well as having
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  to do it for the program. And I did it on some of the
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  praises, such as on page forty nine when he refers to the wind having
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  slapped our faces and we started our her And I think that's Daddie the insidances,
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  which kept me reading it. But would I read it again? No,
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  Joanna, Do you want to add something? I would say the third
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  heart sortly, the first third was quite was quite gripping, I mean,
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  and in some ways I did Actually, I did identify with Serena. Basically.
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  She got me when she said, you know, obviously she was talking
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  about when she was younger, and she said, I think it's in the
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  first few pages that you know, Valley of the Dolls was better than anything
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  Jane Nosten ever wrote. And that's basically exactly how I felt. You know,
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  you've got this idea when you're younger, that you know that older books
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  have this kind of um yeah, strengthen them and kind of popularity. Do
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  you think yeah, No, No, I'm just looking at my notes but
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  I can't find It's okay, yeah, but I've got yeah, basically it's
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  yeah. I'll I mean, I'll come back to it when I find it.
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  Did you want to add something? Yeah, I've always liked the writing
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  of Malcolm Bradley, Ian Hamilton and Angus Wilson Um three three guys so effectively
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  started up to the creative writing degree at the University of East Anglia, and
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  having read this, having read a couple of Immquan books, what I can
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  say is that the people created the course for a downside better than he was.
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  That's harsh, I'm joking. Yeah, it's well. I think he
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  spent said earlier. I think he spent far too long trying to trying to
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  try to show how much for a smartass he was, without actually without actually
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  writing something that I've really wanted to buy into. Interested What do you think,
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  Barry? Do you agree with that? Well? I do to some
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  degree. I mean I think that you know, I still think that he
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  is a good writer, and I have boughts his latest books just this week,
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  so maybe I haven't been put off him. And I did enjoy Chase
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  Wells very much as well as a lot of the early ones. I think
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  that it's one of the things which is a bit like Martin Amos as well.
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  You know, have you four the into those sort of categories that they
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  become a writer and then they do something like and they try to show how
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  clever they are. I think that Martin Amos was did the same sort of
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  thing like in Times Arrow and those sort of things where they like they're doing
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  it as a sort of an academic exercise, and it's not as entertaining,
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  you know, and it's for themselves, you know, I think, really,
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  I mean, but at the same time, I mean, you know,
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  I have to say I do agree with some of his views, and
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  I thought it was quite interested. Bearing in mind that it's set in nineteen
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  seventy two, so you've got to feel that this is how they felt at
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  the time. But obviously it's written in two and twelve, so it's it's
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  it's obviously more contemporary. But he said, what are we fighting against?
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  A paranoid one state, one party state, no free press, no freedom
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  to travel, a nation as prison camp, that sort of thing. I
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  heard Tony at my shoulder. This is a one party state, or press
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  as a joke on the poor can't travel anywhere. And she says, oh,
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  Shirley, really, parliaments are single party. Heath and Wilson belonged to
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  the same elite, you know, which is which is to some degree exactly
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  what's happening at the moment in my view, you know. So I think
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  that he you know, he's a kindred spirit in a lot of ways.
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  But I did I did find he was maybe writing it as an academic exercise.
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  He'd set himself something to do. You know, he wanted to write
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  a novel, so he thought he'd make it more interesting for himself and in
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  effect made it less interesting for the reader. In my own so, can
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  you agree with that? Which I felt the same. I felt that someone
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  was having an experiment with me as a reader to see how this farmat worked.
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  And I found that for me he had the moments of sort of shock
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  and you know, you didn't see things coming, But then it's seemed to
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  be stretched out too long, and the shocks became less and less. So
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  I think I agree with Barry out it wouldn't put me off reading IMMACU.
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  And I agree with Barry. I think it was an exercise to prove that
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  he could do something different. Maybe Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean
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  I would agree with that for the most part. By the way, I
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  just found the bit that I wanted. Yeah. Basically, I mean,
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  when you're younger reading old stuff like you know, Jane Austen, etc.
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  It feels like an endurance test rather than something that you actually enjoy. So
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  I totally got where she was coming from with regards to that, but yeah,
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  I mean, I would agree that it did seem not self indulgent,
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  but it was definitely like he was trying to write something to prove write this
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  book to prove that he could as opposed too. Yeah, do you think
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  it was believable a believable story? I do. I do, Actually,
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  I think yeah, because I think the details made it believable for me.
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  Just you know, this is a guy who's who obviously lived in the seventies,
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  who's and who you know, was obviously known a woman like Serena.
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  Yeah, so you see, I was quite shocked at m I five,
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  and I didn't I don't know much about all the spies and everything. So
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  for me that, I mean, it was very interesting for me. I
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  actually loved the novel and I love Ian mcew and I think he's one of
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  my favorite writers. Now, Alan, do you think it was a believable
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  story? Having grown up reading Chatting Pincher's writings about the Cambridge Spies, Yeah,
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  I think it's a fair fair bit in it, but um, towards
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  the end of it. Towards the end of it, I was reading one
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  of the one of the reviews, lady called Maureen Corrigan. I've read some
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  of the stuff before. I mean, I know I can be a bit
• 17:56
  over the top with micriticism, but this one basically seemed like quite a mellow
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  character actually. But she described it as the literary equivalent of a snuff movie.
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  Shuttle was a bit over the top. Yeah, very harsh. Yes,
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  as I say, I loved it, and I loved the main character
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  too. I could really relate towards the end of it. One thing that
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  she did write that I thoroughly brought into was I think McEwen I accused me
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  of being a bit of a smart alec just now. Yeah, I stand
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  by that, because towards the end of it, I got the feeling that
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  he was he was really culling the reader for actually buying into the plot in
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  the first place. Yet what he was writing, what he was writing,
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  he was actually fairly believable. Yeah, you only had to have read the
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  Chapman Pincher's story about the Cambridge Spies. Um, you know Bertie Philbee.
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  See. I thought it was very clever in lots of places, like when
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  he's when she's having the affair with the older gentleman I can't remember his name,
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  when she says, put the blouse and the dirty laundry basket, and
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  he does that on purpose. I just, I just I could feel for
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  her. I could feel for her pain and her broken heart and her being
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  rejected by Yeah bull, she had given her heart too, So I just
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  really love that, Barry. What have you got to say? Well,
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  yeah, I mean I can understand that. I think the thing is it's
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  like, it's it's not It's not that I found the character unsympathetic. I
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  mean when I was reading it, I was brought into it. It's only
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  in hindsight when you realize that he's writing in her person. Yeah, that's
• 19:30
  so, it's not it's not her. That's that's that's rating the tale.
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  This is a plot spoiler for anybody who's going to read the book. But
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  that's the nature of it that you're being duped in some way because you're not
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  Actually, this isn't her character. This is him viewing what she is like
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  as a character. This is where then I felt like betrayed afterwards. So
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  it's a bit like you know, like in a musician, like whoever you
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  know, um, you know, I won't name any names, but you
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  know, like who subsequently found to be U contravening and gets locked away somewhere.
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  You know, you stopped liking the music, do you know what I
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  mean? It's like that. You know, I found the character sympathetic,
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  but they're not so you know, so can you add something to that?
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  Yeah, I could believe. I could believe it was believable, but I
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  kept having Dixon interest. I think that it was really there was a lot
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  of focus on real events that you could understand what was going on in the
• 20:30
  background and more and most coming out now. But I just felt that part
• 20:37
  way through it ran out to esteem for me. Yeah, that's what,
• 20:42
  to be honest, and I think it could well have happened. But I
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  felt at the end, did I really clear? That's you know, sorry
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  to say that, but I kind of just, um, I don't out
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  of interest, I think, yeah, to see how it ended. I
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  felt very Anxiou just for her when she had to when she was living that
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  that line, and I felt I could really feel her anxiety and you want
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  to come in there, I can see it. I mentioned earlier on I
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  said that the story itself was about love and betrayal, but actually looking back
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  at it, loving betrayals was the main topics of the main topics of Tom's
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  writing, and there he was naively writing about what he's on the wrong end
• 21:30
  of that. That made me think, and that to me, it actually
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  made me finished reading the book because I wanted to see that he at least
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  came out of it somewhat better than he walked. Then he walked into it
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  a detractive detractive from the level of sympathy and might have felt I might have
• 21:53
  felt for Serena. Yeah, I was just quite astounded by it, like
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  the time when her bookmark is found on the floor, and I thought,
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  gosh, did they really do that? You know, I thought it was
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  just Russia that did things like that. And I thought that was really interesting
• 22:07
  in the fact that his background, you know, Ian mcwen's background wasn't was
• 22:11
  he was working for M five. Is that right? Yeah, that's really
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  interesting. I think, you know, I mean one of it because I
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  mean I I I also get that, you know, you find out an
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  awful lot about these things, and Ian McEwan does it very well in all
• 22:25
  the books you know about the and and thought provoking. I mean, in
• 22:29
  my view, if it's going to be relative, I think Jean Lakarai does
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  it a little bit better. He you know, and he intrigues every time
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  because he's it's all this espionage and counter espionage and what they do. But
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  the reality is probably even stranger than the fiction. You know, you had
• 22:42
  that story about the guy who was in m I six, you know,
• 22:45
  who was who was found locked up in a in a hole, all in
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  his bath, you know, when they and all that stuff where they've had
• 22:52
  people in and cleaned the place, you know, and you know, and
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  then the narrative that we get is or he locked himself in it, you
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  know, and people go, oh, that's very interesting, o punity to
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  do that, you know, but then it's forgotten about it, you know,
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  like but these things go on all the time. You know. It's
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  like, yeah, you know, the killing of Georgie Markoff, you know,
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  with her with a poison umbrella and all of these things. I mean,
• 23:15
  you know, stranger than fiction. Yeah, I mean, yeah,
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  yeah, I mean. One of the things that one of the things that
• 23:21
  really stood out to me that he did really well was the parallels or the
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  unwitting parallel almost between like the totality you know, the totalitarianism you know,
• 23:34
  or the totalitarian esthetics seeping into Britain at the same time, ironically enough,
• 23:42
  as you know, this sweet Tooth program is designed to combat the slow creep
• 23:49
  of communism or so forth and so forth. But at the same time you've
• 23:55
  got, you know, a Britain that's you know, that's very much checkering
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  the esthetics of the Cold War for example, like you've got your brutalist architecture,
• 24:06
  your strikes, you you know, high unemployments, which has basically sown
• 24:11
  the seed for societal unrest. So, you know, I just thought that
• 24:17
  was a very interesting juxtaposition. I think you handled that extremely well. Yeah.
• 24:22
  SOO can you add something? Yeah, I found with the seventies It
• 24:27
  made me actually think about what I was doing in the seventies. Yeah,
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  and I thought, well, why I was deciding what to work all this
• 24:37
  was going on and be knowns to me. Yeah, yeah, So I
• 24:41
  did find that interesting as the reflection of what's actually happening around us, and
• 24:49
  we ctically when we're young, we just get on with our own lives.
• 24:53
  That's it's a good thing. Really. It made me nostalgic for the seventies
• 24:57
  to be honest. Simplicity of it as well, going to the pub so
• 25:02
  I get go on. So it just put me in the mind of the
• 25:06
  nineteen seventies and how much has changed. Yes, she are listening too,
• 25:11
  is still going on today? Yeah, Alan, I think I was thinking
• 25:18
  really about how the way of the way of life in the seventies has changed.
• 25:27
  Now. She reading the book, I found it hard to take a
• 25:33
  tape of my back to think was it really like that, because at the
• 25:37
  time of mid seventies mid seventies, I've been twenty Um, Yeah I was.
• 25:44
  I was a college book. Life was never like that when I was
• 25:47
  there. I promise you. I love the way she got on the train
• 25:48
  at the weekend and she went down to it was at Folkeston, Yeah,
• 25:52
  and I met him and I just loved that whole kind of an experience of
• 25:56
  it doing that. I felt like, what a nice thing to do at
• 25:57
  the weekend, have lots of fun and be in that apartment and then go
• 26:02
  back to work on the Monday morning. Barry, did you want to add
• 26:04
  something to that, right? I mean, I mean I enjoyed the seventies
• 26:08
  like a lot of people. It was a reformative time for me, But
• 26:11
  I mean I don't remember it as being that wonderful I have to say,
• 26:15
  in as much as we had the cold warden and we had the threat of
• 26:18
  nuclear attack at all times, you know, and to me, you know,
• 26:22
  we've gone back into that stage now. And what's more, we now
• 26:26
  know that the people who have got their fingers on the button are like a
• 26:30
  lot more dangerous than the people were in those days. So I think that,
• 26:33
  you know, we look back on it, it was different. I
• 26:37
  remember in the seventies having petrol rationing, you know, I've got the petrol
• 26:41
  ration books and where you know. Still I remember the three day week.
• 26:45
  I remember, you know, not being able to have to heat officers and
• 26:48
  things that and installing popbellied stove in huts so that we could we could get
• 26:55
  you know, do you remember what blackouts as well? Know, when we
• 26:59
  had no electricity it was three day because there was electricity shortage. So they
• 27:03
  were you know, you were only allowed to I mean I remember my grandma
• 27:07
  having she had a drawer and she had all these candles in it, and
• 27:11
  I asked her what were they forge said, oh, it was from when
• 27:14
  we had the Was it a strike of something? The electrical strike? There
• 27:21
  was never there was an word for it. We had like power cuts,
• 27:25
  power cuts, And yeah, I grew up opposite the Providence Hospital, which
• 27:32
  sadly is no more, so we never had a power cut. How interesting,
• 27:37
  as we were on the same circuit as the hospital, and and somebody
• 27:42
  reported this, who said, well, those houses have never had a power
• 27:48
  cut because of the hospital. So they said, right, well, we'll
• 27:53
  change it, will we'll do something about it. And the moment they did
• 27:57
  that, the strike was over. Oh gosh. We never had had it
• 28:03
  at work, so we never had a power cut at all, you know.
• 28:06
  And so I think what you said was interesting that you were just thinking
• 28:08
  about what to were and I was too very in the seventies to me it
• 28:12
  just it's about going out, getting drunk, thinking what to were, going
• 28:15
  to pubs and watching films, you know, having long baths, listening to
• 28:21
  the radio at the top twenty on a Sunday afternoon. So I didn't really
• 28:26
  think. So what I took from that novel was all the good things.
• 28:29
  I didn't really occur to me about all the bad things when I was younger.
• 28:32
  And but it was nice to, as you said, to remember that
• 28:34
  this is not a new world that we're living in. Really, it was
• 28:37
  like that then but that's that's that's that's what marks him out, I think
• 28:41
  as a good writer. I like him in that he creates an atmosphere and
• 28:45
  there's always a slight sense of foreboding about it, like there's something undercurrent which
• 28:49
  is going on. But it's even like in the references like you mentioned the
• 28:52
  Incredible String band, you know, who were sort of on the edges of
• 28:56
  things. They were they weren't Maine Dream. So those sorts of references are
• 29:00
  well studied, I think, and well used, you know. And the
• 29:03
  fact that you get that sense of nostalgia is pretty much down to his writing
• 29:07
  because he wrote it in twenty twelve, you know, so, and so
• 29:11
  it does work. From that perspective, you could tell that he's that this
• 29:15
  is somebody who actually experienced the seventies, who experienced the nuances of it,
• 29:19
  and you know, it's not just a like a it's not just a nostalgia
• 29:26
  thing written by somebody who only knows the obvious markers. Do you think do
• 29:30
  you think that's why he Do you think that's why he name checked people like
• 29:36
  Martin Amis and Ian Hamilton. Yeah, actually wrote them into the actually wrote
• 29:40
  them into the into the text. Of the book. I think it was
• 29:42
  just chums. I think that was all chums. I mean one of the
• 29:45
  one of the stories, which is one of the ones he's supposedly written,
• 29:49
  but are remarkable similarity to the Road by Cole mc McCarthy. I don't know
• 29:53
  if if you've read that book, but it was like, you know,
• 29:56
  I don't know, don't know which one came first, you know, but
• 29:59
  between the the two of them, you know, there are references there,
• 30:03
  and I can you can imagine, aren't you that a writer you know who
• 30:07
  becomes fairly detached from normal life because they end up being right right all the
• 30:11
  time. We'll refer to their other contemporaries, you know, Yes, Sue,
• 30:15
  what do you think on that you're being a writer yourself. I think
• 30:19
  he I think he does bring the seventies alive. It's an authentic voice from
• 30:26
  the seventies. It depends really how you view the seventies as well. Yeah,
• 30:33
  yeah, and I think it's we are we are going around full circle
• 30:37
  now into dangerous waters. Yeah. I think to me, the differences I
• 30:44
  wasn't as a word of the danger yeah, as I am now. Yeah.
• 30:49
  And also I think he wrote very good as a woman. His writing,
• 30:53
  it didn't feel like it was a man writing as a woman. It
• 30:56
  just felt like he did have that female feeling because I could really relate,
• 31:00
  and I thought it was actually really quite powerful that he could write in a
• 31:04
  female's voice. Alan, what do you think? Are you busy? Just
• 31:07
  like something? Sorry, I just bring that out thinking. I was actually
• 31:11
  thinking that Serena seemed to attract a particular type of man. He shared quite
• 31:18
  an active social life. Yes, but you did in the seventies. I
• 31:21
  think there was something. Yeah, well it was when it was like that
• 31:26
  in the seventies, wasn't it sixty seventies specific type of man um intellectually quite
• 31:33
  brilliant, yes, but fundamentally narcissistic. Yeah. I looked even Tom was
• 31:40
  to even Tom was to a degree, yeah, I think it was.
• 31:44
  I think when you see to a degree, I think he was largely That's
• 31:47
  what happens at the end, I think is that that that's what comes out,
• 31:49
  is that he's like, you know, there's a real arrogance you know
• 31:52
  too, I mean, I think and also as well, I would say,
• 31:56
  you know, narcissism or you know, narcissistic traits in a character don't
• 32:01
  necessarily make that ruin that character. For me, they don't necessary. In
• 32:06
  fact, in some ways it can make them more interesting. Yeah, exactly,
• 32:14
  absolutely soon, Yeah, I thought. I thought his writing as a
• 32:21
  woman was very god Yeah. Yeah, writing from a woman's point of view,
• 32:24
  and in that sense he reminded me a bit. Although it's plays with
• 32:29
  Willy Russell. Okay, two of his main characters L and N Valentine women,
• 32:37
  But he was a her dresser in Saint Helens and he got the sack,
• 32:43
  and I often wonder whether he was working as a her dresser. He
• 32:46
  picked up the traits of women's conversations. But Ian mccument writing as a woman,
• 32:52
  did you remind me of that encapsulation of a man writing about a woman
• 33:00
  as a woman. Yeah, I thought it was really really good, very
• 33:04
  believable. What about you? I didn't. I didn't really take that that
• 33:10
  line of thought because it's not the sort of thing that I would normally entertainment,
• 33:16
  not the sort of thing I would normally go not the sort of line
• 33:20
  that I would normally go down. But in terms of sorry, the more
• 33:27
  we talk about it, the more I actually found it believable. I did
• 33:30
  my usual for the multi read of the book, and I felt when I
• 33:36
  read it first off, just as a read rather than to think about it.
• 33:39
  Um, I kind of brought into it, But the more I read
• 33:44
  it, the less I was inclined to buy into it, with the exception
• 33:46
  of the zeitgeist element, kind of sad really, and Barry, you've read
• 33:52
  a lot of Ian mcew and haven't you? Yes? I have in the
• 33:55
  past. Yes, So how did you rate that compared to his other books?
• 33:59
  I didn't like it as much. I, like Sue said, I
• 34:01
  wouldn't find myself reading it again, not like Alan who's read it about three
• 34:07
  times seriously into this. Yeah, no, I think that's you know,
• 34:15
  there's there's certainly aspects of the book. I can't vouch for whether or not
• 34:20
  he writes from a female perspective very well, So I mean, I take
• 34:22
  your word for it. I think that you know that that's high I think
• 34:27
  he is. He does use that that. I mean, it's like in
• 34:30
  films sometimes, you know, you'll you'll see lots of different plots developing and
• 34:36
  you see how they come together. In the way that this is written,
• 34:38
  it is written in that first person, so you're only witnessing what the main
• 34:44
  narrator sees, you know, so, and the fact that that is is
• 34:51
  a woman and you read it through that perspective, then gets turned on its
• 34:55
  head at the end, and I think that that's where I come back to
• 34:58
  the same thing I fell in the end. I felt betrayed by it,
• 35:01
  yes, you know, and I didn't like being tricked. Yeah, it's
• 35:06
  because it's almost like you've fallen for a phantom. But that's the whole conceit
• 35:10
  of it, isn't it that you know obviously the guy fell for a phantom.
• 35:15
  It is, so it's like it's like that. Yeah, I like
• 35:22
  that. Soon you still there, yacking? What about you? Oh yes,
• 35:24
  I'm sil here. I'm listening to it. Yeah you want. I
• 35:27
  agree with Barry, but I found the end very disappointing. Um. I
• 35:35
  think it's something that's I can't remember if I've leant something like this, but
• 35:39
  something like this has happened before. It's in a film or where it's like
• 35:45
  the ending is unsatisfaction. I sound too neat. Yeah, you found it
• 35:51
  too. I liked the ending. Actually, I thought it was good.
• 35:52
  I thought was really clever, and I like the surprise of it. All
• 35:58
  if you had anything else so too, No, I think that's a quis.
• 36:01
  Yeah, that's it with you? Yes? And what about you Alan?
• 36:04
  Well, No, the only thing I was going to say is is
• 36:07
  pretty much repeating once I said earlier. By the end of it, I
• 36:09
  actually felt the macure really was really cure the reader for actual buying you Tom
• 36:14
  in the first place. Um. It was the end of the end seemed
• 36:19
  far too glib for me. Yes, And as a result, it kind
• 36:23
  of I looked back, what was the point? What was the point of
• 36:28
  the previous three hundred pages, if you know what I mean? But I
• 36:34
  was say, quite openly off for a plenty worse. Yeah, I think
• 36:37
  that's right. I was just looking at my own notes that I wrote,
• 36:39
  because I wrote therese a few a couple of months ago because we were going
• 36:44
  to meet earlier. Yeah, And it was just sort of goes over onto
• 36:46
  a second page which I hadn't seen until just now, and my final thought
• 36:51
  and it was a bit too clever for his own good. Yeah, okay,
• 36:55
  and about you too, Anna, I'd probably want to read it again,
• 37:01
  because I've only because I had to read it in a week and you
• 37:07
  know, obviously, so maybe I didn't get. Maybe I didn't get the
• 37:13
  full experience as it were. Maybe it's something that i'd need to read at
• 37:16
  least once or twice more before doing that. But yeah, I mean I
• 37:21
  feel the same really regarding the twist. I think I feel it's because I
• 37:28
  really actually did relate to Serena. I mean, when that, when that
• 37:32
  rug was pulled, it makes you wonder, doesn't it. Well, you
• 37:37
  know, you feel disappointed this character who I really like, who I've really
• 37:42
  connected with. It's through this guy's perspective she might not, you know.
• 37:46
  So, Yeah, but I think I would need to read it again.
• 37:50
  I'm not going to. I mean, i'd say the first third was very
• 37:52
  strong. Yes, the remainder i'd probably have to read again, maybe get
• 38:00
  a feel for it so I can comment on it. I'm going to ask
• 38:04
  everybody, Okay, out of ten, Sue, starting with you, how
• 38:07
  many how many marks out of ten? Seven? Alan? How many marks
• 38:12
  at five? Yeah, Harry six, I would say seven. Yeah,
• 38:19
  I'd say, I'd say, now it come ups strength. Yeah, And
• 38:22
  I was. I thought it was enjoyable read. I thought it was easy
• 38:25
  to read really as well, you know, I like the way that his
• 38:28
  vocabulary was quite easy, and you didn't. I'm delighted you like to Christ
• 38:32
  because it was my choice and what I did, I really I really like
• 38:36
  Ian mchu And I've been introduced to Ian McHugh from this program, which has
• 38:39
  been great. And that's what we do. We actually get introduced to a
• 38:42
  lot of new authors and we read books that we never would normally read.
• 38:47
  Springs to Mind is Heart of Darkness, which I found was very difficult to
• 38:53
  read that one, but I'm glad that I read it. Yeah, I
• 38:57
  first ready one. I was about nineteen and it's one of those books that
• 39:01
  stayed with me, if you know what I mean. Okay, now it's
• 39:04
  the time to choose the next book, So we have a we couldn't.
• 39:07
  Yeah, I've got your book in there. So the tambourine has gone walk
• 39:12
  about because, to be honest, the studio has been a lot of problems
• 39:15
  in the studio. So have you had to use a bowl? But we're
• 39:17
  gonna I'm gonna ask Joanna to pick out the because she's she's the newbie,
• 39:22
  so I'm gonna ask her to pick out the next book for the next month.
• 39:27
  You, Yeah, this is the moment of truth. You can,
• 39:34
  yeah, no peeping, Okay, okay, you can talk into the mic
• 39:39
  if you want to. Yeah, I've got We'll just put one back.
• 39:44
  Yeah, okay, here, there you go, Here we go. This
• 39:51
  is the moment of truth. I know. The Return of the Native by
• 39:59
  Thomas How did you? Okay? The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy.
• 40:05
  Barry looks a bit disappointed. Do you wanna looks like pensive Thomas Hardy?
• 40:13
  Really to Okay, that was actually my choice. I can't believe I've
• 40:16
  got I was chosen. What was your what's your thought on that? So?
• 40:21
  Oh I shall. I shall enjoy reading it because it's um it's something
• 40:29
  that has been on my like the Heart of Darkness and the Plague is something
• 40:32
  I wanted to read for a long time. Oh that's good. So you're
• 40:37
  with me, then that's good. Yeah, I'm happy with that choice.
• 40:40
  It was my choice. Yes, I just yeah, I just wanted to
• 40:44
  read a classic really, to be honest. But also, anyone listening at
• 40:47
  home, you're very welcome to join us in the reading room. You can
• 40:52
  get that book, the Thomas Hardy book, from the library. It's the
• 40:54
  Return of the Native, and anyone can come in and have a chat with
• 40:59
  us, or just phone in and let us know what you think. And
• 41:02
  you're very very welcome to join us all on the show. So I think,
• 41:07
  do we have anything else we want to say about the book or about
• 41:10
  the reading room? Alan's going to talk. He talks for England part of
• 41:15
  Sorry, turn of the Native. She reminds me of a munty python sketch.
• 41:21
  Have you read it? Yes? Oh you have? Okay a schoolboy
• 41:23
  at the time. Is it difficult to read? I found I found it,
• 41:29
  I found it. I was sorry in advantage. I found it was
• 41:30
  great. It was a great projectile to throw the wall. I will say
• 41:36
  it's probably one of the more exhausting Thomas Hart. Goodness me, I'm not
• 41:39
  gonna be liked what we're going to say, So just point and that one
• 41:45
  of the joys of the reading room is discovering new artists and discovering new books
• 41:52
  exactly and then and also talking about them. Sorry, carry liked the book.
• 41:57
  I'm not like the book. I never think any book. Reading any
• 42:00
  book is a waste of time, because even though it makes you have an
• 42:06
  opinion, it makes you think absolutely and each time you read a book,
• 42:09
  you kind of get a bit more knowledge and a bit more insight into what.
• 42:13
  Yeah, and I didn't enjoy the Heart of Darkness, you know,
• 42:15
  I didn't do that. But at the same time, I learned a great
• 42:20
  deal in the research around it, so you know, I mean it was
• 42:22
  useful from that perspective, you know, I think as well. I mean,
• 42:24
  if you can see if it's something you've read before and you found it
• 42:29
  dull or whatever. I mean, if you read it a long time ago,
• 42:31
  you know that was then maybe you can read it again with a new
• 42:35
  perspective or with a more mature perspective and see things in it that you didn't
• 42:39
  see. I chose. I chose Heart of Darkness because because there's almost a
• 42:46
  family connection. My parents actually knew, actually knew the people that lived in
• 42:52
  the house, and actually and act she knew Joseph Conrad's wife, my parents
• 43:00
  just before she died. Okay, So I just want to thank Sefton Park
• 43:05
  Library too, because they do actually lend out the books. I will have
• 43:08
  to check they have it because sometimes they don't have the book, so well,
• 43:13
  I'll make sure. I'll tell you all and Sue, of course you'll
• 43:15
  be getting yours from Saint Helen's libraries. That right. Hopefully I'm one of
• 43:19
  the other. I will contact the library this afternoon to see whether they've got
• 43:22
  the book, and they will be back again in a month's time. So
• 43:25
  we'll just have to get our heads together and book a session in a month.
• 43:30
  So I'm going to just let everyone say their own goodbye. So Sue,
• 43:32
  do you want to go first? And yeah, good flying everybody,
• 43:37
  and hope to see you all to keep reading. Absolutely, Allen, thanks
• 43:43
  for having it. It's always a pleasure to see everybody, and it's a
• 43:47
  great time. It's great to be able to sit in an open mind.
• 43:52
  Absolutely. Verry, Yeah, thanks very much. I've enjoyed it again.
• 43:54
  Christa, thank you. Thank you for inviting me. Christa, Yeah,
• 43:58
  it's been it's been really good. And thank you everybody for listening. I
• 44:01
  think everyone is so good on this program. It's really really great. It's
• 44:05
  so easy because everyone's so knowledgeable and so good with words, and yeah talking
• 44:09
  about the books and let's buy from me. Christ Shaffer, see you all
• 44:15
  next month.