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Here is an unedited version of the conversation, in case you would like to listen to everything that was said:
Episode image is a detail from the cover of The Complete Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino, published in 2010 by Penguin Modern Classics; cover image is a detail from The Last Judgement: The Stars Fall And Everything Is Turned Upside Down, Italian School, 15th century/Fol 149va Biblioteca Reale, Turin, Italy (Alinari/The Bridgeman Art Library).
Speaking to Charles Adrian for a particularly dreamy 125th Second Hand Book Factory in his own studio in Mile End is artist Tim Spooner. They talk some difficult poetry, the Berlin Wall and rule-bound beauty.
The unedited version of this recording, released in homage to the podcast On Being with Krista Tippett, which both Tim and Charles Adrian listen to and enjoy, includes a long digression on Mile End Green and environs and a longer discussion of Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov than is kept in the edited version. There is also mention of a show Charles Adrian had seen recently in Berlin; this was Die Zukunft Von Gestern by Nico And The Navigators. You can find more information (in German) about that show here.
Episodes of On Being that Charles Adrian would recommend for anybody wanting to dip into that podcast include conversations with Pádraig Ó Tuama, Teju Cole, Mary Oliver and Claudia Rankine.
Correction: This episode was recorded on the 5th October, 2018. Charles Adrian talks about the twenty-ninth anniversary of the falling of the Berlin Wall, which he says happened on a Wednesday. In fact, he is thinking of the Tag der Deutschen Einheit, celebrated on the 3rd of October, which was a Wednesday in 2018. The twenty-ninth anniversary of the falling of the Wall was the 9th of November 2018, which was a Friday. In any case, what is true is that, at the time of recording this episode, about twenty-nine years had passed since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov is also discussed in Page One 119 and Page One 189. Other books by Vladimir Nabokov discussed on the podcast are Lolita (Page One 71) and Collected Stories (Page One 162).
Also mentioned in this episode is If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller by Italo Calvino, which is translated into English by William Weaver.
The story from Italo Calvino’s The Cosmicomics that Charles Adrian tries to remember is called The Form Of Space, which is included in this Penguin Classics collection of The Complete Cosmicomics in a translation by William Weaver; the story that Tim talks about, translated by Martin McLaughlin in this collection, is called Shells And Time.
Other books by Italo Calvino are discussed in Page One 48 (Palomar) and Page One 116 (Adventures Of A Near-Sighted Man).
Transcripts of this episode (in its edited and unedited versions) are below.
Episode recorded: 5th October, 2018.
Episode released: 28th January, 2020.
Book Listing:
New Impressions Of Africa by Raymond Roussel (trans. Ian Monk)
Funeral In Berlin by Len Deighton
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller by Italo Calvino (trans. William Weaver)
The Complete Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino (trans. William Weaver, Tim Parks and Martin McLaughlin)
Links:
The Atlas Anti-Classics edition of Raymond Roussel’s New Impressions Of Africa
Episode Transcript (edited version):
Charles Adrian
Hello and welcome to the 151st Page One. This is the 125th Second Hand Book Factory. I'm Charles Adrian and my guest today in Mile End, in his studio, and you can just hear a plane flying over... I think ther are probably going to be lots of planes.
Tim Spooner
[affirmative] Uh huh. Now we listen.
Charles Adrian
Are we on the... Yeah, now we're paying attention.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] I suspect we are. I've never noticed before.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Are we on a flight path to London City Airport?
Tim Spooner
Yes, we could be. That might be what it is.
Charles Adrian
We're also... we've got... possibly sounds of birds from the canal outside the window. There were some canoeists who went past. So all of that might happen. I'm quite enthusiastic about this... [laughs] background sound.
Tim Spooner
Embracing it?
Charles Adrian
[laughs] Yeah! We've also got the echo of the room, which is a lot bigger and squarer than the room I normally record in. So that's quite different. All that aside, though: Hello, Tim.
Tim Spooner
Hello.
Charles Adrian
Thank you so much for having me this afternoon.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Thanks for... Thanks for having me on.
Jingle
You're listening to Page One, the book podcast.
Charles Adrian
How do you describe yourself?
Tim Spooner
Just as an artist usually. And then, when I... when I have to get more specific than that I get a bit tongue tied. So I do.... Well, I think they're equally important and, sort of, part of the same thing, but... there's a performance side to what I do and a... unperformed side to what I do. So... paintings and drawings and collages. To me, they feel like they're both, sort of... they're necessary to each other. And they're both part of the same process of making things. But they, sort of... they're... they're quite different products in a way.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Do... Do you mean that they feed each other or that they come from the same place?
Tim Spooner
That they feed each other. Because... Well, I suppose they come from the same place but... but that was a a long time ago now and I like to think that they're feeding off each other and it's just one long chain of stuff getting produced.
Charles Adrian
So it's like... it's almost like a big conversation.
Tim Spooner
[uncertain] Yeah. And not just... not just a conversation between the flat work and the performance work but also between all work in the past and... and the things that come after it.
Charles Adrian
Right.
Tim Spooner
So each thing is, kind of, a development of the last thing. And I like that because it feels like there's a certain language getting built up and a certain sort of logic that that gets stronger the more you make.
Charles Adrian
Nice. That's... Yeah, that's interesting. Um...
[page turning]
Charles Adrian
What's the book that you have brought that you like?
Unknown Speaker
It's this one, which is: New Impressions Of Africa by Raymond Rousel.
Charles Adrian
I don't know about this at all.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Good! Because I think the other...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] It's a beautiful book!
Tim Spooner
... book I'm bringing you're going to know and I'm a bit embarrassed. Um...
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Tim Spooner
Well, I know you'll know it. It... In the introduction, it says it's "perhaps this strange writer's strangest work". And it was published in 1927. I didn't know that until I read the introduction. It's really strange. It's great. I love it. It's a poem. And it's, sort of, an inch thick in this edition.
Charles Adrian
It's a square book, isn't it. Pretty much.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] It's a very weird format.
Charles Adrian
I've not... I don't think I've seen a square book before... or not very many, at least.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] It's published by Atlas Press, which... It's in this series called Atlas Anti-Classics. So, they publish...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] I see.
Tim Spooner
... lots of experimental writing from... well, not just from that, sort of, era but a lot of it's from, sort of, early twentieth century... or first half of the twentieth century. So he's published novels but this one's a poem.
Charles Adrian
Do you want to read us some of it?
Tim Spooner
Oh, but I think I need to explain something first before I read it. Or maybe... No, I'll... I won't explain it first. I'll just, sort of... We'll see. So this is the... It's in four parts... four... maybe he calls them cantos. I don't know. Four verses, maybe. And this is one called Damietta, the house where Louis the ninth was held prisoner:
Tim Spooner
It surely makes us think and slow our gait to learn that here, behind this very gate, St Louis the ninth was three months held in keep. But this fact true and tangible we keep in this land scattered with such marvelous ruins, the oldest that are known to us. Anything else might date from yesterday. The name whose proud yet crushed bearer can say from memory, straight off, and without fail...
open brackets
...as the occupant by the topmost rail of a high block in airy garret knows, a photographer skilled in hiding crow's feet and pimples with wily stratagems...
open a second bracket
... art of retouching, as decked out in gems...
open a third bracket
... each, when having a proud photo taken of his beloved self, will stand unshaken and wonder if, by breathing, he will budge enough to turn this form into a smudge on the dark green plate beneath the reddish lamp...
open fourth bracket
... and so wonder: Is he really a scamp? The bore who, with a look...
open fifth bracket
... a spark sometimes can set ladders where many a fireman climbs to quench an Etna once a household glad...
Footnote:
To douse a fire: If only we had a giant sprinter when homes are a flame. Should a true rescuer look on in shame, pouting from far away in sulkiness?
End of the footnote and closing of the fifth bracket.
Charles Adrian
Wow. I don't... None of that makes any sense to me at all.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] No. Well, it's really...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] It's curiously beautiful.
Tim Spooner
... it's really difficult to read.
Charles Adrian
Yes!
Tim Spooner
Um...
Charles Adrian
Also, just looking over at the book, it's interesting that he doesn't just open a single bracket each time, he... he's increasing the number of brackets each time he opens them, isn't he?
Tim Spooner
Yeah. So that's how you can tell which bracket you're, kind of, within.
Charles Adrian
Which is a much... It's a... it is quite clear.
Tim Spooner
Yeah. It... So it goes to a maximum of five... five brackets within brackets, I think. So, at the... yeah. So, at the moment, we're still... we're, kind of, inside all five of them. And then the brackets start to close again...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh! And then he closes them individually.
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
Right! Rather than those five closing brackets being the end of all of them.
Tim Spooner
Yes, exactly.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] I see. I see.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Yes, exactly.
Charles Adrian
Ah, so you know which one... So it's almost like a... That's like a code in itself? Or whatever.
Tim Spooner
Yeah. Yeah. So... so, by the end of the... So, in a way, the only bit that's not inside some level of bracketing is... is the very beginning and the very end, so...
Charles Adrian
Right. And I think that's the bit that I did understand. I mean, I got... I got the image of Louis in his... tower. [laughs]
Tim Spooner
Okay. Yeah, yeah. And then after, it... So, it comes back to Louis at the end of the poem...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] I see.
Tim Spooner
... which is about twenty pages later.
Charles Adrian
Wow!
Tim Spooner
Yeah, so that sentence finishes...
Charles Adrian
Right. I see.
Tim Spooner
... a long way into the book. So you, sort... So you... What I like about it is that there are... there are different choices about how you read it. So you can, sort of, either flip back and forth...
Charles Adrian
Right.
Tim Spooner
... and try and work out what... piece... you know, and piece those sentences back together.
Charles Adrian
Yes.
Tim Spooner
Or you can just experience this thing, which is, I find, much more interesting, actually... which is just this really strange feeling of, kind of, telescoping.
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm.
Tim Spooner
It really feels like you're zooming out more than zooming in, actually. There's some feeling of, kind of, space growing around this thing as... as the first line and the last line, kind of, move away from each other as you keep opening these brackets and... And it's sort of... In a way, it's kind of silly poetry, but it's... it's... it's... it's about... So it just takes it completely beyond that and it's more of a, sort of, abstract experience of... of the words traveling rather than... rather than attaching to meaning.
Charles Adrian
That sounds amazing.
Tim Spooner
Yeah. It's fun to read. It does give you a sensation to read it. It's quite hard work.
Charles Adrian
Yeah.
Tim Spooner
But I read it again yesterday just because... because of this. And it's really that... I mean, that feeling that I'm sure everyone has of, kind of, reading and then realising you don't know... you haven't really been concentrating...
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Tim Spooner
You've just been reading a few pages.
Charles Adrian
I know that feeling.
Tim Spooner
It really generates that...
Tim and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Tim Spooner
... that feeling a lot.
Charles Adrian
I think that's why I would find it so difficult, because I find that so frustrating.
Tim and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Tim Spooner
But... but, like I say, there's something in... Every time a bracket opens, there's, like, a little, kind of, [breathes in]...
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Tim Spooner
... intake of breath or a little... It's like you're bre... yeah, taking in more...
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm.
Tim Spooner
... each time into your perspective. Like something's expanding all the time. Um... Yeah.
[page turning]
Charles Adrian
So, the book that I've brought for you is... is similar and different, I would say. It's different in the sense that it is really all about meaning and not about form at all. But it's a page-turner. It's by Len Deighton. It's called Funeral In Berlin.
Tim Spooner
Okay.
Charles Adrian
And it's... it's fun. I mean, I love this kind of story anyway. But, at the same time, it has, I think... What it shares with your book is the quality of the... of the opening up of perspectives...
Charles Adrian
... which I think is the thing that I really like about all of this kind of spy literature... is the idea that you think you know the story and then... and then you get a bit through and then you realise: Oh, no, okay, there's something that I didn't know about this and something... A door opens up and you see...
Tim Spooner
Okay.
Tim Spooner
Yeah. Okay.
Charles Adrian
... a whole new perspective...
Tim Spooner
You zoom out.
Charles Adrian
... which is... it... usually to do with identities but also motives. And I find that interesting.
Tim Spooner
Yup.
Charles Adrian
And he uses... Throughout this book, he uses the metaphor of chess, which is... I really don't think it's that brilliant or subtle...
Tim Spooner
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
... but it's a classics spy metaphor. But, particularly, I thought of it because I know that you were in Leipzig...
Tim Spooner
Yes.
Charles Adrian
... last week doing The Assembly Of Animals. And... I've visited Leipzig but I was also in Berlin earlier this week and, on Wednesday, it was the 29th anniversary of the falling of the Wall. And I was thinking: Wow, that's... that's... You know, I remember the Berlin Wall falling...
Tim Spooner
Yup.
Charles Adrian
... and every time that I've been in Berlin working, I very quickly become obsessed with the Wall and where it used to be and how it used to divide these different communities or different parts of the city, which you can now, you know, you can now step across...
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... without a thought. And there used to be this absolute barrier there, which is more than a concrete barrier.
Tim Spooner
[affirmative] Mmm.
Charles Adrian
You know, it's an ideological barrier. But it's also... You know, there are... there's so much that is represented by the Wall. And... and Berlin itself is so fascinating to me, because West Berlin was... and I didn't realise until I started working there... is an... was an island inside East Germany.
Tim Spooner
Yeah... yeah.
Charles Adrian
I hadn't really appreciated that.
Tim Spooner
I always forget that.
Charles Adrian
I thought that the Wall was the gateway to East Germany...
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... but it's not. It's the bit that seals off West Berlin from everything around it.
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
So I find that so exciting. And so I'm not absolutely sure when... when this is set but I'm assuming the sixties. In any case, it describes a Berlin that is not there anymore and yet the Berlin that is there now is... is also full of the memory of the Wall.
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
The Wall, I think, really still looms large over people's imagination there and the way that... the way that Berlin is presented to tourists and to people coming in and, maybe, even still, to the world. Um. So, I thought... Yeah. I thought you might enjoy this.
Tim Spooner
I think I will.
Charles Adrian
1
Players move alternately - only one at a time.
Saturday, October 5th
It was one of those artificially hot days that they used to call ‘Indian summer’. It was no time to be paying a call to Bina Gardens, in south-west London, if there was a time for it.
Outside the house I sought there was a bright card tied to the railings with green twine. On it in large exact capitals was penned ‘Lost - Siamese cat. Answers to the name Confucius.’
Answers what? I walked up the steps where the sun was warming up a pint of Jersey and a banana-flavour yogurt. Tucked behind the bottles a Daily Mail peeped its headline ‘Berlin a new crisis?’ There were buttons on that door-post like on a pearly king's hat but only one said ‘Robert [sic] J. Hallam, FRSA’ in a flowing copperplate; that was the one I pressed.
‘You haven't seen Confucius?’
There you go. That's all you get on the first page.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Great.
Charles Adrian
Of course, the other thing is that it's also set in London. It shuttles between...
Tim Spooner
Yup.
Charles Adrian
... London and Berlin. And London... I find that interesting... Because London... Obviously there's no Wall... no Wall has fallen. So, in the sense of movement, nothing has changed. You can still... you can still go to Bina Gardens, presumably, in the same way that you could when... when this is set but... Nevertheless, London has also changed enormously. So I think that...
Tim Spooner
Yeah. Yeah,
Charles Adrian
... I find all of that, kind of, fascinating and beautiful. Anyway, so that's what I'm... Here it is: Funeral...
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] We didn't talk about the book at all.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] We didn't talk about the book. I mean, the book... It's just fun.
Tim Spooner
[laughs] I think I need that because I do sometimes feel stuck in this world of doing my work. There's a brain space that my work, kind of, requires or puts me in and the kind of thing I to read and listen... Well, you know what the kind of thing I tend to read now...
Charles Adrian
Yes. [laughs]
Tim Spooner
It can be... It can get a bit... [laughs] I sometimes want something like this.
Charles Adrian
I think it's necessary. I think it's... Well...
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... I have a big... I think... I think fallow periods are necessary...
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... and this is a kind of book to fill a fallow period...
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... because it requires... You have to follow the story but it... it's... it's designed.... and I don't... I'm... I'm not talking it down by saying this... it's designed to be easy to read.
Tim Spooner
Yeah. And there's nothing wrong with that. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Which I think is... is... is one of Len Deighton's skills. He... Because it's immensely complicated, I think. Spying is very complicated... or it can be... and he leads you through in a way that is gripping and... and doesn't require that you reread large sections, I don't think.
Tim Spooner
[affirmative] Mmm.
Charles Adrian
And I think that's... that's one of the reasons I like the book so much.
Tim Spooner
I'll enjoy this.
[page turning]
Charles Adrian
And what's the book that you think I should have?
Tim Spooner
I'm sure you've already got it. I don't know why I chose it. I chose it because it had a relationship with what... the other thing I brought. It's this.
Charles Adrian
Oh, right.
Tim Spooner
Have you read it? Pale Fire.
Charles Adrian
Yes. Somebody else gave it to me, actually.
Tim Spooner
Ah.
Charles Adrian
Yeah. But that is a beautiful edition of it.
Tim Spooner
It's nice, isn't it? It's covered in coffee a little bit.
Charles Adrian
Oh, well, that's... makes it even nicer, in my opinion.
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
But it's got a picture of...
Tim and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Tim Spooner
I don't know. It's quite complicated.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Who is that supposed to be on the front?
Tim Spooner
I think it's meant to be the poet...
Charles Adrian
Right.
Tim Spooner
Um. Whatshisname…
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yeah. I don't remember...
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Um. John Shade.
Charles Adrian
I've literally just read this.
Tim Spooner
Oh, no!
Charles Adrian
Yes. I'm sorry.
Tim Spooner
Well, I've got other things I can give you. But I had... Yeah.
Charles Adrian
Do you want to swap it out for something else? I don't want to take this beautiful copy. What's... So what's the alternative that you would give me?
Tim Spooner
Well, the other ones I've got... This one's even more coffee-stained.
Charles Adrian
It's also beautiful.
Tim Spooner
It's a good cover, isn't it?
Charles Adrian
Yeah.
Tim Spooner
Yeah, this one. They're both Calvino books.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Okay, so I have also read that.
Tim Spooner
[disappointed/frustrated] Uh.
Charles Adrian
Well, no, but I prefer that one to the If On A Winter's Night... I don't like If On A Winter's Night A Traveler. I'm... I'm one of the only people who doesn't like it.
Tim Spooner
[laughs] I didn't like it as much as this one. I love this one.
Charles Adrian
I really like The...
Tim and Charles Adrian
Cosmicomics.
Charles Adrian
I think... No, they're my absolute favourite. I studied Calvino... Sorry, this is becoming all about me now.
Tim Spooner
No. Please.
Charles Adrian
I studied Calvino as part of my degree. And The Cosmicomics were pretty much my favourite...
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... thing that he wrote. I think they're just gorgeous. The mixture of the... the rigidity that... He gives himself such strong rules, doesn't he?
Tim Spooner
Yes.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] He says: these people are not allowed to move bec... for these reasons. Or they can't meet. Or whatever it is. And then inside that these very human stories.
Tim Spooner
Yeah. And because of those rules, they end up... I think they're... Each little story is a sort of complete universe...
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm.
Tim Spooner
... that's... that's... yeah, as you said, sort of sets a few rules off in motion and then follows them until they, kind of, curl back around on themselves.
Charles Adrian
Right! Yeah. Yeah. They're very... very economical. And very... I also... I like... I like short things...
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... because I like to be able to... I like to get the whole idea and then move on to the next idea. And that... They're very... I find those very pleasing.
Tim Spooner
Yeah. Yeah.
Charles Adrian
I'm sure there's lots that I don't remember about these stories.
Tim Spooner
Well, every time I read it, I've sort of forgotten almost all of it.
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm. There's only about one that I really remember. Or... I might remember The Aquatic Uncle, which I'm just flicking through now. But I remember one about the three... The three particles spinning around each other. And one of them is in love with the one in the middle but it's jealous of the one on the other side.
Tim Spooner
Right.
Charles Adrian
And because they're spinning at a constant rate, they're never going to get any closer to each other.
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
None of them are ever going to get any closer to each other. So it's only about perception of where the attention is going.
Tim Spooner
I see. Yeah.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] That's what drives the jealousy, which drives the story.
Tim Spooner
And maybe drives the motion.
Charles Adrian
Yeah, maybe! Yeah. Right. And that's... So I find that so... yeah, so beautifully economical...
Tim Spooner
[affirmative] Mmm.
Charles Adrian
... as a way of... as a storytelling device. But also, it's a very lovely story. And very sad.
Tim Spooner
[affirmative] Mmm. Yeah. The one I remember is, um, the snail that invents time by growing a shell... in that book.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh! I don't remember that.
Tim Spooner
I always think about it and I can't ever quite remember how he puts those... puts those words together to make this thing that makes sense. But...
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Hmm.
Tim Spooner
... it really does. He really describes the way a snail is growing a... the first snail growing the first snail shell...
Charles Adrian
Right.
Tim Spooner
... spiral shell... Maybe it's underwater. I can't remember. And it's that... that action that... of making that spiral... that spiraling in on itself or out on itself that is the thing that makes and defines what time is.
Charles Adrian
Wow!
Tim Spooner
This is the first instance of time. But it's... it's so, sort of, real when you read it that it feels totally...
Charles Adrian
Hmm. Yeah.
Tim Spooner
... not like a metaphor. It feels like a reality.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Right. Right. Right. Oh, nice. Thank you so much.
Tim Spooner
Pleasure. Thank you.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] This has been... This has been so lovely. It's... Actually, it's a... We're at the beginning of October when we're doing this recording. But it is just an amazing day. It is, actually... I suppose it's what used to be called, as Len Deighton puts it, an Indian summer.
Tim Spooner
[laughs] Does he? I'll look forward to that.
Charles Adrian
[laughs] I think we're... that's... That was in the first page! You weren't paying attention.
Tim Spooner
Oh. I wasn't. Oh, I've forgotten already.
Charles Adrian
[laughs] Caught you out!
Tim Spooner
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
I think October is Indian summer...
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... season, isn't it?
Tim Spooner
That's when it's meant to happen.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] And it is, it's really warm today. It's beautiful.
Tim Spooner
Well, the sun comes around. It's just coming in.
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm. It's about reach me where I'm sitting.
Tim Spooner
Yeah. Yeah. So you can see the... you can see the light coming across the room.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh. It's gorgeous. And you've got geraniums and succulents. Yeah, it's lovely. Lovely afternoon. Thank you, Tim.
Tim Spooner
Thank you.
Jingle
Thank you for listening to Page One. For more information about the podcast please go to pageonepodcast.com.
[Initial transcription by https://otter.ai]
Episode transcript (unedited version):
Charles Adrian
Hello. Charles Adrian here, just to say that, as a homage to Krista Tippett, whose podcast On Being my guest Tim Spooner and I both listen to and enjoy, I’m putting out an unedited version of this week’s episode alongside the usual edited version. It’s something that they do at On Being and… I rather like that. Also, this was a conversation that I had to cut quite a lot out of in order to fit it into the usual format and I enjoyed a lot of what Tim and I talked about, including a long digression on Mile End Green and its environs and also a fairly long discussion of Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire. So you have the choice: You can listen to the twenty-minute version, which is also in your Page One podcast feed right now, or to this longer version. Or, indeed, to both. A reminder that you can also find links to transcripts of all the episodes from season 6 of the podcast, including a transcript of this episode, at pageonepodcast.com. Thanks.
Charles Adrian
Okay. Hello and welcome to the 151st Page One. This is the 125th Second Hand Book Factory. I'm Charles Adrian and my guest today, in Mile End, in his studio, and you can just hear a plane flying over... I think they're probably going to be lots of planes...
Tim Spooner
[affirmative] Uh huh. Now we listen.
Charles Adrian
Are we... Are we on the...? Yeah, now we're paying attention.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] I suspect we are. I've never noticed before.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Are we on a flight path to London City Airport?
Tim Spooner
Yes, we could be. That might be what it is.
Charles Adrian
Because, where I live, sometimes I'm on the flight path to Heathrow and sometimes not. But I guess we're...
Tim Spooner
Depending on the wind?
Charles Adrian
Depending... No! No, they change them.
Tim Spooner
Ah. Oh! To give people a break.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yeah, they... Yeah. And I really notice on the days when I'm recording and they've changed the fight path. I suddenly go: "Oh, yeah, they are actually a lot louder today. And every two minutes."
Tim Spooner
[laughs] Oh, we'll see.
Charles Adrian
But, um... We're also... We've got, possibly, sounds of birds from the canal outside the window. There were some canoeists who went past. So all of that might happen. I... I'm... I'm quite enthusiastic about this... background sound.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Embracing it.
Charles Adrian
[laughs] Yeah. We've also got the echo of the room, which is a lot bigger and squarer than the room I normally record in. So that's quite different. All that aside, though: Hello, Tim.
Tim Spooner
Hello.
Charles Adrian
Thank you so much for having me this afternoon.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Thanks for... Thanks for having me on.
Charles Adrian
How do you describe yourself?
Tim Spooner
Just as an artist, usually. And then, when I... when I have to get more specific than that, I get a bit tongue-tied. So I do... Well, I think they're equally important and, sort of, part of the same thing, but... there's a performance side to what I do and a... unperformed side to I do. So, paintings and drawings and collages. To me, they feel like they're both, sort of... they're necessary to each other and they're both part of the same process of making things, but they, sort of...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Do you...?
Tim Spooner
... they're quite different products, in a way.
Charles Adrian
Do you mean that they feed each other or that they come from the same place?
Tim Spooner
That they feed each other. Because... Well, I suppose they come from the same place, but... but that was a long time ago now. And, in a way, they're just, kind of... I like to think that they're feeding off each other and it's just one long chain of stuff getting produced, if you see what I mean.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] So it's like... it's almost like a big conversation?
Tim Spooner
Yeah. And not just... not just a conversation between the flat work and the performance work but also between previous... all work in the past and... and the things that come after it.
Charles Adrian
Right.
Tim Spooner
So each thing is, kind of, a development of the last thing. And I like that because... it feels like there's a certain language getting built up and a certain, sort of, logic that... that gets stronger the more you make.
Charles Adrian
Nice. That's... Yeah, that's interesting. [clears throat] Yeah, I'm going to talk about Berlin later on. I was just in Berlin this week looking... watching the latest show from the theatre company I used to work with and that... it's about the twentieth anniversary of their company. And it was interesting to see a piece of work that is explicitly about the history of their work.
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
And there was something... I was thinking to myself: "What would it be like to come to this as the first piece that you've seen by the company?"
Tim Spooner
Yeah... yeah.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] And, in a way, I don't think it makes any difference. It would be beautiful to come to that because you'd have a sense of there being a history. But it's still not.... It's... it's not... There's nothing hermetic about it. There's nothing... I mean, I... So, I don't know your work very well but I... I went online and had a look at your website and, I mean, particularly the... What's the show... the animal show called?
Tim Spooner
The Assembly Of Animals.
Charles Adrian
The Assembly Of Animals... particularly The Assembly Of Animals that I saw... I mean... So, lots of videos... um... It's immediately... [bird call from outside] I mean, it speaks to me really strongly.
Tim Spooner
Oh that's good.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] I don't feel like I have to know all of your other stuff.
Tim Spooner
Yeah. So even those... those... the animals that you saw in those videos that are the, sort of, main character of that show, they've sort of come from somewhere else...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Right. Right.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] ... and, yeah, everything's comes from somewhere else. And I... I just find that very satisfying, I think. So it never feels like you're starting again. Um... And even things...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Do you ever have... do you ever have a desire to just draw a line and say: "Now I'm going to make something that is completely foreign to everything that I've done before?"
Tim Spooner
Yeah, I did, actually. Last year, I had that desire. I don't think I did it but I certainly had it. And it... it was because I'd, kind of... I felt like I'd reached a certain point and I couldn't go any further.
Charles Adrian
[acknowledging] Mmm hmm.
Tim Spooner
And it was with a big... it was, sort of, the show that came after The Assembly Of Animals show. Um. So it had a lot in common with that. But it was just all on a much bigger scale and much more abstract and much more chaotic. So it was, kind of, drawing on all these tendencies in... in the previous work. But it... at the same time, it did feel like a, sort of, wall... there was a, kind of, wall in it but it... I didn't really know what it... I don't know what would be on... be beyond that wall...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Right. Right.
Tim Spooner
... what could be traced beyond it. Because it just felt so big for me to, kind of, manage anything more... more complex than that.
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm hmm.
Tim Spooner
But then I think I've just, sort of... What I've ended up doing is, kind of, taken that work back into parts...
Charles Adrian
Right. [affirmative] Uh huh.
Tim Spooner
... into different parts from the ones it was made up of...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] I see.
Tim Spooner
... I've broken out differently. So I've started doing lots more very simple works, which are... yeah, which are completely part of that work but it's like it disintegrated again.
Charles Adrian
Or that it's come to fruition and produced seeds, which are now...
Tim Spooner
Maybe that's how you could think about it.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] ... growing up... growing into other things.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Yeah. Maybe. If you like...
Charles Adrian
[laughs] That's the image I had when you said that...
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... that you'd broken it down.
Tim Spooner
It felt more like it just crumbled...
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Tim Spooner
... into bits and I'm just picking through it. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
Well, that's the cycle of life.
Tim Spooner
Yeah. Yeah.
Charles Adrian
It's the phoenix. You have to deal with the ash.
Tim Spooner
It's true. Yes. You have to glue the ash back together.
Charles Adrian
[laughs] Yup. What's the book that you have brought that you like?
Tim Spooner
It's this one, which is: New Impressions Of Africa by Raymond Roussel.
Charles Adrian
I don't know about this at all.
Tim Spooner
Good! Because I think the other book...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] It's a beautiful book.
Tim Spooner
... I'm bringing you're going to know and I'm a bit embarrassed.
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Tim Spooner
Um. Well, I know you'll know it. Um. It... In the introduction, it says: "It's perhaps this strange writer's strangest work." And it was published in 1927. I didn't know that until I...
Charles Adrian
[interested] Mmm.
Tim Spooner
... read the introduction. It's really strange. It's great. I love it. It's a poem. And it's, sort of, an inch thick in this edition.
Charles Adrian
It's a square book, isn't it? Pretty much.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] It's a very weird format. It...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] I've not... I don't think I've seen a square book before. Or not very many, at least.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] It's published by Atlas... Atlas Press, which... which publish... It's in the series called Atlas Anti-Classics.
Charles Adrian
I see.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] So, they publish lots of experimental writing from... well, not just from that, sort of, era, but a lot of it's from, sort of, early twentieth century... or first half of the twentieth century. But Raymond Roussel was... was... a little bit earlier and inspired lots of the, kind of, French writers that... that is, kind of, this publisher's focus. So, like the Oulipo... and all of that.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] I see. Right.
Tim Spooner
And pataphysics.
Charles Adrian
So the people who are playing with form and language and rules, I guess.
Tim Spooner
Yeah, like George Perec is the famous one that wrote...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Right.
Tim Spooner
... the book without the letter e in and...
Charles Adrian
Right.
Tim Spooner
... and other... other things.
Charles Adrian
[musing] Mmm.
Tim Spooner
Um. But there's something much more, sort of, strange for me about Roussel's books. They're more, kind of... The... They're all... I don't know about all but lots of them are written to... to, kind of, formulae or, sort of, games or rules. But the... they're much more, sort of, embedded and much more complex and... and strange. And there's much more... Yeah, you feel like you're kind of go... going into something mu... Or I do. You're, sort of, going into some... through some window much more in reading them. Um. So, he's published novels but this one's a poem.
Charles Adrian
And does it feel... Do you... Are you aware of the rules while you're reading it?
Tim Spooner
Um. Well, no. But that's partly... I think, partly, that's because they're embedded and also, partly, it's because he wrote in French so I'm al... I'm always reading translations.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Ah, right. Of course. Yes, but then that's an interesting... that's always an interesting challenge for a translator, isn't it? Whether they should follow the same rule.
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
Or whether they should just translate according to sense or meaning?
Tim Spooner
Yeah. Well, there's lots in this book because it's... it's got the French on the left and the English on the right...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh cool!
Tim Spooner
... where you can sort of...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Right.
Tim Spooner
... compare.
Charles Adrian
Yeah.
Tim Spooner
And you can see that there's quite a lot of... It.... Yeah. It's not... it's not at all literally.
Charles Adrian
Right, right. Oh nice.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] ... [indistinct] translation.
Charles Adrian
Do you want to read us some of it?
Tim Spooner
Yeah. But do you mind if I read... Well, I won't... The first page is actually the French bit. But, also, the first page has only a few lines because it sort of starts halfway down the page.
Charles Adrian
As they often do, yes.
Tim Spooner
So, just... Am I allowed to read the first...
Charles Adrian
[laughs] You c... I will allow you to break my rules, yes.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Okay. Ah, but I think I need to explain something first before I read it. Or maybe... No, I'll... I won't explain it first. I'll just, sort of... We'll see. So this is... The... It's in four parts... four... I think maybe he calls them cantos. I don't know. Four verses, maybe. And this is One, called Damietta, the house where Louis the ninth was held prisoner:
Tim Spooner
It surely makes us think and slow our gait to learn that here, behind this very gate, St Louis the ninth was three months held in keep. But this fact true and tangible we keep in this land scattered with such marvelous ruins, the oldest that are known to us. Anything else might date from yesterday. The name whose proud yet crushed bearer can say from memory, straight off, and without fail...
open brackets
...as the occupant by the topmost rail of a high block in airy garret knows, a photographer skilled in hiding crow's feet and pimples with wily stratagems...
open a second bracket
... art of retouching, as decked out in gems...
open a third bracket
... each, when having a proud photo taken of his beloved self, will stand unshaken and wonder if, by breathing, he will budge enough to turn this form into a smudge on the dark green plate beneath the reddish lamp...
open fourth bracket
... and so wonder: Is he really a scamp? The bore who, with a look...
open fifth bracket
... a spark sometimes can set ladders where many a fireman climbs to quench an Etna once a household glad...
Footnote:
To douse a fire: If only we had a giant sprinter when homes are aflame. Should a true rescuer look on in shame, pouting from far away in sulkiness?
End of the footnote and closing of the fifth bracket.
Charles Adrian
Wow. I don't... None of that makes any sense to me at all.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] No. Well, it's really...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] It's curiously beautiful.
Tim Spooner
...it's really difficult to read.
Charles Adrian
Yes.
Tim Spooner
Um.
Charles Adrian
Also, just looking over at the book, it's interesting that he doesn't just open a single bracket each time. He... he's increasing the number of brackets each time he opens them, isn't he?
Tim Spooner
Yeah. So that's how you can tell which bracket you're, kind of, within.
Charles Adrian
Which is a much... It... It's a... It is quite clear.
Tim Spooner
Yeah. It... So it goes to a maximum of five... five brackets within brackets, I think. So, at the m... Yeah. So, at the moment, we're still... we're, kind of, inside all five of them. And then the brackets start to close [indistinct]...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh, and then he closes them individually.
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Right. Rather than those five closing brackets being the end of all of them.
Tim Spooner
Yes. Exactly.
Charles Adrian
I see. I see.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Yes. Exactly.
Charles Adrian
Ah. So you know which one... So it's almost like a... that's, like, a code in itself... [or whatever].
Tim Spooner
Yeah. Yeah. So... So, by the end of the... So, in a way, the only bit that's not inside some level of bracketing is... is the very beginning in the very end. So...
Charles Adrian
Right. And I think that's the bit that I did understand. I mean, I got... I got the image of Louis in his tower. [laughs]
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And then, after it... So, it comes back to Louis at the end of the poem, which is about twenty pages later.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] I see. Wow!
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] And so that sentence finishes...
Charles Adrian
Right. I see.
Tim Spooner
... a long way into the book. So you, sor... So you... What I like about it is that there are... there are different choices about how you read it. So you can, sort of, either flip back and forth...
Charles Adrian
Right.
Tim Spooner
... and try and work out what... er piece... you know, piece those sentences back together.
Charles Adrian
Yes.
Tim Spooner
Or you can just experience this thing, which is... I find much more interesting, actually, which is just... and I have a feeling it's, kind of, reading it... I'm putting that in brackets... er, reading it...
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Tim Spooner
... to yourself probably more than out loud... this really strange feeling of, kind of, telescoping.
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm. Mmm.
Tim Spooner
You... It really feels like you're zooming out more than zooming in, actually. There's some feeling of, kind of, space growing around this thing as... as the... as the first line and the last line, kind of, move away from each other, as you keep opening these brackets and... and starting foot... There are also footnotes, which... which are a, kind of, another opening up. [sound of voices talking outside] So, yeah, it's... it's... it's... To me, it's less about the... And it's, sort of... In a way, it's kind of silly poetry, but it's... um... It's... it's... it's about... So it just takes it completely beyond that and it's more of a, sort of, abstract experience of... of er... of the words traveling rather than... rather than attaching to meaning.
Charles Adrian
Yeah. That's interesting.
Tim Spooner
And then the other thing that... the other really weird thing about the book is that, in between... How can I describe this? Every other spread is... hasn't been cut.
Charles Adrian
Yes, I noticed that there are pages uncut. Oh, I see!
Tim Spooner
So it's in between every... yes.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] And that's designed to be like that?
Tim Spooner
It's designed to be like that and...
Charles Adrian
So they're almost hidden.
Tim Spooner
Yeah. And inside each one is an illustration.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] It's almost like a whole other book. Wow.
Tim Spooner
Um. Yeah.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] [indistinct] Saint Louis in prison in Damietta.
Tim Spooner
And, again, they're, sort of, really... they're a bit, sort of, rubbishy...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh, gorgeous.
Tim Spooner
... illustrations.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Well, they're... they remind me of... they remind me of books that I've inherited [sound of plane flying over] from my parents or... or from my grandparents. From children's books from, say, the beginning of the twentieth century or...
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... beginning, mid twentieth century. But yes, as you say, they're, kind of, just... they're pen and ink.
Tim Spooner
Yeah. And they're a little bit quick.
Charles Adrian
Right. Yeah.
Tim Spooner
Um. And...
Charles Adrian
But fun!
Tim Spooner
Yeah. Yeah. And... And the way he did it was...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] They have [indistinct] spirit.
Tim Spooner
... he... he commissioned someone to do them. And all he gave them were... were the little descriptions, which are printed opposite them. So...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Right. And there... Well, and that's... that forms... It's interesting because the shape of that becomes another sort of bracket. It's bracketed...
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
by the... by the closed pages, or the...
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... sealed up page. Ah, that's so interesting, all of this. I mean, this is all stuff that is very foreign to me in the sense that I don't... I don't get on very well with... with literature that is more about form than about meaning. I'm very much about mea...
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
I grab onto meaning very, very strongly. But, er...
Tim Spooner
I think I hate meaning,
Charles Adrian
Oh right.
Tim Spooner
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
I'm becoming more comfortable with... with something that skirts around meaning or where the meaning is not in the... in the [laughing] phrases themselves.
Tim Spooner
Yeah. Yeah.
Charles Adrian
But I find that very challenging.
Tim Spooner
I... I think his novels are more... are weird because they are really enjoyable at the same time and...
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Tim Spooner
... and... I can't... Yeah. I don't know if they... I don't know what it means to say that they, sort of, go somewhere. But...
Charles Adrian
Yes.
Tim Spooner
... they do more than...
Charles Adrian
Right.
Tim Spooner
... more than this. This is... This feels like the purest...
Charles Adrian
[musing] Mmm.
Tim Spooner
... kind of, experiment. But I started reading the novels and that, sort of, got me into...
Charles Adrian
Right. Right.
Tim Spooner
... into this strange thing.
Charles Adrian
Very nice. So what was it called again?
Tim Spooner
It's called New Impressions Of Africa.
Charles Adrian
Nice. [laughs]
Tim Spooner
And that's because it's... One of his novels is called Impressions Of Africa.
Charles Adrian
[laughing] I see.
Tim Spooner
So this is like a sequel but it's not.
Charles Adrian
It's such a great... because it sounds like one of those grandiloquent books written at the end of the nineteenth century.
Tim Spooner
Well, that's... Yeah. And...
Charles Adrian
Or something by Laurens van der Post, perhaps.
Tim Spooner
And each... each... each of the four sections is about a place in Africa.
Charles Adrian
Right. I see.
Tim Spooner
But there's only ever really a few lines about that place before the brackets start opening...
Charles Adrian
[laughs] [speaking over] Right.
Tim Spooner
... and he just starts talking about other things...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Nice.
Tim Spooner
... but it's li... I mean, there's huge lists in it as well.
Charles Adrian
[musing] Mmm.
Tim Spooner
Pages and pages of lists and compar... you know, comparisons.
Charles Adrian
It sounds amazing.
Tim Spooner
Yeah, it's... it's fun to read. It does give you a sensation to read it. It's quite hard work.
Charles Adrian
Yeah.
Tim Spooner
But I read it again yesterday just because... because of this. And you, sort of, want to stop all the time because it's frustrating but, at the same time...
Charles Adrian
Yeah.
Tim Spooner
... you have to keep going. And it... And it's really that... I mean, that feeling that I'm sure everyone has of, kind of, reading and then realising you don't know... you haven't really been concentrating. You've just been reading a few pages.
Charles Adrian
[laughs] [speaking over] Yeah. I know that feeling. Yes.
Tim Spooner
It really generates that...
Tim and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Tim Spooner
... that feeling a lot.
Charles Adrian
I think that's why I would find it so difficult. Because I find that so frustrating.
Tim and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Tim Spooner
Yeah. But... But, like I say, there's something in... Every time a bracket opens, there's, like, a little, kind of, [breathes in]...
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Tim Spooner
... intake of breath or a little... It's like you're bre... yeah, taking in more...
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm.
Tim Spooner
... each time into your perspective. Like something's expanding all the time. Um... Yeah.
Charles Adrian
So the book that I've brought for you is... is similar and different, I would say. It's different in the sense that it is really all about meaning and not about form at all. And I'm not sure that the style necessarily has all that much to recommend it. It's... it's a page-turner. It's by Len Dayton...
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Okay.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] It's called Funeral In Berlin. And it's... it's fun. I mean, I love this kind of story anyway. I'm a big John Le Carré fan, who I think is a... writes more interesting prose. But it's a kind of... I mean, this is one of those classic paperbacks, it's... it's... it's in paperback format, where I guess it's... is it two by one? Not quite two by one.
Tim Spooner
I like that we have to discuss the shape of the book now because of the last one.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Because it is important, isn't it? Yeah, this is now... yeah, exactly. This is... I'm just measuring it with my hand. So, from the bottom to the top of the spine, it's the... it's the height of my hand...
Tim Spooner
[affirmative] Mmm hmm.
Charles Adrian
... the length of my hand and then across the top, it's just a bit bigger than my fingers from the end... from the end of my middle finger to the knuckle of my middle finger. So it's that shape and it... so it very easily fits in a bag. It's very light.
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
It's an airport sort of read. But at the same time it has... I think what it shares with your book is the quality of the... of the opening up of perspectives...
Tim Spooner
Okay.
Charles Adrian
... which I think is the thing that I really like about all of this kind of spy literature... is the idea that you think you know the story and then... and then you get a bit through and you realise: "Oh, no, okay, there's something that I didn't know about this" and something... a door opens up and you see...
Tim Spooner
Yeah, okay. Yes.
Charles Adrian
... a whole new perspective...
Tim Spooner
You zoom out.
Charles Adrian
... which is it usually to do with identities, but also motives. And I find that interesting.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Yep.
Charles Adrian
And he uses... Throughout this book, he uses the metaphor of... of chess, which is... I really don't think it's that brilliant or subtle, but it's a...
Tim and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
... it's a classic spy metaphor. Um. But, particularly, I thought of it because I know that you were in Leipzig...
Tim Spooner
Yes!
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] ... last week doing The Assembly Of Animals. And I've visited Leipzig. But I was also in Berlin earlier this week and, on Wednesday, it was the 29th anniversary of the falling of the wall.
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
Or, at least, it was the... it was the Tag Der Deutscher [sic] Einheit. And I'm not sure whether that's the day that the wall fell or the day after. I...
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Okay.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] I'm not sure which day it commemorates. But, in any case, 29 years! I was thinking: "Wow, that's... that's..." You know, I remember the Berlin Wall...
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... falling, and every time that I've been in Berlin working, I... I very quickly become obsessed with the wall and where it used to be, and how it used to divide these different communities or the different parts of the city, which you can now... you know, you can now step across...
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... without a thought. And there used to be this absolute barrier there, which is more than a concrete barrier. You know, it's an ideological barrier but it's also a... You know, there are... there's so much that is represented by the wall. And Berlin itself is so fascinating to me because West Berlin was... and I didn't realize until I started working there... is an... was an island inside East Germany.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Yeah. Yeah.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] I hadn't really appreciated that.
Tim Spooner
I always forget that.
Charles Adrian
I thought that the wall was the gateway to East Germany.
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
But it's not.
Tim Spooner
No.
Charles Adrian
It's the bit that seals off West Berlin from everything around it.
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
So I find that so exciting. And so I'm not absolutely sure when... when this is set but... I'm assuming the sixties. I don't know. In any case, it describes a Berlin that is... that is not there anymore. And yet the Berlin that is there now is is also full of the memory of the wall.
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
The wall, I think, really still looms large over people's imagination there and the way that... the way that Berlin is presented to tourists and to people coming in, and maybe even still to the world, although lots of about it is changing. So I thought... yeah. I thought you might enjoy this.
Tim Spooner
I think I will.
Charles Adrian
I mean, I'm giving it... it's a kind of self indulgent thing... that I get to [laughs] talk about Berlin and the wall, but I hope that you will enjoy it.
1
Players move alternately - only one at a time.
Saturday, October 5th
It was one of those artificially hot days that they used to call ‘Indian summer’. It was no time to be paying a call to Bina Gardens, in south-west London, if there was a time for it.
Outside the house I sought there was a bright card tied to the railings with green twine. On it in large exact capitals was penned ‘Lost - Siamese cat. Answers to the name Confucius.’
Answers what? I walked up the steps where the sun was warming up a pint of Jersey and a banana-flavour yogurt. Tucked behind the bottles a Daily Mail peeped its headline ‘Berlin a new crisis?’ There were buttons on that door-post like on a pearly king's hat but only one said ‘Robert [sic] J. Hallam, FRSA’ in a flowing copperplate; that was the one I pressed.
‘You haven't seen Confucius?’
Tim Spooner
[chuckles]
Charles Adrian
There you go. That's all you get on the first page
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Great. Oh...
Charles Adrian
Of course, the other thing is that it's also set in London. It shuttles...
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... between London and Berlin. And London... I find that interesting. Because London... Obviously, there's no wall... no wall has fallen so, in the sense of movement, nothing has changed. You can still... you can still go to Bina Gardens, presumably, in the same way that you could when... when this is set. But, nevertheless, London has also changed enormously. So...
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Yeah. Yeah.
Charles Adrian
I think that... I find that intriguing. How these cities... How they evolve, in a way. How they develop.
Tim Spooner
Yeah, in a very fluid...
Charles Adrian
Yes.
Tim Spooner
Very... There's nothing... There's not much concrete about...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] No.
Tim Spooner
... about what we make on top of the land. You know, there's something very... I went past a street that I used to live on a while ago and it's not... it's not even there... it's not even going in the same direction anymore. It's...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] That's amazing! Wow!
Tim Spooner
It's so, sort of, levelled and...
Charles Adrian
Yes!
Tim Spooner
... yeah, I think we... we kind of think these things are more solid than they are.
Charles Adrian
Yeah, we do, don't we. But, of course, we're sitting here on the edge of Mile End Park. I walked through Mile End Park to get to the studios and they have a board explaining the history of Mile End Park...
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... and even there, you know, you see from the Peasants Revolt, where Mile End Green was... was the place where all the peasants gathered and Richard the second came out, and then you've got all the... all the stuff that was built and then... and then bombed in the Second World War...
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... and then, you know, new stuff built and things going up. We're looking out over a development which is presumably not much more than twenty years old. I don't know.
Tim Spooner
I guess. I don't know.
Charles Adrian
Twenty, thirty years but not much more than that, I would have thought. I'm not an expert. I'm not an architecture expert. But this is... this has shifted again within our lifetimes.
Tim Spooner
[affirmative] Mmm.
Charles Adrian
If we'd come here in 1989, it probably would have looked quite different.
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
The building that we're in is much older. But I like that as well, that the old sits alongside the new and...
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] ... as you say, routes change as well...
Tim Spooner
Yes. Yes. [indistinct]
Charles Adrian
... which I think it's beautiful. And the ghosts... but the ghosts of old routes are still... are still there.
Tim Spooner
Yeah, well, like the canal. It would be hard to get rid of that. But...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Right.
Tim Spooner
... but the park that you walk through...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] So that gives... exactly. That gives a kind of shape to the way that any building happens.
Tim Spooner
Yeah, it has to, sort of, have a relationship with that.
Charles Adrian
Yeah.
Tim Spooner
But the... I find that park interesting because... I mean, I don't know that much about it. I've read that sign...
Charles Adrian
Yes! [laughs]
Tim Spooner
... that you read. I think it's there because there was a lot of other stuff there that got bombed and then they decided to...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Right. Yes.
Tim Spooner
... kind of, keep it.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] They must have cleared it away and kept the... kept the land.
Tim Spooner
Yeah, and... but, sort of, previous to that, it must have been a, kind of... it must have been important for things to... industry to be near the canal.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yes, that's true.
Tim Spooner
But now... or when they decided not to rebuild, things had changed by then, you know...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yes.
Tim Spooner
... it wasn't such a... wasn't such an artery.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Well, you can see that the canal is clearly not used in the same way.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Yeah.
Charles Adrian
I mean, it's... it's... it's... I mean, apart from the canoeists who went past, there's no... there are no great barges going past.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] No, you... No, you don't see any of that, actually. Yeah.
Charles Adrian
Yeah. And all of these buildings... these buildings that would have been, presumably, warehouses and, you know, fully of bits and bobs.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Exactly. Yeah. They're here because the canal's here.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Mmm. And now... Yeah. And now they're... they're part of that change. Your... You know, you have your studio here and then there are flats and... Yeah. I find all of that, kind of, fascinating and beautiful. Anyway, so that's what I'm... Here it is: Funeral...
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] We didn't talk about the book at all. [indisctinct]
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] We didn't talk about the book. Yeah. The book... I mean, it's just fun.
Tim Spooner
Yeah, well, I need that...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] I hope you enjoy it.
Tim Spooner
... because I feel like I'm in this world of...
[sound of microphone being hit]
Charles Adrian
Sorry. I just hit the... [laughs] Say that again.
Tim and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Tim Spooner
I think I need that because I do sometimes feel stuck in this world of doing my work. There's this, sort of, brain space that my work, kind of, requires or puts me in and the kind of thing I tend to read and listen... Well, you know what the kind of thing I tend to read now.
Charles Adrian
Yes. [laughs]
Tim Spooner
It can be... It can get a bit...
Tim and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Tim Spooner
I sometimes want something like this.
Charles Adrian
I think it's necessary. I think it's really...
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Yeah.
Charles Adrian
Well. I have a big... I think... I think fallow periods are necessary...
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... and this is a kind of book to fill a fallow period...
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... because it requires... You have to follow the story but it... it's... it's designed... And I don't... I'm... I'm not talking it down by saying this. It's designed to be easy to read...
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... which I think is a... is...
Tim Spooner
There's nothing wrong with that. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
... is one of Len Deighton's skills. He... Because it's immensely complicated, I think. Spying is very complicated, or it can be. And he leads you through in a way that is gripping and... and doesn't require that you reread large sections,
Tim Spooner
[affirmative] Mmm.
Charles Adrian
... I don't think.
Tim Spooner
[affirmative] Mmm.
Charles Adrian
And I think that's... that's one of the reasons I like the book so much.
Tim Spooner
I'll enjoy this.
Charles Adrian
And what's the book that you think I should have?
Tim Spooner
I'm sure you've already got it. I don't know why I chose it. I chose it because it had a relationship with what... the other thing I brought... is this.
Charles Adrian
Oh, right!
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Have you read it? Pale Fire.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yes. Somebody else gave it to me, actually.
Tim Spooner
Ah.
Charles Adrian
Yeah, but that is a beautiful edition of it.
Tim Spooner
It's nice, isn't it?
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yeah.
Tim Spooner
It's covered in coffee a little bit.
Charles Adrian
Oh, well that's... makes it even nicer, in my opinion.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Yeah.
Charles Adrian
But it's got a picture of...
Tim and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Tim Spooner
I don't know. It's quite complicated.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Who's that supposed to be on the front?
Tim Spooner
I think it's meant to be the poet...
Charles Adrian
Right.
Tim Spooner
... whatshisname. John Shade.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yeah. I don't rem... I've literally just read this.
Tim Spooner
Oh no!
Charles Adrian
Yes. I'm sorry.
Tim Spooner
Well, I've got other things I can give you. But I had... yeah.
Charles Adrian
Do you want to swap it out for something else? I don't want to take this beautiful copy.
Tim Spooner
Well, we can talk about it and I can give you something else. Is that ridiculous?
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] We could do that. Yeah, that's... that must be him writing his... writing his... um... his poem, which I really enjoyed. I really liked the poem.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] As a poem?
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] As a poem.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Yeah.
Charles Adrian
I think it's beautiful.
Tim Spooner
Well, it's similarly, sort of, sing... It's, sort of... I think it's rhyming couplets, this...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yeah... er...
Tim Spooner
Oh no, it's not. It's a bit more complicated than that. But it still feels very singy-songy in the way that the other...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yes.
Tim Spooner
... the other thing I read does and feels quite... yeah... deceptively simple, I suppose.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yes. But it's very... Well, it's quite moving and... it starts with that beautiful image of looking out from inside... looking out of window and seeing a reflection of the room outside and then imagining that the room is also there in the garden.
Tim Spooner
Yeah. Yeah.
Charles Adrian
I think that's just gorgeous. It's so concrete.
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
But... but, at the same time, so... It builds this beautiful, kind of, scaffolding that you can hang your imagination on.
Tim Spooner
[affirmative] Mmm.
Charles Adrian
I... I think that... I mean, I had to read that a few times to get it in my head and to understand where he was going from there. But nevertheless...
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Well, that's my... that was my problem with it and I... the reason... the other reason I, sort of, thought you sho... it would be good for you is that you'd probably be able to decipher it better than I could.
Charles Adrian
In general, I can't. I... I read... I mean, obviously, I read it and then I must have read the introduction that was in the... in the edition that I was given and whoever wrote the introduction had read all kinds of things into it that I certainly didn't.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Oh right, yeah.
Charles Adrian
All kinds of clues about who these people were and what had happened and... I mean, I took it more or less at face value. [laughs]
Tim Spooner
Yeah, I think I did. But then it... I think I got confused because I felt like I should be enjoying it more than I was.
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Tim Spooner
Or that I would... I would... it would... I'd kind of enter into it at some stage...
Charles Adrian
Right.
Tim Spooner
... and I was, kind of, waiting for that to happen. And then... And I still didn't...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] I did enter into the story of this guy who is the king of whatever country it is...
Tim Spooner
Zembla.
Charles Adrian
Zembla.
Tim and Charles Adrian
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
I liked him and I like that... I liked that he was unashamedly gay as well.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Yeah.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] I thought that was great. I don't know what Nabokov's views on that are. I mean, I feel like, because he... he's, kind of, implicitly criticising the character as a whole, I feel like maybe his homosexuality is part of his untrustworthiness.
Tim Spooner
Oh [indistinct].
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] But I like the fact that it was ju... it was... it's very unapologetic.
Tim Spooner
Yeah. And it... And gay in a, sort of... sort of, romanticised old-fashioned way.
Charles Adrian
[laughing] Yes.
Tim Spooner
It's really funny.
Tim and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Tim Spooner
Yeah. Um. But... And I suppose, also, I... I chose it because it's got that relationship to the... a kind of, very strong form relationship where it, kind of, exists as a... as a fictional...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Right. Yes.
Tim Spooner
... poem. A, sort of... a fictional poem. Does that exist? And then it also gives these footnotes...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yeah. That, in itself, is an interesting concept, isn't it?
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
This poem that's written for the sake of having the notes written for it...
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Exactly.
Charles Adrian
... but it is also a poem.
Tim Spooner
Yeah. Yeah. But... but it's written by someone that doesn't exist.
Charles Adrian
Yes. Yeah.
Tim Spooner
Yeah. And the same for the footnotes.
Charles Adrian
And, of course, yeah, then you also have the decision of how you read it.
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
Whether you read the footnotes first or whether you read it as... as it's being... because the... Oh I don't remember... I'm so bad with names but the Zemblan guy, or the non-Zemblan guy, tells us how to read it...
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Charles.
Charles Adrian
... doesn't he?
Tim Spooner
Yes.
Charles Adrian
He gives us instructions.
Tim Spooner
I think he tells us to read it... read the poem and then read the notes and then read... I think it tells us to read it two or three times.
Charles Adrian
Yes. In a particular order, though, isn't it?
Tim Spooner
Yeah. I can't remember.
Charles Adrian
But, in any case, I don't think I did do that. I think I read each canto of the poem and then the notes...
Tim Spooner
Yes, that's what I did. Yeah.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] ... attached to that canto. But you that you could do it note by note or... I like that. I think that's nice.
Tim Spooner
If you like flicking back and forth.
Charles Adrian
Yeah.
Tim Spooner
Yeah, well, it's something I want to read again because it... yeah, it frustrated me...
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Tim Spooner
the fact that... Yeah, I don't know what it was. I think it was not knowing...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Kinbote. That's his name, isn't it.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Kinbote.
Charles Adrian
Kinbote. Yeah. Sorry.
Tim Spooner
I think it was not knowing how... which I don't normally have a problem with... not knowing quite on what level to be taking it.
Charles Adrian
Right.
Tim Spooner
And taking it and really just reading it for what it was, I think, but then, maybe, feeling like I was... I should be reading in a different way.
Charles Adrian
Yeah. Yeah. I know what you mean. There's a kind of... I mean, I wouldn't have wanted to be a literary critic when it came out tasked with writing about it because I think... it does seem to be... I had the feeling that Nabokov writes it as a way of tripping up critics.
Tim Spooner
Oh right. Okay.
Charles Adrian
Or as a way of inviting you to be too clever...
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Well, that's even quite a useful way of looking at it. Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... about it. Because it is... I mean, it's fun in the... in the way that... Is it... It reminded... It reminded me of... oh, what is that? There is a... there is a book about some king of some, I think, Central European... you know, invented Central European country where there's a revolution and... I can't remember what that is called, but it has a similar feeling to that. It feels like it draws on... I think that's also... kind of, mid twentieth century.
Tim Spooner
Mmm.
Charles Adrian
That kind of nostalgia for decaying monarchy...
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... and obviously, you know, revolution and so on, and what does that do and... I love the image of all of... all of the loyalists dressing up as the king and walking around...
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Yes.
Charles Adrian
... on that particular day so that he can get out.
Tim Spooner
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
They're all being arrested left, right and center because they're wearing exactly [laughing] what he was wearing. And I think that's just... I mean, it's ludicrous. But it's very sweet in that way that we're supposed to believe that loyal monarchists are.
Tim Spooner
Yeah. Yeah.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] They do silly things to protect their silly kings.
Tim Spooner
Yeah. And, yeah, sorry to keep bringing it back to why I, sort of, found it... found it difficult but I think it's that the funness of it, the fact that...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Mmm.
Tim Spooner
... it's really silly and fun, the story that's kind of gradually emerging in these footnotes against the formal stuff...
Charles Adrian
Right. Yeah.
Tim Spooner
... that really sort of discombobulated me, I think.
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Tim Spooner
Because, actually, it's just really a fun story.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yeah. Yeah. But also, I mean, the poem is very sad, isn't it?
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
Yeah. And that's... No, it's nice. I... Yeah. I like that too. I like that... that you're never quite sure what ground you're standing on.
Tim Spooner
[affirmative] Mmm. Mmm.
Charles Adrian
Well, it's an excellent choice even if I'm not going to take it off you. This is the first time...
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] I'll give you something else.
Charles Adrian
... that I have not taken a book. But it does seem... I don't know. I don't feel like I should take this book from you.
Tim Spooner
You could give me your copy.
Charles Adrian
I don't have it with me.
Tim Spooner
No, of course. I didn't assume...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] I could, yeah. We could swap.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] ... you had it with you.
Tim and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
Carry them all in a... in a big suitcase. [laughs] My growing library.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] a hundred and fifty-one, did you say?
Charles Adrian
Well, I've only got a hundred and twenty-something books...
Tim Spooner
Okay.
Charles Adrian
... because not all of the episodes were interviews like this...
Tim Spooner
Oh, okay.
Charles Adrian
... and not everybody has given me a book.
Tim Spooner
Okay.
Charles Adrian
... so I have something under a hundred and twenty-five books.
Tim Spooner
It's enough.
Charles Adrian
It's enough. It's enough. I've read all but about eight of them at this point. I'm working my way through them. [laughs] What's... So what's the alternative that you would give me? If you have to choose quickly?
Tim Spooner
Well, the other ones I've got... I mean, these are things I've read... This one's even more coffee stained.
Charles Adrian
It's also beautiful.
Tim Spooner
It's a good cover, isn't it?
Charles Adrian
Yeah.
Tim Spooner
Yeah. This one. They're both Calvino books.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Okay. So, I have also read that.
Tim Spooner
Uh!
Charles Adrian
Well, no, but I would prefer that one to the If On A Winter's Night... I don't like If On A Winter's Night A Traveler. I'm... I'm one of the only people who doesn't like it.
Tim Spooner
[laughs] I didn't like it as much as this one. I love this one.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] I really like The...
Tim and Charles Adrian
Cosmicomics.
Charles Adrian
I think... No, they're my absolute favourite. I studied Calvino. Sorry. This is becoming all about me now.
Tim Spooner
No, please.
Charles Adrian
I studied Calvino as part of my degree and The Cosmicomics were pretty much my favourite thing...
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... that he wrote. I think they're just gorgeous. The mixture of the f... the rigidity that... He gives himself such strong rules, doesn't he? He says...
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Yes.
Charles Adrian
... these people are not allowed to move for these reasons or they can't meet or whatever it is. And then, inside that, these very human stories.
Tim Spooner
Yeah. And because of those rules they end up.... I mean, they're... they end up being short stories, which... Yeah, I think... It's something you said about things being able to be, kind of, explained very briefly...
Charles Adrian
Right.
Tim Spooner
... and I think... I think that each little story is a, sort of, complete...
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm.
Tim Spooner
... universe that's... that's... yeah... as you said, sort of, sets a few rules off in motion and then follows them until they, kind of, curl back around on themselves.
Charles Adrian
Right. Yeah. Yeah. They're very... very economical. And very... I also... I like... I like short things...
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... because I like to be able to... I like to get the whole idea and then move on to the next idea. And that... they're very... I find those very pleasing.
Tim Spooner
Yeah. Yeah. But you can't have any of these.
Charles Adrian
What?
Tim Spooner
You've got them all. Is that... Is that what you said?
Charles Adrian
Yes.
Tim Spooner
I should give you a [indistinct]...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] But that doesn't... No. I'm... The reason I'm not taking Pale Fire is because I've just read it...
Tim Spooner
Okay.
Charles Adrian
... and so I'm not going to reread it now. I would take the... I would take The... because I don't have that in English.
Tim Spooner
Oh great! This one?
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] I have that in Italian. Yes.
Tim Spooner
Perfect.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] And it is a beautiful book. I like the cover. And I like the coffee stains [indistinct].
Tim Spooner
I like that it's very... very, very covered in coffee.
Charles Adrian
No, that's great. I haven't read this.... I haven't read any of these for... for a long time and so... I do like getting books that I've read...
Tim Spooner
Okay.
Charles Adrian
... as a... as an... as a, kind of, spur to reread things.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Yes. Yeah.
Charles Adrian
I do enjoy that. But, as I say, Pale Fire is just... it's too recent. Um. I'm sure there's lots that I don't remember about these stories.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Well, every time I read it, I've sort of forgotten...
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm.
Tim Spooner
... almost all of it.
Charles Adrian
There's only about one that I really remember... or I might remember The Aquatic Uncle, which I'm just flicking through now... but I remember one about the three... the three particles spinning around each other...
Tim Spooner
Oh maybe I remember this.
Charles Adrian
... and they have strange names, I think. And one of them is in love with the one in the middle but is jealous of the one on the other side...
Tim Spooner
Right.
Charles Adrian
... and because they're spinning at a constant rate, they're never going to get any closer to each other...
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... none of them are ever going to get any closer to each other. So it's only about the perception of where the attention is going.
Tim Spooner
I see. Yeah.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] That's what drives the jealousy, which drives the story.
Tim Spooner
And maybe drives the motion.
Charles Adrian
Yeah, maybe. Yeah. Right. And that... so I find that so... yeah, so beautifully economical...
Tim Spooner
[affirmative] Mmm.
Charles Adrian
... as a way of... as a storytelling device. But, also, it's a very lovely story. And very sad.
Tim Spooner
Mmm. Yeah.
Charles Adrian
I wrote my... the essay that I wrote about Calvino was all about his characters' inability to actually connect with the women that they're in love with.
Tim Spooner
Right.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] So, generally male characters... straight male characters in love with a woman who is... It's the same in If On A Winter's Night A Traveler. She's always moving away...
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Yes. Yeah.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] She's the other side of a chasm or she's...
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] With her back to you.
Charles Adrian
Exactly. They're never... they never get any closer, those women. And I found that very touching about his writing.
Tim Spooner
[affirmative] Mmm. That's what it's...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] It seems to be a real thread through a lot of his stories
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] That's what he's talking about. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yeah. I think so.
Tim Spooner
Yeah. The one I remember is the snail that invents time by growing a shell in that book.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh! I don't remember that.
Tim Spooner
I always think about it, and I can't ever quite remember how he puts those... puts those words together to make this thing that makes sense but...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Mmm.
Tim Spooner
... it really does. He really describes the way a snail is growing a... the first snail grown first snail shell...
Charles Adrian
Right.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] ...spiral shell. Maybe it's underwater. I can't remember. And it's that... that action that... of making that spiral... that spiraling in on itself, or out on itself, that is the thing that makes and defines what time is. It's...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Wow.
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] It's the first instance of time. But it's... it's so, sort of, real when you read it that it feels totally...
Charles Adrian
Mmm. Yeah.
Tim Spooner
... not like a metaphor. It feels like a reality.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Right. Right. Right. Yes, I think that's... actually that's a really... What you've... I think you've put your finger on something that is particularly strong in his writing... is that... that he's able to write these allegorical stories that feel absolutely real. Um. Maybe that's why I liked his... his writing so much.
Tim Spooner
Mmm. Yeah.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Because you... I'm not that keen on allegories that are just allegories or that...
Tim Spooner
[speaking over] Yeah. [indistinct] Yeah.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] ... you know, that we can only understand as... as comments on something else but you... Yeah, the... the... that level of... That we can enter the stories as real stories is so wonderful.
Tim Spooner
Yeah. And it's like an allegory that is... is not just an allegory, it's also the, sort of, perfect example of something...
Charles Adrian
Right.
Tim Spooner
... and that's what...
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm.
Tim Spooner
... kind of expresses it.
Charles Adrian
Oh, nice. Thank you so much.
Tim Spooner
Pleasure. Thank you.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] This has been... This has been so lovely. It's... Actually, it's a... we're at the beginning of October when we're doing this recording but it is just an amazing day. It is actually... I suppose it's what used to be called, as Len Deighton puts it, an Indian summer.
Tim and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Tim Spooner
Does he? I'll look forward to that.
Charles Adrian
I think we're... That's... that was in the first page you weren't paying attention.
Tim Spooner
Oh I wasn't. Oh. I've forgotten already.
Charles Adrian
[laughs] Caught you out!
Tim and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
I think October is Indian summer...
Tim Spooner
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... season, isn't it?
Tim Spooner
That's when it's meant to happen.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] And it is... it's really warm today. It's beautiful.
Tim Spooner
Well, the sun comes around. It's just coming in.
Charles Adrian
It's about reach me where I'm sitting.
Tim Spooner
Yeah, Yeah. So you can see the... you can see the light coming across the room.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh. It's gorgeous. And you've got geraniums and succulents.
Tim Spooner
Yes, and that one that... I don't know what it's called... that reaches down.
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm. Yeah, it's kind of sprawling or...
Tim Spooner
[affirmative] Mmm.
Charles Adrian
Yeah. It's lovely. Lovely afternoon. Thank you, Tim.
Tim Spooner
Thank you.
[Initial transcription by https://otter.ai]