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Episode image is a detail of a photograph taken by Charles Adrian.
Reflecting on the situation in London, Athens and Stockholm twenty-four hours after recording the first of these Page One In Review episodes, Charles Adrian talks about books that he was given in Page Ones 11, 12 and 14.
Correction: when Charles Adrian uses the phrase “half a dozen of one and six of the other” he means something more like “it’s a bit of this and a bit of that”. He also has Reginald (in Reginald’s Christmas Revel) popping a plastic bag where the original text provides him with a paper bag.
Life Through The Eyes Of A Dog, sung by Fogo Islander Aiden Foley and recorded by Lucy Pawlak, can be heard as part of Page One 35.
Marmite, for listeners who have not come across it, is the name of a yeast spread that is popular in the UK. It has a strong, salty flavour and is famously considered to divide opinion. You can read more about it on Wikipedia here.
The book Charles Adrian describes here as “Londoners by Craig somebody or other” is in fact by Craig Taylor.
Books discussed here were previously discussed in Page One 11, Page One 12 and Page One 14.
A transcript of this episode is below.
Episode recorded: 19th March, 2020.
Episode released: 28th April, 2020.
Book listing:
The Shipping News by Annie Proulx (Page One 11)
Selected Short Stories Of “Saki” by “Saki” (Page One 12)
Ocean Sea by Alessandro Baricco (trans. Alastair McEwen) (Page One 14)
Links:
Episode transcript:
Jingle
You're listening to Page One, the book podcast.
Charles Adrian
Hello and welcome to the 158th Page One. I'm Charles Adrian. This is the second in a series of Page One episodes that I'm calling Page One In Review. I think I mentioned that without really explaining it most of the way through the episode that I recorded yesterday, which was the first of the Page One In Review episodes.
I have been planning to do this for a while - you know, go through all of the books that I've been given in the Second Hand Book Factory editions of the podcast - and talk about the books - talk about what I thought of them, whether I liked them or not, what I remember about them - and I haven't, in all the time that I've been thinking about doing this, been able to come up with a better name than Page One In Review, although it is inaccurate in the sense that I'm not going to be reading any first pages and I'm certainly not planning to review any of the books. But it's a... I... it's... it's very... it sounds pleasing to me and, as an acronym, it's [spelling] P O I R, which... which I'm pronouncing poir [/pwɑːr/]. And, of course, poire with an E is the French for pear and I'm a big fan of pears. It's also... It's a lovely sound, isn't it, 'poir'. It's beautiful. So in my own accounting, as it were, this is POIR 2, because it's the second of the Page One In Review episodes. Thank you very much for joining me for this second POIR.
It is, today, the 19th of March, 2020. Nothing very much has changed here in London in the last 24 hours - or, at least, nothing that I'm aware of. Many of us are expecting a lockdown to be announced but it hasn't happened yet. Strange, isn't it, giving this sort of historical information to you who are listening necessarily in the future. Who knows... I... As I said in yesterday's episode, who knows what the situation will be when you actually listen to this?
Today I was talking to a friend of mine who lives in Athens, in Greece, where things have been closed for well over a week - schools, theatres, cafes, restaurants, even parks and sections of the coastline. And then she told me about a mutual friend of ours who she'd spoken to who lives in Stockholm, in Sweden, where nothing is closed at this point and they're continuing, apparently, with their lives as if... as if the pandemic is not happening. Here in London, I feel as though we're... it's half a dozen of one and six of the other. Some of us are behaving as if we should be on lockdown and other people are continuing with their lives as normal. It's very strange. We'll see how things... how things develop.
[page turning]
The first book that I want to talk about in today's episode was given to me by Greg Wohead, who was my guest for the 11th Page One. I'll put a link to the... to that episode in the show notes to this episode so you can go and listen to it if you're interested. I very much enjoyed the conversation that Greg and I had in the Wilton Way Cafe in Hackney. He gave me a book that I very much enjoyed reading. It's the Shipping News by Annie Proulx.
If you listen to the episode, you'll hear that there was a certain amount of discussion between Greg and I - between Greg and me... yes, between Greg and me - about how we should pronounce Annie Proulx's name. He pronounces her name Annie Proulx [/pruːl/], which is... I think is lovely but I'm increasingly convinced that that is... that is not the correct pronunciation. I went on YouTube recently because I was transcribing that episode and so I thought “Oh, actually, maybe I could find some information about this” and I found a... a clip of her being introduced at a... quite a big event, where she was giving a speech, and she was introduced as Annie Proulx [/pruː/], as far as I can make out, you know, from the audio. And so that's what... that's what I'm going with. It may not be... It... I mean, I assume that they would have asked her how she... how she pronounces her name before introducing her in that kind of a setting but I may be wrong. So I have no definite information - still - about how her name is pronounced.
I don't remember very much about the plot of this book. I do remember, as I say, that I enjoyed it. I really, really enjoyed it. I... There was something about the... the atmosphere of the book and the tone of the book and all of the weather that is here... It's set in the very far east of Canada - in Nova Scotia, I think. Possibly on an island. And so - you know, it's called The Shipping News - shipping is quite present - boats and sailing and the sea and ropes and so on - but also just exposure to the elements and the... the... what I suppose I think of as a magnificent ability that human beings have to form community and survive in places that a person on their own probably wouldn't survive. And this is... I think the main character is something of a... I think he's quite taciturn and perhaps something of a recluse.
But, yes, I... perhaps I should reread this book because I remember finding it absolutely beautiful and I really don't remember very much about the story. But I've been flicking through it, you know, to see if anything popped out at me that I would like to read and I found a very short passage that I would like to read. Quoyle, I think, is the name of the main character and Wavey, I think, is a woman who he is in love with. That's... I'm just taking that from the context of the... of the passage itself. I may be wrong. So. Anyway. But here we go:
Quoyle…
This is... sorry, page 183, so it's a fair way through the book. The book is, in this edition, 337 pages long. Perhaps I should tell you what the edition is. It's a Scribner Paperback with a... with a... yes, lovely image on the front. Slightly... I don't know, I... It looks to me like... Russian... I can't think what that style is of drawing. But anyway. I don't know. I'm not very knowledgeable about that sort of thing.
Quoyle and Wavey side by side, feeling sympathy for each other. Herry breathing down their necks. The car moaned up the hill through the rain, away from the school. They came over the crest. On Quoyle's side the ocean, bruise grey under the strained wet light.
Gushing through yellow rain. A row of mailboxes, some fashioned as houses with painted windows. Four ducks swayed along the muddy ruts. Quoyle slowed to a crawl behind them until they dodged into the ditch. Past the Gammy Bird office, past Buggits' house and on. The square houses painted in marvelous stripes, brave against the rock.
Wavey's little house was mint green on the ground floor, then a red sash. The boy's scarlet pajamas on the clothesline, bright as chile peppers. A pile of tapered logs, sawbuck in a litter of chips and bark, split chunks of wood ready to be stacked.
Two fishermen beside the road, lean and hard as rifles, mending net in the rain, the wet beading their sweaters. Sharp Irish noses, long Irish necks and hair crimped under billed caps. One looked up, his glance sprang from Wavey to Quoyle, searching his face, knowing him. Netting needle in his hand.
“Uncle Kenny there,” said Wavey to the boy in her low plangent voice.
“Dawk,” cried the child.
There was a new dog in Archie Sparks's yard, a blue poodle among the plywood swans.
“Dawk.”
“Yes, a new dog,” said Wavey. A wooden dog with a rope tail and a tin-can necklace. Mounted on a stick. Eye like a boil.
In the rearview mirror he saw Wavey's brother coming along the road toward them. The other man watched from a distance, held the net, his hands stilled.
Wavey pulled Herry out of the car. He put his face up to the mist, closed his eyes, feeling the droplets touch him like the ends of cold fine hairs. She pulled him toward the door.
Quoyle held out his hands to the advancing man as he might to an unknown dog stalking toward him.
“Quoyle,” he said, and the name sounded like an evasion. The fisherman clamped his hand briefly.
Face like Wavey's lean face, but rougher. A young man smelling of fish and rain. The scrawn of muscle built to last into the ninth decade.
“Giving Wavey a ride home, then?”
“Yes.” His soft hand embarrassed him. A curtain moved in the window of the house behind the rioting wooden zoo.
“There's Dad then, peeping,” said Ken. “You'll come in and have a cup of tea.”
“No. No,” said Quoyle. “Got to get back to work. Gave Wavey a ride.”
“Walking keeps you smart. You're the one found the suitcase with the head in it. Would have turned me stomach. You're on the point across,” jerked his chin. “Dad sees you over there through his glass on fine days. Got a new roof on the old house?”
Quoyle nodded, got back in his car. But his colorless eyes were warm.
“Going back? I'll take a ride as far as me net,” said Ken, striding around the nose of the car and thumping into Wavey's seat.
Quoyle backed and turned. Wavey was gone, disappeared into her house.
“You come along anytime and see her,” said Ken. “It's too bad about the boy, but he's a good little bugger, poor little hangashore.”
I love that. I love how that's written. There's a... there's a laconic quality to the writing which I think mass... matches the taciturnity of Quoyle and, I think, some of the other characters.
Incidentally, if... if any of you would like to hear something of the accent of that region of the world, that kind of Irish accent transmuted into a Canadian accent, if you listen to Page One 35, which was my conversation with Lucy Pawlak, you can hear a song that she recorded on Fogo Island, which is very, very close to where The Shipping News is set. It's not actually... I'm pretty sure it's not actually set on Fogo Island but it's... Fogo Island is in that region. She recorded somebody singing - I think it's a song about a dog... I can't remember exactly - but he has, I think, the... something of the accent of the region. He sounds very Irish to my ears but apparently he was born and brought up on Fogo Island. So, yes, in case you're curious.
[page turning]
The second book that I wanted to talk about today was given to me by Fuchsia Voremburg, who was my guest on the 12th Page One - also recorded at the Wilton Way Cafe in Hackney. She gave me a little Penguin edition of Selected Short Stories Of “Saki”, which was just an excellent choice. These weren't new to me. I read them as a child or young teenager and I absolutely loved them. And I still do.
I love “Saki”'s voice. It's very [clears throat]... It's very much the voice of a.... I don't know, there's a strain of English humour writing that I think is very present here. You can hear Oscar Wilde in it. You can hear Evelyn Waugh and P. G. Wodehouse. I also hear some of... something of Terry Pratchett in here as well. I suppose I would say that Terry Pratchett's storytelling is bedded in what you might call a commonsense morality. This, on the other hand - “Saki”'s storytelling - is... is amoral. He delights in puckish characters who disrupt other people's lives and are just... yeah, they're just mean at times.
There are some wonderful stories. I don't remember all of these but, in here, you've got Sredni Vashtar, which is a classic “Saki” story. Very cruel. Very funny. You've got several Reginald stories. You've got some Clovis stories. There's the line, which I've just found, which is in a story called Reginal... Reginald On Besetting Sins. Towards the end of that story is the quite famous line, I think, that goes: “The cook was a good cook, as cooks go; and as cooks go she went.”
These boo... Just rereading a few of these pages now I... I've realised quite how much “Saki” also influenced me and my humour and the way in which I see myself. And I think the... the kind of elegance that I aspired to... some of that... some of that can be found in here.
I want to read you a whole story from this. It's... it's a few pages long but it is delightful. It's called Reginald's Christmas Revel. It goes like this:
They say (said Reginald) that there's nothing sadder than victory except defeat. If you've ever stayed with dull people during what is alleged to be the festive season, you can probably revise that saying. I shall never forget putting in a Christmas at the Babwolds'. Mrs. Babwold is some relation of my father's - a sort of to-be-left-until-called-for cousin - and that was considered sufficient reason for my having to accept her invitation at about the sixth time of asking; though why the sins of the father should be visited by the children - you won't find any notepaper in that drawer; that's where I keep old menus and first night programmes.
Mrs. Babwold wears a rather solemn personality, and has never been known to smile, even when saying disagreeable things to her friends or making out the Stores list. She takes her pleasures sadly. A state elephant at a Durbar gives one a very similar impression. Her husband gardens in all weathers. When a man goes out in the pouring rain to brush caterpillars off rose trees, I generally imagine his life indoors leaves something to be desired; anyway, it must be very unsettling for the caterpillars.
Of course there were other people there. There was a Major Somebody who had shot things in Lapland, or somewhere of that sort; I forget what they were, but it wasn't for want of reminding. We had them cold with every meal almost, and he was continually giving us details of what they measured from tip to tip, as though he thought we were going to make them warm under-things for the winter. I used to listen to him with a rapt attention that I thought rather suited me, and then one day I quite modestly gave the dimensions of an okapi I had shot in the Lincolnshire fens. The Major turned a beautiful Tyrian scarlet (I remember thinking at the time that I should like my bathroom hung in that colour), and I think that at that moment he almost found it in his heart to dislike me. Mrs. Babwold put on a first-aid-to-the-injured expression, and asked him why he didn't publish a book of his sporting reminiscences; it would be so interesting. She didn't remember till afterwards that he had given her two fat volumes on the subject, with his portrait and autograph as a frontispiece and an appendix on the habits of the Arctic mussel.
It was in the evening that we cast aside the cares and distractions of the day and really lived. Cards were thought to be too frivolous and empty a way of passing the time, so most of them played what they called a book game. You went out into the hall - to get an inspiration, I suppose - then you came in again with a muffler tied around your neck and looked silly, and the others were supposed to guess that you were Wee MacGreegor. I held out against the inanity as long as I decently could, but at last, in a lapse of good-nature, I consented it to masquerade as a book, only I warned them that it would take some time to carry out. They waited for the best part of forty minutes while I went and payed [sic] wineglass skittles with the page-boy in the pantry; you play it with a champagne cork, you know, and the one who knocks down the most glasses without breaking them wins. I won, with four unbroken out of seven; I think William suffered from over-anxiousness. They were rather mad in the drawing-room at my not having come back, and they weren't a bit pacified when I told them afterwards that I was At The End Of The Passage.
“I never did like Kipling,” was Mrs. Babwold's comment, when the situation dawned on her. “I couldn't see anything clever in Earthworms Out Of Tuscany - or is that by Darwin?”
Of course these games are very educational, but, personally, I prefer bridge.
On Christmas evening we were supposed to be especially festive in the Old English fashion. The hall was horribly drafty, but it seemed to be the proper place to revel in, and it was decorated with Japanese fans and Chinese lanterns, which gave it a very Old English effect. A young lady with a confidential voice favoured us with a long recitation about a little girl who died or did something equally hackneyed, and then the Major gave us a graphic account of a struggle he had with a wounded bear. I privately wished that the bears would win sometimes on these occasions; at least they wouldn't go vapouring about it afterwards. Before we had time to recover our spirits, we were indulged with some thought-reading by a young man whom one knew instinctively had a good mother and an indifferent tailor - the sort of young man who talks unflaggingly through the thickest soup, and smoothes his hair dubiously as though he thought it might hit back. The thought-reading was rather a success; he announced that the hostess was thinking about poetry, and she admitted that her mind was dwelling on one of Austin's odes. Which was near enough. I fancy she'd been really wondering whether a scrag-end of mutton and some cold plum-pudding would do for the kitchen dinner next day. As a crowning dissipation, they all sat down to play progressive halma, with milk chocolate for prizes. I've been carefully brought up, and I don't like to play games of skill for milk chocolate, so I invented a headache and retired from the scene. I had been preceded a few minutes earlier by Miss Langshan-Smith, a rather formidable lady who always got up at some uncomfortable hour in the morning, and gave you the impression that she had been in communication with most of the European Governments before breakfast. There was a paper pinned on her door with a signed request that she might be called particularly early on the morrow. Such an opportunity does not come twice in a lifetime. I covered up everything except the signature with another notice, to the effect that before these words should meet the eye she would have ended a misspent life, was sorry for the trouble she was giving, and would like a military funeral. A few minutes later I violently exploded an air-filled plastic [sic] bag on the landing, and gave a stage moan that could have been heard in the cellars. Then I pursued my original intention and went to bed. The noise those people made in forcing open the good lady's door was positively indecorous; she resisted gallantly, but I believe they searched her for bullets for about a quarter of an hour, as if she had been a historic battlefield.
I hate travelling on Boxing Day, but one must occasionally do things that one dislikes.
So. I'm sure there's a certain Marmite quality to that. Some of you will love that, as I do, and some of you [laughing] will probably detest it.
[page turning]
The third book that I want to talk about today is called Ocean Sea by Alessandro Baricco and this was given to me by Giorgis Hadzilakos.
So we've had 11, 12... 13 I was on my own talking about children's stories. I talked to Giorgis for the 14th Page One - still in Hackney at the Wilton Way Cafe. He read from the Odyssey in ancient Greek, which was just wonderful. I gave him a book called Londoners by Craig somebody or other, which I absolutely... I recommend that. I think that's a... it's a really beautiful collection of accounts of different people's lives. That was published, I think, in 2012. So it would now be... yes, there's a certain historicity to that. And he gave me this: Ocean Sea by Alessandro Baricco.
I've also read Silk - or Seta, as it is in Italian - and I have a... a better memory of that... of that book. I learned an awful lot about the process of making silk and the history of its movement from China to... to Europe. Ocean Sea, I don't remember... it's another one of those books that I don't remember anything about. I don't particularly remember how much I enjoyed it. I probably enjoyed it... but... I don't know.
I've just found a very short... this is even shorter than the passage I read you from The Shipping News. This is really just a paragraph from chapter s... it's the... it's the beginning of chapter seven, on page 57 of this edition, which I'm trying to find the publisher... Canongate Books. Here we go:
In Sumatra, off the north coast of Pangei, every seventy-six days there would emerge an island in the form of a cross, covered with lush vegetation, and apparently uninhabited. It would remain visible for a few hours before plunging back beneath the sea. On the beach at Cascais the local fishermen had found the remains of the ship Davemport, wrecked eight days before, on the other side of the world, in the Ceylon sea. On the route for Farhadhar, mariners used to see strange luminous butterflies that induced stupefaction and a sense of melancholy. In the waters of Bogador, a convoy of four naval vessels had disappeared, devoured by a single enormous wave that had appeared out of nowhere on a day of flat calm.
So. There you go. That doesn't give you any idea of the story of the book, I don't think, but they're lovely little vignettes, aren't they, of the kind of travellers’ tales that are so associated with stories of the sea.
This... This has been the second POIR, as I said at the beginning. It's the 158th Page One. Thank you very much for listening to this. This is the end of the episode. I shall be back very soon, hopefully, with the third of these - three more books to talk about. We haven't even really begun... I... Yeah, there are... there is... there are over a hundred books to talk about so... yeah. Dig in people! We're going to be... We're going to be doing this for a little while.
I hope you're all well and looking after yourself... selves. I'm aware that my voice has become a little bit... It's so... It's so strange, isn't it, in a time of pandemic, one becomes very, very... conscious of the signals one is giving about one's health. I've been talking an awful lot today on the phone and then recording this and re-recording it and not being content with what I'd recorded and starting again and so on. So I... I'm... I'm still showing no symptoms o... of illness but my voice a little strained and if you can hear that and are worrying, please don't worry. I'm absolutely fine. I hope you are as well or if you are ill as you listen to this... with anything, of course - I mean other other conditions haven't stopped existing just because we are all very concerned with this particular coronavirus - I hope that you are either being looked after or are looking after yourself or are, in... in some way, finding a way to get through it. It's... Yes, it's difficult.
Thank you very much for choosing to listen to this. Until next time.
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]