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Episode image is a detail of a photo by Charles Adrian.
Charles Adrian talks art, artists and oranges as he reads from two more of the books given to him by guests on the podcast.
You can read an overview of Iain M. Banks’ Culture Series on Wikipedia here.
Also mentioned in this episode but not really discussed is Perfumes: The A-Z Guide by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez, which was previously discussed in Page One 71.
Another book by Iris Murdoch, Something Special, is discussed in Page One 77.
Books discussed in this episode were previously discussed in Page One 70 and Page One 72.
A transcript of this episode is below.
Episode recorded: 13th July, 2020
Episode released: 18th August, 2020
Book listing:
Against Interpretation And Other Essays by Susan Sontag (Page One 70)
The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch (Page One 72)
Because they are too delightful not to share, here are three more food-related passages from The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch that Charles Adrian might have read during this episode:
“For lunch I ate the kipper fillets rapidly unfrozen in boiling water (the sun had done most of the work) garnished with lemon juice, oil, and a light sprinkling of dry herbs. Kipper fillets are arguably better than salmon unless the latter is very good. With these, fried tinned new potatoes. (No real new potatoes yet.) Potatoes for me are a treat dish, not a dull everyday chaperon. Then Welsh rarebit and hot beetroot. The shop sliced bread is less than great, but all right toasted, with good salty New Zealand butter. Fortunately I like a wide variety of those crackly Scandinavian biscuits which are supposed to make you thin. ”
“I am writing this after dinner. For dinner I had an egg poached in hot scrambled egg, then the coley braised with onions and lightly dusted with curry powder, and served with a little tomato ketchup and mustard. (Only a fool despises tomato ketchup.) Then a heavenly rice pudding. It is fairly easy to make very good rice pudding, but how often do you meet one?”
“For lunch made my heavenly vegetarian stew of onions, carrots, tomatoes, bran, lentils, pearl barley, vegetable protein, brown sugar and olive oil. (The vegetable protein I brought with me from London.) I add a little lemon juice just before eating. With that (it is very light) a baked potato with cream cheese. Then Battenberg roll and prunes. (Carefully cooked prunes are delicious. Drain and add lemon juice or a dash of orange flower water, never cream.) If anyone wonders at the absence of ‘eating’ apples from my diet let me explain that this is one case where I have spoilt my palate with an aristocratic taste. I can eat only Cox’s Orange Pippins, and am in mourning applewise from April to October.”
Episode transcript:
Jingle
You're listening to Page One, the book podcast.
Charles Adrian
Hello and welcome to the 174th Page One. I'm Charles Adrian and this is the 18th Page One In Review. Today it is Monday the 13th of July, 2020, and as I don't have anything to say about that let's move on straight away to talk about the books.
Anybody who's new to the podcast: Hello! You might not know that this is a book podcast and that these Page One In Review episodes are episodes in which I'm talking about all of the books that I've been given over the last eight years by guests on my podcast. We've reached books that were given to me during the second season of the podcast, which went out between Autumn 2013 and Summer 2014... loosely. These books were given to me during episodes that went out in February and March of 2014.
[page turning]
The first book that I want to talk to you about was given to me by Julian Meding during the 70th Page One. We recorded that conversation in Graz, in Austria. Julian gave me Against Interpretation And Other Essays by Susan Sontag, which is... it's a collection of essays written between 1962 and 1965 with an afterword written thirty years later. So I'm assuming this was published in the nineties. Is that right? Oh, no. Sorry. Published in 2009. So. I don't know when... [pages turning] Oh, I see. So, yes:
“Thirty Years Later...” was written as the preface to the republication in Madrid in 1996 of the Spanish translation of Against Interpretation.
And that's presumably been either re-translated or untranslated [laughs] to be added as an afterword to this Penguin Modern Classics edition of Against Interpretation.
I... This is still the only thing that I've read by Susan Sontag but I really enjoyed it. I loved her voice. I found her very clear and very interesting and... some of the things that she writes and says about art and literature and people - artists mostly, I suppose - and movements and things are... they spark of all kinds of interesting thoughts in my brain. And a lot of the time I just... I'm... I find her just very... She puts her finger on things that I wouldn't necessarily have been able to describe in the way that she does and maybe wouldn't have understood or seen and I feel as though she... she sees very clearly and she describes what she sees very clearly and I really enjoy that.
Towards the beginning of this collection - so at the end of the... what I suppose you might call the titular essay, Against Interpretation - she writes:
The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art - and, by analogy, our own experience - more, rather than less, real to us. The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show us [sic] what it means.
That's on page 14 of this 312-page paperback. I just... I love that paragraph. I think that... that absolutely describes what I want from criticism. I want criticism that... yeah, that describes something, that maybe tells me something about how it's made, that acknowledges that criticism is a subjective experience and perhaps then goes off into what is brought up for the critic by the thing that they've seen - you know, what associations this thing brings up and... you know, and all kinds of things along that line - but I don't want to be told what a thing means, I don't want to be told what I should see in it. So I... yeah, that I love. And I feel as though... yeah, I think Susan Sontag does that. I don't necessarily agree with everything that she says but I find everything that she says fascinating and worthy of reflection.
I've underlined all kinds of things. I've just... There are underlinings throughout this book. I wanted to read you a selection of those. So, yeah, I've already read you the end of Against Interpretation. There's a line here in an essay called The Imagination Of Disaster - so this is on page 213 - about science fiction films. She says:
Science fiction films are not about science. They are about disaster, which is one of the oldest subjects of art.
And, yeah, I love that! You may agree or disagree with that but it... yeah, it set me thinking. I think that's true. I mean... so I've recently been listening to Ian M. Banks's Culture Series, which is a series of science fiction novels - ten in all - and they generally... I mean, they... Yeah, sorry to, kind of, spoil but they generally end well. He's a... He's a... He's a... [laughing] He writes with a smile, I would say. But they are all about potential disaster or impending disaster, looming disaster, something that we think is going to go or might go disastrously wrong. So those immediately spring into my mind when I read that sentence. But then I think any other science fiction that I have come across would fall into that category. Things are going wrong and that's what the story is about.
And I love how she very neatly expands that. She says, you know, they are about disaster, “which is one of the oldest subjects in [sic] art”. She's not pretending that science fiction is the only form in which people tell stories of disaster. Disaster is an [laughter] immensely popular subject. We are all of us, I would say, preoccupied to some degree with disaster. So I find that a very interesting framing - or reframing - of my appreciation of what I read and see and experience. And that's the kind of thing that I've got from reading these essays and it's one of the reasons that I like them so much.
This collection also includes the very famous and, I guess, seminal Notes On Camp. She writes in here… so, note number 55 says:
Camp taste is, above all, a mode of enjoyment, of appreciation - not judgment. Camp is generous. It wants to enjoy. It only seems like malice, cynicism. (Or, if it is cynicism, it's not a ruthless but a sweet cynicism.) Camp taste doesn't propose that it is in bad taste to be serious; it doesn't sneer at someone who succeeds in being seriously dramatic. What it does is to find the success in certain passionate failures.
Again, I love that. Camp is notoriously difficult to put one's finger on - you know, a description... what is Camp? And, of course, what we understand by Camp evolves and changes and expands over time but I feel as though... yeah, I... well, reading that essay, I felt as though there was so much that Susan Sontag manages to identify that resonates when I think about, you know, what I would describe as Camp. And even... I mean, I love her... again, her, kind of, knowingness. At the beginning of the essay, on page 277, before she gets to any of the notes, she writes:
It's embarrassing to be solemn and treatise-like about Camp. One runs the risk of having, oneself, produced a very inferior piece of Camp.
[laughing] I think that's wonderful. It's... It's just... It's just absolutely right. You know, what would... Cave Camp! You know, be very... be very careful as soon as you start to be serious about Camp. One of the things that... that characterises Camp is its ability to undermine seriousness and... But I... yeah, again, I feel as though she allows space for that within what she writes. And it's quite magnificent that she's able to write what is really quite a serious essay about Camp at the same time as acknowledging the dangers of writing what is really a very serious essay about Camp.
What I really wanted to read for you today... it's... well, it's from an essay called On Style. And these are just some thoughts about art in general that I find very interesting and very useful and very... yeah, provocative and fruitful. On page 21, she writes:
A work of art encountered as a work of art is an experience, not a statement or an answer to a question. Art is not only about something; it is something. A work of art is a thing in the world, not just a text or commentary on the world.
Again, it's so pithy. I feel as though... yeah, I could write that on a piece of paper and hang it on the wall and look at it every day and find it as interesting as I did the day before. I think that... Yeah, she puts her finger on something so... Well, once I've read it, it becomes so obvious but I would not have thought of it myself and I feel as though that opens... it opens me up to appreciate things.... I mean... So: so often I come across art - and, you know, I mean art in the broadest sense - that I don't understand, that doesn't speak to me, that is often infuriating to me because I can't latch on to it and I find it useful, rather than to, kind of, ask myself, what is this saying, what does this tell me about the world - which is, I think, probably how I was taught to approach art and it's my go-to reaction to art - to just... to witness it, to allow myself just to see what it is. I find that... it has opened up all kinds of new pleasures for me just to, kind of, be able to remind myself that that possibility exists.
Anyway. Let me read - so this is the last bit that I'm going to read. It's from pages 28 and 29. This is from the same essay - On Style - and, again, it's... it's about art and I... yeah, I really like it.
Raymond Bayer has written: “What each and every aesthetic object imposes upon us, in appropriate rhythms, is a unique and singular formula for the flow of our energy.... Every work of art embodies a principle of proceeding, of stopping, of scanning; an image of energy or relaxation, the imprint of a caressing or destroying hand which is [the artist's] alone.” We can call this the physiognomy of the work, or its rhythm, or, as I would rather do, its style. Of course, when we employ the notion of style historically, to group works of art into schools and periods, we tend to efface the individuality of styles. But this is not our experience when we encounter a work of art from an aesthetic (as opposed to a conceptual) point of view. Then, so far as the work is successful and still has the power to communicate with us, we experience only the individuality and contingency of the style.
It is the same with our own lives. If we see them from the outside, as the influence and popular dissemination of the social sciences and psychiatry has persuaded more and more people to do, we view ourselves as instances of generalities, and in so doing become profoundly and painfully alienated from our own experience and our humanity.
As William Earle has recently noted, if Hamlet is “about” anything, it is about Hamlet, his particular situation, not about the human condition. A work of art is a kind of showing or recording or witnessing which gives palpable form to consciousness; its object is to make something singular explicit. So far as it is true that we cannot judge (morally, conceptually) unless we generalize, then it is also true that the experience of works of art, and what is represented in works of art, transcends judgment - though the work itself may be judged as art. Isn't this just what we recognize as a feature of the greatest art, like the Iliad and the novels of Tolstoy and the plays of Shakespeare? That such art overrides our petty judgments, our facile labelling of persons and acts as good or bad? And that this can happen is all to the good. (There is even a gain for the cause of morality in it.)
For morality, unlike art, is ultimately justified by its utility; that it makes, or is supposed to make, life more humane and livable for us all. But consciousness - what used to be called, rather tendentiously, the faculty of contemplation - can be, and is, wider and more various than action. It has its nourishment, art and speculative thought, activities which can be described either as self-justifying or in no need of justification. What a work of art does is to make us see or comprehend something singular, not judge or generalize. This act of comprehension accompanied by voluptuousness is the only valid end, and sole sufficient justification, of a work of art.
Yeah, I... There's so much in there that I find revealing and interesting and thought provoking. One thing that jumps out at me reading it again now, however, is the use of “us” and “we”. Recently, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine who pointed out how problematic that “we” can be, especially when approaching art made by marginalised people. Who is “we”? Who do we understand “we” to be? Is “we” the dominant group in any given society? And, I mean, it's interesting there, juxtaposed with the idea of setting generalisation against singularity. “We” flattens difference of opinion. But I think... well, I don't know... I think it's possible to read this with that in mind, knowing that “we” is a way of saying “I” but I... yeah, it's... it's interesting and I will be thinking about that further.
Okay. The... The... So that was given to me during the 70th Page One - Against Interpretation And Other Essays by Susan Sontag. The 71st Page One was my conversation with Francesca Beard. I don't think I'd explained to her clearly enough the concept of the podcast and she didn't have a book to give to me. She had a book that she thought I should have but it was [laughing] such a special copy that she kept it and I haven't got myself a copy - although I think I should. It's called Perfumes: The A-Z Guide by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez and the little that Francesca read to me made it sound absolutely fascinating. I'm not generally... I'm not a scent person and I'm not that interested in perfumes - or, at least, you know, if you were to ask me: “Are you interested in perfumes?” my answer would generally be: “No”. But Perfumes: The A-Z Guide... it seemed like the kind of book that would surprise me and possibly change my mind. So yeah, perhaps one day when I am more in a frame of mind for reading I will... I will get hold of that.
The... The second book that I wanted to talk to you about today...
[page turning]
... was given to me during the 72nd Page One by Isabelle Schoelcher. We recorded that, I think, in Brockley. Somewhere in London anyway and I've a feeling it was Brockley, very near Brockley Park.
There... Yes. As I said in the previous episode, I am only talking about two books during this episode. That's partly because there are three books that I want to talk about together in a future episode and to do that I have to pick an episode in which I'm only going to talk about two books. And the two books that I'm talking about today are both books that I felt as though I had quite a lot to say about. This book that Isabelle gave me is The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch. This is a book that I read when I was a teenager - it was an A-level set text for my English A-level. So I read this and reread this when I was a teenager and studied it and my own copy from back then is full of underlinings and notes in the margin and all kinds of scribbles and symbols that any future owner may or may not [laughs] enjoy. But Isabelle gave me her copy, which is a lovely copy, a really beautiful cover - much more attractive than the one I was working from. It's a Vintage paperback. It is 538 pages long.
I love this novel. It has a feeling of... almost of home for me. I feel very much at home inside this book. You know, it's the kind of book that I can just open and read a few pages and I... I recognise where I am and I feel comfortable. The central character, Charles Arrowby, is unbearably pompous and dogmatic and he's just plain wrong about so many things. But at the same time he's... he's sweet and he's... well, I find him admirably serious about the things that matter to him. And I think... yeah, I see [laughs]... I see a lot of my own qualities in him. You know, I... I can also be pompous and dogmatic and just plain wrong about so many things.
One of the things that I love about Charles Arrowby is his attitude to food. I wanted to read you two little segments from this book and the first one is about food. There are all kinds of moments when he talks about food. He has not tried to cultivate a palate for fine wine because it would spoil his enjoyment of cheap wine, which [laughing] I think is just wonderful. And he really enjoys very simple food to the point of being quite pretentious about it. And there's a lovely little paragraph about oranges on page 93 which I wanted to read to you. There are lots and lots of paragraphs about food that I could have read for you but I'm just going to read you this one on page 93:
I ate three oranges at eleven o'clock this morning. Oranges should be eaten in solitude and as a treat when one is feeling hungry. They are too messy and overwhelming to form part of an ordinary meal. I should say here that I am not a breakfast eater though I respect those who are. I breakfast on delicious Indian tea. Coffee and China tea are intolerable at breakfast time, and, for me, coffee unless it is very good and made by somebody else is pretty intolerable at any time. It seems to me an inconvenient and much overrated drink, but this I will admit to be a matter of personal taste. (Whereas other views which I hold on the subject of food approximate to absolute truths.) I do not normally eat at breakfast time since even half a slice of buttered toast can induce an inconvenient degree of hunger, and eating too much breakfast is a thoroughly bad start to the day. I am however not at all averse to elevenses which can come in great variety. There are, as indicated above, moments for oranges. There are also moments for chilled port and plum cake.
[laughing] There you go. I don't necessarily agree with his specific opinions - just to say that - but I agree with the spirit of some of them. I love the idea of taking time over an orange and really appreciating the messy deliciousness of it. I, in case you're curious, generally eat oranges, if I have them, before a meal. I don't know... While I'm cooking I will cut up an orange and eat it. I don't know why that should be but that is a habit that I have got into.
The main bit that I wanted to read for you is - to return to our, kind of, main theme of the episode - about art. And I think, again, he says some - or Iris Murdoch has him, Charles Arrowby, say - some really interesting things about art here - some of which I agree with, some of which I don't, some of which, kind of, make me scratch my head and wonder. But, yes. So this is from pages 38 and 39 of the book and Charles is reminiscing about - oh I suppose, yeah, maybe that's another reason why I like him: he shares a name with me - Charles is reminiscing about his life as a director and writer in the theatre.
Since there has been quite a lot of uninformed and not always unmalicious speculation on the subject let me now say something about my plays. They were always intended to be ephemeral, rather like pantomimes in fact; and they existed only in my direction of them. I never let anyone else touch them. Unless one is very talented indeed there is no resting place between the naïve and the ironic; and the nemesis of irony is absurdity. I knew my limitations. The plays were also said to be only vehicles for Wilfred Dunning. Why ‘only’? Wilfred was a great actor. They do not make them like Wilfred any more. He started his career in the old Music Hall in the Edgware Road. He could stand motionless, not moving an eyelid, and make a theatre rock with prolonged laughter. Then he would blink and set them off again. Such power can be almost uncanny: the mystery of the human body, the human face. Wilfred had a face which glowed with spirit; he also had, with the possible exception of Peregrine Arbelow, the largest face I have ever seen. It is true that he was in a sense the only begetter of my work as a dramatist, and when he died I stopped writing. I can say without regret that my plays belong to the past and I bequeath them to no one. They were magical delusions, fireworks. Only this which I write now is, or foreshadows, what I wish to leave behind me as a lasting memorial. Someone once said that I ought to have been a choreographer and I understood the comment. People were surprised that I was so popular in Japan. But I knew why, and the Japanese knew.
Though described as an ‘experimentalist’ I am a firm friend of the proscenium arch. I am in favour of illusion, not of alienation. I detest the endless fidgeting on the surrounded stage which dissolves the clarity of events. Equally I abhor the nonsense of ‘audience participation’. Riots and other communal activities may have their value but must not be confused with dramatic art. Drama must create a factitious spell-binding present moment and imprison the spectator in it. The theatre apes the profound truth that we are extended beings who yet can only exist in the present. It is a factitious present because it lacks the free aura of personal reflection and contains its own secret limits and conclusions. Thus life is comic, but though it may be terrible it is not tragic: tragic [sic] belongs to the cunning of the stage. Of course most theatre is gross ephemeral rot; and only plays by great poets can be read, except as directors' notes. I say ‘great poets’ but I suppose I really mean Shakespeare. It is a paradox that the most essentially frivolous and rootless of all the serious arts has produced the greatest of all writers. That Shakespeare was quite different from the others, not just primus inter pares but totally different in quality was something which I discovered entirely by myself when I was still at school; and on this secret was I nourished. There are no other plays on paper, unless one counts the Greek plays. I cannot read Greek, and James tells me these are untranslatable. After looking at a number of translations I am sure he is right.
James, by the way, is Charles's cousin and a very important character - although extremely mysterious - throughout this book. So that was... that's The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch. This is one of those books that I had read before it was given to me by my guest, Isabelle Schoelcher in this case, but then reread. And that is really because, yeah, I love it so much and I wanted to experience it again.
Right. Yes. I think I've said enough. Thank you so much for being with me again today. I've... I've really enjoyed recording this episode. Probably because I enjoy these two books so much. I... yeah, I wish you all the best. And... yeah, speak to you soon. Bye.
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]