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Episode image is a detail from the poster advertising the recording of Page One 39; poster design and photo by Charles Adrian.
Correction: When Charles Adrian mentions James Frayne, he means James Frey, author of the memoir A Million Little Pieces.
This week’s Page One is a very special edition because it’s a recording of a live edition of the podcast. Alan Cunningham came into the Wilton Way Café at the end of May to talk to host Charles Adrian about his debut novella Count From Zero To One Hundred in front of a live audience. The podcast is unusual in that it is entirely unedited – so this is the evening as it happened! Also, there is no music this week. Instead, there is some charming, fascinating and illuminating conversation about reading, writing, transcending the body and imagination as a visceral act. Enjoy!
You can find out more about Count From Zero To One Hundred and buy a copy here.
Count From Zero To One Hundred by Alan Cunningham is also discussed in Page One 166.
Alan Cunningham, meanwhile, also appears in Page One 87.
The very select audience for this live recording was made up of Paula Varjack, who appears in Page One 53, and Anna Sulan Masing, who appears in Page One 27.
This episode was recorded at the Wilton Way Café for London Fields Radio.
A transcript of this episode is below.
Episode released: 11th June, 2013.
Book listing:
Rouse Up O Young Men Of The New Age! by Kenzaburō Ōe (trans. John Nathan)
Count From Zero To One Hundred by Alan Cunningham
Links:
Episode transcript:
Charles Adrian
Hello Page One listeners! Charles Adrian here. This week, it's Page One Live. Recorded at the Wilton Way Cafe on the 30th of May 2013 in front of what you might call a live studio audience, this is a conversation with Alan Cunningham, whose debut novella Count From Zero To One Hundred was published earlier this year by Penned In The Margins. With the exception of a few volume tweaks, it is entirely unedited, which means that you'll have to listen to me fumbling and stumbling through my questions, but it also means that you get to hear Alan being completely fascinating about reading, writing, transcending the body, imagination as a visceral act, love and desire, the difficult reality of what we call inclusion, and so much more. Follow the link to Penned In The Margins if you'd like to buy a copy of Alan's book, which I recommend, and, in the meantime, sit back and enjoy.
Jingle
London Fields Radio... it's London Fields Radio.
Charles Adrian
Are we okay with the windows open?
Alan Cunningham
Up to you.
Charles Adrian
I mean...
Paula Varjack
Do you like the atmospheric sounds?
Charles Adrian
I quite like having the sound...
Alan Cunningham
[speaking over] Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... of people walking past. It's nice. Just, if you're cold let me know.
Alan Cunningham
No, no, it's fine.
Charles Adrian
And we can... So welcome to Page One Live in the Wilton Way Cafe. I'm here with Alan Cunningham. Would you like to say hello.
Alan Cunningham
Hello, Adrian.
Alan and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
So I'm hoping this is going to... We're working from the same microphone. Like... I've just... Note to our audience in the cafe here, I will say things for the benefit of the audience sitting at home listening to this recorded on the 11th of June. So don't be confused if I say very obvious things.
Anna and Paula
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
You're like a... You're a radio audience. It's not the same as being just an audience. So, yeah, that's... I... yeah, that's it really. Page One Live Alan Cunningham, I'm Charles Adrian, we're in the Wilton Way Cafe, this is London Fields Radio. I want to start by recycling a Michael Flanders joke. Does anyone know Michael Flanders?
Alan Cunningham
No.
Charles Adrian
Flanders and Swann? He... You should check out... Like, At The Drop Of A Hat is... is magnificent. They just rented a theatre - I think in Shaftesbury Avenue... it was the same theatre that Beyond The Fringe was then in, I think - and they just did sketches and songs and they're awesome. Anyway. He's like, “Wherever you're sitting now, that's where you'll be on the recording”.
Alan, Anna and Paula
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
Good. I'm feeling a bit weird because I've never done this before. This is normally a chat between...
Alan Cunningham
It'll be okay, Adrian. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] ... me and the person. So if you're sensing any nervousness in me...
Alan Cunningham
[speaking over] Feel comfortable. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
... that's... that's entirely correct. I am nervous.
Alan, Anna and Paula
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
I want to start by asking you, as I do everyone who comes on my podcast, to describe yourself. So, obviously, you're a writer, that's why you're here. But how would you ideally describe yourself?
Alan Cunningham
Ideally? Oh, I don't know if I should describe myself ideally. That might be dangerous. I'm usually quite hungry. That's probably a good description.
Anna and Paula
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
[laughing] Okay.
Alan Cunningham
But yeah, I suppose, as a writer... I mean, somebody asked me to describe my... my book in three words and I think the description that I gave to them - it was an impromptu discretion but I think it describes both my work and perhaps me... yeah, to some degree. Although, yeah, now I'm thinking about it, one of the words might not describe me so great...
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Alan Cunningham
… but it describes my work very well. The description was “precise, minimalist and... and sexy” and it's the word sexy, I would say, that doesn't describe me...
Anna and Paula
[laughter]
Alan Cunningham
... so... so accurately but it describes my work very accurately.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Um... we can take a straw poll in a moment [indistinct].
All
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
[aside] I'm going to turn down the thing here. [for podcast] No, I think that's... that's nice. So, definitely precise and... what was the other word?
Alan Cunningham
Minimalist.
Charles Adrian
Minimalist, yeah.
Alan Cunningham
And the book that we're going to talk about is definitely, I think, these... these three things: precise, minimalist and... and sexy, I suppose. Yeah.
Charles Adrian
Yeah, I that's an excellent description. I don't think I could have come up with a better three word description of your book. [indistinct]
Alan Cunningham
[speaking over] Oh that's... that's nice. But, as I say, it's definitely not a complete description of me.
All
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
Something to go on. What is the book that you've brought...? I've asked you to bring a book that you like. This is part of the regular podcast and I thought it'd be nice to bring it in here to make a kind of Page Oneness... yeah, here in our live set-up. So what have you... Yeah, what have you brought?
Alan Cunningham
I thought it would be nice to bring a book that is connected to the... to the book that I wrote. And it's a book by a Japanese author who's still alive called Kenzaburō Ōe, who actually won the Nobel Prize in 1984. And the book's called Rouse Up Oh Young Men Of The New Age!. And this book was very instrumental in the creation of Count From Zero To One Hundred. As I write in the introduction to Count From Zero To One Hundred, I was halfway through the writing of that book when I was reminded of the work of Ōe. And his work is very much connected to the themes that I talk about in Count From Zero To One Hundred. Apart from that, he's also an amazing, beautiful writer with a wonderful, humanistic approach to literature and to life. And the book, Rouse Up Oh Young Men Of The New Age!, it's also a blend of fiction and facts, which I like to think Count From Zero To One Hundred is. And in... in Rouse Up, he talks about his relationship to his son. Now Ōe had a son who was born with a... quite a serious birth defect - effectively, as I understand it, he had quite a large tumor connected to his brain - and the... he's written about this... this... the... and the effect of it on his life in a number of books. But in this book, he talks about his relationship [to his] son as he's grown up and as he's growing up. And, yeah, I mean, it's just a beautiful piece of work. He talks about that but he also talks about the influence of literature on... on his life. How literature can impact... how he deals with the problems that occur in life. In particular, he talks about William Blake and a number of other writers - which, again, was... was... was relevant for me because I'm using Ōe's work to reflect on... on... in my work as well. So I like this idea of continuity between literature, that one book can inspire another book. So yeah, it was very influential for me. And he's just a beautiful writer. So that's the book that... that I've [indistinct]...
Charles Adrian
Do you want to read the first page for us?
Alan Cunningham
Yeah. Now, I... I would ask for some leeway because - I'll explain - the first page begins, as I'll show the audience...
Charles Adrian
Ah.
Alan Cunningham
... midway. And I think it's just unfair for you and for the people listening to just stop at midway. So, if it's possible...
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm hmm.
Alan Cunningham
... I know it's called Page One...
Charles Adrian
Yes.
Alan Cunningham
... but could we extend it to half of page two? [laughs]
Charles Adrian
Yeah. A lot of my guests do that anyway...
Alan Cunningham
Okay.
Charles Adrian
... and I can't stop them.
Alan Cunningham
Well, I wouldn't have done it if we had a whole page to work with.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] If this were... If this were a nor... No, I understand.
Alan Cunningham
[speaking over] I would have been like, “No”.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] If this were a normal... If this were a normal podcast interview, I would say absolutely not but I think we're bending the rules of the whole thing.
Alan Cunningham
[speaking over] Okay. Okay.
Charles Adrian
Go ahead.
Alan Cunningham
So it's page one and half of page two.
Alan and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
Yeah.
Alan Cunningham
Okay. So. This is from Rouse Up Oh Young Men Of The New Age! by Kenzaburō Ōe.
1: Songs of Innocence,
Songs of Experience
When I travel out of the country for any length of time, including professional visits, I take one precaution against losing my presence of mind and emotional balance while I am a tumbleweed in an alien landscape: I make certain to take along the books I have been reading prior to my departure. Alone in a foreign country, as I am now, I have been able to encourage myself in the face of fear, aggravation, and despondency by reading on in the books I had been reading in Tokyo before I left.
This spring I traveled to Europe, perhaps I should say careened from Vienna to Berlin with a television crew, along a route that was bare of blossoms on the trees and, except for the forsythia that turns [sic] riotous yellow before their leaves appear and the crocus buds thrusting above the ground, without flowers. I had taken along four volumes of the Penguin Classics edition of Malcolm Lowry, whom I had been reading continually for several years. I say reading, but I had also written a series of short stories constructed around metaphors that Lowry... Lowry had inspired in me. My purpose in rereading Lowry while I was traveling was to allow me to say to myself at the end of the trip, Enough! As far as I'm concerned, I'm done with Lowry! And, as part of that process, I would present each of my companions on the road with one of the Lowry volumes. When I was young, my impatience had prevented me from staying with a single author for very long. As I was leaving middle age, the group of writers I would read attentively in my last years and until I died became visible to me. And so from time to time I felt obliged to set out consciously to finish off one writer or another.
I'll stop there.
Charles Adrian
Nice. Yeah, no, that was... I think that was good choice. That's really interesting. I think that brings up a couple of themes that I'm already interested in, one of which is: when you move around a lot, which I know you have... what you... what you take with you to give you some... as an anchor, in a way, to... or what... you know, what... whether you can transport some of home with you when you're going, or whether you can just be a traveler without any of that baggage.
Alan Cunningham
Yeah, I think, for me, it's a combination of both. I think one of the reasons why I have traveled - and I should say, I'm becoming less... less interested in travel as I... as I [laughing] get older - is, you know, to get away from... from familiar things. I grew up in quite a small town in... in the south of Northern Ireland. And, you know, Northern Ireland, especially when I was growing up, had... had its issues. And, you know, I just wanted to explore the rest of the world and to see other things and to, sort of, escape from that for a while. So traveling is partly that. But then also, I suppose, as you travel, you realise... it's a bit of a cliché, but you do realise things that are perhaps more important to you than you would have thought before you'd left. One of the things, for example, that I constantly miss now is the landscape around where I grew up. And when I was younger, I was very... I mean, I did... I was aware of it but it seems like I wasn't aware... aware of it to the extent that I am now. When I go back, I look at it and I'm like, “How could I have not seen this?” So, you know, travel is a way of... of getting away from those things but it reminds you of what you left. But there are... I mean, the things that you take with you, I suppose... I mean, tangible things... There are definitely books that... You know, he talks about... Ōe talks about books that he takes with him.
Charles Adrian
Yeah, I mean, I love the idea that he was taking books that he... he was just reading.
Alan Cunningham
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
So it's a really immediate thing. He's not taking away favourite books that he comes back to...
Alan Cunningham
No.
Charles Adrian
... time again but the things that really tie him to just now when he was there at home.
Alan Cunningham
Yeah. It's, kind of... I suppose it's maybe, kind of, perverse because often people travel to escape from the immediacy of life and it's a holiday or it's getting away from that. But I like that because it establishes this link, this continuity with who you are. You know, you're not... You're going... You're going away but you're still doing the things that you had been doing. And I suppose it's also the element of it that sometimes when you're reading a book you just can't put it down.
Charles Adrian
Yeah.
Alan Cunningham
I like that too.
Charles Adrian
Well, that also... I remember racing to finish a book that my sister had given me. And I had literally two pages left when I had to leave for the airport.
Alan Cunningham
And you took it for the two pages.
Charles Adrian
No, I left it...
Alan Cunningham
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
... because it wasn't worth carrying it for that long and I didn't want to get rid of it. So I had to wait for two months to find out what... [laughs] what happened.
Alan Cunningham
[speaking over] Well, that's also nice. That's also nice. But... But, yeah, I mean, there are... I mean, there's... One of the things I should also say: choosing a book for tonight was really difficult...
Charles Adrian
[interrogative] Mmm?
Alan Cunningham
... because I have [laughing] a lot of books that I like. And a lot of books that are important to me in different ways. So, yeah, it was really tricky. I think books are something that we do... we establish a link to - an emotional connection - and we take them with us because they're... they're easy to transport. But I also liked this idea of taking the book. You know, nowadays it's very easy to just download everything and put it on eBook and... It's the smell of the book and the look of it and the fact that maybe it's falling to pieces and... and where you bought it and what's written in it and... All those things evoke memories... and... and it's... you know, it's nicer to have books in your room, I think.
Charles Adrian
Yeah, I agree with you. I was actually... I was going to ask you whether... I had the feeling that you probably do enjoy reading but I always wonder - it's something that I've wondered for a long time - do you have to be a consumer if you want to be a creator?
Alan Cunningham
This is interesting. I've been thinking about this a lot recently. And I don't... I don't think I read as much as people - I don't know why people will be thinking about how much I read - but I don't think I read as much as...
Anna, Paula and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Alan Cunningham
... people think I read.
Charles Adrian
Right.
Alan Cunningham
Yeah. Or I read things that perhaps might be considered a little bit unusual. I like to go out of [my] comfort zone when I'm reading. You know, I'll read things that... that are boring or completely oppositional to how I believe because it's... it's important. You need to be aware of what's happening but also just different styles and... I think, as a writer, you want to... you want to be aware of the language that's being used you know, in common day life. Not... Not... Not language as it's being written by writers but language as it's being used by people. So, yeah. But... But I don't read that much and I'm often inspired by... by other things that are pretty mundane, you know.
Charles Adrian
Right.
Alan Cunningham
I mean, it would be embarrassing to list the kinds of things I'm inspired by. But, yeah, pretty mundane stuff. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] But I think... Yeah, I'm totally with the people who say they should no... you know, there's no qualitative difference between what we call high culture and what we call low culture. It's all stuff that we can enjoy or not enjoy.
Alan Cunningham
You haven't heard what I'm going to say. No.
Alan and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Alan Cunningham
Yeah, no, I agree with that. I do agree with that. I'm a big believer in... Well, I mean, there are some things that I think are of no value but... but often it's the things that we... we assume aren't of cultural value that might have more to tell us about ourselves, maybe, as a society and as a people. But we, kind of, forget about them. But yeah, I think... Often I'm frustrated by reading because if I'm reading a book, it's not the book.... I want the book to be the book I want it to be. So that can be more interesting, where you're... you're writing a book for yourself. And [laughs] often I buy books that I know are bad...
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Alan Cunningham
... because I want to read them to work out why they're bad.
Charles Adrian
Yeah, I... That's interest... No, and I can totally identify with that. Yeah. Yeah.
Alan Cunningham
[speaking over] I... I... I'm going to go out on a limb here and ruin any sense of a professional career but...
Paula Varjack
[gasps] Don't do it!
Alan Cunningham
... I bought The Casual Vacancy the other day by J. K. Rowling...
Charles Adrian
Oh. Yeah.
Alan Cunningham
... and it's... it's... it's pretty awful.
Charles Adrian
Is it?
Alan Cunningham
Sorry, J.K. I know...
Paula Varjack
[laughs]
Alan Cunningham
... but...
Charles Adrian
That's one l... You've lost me a listener, Alan.
Alan and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Alan Cunningham
But... But I enjoy it because there are some things in it that I just read and I'm like, “Wow, the editor really gave up the ghost”.
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Alan Cunningham
There are a lot of clichés, you know?
Charles Adrian
Right. Yeah, yeah.
Alan Cunningham
But that's interesting because you see, “Okay, there's a cliché”... You know, and you wonder what... It makes you think about... It... When you see clichés like that - because you might see five of them in a paragraph and you're like, “Okay, there's something to avoid in my writing”. Because you might... you might use it.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Because you see the effect on yourself.
Alan Cunningham
Yeah, and you see how it turns you off the book. For me, anyway. I mean, I'm s... Look, there's a... You know, in terms of narrative and telling a story, the book is fine. But for me language is what's interesting and I just think the language, it's really... it's real... it's a lot of cliché. And it's really interesting to try and struggle against that, you know. So.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that's... that... I think that's very important and I... I mean, when I say there's no qualitative difference between high culture and low culture, I suppose what I mean really is: the effect of one is just as important as the effect of the other. You might... You might say one is ba... You know, such an such a thing is bad or such and such a thing is good. I think that's not the most interesting thing about it. You can still, as you say, read a bad thing and be inspired by it in some way. It has an effect on you, doesn't it?
Alan Cunningham
Yeah, I mean... and it can be enjoyable. It's just that...
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm. That's not what [indistinct]...
Alan Cunningham
[speaking over] ...as a writer, your main... as a writer, your concern is words. So if you're reading a book and you're seeing a lot of clichés, you're kind of thinking, “Oh, that's interesting”. You can still enjoy it. You know, I can still enjoy bad television. It's still, you know... And often it's...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] I was going to say, I spent a lot of time watching Hollyoaks when I was a student and it was...
Alan Cunningham
[speaking over] Yeah. And it can... it can... it can have an emotional effect on you. You know...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] ... it was just what we wanted.
Alan Cunningham
... we're much more easily manipulated than we often think we are. Especially when it comes to emotions. So. That's okay.
Charles Adrian
Yeah. Shall we come to your book?
Alan Cunningham
Yes. [laughs]
Anna and Paula
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
Count From Zero To A Hundred [sic], which... Yeah, it's a beautiful book.
Alan Cunningham
Thank you.
Charles Adrian
I really... Yeah, I really enjoyed it. And I was reading it again yesterday and thinking there was a lot that I hadn't noticed the first time I read it and a lot of things... Like, I was wondering, suddenly, “Oh, is the... is the narrator called Patrick?”…
Alan and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
… because there's a moment where he suddenly addresses Patrick. And I don't know why that should... why I should go, “Maybe that's”... Because sometimes... sometimes you use I and sometimes you use you and... Like, that was just a tiny, tiny thing but I also... The first time I read it... Maybe I shouldn't say this yet. Let's start with you... Let's start with you reading a part from it and then we will talk about it.
Alan Cunningham
Okay.
Charles Adrian
So I want you to read the first page but, again, you can cheat if you want because I think the whole first section is great.
Alan Cunningham
Well, I'll read from the first page and we'll... I find reading a very strange... like, it's quite a tiring act. So we'll see how far I get.
Charles Adrian
Okay.
Alan Cunningham
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
You... yeah.
Alan Cunningham
But we'll definitely do the first page.
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Alan Cunningham
We'll definitely do that. Okay. So this is from Count From Zero To One Hundred.
sound
[sound of motorbike going past]
Charles Adrian
We'll just wait for the motocyle.
Alan Cunningham
Live from Hackney.
All
[laughter]
Alan Cunningham
1
sound
[sound of voices from outside]
Anna, Paula and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Alan Cunningham
I was in Ireland, and all I can remember thinking about was... I was in London and all I can remember thinking about was... I was in Berlin and all I was thinking about was... I was in a woman's bed and all I was thinking about was what I wanted.
I wanted anonymity, easily available through ignorance of language. What I really wanted – what that anonymity in fact was – was something more powerful, more destructive. I wanted erasure of myself, I wanted the result of choosing either to not remember or not learn the words with which we can communicate.
I wanted to cease to exist.
•
What had caused this desire to take hold of me? Well, many things, over the course of many years. And the gradual accumulation of those years into something called a life had hewn a sad strength out of me, had allowed me to forget about wanting to conclude an unfinished event.
But in that woman's bed, something happened, or I believed something to have happened. I'm not sure. Whether it happened or not doesn't matter. The act – seen, unseen, imagined, unimagined – brought that forgotten desire to the surface of my mind, and I thought again about what I had always wanted.
I wanted to cease to exist, to shout, to curse, to rage, to stop doing what I was doing and run out onto the streets and bang my head against the windows of the cars, to scream, cry, to do many, many other ridiculous and necessary things.
She had looked at me.
•
I had been looking too, of course. In Ireland. In London. In Berlin. In many other places. But the observation I had been engaged in was of a strange kind, quite unlike her act. It was a constant looking, not a looking at. It was driven by an indifference to response; by, perhaps, a reluctance for such a thing to happen.
I hadn't been looking at all.
•
Here is a bad day, but I do not want pity, please. I'm too strong for that now. I present it only as an indication of how far I have gone wrong. It is an attack on myself. You will surely think I am mad.
Imagine a gun, and imagine wanting to feel it against your head. You are not sure what will happen next. You only want the sensation, initially, the promise of a possible end to things. You are too vain, too lucky in other respects, to continue. But imagine that gun, and imagine wanting it at your head.
Before that, you feel like your head is going to explode, but you have no words for what you feel. You gesture and roam about your house, your apartment, the streets, you are tense, your arms move, you slap them together, you punch a fist into the palm of your other hand, or something like that, you feel shame, you want to leave, you wonder why you do these things to yourself, your body repels, you repel your body, you close your eyes, you grimace, you want to stop and ignore all existence, you tense your body in an attempt to reject, disappear, change the molecules, atoms, particles that surround you.
And I'll leave it there.
Charles Adrian
That was great. Thank you. I particularly wanted you to read... I love the part about imagining the gun against your head. And one of the things that I noticed when I read it - when I was reading your book yesterday - is how much... I mean, it really is a book of words. It's really about words. It's about the way you use the words. And this image is, kind of, conjured up. And I have two... In my head, I have two images of the book and one is of a, kind of, swirl of images and places and people that are conjured up for a moment. Almost... I imagine it almost pictorially - these words forming an image of a particular person who is there for a moment and then vanishes. And a lot of the ideas come like that, I think. And the other one is of this... it's like this, sort of, planetary movement around... around the center so that the... the gravitational center is... is the narrator's body and the relationship with the narrator's body and I think the whole thing... everything else circles around this. And what I was going to say earlier is: one of the things that didn't strike me so forcefully the first time I read it - and I can't tell you why - is what it was about the narrator's body.
Alan Cunningham
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
I was totally aware that the narrator had an issue with... with his body and the way people were looking at him but I... [laughs] I remember writing a note, like, “What is it?”
Alan, Anna and Paula
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
[laughing] “What...?” Which is... Which is idiotic because when you read it again you go, “Oh! Okay. Yeah...
Alan Cunningham
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
... I understand”. It... You know, he's missing a hand...
Alan Cunningham
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... and this is... this is crucial.
Alan Cunningham
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
I mean, I love... there's a part I signaled here - it's a bit more than halfway through the book - where you say: “I go to Budapest for New Year's Eve, and, in a bar, a man pulls my hair as he walks past me, a prelude to a fight which he wants but which I cannot deliver.” And I think even that part... when I read it again, I was like... there's... there are so many things that feed in that I go, par... there's so many... Because you can't deliver it - I say you, the narrator - can't deliver it because of the way you feel, because of your existential crisis but also, perhaps, because you cannot punch him.
Alan Cunningham
Yeah, yeah.
Charles Adrian
And this... Yeah, I... this... this is, kind of, swirling around the whole way through. But, at the same time, that's not what the book is about.
Alan Cunningham
[affirmative] Hmm.
Charles Adrian
What... For you... I don't know if it's fair for me to ask you if... like, for you, at the center, what is... what is the... Because I feel like the whole way through, you're in this crisis - the narrator is in this crisis. And, as you read it, you're aware of this surrounding crisis. You know... And what you said earlier about describing the book, and you said, “This is not a description of me”, and you said the part that you wanted to take away was, “I'm sexy” or “it's sexy”...
Alan Cunningham
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
... but that's exactly what the narrator is doing all the way through. He's going, “I'm good looking, I'm not good looking. I'm good looking, I'm not good looking”. But... I'm trying to, kind of, formulate... I'm talking a lot and I apologise.
Alan Cunningham
It's fine.
Charles Adrian
I'm trying to formulate a question...
Alan Cunningham
I'm enjoying it. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
... which is that I think the body is the... is just the, kind of, base level of what you're talking about here. And there's something really fundamental about relationships with other people and the ability to be in the world, which you're exploring with all this movement, and all these words, and all these images, and all these people - Jess and your sister and Jeroen and whoever else appears. Is there... Is that fair, to start with?
Alan Cunningham
Absolutely. I think your second point is very fair, that the book is... is very much about the body, but yet, at the same time, I think the exercise of writing the book was to disappear the body somehow. Yeah, I mean, we... we... When one is in society, the way in which we are [laughs] in society is through our body and it has a huge impact on how we perceive others and how they perceive us and... Fairly or unfairly, irrespective of what we would like to be the case, I think it is the case. And I think, firstly, the book is about trying to illustrate that that's something that can be... Through... Through imagination and through creative facts, differences, unexpected objects, strange matter can be... can become familiar. By that I mean, you know, things that you haven't seen before, people that you haven't seen... things that are... you know, where you might think, “Wow, that's strange or that's, you know, disgusting or ugly or whatever”, can become familiar, can become beautiful. But only through... It takes effort. And the other... the other thing about the book is that it's... it's... There's something about the qua... I suppose, as... as humans, that we also have this ability to transcend the materiality of our body. We can go beyond that. And that's very interesting to me as well. But, again, it's difficult. It's really difficult. [laughing] It's really tricky. So I think the book is trying to explore that. You know, somebody... one of the... one of the reviewers of the book said it's about the difficulty of communication and I think that probably gets it really good as well. It's actually about how... how difficult communication is but how important it is. And accurate communication. Like, we can't... You know, the understanding that we can't really understand another person's perspective as much as we think that, you know, empathy is a beautiful thing and we can we can go to another person's frame of mind, it's very difficult to get that. And we have to accept that. And that's okay. So for me, it's... I mean, it's... For me, the book is about a lot of things. It's... You know, it's tackling a lot of issues - sometimes very subtly, sometimes very explicitly - but... but I think you've nailed it on the head. I mean, the book is about the body but it's also about transcending the body. That's... that's, I think, one of the main themes of it.
Charles Adrian
Right. It's... And it's interesting, now... now you say, you know, “we can transcend the physical”, there isn't... there's no cyberspace in here.
Alan Cunningham
There's a little reference to Facebook.
Charles Adrian
[laughing] Right.
Anna and Paula
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
But that's not, you know... that's
Alan Cunningham
But no, I'm a big...
Charles Adrian
That's not hardcore cyberspace either, is it?
Alan Cunningham
No, no.
Anna and Paula
[laughter]
Alan Cunningham
No, it's not. And absolutely. I mean, I'm... I'm not a big... I mean, I use the internet and I use all that kind of stuff but I'm not I'm not a big fan. Because I think the... as much as you can transcend the body through cyberspace, it's a deceptive tran... transcendation or whatever. It's... It's not... The whole point is to be... to be... to come into contact with other... other bodies. That's how you transcend. Actually, contact, touch is the way you tra... It seems counterintuitive but that's how you transcend it, I think. And through imagination. But imagination, as well, it's a... you know, that... imagination and writing is a visceral act. You know?
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Mmm hmm.
Alan Cunningham
When I was writing this book, I was... things were very... I was living very viscerally at that time - very viscerally and very actively. And it's a beauti... it's a beautiful thing. There's nothing so beautiful than really being in the world and living it and, for all the dangers and... and harmful things that will happen to you, there's nothing quite so exciting as that - and nothing that I think gets you to understand the joy of being alive and other people's joy in being alive than that. And, you know, sitting on a computer is not a visceral experience. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
No. Right. Right. I would agree with you. I just saw... Somebody who I'm following on Twitter retweeted something the other day I think a friend of hers had said. You know, it's... like, “2000... Year 2000, I discover I can make friends with people hundreds of miles away. 2010, I ask myself, ‘Why are all my friends hundreds [laughing] of miles away?’”.
Alan Cunningham
Yeah.
Anna and Paula
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
And I thought that was a really beautiful encapsulation of the dilemma, in a way. You can... You can... But you also... Our... Our experience... Our physical experience is the only experience we can have, isn't it? Fundamentally. I mean...
Alan Cunningham
Well, I don't know. I have friends who would probably [laughing] disagree with you...
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Alan Cunningham
... but...
Charles Adrian
I'm quite a materialist, I think.
Alan Cunningham
Yeah, I think it's a mix. I think that's the thing. It's... For me, it's a mix. But, yeah, sorry, I interrupted.
Charles Adrian
No, I was going to say there's... there's... I think... I either wrote it down or I marked a part where you're talking about being in this relationship. Yeah: number 29. You're... The narrator is in a relationship with somebody and he says: I want to take possession of her body like you would take possession of a house so that it becomes my body, in a way. And so... You know, you're watching her dress and you're watching her move around and you think, you know, “this is... this is also my body”. And I found that really interesting because that's impossible. I mean, that is... that's a... there's an imaginative leap. But you are still in your... We're all in our bodies.
Alan Cunningham
Yeah, but I think... I mean, this is... this is complicated because it has to do with desire and the nature of desire. I mean, I think when we... when we have a certain type of desire... You know, there's so many variations, it's hard to talk about one type of desire. I can talk about my own relationship to desire but sometimes when you have desire it's a possessive act and it's dangerous in that sense. You know, love can be quite dangerous because it's the ultimate, sort of, act of... Well, you know, it's one of the... the main acts of, sort of, transubstantiation. We disappear through, for example, the act of sex or being in love so there is this... there is this connection with wanting to not exist when we're in love. And I think that's the danger because it's a temporary, you know, non-existence and, effectively, you're just ignoring the fact of your own existence and you'll come back to that once the other person.... you know, for a variety of reasons. But it's also this sense of, you know, male desire is very much connected to possession and ownership. So it's a critical... You know, I'm being quite critical...
Charles Adrian
Yeah, yeah, I think you are.
Alan Cunningham
... when I... when I talk about wanting to be... to take possession of a body like a... like a newly purchased house.
Charles Adrian
Yes.
Alan Cunningham
And, you know, we treat, perhaps, people like objects too much rather than accepting their complexity and... And, you know, love is an act of respect as much as it is an act of desire and... and... I don't know it's a very... Desire and love is a very complicated thing for me. So.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yeah. Well, and it comes across as being a complicated thing in the book. I mean, that... that passage is... yes, it's not... I don't read it as a... as a thing to be aspired to, but it's interesting...
Alan Cunningham
[speaking over] But it happens to us. It happens to us. It happens to us.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] But, of course. Yes, absolutely it is an experience that... Absolutely. But, yeah, I mean, desire is a massive theme in here. You've got moments where you desire strongly, moments where you don't desire at all. It's... I find... It is interesting. There are lots of these ebbs and flows inside here, which... I think one of the reasons I have this image of the... the... the ellipse, the kind of circling round and around, is I feel it doesn't... you're not thrusting anywhere in particular. You're not... You're not reaching. I didn't have that feeling when I read it. It's like you're... you're sifting all of these experiences that come and go, and they come and go, and they come and go. And, in that sense, I find it a very honest book. I don't feel like you try to marshal it into an artificial order in a way that, you know, by the time you get to the end - which is what, number 89 or something...
Alan Cunningham
[affirmative] Mmm.
Charles Adrian
... you have understood everything and you, the reader, can go away and go, “Now we know...
Alan Cunningham
No.
Charles Adrian
...what the answer is”.
Alan Cunningham
No, it's not that kind of book. If you want a book with answers, it's not that kind of book. But it is a book about maybe acceptance, I think. But I wouldn't even know if it's... if it's about that. And I also wouldn't know how useful that is in the long run. Because [laughs], you know, I think the cycle repeats itself continually. But, yeah, I mean, I'm conscious of the fact that I don't want to offer any lessons. It's not the tactic. I'm not trying to preach anything. I don't... And it's really... I think it's really important in... for me personally in works of expression. What I want from an expressive work is something that captures something without preaching and without sensationalising. Neither, sort of, pornographic nor didactic. I want something that just is in the middle. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
Yeah. That's... I think that's good. And I think it's... this is. I think it asks a lot of questions, which is great, and we're left to, sort of, work out what we feel about a lot of these things. And I think there's a lot of... there's quite a lot of provocative stuff in here. There's a sentence which I wrote down, I think. Where was it? Oh, I've lost it. Oh, yes. So: “Difference...” You say: “Difference is only interesting to the sane and the whole, dissolution to the insane and the unwholesome.” And I found it quite provocative that you contrast whole with unwholesome and I think that... that's quite... I mean, obviously, that's... that's something that comes up again and again in the book but that's... Again, I don't feel like you're telling us anything except, “This is a way of feeling about something”.
Alan Cunningham
Yeah. I mean, it was a way of feeling about... I mean, I don't know. It's complicated because I think it's very... it's very right to be concerned about inclusion. Inclusion is very important. But, at the same time, I think the reality of inclusion is quite difficult, in the sense that, for example, you know, also love is something that we can think about objectively and say, “I would love to be in love. I would love to be in love”. But the act of love is quite difficult. So I think that sentence mirrors something about that fact that it's very easy to aspire to be... to embracing [sic] difference from afar but the reality of embracing difference is very painful and difficult. Because it involves going beyond ourselves and, you know, for many people, that's a difficult act. It's really difficult. But it's... it's important.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Well, and I suppose the question is: Is it possible?
Alan Cunningham
I think it is possible but it's really... you have to... but... but in order to do that you have to explore yours... I think you have to explore yourself first before you can understand. And you have to explore the limits of... of yourself and recognise the limits of yourself before you can accept difference properly. And, also, you have to accept difference. You know, the fact that, as much as you can understand someone, there will be things you just will never get. And, as much as you can appreciate the reality of somebody who's disabled or the reality of someone who's gay or the... you know, there are things that maybe you will never get. But that's okay. That's fine. That's... That's... That's part of accepting difference, is accepting difference. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's funny. It sounds so simple but you're right. When... It's not at all.
Alan Cunningham
It's quite difficult. And, also, I mean, the reference there to... You know, it's this idea that it's not just a physical thing, it can be a mental issue as well. Like, I mean... I don't have... I don't have much knowledge of... of mental illness but... but I think that's also... I mean, that's an interesting area to explore in itself. You know, the whole question of, like, different states of mental being but... you know? but, yeah, I'm glad you liked that sentence. It's a nice one.
Charles Adrian
I do. I mean, I love the word unwholesome, but it... it really... because the opposite - wholesome - is this image of something that, you know, makes you a stronger, better, more useful person, but it... for me, it has echoes of, you know, empire building and, you know, things... that kind of usefulness. And unwholesome is, you know, something then that will cause you to become a lesser person. And I think that's... So I think it's quite a strong word.
Alan Cunningham
Yeah. And I think... Well, and I would say, like, to be... I think it's the reverse. I think being unwholesome is perhaps more useful in the long run - or at least understanding that. You know, I'm also really interested in this idea of what we consider to be strong and the associations we have, what we consider to be weak and the associations we bring from that. And it has... I think it has a lot of problems in how society... You know, I'd love... I'd love, you know, there to be more placing of responsibility on the types of people we consider to be weak in society because it's all... it all... it's all about strength and, you know... And it's just... it's so boring because then their frame of mind is only what is... what is their reference in it. There's so much more. So much more complexity. So I don't know. I'm glad you liked unwholesome.
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Alan Cunningham
And unwholesome things can be fun too.
All
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
Absolutely. Absolutely. What... The other thing I wanted to talk about was the disclaimer at the beginning. Now, I find... I find it interesting because you... you more or less, say, “I'm not going to tell you [laughing] anything about this book. What I am going to say as it might... it might be true, it might not be true. Parts of it might be true, parts of it might not be true... These people...”
Alan Cunningham
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
And it's... I mean, you know, it's... it's... you see names in the book that come up in the acknowledgments, for example, and, obviously... you know, making... you go, “Is this a real person? Was this a conversation that actually happened?” And I like the fact that you sidestep that but I also wonder what... why... So, more basically, why do you call it a novella?
Alan Cunningham
Well, I mean, that's... I don't know if it fits easily into that category but I suppose we call it a [laughing] novella because we didn't know what else to call it.
Alan and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
Because it sounds to me, when I read the disclaimer, as if you're edging away from calling it a memoir, which... which... and I know people... you know, there have been people like James... is he James Frayne*, the guy who got into trouble in the States? I mean, he wrote what is essentially [laughing] not so different from what you're writing.
Alan Cunningham
No, I am aware of the the debates about the Frayne* book and... but, I mean, it's a novella because I think a memoir would just be a straight retelling and I don't think I did that. I think that... And also what's important in the book is... as much as... as what's in there, is what's left out. But also, for me, it's very much about the language and that's... You know, I can remember something and create something on the page that is very different from how somebody else remembers it, even if we had the real conversation. So there is a creative act involved even if... even if you're writing a memoir, but I think a memoir...
Charles Adrian
Because that was James Frayne's* defense, essentially, wasn't it, that: “When I say memoir, I don't mean,... I don't mean that it's a factual book. It's a book that is based on fact or...” [indistinct].
Alan Cunningham
No, I appreciate that. But also, I think that I wanted to create... I wanted to create ambiguity. I mean, people who know... the right people know and everybody else is just going to have to guess, but I like that. But I mean, you know, I wouldn't... I wouldn't... Of course, it's, in a sense... there are elements of autobiography. Absolutely. But I think, for me, I was trying to create something that wasn't... that there was some distance as well. So that's why I created this... the disclaimer where I'm saying, "Yeah, some of it, perhaps, is based on real life but some of it...” And some of it isn't. I mean, there are parts in there that have no connection with anything. They're just purely objects of fiction that I've just made up. So there's a mix and that's why I thought it more accurate to say, “Well, it's not a memoir. It's...” But, also, I don't really know what it... You know, we don't really know what it is. It's a text. I mean, text, probably, would be a better... [laughs]
Charles Adrian
Yes, that's a good word for it, it is a text. Or I would say it's a collection of texts. It's a... So I was at a gallery showing of a friend of mine today. He was saying the paintings are a suite of paintings.
Anna and Paula
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
And I... Maybe this is a suite of texts.
Alan Cunningham
Yeah. I mean, it's... it's fragmentary, it's... it's disjointed but... I mean, you know, [indistinct]... You know, if it's just a... it's a short text... There is... There is... I suppose there is some kind of arc to it as well so in a sense... but I do... I do appreciate what you're saying. But I just... I liked that ambiguity as well. I like ambiguity.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh! No, me too. Me too. And I'm very glad you didn't call it a memoir. I... Actually, I like the... I also like the license you take in the other direction to... to recount autobiographical stuff inside it. Because that's, kind of, tricky in a fictional... in a fictional context. You know, if you write a novel that is a novel - that you advertise as a novel - and yet there are autobiographical elements and there are conversations that you had with real people, that's... that's tricky. That's very... And people find that difficult. But here, I feel like you've been... you've given yourself the widest possible field and you've been very honest about that and I like that.
Alan Cunningham
[speaking over] Yeah. Yeah. And I like to leave... I like to leave people guessing but also, I mean, every writer... You know, you can write the most traditional fictional novel and it still contains elements of autobiography.
Charles Adrian
Well, how could it not? Yeah.
Alan Cunningham
Yeah. So it's... it's... I like the fact that that's... that's one of the best things about writing, you know? It's never really completely made up. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
Right. Yeah, [laughing] absolutely. Absolutely.
Alan Cunningham
It's a... there's some element of truth there.
Charles Adrian
Yes. Yeah. Do we have any... any questions? Hello, new audience member.
All
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
Is there anything that you want to talk about or ask or...? It can be about anything.
Alan Cunningham
Yeah. Open... Open to the audience.
Charles Adrian
Open... Open... Yeah.
Paula Varjack
Can we ask about what plans are coming next?
Alan Cunningham
Yeah, you can.
Charles Adrian
Okay, so, in case that didn't go onto the recording, we've had a question about what plans are coming. That's what they do at readings, isn't it?
Alan Cunningham
[laughing] Yeah.
Anna and Paula
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
Like, “Can I just repeat the question in case anyone didn't hear it?”
Alan, Anna and Paula
[laughter]
Alan Cunningham
Yeah, I'm working on a new text, which also, kind of, blends the author's input with the fictional character. I guess that's, kind of, coming to an end. It's hard. But... And I'm also working on a play. I'm trying to figure out how to... to be more, sort of, interactive. And I'm interested in performative stuff as well - I've become more interested - and how text and performance connect and the limits of text. You know, where text becomes a barrier and where the body is actually a better way of communicating something and where text, kind of, falls short. Maybe I've aged myself into that corner because Count From Zero To One Hundred is quite minimalistic so maybe, as I [laughs] progress, there'll be less and less and less words.
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Alan Cunningham
But I like that... I like that. You know, I'm... I'm interested in the body and how we... we move our bodies and what we say with our bodies as well. And I think with the play, hopefully, I'll be able to do some stuff with that. So yeah.
Charles Adrian
So will you... will you hopefully write that into the play? Or have you written that?
Alan Cunningham
[speaking over] Yeah. I mean, that's one of the nice things about writing a play is you get to think about lighting and movement and... and how you envisage it played by the... by the actor? Yeah.
Charles Adrian
Because that... It seems [to me], that's a really collaborative door you're opening. Because then, you know, it depends on the actor's movement, the actor's body, the actor's... everything about the physicality of the actor and their experience is then brought in in a way that of course it isn't... You don't... I know everyone says, “Oh, of course you collaborate with your readers” but in a sense... In a sense you do, but you're not responsible for them, are you, in the same way?
Alan Cunningham
No. But I like that. I like that, again, as well, the fact that once you've created a text, that then... with a player, for example... that it becomes something new with the people who perform it. I'm totally open to that. I mean, I'm totally... And also with the book. I mean, people can read it whatever way they want. I want them to... You know, there's no set way of reading it. It's like, “You get what you... what you take”.
Charles Adrian
Have you heard anybody else reading your book out loud?
Alan Cunningham
No. No. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
Do you think it would be strange? I'm not offering to do that now. I think the time has passed...
Anna and Paula
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
... for me to read anything.
Alan Cunningham
I don't know. I mean, yeah, it would have to be... I'd have to hear it to... I don't know. I don't... I wouldn't have an opinion in advance.
Charles Adrian
Right. Right. It's... No, yeah, I think that's... Because obviously, as an author, I guess you do these kinds of events, you read your own stuff a fair amount. Do you imagine - if you're not writing a piece for performance, like a play, for example - do you imagine it spoken out loud when you're writing it?
Alan Cunningham
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And rhythm is very important for me. When I'm writing, I need to get into a certain rhythm. I mean, for me, it's... you know, it's a work of... yeah, it's like a song. It's like a song without music. I mean, that's if I'm being very honest. [laughs] Any... anything I write has to have a melody and a pitch and a harmony... but... but it's... you know, it might not be as musicians understand it but it... you know, it is something internal. It has its own music.
Charles Adrian
Yeah. Yeah. Are there any other questions or thoughts or...?
Anna Masing
[I don't have a] question but I liked the talk [about] truth and autobiography and that kind of stuff because I thought that was really interesting. Also, [indistinct] you tell a story and then you retell it and it becomes something else and especially in light of autobiographical storytelling. Yeah, I just like the idea. And it's always interesting to hear when you hear[?] other people retell a situation [indistinct] it's a completely different scenario of what you had in mind. And, yeah, just... I think that's a really important part to talk about when writing or telling stories and I enjoyed bit of the interview. It was just a point. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
[laughs] Thank you.
Alan Cunningham
It's a very nice point. Yeah, I agree. I think... you know... Yeah, it's more interesting when you blur lines between these things. Yeah. Because even... you could be... you could be telling something very important to your partner or to a friend - that's real life, it's happening in real life - but it's your interpretation of what the thing is and they will act on the basis of that. So every day you're creating fictions, okay? And you... the words you use have such a... You know, you could... you can use one word and somebody has a really strong reaction to that word - they hate that word - and you use that word. So it puts them completely off what you've s... You know, we have so much complexity with language that it would be unfair to say that it can't be confused and blurred and... and all those things.
Charles Adrian
Yeah. I think that's nice. Thank you. I think we'll wrap up there. This has been wonderful. Thank you very much, Alan...
Alan Cunningham
My pleasure.
Charles Adrian
... for coming out and thank you...
Alan Cunningham
[speaking over] Thank you.
Charles Adrian
... our audience, our select audience, in the [laughing] Wilton Way Cafe here in Hackney. Your book is available through Penned In The Margins.
Alan Cunningham
It is.
Charles Adrian
Is it available any other way?
Alan Cunningham
It's available in all good bookstores. I'm sure they'll order it in for you. And if you would prefer to purchase it through unnamed online retailers...
Paula Varjack
[laughs]
Alan Cunningham
... I'm sure you can do that.
Anna, Paula and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
Yeah.
Alan Cunningham
But... but...
Charles Adrian
But support your local...
Alan Cunningham
... but we prefer a Penned In The Margins purchase.
Alan, Anna and Paula
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
Yes indeed. I think... I mean, I'm sure I bought mine through Penned In The Margins. I think I even got a little thank you...
Alan Cunningham
Oh, that's nice. See?
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] ... possibly, from Tom. Yeah.
Alan Cunningham
Customer service.
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Anna Masing
I've bought a book from them and I got a little thank you.
Charles Adrian
Have you?
Paula Varjack
Aw.
Charles Adrian
You've also... Oh, very nice.
Alan Cunningham
[speaking over] Yeah, that's...
Charles Adrian
You've had the same experience. I think that's the sign of a good publisher.
Alan Cunningham
Tom at Penned In The Margins, he's...
Anna, Paula and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
He's... he's... he's... doing the right thing.
Alan Cunningham
The personal touch.
Charles Adrian
I think that's... that's... that's missing.
Alan Cunningham
Yeah. Yeah.
Charles Adrian
Wonderful. So, yeah, thank you. Oh, last thing. Last thing. I didn't ask you to bring any music today because I thought it would be too complicated to be playing music and everything but what would you have brought if I'd asked you to bring something?
Alan Cunningham
Oh. You've put me on the spot?
Charles Adrian
Yeah. Deliberately so.
Anna Masing
[laughs]
Alan Cunningham
I... I... I [laughing] know the n... Argh... Because I know what I would have brought but I can't think of the name of the artist. So I'm going to have to go with my alternate.
Charles Adrian
Oh, disappointing. Okay.
Alan Cunningham
Okay, well, I mean, there were...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] You could describe it to us.
Alan Cunningham
Yeah, there were various songs that I was listening to throughout the writing of this but... so... I can't remember some of them now because when I stop writing I tend to move on to different music. But one of...
Charles Adrian
Oh that's interesting. We didn't talk about that but that's fascinating. Okay.
Alan Cunningham
One of the...
Charles Adrian
Nice little fact.
Alan Cunningham
One of the songs that I liked - and the thing is, I don't actually like the song. I like this specific performance of the song by... It's from the seventies. It's early Van Morrison, who I'm not... I'm not a particularly big fan of but his stuff in the seventies is just... I mean, you just watch the guy and it's amazing how he interprets each song. Every time he plays it it's a completely different version. And he did... he did a version of a song called Wavelength, which he played at a festival in Switzerland, and it was on YouTube and I was watching it religiously, because I was just entranced by the way he performed the song. It's... It's, like, a nine-minute version. There's... You know, there's him and there's, like, multi-instrumentalists, there's two saxophone players, and they're just beautiful. And just the way they perform it, just... I don't know, there's something about it that was very visceral. I mean, I was trying to find visceral stuff and I just... I just liked it. But I haven't listened to it since. I mean, that's the thing. It's been a while. So I don't know if it would have the same effect. But that was... that was important when I was... when I was writing the book.
Charles Adrian
Cool. Okay. Nice choice. So I don't think there will be any music to play this podcast out but, if there were, it would be...
Alan Cunningham
No! I w... Don't play it, though! Because it would ruin it for me, because I…
All
[laughter]
Alan Cunningham
Play... You play something you want because if I hear... because that's the thing: I think the version that he recorded is quite different and it would... it would...
Charles Adrian
No, that's what I mean, that's... I mean, that's also... like, look at... it would be that version. It would be that performance. [indistinct]
Alan Cunningham
Okay. But it's also about how it l... It's the visual element of... I don't know. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
Oh no. Disaster What was your alternative? Is there something more...?
Alan Cunningham
I'll... I'll email it to you.
Alan and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
Okay, so we might play out on...
Alan Cunningham
Yeah, we'll see what we can do.
Charles Adrian
... something.
Alan Cunningham
Yeah. I'll give you a list.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Wonderful. Thank you very much. [laughs]
Alan Cunningham
Thank you, Adrian. Thanks. [laughs]
*When Charles Adrian mentions James Frayne, he means James Frey, author of the memoir A Million Little Pieces.
[Initial transcription by https://otter.ai]