Find Page One on APPLE PODCASTS or STITCHER.
(This episode is marked as explicit because of strong language.)
(Background noise might make this episode a challenging listen.)
Episode image is a detail from the cover of Crime And Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, published in 2008 by Oxford University Press; cover illustration: detail from They did not expect him, 1884-8, by Ilya Repin; photo: RIA Novosti.
Battling background noise in the foyer of the Almeida in London's Islington, Charles Adrian takes screenwriter and playwright Erik Patterson through his first ever (broadcast) podcast. They talk about the world as a playground for imperial Brits and the surprisingly immediate appeal of a Russian classic.
Another book by W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor’s Edge, is discussed in Page One 120 and Page One 189.
Crime And Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky is also discussed in Page One 173.
For anybody who is interested, the Frug is demonstrated here.
The Vera mentioned is Vera Chok, longtime friend of the podcast, whose latest appearance at the time this episode was released was Page One 52.
This episode has been edited to remove music that is no longer covered by licence for this podcast.
A transcript of this episode is below.
Episode released: 21st January, 2014.
Book listing:
The Narrow Corner by W. Somerset Maugham
Crime And Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (trans. Jessie Coulson)
Links:
Episode transcript:
Erik Patterson
Are you recording?
Charles Adrian
Yeah.
Erik Patterson
Okay.
Charles Adrian
Let's go.
Erik Patterson
Let's do this.
Charles Adrian
[laughing] Hello and welcome to the 66th Page One. This is the 46th Second Hand Book Factory. I'm Charles Adrian and my guest today, over one of those round tall tables in the foyer at the Almeida Theatre, is Erik Patterson.
Erik Patterson
Yes.
Charles Adrian
And you're going to see something here tonight. Is that right?
Erik Patterson
I am. I'm going to see American Psycho: The Musical.
Charles Adrian
The music... I didn't realise it was a musical!
Erik Patterson
[speaking over] The Musical. No, it's a musical. And I read the book a million years ago. I would not... Honestly, it's a horrifying book and I'm excited and horrified by the musical.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] I've never read it.
Erik Patterson
Don't. Or do.
Charles Adrian
Okay. I saw the film, which I liked.
Erik Patterson
Okay, yeah, no, I think it's a great story. There's passages in the book that are so disturbing that I have never been quite as disturbed by...
Charles Adrian
I hope those are the ones that are turned into the best dance routines. [laughs]
Erik Patterson
[laughs] I hope. No. The... The terrifying, disturbing rat sequence, if that is in the musical...
Charles Adrian
Wow. Okay.
Erik Patterson
... I'll be surprised.
Charles Adrian
I'll have to find out later.
Erik Patterson
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
Oh, I'm quite jealous now. Okay. Anyway, that's good... that's a good link because that was written in the 90s, no?
Erik Patterson
Yeah. Yeah.
Charles Adrian
And this is a song from the 90s, which is one of your choices. All the music is your choice.
Erik Patterson
Exciting.
Charles Adrian
This is The Frug by Rilo Kiley, which I hadn't heard before. And I think it just... For me it tastes like the 90s, this song.
Erik Patterson
Uh huh, it does.
Charles Adrian
This is The Frug.
Music
[The Frug by Rilo Kiley]
Charles Adrian
Amazing. I don't even know what the Frug is.
Erik Patterson
The Frug is a dance and I will not be able to do it for you.
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Erik Patterson
The podcast won't capture it anyway. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Is it complicated? Okay.
Erik Patterson
I don't know it. I'm just... I don't think I could...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] I might YouTube it.
Erik Patterson
You YouTube it. Yeah,
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Alright. Okay, fine. So that was Riley... Rilo Kiley, which... I like that word. Rilo Kiley....
Erik Patterson
[speaking over] Yeah. Rilo Kiley.
Charles Adrian
... with The Frug. So Erik, tell me: how do you describe yourself? That's the first thing I ask all of my guests.
Erik Patterson
I would say I'm a writer. I'm a playwright and a screenwriter. I write movies about teenage girls who want to be princesses. And I write plays about fucked-up dysfunctional families.
Charles Adrian
Amazing.
Erik Patterson
That's kind of my dichotomy.
Charles Adrian
That is beautifully succinct.
Erik Patterson
Thank you. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
Excellent. I'm looking forward to tomorrow. So, we're having a scriptathon tomorrow of your stuff
Erik Patterson
[speaking over] I'm so excited.
Charles Adrian
I am very excited about that.
Erik Patterson
I don't know. Are you there for... You're there for two of them, right? Or?
Charles Adrian
I'm there for the second two. I miss that first one. But I'll hear...
Erik Patterson
The first one I finished rewriting at 3am this morning. And I emailed it to Vera.
Charles Adrian
[laughing] Right.
Erik Patterson
And the third one I wrote two new scenes for today and I'm going to try to write some more tonight.
Charles Adrian
Wow, so this is really... We're at the coalface
Erik Patterson
It's totally raw and brand new.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh superb!
Erik Patterson
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
Wonderful.
Erik Patterson
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
Oh okay.
Erik Patterson
And it might be terrible.
Charles Adrian
But that's... that's beautiful.
Erik Patterson
[speaking over] It's part of the process.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] It's part of the process. Exactly. That's important even.
Erik Patterson
It really is.
Charles Adrian
Great. Okay. So this is a slightly strange – not strange but different – Second Hand Book Factory in that you're away from home so I go into my other mode, which is: we're just going to have two books today. So I've asked you to bring a book that you think I should have and I have brought a book that I think you should have and... So I'm going to start with that. And I was... I mean, I think there are probably lots of books that you should have more but this is the book that I thought you should have today. Partly because you're in the UK so I thought you should probably have something quite British. And so I've chosen you a Somerset Maugham book.
Erik Patterson
Ooo, interesting.
Charles Adrian
And this is The Narrow Corner.
Erik Patterson
I haven't read it.
Charles Adrian
It's very... I got a whole little set of Maugham books. And I think he's probably famous for... he's famous for certain things and the other things are really not as good. And this is just fun. It's... I don't even think it's necessarily particularly well written but it's really nice. It's this kind of... For me, it evokes this time when the world was just a playground for British people travelling around, essentially. Well, not just British people but largely... You know, the map was pink. And this is set in the Pacific, mainly. It starts off in the Malay Archipelago, which I imagine would have been called Malaya in those days, possibly. And then they set off by boat east and they arrive at an island and most of it is set on this island called... Kanda. And for me all that is impossibly exotic and what attracts me to it, I think, is the complete lack of responsibility for... None of these characters feel any responsibility for the people who are there already. And I think this is, kind of, the... it's the thing about this particular kind of nostalgia. It was a time when British people didn't feel any responsibility towards other people in the world. You just use these places as somewhere to live and... especially if you couldn't be at home.
Erik Patterson
You just have fun.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] You just go and have fun. Hang out in an island somewhere and get your mail once a month or... when the packet boat comes in.
Erik Patterson
[speaking over] That's what I'm doing in London right now, just hanging out and having fun and I don't care about any of y'all.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Exactly! This is perfect then.
Erik and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
So. And the quotation it starts from is this:
Short, therefore, is man's life
and narrow is the corner of the earth wherein he dwells
I don't know, it's just provocative. I'm going to read you the first page anyway.
Erik Patterson
Okay.
Charles Adrian
1
All this happened a good many years ago.
2
Dr Saunders yawned. It was nine o'clock in the morning. The day lay before him and he had nothing in the world to do. He had already seen a few patients. There was no doctor on the island and on his arrival such as had anything the matter with them seized the opportunity to consult him. But the place was not unhealthy and the ailments he was asked to cure were chronic, and he could do little; or they were trifling, and responded quickly to simple remedies. Dr Saunders had practised for fifteen years in Fu-chou and had acquired a great reputation among the Chinese for his skill in dealing with the ills that affect the eye, and it was to remove a cataract for a rich Chinese merchant that he had come to Takana. This was an island in the Malay Archipelago, a long way down, and the distance from Fu-chou was so great that at first he had refused to go. But the Chinese, Kim Ching by name, was himself a native of that city and two of his sons lived there. He was well acquainted with Dr Saunders, and on his periodical visits to Fu-chou had consulted him on his failing sight. He had heard how the doctor, by what looked like a miracle, had caused the blind to see, and when in due course he found himself in such a state that he could only tell day from night, he was prepared to trust no one else to perform the operation which he was assured would restore his site. Dr Saunders had advised him to come to Fu-chou when certain symptoms appeared, but he had delayed, fearing the surgeon's knife, and when at last he [...]
There we go.
Erik Patterson
Oh, mysterious.
Charles Adrian
Don't get put off by the terrible sentence structure of that first page.
Erik Patterson
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
It gets really fun. It's very, kind of, sultry and sexy and involved and... Yeah, it's nice.
Erik Patterson
Well, I'm interested in what debaucherousnesss he might get into, Dr Saunders. This'll be fun. Thank you.
Charles Adrian
So add that to the pile of books which I know you have already bought.
Erik Patterson
I've bought twenty books.
Charles Adrian
[laughs] Even more than you had when I met you last week, isn't it?
Erik Patterson
Yeah, no, because I had to get a book for today. And so I went to another bookshop...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] So you went into a bookshop.
Erik Patterson
... and then I bought many more.
Erik and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
Well good luck getting those home. We're going to play... I'm going to play the second track that you've chosen. This is literally Amazing. This is by Hi Fashion.
Erik Patterson
Yeah.
Music
[Amazing by Hi Fashion]
Charles Adrian
So that was... Yeah, that was Hi Fashion with Amazing.
Erik Patterson
And I just... I need to say those are friends of mine. That's Jen DM and Rick Gradone. And they are Hi Fashion and everyone should listen... They're amazing. Look up their other videos. Their videos are great.
Charles Adrian
Oh, yeah, definitely look up the videos. I will second that.
Erik Patterson
Yeah. Yeah.
Charles Adrian
Okay, now it's time for your book for me.
Erik Patterson
Okay. I brought you a much heavier book than The Narrow Corner.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] That's good. That's a fair trade given that you're the one that's flying.
Erik Patterson
Yeah. I brought you a very heavy book. I brought you Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh, awesome.
Erik Patterson
Have you read it?
Charles Adrian
I have a long time ago. And it's one of those books that I want to reread because it had a big effect on me and I... yeah.
Erik Patterson
Me too. Me too. And I read it once when I was a teenager and once when I was, like, twenty. And I haven't read it since. And I'm thirty-six now so I haven't read it in sixteen years. And just on the tube coming over here I was like, “I should read the first page at least to myself”. Right? I read the first, like, six pages on the tube and I just... I got sucked in immediately. And I was like, “Oh God, I'm giving it away? No, I want to...”
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yeah, it's tough sometimes. It's tough.
Erik Patterson
Yeah, like, I want to keep reading it. It is so compelling and pulpy. And you think, like, “Oh, it's Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment... like... and all their names are Raskolnikov and, like, Medvedenko and...” Like, you don't think it's going to be, like, such a page turner but it is.
Charles Adrian
Yes, I remember... Yeah, that was... I think that surprised me as well. And I should say before you start reading it, it is the reason why I despised Match Point because I love his... What he's saying in this, it's so... somehow so heartless but then he saves it at the end. And it really has a kind of internal logic to it. And I was so annoyed by Match Point because I felt like Woody Allen, who's a very bright man – and a very intelligent reader, I guess – maybe deliberately decides “Fuck it. I don't care. We're just going to have chance decide everything”. And I don't think that's good. enough.
Erik Patterson
That is not good enough.
Charles Adrian
It's not satisfying. So, anyway, that's my rant over.
Erik Patterson
Okay. Shall I read?
Charles Adrian
Please. Read the first page.
Erik Patterson
Okay. Crime and Punishment:
PART ONE
CHAPTER I
Towards the end of a sultry afternoon early in July a young man came out of his little room in Stolyarny Lane and turned slowly and somewhat irresolutely in the direction of Kamenny Bridge.
He had been lucky enough to escape an encounter with his landlady on the stairs. His little room, more like a cupboard than a place to live in, was tucked away under the roof of the high five-storied building. The landlady, who let him the room and provided him with dinners and service, occupied a flat on the floor below, and every time he went out he was forced to pass the door of her kitchen, which nearly always stood wide open. He went past each time with an uneasy, almost frightened, feeling that made him frown with shame. He was heavily in debt to his landlady and shrank from meeting her.
It was not that he was a cowed or naturally timorous person, far from it ; but he had been for some time in an almost morbid state of irritability and tension. He had cut himself off from everybody and withdrawn so completely into himself that he now shrank from every kind of contact. He was crushingly poor, but he no longer felt the oppression of his poverty. For some time he had ceased to concern himself with everyday affairs. He was not really afraid of any landlady, whatever plots he might think she was hatching against him, but to have to stop on the stairs and listen to all her chatter about trivialities in which he refused to take any interest, all her complaints, threats, and insistent demands for payment, and then to have to extricate himself, lying and making excuses—no, better to creep downstairs as softly as a cat and slip out unnoticed.
This time, however, he reached the street feeling astonished at the intensity of his fear of his landlady.
‘To think that I can contemplate such a terrible act and yet be afraid of such trifles,’ he thought, and he smiled strangely. ‘Hm... yes... a man holds the fate of the world in his two hands, and yet, simply because he is afraid, he just lets things [...]’
Charles Adrian
Oh! Amazing. I am very much hooked.
Erik Patterson
Isn't it? Like, from from page one. And he mentions... he drops in the... you know, because he's contemplating killing someone and...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] And that suddenly happens at the end of the page.
Erik Patterson
It's right at the end of the page. He just drops it in: “To think that I can contemplate such a terrible act”. And you don't know what the terrible act is for... [I mean,] now we do because most people know what the book is about but you don't know. And so, yeah, it's so...
Charles Adrian
Oh, it's beautiful. And the... I mean, landlady's are always fun anyway. It's a great place to start.
Erik Patterson
Yes. [laughs] And his, like, state of poverty and, like, his state of mind – because he is in such a fragile state to even be contemplating this terrible act that he's going to commit. And you get it all right there on that first page.
Charles Adrian
Yeah. Oh, no, that's fantastic. Oh, thank you so much, Erik.
Erik Patterson
You're welcome.
Charles Adrian
That is a wonderful choice.
Erik Patterson
And look, look, it was three-for-two.
Charles Adrian
Ah, so you had to buy...
Erik Patterson
I had to buy two other books. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
Ah, okay. I feel like I've condemned you to thousands of pounds worth of extra luggage charges.
Erik Patterson
Oh god. Who knows? It doesn't matter.
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Erik Patterson
I bought other books that I love.
Charles Adrian
Well, that's more or less it for today. I'm conscious that the noise level has risen since we arrived.
Erik Patterson
I know. I know.
Charles Adrian
So I hope that this is...
Erik Patterson
Hopefully people can hear us.
Charles Adrian
You just have to lean in guys, lean in.
Erik Patterson
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
Now, I'm going to play the last track that I've chosen for today. You sent me a list of really amazing tracks and...
Erik Patterson
I had no... I didn't know how many you needed...
Charles Adrian
Well...
Erik Patterson
... and I sent you a lot of good songs.
Charles Adrian
I know you did. And there are a couple... So I really, really wanted to play Let The River Run by Carly Simon, which I had never come across before.
Erik Patterson
Have you never heard that song?
Charles Adrian
No. I mean, I must have because I've seen the film that it's... what's the film?
Erik Patterson
It's in Working Girl.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Working Girl. Right!
Erik Patterson
[speaking over] It's, like, the theme song to Working Girl and...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] So I must have heard it.
Erik Patterson
Melanie Griffith is on the ferry going to work and she's all gussied up to go be a secretary and Let The River Run pipes through.
Charles Adrian
I'm going to have to rewatch Working Girl.
Erik Patterson
[speaking over] And you just... like, you get filled with the sense of, like, purpose and “I can do anything!” And I listen to it sometimes and it just... it kind of sends me off on my day.
Charles Adrian
Oh! Okay.
Erik Patterson
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
I'm going to rewatch Working Girl. And the other track that I wanted to play and won't be playing is Better by Regina Spektor, who I think... she should be called [with German pronunciation] Regina Spektor, I think, but...
Erik Patterson
She should be. Yeah, why doesn't she?
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] That would be so much better. Why doesn't she do that?
Erik Patterson
Yeah. Well, she's weird.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Anyway, it's very clear. On Wikipedia, there's a phonetic...
Erik Patterson
Does it really?
Charles Adrian
Yeah, it tells you how to pronounce her name. I looked it up. But I love... I'd never come across her. I know her name. She's sort of drifting around somewhere in my awareness but I've never heard her music but I loved... that was gorgeous.
Erik Patterson
Yeah, it's a great song.
Charles Adrian
But what I like better...
Erik Patterson
No pun intended.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] ... and I really listened to all of these...
Erik Patterson
Nice.
Charles Adrian
... is the Ani Difranco track Untouchable Face.
Erik Patterson
It's a beautiful song.
Charles Adrian
It's superb. And she's somebody who I'm not very familiar with and...
Erik Patterson
She has a million albums and she has a handful... a handful of perfect songs, I think, and then a lot of songs that I skip on...
Charles Adrian
Okay. [laughs]
Erik Patterson
I'll send you a list of, like, her ten songs that are the best.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Do it! Do it! That's perfect. Great. And this one is certainly one of them. It's so painful and beautiful and...
Erik Patterson
Yeah, it is.
Charles Adrian
... I love it. And it's worth that little, kind of, explicit tag that I'm putting on this podcast when it goes out on iTunes.
Erik Patterson
Oh, I don't even remember that... Oh...
Charles Adrian
Yeah, there's a little bit of swearing. I think there was in the song before as well but by this stage it's too late. Everyone's committed. Okay. And this... So this is Untouchable Face by Ani Difranco.
Music
[Untouchable Face by Ani Difranco]
[Initial transcription by https://otter.ai]