Find Page One on APPLE PODCASTS or STITCHER.
(This episode is marked as explicit because of strong language.)
Episode image is a detail from the cover of The Lost Decade and Other Stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald, published in 1972 by Penguin Books.
For the 47th Second Hand Book Factory, Charles Adrian is joined by journalist (among other things) Oscar Rickett. After a rocky start, they talk about a particular kind of American comic writing, a melancholy penguin and Fitzgerald's elegant command of emotion.
The Lost Decade And Other Stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald is also discussed in Page One 173.
You can listen to Fairewell's music here.
This episode has been edited to remove music that is no longer covered by licence for this podcast.
A transcript of this podcast is below.
Episode released: 28th January, 2014.
Book listing:
Ideas For Paintings from What I'd Say To The Martians And Other Veiled Threats by Jack Handey
Death And The Penguin by Andrey Kurkov (trans. George Bird)
The Lost Decade from The Lost Decade And Other Stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Links:
Episode transcript:
Charles Adrian
Hello and welcome to the 67th Page One. This is the 47th Second Hand Book Factory. I'm Charles Adrian and my guest today is fellow cyclist Oscar Ricketts. Hello Oscar.
Oscar Rickett
It's Oscar Rickett without an ‘s’.
Charles Adrian
Oh no! How embarrassing!
Oscar Rickett
So we've got off to a bad start. And...
Charles Adrian
Sorry, I'm going to cross it out on my crib sheet and then that won't appear again. [laughs]
Oscar Rickett
And it's also comforting for me to know that I'm 67th of your guests.
Charles Adrian
You're only the 47th of my guests.
Oscar Rickett
Oh, okay, so... so...
Charles Adrian
I've done twenty on my own.
Oscar Rickett
... incredibly...
Charles Adrian
You... you...
Oscar Rickett
...incredibly low down on the list and...
Charles Adrian
No, relatively... You have no idea how many people...
Oscar and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Oscar Rickett
It's a bad start.
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Oscar Rickett
I'm not going to lie to you. I'm a journalist, I suppose, though I do some other things. And I write for... primarily for Vice and for The Guardian. And I sometimes work in television development. And I've written some plays and I've been an actor. And I think there's some other stuff but... So that's, sort of... that's what I... that's what I work at. That's what my work is.
Charles Adrian
Okay.
Oscar Rickett
And then in day to day life I just continue to be an inspiration to myself and those around me. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
Thank you, Oscar. I am so grateful to you for [laughing] sparing the time to come do this...
Oscar Rickett
I know, right? [laughs]
Charles Adrian
... do this podcast with me.
Oscar Rickett
That's better. [laughs] That's the kind of...
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Oscar Rickett
Frankly, that's the kind of respect I thought I'd be getting...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] And I'm clawing it back.
Oscar Rickett
... from the beginning. And I'm... you know, I'm only pleased to see that it's happened albeit two and a half minutes too late.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] I'm a little over-awed because I've read some of your pieces and I know how {you} rate as an interviewer. And so it's difficult. It's a bit like... I'm not going to continue with that. Tell me about your book that you [indistinct]...
Oscar Rickett
[speaking over] No, no, no, I liked that. That was... [laughs] So with... My first book...
Charles Adrian
Yes.
Oscar Rickett
... is that what we're talking about?
Charles Adrian
The book that you like.
Oscar Rickett
Well, now I've cheated on both books because I'm giving you... not without... I hadn't intended to do this but I'm giving you... I'm talking about two books which are both essentially collections of short stories. And the first book – the book that I like – is by a guy called Jack Handey and it's called What I'd Say To The Martians And Other Veiled Threats.
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Oscar Rickett
And Jack Handy is a real person. I'd say this because for a long time there was this sort of rumour going around that he wasn't a real person, that the name was made up, that “Jack Handey” was just too good a name...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] It sounds... yeah... It sounds...
Oscar Rickett
... to be real.
Charles Adrian
Yes.
Oscar Rickett
And he wrote for Saturday Night Live for a long time. He was most famous for something called Deep Thoughts, which were a sort of collection of various kinds of, you know, like, New Age-type things except they'd always have a twist, you know. So they'd be... You know, it would be like, they'd play some sort of... you know they'd play like a kind of a collection of... you know, they'd play some, like, new age music and then, you know, it would be something about, you know, taking his kid to Disney and then, you know, he gets eaten by a bear or something. So I was trying to find some in my book and I failed and so I've [laughing] stopped thinking about it. But he... what I like about him, he also... he writes sort of Shouts and Murmurs for The New Yorker. And it's this kind of humour which I love and which is sort of... I don't know if it's disappearing from magazines and from the internet. I suppose it's whimsical and quite surreal. And it's the kind of thing that James Thurber and E. B. White used to do very well. And really, when I started writing, it was the kind of thing that I wanted to write and quite rarely get the opportunity to do. Anyway...
Charles Adrian
Read us the first page of the one you've chosen.
Oscar Rickett
[speaking over] I'm going to read you the first page.
Ideas For Paintings
Because I love art I am offering the following ideas for paintings to all struggling artists out there. Some of those artists may be thinking “Hey, I've got good ideas of my own!” Really? Then why are you struggling? These ideas are free of charge. All I ask is that [when] you have completed a painting, as a courtesy to me you sign it Jack Handey and your name or initials. And if the painting is sold, I get approximately all the money. Good luck! Let's get painting!
Stampede of nudes
The trouble with most paintings of nudes is that there isn't enough nudity. It's usually just one woman lying there and you're looking around going “Aren't there any more nudes?” This idea solves that. What has frightened these nudes? Is it the lightning in the background or did one of the nudes just spook? You don't know and this creates tension.
Charles Adrian
[laughs] I like that. That's nice.
Oscar Rickett
I suppose what he does is he constructs jokes. You know, he... You know, the title of the book, What I'd Say To The Martians And Other Veiled Threats is... it's a guy who's been imprisoned by the Martians, who have been quite kind to him, but he's kind of getting really angry to them. And there's this line where he says “I came here looking for gold and slaves”. You know, “I came in peace looking for gold and slaves”, which I think is actually also a really great... it's a really great line in reference to Empire.
Charles Adrian
Yeah.
Oscar Rickett
You know, because didn't all of Europe go looking for gold and slaves across the world?
Charles Adrian
Yeah. In peace until they were provoked.
Oscar Rickett
Yes exactly. You know, and there's... and, you know, when you look at kind of the wars that get started every now and then nowadays... you know, let's bomb them back to the stone age and say we're doing it for your own good. Because your culture, which is not our culture, is inferior.
Charles Adrian
Obviously. Yes.
Oscar Rickett
And I think... I mean, not that Jack Handey ever intended to be applied to global politics. And that's what I quite like about him. I think what I like is that, you know, I could have sort of brought something about politics or about, you know, critical thinking or whatever. But I think what he does is... it's sort of... it's a kind of pure writing. It kind of lives and dies on whether it's written well or not. And I quite like that. I think sometimes in journalism this can be a problem, that you can kind of gloss over your lack of story with good writing. But I think this is... you know, this just is good writing. And this is just good joke telling. And that's why it's good. And that's why it's interesting. But I think it... Yeah, anyway, I think that's what I've got to say about Jack Handey except that I think we should see more of him and... Though he sort of lives with his wife in... you know, in like the southwest of America somewhere and I think he's quite happy. You know, he just does his thing. You know.
Charles Adrian
Yeah, Fair play to him.
Oscar Rickett
He sits there in a big armchair writing jokes and everyone... and sort of everyone who writes comedy thinks he's he's amazing.
Charles Adrian
Well, thank you for introducing me to him. I hadn't come across him before. And also to what... I'm going to play a track now and thank you for introducing me to them. They're Fairewell – is that right?
Oscar Rickett
Yeah, Fairewell is actually just one... I mean, Fairewell is... When they play live they're a band but as a studio artist it's one guy. It's my friend Johnny White, who's a brilliant man. And Fairewell is a... you know, it's brilliant music and it's probably not listened to by enough people.
Charles Adrian
Well, you can... So our listeners can listen to this on SoundCloud. This is Real Roads by Fairewell.
Music
[Real Roads by Fairewell]
Charles Adrian
That was Real Roads by Fairewell. Now, my book for you Oscar. It's a slightly random choice from my side. There was nothing about it that said Oscar Rickett to me – or Oscar Ricketts as it would have been yesterday.
Oscar Rickett
[speaking over] Yeah, well maybe it said Oscar Ricketts and not Oscar Rickett.
Charles Adrian
[laughs] But I thought... It is a book that I really enjoyed and wanted to give to somebody. And I think you'll like it.
Oscar Rickett
Ah.
Charles Adrian
Do you know it? It's called Death And The Penguin...
Oscar Rickett
Yeah. I do know it.
Charles Adrian
... by Andrey Kurkov.
Oscar Rickett
I think I've... Actually, no, I don't have a copy of it. My sister has a copy of it.
Charles Adrian
Have you read it?
Oscar Rickett
I've never read it.
Charles Adrian
Well, you should.
Oscar Rickett
Right. Great.
Charles Adrian
Excellent. Oh, well, this.... Often I trust my intuition because nine times out of ten it seems to work out.
Oscar Rickett
Well, I mean, what do those nine people say? [laughs]
Charles Adrian
They say nice things.
Oscar Rickett
[laughing] Good.
Charles Adrian
And the penguin in this is masterful. I mean, it's such a melancholy penguin.
Oscar Rickett
So it's about an actual penguin?
Charles Adrian
It's about a guy. It's about... It's about...
Oscar Rickett
[speaking over] Listen, mate, I'm not on any March of the Penguins shit.
Charles Adrian
No. Me neither.
Oscar Rickett
If Morgan Freeman turns up in the middle... You know, heads are going to roll.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] No. March of the Penguins was horrific. This is about the kind of collapse of societal structures in the Ukraine. So you've got this kind of semi-anarchy in place. And that's the background to this story. So it's a kind of thriller in a sort of... almost a Cold War mode but set in the 90s. And... So you've got the collapse of the Soviet Union behind it. And, you know, nobody quite knows who is who and it's all kind of strangely dangerous. And this guy happens to have a penguin, which is explained in the first page. So I'll read it to you. You'll see.
1
First, a stone landed a metre from Viktor's foot. He glanced back. Two louts stood grinning, one of whom stooped, picked up another from a section of broken cobble, and bowled it at him skittler-fashion. Viktor made off at something approaching a racing walk and rounded the corner, telling himself the main thing was not to run. He paused outside his block, glancing up at the hanging clock: 9:00. Not a sound. No one about. He went in, now no longer afraid. They found life dull, ordinary people, now that entertainment was beyond their means. So they bowled cobbles.
As he turned on the kitchen light, it went off again. They had cut the power, just like that. And in the darkness he became aware of the unhurried footfalls of Misha the penguin.
Misha had appeared chez Viktor, a year before, when the zoo was giving hungry animals away to anyone able to feed them. Viktor had gone along and returned with a king penguin. Abandoned by his girlfriend the week before, he had been feeling lonely. But Misha had brought his own kind of loneliness, and the result was now two complementary lonelinesses, creating an impression more of interdependence than of amity.
Unearthing a candle, he lit it and stood it on the table in an empty mayonnaise pot. The poetic insouciance of the tiny light sent him to look, in the semi-darkness, for pen and paper. He sat [...]
There we go.
Oscar Rickett
It's very nice.
Charles Adrian
So it's kind of... Yeah, it's simple and gentle. But it's also funny.
Oscar Rickett
I like the idea of interdependence. My friend David was saying the other day that America shouldn't have an Independence Day, it should have an Interdependence Day.
Charles Adrian
Oh, that's very wise.
Oscar Rickett
You know, and the... I suppose here, though, in the book, the interdependence seems to be one that maybe is... it's potentially not enriching. I don't know.
Charles Adrian
Well, you'll see. It has an enriching side.
Oscar Rickett
But there's a kind of... there's a nice... there is... already, just in that page, there's a sort of nice evocation of what you talked about, the kind of... this sort of lurking air of danger.
Charles Adrian
Yes.
Oscar Rickett
You know, which is something I think we particularly associate with these, like, post Soviet countries, Russia in particular. You know, you can't go to Russia and do anything vaguely challenging without being followed around by the FSB, you know, and obviously we're kind of... You know, it's sort of timely to think about that. Or it's always timely to think about that. But, you know, with Sochi.
Charles Adrian
What is... What is your book for me?
Oscar Rickett
Right. My book for you, Charles Adrian, is another book of short stories. It's The Lost Decade and Other Stories and it's F. Scott Fitzgerald. So I've plumped for two Americans and I don't want... I just want to say that I'm a proud Brit.
Charles Adrian
I don't think anyone's drawing conclusions. I don't think anyone's assessing your...
Oscar Rickett
[speaking over] But also that I'm an international guy, you know. I could have... I could have brought some other stuff, you know.
Charles Adrian
Yeah, yeah. Don't worry.
Oscar Rickett
I mean, I could have even thrown a different language at you.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Relax, Oscar. [laughs]
Oscar Rickett
[laughs] I'll never relax. And I suppose I was going to give you Gatsby because I thought, well, everyone's read Gatsby but it's always nice to reread it...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Mmm hmm. This is true.
Oscar Rickett
... particularly in light of the shambles that the film was. Although I say that and I didn't actually go and see the film.
Charles Adrian
You just know. You just felt it. You just felt it, yeah.
Oscar Rickett
[speaking over] I just fucking know it was a shambles because what's Gatsby? Why is Gatsby interesting? Why do we still like Gatsby? We still like it because it's about... because he saw the society... he saw our society coming and... you know, with all... in all it's kind of loneliness and sort of romanticism and nostalgia and it... but it... but, you know, somehow when the film came around it was just a kind of collection of, you know, TimeOut articles about speakeasies and flappers. I don't give a shit, you know? Oh, Kanye did the soundtrack! Great! I mean, yeah, fine, okay. Actually, that's not a bad call. Anyway.
Charles Adrian
[laughs] Anyway, these stories.
Oscar Rickett
This is not about Gatsby but I think what Fitzgerald has is this kind of... this elegant command of emotions. Everything is slightly wistful. Everything is lyrical. There's humour in it as well. I suppose, like, pathos is the word but it never kind of tips over into bathos. And it's always... He kind of holds things on the edge. And you think that maybe he's going to go too far but he never... in his best work he never does. And I think these stories represent some of his best work. And this also happens to be a copy that my dad had at university in the 70s. So if you're listening, Dad, I'm sorry.
Charles Adrian
[laughs] You'll have to apply to me for it back.
Oscar Rickett
But, you know, I wanted to give Charles Adrian here something that he could really treasure.
Charles Adrian
I'm very excited to get this copy.
Oscar Rickett
Exactly. And you know, what better than a book that says “Willy Rickett Cambridge '72” on it?
Charles Adrian
Oh amazing.
Oscar Rickett
So there you go.
Charles Adrian
Read me... Read me a first page.
Oscar Rickett
Heady days. So I'm going to read you of the first page of this story The Lost Decade, which is only about two pages long.
All sorts of people came into the offices of a newsweekly and Orrison Brown had all sorts of relations with them. Outside of office hours he was ‘one of the editors’ – during work time he was simply a curly-haired man who a year before had edited the Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern and was now only too glad to take the undesirable assignments around the office, from straightening out illegible copy to playing call boy without the title.
He had seen this visitor go into the editor's office – a pale, tall man of forty with blond statuesque hair and a manner that was neither shy nor timid, nor otherworldly like a monk, but something of all three. The name on his card, Louis Trimble, evoked some vague memory, but having nothing to start on, Orrison did not puzzle over it – until a buzzer sounded on his desk, and previous experience warned him that Mr Trimble was to be his first course at lunch.
‘Mr Trimble – Mr Brown,’ said the Source of all luncheon money. ‘Orrison – Mr Trimble's been away a long time. Or he feels it's a long time – almost twelve years. Some people would consider themselves lucky to've missed the last decade.’
‘That's so,’ said Orrison.
‘I can't lunch today,’ continued his chief. ‘Take him to Voisin or 21 or anywhere he'd like. Mr Trimble feels there's lots of things he hasn't seen.’
Trimble demurred politely.
‘Oh, I can get around.’
‘I know it, old boy. Nobody knew this place like you did once – and if Brown tries to explain the horseless carriage just send him back here to me. And you'll be back yourself by four, won't you?’
There you go. It's a story Fitzgerald wrote about himself. Fitzgerald was a drinker and the 30s were his lost decade. And it's a very kind of... I mean, it's an interesting little piece of self -mythologizing but it's a sort of... it somehow takes in a huge slice of his life, but only in about three pages.
Charles Adrian
Wow. Oh, I can't wait to read it. I'll probably read it as soon as we finish this, which we have to do now unfortunately. I'm already aware that you've said many too many interesting things. I'm going to have to edit this viciously and I'm not looking forward to that. This has been so much... This has been fascinating apart from anything else. Thank you, Oscar.
Oscar Rickett
Thanks a lot. It's been very nice.
Charles Adrian
And I'm going to play us out with... So you gave me several things to choose from music-wise and I've chosen two fairly chilled-out tracks. So one was the Real Roads and the other... This is The Beatitudes by the Kronos Quartet.
Oscar Rickett
Well, and I chose this because I love the film that it came from – La Grande Bellezza, which is Paulo Sorrentino – and I thought it was the best film of this year. And I think that it has exactly what I talked about in Fitzgerald, which is that it holds everything on a high emotional pitch but it never spills over and it's always beautiful and it's always amazing.
Charles Adrian
This is The Beatitudes. Thank you Oscar.
Oscar Rickett
Cheers. Thank you.
Music
[The Beatitudes by Vladimir Martynov, played by The Kronos Quartet]
[Initial transcription by https://otter.ai]