Find Page One on APPLE PODCASTS or STITCHER.
Episode image is a detail from the cover of Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, published in 2006 by Penguin Red Classics; illustration by Kazuko Nomoto; cover design by Clare Skeats.
Poet, performer and former child Francesca Beard joins Charles Adrian for the 50th Second Hand Book Factory. They talk about two books that transcend their subject matter and one book that is a call to consciousness. Links to Francesca's work mentioned here include this, this and this.
Other books by Vladimir Nabokov discussed on the podcast are Pale Fire (Page One 119, Page One 151 – particularly the unedited version of that episode – and Page One 189) and Collected Stories (Page One 162).
Another book by David Foster Wallace, Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, is discussed in Page One 51 and Page One 169. He is also talked about in Page One 19 and Page One 160.
This episode has been edited to remove music that is no longer covered by licence for this podcast.
This episode features a jingle written for the podcast by the band Friends Of Friends.
A transcript of this episode is below.
Episode released: 4th March, 2014.
Book listing:
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
This Is Water by David Foster Wallace
Beauty and the Bees by Tania Sanchez from Perfumes: The A-Z Guide by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez
Links:
SoapBox loves… Francesca Beard
Episode transcript:
Charles Adrian
Hello everyone, welcome to the 71st Page One, it's the 50th Second Hand Book Factory, I'm Charles Adrian and my guest today, in Notting Hill in London, is Francesca Beard.
Jingle
You're listening to Page One, the book podcast.
Charles Adrian
Hello Francesca.
Francesca Beard
Hello.
Charles Adrian
Thank you so much for being a guest.
Francesca Beard
Oh, you're so welcome.
Francesca and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
And thank you for letting us do it in this wonderful dining room-cum-library. I'm just a bit distracted by all the books but it's wonderful.
Francesca Beard
It really is. This is... We're at my dad's [laughs] and, yeah, he's got a lot of books. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
And they're very attractive books as well. I can see some really nice... There's a chunky leather-bound book at the bottom that is called...
Francesca Beard
Bunyan's Selected Works.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh, wow. And that's only the works that have been selected!
Francesca Beard
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
It's enormous. That's Bible size. Anyway, we're going to talk about the books that we have chosen. But first, how do you describe yourself?
Francesca Beard
Well, I'm a former child.
Francesca and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Francesca Beard
I'm a poet. I mainly perform my work and I'm very interested in talking to audiences either live or, kind of, virtually, but having some kind of dialogue. So my work, I think, is... I see it as a question often which I hope I get answers to or... so although there'll be... it'll be a story or poem, which will be a set piece and a thing in itself, for me it's the opening of a conversation, or really the frame where I get people to come in and tell their stories.
Charles Adrian
Oh very nice. So you're... yeah, you're opening a space, essentially.
Francesca Beard
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
Oh, lovely. How do you feel about performing your work versus people reading it on a page?
Francesca Beard
So I earn a living from showing up...
Charles Adrian
Right. [laughs]
Francesca Beard
... so I feel that performing my work is very much part of both the thing that makes sense to me about being a poet – because I get to see how people feel about what I do, which is really important, that connection – and it also means that I get to do it more because I get paid for it. Whereas having... I don't know about people reading my work on a page because I'm not there and in a way it's a bit like... Yeah, I kind of... I guess I'm quite simple organism and I'm like, “Well, it's a tree falling in the forest, I don't know, you could read it, you could not read it, how do I know?” And also because it doesn't come back in royalties because I have a little chap book that I sell at gigs but I don't... It's... I mean, Waterstones tried to stock it once and it was, kind of, a nightmare of those, kind of... what do you call those codes? Those, you know...
Charles Adrian
Oh, the I...
Francesca Beard
The [ISBNs], yeah. They had to, kind of, make one and stick it on. And it was, you know... And it doesn't. So... And for that reason, I've never really engaged with the form of something on the page. So to me my work looks like someone's dropped an egg on a pavement [laughing] when it's [a] text. You know?
Charles Adrian
And you know how to interpret that?
Francesca Beard
Yeah. I mean, I... Yeah. And... yes. So I... I don't know. I mean, at some stage it might be nice, I guess. I mean, it's a question that comes up a lot. People go “Why...” You know, “Have you ever thought of publishing? Why haven't you...?” And I get there'd be advantages to it but at the moment I'd rather do other things.
Charles Adrian
Interesting, interesting. We're... So... But moving on to books, what is the book that you have brought that you like?
Francesca Beard
So the book that I love is by Vladimir Nabokov. I don't know how you pronounce that but that's how I pronounce it. And it's Lolita.
Charles Adrian
Okay. Yeah, very nice choice.
Francesca Beard
Thank you.
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.
She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.
Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, a certain initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.
I was born in 1910, in Paris. My father was a gentle, easy-going person, a salad of racial genes: a Swiss citizen, of mixed French and Austrian descent, with a dash of the Danube in his veins. I am going to pass around in a minute some lovely, glossy-blue picture-postcards. He owned a luxurious hotel on the Riviera. His father and two grandfathers had sold wine, jewels and silk, respectively. At thirty he married an English girl, daughter of Jerome Dunn, the [...]
Charles Adrian
I always forget that Lolita is a nickname. I don't know why that should be – or seem – significant but it somehow does. Why did... Why... What is it about Lolita?
Francesca Beard
The book? I was thinking about this before you came over. I... It's... Normally I'm a big... it really matters to me, subject matter. It matters to me, intent. It matters to me, the wider context. I'm often completely humourless about things that other people go, “Well, it's art” or “It's...” You know? So I feel very strongly about, you know, things like pornography, for example. You know, I have children myself so, you know, any kind of abuse of children is – as with most people – deeply distressing. So... But... And this book is about... is written from the point of view of a child abuser. But it's... And so it's... so it's not in spite of it that I love it. It's a book that, for me, it's... it's like a different organism from other books. It's like, it's a different evolution. It's... When I read it, I don't... I went to Cambridge and I studied English and I really enjoy analysing and breaking things down. It doesn't take away from the pleasure of reading for me. I do it automatically and it adds to my pleasure. But this is a book that I don't do that with. It's entire in itself. There's a kind of magical quality to how... And, again, I'm not into perfection at all but it seems formed in a different way to other works of literature. It's as if there's no joins. It's like a... some piece of blown glass that's the most incredible... And then you're looking at the piece of blown glass and you're suddenly inside it and you're in a world. And that's why... It's just... I don't even want to talk about it in a way as a kind of break-it-down – or can't. And there's another writer that does that for me who is – and I don't know how to pronounce his name either – Borges.
Charles Adrian
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Francesca Beard
And he... his stories in particular – because he wrote poetry as well. But his stories in particular have that quality for me. They're a differently evolved entity than most other books. They're just on a higher level for me. I... you know?
Charles Adrian
Oh, that's... I mean, it's beautiful. It's one of the most complete explanations for why somebody [laughing] likes a book that I think I've ever had. And it makes perfect sense to me, what you say. And that is... Because that is such a special experience, what you're describing. But I'm going to play the first track that I've picked and this is... it's a bit random. I was researching you online yesterday. I thought I should probably know more about Francesca Beard the public person.
Francesca Beard
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
I came across...
Francesca Beard
[laughing] I disagree strongly.
Francesca and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
I felt it was incumbent upon me as a podcast host.
Francesca Beard
Okay.
Charles Adrian
And I came across... One of the things I came across was the podcast that you did for Fuel Theatre and the Roundhouse with the cardiologist Dave...
Francesca Beard
Yeah. Yeah, Dave Hildick-Smith
Charles Adrian
… Hildick-Smith, which is wonderful. I mean, I love the little interview you do about the podcast, which is on YouTube, and I love the podcast itself. I think it's gorgeous. And so there's no real deep connection here. It was just an excuse...
Francesca Beard
[speaking over] Thank you, though [laughs]
Charles Adrian
[laughing] No... My pleasure. It was just an excuse for me to pick a track by Heart and this is Crazy On You.
Francesca Beard
[laughs] Good link!
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Music
[Crazy On You by Heart]
Charles Adrian
So that was Heart with Crazy On You. Now, my book for you – which, again, is also inspired by the research that I was doing yesterday because two of the... So two of the other things that I came across: one was a video that was recorded at the 2012 Bookslam where you're reading... you're talking about this... your negative epiphany in the Portobello Road Tesco Metro. And the other thing was The poem that was really a list, which is from SoapBox. That's the video that I found. And so these two things both sparked off a memory of David Foster Wallace's This Is Water. I don't know if you know it.
Francesca Beard
No.
Charles Adrian
It's a commencement speech that he gave – and I don't remember which college it was at. I could look it up. But partly because the, kind of, central section of it – and it's what we were talking about before the podcast began – with the way people behave in... you know, we were talking about cycling specifically and when people are in their car and the way they behave towards cyclists and the way cyclists behave towards drivers. He's talking about being in a supermarket and the way that we treat each other. Kind of, sim... not... He's not talking about the same thing that you're talking about in your poem but it's this, kind of, atmosphere of what is this space where we all shove together, we don't know each other, and we make assumptions about each other. And he's saying, “Step back and just... you can decide to be more forgiving and you can decide to also make life easier for yourself, to be less angry all the time”. And that's, in a way, I feel that what you're doing with – not... and not just The poem that was really a list but a lot of your work that I've come across. I feel that you are... you're asking people to question, to say “What is what is behind? What is going on? What is this really?” And I think that's what he does here very nicely, very beautifully. But I'll just... I'm going to cheat. I'm going to read the first seven pages because – Or not quite seven pages but – because they're just... each page is just a paragraph and I think it, sort of... I'm allowed to cheat.
There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys. How's the water?”
And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”
This is a standard requirement of US commencement speeches, the deployment of didactic little parable-ish stories.
The story thing turns out to be one of the better, less bullshitty conventions of the genre, but if you're worried that I plan to present myself here as the wise, old fish explaining what water is to you younger fish, please don't be.
I am not the wise old fish.
And I'm going to stop there although it's the kind of book that, because you keep turning pages, it just sucks you in and sucks you in and sucks you in. And rather like, I think, with someone like Borges it's a beautiful distillation of a very interesting mind. It's really nice. I feel like I'm cheating giving you this because I haven't read anything else by David Foster Wallace but I also feel like I know him, [laughing] having read this and something else. It's... The way that he looks at the world I think is very interesting. He's constantly... I feel like he's constantly challenging and saying, “What is going on here? Isn't there a better way of doing this?” And I like that. And I think that's a good... I think that's an interesting and important thing.
Francesca Beard
[speaking over] Thank you. That's wonderful. How wonderful.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Now, what's the book that you are [giving to me]?
Francesca Beard
[speaking over] I want to give to you? Okay. So. It is... It's called Perfumes, A Guide [sic]. It's a guide to perfumes. Perfumes, The A-Z Guide by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez and I've chosen it for you because it is one of the books that I recently discovered that has given me the most pleasure in the last few years. And the reason that... one of the reasons that I chose it for you: not only do I think it's genuinely wonderful but it's... it, kind of – and it's meant to be about perfumes but it totally transcends being about perfumes. It's deeply serious about perfumes.
Charles Adrian
Nice. Okay.
Francesca Beard
But it's also about human nature and beauty and art and science, I'd say. And it's very... it's episodic. It's literally... There's a couple of essays at the beginning and then it just goes through every single perfume that you can buy and has a paragraph about each of them.
Charles Adrian
Wow.
Francesca Beard
And it describes them. It describes them scientifically, artistically... You know, some of it is very, very short. It started with a blog and... because Luca Turin is a chemist who was employed by the perfume industry and he just started blogging about, you know, different perfumes that he loved. And then he met, through his blog, a reader who was also obsessed with perfumes and they started writing... they started writing this book together and then eventually got married. And so I just wanted to read you the beginning of this essay if that's all right.
Charles Adrian
Yes please.
Francesca Beard
And I just think you would really... It's very funny, which... and I think you're very funny. And I love your... the spaces in between your writing and I just thought you might enjoy the form and it might... Yeah, it might amuse you and possibly inspire you in some way.
Charles Adrian
[excited] Mmm! Oh, I'm looking forward to this.
Francesca Beard
Yeah. Yeah. So let me just get the beginning of it. And I'm going to cheat a little bit because the beginning is, like, a very basic introduction but this is... gives you more.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yeah. That's fine.
Francesca Beard
So it's called Beauty and the Bees by Tania Sanchez.
The question that women casually shopping for perfume ask more than any other is this: “What scent drives men wild?” After years of intense research, we know the definitive answer. It is bacon. Now, on to the far more interesting subject of perfume.
It is a mistake to think that the overwhelming reason for women to wear perfume is to attract the opposite sex. But as Luca once explained to me regarding the peculiar temperature-independent scanty dress of many young women at night, what a woman on the prowl requires is something that men will register after six beers. Thus the use of simplified sexual cues, such as short skirts and big hair, and perhaps also a loud, sweet, pervasive perfume that will cut through a fog of spilled liquor, end-of-day body odor, the occasional vomit on the bar floor, and the perfumes of the nearest five girls, dressed identically. Of course, if your mating strategy casts this wide a net, you may drag in more old boots than big tunas. But that is probably fodder for another book.
Perhaps this attention-getting olfactive strategy can also, in a way, explain the second mistake, milder than the first but still quite wrong, that women tend to make when choosing a fragrance, which is to assume that the reason to wear perfume is to impersonate a flower bed. It [sic] is a very fine strategy if your aim is to attract bees. Otherwise, you could do better. Flowers smell good, it is true. Alongside their frequently loud colours and their petal markings that in ultraviolet light flash the message “Eat at Joe's,” they release a steady mixture of volatile fragrant attractants tuned to catch attention at a distance, much like the aforementioned bar beauties, and with the same hardwired goal, which is to say sexual reproduction.
Charles Adrian
Very nice. I like it.
Francesca Beard
It's...
Charles Adrian
It's really... yeah, it's very acerbic. Oh, thank you so much. Oh, I'm really looking forward to that. We need to finish, I'm afraid. I'm going to play us out with another track – and this is also inspired by part of my YouTube trawl yesterday because I liked the... In the... So I think at the 2010 Bookslam you did this virtual reality piece about being an Oscar winner or an Oscar contender and how awful that was. I liked your phrase “Eau de Failure”.
Francesca Beard
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
But this... So this is, again, just an excuse for me to play Virtual Insanity by Jamiroquai. Thank you Francesca.
Francesca Beard
Thank you so much. I really enjoyed it.
Music
[Virtual Insanity by Jamiroquai]
[Initial transcription by https://otter.ai]