Backlisted - Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf

Episode Date: October 16, 2017

In a special live edition of Backlisted, recorded in front of an audience at Blackwell's Bookshop in Oxford, John and Andy are joined by Mark Haddon, author of 'The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time' and Sally Bayley, author and tutor in English at Balliol and St. Hugh's Colleges, Oxford. The panel discuss Jacob's Room, the third novel from Virginia Woolf.Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)4'42 - Love, Madness, FIshing by Dexter Petley9'30 - The Lucky Ones by Julianne Pachico15'42 - Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by car and other conditions apply. Hello and welcome to a very special edition of Backlisted, the podcast that gives new life to old books. We've left our usual haunt of the kitchen table of our sponsors unbound, the website which brings readers and writers together to create something special.

Instead, we're gathered together in the august surroundings of the windowless basement of the legendary Blackwell's Bookshop in the Norrington Room, in front of an erudite, well-read, let's face it, downright ravishing audience. I'm John Mitchinson, the publisher of Unbound. And I'm Andy Miller, I'm the author of The Year Reading Dangerously, and joining us today are Mark Haddon and Sally Bailey. Could we have a round of applause for two of these people? Thank you.

And Sally Bailey, could we have a round of applause for two of these people? Mark Haddon is, of course, the author of novels including The Curious Incident, The Dog in the Nighttime, A Spots of Bother and many books for children. He published a edition of two stories which was originally the first thing ever published by the Hogarth Press 100 years ago it featured two stories one by Virginia Woolf and the other by Leonard Woolf and the centenary edition Leonard has been bumped for Mark so we'll talk about that in a minute. And we're also joined by Sally Bailey. Sally is a tutor in English at Balliol and St Hugh's Colleges here in Oxford. Welcome back, Sally. Sally was our guest for our Stevie Smith episode last year, and she is the

author of books about Sylvia Plath, The Private Life of the diary, and the forthcoming The Reading Detective. Actually, it's been renamed. It's called Girl with Dove. Girl with Dove? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I was about to shower you with praise for the title The Reading Detective. No, no, no.

It's a terrible title. It is a terrible title. So it's just been shoved. Okay, all right. And Sally is also, she wrote the introduction to the Persephone edition of Virginia Woolf's biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Spaniel Flush. One of the lesser known Virginia Woolf works. We're going to talk about that later as well.

I just must draw attention to this. We're joined by John Mitchinson here in Oxford. As my dad used to say, you always know when someone's been to Oxford because they tell you. So like John went to the University of Oxford here in Oxford, Mark went to the University of Oxford here in Oxford and Sally is at the U, but you are now a tutor at the University of Oxford. I'd just like to reassure listeners that I didn't go to Oxford or Cambridge and that this is, in fact, only the fourth time I have ever been to the city of Oxford.

And so I'm like the character that you, the listeners, can relate to. I'm like someone like Bilbo Baggins. I'm a long way from the Shire with these inhabitants of Ribbon down here. You're not in Toto now, Andy. No, I'm not in Kansas anymore. All Toto.

I'm not in Toto. No, sorry. Yeah, sorry, it's the bestiality joke that went wrong. This is how we distinguish ourselves from the TLS. So very, very easily. I should just, for, you know, what's it called, full disclosure, not only did Mark and I both attend the University of Oxford, we were both members of the same college, Merton College,

although we didn't really know each other. I had a very nice cream tea at the Grand Cafe this afternoon. Is that somewhere you used to go when you were undergraduates? That's the old Frank Cooper's marmalade shop in the High Street. No. After you tea? I did, I took tea. It was the 80s, man.

We went to Raoul's, the cocktail bar in Walton Street. That's where we used to go to. Am I not right? Also, I should say that when I was at Oxford, half my life I was a barman at Browns, so I had a kind of weird town gown sort of double life. And one of my great friends, the former head barman at Browns, Joe Named, is in the audience, I notice.

Wow. This is like a psychogeographical trip through pages of your past. Small town. Anyway, you were going to ask me a question, weren't you? Checks, notes. John, what have you been reading this week? Ah, glad you asked me that. Unexpected question.

I have been reading this week a really very, very, very compelling memoir by a curious man called Dexter Petley. It's called, great title in my view, Love, Madness, Fishing. Dexter Petley. Mae'n enw da yn fy marn i, Love Madness Fishing. Mae Dexter Petley yn ffisheyr, yn eithaf amlwg, ond mae hefyd yn nofelist a nofelist da iawn. Gwnaeth yn y gwaelod y Kent yn y 60au cyntaf. Mae'n ymdrin o tyfu i fyny yn y 60au cyntaf trwy'r 70au. Ac mae'n debygol iawn, mae'n dda iawn i unrhyw beth rwyf wedi'i ddarllen. Dydw i ddim yn gwybod, rwy'n ei ddarllen mewn ffordd anodd gyda llawer o through kind of into the 70s. And of its kind, it's as good as anything I've read. I don't know, I'm reading it sort of in a weird way with a lot of the Brexit news stories going on.

And this is a world, rural England, rural council estates, where secondary modern schools, where you were taught how to make compost and how to take the testicles off sheep. I mean, it's kind of a lost world now. And it was a sort of already a slightly sentimental view of the countryside. and how to take the testicles off sheep. I mean, it's kind of a lost world now. And it was already a slightly sentimental view of the countryside. He writes movingly about both his parents,

who were deeply dysfunctional, damaged by the war. His father was a New Zealander. And this community was basically a small community of people, all who'd been demobbed, who didn't really have any skills, who fixed old cars, clinging on to kind of old values, men who'd go gardening with a sort of a waistcoat and tie on, that kind of strange. I approve. Anyway, the book is, it's quite powerfully written, very well remembered. It's 15 chapters and it's basically his passage from being a small boy. Fishing is the thing that saves him, and

he writes about fishing. There's a particularly brilliant piece on an invented guy called Crabtree, and Crabtree was like the sort of the expert who wrote for a daily newspaper, completely invented human being, and Crabtree had a son, and the son was, it's all about class. I mean, course fishing in canals for Gudgeon and Tench was considered really, really low grade, the kind of fishing that Dexter Petley started out doing. He now lives wild. This is the other thing I knew.

One thing I knew about him is Matthew Clayton, our Osoir backlisted team member, introduced me to his work and he'd done a Q&A with him at a festival. He said, you know, apart from smelling a little odd, he lives wild in sort of tents and caravans in rural France. It says here, he currently lives

in a Normandy forest where he keeps chickens and grows vegetables, living off rainwater and editing fiction, which might be my favourite line ever in a biography. Have you read any of his fiction? No, and I'm going to. I mean, he writes really well.

I thought I might do just one paragraph just to give you a flavor. Before you read that bit, I just wanted to say, I remember I used to work with someone who published Dexter Petley's first novel, which was called Joyride. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, I mean, that was 20 years ago. And even then, at editorial meetings, when the progress report was asked for,

any word from Dexter, no, he was lost, spotted six months ago on the banks of the Tay. I just feel it's a really interesting book if you want to understand that particular rural... It's nature writing, it's got a real edge to it. I'll just read you this bit about childhood. This is about the fact that he, fishing, surprise, surprise, Mae'r ddysgu naturiol yn cael ei ddod o'i ffordd. Rwyf yn darllen ychydig am ysgolion. Mae'r ffaith bod y ffisio'n cymryd rhan yn gyntaf i'r gwblion. Mae'n digwydd i ni i gyd, yn anodd.

Mae'r ysgolion yn arfer yn breidio'n dda, yn parhau mewn ffwrdd a chyflawni, yn ffwrdd o ffodd yn ddwylo, mae'r ysgolion yn union perffaith gyda'ch hun a'r pacte gyda'r dynedd. Ond pan mae'n ddiwedd, mae'n ddiwedd. love. Childhood is the perfect union with yourself and a pact with the universe. But when it's over, it's dead. Worse, it drags more failure with it than any period of adulthood. You have to live with the shame, the broken toys, the despised books, the lost friends, the shrinking clothes, objects which only serve to capture that awkward passage. Suddenly, lies matter. Suddenly, truth matters. And conflict wakes to ruin everything. Worst of all, you go down to the pond with your old rod and stare at the water.

All you see is brown boredom. It has nothing left to say. You're 16 and the pond is over. The pond you knew like your bedroom wall. This pond is now as embarrassing as the felt-tip freaks around your bed, the ones you copied from bubblegum cards when you were 11. Nostalgia for the moment is a pit of hell. Fishing there takes back all it is given.

The existential intervenes and you cast hope into nothingness. Quite cheerful. Little Toller published that and also the cover is superb Dexter does his own paintings as well It's as good a memoir of growing up in rural England as I've read in a very very long time and as you know I do slightly

specialise in that Andy, what have you been reading? I've been reading a book, I've been waiting to talk about this book for a couple of months so I've been reading a book. I've been waiting to talk about this book for a couple of months. So I've been reading a book called The Lucky Ones by a writer called Julianne Pacheco. And I never would have encountered this book had I not been asked to interview her at a festival earlier this year.

I started reading the book, and by the halfway point I was thinking, wow, this is the best new thing that I've read this year. That's a bit of luck because I've got to ask her some questions about it. I read to the end. I thought, this is so fantastic. This is like a novel, but it's not a novel, which we'll come on to in a minute. So then I went to have a look and see what other people have been saying about it. And there was a review in The New Yorker,

and she's had stories in The New Yorker, and there was a review in The New York Times, which I'm just going to read a tiny bit of in a moment. But there were, and have been, to my knowledge, no reviews of this book in any UK magazines or newspapers. Now, that's not a criticism of anyone, I hasten to add. It is increasingly tough to get that kind of coverage. Ond nid yw hynny'n ymgyrchol â unrhyw un, rwy'n ymwybodol o'i ddweud. Mae'n fwyaf anodd cael y math hwnnw o gyfrifiad. Ond yr hyn rydych chi'n ei ddysgu yw bod llyfr am y byddwch chi'n teimlo'n ddiddorol,

sy'n eich cyffredinu a'i ddiddordeb, a'r holl bethau rydych chi'n eu edrych arno o wrando newydd a llyfrau newydd, yn gallu bod yn cadw mewn llaw sydd yn gwbl, ac yn gallu mynd i'w hwynebu, efallai'n ddim yn gweld. and can just pass, perhaps unseen. This review in the New York Times was by Silvana Paternostro, who is herself Colombian. Julianne Pachico is a Colombian writer who now lives here in the UK. Is it translated or is it...? No, it's in English. And the thing you need to know about this book is that it was published in the States as a novel

and here in the UK as short stories. And publishing decision, as Douglas Adams said, publishing is a subject that is fraught with interest. We could debate those decisions in the States and over here. I read it as a novel. For me, it was read as a novel. It's linked by theme and character and you have to have your wits about you. But it's a series of short stories that add up to a novel and could and should be read as a novel. For me, it was read as a novel. It's linked by theme and character, and you have to have your wits about you, but it's a series of short stories that add up to a novel and could and should be read as a novel. This is what Silvana Patinostro said in the New York Times. Pachico's characters are all seductive, but what really drew me in is her ability to describe emotions. The book opens

inside the privileged house of Stephanie Lansky saying goodbye to her parents. She can't wait to spend the weekend on her own. By page five, the teenager's idea of the perfect plan turns into a horror film. She knows that the stranger ringing the doorbell could be there to yank her away. Pacheco conveys the fear that Colombian children grow up with. She made that pit in my stomach open up again. Next, she takes us deep into the jungle inside the head of a kidnapped American teacher who, ychydig yn ddechrau. Yn ddiweddar, mae hi'n ein cymryd yn ddyfn i'r ddynion yn y dde, yn y rhan o'r athro Amur amdaniadol sy'n gynnal ysgog o ddynion, ac yn ymddangos i ddysgu Hamlet i ffwrdd o twig a chyfnodau. Yna mae'n stori fawr rhwng dau'r ysgolion yn ysgol elit Stephanie, bach o ddysgu a'r gwaith o'r peth cyffredin o'r peth cyffredin sy'n cadw rhai yn ei ffwrdd. Yn ystod hyn, mae yn ddiweddoli bennod lle mae ddynion y rhai o'r rhai coca-addicted pet-rabbit yn dechrau siarad â'i gilydd, ac ati, ac ati. Felly, beth rydw i'n mynd i'w wneud yw, rydw i'n mynd i ddarllen i chi bryd bryd, rydw i'n mynd i'w ddarllen i chi

o'r stori cychwyn, y ffilm horroff. Dyma sut mae'r llyfr yn dechrau'n effeithiol. Nid y mae hi'n gofio hyd i'r cyfnod oed. Yn ôl yn y gwch, mae hi'n agor y This is how the book effectively starts. She doesn't wake up till mid-morning. Back in the kitchen, she opens the refrigerator and drinks directly from the pitcher of lemonade, careful not to bang her teeth against the ceramic. As she puts the pitcher on the counter, there's a loud blast of the doorbell. It echoes through the house, followed by six blunt buzzes as though it's a signal she should recognise.

Angelina, she calls out. She waits, but there's no sound of sandals slapping against the floor tiles heading to the front door. The buzzing is long and sustained this time. Christ, she says, Angelina. When she was very young, she would stand in the middle of a room and scream Angelina's name over and over again, not stopping until Angelina came running, Angelina's name over and over again, not stopping until Angelina came running, apron flying out behind her. But that's not the kind of silly, immature thing she would do now. She opens the door. Standing a few steps away in the front yard is a man. He's grinning in a way that makes him look slightly embarrassed, rocking on his heels, arms behind his back.

There's a lumpy, purplish-red scar running down his face from the bottom of his eye to the top of his lip. Well, here I am, he says. Let's go. He's wearing a shapeless brown poncho which hangs off him as if empty. His feet are bare and caked in red clay, his legs thin and hairless. Sorry I'm late, he says. He brings an arm forward, a dirty plastic bag hanging from his wrist. It took me a lot longer to get here than I thought. I came as fast as I could. He stares at the plastic bag which sways back and forth, hitting the front of his thigh. Lord, am I thirsty, he says. Does that ever happen to you when you have to walk a long way? He licks his lips. Never mind. Don't worry

about answering now. We'll have time to talk later. Can I help you, she says, taking a step back. The man's face suddenly becomes a mass of deeply ingrained lines. Didn't she tell you I was coming? His voice comes out high-pitched and sad, in a way that sounds deeply familiar to her, like something she's been listening to her whole life, though she cannot say why or how. Daddy, she calls out over her shoulder, her voice echoing down the hallway.

There's somebody here to see you. Princess, he says the lines in his face growing even deeper come on don't do that you know i know they're not here okay so that is the opening story right isn't that great i cannot recommend this book highly enough. I absolutely loved it. I'm evangelical about it. Excellent. We'll be back in just a sec. So we've talked about what we've been reading but we are here to

discuss Virginia Woolf's third novel, Jacob's Room. How many people here at Blackwell's in Oxford have read Jacob's Room? As usual, everyone has read it. That is amazing. Sut ambell o bobl yma yn Blackwells yn Oxford wedi darllen Rhwydwaith Jacob? Fel arfer, mae pawb wedi darllen hynny. Mae hynny'n wych. Dwi'n dweud bod hanner o'r bobl yma wedi darllen hynny. Mae hynny'n dda iawn. Mae yna bach llach yn y fan hon.

Ydych chi'n meddwl, oedd yna rhywbeth fel, a ydych chi gyda'r brif neu'r grŵn? A wnaethoch chi darllen hynny? Nid, nid oeddwn i wedi darllen hynny. Rwy'n mynd i... Ydych chi'n gwybod beth? Rydyn ni wedi siarad cymaint. question on the way in. Had you read it? No I hadn't read it I'm gonna you know what we've talked enough I will give you I will give you a potted history of my my 30 year non-relationship with Virginia Woolf later on but let's turn to our guests Mark and Sally and Mark we normally the first thing we ask people on Backlisted is when did you first read Jacob's Room? I simply cannot remember because I've read it about 10,

11, 12 times. And I think the mark of a good book is you disappear into it and you have absolutely no idea what else is going on in the rest of your life. Wherever I was, I was not there at the time. Great non-answer. Thank you very much. Sally? I knew you were going to ask this question.

I actually read it, I think, too young. I read it in the Brighton Public Library when I was 16. And I'm sure I know I didn't get it. But I have taught this book to several students. And actually, as a teacher, you remember vividly how you have interacted with the book. But thanks to Mark and this podcast, I have been reading this book through the night.

And I am very tired. And I'm quite devastated, Mark. So you have a lot to answer for. My apologies. I'm about to say that in some respects it's a profoundly consoling book that I find a very positive experience. So we can argue about that later. Well, my mood was like this throughout the whole night.

I had to make tea. I had to go and get Fortnum & Mason's tea out about 4.30 in the morning and have about ten cups of it. Mark, do you want to say a little bit about, te, roedd rhaid i mi ddod a chael te o Fortnum & Mason o am 4.30 y bore a chael tua 10 copi o'r te. Mark, a ydych chi eisiau ddweud rhywbeth amdano i'r tri pobl sydd gennych chi? I'r tri pobl sydd gennych chi, ac i'r cyflwyniad dros y cyd, i'r cyflwyniad dros y cyd, i'r cyflwyniad dros y cyd. Felly, yn gyfnod, mae'n llyfr cyffredin, ac mae'n ymwneud â the life of Jacob Flanders who is born at the end of the 19th century to the widowed Mrs Flanders who's a sort of distressed upper middle class lady who lives in Scarborough. We meet him first on a family holiday on the beach then we see him going up to

Cambridge then we see him moving to London where he lives in Gray's Inn and we see him involved with various women then we follow him on a grand tour from Paris through Italy to Greece. And then most people will tell you that he dies in the First World War. I completely disagree with that. We can have a good argument about that later on. However, the idea...

Let me stop you there. Are you saying that he doesn't die in the First World War or he doesn't die? OK. Sorry, everyone, we got berated this week for spoilers, but it's been around for nearly 100 years. Even on the front of this edition, the vintage classics edition I'm holding,

he's in a uniform on the cover. Two things. One, I think it's, okay, two things. One, I think it's a slight offence to the sort of profound and sublime ambiguity of the whole book to say, this is what happens at the end. Good. I'm with you. What I should say is when I say it's about Jacob Planders, one of the pieces of genius about the book is it's about everything around him. It's a kind of existential polo of a polo arbennig o'r llyfr. Mae'r llwybr yn y cyfan yn anodd. Mae'r bobl a'i gilydd yn ei gilydd,

mae'r cyfathrebu â'i rhai oedolion, mae'r cwmniadau o'i gilydd, mae'r pethau o'i gilydd, mae'r ffrindiau o'i gilydd, ond mae'r llwybr yn y cyfan yn anodd. Roedd yn cael ei gyhoeddi yn 1922, sy'n ymarfer uchel ar gyfer rhai o'r bobl, mae'n ymarfer uchel ar gyfer y modernisme llyraidd. emptiness in the middle of the whole story. So it was published in 1922, which for some people is the high watermark of literary modernism, the same year that Ulysses and The Wasteland were published,

and it's nearly always slipped into third place. You can argue about the first two places, but poor Jacob's Room is always in third, partly because of Virginia Woolf's own estimation of the novel, which was quite low. She saw it as experimental, slightly transitional, on the way to Mae'r cysylltiadau yn ystod y llyfr, a oedd yn eithaf llaw. Roedd hi'n ysgrifennol, yn ystod y cyfnod, ar y ffordd i'r Gwylio a'r Llyfrgell. Yn rhan oherwydd bod Ulysses a'r Wasteland yn gweithgareddau man-spleinol, mae'n debyg eu bod yn y canolbwyntiau Pompidou. Mae'r holl ddwyloedd ar y chyfan. Mae'n cael eu gweithio'n dda iawn am ysgrifennu.

Maen nhw'n dweud yr hyn sy'n ei ymwneud â nhw. They're tailor-made for writing a really good undergraduate essay about them because they say exactly what they're about and they give you all the themes, whereas there's something extremely elusive and evasive about what is wonderful about Jacob's Room. Over the years since I did my degree, Ulysses and the Wasteland have slipped a bit and Jacob's Room has come up from behind. I think all three books are a reaction

to two big things that were happening at the time. One is the First World War yn dod o'r ôl. Rwy'n credu bod pob tri llyfr yn reoli ddwy bethau mawr yn digwydd ar y pryd. Un o'r rhain yw'r Llyfrgell Cymru cyntaf a'r fflwr Sbaenig sydd wedi dod ar ei ddwy ar y cyfan. Mae cyfnodau cyfnodol yn ddifrifol yn y cyfoeth. Yn ystyried y gallai cymdeithas fod yn cael ei ddwylo'n llwyr, gallai nifer o bobl yn marw ac oedd gennym ni ddim gwybodaeth amdano. Ac roedd y cyfoeth yn ymdrin. Ac o dan hynny, and we had no control over it. And civilisation was kind of imperiled. And underneath that, this sort of even more scary, intellectual sort of earthquake, a sort of post-Nietzschean idea that God was dead,

absolute value was dead, there was no absolute good or bad, right or wrong, it was just what different groups of people felt. And they often disagreed, and they often went to war about what they disagreed. I think all three works are a reaction to that. o bobl wedi'u teimlo ac maen nhw'n aml yn gwneud amdano ac maen nhw'n aml yn mynd i'r llaw am yr hyn y maen nhw'n gwneud amdano. Rwy'n credu bod pob tri gwaith yn reoli at hynny. Rydych chi'n gwybod, yn y gwaith, mae Elliot yn dweud, dyma'r ffragfant rydw i wedi'u llwyddo o ran fy ngyrfa. Ac yn y brifysgol, rydych chi'n dysgu bod yna gwaithau sy'n cael eu cymryd i'r llaw,

sy'n ceisio ymateb i byd sy'n cael eu cymryd i'r llaw. Pan rwy'n edrych ar y gwaithau hynny nawr, rwy'n edrych ar sut yn anhygoel y maen nhw'n cael eu stwrturio, sut maen nhw'n cysylltu popeth i'r byd agoredwaith yn ystod y byd. Pan dwi'n edrych ar y gwaith hynny nawr, dwi'n edrych ar sut yn anhygoel eu bod yn seiliedig, sut maen nhw'n cysylltu popeth i'r byd agored a chyfarwydd. I mi, mae'n edrych fel bod y ddau ddyn wedi rhoi'r tain ati ac wedi'u llwyddo'n dda iawn oherwydd y fwyaf o'r fwyaf hwn o'r fwyaf hwn o'r fwyaf hwn o'r fwyaf hwn o'r fwyaf hwn o'r fwyaf hwn o'r fwyaf hwn o'r fwyaf hwn o'r fwyaf hwn o'r fwyaf hwn o'r fwyaf hwn o'r fwyaf hwn o'r fwyaf hwn o'r fwyaf hwn o'r fwyaf hwn o'r fwyaf hwn o'r fwyaf hwn o'r fwyaf hwn o'r fwyaf hwn o'r fwyaf hwn o'r fwyaf hwn o'r fwyaf hwn o'r fwyaf hwn o'r fwyaf hwn o'r fwyaf hwn o'r fwyaf hwn o'r fwyaf hwn o'r fwyaf hwn o'r fwyaf hwn o'r fwyaf hwn o'r fwyaf hwn o'r fwyaf hwn o'r fwyaf hwn o'r fwyaf hwn o'r fwyaf hwn o'r fwyaf hwn o'r fwyaf hwn i'r llawr. Mae rhywbeth yn ffwrdd o ran y gwaith. Mae rhywbeth am ystafell Jacob. Mae Wolf yn cymryd y syniad hwnnw, bod pob syniad yn gyffredinol, ac mae pob syniad yn ddewis dynol. Mae hi'n cymryd hynny i'r llwyth cyffredinol. Ac mae hi'n dweud, beth os bydd hyd yn oed dynol, y syniad o fod yn un person unig, yn in fact just a human invention. And she writes a book as if identity is an invention, as if Jacob is just the sum of all the things that happen to Jacob's body as he moves through the world. And if you accept it as a positive thing as opposed to a negative thing, some people read

it and say it's all about how we can never know someone. I read it as a new way of looking at Mae rhai pobl yn ei ddarllen yn dweud, mae'n ymwneud â sut y gallwn ni ddim gwybod rhywun. Rwy'n ei ddarllen fel ffordd newydd o edrych ar dynion dynol. Ac os ydych yn ei ddarllen fel hyn, mae'n dod â syniad bodol o'r deunydd bod yn dynol. Mae'r holl ffyrdd, ymddiriedaethau a'r digwyddiadau sy'n bodoli mewn llawd o amgylch y corff sy'n cynnwys enw Jacob. Ac rwy'n ei chael yn ddysgu'n ddysgu. Yr hyn rydych chi wedi'i ddweud yn fy nghymryd.

Rwy'n cofio gwylio ffilm am Andy Warhol tua 10 mlynedd yn ôl. Roedd yn y ffilm, roedd yn dweud, os ydych chi eisiau deall Warhol, mae'n rhaid i chi ddeall y cyd-destun yn y gwirionedd roedd Warhol yn cynhyrchu materiwl. Roedd y cyd-destun yn gyffredod y cyfnodi bod yn siarad amdano, mae'n debyg i mi, yn debyg mewn ffordd. Mae yna fath o ysgrifennu gwahanol yn digwydd gyda'r ddau, Joyce a Elliot, ac wrth gwrs gyda Wolf, mae'n ddynol ac mae'n ysgrifennu. Mae llawer o'r adolygiadau ar yr adeg o'r ystafell Jacob yn ceisio deall hynny. Bydd yn dweud, bydd yn siarad amdano o ran peintio a peintio ysgrifennu, syol, a byddai pobl wedi dechrau ei ddatblygu a deall a'i ysgrifennu yn y tair hyn.

Yn yr un pryd, byddwn i'n dweud bod Wolf yn dal i fod yn ystod y dydd Gwledyddol. Byddwn yn darllen hwn yn y cyfnod o'r nos, fel Mr Carmichael yn y Llythyr. Roeddwn i'n teim as though Jane Austen was everywhere. She's everywhere. The captains, Barfoot and Seagrove, Seabrook, who's been lost at sea. I've just read Persuasion. I've just come out of Persuasion.

And it's so similar to that novel. And of course, it's also suffused with fragments of biography all over the place, which she inherits from her father. For me, it's a book about lost eras, the Renaissance, the 18th century, and the Victorian era. So I don't read it as a modern book at all. I read it as an elegy to other eras, other times. Yeah, the servant class carry that, I think, perfectly well.

But I love this idea that it's kind of a field. I completely loved it, and I'm really pleased that you kind of I think that thing about pinning down I mean she sort of pins things down to the you know the idea of a day in into the lighthouse and Mrs Dalloway and I think what's amazing about this book and why it's kind of it she says something beautiful about it in her diary I figure that the approach will be entirely different this time, no scaffolding scarcely a brick to be seen, all crepuscular

but the heart, the passion humour, everything as bright as fire in the mist which is, and that image of fire in the mist, this book is full of people opening windows, of lamplight, of the greasy light of things. It's a much more London novel than I was expecting.

I think what you're not able to ever quite get a grip on is where the book is going or where it's coming from. It's not a book that you read sequentially for plot, as you say, although that sort of is there. But it's all the things, as you say, around the say around the center i found really really i will read it again sally have you got something there i can see you looking at something to read i do want to read something and i want to just um maybe just to turn over a little bit what mark was saying about the idea of jacob as obviously it's you know it's it's an elegy in a sense to a life that is not finished in some way. And I agree with you, we don't know how it ends.

But it's suffused with endings or with half-endings or with pauses in people's lives. And the way I was reading it... Premonitions of death. Yes, absolutely. And hesitations, moments of hesitation or choice or deliberation. And there are these lost moments, paragraph to paragraph, which I kept returning to. And I turned over the pages, actually,

and I kept wanting to make tabs on the pages. I wanted to make shapes and corners and tabs, and I felt as though there's a sense in which Woolf, as a writer, has this very strong relationship with paper, with paper consciousness, and I just kept feeling paper. So I wanted to destroy the book book and I started doing that I started destroying the book in the middle of the night and I kept looking and searching for these lost pools of life and one of the most moving moments is this two paragraphs Mrs Jarvis who is the the rector's wife the clergyman's wife.

People are going off for walks all the time as well to deliberate what they might do next, as they do in Jane Austen. In Jane Austen, everyone, it all rounds up nicely and we get married. But Mrs Jarvis goes out under the moonlight to think about what she might have been. And it's just two paragraphs, and I'd like to read that to you. Mrs Jarvis walked on the moor when she was unhappy, going as far as a certain saucer-shaped hollow, though she always meant to go to a more distant ridge.

And there she sat down and took out the little book hidden beneath her cloak and read a few lines of poetry and looked about her. She was not very unhappy and seeing that she was 45 never perhaps would be very unhappy, desperately unhappy that is, and leave her husband and ruin a good man's career as she sometimes threatened. Still there is no need to say what risks a clergyman's wife runs when she walks on the moor. Short, dark, with kindling eyes, a pheasant's feather in her hat, Mrs Jarvis was just the sort of woman to lose her faith upon the moors,

to confound her God with the universal that is. But she did not lose her faith, did not leave her husband, to confound her God with the universal that is. But she did not lose her faith, did not leave her husband, never read her poem through, and went on walking the moors, looking at the moon behind the elm trees, and feeling as she sat on the grass high above Scarborough. Yes, yes, when the lark soars, when the sheep, moving a step or two onwards, crop the turf,

and at the same time set their bells tinkling. When the breeze first blows, then dies down, leaving the cheek kissed. When the ships on the sea below seem to cross each other and pass as if drawn by an invisible hand. When there are distant concussions in the air and phantom horsemen galloping, ceasing. When the horizon swims blue, green, emotional. Then Mrs Jarvis, heaving a sigh, thinks to herself, if only someone could give me if I could give someone but she does not know what she wants to give nor who could give it her yes and that reminds me of something else that happens repeatedly through the book like a refrain part of the time you're in the complications the irresolvable complications of human life and then you go back to the moors night time to views of the ocean to this to nature

which is disinterested and uninterested in human things and it sort of restores you before the next journey into the busyness of human life you You were saying Sally about the relationship with paper I hadn't appreciated until I was reading Jacob's Room and other books by Woolf in the last month or so how much of her writing is dependent on tied up with inspired by the flip side of reading sy'n ymddiriedol ar, yn ymgysylltiedig â, yn ymddygiad â'r llawr o ddarllen. Yn unig, dwi'n gallu meddwl am wrando arall sy'n gallu cymryd ysgrifennu a darllen yn ymgysylltiedig yn ymlaen yn eu fficiniad. Roedd hi'n rhywfaint o'i ddysgu ei hun, oedd hi'n cael ei rhedeg o'i llyfrgell o'i tân, felly roedd hi'n cael ei ddysgu ei hun fel wrando ar gyfer cyfnod cyntaf. You sort of had the run of her father's library, so you felt that she conceived of herself as a writer

as a very early age. Well, we've got a clip of Nigel Nicholson, the son of Vita Sackville-West, reminiscing about where Wolf... I make myself laugh. I'm trying not to say got her ideas from. Where do you get your ideas from, Virginia? Where do you get your ideas from?

My mother would say, Virginia's coming for the night. Our immediate reaction was, oh, good. And then she would sit us down and interrogate us. I remember once she said, what has happened to you this morning? And I would reply, well, nothing. Oh, come on, come on, she would say. What woke you up? And I would reply, it was the sun,

the sun coming through our bedroom window. What sort of a sun, she would say? A kindly sun, angry sun? We would answer that in some way. Then she was fascinated by the detail of how we dressed. Of course, what she was doing, it was gathering copy. I was going to say, if you think he sounds posh, wait till you hear Virginia herself. Maybe we do have a clip of Virginia herself.

I was just going to say, that reminded me of what, for me, is one of the key passages in Wolf, and I think it's from Moments of Being. She's remembering being in the nursery in Talon House, which is where the family decamped every summer, I think for a fortnight, in St Ives. And she describes lying sort of half asleep in her bedroom with light coming through the blind,

the wind gently moving the blind backwards and forwards and dragging this little wooden acorn on the string at the bottom of the blind backwards and forwards over the floorboard. And she says something like the sensation, as I remember, of lying inside the yellow skin of a semi-transparent grape and looking at the light and listening to the noise outside. And that sense of sort of utterly at home but excluded but safe yn ddysgu'r llwyth yn y tu allan. Ac mae'r ymddygiad hwnnw o'n fath o... yn arfer yn y tŷ, ond yn ychwanegol, ond yn siŵr, ond ar y llwyth arall o'r ffyrdd o'r ffyrdd o'r ffyrdd.

Oherwydd mae ei gwaith yn llawn o wynoedd, a drws, a ffyrdd o un fath arall. Ac mae hi'n dweud rhywbeth fel, os mae yna bwl sy'n llwyddo'n ddiweddarol ac yn ymwneud â'r hyn rydyn ni'n ei ddod arno yn ein bywydau, dyma'r bwl o'r hyn rydw i'n ei ddod arno'n ddiweddarol. Y ddylun o fod yn y tu allan our lives this is this is the bowl from which i draw endlessly that image of being inside a safe nursery with the light coming through the blinds now normally we would offer a biographical recap for the author that we feature on backlisted but we didn't really feel it was appropriate because people you know about virginia wolf right all these people here do because they because they are top table but nicely done Nicely done Andy like the reference Thank you indeed. But the only

biographical point that I would like to draw attention to which I don't think I really appreciated before this last month or so is that Wolfe writes this incredible run of novels and non-fiction and stories in a 10 year period, basically the 1920s

Jacob's Room is written 1920-21 to The Waves and Flush is 31. And that coincides with her 40s. I hadn't really appreciated that what you're looking at, when you look at Jacob's Room, then Mrs Dalloway, then to the lighthouse, a room of one's own, Orlando, the waves, flush. That's a ten year hot streak. Unlike anything

else. Can you think of anything? The Beatles. The Beatles. Literally. You know you mustn't tempt me into making these, but the waves is like a whiteout. In terms of that, you know, what you might call the spirit wind, you know, what you might call the spirit wind, you know, your period of maximum creativity where everything...

She lived until 41. She died in 41. And it was part of the thing, reading this, and I love what you say. I think in many ways, Mark, you're right about it being a consoling book, largely because the language is so exquisite. And you said, I mean, this is a book you could give to anybody and say, open on a page on random and you will find something brilliant is a book you could give to anybody and say open on a page on random and you will find something brilliant we'll get some of your stuff in a moment

it's just that that sense of the the continual having one skin too few I love her continual kind of identification with the moth and the use of moths and the idea of moths being attracted to the light but also she quite often talks about her antennae and it's almost the inability to turn that off, that sense of feeling, of moving and flitting from one consciousness to another consciousness. I mean, as a writer for anybody who's interested in the psychopathology of mental illness or survival, she's kind of key.

It's interesting because I think on the one hand we're taught what Mark was just saying about the bowl, the image of the bowl and of light and the translucent form that the grape is, this small detailed form or carapace of memory and thinking. So she's

interested in surfaces that allow things to move through, to put it basically. But at the same time she's very interested in the firm, in things that are very firm. And I think when you read her sentences i symud trwy, i ddweud y gwirionedd. Ond ar yr un cyfnod, mae hi'n ddiddorol iawn yn y ffyrm, mewn pethau sy'n ffyrm iawn. Ac rwy'n credu pan fyddwch yn darllen ei gweithredu, er bod i wedi stwmio dros un, mae'n oherwydd ei ddefnyddio'n hynod o'i ddweud, semicolwm. Felly, ar ôl amser, rydych chi'n, fel, semicolwm, semicolwm, semicolwm, semicolwm, ellipsis, ellipsis, ellipsis, ac mae'n fath o ddyniaeth fad yn dod atoch chi ac nid y gallwch chi gael hynny. Ond mae hi yn gweithio'n ddiddorol iawn, rwy'n credu, â stryd ystyr ystyr,

a dwi'n meddwl, Mark, efallai y byddwch chi'n ganddo ganddo ganddo ganddo i bawb sy'n ysgrifennu a darllen. Ac rwy'n meddwl, pan oeddwn i'n darllen yn llawn, rwy'n mynd yn ôl i'r gair yn fy nghymryd, a oedd yn darllen yn y cyfnod o'r nos, ac roedd yn teimlo'n hynod o gyffredinol. Ond pan oeddwn i'n darllen yn gyhoeddus, rwy'n ymgyrchol amdano, ac mae'n anodd i'w darllen. Dwi ddim yn gwybod sut rydych chi'n teimlo am hynny. Wel, efallai yw hyn yn y prynhawn, felly os gallaf i ddod i un o fy nghyfraith ffugrwydd i'w siarad â chi, os yw hynny'n ei ddarllen yn gyhoeddus, dwi'n dweud yn aml ac mae'n anodd i'w ddarllen. Dwi ddim yn gwybod sut rydych chi'n teimlo am hynny. Wel, efallai yw'r adeg hon. Felly os gallaf i ddod i un o fy ngwneudau ffavorit i chi, os yw hynny'n iawn. Ie, gwych. Mae'n hawdd iawn i Wolf slytu i drafod sensatiyn, ymreisiadau, sensuallt, ac yn arwain bod hi'n ysgrifennydd gwleidydd gwych sydd yn ymgysylltu â'i teimloedd.

Ond mae hi'n cael ei ddod o hyd i'r bonnet, ac mae ei drafft yn wirioneddol... Yn unig. Felly dyma, pan mae Jacob yn mynd i Gymru. Whereas she really gets under the bonnet and the whole draft is really... So this is just before when Jacob is going up to Cambridge. And this goes back to Jane Austen as well, not in a subject sense, although I know what you mean, but in terms of technical sense. They say the sky is the same everywhere. Travellers, the shipwrecked, exiles

and the dying draw comfort from the thought and no doubt if you are of a mystical tendency, consolation and even explanation shower down from the unbroken surface but above Cambridge anyhow above the roof of King's College Chapel there is a difference out at sea a great city will cast a brightness into the night is it fanciful to suppose the sky washed into the crevices of King's College Chapel lighter thinner more sparkling than the sky elsewhere it's just like the opening of pride and prejudice you know this is a truth university acknowledge we know that she knows it's not a

truth university knowledge that's part of the joke so she's enjoying the idea but we also know she disagrees with the idea and she's gently mocking it so we've got austin there then after a few more paragraph this comes if you stand a lantern under a tree, every insect in the forest creeps up to it, a curious assembly, since though they scramble and swing and knock their heads against the glass, they seem to have no purpose. It's one of those extended metaphors, like you get in George Eliot. But then because it's wolf, the extended metaphors starts taking on this life of its own. Something senseless inspires them. One gets tired of watching them as they amble around the lantern yn dechrau cymryd ei fywyd o'i hun. Mae rhywbeth ddim yn ymddangos iddyn nhw. Mae rhywun yn cael yn ffodd o'u gwylio,

wrth i'w gwylio'n ymlaen o amgylch y llantain ac yn tapio'n glir fel os oedd yn ymddangos. Mae un toad mawr yn bod yn y mwyaf o'i llawr o unrhyw un ac yn ymgymryd ei ffordd drwy'r rest. Mae'n debyg ei bod hi wedi colli gwybodaeth o'r ddynion sydd wedi'i gael, ac mae'n cymryd ei fywyd o'i hun. Ond rydym yn gwybod beth sy'n digwydd.

Ac yna, mae rhywbeth ddiddorol yn digwydd. Fe wnaeth hi ddweud, ond beth yw hynny? Mae llawr o sgwylion pistol yn cael ei ddynnu, yn creu'n sylwed bod yn gweithio. Ac wedyn, mae rhywbeth ddiddorol yn digwydd. Fe dweudodd hi, ond beth yw hynny? Rwy'n teimlo bod llwyth o sgwylion pistol yn cyflawni, yn creu'n gyflym, yn rhwystro, yn llwyddo'n llwyddo, yn llwyddo'n llwyddo, yn llwyddo'n llwyddo, yn llwyddo'n llwyddo, yn llwyddo'n llwyddo, yn llwyddo'n llwyddo, yn llwyddo'n llwyddo, yn llwyddo'n llwyddo,

yn llwyddo'n llwyddo, yn llwyddo, yn llwyddo, yn llwyddo, yn llwyddo, yn llwyddo, yn llwyddo, yn llwyddo, yn llwyddo, yn llwyddo, yn llwyddo, yn llwyddo, yn llwyddo, yn llwyddo, yn llwyddo, yn llwyddo, yn llwyddo, yn llwyddo, yn llwyddo, yn llwyddo, yn llwyddo, yn llwyddo, yn llwyddo, yn llwyddo, yn llwyddo, yn llwyddo, yn llwyddo, yn llwyddo, yn llwyddo, yn llwyddo, yn llwyddo, yn llwyddo, yn llwyddo, yn llwyddo, yn llwyddo, yn llwyddo, yn llwyddo, yn llwyddo, Ie, ie. Ac nid yw'n syml... Yn union. Yn union. Yn union. Yn union. Yn union. Yn union.

Yn union. Yn union. Yn union. Yn union. Yn union. Yn union. Yn union. Yn union.

Yn union. Yn union. Yn union. Yn union. Yn union. Yn union. Yn union. Yn union.

Yn union. Yn union. Yn union. Yn union. Yn union. Lots of... New cover quote for Jacob's Ream. Other writers are very good at swiftly changing point of view, moving from past to future and back again, or even changing tone. She's the only novelist I know who changes genre and idiom regularly in the same paragraph. Yeah. She'll be describing, then she'll be talking about writing, and then she'll be mocking what she's written before, then she'll have these sort of cadenzas we just take off in the middle

of it i think the thing that really that really coming off that the thing that really struck me with this book is how she manages to be so present in it as her personality the personality of the yn ei hun fel ei bersonaeth, y bersonaeth y llyfydd, yn cael ei ddysgu'n fawr, gan, fel rydych chi'n dweud, Mark, y proses cyffredinol hwnnw o ddod i ac o, a chyhoeddi beth mae hi'n ei wneud yn ystod ei wneud. Ac, wyddoch chi, nid dyna technig modernist, ydy'r hyn yw hynny? Dyna'r cynnwys o bersonaeth ysgrifennu. Yn sicr.

Ac hyd yn oed yn hwy, rwy'n credu, ym mis 18n fwyaf, mae'r ddewthion rhetorol sy'n cael eu cynnal yn y diwedd y 18eg, yn dweud, mae'r problem yn ddifrifol, gadewch i ni ystyried llythyr. Nid ydych chi'n cael hynny mewn Joyce. Mae hi'n debygol o ran ymddygiad a'r metaforion fel pethau byw, eu cyrff. She has a kind of confidence, I think, in imagery and metaphors as living things. They're organisms. So she gives us an environment. She says, this is the environment we're in. And I now want you to watch something in this environment.

And you start watching it. And as you watch it, you then start to watch something else watching it. And then something else watching it, watching it. And before you know it, you've traveled quite far from your original image and the way i the way i think of it is the opening image of mrs flanders with her pen and ink and as a very bad handwriter myself i think that's a very precarious image you know the idea of the ink seeping through the paper again and the nib of the pen touching the surface of the paper and that that kind of, that Rorschach blots, that spread and ooze of ink.

And I think that's how she sees images. But she has a confidence that they will travel somewhere good. I'm just going to read that bit actually because I think you're so right, Sally. This is how the novel starts. So, of course, wrote Betty Flanders, pressing her heels rather deeper in the sand, there was nothing for it but to leave. Slowly welling from the point of her gold nib, pale blue ink dissolved the full stop, for there her pen stuck, her eyes fixed and tears slowly filled them. The entire bay quivered, the lighthouse wobbled,

and she had the illusion that the mast of Mr Connor's little yacht was bending like a wax candle in the sun. She winked quickly. Accidents hi'n cwynt eto. Roedd y mast yn gyffredinol. Roedd y ffynion yn gyffredinol. Roedd y llythyr yn gyffredinol. Ond roedd y blot wedi'i rannu. Mae hynny'n hyfryd iawn. Ac fel ffordd i ddod i mewn i'r stori. Felly, rwy'n am ddweud gwych yn hyfryd na'n ddwylo, ond rwy'n mynd i'n ddwylo. So, so... I want a better word than clever, but I'm going for clever. I think there's another problem talking about this book, and it's a problem we have in general talking about literature, that what drives us is reading pleasure.

But there's very little you can say directly about reading pleasure, apart from, here's the book, read it. See the bits that I've underlined. Don't you agree with me? And this, more than almost any other book, makes me want to do that. Let's stop talking, just go and read it, and we can go and compare our favourite bits. We've built this up substantially, but let's now listen to the only recording that exists

of Virginia Woolf speaking. This is from a BBC radio broadcast, which was made on April 29 29th 1937 from a talk called Craftsmanship and it was part of a series entitled Words Fail Me. Do we write better? Do we read better than we read and wrote 400 years ago when we were unlectured, uncriticised, untaught. Is our modern Georgian literature a patch on the Elizabethan? Well, where are we to lay the blame? Not on our professors, not on our reviewers,

not on our writers, but on words. It is words that are to blame. They are the wildest, freest, most irresponsible, most unteachable of all things. Of course, you can catch them and sort them and place them in alphabetical order, in dictionaries, but words do not live in dictionaries. They live in the mind. If you want proof of this,

consider how often, in moment of emotion when we most need words we find none yet there is dictionary they are at our disposal of some half million words all in alphabetical order but can we use them no because words do not live in dictionaries, they live in the mind. Almost terrifying. I was wondering if we, because we've been so nice to the book and so nice to her so far, I mean she was a pretty terrible snob. Okay, so I've got, this is my moment to say this. In the last six weeks I have read or re-read half a dozen books by Virginia Woolf and I did it because I could and it's been the most rewarding reading experience

I've had since I did the reading for my book The Year of Reading Dangerously I consider it a great gift to have returned to Woolf for the first time in 30 years and suddenly find this incredible run of books that I was talking about and feeling that they weren't

a chore but that each one was building on the previous one in terms of the reading experience and I just wanted to say that to listeners and to, I said earlier didn't I that I was the relatable figure in this line up tonight in terms of my

experience of Wolf, I think Wolf is seen as being very intimidating I read Mrs. Dalloway and yn ystod fy mhrofiad o'r cwrff. Rwy'n credu bod y cwrff yn cael ei weld fel yn hynod o ddiddordeb. Fe wnes i ddarllen i'r Llyfrgell 30 mlynedd yn ôl pan oeddwn i'n myfyrwyr. Fe wnes i ddarllen i'r Llyfrgell ar 5 Fawr 1987 yn y Gwyrddion, Sally, o'r Pavilion Brighton. Yn y cyd-dwylo'n wahanol. Yn unig. Yn aros i Elwis Costello dod i fyny. Oherwydd roedd yna yn chwarae gig

yn y Dome y nos. Daeth yna'n syth am 4 o'r o'r o'r o'r ac roeddwn i wedi darllen i'r Lighthouse yn y dydd. Ac fe wnes i ddweud i Elwis Costello , , ac fe wnaethon ni ddod i mewn i'r soundcheck., a ydych chi'n dweud, Yn y bwysig, a ydych chi'n dweud, Yn y bwysig, a ydych chi'n dweud, Yn y bwysig, a ydych chi'n dweud, Yn y bwysig, a ydych chi'n dweud,

Yn y bwysig, a ydych chi'n dweud, Yn y bwysig, a ydych chi'n dweud, Yn y bwysig, a ydych chi'n dweud, Yn y bwysig, a ydych chi'n dweud, Yn y bwysig, a ydych chi'n dweud, Yn y bwysig, a ydych chi'n dweud, Yn y bwysig, a ydych chi'n dweud, Yn y bwysig, a ydych chi'n dweud,

Yn y bwysig, a ydych chi'n dweud, Yn y bwysig, a ydych chi'n dweud, Yn y bwysig, a ydych chi'n dweud, Yn y bwysig, a ydych chi'n dweud, Yn y bwysig, a ydych chi'n dweud, Yn y bwysig, a ydych chi'n dweud, Yn y bwysig, a ydych chi'n dwebwyntio gan Elvis Costello. Ac rwyf wedi'i ddod o hyd. Felly, fe wnes i ddarllen ddwy llyfrau o'r celf Virginia Woolf. Dydw i ddim yn deall iddyn nhw. Roeddwn i'n 19. Roedd yn ymarfer ddim.

Ac yna, yn 1992, wnes i ddarllen llyfr gan John Kerry, ei enw'n ymddiriedolwyr yn y mas. Un o fy nghyfforddiant llyfrau, ac fe wnaeth fy nghyfforddiant ddim yn darllen unrhyw gwaith o Virginia Woolf, hyd at nawr. Rwyf wedi gorfod darllen un peth. Felly, ymddiriedolwyr yn y mas one of my favourite books and it put me off reading any more Virginia Woolf until now I've just got to read one little bit so The Intellectuals and the Masses is a notorious book I think

it was when it was published 25 years ago about how modernism is the expression of snobbery and I'm just going to read you this one little bit, which I remember reading and guffawing with laughter at the time. Intellectuals could not, of course,

actually prevent the masses from attaining literacy, but they could prevent them reading literature by making it too difficult for them to understand. And this is what they did. The early 20th century saw a determined effort on the part of the European intelligentsia to exclude the masses from culture. In England, this movement has become known as modernism. In other European countries, it was given different names, but the ingredients were essentially similar, and they revolutionized the visual arts as well as literature. Realism of

the sort that it was assumed the masses appreciated was abandoned. So was logical coherence. yn gyflawni'r celfyddydau gweledol yn ogystal â llythyr. Roedd realism o'r math y byddai'n cael ei bwydo'n cael ei ddangos i'r maes, yn cael ei ddysgu. Felly, roedd cyd-destun yn logig. Roedd anhygoelwch a chyd-destun yn cael eu cynhyrchu. Mae poed yn ein cymdeithas, fel mae'n bodoli ar hyn o bryd, yn rhaid bod yn anodd, dywedodd T.S. Eliot. Mae'r broses hwn o ddiffygu'r cyflwyniad i'r cyflwyniad yn ddifrifol, ac yn sicr, mae'n gwahanol ac yn gwneud gwahaniaeth o ran i'r cyfan. this process of alienating the mass audience was is of course problematic and no doubt differed from case to case but the placing of art beyond the reach of the mass was certainly deliberate

at times and professor carey goes on to talk about in one of the greatest pieces of literary christian ever he talks about howard's end by em forster and he says E.M. Forster hates jumped up working class self-educating clerks so much that he invents the character of Leonard Bast who you can then kill at the end of the book by having a bookshelf fall on him as symbolic

of his presumption and then he extrapolates he then moves on to Virginia Woolf I'm going to read you what he says about Virginia Woolf. He talks about the character of Doris Killman in the novel Mrs Dalloway. Miss Killman is employed by the wealthy Dalloways to tutor their daughter Elizabeth. Though she is poor, Miss Killman is independent and has gained a degree in history. She is, in other words, just the sort of woman Virginia Woolf, as a campaigning feminist, might be expected to champion. But the social prejudices of an upper middle class

intellectual prove stronger than feminism, and Miss Kilman is depicted as a monster of spite, envy, and unfulfilled desire. She is plain and middle-aged. She wears a cheap green Macintosh. She perspires. She is consumed with bitter, impotent hatred of rich people like the Dalloways, and she burns with hopeless lust for their young daughter. Her culture, like Leonard Bast's, is a failure. She plays the violin, but, Virginia Woolf tells us, quote, the sound was excruciating. She had no ear.

Most degrading of all, she seeks comfort in Christianity, Mae'r sain yn ysgrifiadwy. Doedd nid oes y llall. Yn fwyaf degradol o'r holl beth, mae'n gofyn cymffordd yn Cristianeddu, yn llwyddo'i ddeintyddiaeth ariannol yn ôl am ddylunio'r emosiynol. Gallai'r wylff Virginia wedi effeithio'n llwyr o'i hun gan Miss Kilman. Gwych. Yr hyn rwy'n ei ddweud yw nad yydw i ddim wedi newid fy meddwl yn ymlaen o ran darllen y gwaith hyn, ond fel darllenwr llawer hwy ac rwy'n gobeithio yn fwyaf, rydych chi'n sylweddoli bod y snewbri hynny y dywedwch chi, John, yn y canlyniad o honestiaeth artistig, ar un lefel, mae hi'n ceisio cyflawni cyflawniad cywir o'r byd fel y gwnaeth hi ei weld. Ac mae hi'n debyg i beidio â'i gweithredu ei hun yn y ffordd hwnnw. Dwi ddim yn gwybod beth ydych chi'n credu, Mark a Sally? I mean okay so in terms of Jacob's room um the parts that I'm now drawn to as an older and wiser

reader like yourself like your good self um are in fact the parts around Jacob that Mark was referring to earlier the the marks and the commas so to speak of of the lives that swirl around him and when I went back to find those parts um that's what I held actually they were they were my remnants in in a sense, at the end of reading it straight through in about 24 hours. So Jacob, in a sense, for me, is missing. Jacob is always missing. I mean, that's the point.

Jacob is a character who is missing from everyone's lives. He's missing from his mother's life and lives, because his mother has many lives too. And all that there is in place of Jacob are remnants of feeling and those remnants of feeling are then turned into snatches of words and letters and tears and stains and marks and objects that are dropped and fallen and so forth and so on in Wolfe's feeling life I guess to be a slightly somewhat pretentious you know it's things that often dropped or left behind um so i i kept

coming back in fact to the people around jacob and most of them are a lot of them are you know servants or or you know um she there's a lot been said about virginia wolf's relationship to the lower classes and to the servants but she observes small habits brilliantly and with great tenderness and with great tenderness much less just disfigured if if any of her books are really disfigured by as you say andy i think she's also fantastically rude about some of the people who are jacob's equals as well yes absolutely yes yes i agree with that i found that much more present coming back to it actually this sort of relates to what we were talking about with her presence as a personality in the book, which

kind of comes and goes. But if she feels that she needs to, say, pass a waspish judgment, she rewards herself by doing so. We're going to have to wind up, but maybe just Sally and Mark, sort of just last final thoughts.

You'll read it again, Mark? Many times, I will. Have you got anything, any other bits that you wanted to throw in as a sort of in the, oh, you'll love this bit? Well, I was going to throw in something about the ending, but that would start a whole new hour's conversation. So go away and read it yourself. So you're leaving the issue of whether...

The open... The open... The open question. The open question. We can have an argument about it later. Have a fist fight outside in the foyer. Sally? I think what Mark said about the way in which you read it, I'm interested in ways in which you can read it.

I think you can wake in the night and just open a page. And I've just done that now. And the character of Florinda, who's, you know... Doesn't get such a good... But there's so much tenderness and pathos and the character of Florinda doesn't get such a good but there's so much tenderness and pathos around the character of Florinda one sentence, Jake was watching her from the window then he saw her turning up

Greek street upon another man's arm and that's the end of the paragraph and you're, you know I was devastated by that but yeah well I'm going to have to do the outro. I'm just going to do one sentence, which I just love.

The strange thing about life is that though the nature of it must have been apparent to everyone for hundreds of years, no one has left any adequate account of it. That seems a good point to end. Thanks to Mark Haddon, to Sally Bailey, to our producer Matt Hall, and thanks again to our sponsors unbound thanks to our lovely hosts uh blackwell's bookshop in oxford hannah chinnery and beth and kitchen and all the staff for making our visit so pleasurable and of course thanks to

our lovely audience who joined us here tonight you can get in touch with us at backlisted pod on twitter facebook backlisted pod and on the Unbound page unbound.com forward slash Backlisted thanks for listening we'll be back in a fortnight thanks everyone thank you very much

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