Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
2 appearances
A critically acclaimed writer and twice Booker Prize winner, best known for her dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale.
On the island
Eight records
it's also a perfect song for writers because it's about ... illusionism and writers, of course, dedicate their lives to making people believe things that aren't factually true.
Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68 'Pastoral'Favourite
London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Klaus Tennstedt
This melody is the first piece of music that I ever heard, and I heard it because my father used to whistle it while I was swinging on the swing that he had built in the Quebec North Woods.
Bo Skovhus, Nuccia Focile and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras
one of the first things I ever wrote and performed in and directed was a Home Economics Opera. It was about three fabrics called Orlon, Nylon, and Dacron.
Folk singing was very important in the early sixties, and it was also very interesting to me because all of the plots of folk song seemed to be lurid. And to involve drama, tragedy, and murder
Goldberg Variations, BWV 988: Aria
This piece was a piece that my roommate in Kensington, who was studying modern dance, used to practice to.
the very famous and wonderful Lottie Lenya, singing Alabama song from this strange ... piece by Berthold Brecht which I would love to see performed, but but never have seen it.
here is a song that to me sums up that feeling of something coming towards us, something dark coming towards us. And it's by Van Morrison and it's one of my favorites of his
these are Kate and Anna McGarrigal, who two are wonderful Canadian singers, and the song that we're going to play is actually not about Canada at all, it's about the United States, just like The Handmaid's Tale.
I have a picture of that. I don't have a picture of the one you're about to hear because they took one, but my top of my head is cut off.
Hearts of StoneFavourite
An old favorite of mine called Hearts of Stone by the Charms.
Barcarolle from Tales of Hoffman
Joan Sutherland, Placido Domingo
It was about laundry day, and it was set to Hoffman's Barkerool.
One of their most famous songs called Four Strong Winds, which was written by them.
It's a very sad song in which the privateering enterprise fails.
Aria to the Menstrual Cycle
It's the only aria that you will ever hear in an opera, which is about the menstrual cycle.
We Praise the Tiny Perfect Moles
A song from a musical and dramatic performance of the first part of the book.
Shepherd's Hymn from Pastoral Symphony
My father, who is very musical and very keen on Beethoven, his favorite composer, is whistling.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:04Did you suddenly wake up and think that writing was what you wanted to do?
Well, my piece of mythology about that is that I was crossing the football field. There was no game going on. ... And uh I started writing a poem. in my head, and then I wrote it down, and that was what I wanted to do. Apparently I announced this to my girlfriends in the school cafeteria ... This announcement that I was going to be a writer was greeted with stunned silence.
Presenter asks
9:44How far away was your nearest neighbour [in the Canadian forest]?
We had a village that we could see, but not ... drive to. We went by boat. Gas was rationed, it was the war, so the the boat was a little very small engine motor boat.
Presenter asks
11:19Where did that leave you as a little girl? Did you long for pretty frocks?
I didn't know about them. When I found out. Then I longed for them, but I didn't get them because my mother being a tomboy thought that all I I really needed was two dresses, one to be in the wash and the other one that I would wear.
The keepsakes
The book
How to Survive on a Desert Island
Samantha Bell
Well, I felt I should have something quite useful. So I chose How to Survive on a Desert Island by Samantha Bell.
The luxury
hunting knife and waterproof matchbox with matches
Well, my luxury item is going to be my hunting knife that I was given instead of a pearl necklace when I turned 13. This is my family, you realize. And along with that goes the metal screw-top waterproof matchbox with some matches in it.
Presenter asks
16:22Where did all that [creativity in your mid-twenties] suddenly come from?
I I don't know. ... if you've been working for by that time, you know, eight years. As I had been. Think of that as piano practice. And then finally one day you can play.
Presenter asks
27:57Are you going to tell me there's a factual basis for [the scenario in Oryx and Crake] as well?
Everything in the book is backed up by our large research file which is kept in my cellar and it is called the brown box. ... We already have the luminous green rabbit and we already have the ... A spoat guider which is a Goat, which has spider silk incorporated into its milk, very useful for making bulletproof vests.
Presenter asks
3:02How was it looking back at your life and sharing it with the rest of us?
Well what is a memoir? It's not an autobiography. It's not a biography.
Presenter asks
4:04What role does music play in your life?
I listen to a lot of music, but not when I'm writing.
Presenter asks
28:18What did you think you had on your hands when you were writing The Edible Woman?
Um, no. Because I never thought any of those things.
Presenter asks
36:50Did you have any sense of the book's longevity when you were writing it?
Well, it's a perennial possibility. Right.
“I have to go back and check things. You know, it's like having an attic, an attic full of junk, I have to say. You think that something's up there and you think you know where it is and you think you know what it is, but you still have to go and check it out.”
“I think that the Poetry part is closer to mathematics and music. And that the novel part is closer to the part of your brain. that does daily conversation and what we fondly think of as thought.”
“science is not the enemy, science is a tool. What is done, however, with science is driven by human fear and human desire.”
“I write them to the point at which I don't know. And people then say to me, Well, what happens next? And I say, If I had known that, I would have written it.”
“I think every writer does that when they're in mid-right, as it were.”
“I wanted to be able to point to the source of whatever idea they were enacting and said, don't say that I just made this up out of my twisted, weird imagination.”
“Hope is the hope that if you do work at it, you can either prevent something terrible from happening or help something better to happen.”