Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Traveller and writer known for books like 'Naples '44', 'Voices of the Old Sea', and 'The Honour Society' about the Mafia.
On the island
Eight records
Clarinet Concerto in A major, K. 622
I grew to appreciate it very much, because a friend of mine who was recovering from the Spanish Civil War, where he'd been wounded on numerous occasions, used to play this continually when I saw him in his [flat] and it has these kind of nostalgic associations.
PetrushkaFavourite
of which I am particularly fond because I regard it as a really iconoclastic piece of music, and being a bit of iconoclast myself, it sort of seated my frame of mind.
Guantanamera
in my opinion, a stupendous piece of folk music, improvised originally, just a Tribal came out with it and somebody just wrote it down, but then it became rather a sort of a nationalistic classic.
La [Niña de los Peines] was accepted as the greatest flamenca singer of this century and the song that she will now sing is The Honor of the Virgin in the Spanish procession, the Easter week and she improvises both the music and the words.
Indian Music
I spent some time in India, a very short time actually, about thirty years ago, when somebody told me I needed to be more spiritual in my attitudes... this music is a reminder of that time.
reminds me very much of the period when I used to go imploring my friends to educate me in one way or another. And a man did his best at those days to take over my musical education, and he was always playing choral music, and this is one that stands out in my memory.
Andean Flute Music
This really is something I experienced a couple of years ago when I went to Bolivia and I was up in the Andes and I came upon a group of Indians, [Aymara] Indians, absolutely besotted and enthralled with drink... and then they broke into the marvellous dance to this flute music.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:09Do you daydream as a child about faraway places?
Be sure I daydreamed as a child about faraway places and I can give you an idea why. I had the fortune or misfortune to be largely brought up by three aunts most people would have considered extremely mad. And they kept me in a kind of subjection in a fairly large house in a remote country town called [Carmarthen]... And I did daydream about travelling continually.
Presenter asks
4:58What's your attitude towards spiritualism now, then?
Well, I regret that I am generally speaking a sceptic, and that actually applies to spiritualism as well.
Presenter asks
5:57Coming from this strange kind of background, what did you want to do in the professional sense?
Quite soon I wanted to be a writer. I found really that the only thing I could do was to win compensation prizes in literary contests... But I gradually got to like writing very much. I became addicted, just as you do to anything else eventually.
The keepsakes
The book
Herodotus
Undoubtedly, Herodotus' histories. First of all, it's immensely long, which is above 600 pages of it. He's undoubtedly the most brilliant and most extraordinary travel writer that ever wrote a book. This book was written at about 450 B C, but it's written by an absolutely modern man, who even when he's travelling around notices the fact that the local boys have Mohican haircuts, with a tuft of hair in the top and the side shaved away. It's very, very amusing. I would really recommend you to read it.
The luxury
It has to be in this case a spirit stove, because if you're limited indefinitely to a diet of a squid and octopus, it'd be an enormous advantage to be able to cook them.
Presenter asks
Was it then in Naples that you first came across and became interested in the Mafia?
The local version of the Mafia was known as the [Camorra], but they were indistinguishable in their behaviour from the actual Sicilian Mafia, and they obviously worked in conjunction with the Sicilian Mafia.
Presenter asks
25:47Do you think that anything you've written has changed anything?
I'm sure that on one occasion this has been the case. I went to Brazil in 1968 for the Sunday Times... the Indians were being killed at such a rate at that time... So I wrote for the Sunday Times... this stirred up a great controversy and a great deal of indignation. And as a result, a number of societies were formed with the object of protecting the Indians, including [Survival] International...
“I'm a writer, just as I might be a smoker.”
“[Hemingway] was the saddest man I ever met. Really? He was a man absolutely consumed with sorrow.”
“I think that I attract [eccentrics] as a magnet does. They flock in my direction.”
“I can't imagine [getting sick and tired of travel]. I suppose it can happen, but I sincerely hope that I'll meet with a merciful motor car accident before that...”