Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Award-winning author of 18 novels, known for his 'whole life novels' including Any Human Heart.
On the island
Eight records
Mandy Patinkin & Original Broadway Cast of Sunday in the Park with George
it's one of these songs that I think almost makes you not cry but brings tears to your eyes. There's something about the sequence of notes that has that effect.
it's got such fantastic rhythm and energies to it that you kind of forget in a way that he's making a political point.
this is a song that sort of represents the Scottish side of my life experiences, even though it's sung by a bluegrass singer from America, but it's a song that's based on a a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson, and it has a kind of folky Scottish feel to it.
the ingredients of it, fleur finé, faded flowers, vieux cloché, the old church bell, sort of summon up a kind of idyllic version of French, you know, rural village life.
DanielFavourite
this is our song… it's sort of my Proustian Madeleine in a way in that when I hear that song, I'm whizzed back to being 20 years old at university and madly in love with the most beautiful girl in the world.
Violin Concerto, Op. 15 (first movement)
Janine Jansen, London Symphony Orchestra, Paavo Järvi
I've come to love this concerto a lot. And I've actually written the libretto to an opera which will be get its world premiere in Aldborough, which is a the music festival that Britain founded.
Horn Trio in E-flat major, Op. 40 (Andante)
Georges Schebuc, Arthur Grumiaux, Francis Orval
this is just a kind of homage to Brahms, who I think is probably my favourite classical composer. I think I find his music fantastically uplifting and I listen to it time and time again.
I thought this song is absolutely amazing… he won Oscar for Best Song for this particular song.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:05How do you describe yourself as a writer?
Well, it's I could call myself a serious comic novelist. I I do see the world through a comic lens. It can be a dark lens, or darkly comic, or it can be absurdly comic. I don't see life as a tragedy. I see it as absurd, something to laugh at.
Presenter asks
7:47Tell me a little bit more about your dad. Were the two of you close?
Yes, we were close. He died very young. He died when he was fifty-eight. And I had been away at boarding school for at least ten years before he died. And so we didn't see that much of each other. But we got on very well. But he was a classic East Coast Scot in a way. And he always encouraged me to don't get married until you're thirty, always get a proper job with a decent pension. Always save one-sixth of your income. Advice I completely ignored. But my great regret is that he never saw my success as a writer, because he was highly dubious that I would ever make it in such a ridiculous profession. But I would love to have proved him wrong, but that wasn't to be.
Presenter asks
13:44At what point did you realize what was happening [in the Biafran War]?
I think I realised it was going on when our next-door neighbours dug a slit trench at the bottom of their garden because there was a fear that the tiny little Biafran Air Force, which only consisted of three light planes, was going to bomb Nigerian federal cities. Didn't happen, in fact. But you couldn't escape the war. … And one great event which really did shape and change my thinking was I was learning to drive and we used to drive on deserted roads at the edge of the campus with my father teaching me. And we were driving home and he took a shortcut and we passed a roadblock, a very flimsy roadblock. And my father spotted it, screeched to us, a halt, but out of the bushes came six or seven drunk soldiers with their AK-47s shouting and screaming at us because they thought we were trying to avoid the roadblock. So they ordered us out of the car, guns pointing at us. And that moment I thought this could all go horribly wrong because they were out of control, there was no officer, we were alone on a road in the bush. My father, to his great credit, said, Call that a roadblock, you useless bunch of soldiers. And he upbraided them and they started to laugh, and the whole thing was diffused. But I've never forgotten that moment of knife-edge, uh-oh, this could all end very, very badly. It's affected my work, and it's affected the way I look at conflict and the way I understand wars. … So it was a life-changing moment or an art-changing moment for me.
The keepsakes
The book
Vladimir Nabokov
it's one of my favourite novels... it's unique because the novel consists of 999 lines of poetry and the notes, the footnotes to this poem. But the person compiling the notes has got it completely wrong and thinks it's all about him, but it isn't. But it's endlessly diverting and very, very funny. And I think I'll need a few laughs as I moulder away on my desert island.
The luxury
I'd choose a piano, because again, it goes back to my father, he always wished he could play the piano... So he made me have piano lessons... I was hopeless at it. But all those spare hours on the desert island with a grand piano sitting on the beach, I might actually, if I'm ever rescued, emerge with the talent of being able to pick out the odd songs, which is all he wanted me to be able to do.
Presenter asks
25:51Why do you find chance and happenstance such fertile territory?
Well, I think it's because of my experiences and because I don't have a religious faith, you know, and I studied philosophy at the university. And so you sort of think, well, what are the guiding principles of the universe or the human condition? And I think things that happened to me, like that moment at the roadblock in Nigeria, or my father's early death, and my wife's mother's early death. They're a month apart, so we lost half our parents very quickly. Showed me that the universe is a kind of random, unsparing place. So I came up with this idea that everybody has their share of good luck and their share of bad luck. And with most people, the two piles that accrue in their life sort of match up. But don't expect the road to be straight and narrow and clear. It's going to be very winding and bumpy from time to time. But if you know what makes you happy, just hang on to that.
Presenter asks
29:21How did you manage to get your first novel published?
Well, it came out in January 1981. I was 28 years old. And because my publisher was very clever and he published it in early January, it's a very slack season in those days. I was reviewed on day of publication in three national newspapers and I got very good reviews. So that's another experience. You go down to the news agent those days, buy every newspaper, riffle through them hoping your book's reviewed, and my God, there it was.
Presenter asks
35:50Tell me more about creating the fake artist Nat Tate.
The editor of the magazine said, How do we get fiction into a serious art magazine? and I stuck my hand up and said, Why don't I invent a painter? So I did invent a painter who I called Nat Tate, an American painter, abstract expressionist, who was born in 1928, committed suicide in 1960, having destroyed 99% of his artworks, which is why nobody had ever heard of him. Couldn't do this now with Google and the internet, but back in the 90s it was possible. And I wrote this short monograph, which I illustrated with some of my found photographs and the few surviving artworks of Nat Tate's that I produced myself. And Bowie said, why don't we publish it as a book? … And then it was blown up in the British press and became a global news story for 24 hours. I was interviewed on Newsnight by Jeremy Paxman.
“I don't see life as a tragedy. I see it as absurd, something to laugh at.”
“I would love to have proved him wrong, but that wasn't to be.”
“I've never forgotten that moment of knife-edge, uh-oh, this could all end very, very badly.”
“It's the best bit of luck I've ever had in my life.”
“I think fame in whatever regard, whether it's politics or music or showbiz, is a Faustian pact. But in a way, the novelist has his cake and eats it.”