National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the United States he told the b.b.c. That the world had a window to prevent a global pandemic the infection has actually spread by travel the fate of all of this is going to be determined by whether or not the Chinese are able to contain this particular outbreak within their own country and prevent it from seeding in other countries and then the other countries that actually now have cases if they can block that we may be successful in preventing this from evolving into a full load pandemic communities along the river 7 a truck share of being warned that flooding is potentially imminent around 30 properties at Iron Bridge were evacuated this morning 8 flood warnings are in place in England and Wales including in Herefordshire more than a quarter of n.h.s. Staff have reported being bullied Harris or abused in the last year a staff survey for England which included responses from over 500000 workers found that the number of staff who had been physically attacked had increased. A woman who had repeatedly bad her m.p. On social media had to apologize after being rescued by her during bad weather she won Davis was struggling to walk home in gale force winds in Anglesey and it is designed to flag down a car which happened to be driven by the island's m.p. The junior Crosby b.b.c. News. If you're in need of a good book to get through this winter the authors Gail honeybun and Mavis cheek will be talking to her but Garrett Gilbert about some of the novels they love in half an hour they include the beginning of spring by Penelope Fitzgerald and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte which astonishingly has never been chosen on the program before a good read is at $430.00 the 1st already or 4 we join Michael Roizen for word of mouth every so often my father would take me and my brother to one side and say your mother won't tell you the story boys because it's about one time your mother was a gun off a thief she told me that one time when she was little I had harvest festival at school and told the children to bring in flowers but there were no flowers where she lived in a flat over a shop and she didn't think she could ask a man for the money to buy flowers and anyway she thought her mom and dad would know anything about Harvest Festival what with them being Jewish so on the way to school she went through to the little park on the corner and cut a flower from there and took that into school that way she thought no one would ask questions about why she hadn't brought in flowers for harvest festival think of that voice your mother again if now now don't tell her I told you so I just told you a story about my father telling a story that my mother told him or he said she had told him. But the chick Well I don't know and come to think of it you don't know whether I've made it up either Today we're talking about stories clamoring Murphy has been a professional storyteller since 2006 she's traveled all over the world telling stories in English and Spanish to all kinds of audiences she's performed on beaches in order to rooms in theatres at festivals in fields in medieval round towers and in many weird and wonderful situations including for our president Mary Robinson and for the science community at NASA is Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena California she also teaches storytelling skills to those who work outside the art form from scientists to limitless veterans and many others in between Clare Welcome to the program thanks very much and what he's a storyteller a storyteller is someone like me who wanders the world carrying stories with them who tells them live in front of audiences with no digital assistant and how do you get to tell a story where does it come from. The stories that I tell from all over so the oldest story of ever tell is 5000 years old and the newest is maybe from yesterday so I tell myths fables folk tales that ins anecdotes bit of history let anything that moves me carry and tell and where do you find all these stories because you've just conjured up what Seamus Heaney called a rattle bag you've conjured up or a beautiful idea over a ragbag but it's all in your head it's all in my head so nothing is written where do I find I mean that's that's their life's work isn't it it's to walk through the world and keep my eyes and ears and heart open all the time for where the next story is coming from so I read us I talk to a lot of people and I listen carefully and I talk to storytellers who told me that one way they remember stories because that's part of the problem. It's not only telling them yours have to remember them it's to think of stories having rooms for each part of the story and they've told me they get to the end of one part and they know they're sort of edge of the room then they go through a door into the next room do you do anything like. Let me ask you this when you were little kids did you ever injure yourself you know in an er nonviolent I fall off a bike or being stung by a baby yeah I played cricket and a ball hit my nose and broke it and then when I came home. The 1st question my dad asked was well did you catch the ball. So yes I did and where were you I was on the cricket pitch and I was at a position called silly mid-off and from then on everyone said Yeah well it was wasn't and who was there when you got hit in the now Mr Carroll. Who was the woodwork teacher he was on pirating and pretending or claiming to coach us. And how long did you spend recovering. Few weeks swelling had to go down and. And I went to hospital and the doctor said I've never been asked this before you know and the doctor said Well when you go under and I didn't know what I meant when you go under We're going to hit your We're going to hit your nose with a hammer and I said are you was that well to knock it back into shape because you've got a kink in your nose and so I can remember going under. And apparently that's what he did he bashed my nose with a rubber hammer that's what he told me and you held 12. So to see the way your brain feels right now as you're recalling us yes that's how I feel when I'm remembering stories. So I never learn them word for word they they sit in my mind like memories now I always know the bones of a story so I know where the story begins and I know where it ends and what I do before I have to tell it as I wake it up so I walk through the story but I don't walk through the whole thing I just say I was in silly Madoff Mr Carroll was coaching and it was the time of the morning and the ball came out of nowhere and broke my you know and I walked through all the bones so that it's nice and awake and then when I go to tell it all of their all of their illustration exaggeration and farm boy comes in but it sits like memory right and the way you made me do that I had to kind of inhabit it I had to go there feel it's I think it and you're making me conjure up pictures and that was I mean I actually remembered the square you know of the cricket square in the middle of the school field again on the East field as it was called and I can see it and I can see which side I'm on but you make me go back to that visual thing you know difference being causes that actually happened whereas if you're remembering a story about the Drew of the sorrows or whatever yeah you've got to create that picture in your head haven't you yes so that's part of my work exactly as I have to inhabit these stories that I've never seen with the same kind of attention to detail that you have what life so I will always walk through a story and see all the landscapes in the story I spent time with the characters so they feel as real to me as a memory so when I conjure them as you say which is a brilliant word for it I'm seeing them and they say something with performance as you know if you see it as the speaker we see it as the audience this is the magic of language this is the magic that happens between us as human beings if you are reporting it or telling it and you've seen people do this and they're describing Yeah I was standing on the field you know Mr Brown's was there but their voice has a certain flatness to her deadness to it but right there if they could if your audience a singer could see could have seen you your eyes were moving off you were looking into the story so that's what I do but I have to create. Huge much a landscape's in my head in order to be able to do that and what are their ingredients to a really good story as opposed to a not good story I mean when your snuffling about like a truffle hound looking for good stories what what you looking for what are these great elements ingredients. The biggest one for me is the element of surprise. I got excited read peasant's of stories right so I read story and says there was a woman and she had 3 sons and I got right well I have a sense of where this was go and in the youngest I was the most useless and so I read also read the whole story but if something in the story can surprise me has read thousands thousands of stories I think there's something really special in this I love stories that don't take expected pathways I love stories where the characters are fully 3 dimensionally developed they're not just there to serve to move the plot along they're really there so for me it doesn't have to be heroic story it doesn't have to be a tragic story it has to move me with it's with its surprise has to engage and catch me so those elements change from story to story yes I was very surprised and wonderful way by a little motif in the story I think it comes from Haiti. And it's the it's Wolf dresses up to be the suitor to the girl because he doesn't let on that he's a wolf so it's that old motif but the way he does it is he tightens up his throat for the 1st time he comes he goes oh I've come to see you you see and of course he knows it was he's got away will for many tightens up his throat so the next time he goes oh I've come to see you she has no no it's will from any Titans it one more time he goes Hello I've come to see her and then she believes him because he's tough and the storyteller did it he he kind of tightened these through text he did it and of course it's funny but of course absolutely terrifying at the same time because you don't know whether he's going to succeed or not but of course as he goes from her to hello and then you got it and of course I remember the audience of kids and so on and he's done it and it's going to get are and how old is that story it's a Caribbean story I think it was probably originally told in in Haitian French right and it's in a wonderful collection by a New York woman who heard it at the New York storytelling so it's at least. 150 years probably but probably much much older than that and yet I think about it when you tell that I think about the way that the voice can be used for seduction natto you see all these people who have control of the story and it's their voice you know and it's that lying it's a tightening of the collar so like there's a story that's maybe hundreds of years old at a guess which is so relevant now this is it's stories like that that I absolutely love because they can awaken something in us the listener so can you tell us a story yes yes I'll tell you now the Irish story about keep it brief as our time was limited once the old gods of Ireland the king of the gods had lost his arm and they had to elect a new king because you couldn't have a king with a blemish and so they picked the most beautiful of all the gods but it wasn't until they had elected him that they realized although he was beautiful on the outside he had an ugly heart he introduced to things that the gods had never experienced work . And taxes for thousands of years the gods of Ireland had only piety done sang and danced and loved another had to sweat and lift heavy stone but still they had elected him so what could they do and then one day the chief storyteller of Arden came because he visited all the kings and he knocked upon the door and he was treated like a beggar he was brought to a tiny room he was given bread and water instead of a dinner and a cup of made as the night passed the streets are cut so incensed by this outrage by being treated so badly the men wait to see the king the next morning just as a sudden was rising in the birds were singing he stormed out of that tiny room and as he walked towards the rising sun all the all the anger boiling in his stomach headed north and all of the weight in his had headed south and the 2 of them at the back of his throat and he spoke the very 1st satire the very 1st such terrible poem are composed and was all about the king's hospitality. Scary the old gods heard it and they began to laugh the new king woke to the same to their laughter and that was the beginning of the end for that King because an hour and a storyteller can teach around a king oh wow can I You can only hope. This is our work now yes yes I've seen some stand ups who when they're in their own way of course are storytellers and they're not far off a bit of decent owning it in their time yes well they come from the long line of of the fool the very important role of the Fool which is to stand there in the contrary position and reflect what's happening and they're in a very dangerous position because they're naming the truth but then of a powerful position because they're wrapping it in laughter. Like the great comedians are I was raised on comedy I was raised on Billy Connelly and Eddie Murphy and Martin's Laugh-In So yeah we were raised on a lot of comedy in my eyes and. I think if I'm wrong that all your stories are not based on your own life you take what we might call a body of traditional story folk story fairy story legend myth how whole area is the reason for that do you mean I guess you've done some funny and interesting things in your life I could looking at your face on the video so I could just see you also saying I'll tell you something else yesterday I was at Dublin airport knew could do that as well if you wanted to yes and there are loads of storytellers that do that it's quite common in America they talk up they tell a lot of personal stories there are people here side to but I'm so moved by meth I'm so moved by folks Hales these are stories about traveling for a 100 sometimes days of years and they've still got the possibility of knocking your heart out your chest so for me this something really powerful in those stories and that's what I want to carry forward. Here in there I might say a little something in between stories about my life but I suppose in Ireland that's what you say for the kitchen table or the or the pub or late night with your friends so on stage I want to bring this older medicine to the stage I say that the older medicine but I mean it's absurd isn't it because the moment you say it all and gods then one part of me want to just switch off we were doing Gods are you know it doesn't it's not now and I were and sometimes you say Long Long Long Long Long Long Long ago and the beginning of your stories and say Well Ok well this isn't true so I really ought to stop watching should my Yeah stop listening to you but why is it how is it then that these things that you're telling us are true but we're moved as if they are yeah it's fantastic and so human beings according to evolutionary biologists human beings have been telling stories for 100000 years. And that means that it's far older than writing and it's far older than drawing this you know probably older than stories would be song but this is the way that we've been wired to make meaning out of the world so when we hear a story there's a guy in the states Kendall haven he wrote his book story proof and he talks about the brain becoming wired over the last 100000 years to receive information 3 stories so the baby is born waiting to hear its 1st story so well we know it's not true and I'm putting inverted commas there. There is some truth in it and stories are a vehicle there are a way to journey through the Great Adventure is that we go through internally and you know Karen Armstrong has written a beautiful book on a short history of myth and she talks about is the biographer of God Yes Karen Armstrong the woman who's able to sin helps us and he's thinking to us well book and she talks about the enemy a lash which is from Sue Mariya and this need we have to hear these fantastical stories were great odds are faced and through a man are. Woman is great odds are faced and and somehow overcome though there is loss and that this is a catharsis we need as a society to go through these inner journeys as a way of helping us with our outer journey so I think that I think when you hear long ago some part of the settles in and goes good we're going there yes somewhere I don't know in order to find out about something I might might get to know get to something about me I was giving a workshop in Ohio in California a festival short workshop to her as you know just a brief glimpse and these are not storytellers these are just everyday people and we went through it and this woman came up to me afterwards and very simple I'd given them a story they retold it we talked about it we broke it apart she comes up to me and she says thank you very much I said Oh you're welcome and she said My husband really enjoyed as I said all that you know that's great that's great and she said no you don't understand he has Alzheimer's and he generally can't contribute or do anything and I I'd seen her husband and he'd been answering questions and he'd been telling stories like I'd seen them talking and laughing and she said I haven't seen him like this and you. Struck by her because she had tears in her eyes and I said I wasn't expecting that at all it's this thing of story has this way of. Bypassing So there was there was another situation I was in in Birmingham and I was I was working with some kids I was giving them a workshop I tell them some stories and then it was their turn I was walking around and I put them in pairs are saying you're the storyteller and you're the director I was getting them to direct each other and I came up to these 2 guys and I said I got this sort of argue with a director and one of the boys looked up and said No Miss he doesn't speak. I knew not to ask any further I just said oh that's grand and I turned and I I said you're the you know I pointed away from the other guy said You're the storyteller and point you're the guy you're the director and to the 3rd boy doesn't speak I said I want you to be the observer right you make sure they're doing they're doing their jobs and not when around came back a few minutes later and I was asking everybody how did the girl was he a good director how was he storytelling and then I just turn to the little boys observing and I said I did they do to do a good job and he said Well Mr They did a really good I thought he was a very good director and I thought his storytelling was really good I said Oh great thanks very much I turned to move on to the next player to teach your child straight up to me so what should. I say I don't think I sassed I wash said he's a selective news he hasn't spoken he doesn't speak has spoken in years was a trauma couple years ago what did you do I said I I didn't do anything I just I just asked the boy question and she was really shocked and I just had to do what I'm sure you want to just carry on like normal you don't draw attention to it because you just keep going but I thought about it a lot afterwards and I thought some of the happens in the world of story this is safety that happens there's a place we can go to that allows us to take risks that we wouldn't take a less is to forget ourselves and our fears I've had people describe it as you know travelling to another place and I forget my To Do list and I you know the room disappears and something about it for that boy meant he forgot that he didn't speak and just spoke. And it lifted you know one image comes to my mind if you sort of lifting the lid on the top of his head and the stuff came out so I could sort of Terry Gilliam Carter you know the top of the head and then out comes the stuff that he's been. Holding back yeah and it happens time and time again with all kinds of people all kind situations I get told oh this I'm difficult in Ireland they say this and this and characters in this class you know and that means you know difficult children who are labeled in whatever way they want to label them they say to me there's Darron right. Exactly and you can tell right by the lines and they're being nice to teachers that they want to help us they want to make sure our session goes well and as lovely they say do you would you want to join me to take a match you know remove them from the class and I say no no let's just see how it goes inevitably those are the kids that are in the front most switched on you know why died and just ready to drink it all in because it's something of a story oral transmission of story that meets the test or wherever they are so whether there's learning disabilities or whether there's physical issues or what you know what it does it does not matter because you're opening you're turning on the Slike you said open the top of the head you're turning on the cinema of the mind so that person will see the monster that they're able to see that they're able to handle so it's not like cinema which can be really aggressive you know it's not like theater where things are constructed for you you are co-creating with the storyteller so I've had so many situations where there's kids who are dyslexic come pay attention $80.00 h.t. Whatever day you know they're. Just in. And the teachers don't know what's happened and I think it's that ancient part of our brains that can fully engage in this I think part of that or it's the way it works is that we've invented this wonderful thing called writing it's absolutely brilliant but the word is attached just in Compare her or on us. Screen whereas when we tell stories or perform in front of people directly and look at them the words are attached to the body and that's every bit of it it's whether it's the voice the hands the our eyes you have any bit of it and so when they're watching it it's be really body to body like an equal right will be a quite special but they know there's no tricks involved there's no camera or yeah special effects it's just so it's body to body which is very elemental because softly pre-literate pretty pretty the time literacy but also applies to every one of us that there is was a time when we weren't literate and our mums and dads and carers said you know Humpty Dumpty sat in the wall yeah I didn't there were no special effects they just did it yeah and if they played little games you know Bangor boats away we have no time to stay so give it a kick make a quick bang about so a little thing like that playing on the floor yeah and then that scene you and you know that so I think storytelling connects with that that kind of elemental bit of body to body doesn't it yes and it's direct transmission that's that's where it gets really interesting is that you're exactly what you're saying the body the voice the energy within you as the speaker is directly transmitting and they've started to learn this in in politics and t.v. There's this famous you know story about John f. Kennedy because t.v. Had just you know like this become more widespread in terms of public screenings of political rallies and stuff and it was no longer on radio they could see him and once they saw him they saw his body language they didn't trust Nixon and they did they did just j.f.k. But when you're in the actual room with somebody so much more is being transmitted than just the story and you're right it goes in you to I tell a story once to people and it's in them and they can remember that no problem so yeah we're accessing that that older part and you've mentioned it now several times about teaching people to tell stories so I mean how do you go about that I mean you did a little bit with made telling me making me tell the story of. I broke my nose I mean is that what you do do you start with real stories or do you start with a traditional story and get them to toe and it depends on who I'm working with so I teach all kinds of people like I work with scientists I work with academics I work with business people I work with veterans you and I worked with yeah I work with this group called the doc the charity is called Bless my work for the Dr project and they work with plasma which is the British limbless x. Serviceman and Women's Association but that's quite a mouthful so they call themselves the limbless veterans men and women who have lost 123 or 4 limbs either in the line of duty or or not in the line of g.g. But they've served in the military and the Dr projects idea is making generation are so making generation resilience or that helping teenagers with mental health issues they get these veterans to go into schools tell their story and the story is what happened before their injury life before injury the incident itself becoming injured and then life since injury and our job is facilitators is to work with them for a week to take their life story and condense it down into a 20 minute version which is why it takes 5 days. And it's in Chris incredible work because they're just in mazing human beings to spend time with because resilience is a big part of who they are. And then it's the deconstruction and reconstruction of life stories and what's funny is that so many of them skip over well you and I would go the juicy bits of the story like that needs to be told and they don't necessarily think it's important because they would come from a culture where you're not supposed talk about yourself especially if you're male if you're male and English and in the military it's what I call the triple whammy right the silence the silence from the sergeants and so our job is to is to say well that the husband you that has worth tell us what happened there and then they tell their stories they take it back to schools they present it kids get asked questions that are workshop on resilience we've been doing this for about 5 years the project is growing and growing and growing we're getting more and more veterans signing up the side effects are incredible so we had a guy who did the 5 dire. Came back following year to get refresher training as everyone does 2 days the following year and he said when we were wrapping up he said every time I tell my story I release something from inside of me that's been killing me. You know so this there's that So when I'm working with scientists it's a different thing because scientists are always they seem to be alone a lot you know they're alone in their lives they're alone in their research there's a lot of isolation that's a lot of groups of humans I work with a nobody really knows the full impact of what they're doing and they often have to report what they're doing whereas I help them tell the story of what addicts they're not so telling a life story like the veterans they're telling the story of their science who in a given permission to get excited and really Taliban light photons the body lights the face and suddenly it's utterly engaging whether New listen to them before they thought they had to academically report what they were going to say I completely could not maintain my interest so sometimes I use traditional stories as a way in for these people and sometimes I just get them to accept that they are really passionate about what they're doing and it's all right to be that passionate and like I asked you questions questions are super power right get people to just how they feel about things and you start getting at the root of it everyone knows how to tell stories but as we get older we get crushed a little bit by you know some teacher telling us we're terrible at something or somebody telling us not talking so much the shrinks who are armor to build more and more put more and more armor but as soon as you just ask them to go there they inhabit as you said earlier so inhabit and embody are the 2 big words for me with storytelling and when you inhabit the landscape that you are in and embody some of the characters in your story you will naturally come more alive and one more story for me. So once there was a man and he was walking towards a village and he saw this woman gardening by the side roads excuse me do you live do you live at this village she said yes I do and he said well what can I expect and she said Oh well what I like where you're from he said her people are terrible mean spirited inconsiderate 2 faced and she said Oh well that's where you find Up ahead I said Oh well thank you and he turned on his helmet the other way and a little while later another man was walking alongside him towards the village a nice old lady said Oh hello hello are you from this village and she said I am What's it like I've just had it up there she said Oh well what's it like where you're from he said it's amazing people are so current so loving and considerate everybody is looking out for their neighbors and she said yes that's exactly what you'll find overhead. Lovely clear Murphy thanks very much indeed if you listen to the word of mouth podcast you can hear more of this conversation. Word of mouth was presented by Michael Rosen and produced in Bristol by Beth a day and that's the last in the current series but word of mouth will be back in April and there are lots more episodes of language a delight available on b.b.c. Sounds and as Michael mentioned the word of mouth podcast this week is an extended version of the program next week law in action is back and they'll be finding out how the parole board decides whether it's safe to release prisoners convicted of low level terrorist offenses that snow in action next Tuesday afternoon at 4 o'clock. For actors comedy club song to the very grey where the British government is mainland yes yes please May 2 hours of comedy presented by comedians 7 nights a week I just keep going that can stop me being a comedian is a no no Could poles how can you bet that much and then also. Heads people think I'm sure because in the 2nd fiver away Ok let me say that the free to have me as a day I mean. The comedy crowd every night from 10 till midnight on b.b.c. Radio 4 extra day even having to me it was enough to make you think well now here on b.b.c. Radio 4 how it go but with a good read Hello 2 weeks ago here we were arguing over Jane Austin this week Charlotte Bronte and with me to introduce their good read our 2 authors Gail Honeyman who's dead you novel Eleanor hall a fantasy completely fine one the cost of 1st novel Award and was a New York Times number $1.00 bestseller and Mavis cheek whose 50 novels include poles between its Aunt Margaret's lover and amenable women all recently reissued Gail would you start us off what's your choice of a good read and thanks high actual isn't what was lost by Catherine Flynn. I came across this book when it was 1st published I think in 2007 in the old fashioned way which was in a bricks and mortar bookshop and I mention that because it's relevant to the one of the the themes that it covers really well I think ascent Birmingham and slipped between 2 time periods the early 1980 s. And early 2000 in their early 980 section we are introduced to Kate who is. A young primary school aged child I think she's about 10 and she lives with her grandmother for reasons that become apparent she's a very interesting character I think and she has set up a detective agency with her colleague Mickey who is a toy monkey then the novel goes into the period set in the 2000 and all in the same part of Birmingham and all centers around a retail park a shopping center and there we meet a security guard called Kurt and an assistant retail manager in a record store called Lisa and a mystery sort of crosses the 2 time periods and all 3 characters What did you particularly like about it and why of all the novels you've read over the last few years does this one grab you firstly I thought it was really refreshing to come across a novel set in Birmingham that was quite refreshing back in 2007 and I think sadly it's still quite refreshing. To find a novel that's say outside of of London and also it covers the lives of just ordinary people doing ordinary jobs and which again isn't something that you come across and in a lot of fiction it covers a lot of really interesting themes I think it is a particular point in time when the old traditional way of shopping. Individual shops a bakery a kind of stick maker where the shopkeeper is addressed by his or her customers with title and surname and he or she does the same to his Korean tailor her Korean tale and it's captures the death of that the absolute death knell of that and the transition into retail park shopping shopping mall culture and it's also about that sort of madness that goes on because you are managed and Blank Yes. Maybe she could you read this before no but articulate I had read I'd read j.g. Ballard odds kingdom come which is where people go mad shopping mad live in Chile and you know it reminded me all the time it's a much gentler version but there is something very strange and crazy that happens to people when they go into these places they lose their sense of reality do you did you enjoy this book done pull the meters Yes I did enjoy it I read it and the food going to bed to read it which it was a good sign but I wasn't entirely sure where it was all the time I got a little confused but that might be my age. I thought the cat I thought the character the girl was absolutely gripping and heartbreaking I think has a really difficult voice to capture isn't it because if it's not expertly executed then it becomes very more cash or just an authentic and it doesn't work at all and I think that's one thing as as you say she's really got that right and also I thought I loved the way sometimes the author went into the heads of some of the with people who came into the shopping Mel Who nothing to do with the plot really but just kind of carried on the feeling of the atmosphere of the place it's a funny I think we're making it very dark maybe and there are lots of very dark themes and it goes to some very dark places but it's actually you know it made me laugh out loud on more than one occasion which I just it does take lots of risks doesn't it this novel because I mean for a start you have the story with an extremely gaging. A 10 year old child I mean she's she's lovely this little private eye and then apparently halfway through the novel that story and she both evaporate into nothing and then in the 2nd part as you say you have these sudden interruptions the plot goes into suspension while you have these sort of riffs and these angry rant spy both staff in the shopping center and customers who are either going mad or are in total despair and it shouldn't hang together but for me it absolutely did I mean you say maybe said she. Wanted to get to bed to read it I wanted to read it and kept every time I had to put it down for some reason I look forward to picking up it's very in gauging and I don't know how she she manages those narrative risks because she you know there's a danger that the reader might just think oh come on come on this is the only gentleness it I think there's a kindness behind the prose and all 3 characters the security guard and the retail manager and the young child they're not loved enough or they're not loved in the right way and different contexts and that's something that's a lot of things that although it does seem as you see it can maybe seem quite Devera sometimes the different strands there are lots of things that make them click here together quite subtly which which I think does make it just going to eat a really good beat one of one of the things about the child Kate that I think is very effective and I wondered how one even it's sort of related to your own writing to Eleanor Oliphant is that although we can see that she is a deeply lonely child which isn't often she's with a grand who isn't nasty or anything but really what she wants to grandmother is what's a television and garden play bingo and she feeds her but that's it and we know that she desperately misses her father but she never tells us that I just wonder whether that's what makes it so effective that. You know she says self-contained crime solver and we have to read between the lines yes I think that's right and it's Sam there's lots of space left in the narrative for the reader to feel those feelings all in case but and it's not didactic novel and it's base based subtly done not telling you how you know young you know you should it's a really lovely really clever bit of writing is that obelisk way of going into character yeah it leaves you that that room to experience it yourself I think that's absolutely right and it's fate paraffin and it's but it is a it's quite challenging to beat as an adult because as you say how that you are it's absolutely charming to see the world through a 10 year old size particular such an engaging and intelligent 10 year old as this one but it's very disturbing when you see the the danger that she is in and and also the. How isolated she is and how lonely she is and the emotional difficulties that she has which she isn't able to articulate herself because of her her you know her because we are with her all the way when she disappears you never stop worrying and wondering about her and not to give anything away but it's a very it's it's a nicely tied up ending as well which is helpful I think you know you need something you need her to have some sort of resolution Yeah and there is one I think that the characters are so strong as well that they supersede plot in that sense that you and all 3 of the characters and lots of the century characters as well are so in gauging that that keeps you reading oh yeah let that for you until there is anything Ed that was a moment leaving it. Felt like Cherry Absolutely. We've been talking about what was lost by Kathryn of Flynn Well the book I've brought to the table is another novel it's called the beginning of spring by Penelope Fitzgerald It was published back in 1908 and this is another quite strange novel in a different way it's set in Moscow in 1913 this is a sort of very feeble all nervous time. You know World War One is just a year away and more centrally the Russian Revolution is just 4 years away she said doing some quick mental arithmetic. That's one of the strange things about it because banality Fitzgerald's fiction is usually set somewhere she knew so a bookshop in Suffolk or a boat on the Thames a houseboat on the Thames but this one as far as I know she never lived in Russia I think she visited once and she certainly wasn't there 913 because she wasn't born yet and they were in in this sort of broiling and revolutionary potential is living in British My Uncle Frank Reid who is British by passport but really a Muscovite by everything else he was born in Moscow he grew up there his father had a printing business there and he's inherited the printing business and another disappearance is what launches the plot of this book because Frank's wife just leaves a note saying I'm going off and she takes with her 3 small children somewhere on the journey back to Charing Cross which is where she's heading she decides she doesn't want the children with her and she returns them to Moscow Frank is totally lost he has to find someone to help him look after the children and he employs a very enigmatic sort of still woman called Lisa Ivanova then he almost immediately falls madly in Lost with Lisa. In the meantime a young man breaks into the print works armed with a gun waving it around possibly a revolutionary Also there is the police occasionally are telling Frank he's got to get out of Russia or occasionally they're telling me better not try to get out of Russia it depends on the mood that and his wife Nellie his brother turns up there is a whole chaos both political in the background and personal in the foreground through which Frank is trying to tread well and behave decently and do the right thing or at least do as close to the right thing as he can manage in the circumstances I'll love this book partly because I love Frank I think I even like him in person but he's a very nice character I like the children his 3 children including a 10 year old daughter Dolly and I just like the the sense of Moscow that Penelope Fitzgerald imagines I really enjoy this gale but what did you think of it. I hadn't ever read Penelope Fitzgerald so I started this with a completely open mind and I absolutely loved her I must thank you 1st the chasing it had it I was completely I knew very little about more school in that he had a more school generally I'm not Peter Jennings but I was completely I felt I was in completely safe hands and it felt completely authentic to me as a reader as a narrative I had if you read a lot and if you write often you have a you can start to get a sense of where a plot might be going or how my character might develop and with this I had no idea from one chap to the next what was going to happen and how the characters were going to interact with each other and respond to each other in the best possible way but that's the way Frank lives his life I guess is I guess it is expressionistic in absolutely and it but that that's not to say it wasn't a coherent narrative absolutely was but it was a such a delight to be constantly surprised. If this makes sense it felt like it would have been as much fun to write as it is to read it and there were lots of set pieces that I found just delightful and quite disconcerting because it shifts quite dramatically in tone as well as a scene quite near the start we are. The son of a neighbor a young boy is given a beer as a crusty peasant and it starts off as really almost farce you know the kids in that way that children do that they had lots aren't present and they get that their cup drunk on vodka the poor thing it's laugh out loud funny and then you without wanting to spoil it for people who haven't read it yet it's it takes such a turn and I'm still weeks later I can't get that image out of my head it's saw. John Mattick and surprising and dark saw that scene the minute he started I knew it was going to end very badly. And I got more and more upset to really do it very and I jumped at the thing about. She handles it completely and utterly brilliantly she's she doesn't flinch but the reader does there's a character Nick called Selwyn crane almost now. Who's a very strange character who has done something unspeakable to Frank is trying to make it up to him but anyway and there's another woman who Frankie is desperately trying to offload his children on to Mrs Graham who I think is the wife of the vicar or something and there's a wonderful exchange where Mrs Graham is talking to Nelly the absent wife's brother who's come over to see what the heck's going on and they're talking about Selwyn and she says to Charlie Selwyn doesn't eat too much attendee time and Charlie says seems an odd thing for a management consultant. These lines like that your fellow new leg completely brilliant yes wonderful very same and wonderful and I I absolutely agree that there's a lot of darkness in this I mean even in the fact that Frank. Is clearly devastated by Nelly having left never spelt out just one thing where he says something like he feels like a man whose wound had better not be touched because it would rip open again some yes and I'll be shot I apologize you put it. Or not but this and the children who are now the 3 children who've been whose mom was whipping them away and then decided she couldn't cope with them and sends them back and they're quite They are funny because the oldest child Dolly the 10 year old is kind of a really bossy little thing and she'd tell us our father one point to sort of saying you don't blame your mother for anything she did to you and she said are to blame or I think probably have biggest mistake was getting married to you which you think it's actually probably true but but you do there's a moment at the end when you realize how very upset this child has been so there's always these that will slippage is where suddenly the humor gives way to darkness and but there is a lot of humor I mean Charlie brother Charlie as far as the comic characters really didn't see it last minute broad yes absolutely he doesn't know does any of the chaos going around him he just wants to cite seriously you know what I thought about this Penelope Fitzgerald is that I don't know that much about it but I know that she was wonderfully eccentric because as well as many other important things in that eccentricity comes out in this book I think with the daughter Dolly saying these things that she says in dealing with things in a strange way and unchildlike way and you can imagine Penelope Fitzgerald would expect a child to not necessarily be childish she's not a tool Judge Mental in this issue she lets you decide what to think about these characters and even the terrible scene with the best you are left to your own devices about what you take away from that she's not telling you to think anything to her and I write that in a writer because it's very easy to. Try and point people in the right direction to get it should be as it yaps in there. We've been talking about the beginning of spring by Penelope Fitzgerald I'm Harriet Gilbert You're listening to a good read where my guests today are Gail honeybun and Mavis cheek Mavis over to you Well I'm thrilled to be bringing Jane Eyre to a good read I can't believe hasn't been here before but she hasn't Jane Eyre is my all time favorite 19th century novel heroine and put maybe my all time favorite book it was written by Charlotte Bronte I think it was published in 847 something like that when Charlotte was about 38 so Charlotte as we know is living in this dark damp Krige up in Yorkshire with her brother Brown well and her sisters and living a very closed in life I think Jane Eyre I discovered 1st when I was 13 and I just got up to chop disregarded many of the other the long bits in the difficult bits in it but to me I think it falls into full act really if it was a play you've got the 1st act which is Jane as a 10 year old orphan living in a grand house where At best her rich relatives a contemptuous of her and at worst they're cruel and then her childhood when she goes on to school at a terrible school that was actually based on that Charlotte had been to a cow and bridge which was a cruel harsh cold school for the poor relatives of wealthy people or in fact people on their last office then part 2 is when she leaves then goes to be a governess at phone field and meets and. I think I can tell you this falls in love I don't think it's any secret to think that she and Mr Rush's do until you fall in love with each other. And there's a lot of gothic stuff there are a lot of mysterious gothic moments in this Jane has a an episode of the child with a ghost in a Red Room later she hears strange noises in phone field which is all very haunting and if you've not read the book before it's quite chilling and for reasons I won't go into in case there are people out there who haven't read it and those who have read it will know she then leaves Thornfield and goes off to well used to be the most boring bit of the book for me which is living with 2 young women and their beautiful evangelist Dick brother and it's at this point that Jane has a most wonderful moment a period in realizes that although she's been fish and obstinate and quite a sort of rebel in many ways she has controlled her passions enough to think about things quite carefully and she rejects the proposal from the evangelistic man and part 4 is that she rushes off I will not tell you where she goes to but it doesn't very happening well go home and I'm going to take a punt and say You've probably read. I think. I've lost count of the number of times that I vented again in advance of coming here to talk about it which was an absolute pleasure and it bears repeated review things that maybe this would be the 5th time in the same time or something and surely that's one definition of a classic novel that you can read it 6 times and still enjoy it find fresh and engaging and interesting on this rereading for me I suddenly saw all the balancing that she's doing in the plotting which I've never sort of noticed before you know he says you've never been in love Jane have you because you don't know what jealousy feels like so you can't be in love and then later. He does the jealousy thing with her she's very good at plotting it Henry James called this one of those great baggy 19th century months to us but I think he was wrong I don't think there's anything baggy about it too that I've certainly never thought that as a child I mean I think I was possibly the same age as you or even younger when I read it for the 1st time and and. Children that age are quite harsh critics I think if a plot doesn't belong and I had never been my impression Logan schools terrific too isn't it she writes with that that to be vaguely And so the harshness of it in the coldness of it comes over you feel for Jane rather you feel for Kate meany you know yeah you get if you talk about the harshness in the conus not hurt different reactions at different times reading this book I mean I love that as a teenager Absolutely and I think I skim read I sort of if Mr Rochester wasn't on the the Christmas day genocide and then he was not interested but I was a bit worried coming back to it was the last time I'd read it I'd actually found it a very cruel and sort of dark but with a kind of. I don't know how to say this is a sticky dark this is a sentimentality in there as well and I didn't really relish the idea of reading it again this time I did enjoy it differently from how I enjoyed it as a teenager and I think for many reasons I mean I think that. Well although the people are horrendously cruel to poor old Jane at various times I mean her relatives are wretched on the Mr Brocklehurst school who is a vicious sadist and and even There's a house party at Thornfield of people one of whom Mr Rock just about being gauged to I mean there are some serious enough people in this novel not only her or her aunt and cousins with whom she's living as a small child or terrible Mr Brocklehurst the evil sadistic Mr Brocklehurst who runs the school and even this house party at Thornfield. A whole group of snobbish people descend and so rude to the governess that you just say what but I think 2 things One is I thought. These people are just so awful that you know that Jane is going to triumph over the fact of one point reading the very beginning bit when she's with with her aunt on the awful cautioned love to draw on I thought you know what this is this is like the beginning of Harry Potter it's like the Dursley isn't doubly does really it's got a slightly sort of over the top quality to it where there's a great moment with Brocklehurst when Brocklehurst comes to see Jane because he with her off to this dreadful school and he's talking about fire and brimstone in the fact that this child is apparently awful and has lied in might well go to hell fire and he says to her little girl what is it you have to do in order to avoid this hoping that she's going to say something marvelously sweet and religious and she said I'm a stay well and not die. But that that's occurred the other thing that makes this makes the cruelty and darkness bearable it actually is you're talking about yes absolutely she is she is from the very beginning she's defiant and I mean she fights physically with her awful cousin John and she sings the teeth term as well she might because he's been very brutal and dishonest and and she's she's kind of up to a point a feminist heroine this is what I'm interested in I think it is only up to a point because very definitely Mr Rochester her employer is the light of her life she sort of argues with him and so on but he becomes She says some point he stood between my God and me he was like an eclipse in front of the Sun He is my God and. Think that she still calls him my master even when he is no longer employing her I mean it's a very it's a very sort of that there's a little and feminism isn't it go do you see her as entirely heroic. No I mean I think she's a flawed character and she has to be if we're going to really connect her in there with that that we just have done for for all this time using it again as an adult I think I had a slightly more nuanced understanding of why some of the adults she encounters aren't particularly nice to her she doesn't deserve any of the ill treatment that she receives of of course not but she's not she's quite a difficult child she's quite an odd child certainly by the standards of the period and certainly by the standards for girls in that period just because she is a forthright and direct and challenging and I am you can understand Mrs Reed. Her out and having having Jane as a mewling puking baby thrust upon her a took me until my forty's being a mother myself to realize that I might not. Gauge what that was self so I was less harsh on Mrs Reid at that point but also they make her a lot worse than she might have been She's a reactionary and that yes and she hasn't loved in the way that she needs to be left alone her to fully express herself and to be the parents and that she is if you know if you feel more kindly towards Mrs Reid towards the on I feel less kindly towards the tedious want to be missionary this. Religious with whom she has an engagement towards the end I mean I just when I 1st read this book I thought that whole section was really boring exams in the hurry up hurry up at this time I thought What an interesting character he has sinned and Rivers has this very handsome bloke and he's a control freak is a the nastiest sort he doesn't he doesn't love Jane not just who obviously he's mad for her he wants her to go and be a missionary with him uses guilty guilt trips are about God and serving people and after all own her doesn't he absolutely wants to underneath does that. Trick of when she displays him and contradicts him and stands up to him he just doesn't hit our any of that sort he just withdraws his affection he stops noticing her which is such a lethal thing to do and I hadn't registered just how unpleasant he was and just how brilliant it is when she understands that and understand she has to go and him she said I score I scorn your leadership and she agrees to go in the mission you're with him which is certain death for her but at the same time she won't marry him but she won't marry him and I think that's a great moment you know really great moment when you think when this book came out that's quite a thing for a woman with not much prospect but this is pretty appalled Terry says I can't travel abroad with a woman I'm not married to I say. Actually I was I'm good you know I'm going to have you body until you know awful awful who hasn't been out with someone like that it's very unkind to as it rolls I meant her name there the local you know how illicit the light is better but it's really really rather sweet and he's in love with him he yeah she's very beautiful and she adores him and I don't know why she adores her continually Doraville about him that she does doesn't and he seems to deny any feelings that he may have for her model here. We've been talking about Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte which is a Penguin Classic and before that we were talking about what was lost by Catherine and Flynn published by Profile Books Penelope Fitzgerald's the beginning of spring published by for the state and for a wealth of other books suggestions from guests as various a Sarah Perry and Mila mc say Bernadino Everest Oh just for a good read online and if you've read a book we talk about it a lot what you think of it by joining our book club on Instagram you can follow us at all one word a good read b.b.c. For now though a big thank you to my guests maybe's cheek and Gail Hanumant and to you to the same time next week thanks for listening. A good reach was presented by Harry produced in Bristol by Sally having. To step on the studio floor with Francis bug the 1st man to direct the whole picture in California Stanley Tucci narrates the history of the American West Coast they actually popped him in his office alive studio floor it felt much more dramatic 10 True Stories imagined as Hollywood screenplay this l.a. The megacity Holland made possible but being no doubt l.a. Was a town built on lies. From Hollywood to Silicon Valley the Californian century on b.b.c. Radio 4 next Monday to Friday at 145. This is b.b.c. Radio 4 it's 5 o'clock time for pm with Evan Davis. Hello there the flood risks are far from over are we getting close to the point where we have to adapt to floods rather than build walls to stop them we've got to realise that what we call 100 year floods when they happen 14 years ago have now happened 3 times in 21 years we'll hear from a member of the Committee on Climate Change as to how we should.