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Episode image is a detail from the cover of The Illustrated Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm, published in 2002 by Yale University Press; illustration by Max Beerbohm.
Joining Charles Adrian at the FARM:shop in Dalston for the 60th Second Hand Book Factory is actress Liz Chan. They have a calm and quiet talk and exchange memories in different forms.
Disclaimer: Having asked his guest to turn off her phone, Charles Adrian failed to turn off his; he apologises, therefore, for a little electronic interference towards the beginning of this recording. He also apologises for the occasional sound of chewing as he eats some rather nice lemon drizzle cake.
The Quest For Christa T. by Christa Wolf is also discussed in Page One 177.
This episode has been edited to remove music that is no longer covered by licence for this podcast.
This episode features a jingle written for the podcast by the band Friends Of Friends.
A transcript of this episode is below.
Episode released: 3rd June, 2014.
Book listing:
Black Mamba Boy by Nadifa Mohamed
The Illustrated Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm
The Quest For Christa T. by Christa Wolf (trans. Christopher Middleton)
Links:
Episode transcript:
Charles Adrian
Er... What was I going to say...? Live from London's fashionable Dalston, this is the 83rd Page One. It's the 60th Second Hand Book Factory. I'm Charles Adrian and my guest today is Liz Chan. Cue the jingle.
Jingle
You're listening to Page One, the book podcast.
Charles Adrian
Hi, Liz.
Liz Chan
Hi.
Charles Adrian
Thanks very much for joining me for this podcast.
Liz Chan
Pleasure. Thanks for cycling all the way to Dalston. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
Oh! My pleasure. In fact, the wind was in the west today so it was a great pleasure...
Liz Chan
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
... [laughing] for me to cycle here. I was pushed. And I made a friend. There was a guy who accosted me at the traffic lights. He said, ‘Where have you cycled from today?’ And we had a little chat and we kept meeting each other between...
Liz Chan
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
... between Edgware Road and Kings Cross, basically. It was very funny. It turns out he lives in Sheffield. And I thought, ‘Yes, of course’. Because no London cyclist would have...
Liz Chan
Would...
Charles Adrian
... would have been that friendly.
Liz Chan
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
[laughing] It's not...
Liz Chan
Of course.
Charles Adrian
It's just not something that people do in the city.
Liz Chan
[speaking over] Of course. Yeah. True. [indistinct]
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] But it was very pleasant. Very nice.
Liz Chan
Mmm. Lovely.
Charles Adrian
Anyway. That aside...
Liz Chan
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... how do you describe yourself, Liz?
Liz Chan
Well, I find that very difficult. I'm an actress – mainly in the theatre. A bit of TV. And can I just say I'm an actress who dabbles in lots of [laughing] other different things?
Charles Adrian
Yeah, of course. What kind of things do you dabble in?
Liz Chan
There are things that I feel... There are things I've done in the past and I suppose because I'm not doing them at the moment I think, ‘I can't really say I do that’. So in the past I've sort of said, ‘Yeah, I'm an actress and a writer’ or ‘an actress and dancer’ or ‘theatre-maker’. And I thought, ‘I can't really say that because I'm not do...’ I'm not working on anything at the moment. I'm not working on a piece writing or I'm not... I haven't really been making anything like that. And I feel like, is it a bit fraudulent to say...? [laughs]
Charles Adrian
Well, I think that's a really good point. I mean, that's an interesting question. Because do you have to...? What does it mean to be...? If you're... If you say you're a writer because you are writing something, it doesn't necessarily mean you are writing something all the time. And if you wrote three things over your lifetime you might still be described as a writer in a hundred years time.
Liz Chan
Yeah, I feel if I'd, sort of, written a novel maybe five years ago, I probably could still say I'm a writer...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] You'd still say...
Liz Chan
... because I'd feel like: I've written this book. But because I've only ever sort of... as I say, sort of dabbled in small sort of bits here and there I feel like, ‘No it's... I can't say that, can I?’ [laughs]
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Liz Chan
I don't know.
Charles Adrian
Well, I think you can say what you like. That's my feeling. But you're primarily... At the moment you're primarily active as an actress?
Liz Chan
Yes.
Charles Adrian
Or an actor?
Liz Chan
Yes.
Charles Adrian
Yeah.
Liz Chan
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
Okay. That's fair enough. And then the other things are in potens, I think the phrase is.
Liz Chan
Is that? Oh, that's a good phrase.
Charles Adrian
I think so. I have a feeling that that was... I think that's... Anyway. Something that I remember from my studies years ago.
Liz Chan
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
Anyway. What's the book that you like?
Liz Chan
The book that I like is... It's actually the book I was... I wanted to give to you. And then I realised, ‘Well, I can't do that because I have a little message written to me from the writer inside’.
Charles Adrian
Oh! Wow.
Liz Chan
[speaking over] And I thought, ‘I can't give that to you because...’
Charles Adrian
Right. No, it's too precious.
Liz Chan
It's written by a friend of mine, Nadifa Mohamed, and the book is Black Mamba Boy, which is her first book. And... how to describe it? I actually spoke to her just before meeting you and I said, ‘I'm going to not do it justice describing it and so I'm probably just going to end up saying: it's a book based on your father growing up in Somalia and travelling across war-torn [laughing] East Africa and ending up in England’. And she said, ‘Well, that's basically what I end up saying’.
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Liz Chan
It's much more complex than that, clearly. And I really like it and I have a, sort of, I think, sentimental attachment to it because I used to meet up and have coffees with Nadifa years ago and we used to chat about our parents and where they were from and somehow the act of recording... you know, having some way of, sort of, recording memories and histories of our families. And she ended up actually going ahead and interviewing her... going and interviewing her father about his past and then that actually... now... now...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh, that must be interesting.
Liz Chan
Yeah, and that has now evolved into an award-winning book.
Charles Adrian
Amazing.
Liz Chan
And it's sort of semi-fictionalised as well but it's based on his stories. So, yeah. So I really like this book and I did want to give it to you but... [laughs]
Charles Adrian
No, I think... [laughs]
Liz Chan
[speaking over] I can't give it but I recommend it. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] ... yeah, that would... [laughs] That's not done, is it, when you've received a personal note from the author.
Liz Chan
[speaking over] No.
Charles Adrian
[laughing] Read me the first page anyway.
Liz Chan
Read you the first page. I had to check a pronunciation with her because... and I hope I get it right. It's these Somali trousers and I think it's ma'awis [/maː‖aːwiːs/]. Ma'awis [/maː‖aːwiːs/] [laughs]
Charles Adrian
I... It sounds... It sounds wonderful.
Liz Chan
I hope not to stumble over that but anyway.
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Liz Chan
Here we go. Here we go.
London, England, August 2008
Dark clouds are gathering in the twilight sky, the moon and sun admire each other but my eyes are on him. His oversized glasses perched on his bulbous nose, the flashing blue and white lights of the television dancing on the lenses, his ma'awis hitched up around his knees. To see his knees buckling under the weight of his thin body hurts me, but I respect those knees for walking across continents, for wading through the Red Sea. I will sing the song of those knees. /
am my father's griot, this is a hymn to him. I am telling you this story so that I can turn my father's blood and bones, and whatever magic his mother sewed under his skin, into history. To make him a hero, not the fighting or romantic kind, but the real deal, the starved child that survives every sling and arrow that shameless fortune throws at him [sic], and who can now sit back and tell the stories of all the ones that didn't make it. I tell you this story because no-one else will. Let us call down the spirits of the nine thousand boys who foolishly battled on the mountains of Eritrea for Mussolini, who looked like my father, lived like him but had their lives cut off with...
Charles Adrian
[considering] Mmm hmm. It's quite a good place to finish the first page, actually.
Liz Chan
It's very good.
Charles Adrian
Very nice. Okay, it sounds... It sounds like there are lots of things being folded into this history.
Liz Chan
Yeah. Yeah. It's fascinating. And then it, sort of, jumps back to 1935. Yemen. And we meet...
Charles Adrian
Okay.
Liz Chan
... the hero, who's based on her father, aged 10. Anyway, I highly recommend it.
Charles Adrian
Thank you. And I can see it's got a map in the front and I love...
Liz Chan
Yeah, that's very useful.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] I love books with maps.
Liz Chan
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
I find it very difficult to remember where things are in relation to each other. And I just... I don't think I can ever get bored of looking at maps of places I should know.
Liz Chan
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
I didn't realise even that Somalia was on that side of Africa. That's how ignorant I am.
Liz Chan
[speaking over] Yeah. There you go. So. Yeah. Great.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh, wonderful. Thank you very much, Liz.
Liz Chan
Pleasure.
Charles Adrian
In the background there we heard some... I don't know whether it will have made it onto the recording but I certainly heard some flutterings. They're from the chickens that are next door. We're outside in... The Farm:shop?
Liz Chan
The Farm:shop, yeah.
Charles Adrian
So, out the back where they're growing their herbs and dandelions by the look of it. Although they may just be a whole collection of herbs that I don't recognise.
Liz and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
And then next door there are some chickens, which is... it's lovely. Thank you for bringing me.
Liz Chan
Yeah, it's great. Thank you for coming.
Charles Adrian
And I'm going to play the first track that you... well, that I've selected from your list, which is Beirut...
Liz Chan
Excellent.
Charles Adrian
... and this is Nantes.
Liz Chan
Very good.
Music
[Nantes by Beirut]
Charles Adrian
So that was Nantes by Beirut. That's lovely. I hadn't heard that before. That was very nice. Now, my book for you, Liz...
Liz Chan
Yes.
Charles Adrian
... is... it's a very... I think it's a very silly book.
Liz Chan
Okay. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
I'm giving it to [laughing] you because... You probably won't even remember this but the first time we met was at Oxford. You... My ex... My then ex-boyfriend – and still ex-boyfriend – Will Tosh knew you...
Liz Chan
[laughs] Yes. Yes.
Charles Adrian
... and I was at some event... Goodness knows why I was there... It was some kind of theatre event upstairs... Where were we? At the Playhouse maybe?
Liz Chan
[affirmative] Uh huh. Uh huh.
Charles Adrian
And you were there and he introduced me to you...
Liz Chan
Uh huh.
Charles Adrian
... and for some reason I remembered you and then when you came to Gaulier, I was like, ‘Oh, we...’ You know, ‘I met you in Oxford’.
Liz Chan
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
And I think you had no memory of that...
Liz Chan
[gasps] [laughs]
Charles Adrian
... which doesn't surprise me, doesn't surprise me at all.
Liz Chan
[speaking over] That's terrible.
Charles Adrian
But this is an Oxford thing.
Liz Chan
Okay.
Charles Adrian
So this is... I don't know if you know it. It's it's called The Illustrated Zuleika Dobson.
Liz Chan
I don't know it at all.
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Liz Chan
It looks... I love the cover though.
Charles Adrian
It's really... And it's quite heavy. When I give it to you, you'll see. Yeah, the the pictures... I mean, the reason it's called The Illustrated Zuleika Dobson is because Max Beerbohm, who wrote this... after it was first published he sketched all kinds of pictures to illustrate the story. And so this is the, kind of, edition containing his pictures.
Liz Chan
[speaking over] Oh, I love these pictures.
Charles Adrian
And some of them are really caricatural, they're really fun. And some of them are just, kind of... this, sort of... She, for example, is very tall and, kind of... she has these very sweeping lines. And there are other people who are slightly grim-faced. And on the first page you'll hear a description of a guy who's waiting for her at the station. And he's then drawn and he looks exactly like he should do.
Liz Chan
That's great. I love that.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] So it's rather wonderful. So it's written, I suppose, late... late... right at the end of the 19th century, I think, but then illustrated in 1911. Let me check, maybe I've got that wrong. Oh, no, no, possib... No, it must have been written around that time as well. So it's an Edwardian thing. So it's that, kind of, period of Oxford that I think people have a nostalgia for. It's, kind of, crumpets in front of the fire....
Liz Chan
[laughing]
Charles Adrian
... and boating on the river and... And no women around so the arrival of this woman is an event and she's so beautiful. And it leads to total chaos throughout the university and... and tragedy. And it's all told in a very amusing... [laughs]
Liz Chan
Aw.
Charles Adrian
I don't know what you'll think of it but here's the first page.
Liz Chan
[speaking over] It looks great. Okay.
Charles Adrian
I
That old bell, presage of a train, had just sounded through Oxford station; and the undergraduates who were waiting there, gay figures in tweed or flannel, moved to the margin of the platform and gazed idly up the line. Young and careless, in the glow of the afternoon sunshine, they struck a sharp note of incongruity with the worn boards they stood on, with the fading signals and grey eternal walls of that antique station, which, familiar to them and insignificant, does yet whisper to the tourist the last enchantments of the Middle Age.
At the door of the first-class waiting-room, aloof and venerable, stood the Warden of Judas. An ebon pillar of tradition seemed he, in his garb of old-fashioned cleric. Aloft, between the wide brim of his silk hat and the white extent of his shirt-front, appeared those eyes which hawks, that nose which eagles, had often envied. He supported his years on an ebon stick. He alone was worthy of the background. /Came a whistle from the distance. The breast of an engine was descried, and a long train curving...
Liz Chan
Oh!
Charles Adrian
I love the idea of a first-class [laughing] waiting-room.
Liz Chan
[laughing] Yes! Well, thank you so much.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] The world has changed indeed. And Oxford station doesn't look anything like it's described. I don't know when it was remade.
Liz Chan
No. Well, I love... Oh, thank you. I really look forward to...
Charles Adrian
So I think you can tumble into a world that probably never existed, in the same way that I think the world of Brideshead never existed, but somehow is ever popular. And I think there are... there will always be May balls themed...
Liz Chan
Yes. Yeah, absolutely.
Charles Adrian
[indistinct]
sound
[sirens increasing in volume over the next ten or fifteen seconds and then fading away]
Liz Chan
Oh, I love all these pictures as well.
Charles Adrian
They're gorgeous, yeah.
Liz Chan
Yeah. Thank you so much.
Charles Adrian
And they're all... Oh, let me read you the...
Liz Chan
[speaking over] Oh that's gorgeous.
Charles Adrian
... dedication, actually, while... [laughs] someone is...
Liz Chan
[laughs] Sirens in the background.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] ... scraped off the pavement behind us. Yeah, there's obviously something dramatic happening. He's written at the front: ‘A record of the days and the adventurous life of Zuleika Dobson and a true and faithful account of the circumstances of the death of John, fourteenth Duke of Dorset, and others here for the first and only time set forth together with many curious and apt pictures done by the very recorder of those matters and with many notable additions made by him after the fashion of the late Mr James Granger... [uncertainly] Rapallo’ – I think – ‘1911.’ So he's got this spidery handwriting that he's also added notes in. It's wonderful.
Liz Chan
I love that. Thank you so much. Brilliant.
Charles Adrian
And what is your book for me?
Liz Chan
Right. Here it is. It's a book which I read in German many years ago and...
Charles Adrian
Oh, I didn't know you read German. That would have...
Liz Chan
I did.
Charles Adrian
... that would have opened the field of possible books I could have given you.
Liz Chan
Oh no.
Charles Adrian
Never mind. [laughs]
Liz Chan
But I didn't know you knew German until...
Charles Adrian
[affirmative] Uh huh. I don't know it very well. I have a couple of books in German that I could... that I'm not going to be able to offload on very many people.
Liz Chan
It only struck struck me a few days ago that, ‘Actually, Adrian could probably have read this in German’. I was so excited because I found an English translation.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Well... maybe, maybe not.
Liz Chan
And... because I... You know, I've mentioned this book to people. Most people I know don't read German. And then I found an English translation. I was very excited. I thought, ‘I'll give it to somebody’. Unfortunately – I mean, I've had a brief look at it – as is often the case with translations, and it's quite an old translation as well, I don't think it... from what I've seen, obviously, it doesn't do justice to, you know, the orginal, I think.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh, okay. That's a shame.
Liz Chan
But [indistinct]... I mean, the title in English is The Quest for Christa T. and it's by Christa Wolf, the East German writer. The title in German is Nachdenken über Christa T. and I think it's interesting that...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh, that's interesting.
Liz Chan
Yeah. So ‘nachdenken’ is, sort of... I mean, ‘denken’ is to think – you know, you're thinking about someone – but ‘nachdenken’ is really to, sort of, reflect about someone. And I think it's interesting that they've translated it in English as the ‘quest’ because it's... It is this idea about... So Christa T is a character who has died and the writer is, sort of, piecing together a memory of her... sort of, the story of her but from... based on her memories and fragments of Christa T's writings – her diaries or letters. And I think it's interesting that it's called ‘quest’ because it's, sort of... Yeah, it's this idea of trying to find someone even after they've gone and piece together what you know of them. And I was really attracted to, like, this idea of, sort of, feeling that you'd been close to someone in life but really, sort of, afterwards realising: how much did you actually know that person? And going through their personal diaries and personal bits of writing and discovering things you didn't know about them and, you know...
Charles Adrian
Yeah, it's fascinating. It's a really... Yeah, I think it's an intriguing proposition. What do we... What do any of us leave behind? And how do... Yeah, how would we appear to people trying to piece us together?
Liz Chan
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
That's really interesting. Yeah, that has quite a different... If I think of reflecting on Christa T. it's not at all the same as the quest for Christa T.
Liz Chan
Yeah. So it is interesting the way translation does that and, sort of, you know, pushes you in a different direction – or not a completely different direction, but really, sort of...
Charles Adrian
Kind of... the highlight is perhaps somewhere else. The... the emphasis.
Liz Chan
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So. But I'll read you the first page.
The quest for her: in the thought of her. And of the attempt to be oneself. She speaks of this in her diaries, which we have, on the loose manuscript pages that have been found, and between the lines of those letters of hers that are known to me. I must forget my memory of Christa T. – that is what these documents have taught me. Memory puts a deceptive colour on things.
But must we give her up for lost? I feel that she is disappearing. There she lies in her village cemetery beneath the two buckthorn bushes, dead among the dead. What is she doing there? Six feet of earth on top of her and the Mecklenburg sky above. The larks calling in springtime, summer storms, the winds in autumn, and the snow. She's disappearing. No ears now to heed complaints with, no eyes to see tears with, no mouth with which to answer reproaches. The complaints, tears and reproaches...
Charles Adrian
Interesting. I think it's really interesting that your... the first book you brought is a, kind of, piecing together of somebody's memories – second hand perhaps – and this is a, kind of, challenging of one's own memory of somebody else.
Liz Chan
[affirmative] Mmm. Yeah, I find that really interesting. Yeah, I, sort of, noticed that. I thought, ‘Oh…’ [laughs]
Charles Adrian
No but it's... Yeah. Like, it's two sides of, in a way, the same thing: how do we make sense of where we are, I think. Like, what it comes down to is what... you know... The way that we see what's happened before, I think, is... influences how we see where we are now. And there are all these different ways of getting at that.
Liz Chan
Yeah. And it's... I just find it fascinating, this idea of our relationship and perception of other people in our lives. And, you know, it's one of the, sort of, great pleasures, joys and mysteries of life is [sic], sort of, getting to know another human being. And how close we can ever actually come to [laughs]...
Charles Adrian
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Liz Chan
... knowing them. Yeah. So I think... yeah. Both those books, teah. And actually another couple I considered [laughing] bringing along... I've suddenly noticed there's a theme going on here.
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Liz Chan
But in different ways. Yeah. It, sort of...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] It's obviously something that is... that you're drawn to.
Liz Chan
Yeah... it's fascinating.
Charles Adrian
Interesting.
Liz Chan
Anyway, there you go. So that's...
Charles Adrian
Thank you so much.
Liz Chan
That's for you. And maybe one day, I'll bring you the German copy. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
Perhaps so, yeah. I... Yeah. I think my... Yes.
Liz Chan
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
[laughing] I'm going to...
Liz Chan
[laughing] You could compare the two.
Charles Adrian
... start with this.
Liz and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
Quite... quite good enough. Now I'm going to play the last... well, the second track that I've chosen, which is... Thank you so much for suggesting this. This is great.
Liz Chan
What have you [indistinct]?
Charles Adrian
This is Under Pressure...
Liz Chan
Oh. Brilliant.
Charles Adrian
... by Queen and David Bowie. Thank you very much, Liz.
Liz Chan
[speaking over] Great. Thank you. Pleasure.
Music
[Under Pressure by Queen and David Bowie]
[Initial transcription by https://otter.ai]