Episode image is a detail from the cover of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke, published in 2004 by Bloomsbury Publishing; jacket design by William Webb.
For the 74th Second Hand Book Factory, Charles Adrian is joined by playwright, performer and accidental sex-positivity educator, advocate and activist Cameryn Moore. They talk about the level of detail in some rich historical fantasy, some of the advantages of a really big tea cup and the realisation that people write creatively about their food experiences.
Apologies for the phone that buzzes at 5:50; this is the result of a schoolboy error on the part of Charles Adrian, who did not put his phone in airplane mode.
Another book by Sarah Perry, The Essex Serpent, is discussed in Page One 142.
The Art Of Eating by M. F. K. Fisher is also discussed in Page One 182.
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: 12th May, 2015.
Book listing:
Jonathan Strange And Mr Norrell by Susannah Clarke
After Me Comes The Flood by Sarah Perry
The Art Of Eating by M. F. K. Fisher
Links:
Episode transcript:
Charles Adrian
Right. Let's go. Hello and welcome to the 98th Page One. This is the 74th Second Hand Book Factory. I'm Charles Adrian and my guest today—in Kennington—is Cameryn Moore.
Jingle
You're listening to Page One, the book podcast.
Charles Adrian
Hi Cameryn.
Cameryn Moore
Hi.
Charles Adrian
[laughs] Thank you so much for scheduling me in.
Cameryn Moore
Oh, my pleasure. Always.
Charles Adrian
[laughs] And so... Yeah. Now, here you are at the beginning of quite a long tour.
Cameryn Moore
Mmm hmm.
Charles Adrian
At the beginning of the programme the first thing I ask you is how you... how do you describe yourself?
Cameryn Moore
I first call myself a playwright slash performer—kind of like singer slash songwriter—
Charles Adrian
Right.
Cameryn Moore
... where I create and perform my own stuff. But I'm also, you know, a sex educator, kind of accidentally an activist around sex positivity and kink positivity, and a, you know, sidewalk pornographer and doing the custom erotica that I do on typewriter. So lots of different things all around communicating things around sex.
Charles Adrian
Right. Cool. How did you get into that, by the way?
Cameryn Moore
Which bit?
Charles Adrian
The becoming an activist, becoming an educator.
Cameryn Moore
That really was accidental. Like, when I first started touring with the theatre works I was just there as like, ‘My art's... This is pure art.’ I mean, I wasn't as, you know, highbrow as that but definitely I felt like ‘I want to be judged as a legitimate piece of theatre and any other conversation that I might have with people, I don't want it to detract from that’. I think there's a lot of judgement around, like, people who want to do social change with their work and I think I had internalised some of that so I kind of pushed that away. ‘I don't want to be that activist.’ But seeing audiences' responses to my work and, kind of, the questions they would come to me with and the conversations they wanted to have I realised, ‘Okay, they're wanting this. This would be a grave disservice to my audiences if I didn't at least make the opportunity [and] make the space available if people wanted some education or resources.’ And the more that I do this work the more I see that there's room for activism around it too, that there needs to be a major... several major shifts in our understandings and policies and just general discourse around sexuality. So it's just been a process. It's been an outgrowth of doing performance, seeing where else it leads and going where the need is.
Charles Adrian
Right. Yeah. Because I have to admit it... that part of it is a big part of why I was interested in your work, actually. I mean, I loved the piece that I saw—I loved Phone Whore—but I really... yeah, I love that part of what you're doing is starting those discussions and then having those discussions. I think that's great.
Cameryn Moore
Yeah, I love it. I love it. Some of the best stuff... it's not even material for me at that point but it is just seeing people's path, like, even from the beginning of a show when they walk in the theatre to after Q&A session. It's, like, people could travel a long way in 90 minutes...
Charles Adrian
[laughs] Yeah.
Cameryn Moore
... without even moving from their seat. And that's just fascinating. And it's a joy and a privilege to be able to participate in that and facilitate that journey.
Charles Adrian
[appreciative] Mmm. Well, it's wonderful anyway.
Cameryn Moore
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
So this is a book podcast—obviously—and the first book that I asked you to bring is the book that you like.
Cameryn Moore
Yes.
Charles Adrian
What have you brought?
Cameryn Moore
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. It is the one book that I have ever toured with. There's no room in baggage. Like, I didn't bring it on this tour.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] What? You've toured with.... You've toured with that book?!
Cameryn Moore
I didn't bring it this time around because space was really at a premium this time but in the past couple of years I have brought it along with me. It goes in my car when I'm driving around North America. It's, like...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Wow! Oh, I guess if you're touring in the car it's not so bad.
Cameryn Moore
[speaking over] Well, no, no, but I brought it over here last year and the year before. It was in my suitcase.
Charles Adrian
You're mad. That's amazing!
Cameryn Moore
[speaking over] I know! It's a thick book, eh? [laughs]
Charles Adrian
I mean, it's the reason... I also love it but the reason I bought it is because I thought it was such a beautiful object when I saw it in the shop.
Cameryn Moore
[speaking over] Yeah. Oh, it's really well done. Even the paperback version is very just striking...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] It's gorgeous. Yes.
Cameryn Moore
... and I've seen some hardcover versions of it that are just a beautiful thing. But, yeah, that is... I call what I do comfort reading. Like, I don't do a lot of new-book reading. It just... It's... I don't really seek out new books because I don't have room in my car or my suitcase...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yes. I understand. Yeah.
Cameryn Moore
So. But there are some books that I go back to again and again and I can read over and over just because I enjoy the craft. And this book, for sure, falls in that category because I can read it, like, ten times and still find things that I just...
Charles Adrian
Mmm. Right. Right. Yes.
Cameryn Moore
[speaking over] ... ran over or didn't pay attention to or... It's like that. So this is a book that I value enough to tour with usually.
Charles Adrian
Oh, wonderful. Read us the first page.
Cameryn Moore
Okay. Chapter one:
The library at Hurtfew
Autumn 1806-January 1807
SOME YEARS AGO there was in the city of York a society of magicians. They met upon the third Wednesday of every month and read each other long, dull papers upon the history of English magic.
They were gentlemen-magicians, which is to say they had never harmed anyone by magic – nor ever done any one the slightest good. In fact, to own the truth, not one of these magicians had ever cast the smallest spell, nor by magic caused one leaf to tremble upon a tree, made one mote of dust to alter its course or changed a single hair upon any one's head. But, with this one minor reservation, they enjoyed a reputation as some of the wisest and most magical gentlemen in Yorkshire.
A great magician has said of his profession that its practitioners “. . . must pound and rack their brains to make the least learning go in, but quarrelling always comes very naturally to them,”—Footnote: The History and Practice of English Magic by Jonathan Strange, vol. 1, Chap. 2, pub. John Murray, London, 1816.—and the York magicians had proved the truth of this for a number of years.
In the autumn of 1806 they received an addition in a gentleman called John Segundus. At the first meeting that he attended Mr Segundus rose and addressed the society. He began by complimenting the gentlemen upon their distinguished history; he listed the many celebrated magicians and historians that had at one time or another belonged to the York Society. He hinted that it had been no small inducement to him in coming to York to know of the existence of such a society. Northern magicians, he reminded his audience, had always been better respected than southern ones. Mr Segundus said that he had studied magic for many years and knew the histories of all the great magicians of long ago. He read the new publications upon the subject and...
Charles Adrian
So nice! It makes me want to read it again. I've only read it the once and it was a while ago so I think it's... that's definitely a book that's due a rereading.
Cameryn Moore
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's... I actually was introducing this book to a lover of mine. He had not read it. This is a long-distance thing and I... We had gotten started. We'd gotten, like, twenty-two chapters in, maybe twenty-four, and then I'm here now so we're not doing that but...
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Cameryn Moore
But, you know, I was doing audio book, kind of, style readings of every chapter...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Were you reading it to him? Oh. Lovely. Yes.
Cameryn Moore
... and [in] the reading out loud of it you just really become aware of the... of how thoroughly she captured the—the author—captured the style of that era.
Charles Adrian
Yes! Apart from being a fantasy novel...
Cameryn Moore
Yes! [laughs]
Charles Adrian
... it's a beautiful piece of historical fiction. And mythology as well.
Cameryn Moore
Yes. I think that's the thing that I like the most about it, though, is that it... On the one hand it is so real and the events that describes are historical. At the same time, then, she weaves into it these, like, magical interpretations and... Not only into that history but she builds a whole backstory of magical history that doesn't exist.
Charles Adrian
Yes. That's right.
Cameryn Moore
That's purely the fantasy but she... All these footnotes that are so awkward to read in audiobook style.
Charles Adrian
[laughs] I can imagine.
Cameryn Moore
But all these footnotes, right, are... are... If you went through the whole book you would have this perfect bibliography. Like, ‘Oh, I want to read more about the history of English magic’. Well, she's... here she references, you know, some odd... like ninety-seven different volumes, never mind casual interviews that are reported in—’reported’—in newspapers, you know? So it's the thoroughness that she brings to creating the backdrop—the magical and historical backdrops of this—is just... is beautiful. It's like two scrims and you can, kind of, see the one through the other at all times and [makes appreciative noise]... It's gorgeous.
Charles Adrian
It's wonderful. Thank you so much for choosing that. That's wonderful. Right. And so... And you also sent me some music. So I'm going to play the first track that I've picked from your list. I like that because it's your music but it's my choice.
Cameryn Moore
There you go. Yes of course.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] That makes me very happy. But I... So I picked the Owl City track—which is When Can I See You Again?—because it struck me that that is... that must be a big part of your life.
Cameryn Moore
Yeah. Yeah. It's, kind of, my little anthem that I play when I leave a place or when I leave a lover. It's like... It could be sad but that's a very optimistic piece of music. It's like...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] It is. It's totally...
Cameryn Moore
‘Oh! Coming back!’
Charles Adrian
Exactly. Exactly. [laughs]
Cameryn Moore
‘When am I coming back?’ Yeah.
Charles Adrian
So here it is: Owl City with When Can I See You Again?
Music
[When Can I See You Again? by Owl City]
Charles Adrian
So that was When Can I See You Again? by Owl City.
sound
[chinking crockery]
Charles Adrian
Okay. This chinking, by the way, is me putting down my enormous cup of nettle tea.
Cameryn and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Cameryn Moore
Clink, clank, clink.
Charles Adrian
Yeah, it's wonderful.
Cameryn Moore
It's a bowl. You could drown in it if you're not careful.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] It really is. I love it. I have the feeling that... It has a, kind of, Whittard's aesthetic to it. I'm just going to have a look. Yes, it is indeed a Whittard's cup and saucer. These are very fashionable when I was a student.
Cameryn Moore
Okay.
Charles Adrian
Yeah. Everybody... We all had Whittard's tea pots and Whittard's cups and saucers. They'd just... I think they'd just had their big expansion.
Cameryn Moore
Okay. Okay.
Charles Adrian
But I do like them. They're so joyful.
Cameryn Moore
[speaking over] I just like the size.
Charles Adrian
Yeah.
Cameryn Moore
Plus you can put soup in it. Like, a whole thing of soup and it's...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh. That's right. Yeah.
Cameryn Moore
You can just... Yeah. Very functional. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
It's wonderful. Anyway. So my book for you, Cameryn.
Cameryn Moore
[makes excited noise]
Charles Adrian
So this is a new book I'm introducing you to.
Cameryn Moore
Yes.
Charles Adrian
So I did... For a moment I was just going to give you a silly book about, you know, something connected to England because I was like, [in a silly voice] ‘You're moving to England and you'll need to know some stuff’. So I was going to give you The Last English King by Julian Rathbone, which is about Harold being defeated by William the Conqueror.
Cameryn Moore
I need to know this sort of thing, obviously. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
Right. Exactly. But then I thought, ‘No, it's a fun book but I can't really stand by it’. It's not really good historical fiction.
Cameryn Moore
Okay.
Charles Adrian
I wouldn't say. Although I recommend it as a book. It's fun to read.
Cameryn Moore
[speaking over] Oh. All right. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
So instead what I've got you is a book that I read a few weeks ago. And when you read it you'll see why this is kind of a cool origin story. I... Basically, I had a post-it note on my kitchen table for a long time with ‘After Me Comes the Flood - Sarah Perry’ written on it. And I don't remember any more why I have that. It was in my handwriting so I wrote it. So somebody must have told me about this book. No memory of who might have told me or where I might have come across it, which actually fits very well with the book. And so... It's a very new novel. It was published last year and it's, kind of... it's basically... What I liked about it most of all is that it's this little world. This guy, basically... he gets to spend a week away from his normal life. And it's a slightly weird environment. But it's this little collection of people in... it's this community. And he's... you know, he's... It's mysterious and it's beautiful and... You know, they're all a little bit damaged in some way and they're all holding each other up.
Cameryn Moore
Okay.
Charles Adrian
So, yeah, I give it to you with full recommendation.
Cameryn Moore
Okay.
Charles Adrian
Right.
WEDNESDAY
I
I'm writing this in a stranger's room on a broken chair at an old school desk. The chair creaks if I move, and so I must keep very still. The lid of the desk is scored with symbols that might have been made by children or men, and at the bottom of the inkwell a beetle is lying on its back. Just now I thought I saw it move, but it's dry as a husk and must've died long before I came.
There's a lamp on the floor by my feet with painted moths on the paper shade. The bulb has a covering of dust thick as felt, and I daren't turn it on in case they see and come and find me again. There are two windows at my side, and a bright light at the end of the garden throws a pair of slanted panels on the wall. It makes this paper yellow, and the skin of my hands: they don't look as if they have anything to do with me, and it makes me wonder where mine are, and what they're doing. I've been listening for footsteps on the stairs or voices in the garden, but there's only the sound of a household keeping quiet. They gave me too much to drink – there's a kind of buzzing in my ears and if I close my eyes they sting....
I've never kept a diary before – nothing ever happens to me worth the trouble of writing it down. But I hardly believe...
Cameryn Moore
Wooo!
Charles Adrian
Pretty intriguing, isn't it?
Cameryn Moore
Yes, already. [makes screaching noise]
Charles Adrian
There you go. I hope you enjoy... It's not a massive book. It's, kind of, slim, isn't it?
Cameryn Moore
Very packable.
Charles Adrian
And it comes in very digestible chunks. I like that as well about it. You can just read a chapter a night or something.
Cameryn Moore
Oh. This is beautiful. Thank you.
Charles Adrian
So. You'll have to tell me what you think of it. I very rarely read really new books...
Cameryn Moore
Yep.
Charles Adrian
... and this is... So this is one of the... kind of, the newest books [laughs] I've read for a long time.
Cameryn Moore
Uh huh. Was there a time when you did read a lot of new books?
Charles Adrian
That must have been a time when I read more because I would go into bookshops and pick up whatever was on the front tables. But now I tend to buy books... Well, I have so many books that I've bought over the last few years that I don't... But when I do buy books I buy them either from The Book People—which is a, kind of, online thing and you get them at very good prices—or I go to a shop called... Bookcase London, I think. It's on Chiswick High Road...
Cameryn Moore
Okay.
Charles Adrian
... near where I live. So, yeah, that's where I tend to find my books.
Cameryn Moore
Because I used to look... I used to read a lot of new books. I would just go to the library and I would go... The library where I went in San Francisco Bay Area, they just—well, like most libraries—they usually put out their new books somewhere towards the front. New incoming things. They may not be, like, immediately new but usually they are. And I would... I would just... I swear there was a time when I was going through, probably, like, five or ten books every week or two, you know? And that's what I did. Not to say that I didn't watch TV. I don't want to be like, ‘I didn't watch T...’ You know, I was, like, doing other stuff. But, like, I was devouring them.
Charles Adrian
Right. Right.
Cameryn Moore
And I don't know why I stopped. I think it's partly, like... You start working on your own stuff after a while. It was like, ‘Well, okay, I've absorbed a lot of other things now.’
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Right. Yeah. There's not so much space. Yeah.
Cameryn Moore
‘I need to get some stuff out now.’ But yeah.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] These things... I've... In my life they go in phases. Times when I'm reading a lot, times when I'm not reading so much.
Cameryn Moore
[speaking over] Yes. Yes. Mmm hmm.
Charles Adrian
What is the book that you've brought for me?
Cameryn Moore
Okay. Well, you know, let's be fair and let's be upfront about this. This is not, like... How can I carry around books, you know?
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Right. Well. And let's, and let's be really fair. I didn't prepare you well enough [laughing] for this podcast before you left North America.
Cameryn Moore
[laughs] [speaking over] Before I left North America. Otherwise, I would have brought you something, you know.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] So... Exactly. So... Yeah.
Cameryn Moore
No, that's a lie. I wouldn't have brought you anything because... Why am I...? Well, I could have gone shopping here for something, you know? I could have gone shopping here for something. But this...
Charles Adrian
I would rather have your copy of it.
Cameryn Moore
My copy of this book is in storage.
Charles Adrian
Okay.
Cameryn Moore
All of my books are in storage. And...
Charles Adrian
I'll dream about it. One day it'll arrive.
Cameryn Moore
[speaking over] I dream about it. Yeah, no, no, no, I have it and I'm... it's something that I'm not... that I would part with because, like, I'm not using it or reading it anymore. But this book, actually... So I lo...
Charles Adrian
So it's on your laptop.
Cameryn Moore
It's on my laptop.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] That's what we're saying.
Cameryn Moore
But this book falls in that category of books that I discovered at the library. And it was kind of in the new books section. They must have just come out with a new edition of it because the book itself is a collection of different books. And this was a... it was a formative book for me, in terms of influencing me to become a food journalist, where I read this and realised, ‘People do this? This is a thing? Not just reviews but they write creatively about their food experiences?’
Charles Adrian
Okay.
Cameryn Moore
And... So this is M.F.K. Fisher. I don't know if you know anything about her...
Charles Adrian
No.
Cameryn Moore
... but... So she was an American woman who found her way to France in the... between war period, I think. It might have been pre-World War One and then after World War One. And she wrote a lot about... A good chunk of her writing is about, kind of, like, austerity cooking and how to make things... And then other parts of it is, like, a travel food journalism thing through France. And she has this... She had a very tragic... kind of, beautiful tragic love life and wrote some about that in a very oblique fashion—so it's just, kind of, there, it's ever present but it's not really the focus. But she wrote... She wrote about food in a very literary, lyrical way that made you see some of the deeper meanings behind food. It's... Not just as a fuel but as something that unites human beings in many more, like, interesting ways, you know? That it's... So... Anyway, this is M. F. K. Fisher. This is the first page from The Art of Eating. Okay.
To Begin
THERE ARE TWO kinds of books about eating: those that try to imitate Brillat-Savarin's, and those that try not to. The first substitute whimsy for his wit, and dull reminiscences for his delightful anecdotes. The second are gross where he would be delicate, and choose blunt statistics rather than his piercing observations.
And books about what to eat: they too are twins from one source, the first written recipes in our world. They are stodgy, matter-of-fact, covered very practically with washable cloth or gravy-coloured paper, beginning with measurements and food values and ending with sections on the care of invalids—oddly enough, for books so concerned with hygiene! They are usually German, or English or American.
Or, on the other hand, they are short, bound impractically in creamy paper or chintz, illustrated by woodcutters à la mode. They begin with witty philosophizing on the pleasures of the table, and end with a suggested menu for an intimate dinner given to seven gentlemen who know his wife, by a wealthy old banker who feels horns pricking up gently from his bald skull.
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Cameryn Moore
These books are usually French. They are much more entertaining, if less useful, than their phlegmatic twins.
To make one into two yet again, there are two painful variants of one most interesting subject: those who eat. The first, foisted upon us at least semiannually by enthusiastic publishers, is listed under Memoirs in book catalogues. Its pages totter and crumple under a weight of well-known names, and from each chapter rises a reek, a heady stench of truffles, Château Yquem, and quails financière. You sit, pompously nonchalant, on a balcony at Monte Carlo, tête-à-tête with three princes, a millionaire, and the lovely toast of London, God bless her! Or, in a Georgian dining-room filled...
Charles Adrian
Wow. Oh, I love it! Oh, well, I'm going to look forward to...
Cameryn Moore
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
... receiving that.
Cameryn Moore
[affirmative] Mmm hmm!
Charles Adrian
But we have to finish now.
Cameryn Moore
Yes.
Charles Adrian
This is the end of the podcast. Thank you so much, Cameryn. This has been such a pleasure.
Cameryn Moore
Oh, me too. [indistinct]
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] And I'm looking forward to seeing you in person now for the next few months.
Cameryn Moore
I know. I'm here!
Charles Adrian
Yeah.
Cameryn Moore
I'm here.
Charles Adrian
It's lovely. [laughs]
Cameryn Moore
It is. We've been talking about this for, like, months. We've been corresponding and now it's like, it's actually real. We're actually sitting here in London having tea.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] This is great.
Cameryn Moore
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
And so, do you want to plug anything? This will go out in a couple of weeks' time.
Cameryn Moore
Sure. Well, I mostly just want to encourage people to go to my website, camerynmoore.com— it's [spelling it out] C A M E R Y N moore.com—because I have so many dates in UK. Everywhere from...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yeah. Yes. All over the place.
Cameryn Moore
I mean, in the next couple weeks I'll be doing shows in London and winding up in Edinburgh Fringe at the end of the summer in August. And, like, I'm zigzagging across the island, literally. I just had two more shows added.
Charles Adrian
Oh great.
Cameryn Moore
You know. So, yeah, just go to my website rather than go city by city. Go to my website and look that up. Yeah.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] camerynmoore.com.
Cameryn Moore
Mmm hmm.
Charles Adrian
Okay. Cool. I'm going to play, so, the second track I picked from your list. I think this is just a good track to end the podcast on. It has a good sound. This is the OK Go track This Too Shall Pass. Thank you, Cameryn.
Cameryn Moore
You're welcome. Thank you.
Music
[This Too Shall Pass by OK Go]
[Initial transcription by https://otter.ai]