WEBVTT - Read This: Charlotte Wood Thinks Restraint Is Underrated 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.440 Hello again. It's Ruby Jones here. I'm back to introduce 0:00:03.560 --> 0:00:07.280 another episode from our sister podcast, Read This. It's a 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:10.119 show about the books we love and the stories behind them. 0:00:10.520 --> 0:00:14.080 Each week, host and self confessed book nerd Michael Williams 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:17.600 is joined by one of Australia's best authors, who takes 0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:21.599 listeners behind the scenes of the writing process. Today, we're 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:25.239 going to hear from Australian writer Charlotte Wood. Before we do, 0:00:25.680 --> 0:00:27.960 Michael is here to share a bit about the episode. 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:31.840 Hi Michael, how are you book nerd? 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:34.440 That's pretty offensive, Ruby Jones. I'm well, how are you? 0:00:34.680 --> 0:00:36.960 It's meant in an affectionate way. 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:39.800 That's what they always say in the school. 0:00:39.880 --> 0:00:42.640 Yet I am good. 0:00:42.640 --> 0:00:42.960 Thanks. 0:00:43.000 --> 0:00:46.120 So this episode of Read This it's a little bit 0:00:46.159 --> 0:00:49.839 special because you interviewed Charlotte Wood about her latest novels 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:53.159 Donia Devotional, and since then it's actually gone on to 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:56.560 be shortlisted for the Booker Prize, which is a very 0:00:56.560 --> 0:00:59.200 big deal. It's the most important with Tree Awards in 0:00:59.200 --> 0:00:59.600 the world. 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:03.639 Look, the book is kind of the gold standard. It's 0:01:03.680 --> 0:01:07.000 certainly the one that has the biggest discernible impact on 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:10.120 sales in the English language world, and it is the 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:12.440 one that kind of dictates. It's kind of an active, 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:16.080 instant canonization. A book that wins the booker becomes one 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:17.960 of the books that has to be read for the year. 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:20.520 It's a decade since an Australian was last on the 0:01:20.520 --> 0:01:25.000 book a shortlist, and it's particularly thrilling that to break 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:27.920 that decade long drought, we have Charlotte Wood, whose book 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:30.320 is singular and beautiful. 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:34.880 So before it was nominated, before it became decorated, what 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:37.360 was it like to pick it up and read it 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:38.319 for the very first time. 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:42.759 Stoneyard Devotional is a gorgeous book. It's a very quiet 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:46.080 book in many ways. I read years ago this review 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:49.920 of Marilyn Robinson's Gilead in The Guardian that had this 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:52.440 line that said, it's a novel that forces you to 0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:58.000 read at its pace, slowly and increasingly appreciatively. And that's 0:01:58.000 --> 0:01:59.720 an idea that's really stuck with me. I love the 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:02.240 idea of a book that teaches you how to read it, 0:02:02.760 --> 0:02:06.480 and Charlotte Wood's Stonyard Devotional is one of those books. 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:09.680 It defires a kind of easy skim It's not like 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:14.320 rollicking along on a level of plot from the outset. 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:18.000 It is a mood piece early on, but it really 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:22.160 digs into some profound, deeply kind of moving meditations and 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:25.240 illustrates this world in the Monaro plane in southern New 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:28.240 South Wales and brings it to life in this old 0:02:28.320 --> 0:02:31.919 convent with a woman who's trying to escape so many. 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:38.440 Things coming up in just a moment. Charlotte Wood thinks 0:02:38.480 --> 0:02:39.920 restraint is underrated. 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:53.040 Stoneyard Devotional is a beautiful book about grief, about solitude, 0:02:53.440 --> 0:02:56.040 about what it means to live a good life, and 0:02:56.040 --> 0:02:59.520 what we owe one another. Long Standing fans of Charlotte 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:02.600 Wood will be thrilled. It's her ninth book, but it 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:05.360 was her twenty sixteen novel The Natural Way of Things 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:07.959 which broke her out in a massive way. She won 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:10.639 the Prime Minister's Award that year and the Stellar Prize 0:03:10.639 --> 0:03:14.160 and was an international best seller. A stage adaptation of 0:03:14.160 --> 0:03:17.000 her follow up, The Weekend, has just finished an acclaimed 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:20.760 run at Sydney's Belvoir Theater. And her last book before 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:25.560 Stoneyard Devotional was a work of nonfiction called The Luminous Solution. 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:29.400 It was all about creativity and the inner life, but 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:32.440 it was also about the idea of resilience of how 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:35.440 we might marshal our strength to get through difficult times. 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:38.680 It was a concept that was to have unfortunate, far 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:42.520 reaching resonances in Wood's own life in the months following 0:03:42.560 --> 0:03:43.360 its publication. 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:46.920 Yeah, we had a big bomb go off in our 0:03:47.040 --> 0:03:51.680 family last year, which was that my older sister was 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:55.880 diagnosed with breast cancer. She was the same age my 0:03:56.000 --> 0:04:00.400 mother was when she died of cancer. Then she, as 0:04:00.440 --> 0:04:03.720 big sisters do, said right, oh, everyone go off and 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:08.320 have scans, which we did just to kind of please her. Really, 0:04:08.880 --> 0:04:11.680 So six weeks after she was diagnosed and I was 0:04:11.680 --> 0:04:14.640 found to have breast cancer, and then a week later 0:04:14.760 --> 0:04:17.560 my younger sister was also abound to have it where 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:21.520 everyone's fine, I need to say that quite immediately. So 0:04:21.560 --> 0:04:23.760 I'd written a draft of the book, a very sparse 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:27.719 first draft, and I got to the sort of penultimate scenes, 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:32.360 the scenes that really in terms of the story, end 0:04:32.520 --> 0:04:34.200 the book. And then I got up to go and 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:36.640 do some grocery shopping and while I was in the shops, 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:39.200 the phone rang and it was the breast screen people 0:04:39.400 --> 0:04:41.560 saying you've got to come back and have more TETs. 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:44.120 So that was like what, And you know, I think 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:46.120 about that timing. I think if that hadn't I don't 0:04:46.120 --> 0:04:48.359 know what would have happened to the book if I 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:52.080 hadn't just done that that that morning. But anyway, the 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:55.480 relevance of this to the novel is it was a 0:04:55.520 --> 0:05:00.760 psychic catastrophe more than physical catastrophe, because we had the 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:02.880 best kind of cancer you can have and all of that, 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:06.479 but the shock of it was so deep and so 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:10.720 powerful for me anyway. And so then when I went 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:13.480 back to revise the book, I'd already wanted to try 0:05:13.520 --> 0:05:17.040 and write a book that wasn't going to explain things 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:20.560 and wasn't going to hold the reader's hand very tightly. 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:23.239 And also, you know, it was about grief and about 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:25.640 my mother. And so then when I went back to 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:28.600 it with his new experience, a shedding had taken place 0:05:28.720 --> 0:05:33.719 of trivial themes of unimportant things. And so I went 0:05:34.160 --> 0:05:38.359 almost like a kind of skeleton going back into writing, 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:40.279 But in a good way. It was with more of 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:45.160 a commitment to a book where nothing extraneous was to 0:05:45.200 --> 0:05:49.880 remain in the book, and I think it really helped 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:54.080 give the book a depth that it might have started 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:57.200 to have. But when I went back to it. It 0:05:57.279 --> 0:06:00.440 was with an understanding that we are mortal. Now that 0:06:00.560 --> 0:06:05.159 sounds so silly because we all know that, but we 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:08.840 also all walk around pretending we don't know that. And 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:13.880 I understood from my experience that that was a rehearsal 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:17.359 for me, and that it's going to come, you know, 0:06:17.680 --> 0:06:21.279 hopefully when I'm one hundred and seven. But how do 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:25.680 you live a good life, a full life, while not 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:28.920 turning away from the knowledge that we're going to die. 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:31.760 That's what I wanted the book to sort of grapple with. 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:36.120 You mentioned that the main character's mother is in no 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:39.520 small part your own manner on the page, and you know, 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:42.720 I'm always reluctant when chatting to an author to ascribe 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:44.280 autobiographical things to. 0:06:44.200 --> 0:06:47.360 It, but I've been quite open about that. I mean, 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:50.599 it is the most personal book that I've written, and 0:06:50.680 --> 0:06:53.560 I found myself wanted to write about my mother, who 0:06:53.640 --> 0:06:57.960 was quite an unusual person. She was very, very self contained, 0:06:58.040 --> 0:07:01.279 as the words I always used to describe her. She 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:04.400 had a deep kind of reserve and a need for privacy. 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:09.680 And when I say privacy, it's a sort of emotional privacy, 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:13.440 I guess, and the narrator respects that you know, there's 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:17.120 no sense that she thinks so I wish she'd opened 0:07:17.200 --> 0:07:19.880 up to me or anything like that, But she's preoccupied 0:07:19.920 --> 0:07:23.280 with her mother and not her father, because she says, 0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:26.440 I knew my father from the moment I was born. 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:28.520 I knew my father, and I would never if he'd 0:07:28.560 --> 0:07:30.600 lived a long time, I would never have known him 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:32.760 better than I knew him, you know, by the time 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:36.080 he died. Whereas she said, I just could never know 0:07:36.200 --> 0:07:39.080 my mother in the same way. Although there was no 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:42.320 question that they loved each other, they trusted each other. 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:47.239 But you know, when you're relatively young, when the parent dies, 0:07:47.400 --> 0:07:50.440 all of your grief initially is for yourself. Of course, 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:53.680 I'm now the age my mother was when she died. 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:58.160 I'm fifty eight. She died of fifty eight, and now 0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:01.320 my grief is for her, for what she lost, you know, 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:05.440 what she never got to do, or the grandchildren she 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:11.440 never got to meet. I was twenty nine, so not 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:16.120 not a child by any means, but sort of still 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:20.960 just undone by it. You know, your grief, well, speaking 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:26.280 only for myself, it's subside. It lessens over time, but 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:29.480 it doesn't go away, and it changes texture and it 0:08:29.640 --> 0:08:32.480 kind of surges. At certain times, you know, there are 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:34.800 things that you think, oh God, wish they were here 0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:38.120 for this, But also sometimes you just overcome by it 0:08:38.160 --> 0:08:40.199 for no reason at all. One of the things the 0:08:40.280 --> 0:08:44.080 narrator talks about is this shame of still carrying this 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:48.000 grief that she thinks she should be over. You know, 0:08:48.040 --> 0:08:51.880 it's embarrassing to be stumbling around as a middle aged 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:54.040 woman still wanting your mummy. 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:56.559 Do you think you'll like her? 0:08:58.360 --> 0:09:00.560 No, I don't think I am. I think I'm a 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:03.920 lot like my dad. I guess one of the propellers 0:09:03.960 --> 0:09:08.160 for the work is that sort of that difference is 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:12.200 a preoccupation because I'm not as private as she was, 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:14.840 and I'm not as you know. She was a very 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:20.520 kind woman and who did do good acts in the world, 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:25.079 like genuinely practically, I think, especially when you're young, people 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:29.400 don't believe in genuinely kind people, you know. And the 0:09:29.480 --> 0:09:33.720 narrative says, it's always confused me that people seem to 0:09:33.760 --> 0:09:37.640 think that habitual kindness is some kind of mask or 0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:42.000 disguise or a lie. And she says, but it was true. 0:09:42.520 --> 0:09:46.160 She was, and my mother was, and in some ways 0:09:46.160 --> 0:09:49.560 maybe she could only do those sorts of kind things 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:52.840 for people, because she had a sort of separateness from 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:54.080 people at the same time. 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:58.199 One of the wonderfully evocative things in this is you're 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:02.120 writing about country that is where you came from and 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:05.000 the place of your childhood. I'm so interested in what 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:09.959 that process was of creative and imaginative pilgrimage back home. 0:10:10.679 --> 0:10:15.800 Yeah, it's funny because it didn't involve a physical pilgrimage 0:10:16.200 --> 0:10:18.680 back home for quite some time. But I knew I 0:10:18.720 --> 0:10:23.040 wanted to write about that landscape of the minero in 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:27.120 southern New South Wales where I grew up, and it 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:31.840 is a very austere landscape. Currently which poet it was 0:10:31.960 --> 0:10:34.400 called it the lunar landscape, but it is, you know, 0:10:34.559 --> 0:10:40.360 treeless plane with these patches of enormous stony boulders, and 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:44.640 the light on those very shallow sort of planes at 0:10:44.640 --> 0:10:48.520 certain times of the day is just unbelievably beautiful. And 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:53.679 it's something very physical for me about that landscape. It's 0:10:54.120 --> 0:10:57.520 whenever I talk about it, I start gesturing my gut 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:01.559 on my solar plexus. It does feel like an umbilical 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:06.160 connection to that place. And you know, of course, a 0:11:06.160 --> 0:11:09.880 lot of the book is about the narrator's mother, which 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:14.400 is about my mother. So when the narrator goes back 0:11:14.440 --> 0:11:16.679 to this place, it's almost like she goes there out 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:18.920 of an animal instinct, not out of any kind of 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:23.120 rational decision making process. And I guess my feelings about 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:28.560 that landscape, I've quite sort of primitive and animal, well, 0:11:28.640 --> 0:11:30.880 instinctive rather than intellectual. 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:35.760 That instinctive thing comes through with your narrator, but there 0:11:35.800 --> 0:11:40.520 is also the magic of the place holds for her imaginatively. 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:43.319 There's a sequence where she's driving and she's rattling off 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:47.040 the names of towns like a half remembered mantra. I 0:11:47.120 --> 0:11:49.000 think we've all done that when on a road trip 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:52.679 that we've done many times. Is that place names and 0:11:52.720 --> 0:11:56.720 the names of things take us immediately back to that space. 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:02.280 Yeah, their beautifully rhythmic name, and she says they come 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:05.200 back into her body, you know, not just into her mind, 0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:07.120 and they're kind of like I think she says, like 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:10.600 beads and a rosary, or like naming the parts of 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:14.560 my own body. And certainly I had that experience going back. 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:17.160 I think it's about the place where you were a 0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:20.240 small child just has a whole of you with a 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:23.800 kind of cellular level in some way that other places don't. 0:12:23.880 --> 0:12:26.960 I think one of the tensions of the book is 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:31.520 that your character goes back there, as you say, instinctively 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:38.400 to escape and for solitude, for isolation, as escape, but 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:42.080 she does so to a place where she's crowded in 0:12:42.120 --> 0:12:45.079 on all sides. By association, it seems to me someone 0:12:45.120 --> 0:12:48.520 who genuinely wants to escape and goes somewhere SOLDI goes 0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:52.200 away from the places where they have history. 0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:57.080 Yes, she says somewhere that maybe in another language, there's 0:12:57.200 --> 0:12:59.679 a word for the particular kind of despair that I had. 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:03.080 It that time. It was a need to go somewhere 0:13:03.080 --> 0:13:07.080 that I had never been, but that was nevertheless my 0:13:07.200 --> 0:13:11.199 home in some way. So she goes to this religious 0:13:11.200 --> 0:13:14.120 community of nuns where she's never been, and it's not 0:13:14.840 --> 0:13:17.520 her home as not even in the town where she 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:20.320 grew up, but sort of nearby. So it was some 0:13:20.360 --> 0:13:23.240 sort of homing instinct, I think, and I've only thought 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:26.880 about this since the book was finished, but there's a 0:13:26.960 --> 0:13:33.960 sense that that kind of bare bedrock landscape understands her 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:37.840 and that's what takes her back there. It's like her 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:42.280 kind of psychic state is in a similarly stripped back 0:13:42.800 --> 0:13:46.679 It sort of aligns tonally with the actual physical world. 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:51.760 It's so important to Estonia devotional. Your main character, like you, 0:13:52.320 --> 0:13:56.360 is not a person of faith, but like you, draw 0:13:56.480 --> 0:14:00.440 some solace from being around some of those rituals and 0:14:00.800 --> 0:14:05.040 finds it a respite from the modern life that she's 0:14:05.080 --> 0:14:05.920 trying to escape. 0:14:06.200 --> 0:14:09.400 Yeah, she sort of comes to this place after some 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:14.280 deep psychic crisis that is to do partly with her 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:20.640 work as an environmental activist and other kind of unexplained things. Really, 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:25.160 but she sort of comforted a little, but also always 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:28.440 ambivalent about being there. She doesn't get to a point 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:31.560 where she thinks, oh, this is where I belong. Mainly 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:35.040 she's thinking, God, I can't believe I'm still here, you know, 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:37.560 because of all these reasons why I should not be here. 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:39.280 I don't believe in God. I don't even know what 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:42.960 prayer is. I will never understand what that means. And 0:14:43.040 --> 0:14:45.240 also what am I doing being a part of this 0:14:45.800 --> 0:14:50.440 organization which is so appalling in so many ways? And 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:55.520 yet there are moments of deep peace that she has 0:14:55.560 --> 0:14:59.560 only had there, really, and there is something about the 0:14:59.640 --> 0:15:04.320 rhythm of the day, and you know, for someone in 0:15:04.360 --> 0:15:08.240 a deeps of crisis, just going somewhere where you don't 0:15:08.240 --> 0:15:10.320 have to make any decisions. But at the same time, 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:13.160 she's always grappling with this tension between two sort of 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:16.840 mantras that she keeps coming back to. The first one 0:15:16.920 --> 0:15:20.320 is action is the antidote to despair, and the other 0:15:20.360 --> 0:15:24.520 one is first, do no harm. And she's always believed, 0:15:24.760 --> 0:15:27.000 as I have always believed, that action is the antidote 0:15:27.000 --> 0:15:31.520 to despair. And then after a certain time, you look 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:34.040 at all that action that you've tried to take and think, 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:40.720 what is it done. I think that sense of futility 0:15:41.760 --> 0:15:45.000 is really overwhelming. And then she comes across these women 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:48.720 who are you know, they may be seen to not 0:15:48.760 --> 0:15:50.200 be doing any good in the world, but they're not 0:15:50.240 --> 0:15:53.360 doing any harm. They're not proselytizing, they're not trying to 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:56.800 convert anyone, they're not harassing anyone, they're not going anywhere, 0:15:56.960 --> 0:16:00.440 they're not using any resources really, and it's sort of 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:04.720 a Hubris come up and for her to think, you know, 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:08.120 I've always kind of despised people like this, and yet 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:12.880 now here I am because the other alternatives have failed. 0:16:18.920 --> 0:16:32.520 We'll be back in a minute. The idea of action 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:35.600 being the antidote to despair. You know, for you, for 0:16:35.680 --> 0:16:39.320 your career, that action has taken the form of creation. 0:16:39.560 --> 0:16:43.640 You know, it's taken the form of making and leaving 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:47.040 the world palpably, discernibly better for the thing that you've made. 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:50.480 That creative practice seems to me to be at the 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:55.200 heart for you. You don't give that same comfort to your. 0:16:55.160 --> 0:17:00.160 Character in this book, no, I mean, I feel like 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:07.880 my creative practice has a palpable benefit for me. I 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:10.840 would never presume to think it had any benefit for 0:17:10.880 --> 0:17:15.480 anyone else beyond that. I mean, of course I love 0:17:15.520 --> 0:17:18.160 it when people are affected by my work or whatever, 0:17:18.200 --> 0:17:21.800 but I'm not I don't see that as helping make 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:23.920 the world a better place to be honest, I do 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:28.080 feel that art is a place to turn when everything 0:17:28.200 --> 0:17:32.399 is in such dire states. Then sometimes the stillness of 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:37.159 art actually is what can sort of calm me. And 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:40.359 I guess I'm talking about visual art as well as literature. 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:46.480 There is something enduring about art. I mean, I would 0:17:46.480 --> 0:17:51.320 turn to art over a church any day. But as 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:54.200 for you contributing to the greater good, I would never 0:17:54.480 --> 0:17:56.480 suggest that my heart has contributed. 0:17:56.880 --> 0:18:00.760 That's what the podcast interviewers roll, Well, you don't have 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:03.919 to claim it in a way then I'll presume. But no, 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:06.800 I'm glad you make that distinction that you can receive 0:18:06.880 --> 0:18:08.680 that benefit from art. 0:18:09.000 --> 0:18:12.280 I really believe this in an almost religious way, that 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:18.040 making something delivers serious benefit to the maker. And it 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:20.919 might be making a cake, it might be making a garden, 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:25.480 but the act of making it does good, you know, 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:27.640 And I don't you know, I don't know about in 0:18:27.720 --> 0:18:32.960 some sort of metaphysical way of whether putting something good 0:18:33.040 --> 0:18:36.160 into the world has any benefit beyond the actual thing itself. 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:41.359 The question that stone our devotional asks, I think in 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:44.040 really interesting ways, is what we owe to one another. 0:18:44.480 --> 0:18:47.800 And I think if we're not having that conversation, then 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:50.879 we're the poorer for it, you know. Again, not trying 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:53.719 to make great claims for the outcome of it, but 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:57.320 we have to have these things we make that allow 0:18:57.480 --> 0:18:59.720 us to ask those questions. 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:04.359 Well, writing is asking questions. I mean, when I write fiction, 0:19:04.680 --> 0:19:07.399 it's usually to do with some question that I have 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:12.440 about how to be, you know, and clearly an obsession 0:19:12.440 --> 0:19:15.040 of mine that I never kind of realized until it's done. 0:19:15.040 --> 0:19:16.960 It say, oh, there it is again, this idea of 0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:20.200 how to live with other people that you haven't chosen 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:22.919 to live with, you know, the natural way of things. 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:27.360 Girls were all incarcerated together. The women in the Weekend 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:30.560 did choose to be together, but they sort of almost 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:34.040 were there by duty more than anything else. And this one, 0:19:34.320 --> 0:19:37.320 you know, she's there having to live a life that 0:19:37.480 --> 0:19:41.159 is quite restrictive. But the thing that really drives the 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:42.399 nazis the other people. 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:45.720 It's very relatable. That's the main crisis. 0:19:45.800 --> 0:19:51.479 Ever, there's other people, it always, but we have to 0:19:51.560 --> 0:19:54.600 figure out ways to live with each other with some 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:57.520 kind of I mean, I don't want to sound like 0:19:58.000 --> 0:20:00.679 I have any answers to this, because I we don't, 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:04.919 and the book doesn't. But it's an exploration of forgiveness 0:20:04.920 --> 0:20:07.119 and what it means and who gets to forgive and 0:20:07.480 --> 0:20:10.480 when is it too late to forgive or be forgiven. 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:14.840 I'm really interested in thinking about those things myself, you know, 0:20:14.920 --> 0:20:19.320 and I don't usually come to any conclusions, but that 0:20:19.760 --> 0:20:21.240 propels the making of the book. 0:20:21.280 --> 0:20:25.679 I guess one of the questions in the book is, 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:29.280 you know, on the one hand, choosing not to engage, 0:20:29.400 --> 0:20:33.760 choosing solitude and choosing to escape is an utterly valid 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:39.320 set of choices, but against a backdrop of climate catastrophe, 0:20:39.480 --> 0:20:42.240 of society going to hell in a handbasket at a 0:20:42.280 --> 0:20:47.000 disturbingly rapid rate, opting out suddenly seems counter to the 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:49.240 idea of being good. Back to that question of what 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:53.240 we owe one another? Do we owe one another engagement? 0:20:55.359 --> 0:20:59.840 Yes, I think we do. But I suppose the struggle 0:20:59.880 --> 0:21:03.280 is always engagement of what kind? You know, Like someone 0:21:03.280 --> 0:21:06.200 asked me yesterday, do I how much I engage with 0:21:06.440 --> 0:21:09.160 the news, you know, with current affairs? And I said 0:21:09.400 --> 0:21:13.320 not very much by choice because it sends me crazy, 0:21:13.680 --> 0:21:16.240 and you know, you're go into that kind of paralysis. 0:21:16.640 --> 0:21:21.240 If I watched for news bulletins a day about what's 0:21:21.240 --> 0:21:25.159 happening in the world right now, would that lead me 0:21:25.320 --> 0:21:30.320 to take any more action to do something? No, it 0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:32.359 would not. But so I mean, I think a certain 0:21:32.440 --> 0:21:36.760 level of awareness is essential for a kind of moral life. 0:21:37.040 --> 0:21:38.639 But then what do you do with that? How do 0:21:38.720 --> 0:21:42.160 you engage? That's the thorny question. And you know, getting 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:45.919 online and screaming at other people on social media is 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:50.200 not I think, no it isn't. But sometimes that feels 0:21:50.240 --> 0:21:53.600 like action, you know, sometimes the greatest act of support 0:21:53.680 --> 0:21:58.080 you can offer is to shut up. And you know, 0:21:58.200 --> 0:22:02.440 restraint is not something we think about very much as 0:22:02.480 --> 0:22:07.119 a way of being an ethical person behaving ethically. But 0:22:07.200 --> 0:22:08.720 I think it's kind of underrated. 0:22:10.280 --> 0:22:12.840 You say. In many ways, it's your most personal book, 0:22:12.880 --> 0:22:15.840 which is hardly surprising given the year you've had. Is 0:22:15.880 --> 0:22:18.919 this the new way of things for you for the 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:22.960 foreseeable future. Is your relationship with your own creativity, your 0:22:23.000 --> 0:22:25.359 own storytelling irreparably changed? 0:22:26.480 --> 0:22:31.679 I hope, so, look, every book changes you. I feel 0:22:31.680 --> 0:22:35.320 like I have matured as a writer with this book. 0:22:35.400 --> 0:22:39.680 Particularly The Natural Way Things did teach me a lot. 0:22:39.720 --> 0:22:42.639 And the big thing it taught me was that a 0:22:42.680 --> 0:22:44.520 book will show you how to write it if you 0:22:44.640 --> 0:22:47.560 pay attention and if you don't fight it, you know, 0:22:47.720 --> 0:22:49.920 And I fought it for a long time, and then 0:22:49.960 --> 0:22:52.720 I find with that book I had to surrender to 0:22:52.840 --> 0:22:57.360 the fact that it was this dark and harrowing story. 0:22:58.320 --> 0:23:02.480 And I think I've gradually seen then become more interested 0:23:02.520 --> 0:23:06.760 in writing much more instinctively. One of the people I 0:23:06.840 --> 0:23:10.080 thought about as I was writing Stoneyard Devotional was Joan London, 0:23:10.200 --> 0:23:14.760 a writer absolutely adore and admire, and I interviewed her 0:23:14.840 --> 0:23:17.720 years ago and she talked about allowing a book to 0:23:17.840 --> 0:23:21.560 come rather than forcing it, which is what I'd always done. 0:23:21.760 --> 0:23:23.480 And I was so kind of inspired by this. And 0:23:23.560 --> 0:23:25.720 she would write little notes to herself, as writers do 0:23:25.800 --> 0:23:28.760 all the time, and then she would purposely lose them 0:23:29.119 --> 0:23:32.000 in her writing room or wherever it, maybe even in 0:23:32.040 --> 0:23:35.080 the house, and then later she would sort of come 0:23:35.119 --> 0:23:38.560 across them as these little gifts, you know, and she said, 0:23:38.600 --> 0:23:41.400 and I would just catch them as lightly as possible, 0:23:41.840 --> 0:23:44.320 and she said, I've got lighter and lighter. And I 0:23:44.359 --> 0:23:48.480 found that so beautiful and inspiring. And the other thing 0:23:48.560 --> 0:23:52.200 she said she had spoken to one of her kids, 0:23:52.240 --> 0:23:55.800 I think, who told her this quote from Andre Gide, 0:23:56.480 --> 0:24:01.240 who said art is a collaboration between God and the artist, 0:24:01.680 --> 0:24:03.600 and the more God has to do with it, the better, 0:24:04.119 --> 0:24:06.360 by which I took to me, you know, God as 0:24:06.400 --> 0:24:10.200 the spirit of art, as the unconscious, as the unknown 0:24:11.240 --> 0:24:16.360 force of art. And that's what I'm interested in doing now, 0:24:16.400 --> 0:24:18.720 just giving that a lot more rain and more and 0:24:18.800 --> 0:24:21.800