Open Book - Jonathan Buckley, Lit Crit and David Baddiel
Books and Authors
BBC
4.2 • 824 Ratings
🗓️ 21 March 2024
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Alex Clark talks to novelist Jonathan Buckley about his novel, Tell.
The story is told as a monologue by an unnamed narrator, the gardener of self-made businessman and would-be art collector, Curtis Doyle. Doyle has gone missing from his Scottish estate and many stories about his rags to riches life are being constructed. Tell is a novel concerned with the nature of storytelling, narrative form and the inherent unreliability of memory.
Critic and writer Lauren Oyler and fiction editor of the TLS, Toby Lichtig, discuss the impact of online reviewing on professional literary criticism. Plus David Baddiel on his ten years of writing books for children.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | On a winter's night in 1974, a crime took place that would obsess the nation. |
| 0:07.0 | It was an extraordinary news story. |
| 0:09.0 | The story of an aristocrat, Lord Lucan, who's said to have killed the family Nanny, |
| 0:14.0 | mistaking her for his wife, then somehow just disappeared. |
| 0:18.0 | One of the great mysteries in English criminal history. We're still looking for Lucan. |
| 0:21.6 | It's honestly one of the most powerful stories of my lifetime. |
| 0:25.6 | I'm Alex von Tundselman. |
| 0:26.6 | This is The Lucan Obsession. |
| 0:28.6 | Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:30.6 | BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:36.6 | Today on Open Book, we'll be reviewing the situation when it comes to literary criticism, |
| 0:42.0 | and later, hearing from David Bedele on a decade of writing children's books. |
| 0:47.9 | But first, Jonathan Buckley, a former winner of the BBC National Short Story Award, |
| 0:53.0 | and the author of 12 novels including Lift, Lift, |
| 0:57.2 | The River is the River and the Great Concert of the Night. His latest tell is the story of a wealthy, |
| 1:04.1 | self-made businessman and would-be art collector who goes missing from his Scottish estate. |
| 1:10.2 | But if you're expecting a who or why done it, |
| 1:12.6 | Buckley is interested in far greater mysteries. |
| 1:15.6 | Instead, the thrills in tell come from who Curtis Doyle really was |
| 1:19.6 | and whether we can trust the person narrating his life. |
| 1:23.6 | When I spoke to Jonathan Buckley earlier, |
| 1:25.6 | I started by asking him about playing with readers' expectations. |
... |
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