By an inquiry into a surgeon who carried out unnecessary breast operations in the West Midlands for many years the government has apologised for failing to protect patients from in Paterson who works for both the n.h.s. And a private firm He's now serving a 20 year sentence for wounding with intent the inquiry is recommending that all of his patients thought a number up 211000 be recalled Deborah Douglas underwent an unnecessary operation that she said left her in horrendous pain on a daily basis effects us to try not to let it roll off but to move forward this was important to me this is important for the people that are to be hurt because without any exaggeration there are so many are necessary deaths the $30000.00 u.k. Nationals believed to be in mainland China and are being advised to leave because of the corona virus outbreak the foreign secretary Dominic Rob says efforts are continuing to get people still and who a province where the virus originated out of the area the trial has begun of the brother of the Manchester Arena bomber who's been accused of murdering the 22 people who died in the attack prosecutors told the Old Bailey that has Shima bady was as guilty of carrying out the bombing as his brother Salmon who blew himself up at the venue in May 2017 common factors of express concern a burst Johnson's decision to bring forward the ban on diesel petrol and hybrid cars to 20355 years earlier than originally planned the Society of Motor Manufacturers warned that the charging network for electric cars was woefully inadequate the a also described the pledge as incredibly challenging but environmental groups welcomed the promise the percentage of patients in Scottish accident and emergency departments within a 4 hour waiting time Target has reached its lowest level on record during December just 83.8 percent of people were dealt with than required time period the Scottish Government's national target is 95 percent b.b.c. News. Now Radio 4 here's Michael Rosen with word of mouth hello like most other people I think I carry around my head snatches of conversation a sequence of maybe 4 or 5 comments passing between me and one or 2 others some of these seem to me to be very significant emotionally politically even but others seem almost random here's one I'm sitting in the kitchen with my flatmate let's call him Rick and our other flatmate is out his name's Charlie and we're talking about him Rick says to me hey why does Charlie keep the bread in the fridge I say oh yes he says it stays fresh longer Rick says it just gets cold. Now why is this conversation stuck in my mind for nearly 50 years and one reason might be that the problem of how to keep bread fresh is a matter of daily interest to me but maybe there's another reason and that's to do with how we said what we said Rick asked me a question why did Charlie keep the bread in the fridge but what kind of question was it was a time I want to know the answer question I don't think so or was it a rhetorical question where there is no answer as with let's say an exasperated Why can't I find my shoes no I don't think it's one of those are the ones that really are I want to know what you're thinking question no not one of those either I think Rick's question hey why does Charlie keep the bread in the fridge was the kind of question some people ask is a way of setting themselves up for top billing a few moments down the line Rick isn't really asking me for an answer he's inviting me to be a kind of straight man to his punch line it just gets cold perhaps then the reason why this little interchange sticks in my mind is that its structure and method tell me as much about how Rick and I got on together as anything to do with the content of the conversation I could describe this that Rick was one of those people who structured conversations so that he could deliver quips punchlines and gags and I liked him for being that sort of a person Elizabeth stoker who is a conversation analyst professor of social interaction at laughter University and author of talk the science of conversation welcome Elizabeth 1st of all what is a conversation our list it someone who does what you've done Michael which is to analyze your conversation with Rick analyze sequences of conversation in the context of academia so there are thousands of us in universities around the world and we've been working for 50 years on the structure and organization of real talk that basic approach is that we analyze recordings of people having conversations not just their words but all of the things that we. Uses resources for interacting so our intonation gestures sign language in our bodies and we transcribe them in a lot of fine grained linguistic detail using a system that is a bit like musical notation the correct way to use it and it tells us all how people are speaking All right so let's have a little look at some of these now in the book you look for example at the way in which we greet each other just like us through some of these different kinds of greeting Well greetings are a rich source of information for their encounter you're about to have or not have so we all know about the very sort of quick greeting sequence that we might have as we passed a colleague in the corridor or we both just say hi hi how are you fine how are are more common that's really quick and we know from the context and how that unfolds that this is not going to be a conversation that is going to extend further than that and this happens rapidly in reciprocally So typically when a little sequence like that happens they'll be less than a 10th of a 2nd between those greetings and how we use we move really rapidly something else that's important about these these greeting sequences is that when you start to analyze lots and lots of them you are able to dispel the idea that these how are you is all pointless filler kinds of things in interaction so it's really common for people to ask me things like well what when people say how are you you're not meant to say oh anything miserable after they find reciprocated and move on and so it's a pointless question where you're meant to kind of lie in response but in fact what you're missing from that is that when the how are you part of the greeting sequence is missing or even if the hellos I'm missing then that is all information for the kind of encounter that you might be about to have so I heard somebody when I was coming down on the train today pick up the phone and say. Just quickly and they didn't do anyhow use because what they're doing is calibrating this is not going to be a social informal chat it's an important conversation should be rapid So you have certain patterns and then you are called Presumably you're looking at breaks from it and I think you've got an example I found really interesting this is Dana and Gordon and they have a chat an attorney a few lines and yet you know you spent a good few pages I was going so tell us about the interim go Yes So Dana and Gordon boyfriend and girlfriend but maybe not for much longer when we start to see how to have a conversation unfolds and this is all style telephone technology so we don't know who's calling they don't they don't have caller id yet but what happens is the phone rings in Gordon picks up and says hello and then what happens next is silence so as I mentioned as I mentioned before when the sort of hi hi how are you fine is is happening smoothly without friction it's going with less than 10th of a 2nd between those turns now this silence that happens next is no point 7 seconds which might not sound very long but if you've ever had a sense of impending doom it might have only lasted no point 7 tenths of a 2nd because already Gordon knows that something hasn't happened rapidly and reciprocally what happens next is that Dana says hello where have you been all morning. So rather than do hello and then Gordon might come back with how are you when they do the things that we standardly see happening the apparently pointless filler at the start of the conversation you would expect a higher love yeah or he would have to identify himself by our hi how things yeah but no something like that where have you been all morning so she don't leave straight in straight in to an issue Yeah and actually even more interesting in a way is if she hadn't said hello so much and you'd have been 0.7 delay and then no hello you dispense with a hello and then go straight to where you've been all morning this is how we ratchet up our irritation just worn further not by dispensing with the hello as well she keeps the hello but she was straight into there where you've been all morning and of course that's got complaint built right through it and possibly a bit of suspicion that you weren't where you should be could be aware of that too yes yes I was a lot in that where have you been all morning but she has got a little howler in there 1st look a little tiny cushion remark or yeah yeah right then what happens then what happens is that Gordon's got choices so you could imagine that Gordon now joins in in those terms that have been set up by Dana's where you've been all morning so he could come straight back with what you mean might have been all morning when I joined at the hip he could come back and you can see how arguments can start within 2 turns of a conversation that's the question of the question though isn't it you know why did you ask I mean it is yes so he could join in those kind of challenging terms this is why this stuff could be great for teaching people about marriage guidance and Divina But what in fact he does is take a little breath and then says hello why do you say hello that's what belongs here. That's very odd why didn't he bring that soaring poll or well he gets there but what's really important is that he doesn't go straight to it he doesn't go straight into I'm going to deal with your question but instead kind of resists that challenge and does what perhaps belongs at the start of these encounters which is the bright and breezy hello and it isn't an ironic hello not one of those American ones on Hello yeah it's one of those it's not and then what happens is he says. And then there's a point 6 silence and then he does a little lip smack and then he says I've been at Music Workshop. What he's doing is kind of doing some of the Come home is that you might find at the start of a smooth friction free conversation to kind of say I'm not going to join in immediately in some kind of argument I'm going to just try to resist that and be nice it's a way of pushing but I'm still going to answer your question it's just that I'm not going to do it straightaway in your terms I'm going to do it with a little bit of delay in my terms what doesn't happen next he doesn't say Oh sorry what you could do he could tell sorry if you've been trying to get me I've been out of range or he could have done that kind of thing but he doesn't he just answer the question but but not immediately because he's blocking he I think he's blocking he's not getting involved in the argument no I mean just to give you another example I've got a lovely case of 2 friends but they're phoning each other at work and the very 1st thing that happens is not not hello at all one of them says Debbie and the other one says Shelly and again there's this but how the conversation oh yeah they say What do you mean you know going to go but they start with no hellos at all they have and this is why looking at these opening is really important because in this case Debbie and Shelly are about to have an enormous nuclear argument about the fact that one of them it is the other one tonight to go out with a lot rather than go out with the with a friend and so how do you communicate how annoyed I'm with you Well one thing you can do structurally is just dispense with the hellos all together so they are miles away now from hi hi how are you fine how are you and Gordon and diner somewhere in between so these greetings are much more than Greetings I mean they really do when they're present they're laying down the fact that we're Ok we're sort of stroking each other we're going high Hello I'm Ok I'm Ok with you Are you Ok with me and all this is in just how low our hearts are it's just there and there yeah so the suspense is killing me let's get back to dinner and go in so now Gordon's not not playing so he's not yet gone to carry on with where we were so Gordon I said hello in a bright way and then. She said I've been at music workshop and then he says How are you so he now is trying to if you like get them back on course which is doing the things that belong at the start of an encounter which has to do the hi how are you a fine how are you or he's guilty any schmoozing Yes I'm sorry I'm getting carried away with my kind of writer's hat on you're a motivation you're going so you're also not the aisle you're on because people have tweeted and commented about what did happen to danger and God And so I show the 1st and lighting 10 lines and then you know what happened but what's interesting next is that again in response to how are you there's a silence of half a 2nd so if things were now Ok so if Dana had heard his answer been a music workshop she might then join in with the how are you so they might both be on track for a nice conversation so she could say at the next line in response to how are you all fine thanks how are you but she doesn't this there's a silence and then she says I'm Ok. The voice goes down to sit there very hear a plea not fine and a very very clear invitation please ask me yeah because I haven't said Fine how are you in that rapid way yeah it's the I'm Ok with meaning I'm not Ok absolutely you know that well yeah and in response to that now Gordon has choices again he could say Oh oh what's up yeah you sound bad yeah he doesn't know what does he say Good. All over that or killer so he tree here knows you are late here he knows that she isn't that he's the old dear Wow how many lines of conversation is that that's about 7 lines so in 7 lines we can deduce all this we really can now you know why it is but these are almost like scripts I mean we've been poring over it so how good in your experience are people writing these kinds of scripts the kinds that your your recording out there in the field. Well it's a great question especially with regard to the how I use so I've done quite a lot of work on business to business cold call sales people phoning up organizations to try and get an appointment to come along to your organization I'm going to show you my photocopiers or something like that and right from the start of the conversation in the 1st of the 10 seconds you can see whether or not this person is likely to get that potential client to agree to meet them to talk about photocopies because they are doing terrible things with a script at the start of the sales call and we all know what a cold caller sounds like but how is it that we know it's a cold call the straight away and it's because they take some of those components of the reciprocal opening of greetings and how are you and kind of mess with them but don't do them correctly so a cold caller might say. I don't Michael It's lives from laugh how you today after it's it is usually it's for some reason I was from Birmingham so it's usually how I Marco How are you and I'm thinking you don't know me who are you so what's with the 1st one thing it's nonsense and a great source of interest the conversation unless because names almost are almost never doing the thing that people who are training their their workforce to use them think they're doing so we tend to think that if you use people's names it's building a relationship but it's not a maybe we can come back to that later but certainly with the cold callers what you can see is that they're not just doing that how are you today and they've been trying to say it with a smile so that people will reciprocate with a smile or good I can see you doing it it doesn't happen by the way but also that what they're not doing is what we see happening between those hi hi how are you fine how are you there's no space for what is meant to happen across a series of 4 or 5 turns they just go straight in and put a whole lot in one turn so I've got some live examples where people start with things like Hi Mike and it's this from the friend how are you today good thanks you might say now if all of that was so far working for us to develop a relationship so that I can sell you some stuff later on I'd expect you to reciprocally ask me how I am but of course you don't know who I am so you're not going to reciprocate so the very 1st thing that we can observe in these cold calls is in response to how you today we might get a response but we don't get the reciprocal question back to the car call just get a grumpy Ok from a while are waiting to hear what it is that you're trying to put a rumor and then even worse what then happens next quite often more often than you might imagine is that the salesperson says good thanks and they haven't actually been asked the question but they say it as though they had anyway which of course is terrible and then you might get small talk so they've generally been trained to do small talk to build a relationship so then you might get the sales person moving into something like. Miss is the perfect time of year to do this so oh Christmas doesn't already seem like a distant memory was a busy time for you and you have a lot of and the tumbleweeds in there is going to come next is is just kind of gearing up for itself to roll into the interaction so what we have in these cases is the sort of exploitation of what we think we know about what should happen at the start of an encounter being used to really bad effect so that's one kind of scripting but I was also thinking of t.v. Scripts and comedy and so on I mean how good of a to evade the very capture of Tuesday yet are you awarding points as you watch t.v. Comedy I was a big fan of friends in the ninety's when it came out and one of the reasons that I like friends is because of the clever way they generate humor through mostly breaches of what we come to expect to happen in a conversation so if I say to you guess what you're meant to say what Whereas in French you might get things like one character will say to the kind of quirky character guess what and the quirky character will respond with oh I love these games and you might get something that starts like looking as though it's going to be leading up to an invitation so we do this all the time we say things like what are you doing later so that kind of thing you can see really nicely being built in friends scripts way it looks like someone is going to issue an invitation the invitation doesn't happen and then the audience all burst out laughing because they can see the thing they're all waiting for don't know where we're going to date but I don't yes yeah and doing turned down so it's a there's a nice example where one of the characters asks another if they would like to come over later to help them with putting together some furniture and the 1st friend says Oh I'm delighted but I'm really busy and I've got other stuff to do tonight audience doesn't laugh they then ask another character that the quirky character of the Phoebe character and she says Oh I'd really like to but I don't want to and then the audience laughs So why is that funny Well it's because we all know that to turn something down where meant to do a bit of an appreciation of the invitation and then supply an account for it otherwise. We come off rude but they all provide an absolute infallible our boy are going to be at the game while I can see from that is that the script writers really understand how sequences of interaction a built not just how to tell a joke as a kind of set piece but how to build up the humor across a whole series of turns and that's really nice because what we see when the audience laughs is that the audience can also understand that I'm we'll also doing a bit of conversation analysis and talking of turns you're very interested in turn taking yes's turn taking is of course fundamental to all interaction and already hopefully you can start to understand that every time you take a turn you make it easier or more difficult for someone to do something next no matter what it is every single time a bit like kicking the ball to someone in football you have to ask the land and then ask the land again when they're at the land again and at any point in time it can break down rationality Yeah there are ways of trying to get people to understand that when we are talking to people it's almost all we have as evidence for the kind of person that we're interacting with because most of the world are not psychologists and even if we are what we don't do in a in a conversation at any point is take a turn and then say actually before you respond I need to give you a personality questionnaire I need to know if you're interactive or things exist and then on the basis of response I'm going to reply We don't do that we just keep on talking and as we are talking to people that is the basis of us deciding things like got there so rude or without really passive aggressive or all these things that we do evaluate people on in kind of make decisions about whether we like them or not the only evidence that we have is it's pretty much what they do and a lot of what they do is what they say and can people get better at conversing in your sense of good kind reciprocal type conversations can we get better at that we can we do it all the time already at different levels so for example we do little micro fixes to our conversation. As we go along so imagine you're giving directions to a stranger you might start giving them directions and then stop yourself and say well I mean and then start again and say actually no let me start that again so in a way what you're doing is monitoring again your your recipient for in very subtle ways they might be showing you I don't really follow what you're saying and you might have to start again so in that sense we're learning at that very micro level so I've done some research with the Metropolitan Police on crisis negotiations and here's an environment where to be a good communicator is really important because you're talking to people in in suicidal crisis sometimes and the only tools you have is turns you need to keep people taking turns because every time they take a turn that staying alive in it's really crucial and you've got to try and keep them going exactly and they don't have a choice so if you're a negotiator and you're in a 9 hour negotiation you can't just give up at the 1st point at which someone doesn't respond to you you have to have in the go and in the natural laboratory that is created by these recordings of real conversation we can see how some negotiators managed to solve the problem that happened in response to their 1st attempt to get the person to talk to them because they haven't of the go and so what I can do as an analyst is look at these interactions and see what types of things for example to propose that we actually have a conversation get engagement and don't and in that natural bridge I'm able to see people trying one thing and then it not working and trying another one you should have a go or have another go so they might get blocked by the person via ferrata reasons Yeah so what would have another go I mean what kinds of questions mark the police person on ask one of the most compelling findings I think I have from this dataset is looking at how the negotiators propose dialogue in the 1st place and they might say Can we talk about how you are and that may get resistance in fact very typically people will. They'll be that no point 7 2nd cent silence in the might be a hangup if they're on the phone all day all those I know I want to talk and they really emphasize the word talk walk as the very thing that they don't want to do and then if the person in crisis puts the phone down nevertheless the negotiator has to try again so what can the the negotiator do that might be different to that and so across all of the recordings that we've got we've got loads and loads of examples where negotiators are trying to get dialogue and the more effective way to do it is to say Can we speak let's speak really just a difference between those 2 words the difference between those 2 verbs and what is brilliant about finding this come gets in a way to the heart of what conversation analysis is about because that's not something you can insure it it's not something you can remember it's not something that is obvious people don't always believe it until they see the science that shows that is a robust observation across the dataset and yet it can also be obvious because if this was obvious that speak was more engaging in affording than talk then everyone would you speak straight away but they don't they more typically use talk so these are the kinds of findings there are really brilliant to discover because the negotiators know that person x. Is a great negotiator you really really good and she's excellent but they don't know what it is that they're doing and you can't remember it at that level of detail and even if you could what we know from the way communication guidance is built that often guidance has things thought on what we find or actually working in in the actual encounter so we find that speak is more engaging than talk people resist talk in terms like talking doesn't do anything what's the point in talking and we actually don't have those idiomatic resources for resisting speak we don't say actions speak out and speak for example so to speak doesn't get resistance because we don't have the same resources available to us to resist it and it's the same for offering to help versus offering to sort things out so typically. His will say I'm here to help and that gets resisted whereas I'm here to sort things out doesn't and equally I care about you and showing that kind of I'm here and it just because I'm a negotiator I genuinely care and I'm not just doing my job that gets quite strong resistance whereas I've got this gorgeous case where a negotiator towards the end of the negotiation has now developed a rip a relationship with the person in crisis so she has what we might think of as rapport I think rapport is something that you can't build it's something that you is is the outcome of an encounter and towards the end of the encounter she just the complete opposite of saying that she cares she says something like. Can you just come down because I've got to stand there with you I can't go home so you're really trying to beat me off now when we showed some of the initial 1st of all to the trainers they were a bit like Oh my goodness you know we could become possibly use this to sort of train of the negotiators so confrontational and yeah it seems that way when you take it out of context but when you see the slow incremental build to being able to push the negotiation and actually say something like that what happens next in the next 10 seconds the person in crisis comes down and that's amazing because what it shows as is the expertise and experience of the negotiator which is counter to what you might put into the guidance and this is one of my big drivers for doing conversation analysis because a lot of the things that find their way into communication guidance and sometimes people are assessed on the basis of what in my guidance is just wrong. Let's just finish with the future I have like the rest of us quite often put up telephone hope that we're going to talk to somebody in actual fact there's a recording yes and sometimes the recording anticipates what it is I might say these days you know whether I say yes or no and so on so that I can feel the flow chart that is being constructed had the time responding to yeah but they are I Artificial intelligence is more than that is supposed to be responding to maybe a whole range of things and so I'm thinking of presenting at the doctor's or I don't know wherever else to place all the lawyers and so is they are going to be good at conversation and be able to do a job I've been digging around into this question for the last couple of years because companies that develop conversational agents and so on have found their way to me as a conversationalist where quite a long way I think from being able to have an ai org mentor conversation that can deal with the pragmatic function of talk so for example my lovely case you might have heard of it where somebody is phoning in I'm a long. On a one. On one of our. Other one who was. One. In the room. It doesn't take him more than another couple of turns and it's actually quite important to understand how it is that the dispatcher comes to realize this is a woman in danger and I'm going to send the police to make sure that you all rescued from the situation the orange and so skilful but the idea that if you ask you Alexa tonight I'd like to order a pizza for delivery Alexa doesn't know that you need to be rescued to the dangerous situation frightening Reale Wow And so one of the things that conversation analysis can add to the ongoing development of conversational agents is a sense of how people actually do things rather than how they do things in a decontextualized way so if I say cake sounds good and I doesn't know that that means give me some cake it just sounds like an assessment they might not recognize as a request so requests are when I think of an action that can be done in multiple ways sometimes just with you know a a flick of the rest of your partner's going past with a plate full of cake just to do a good indication by cake all the way through to would be possible to all variations in between Yeah yeah I say so it's a long way ahead there is plenty of stuff being developed now but as we develop conversational agents and even Google duplexes built something where it goes. But a really close analysis of this using conversation analysis can show you the. Sometimes the in the arms are in the wrong place because we tend to think arms are a mistake and they can kind of happen anywhere near random but we can show that that's not the case and your ohms are not random they're pretty systematic in terms of where they appear and this with stoker you've still got a job thanks very much indeed thank you word of mouth was presented by Michael Rosen and produced in Bristol by Sally heaven you can search online for the word of mouth part cast including an entire program on turn taking Evan Davis is here at the top of the hour with all the day's news and analysis and pm at 5 and it's $630.00 comedy tonight the award winning Wang's planing in which Phil Wang Wang explains the contentious topics of our time today he turns his attention to the British Empire was British colonialism really one big crime modern liberalism would say so but Phil's Doug misses those prompt British buses hear it at $630.00 now on radio for a good read with had it Gilbert Harry Potter Lizzie Bennet Virginia Woolf sexually ambiguous Orlando to they have anything in common stay tuned with me to introduce their good read our 1st the editor and publisher of The Times Literary Supplement Stig Abel who also represents radio force front row and is the author of how Britain really works with stick is Simon a slum founder and director of the Bradford Literature Festival and last year elected a fellow of the Royal Society of literature. Stic there's a special reason why Simon and you are here today which is that you helped compile the B.B.C.'s new list of $100.00 novels that shaped our world would you just explain briefly what this list is about what it is Reza hold that yes and I think the key word in that is our world being the personal choices of the group of people that they gather together because it was an attempt to come up with 100 canonical books the 100 books that are the most important to literature to the world of fiction is the books that meant something to us in a variety of different ways I would have a chance to say you know the book that made me cry when I was 13 and I've never forgotten it or the book that when I'm ill I go back to because it gives me solace and succor and I can't live without books only means something when they matter to you at a personal level and this was supposed to be in our minds I think I was a sort of celebration of the value of books well that is very much in the spirit of a good reader so and in fact I have the list I've seen it it is extraordinary I'm very eclectic and we are going to talk about 3 books that are on the this books we have each chose one that we really love that's on the list what is peculiar about it is they're all classics in their way and not one of them has been on a good read before and I just was so this is totally amazing particularly I think mistake when we come to you also if you'd tell us what your good read is my more choices Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen one of the great novels of all time in the language or in any other I think it is a joyful read it's a very clever read it is obviously hugely romantic and I'm like I'm a crass sentimental Ista heart one of the reasons I read books is to get to the happy ending Jane Austen is very aware of that as a function of books and so I think it's a joyful book but it's beautifully written it's observant it's funny. And it is a it is a book that stands the test of time I read about every 2 years. One of things that came up in all the discussions remember this so I think I have said if I reread all the time I've read some books 100 times. And some people. Are disgusted and they looked at me and they said what are you doing there's all these books in the world which is a fair criticism I think you re read as well we were allies in this absolutely I reread all the time and it's it's confit you go back to a book and it isn't the same book because by that time you've moved on and you experience some of the things so when you read that book you're reading it with a fresh pair of eyes I think you always get something new and then you have those books which is like sinking in teal favorite They just wraps you up and it gives you that comfort and you know it's going to happen. Yeah I don't agree with all that I so agree with all that so I'm hurt and it is Pride and Prejudice one that you also really read or not Oh absolutely I love Pride and Prejudice and stigmas talking about snobbery and we had this whole discussion didn't we with Jane Austen that with Jane Austen people like say that persuasion is their favorite one because nobody wants to say that Pride and Prejudice is their favorite one I think actually really Pride and Prejudice is everybody's favorite one and I and for me Pride and Prejudice illustrates that you have to go to a book at the right time as well so I picked up when I was 14 and I think I got through about a page. Oh my God This is Tripoli drearier home why do people rave on about this I put it away and then I picked up when I was 18 so I was meant to revise my a levels and obviously I was basically reading anything else I could and I loved it and I just saw a raced through it and now you know after that I have read all the ones I've been inspired by it so I just to say pretty well everything every bit of Chiclet all. You care to mention all the films and the t.v. Show absolutely it was a t.v. Show and the reason where it's into the popular imagination so much is Colin Firth and of course him jumping into the lake which happens in a b.b.c. T.v. Adaptation Jennifer plays Lizzie Colin Firth plays Darcy that doesn't happen in the book and Jay Knight's proper Jane Austen fans are there but ambivalent about that they call it the fun and which is the part of the Jane Austen kind of isn't real and I think because I'd actually had a friend who read this book way into her adult and didn't know how it was going to end and was saying. Oh do tell me they get together won't you I think perhaps you should say this is a stranger comes to town family of girls one of them there's a band it is totally antagonistic to this guy Darcy her older sister has a much more calm relationship with another bloke it's a story about who's going to marry whom and. As a mom Mrs Bennett Mrs Bennett desperately anxious for all 5 of our girls get married but particularly the 2 older ones I mean it's a it is a romantic comedy as you've implied but I don't know actually whether it's so much for a month as comedy this is the thing state because I think that a lot of the marrying and the courtship isn't about passion it's about money it's about can you trust somebody is somebody got integrity do you respect them it's about a lot of it's not about passion at all it's not that not in time is a moment to the end of the book where I think Jane asks Lizzie when did you 1st fall in love with Darcy and she goes it's the moment I 1st saw the grounds at Pemberley where he lives in this enormous stakes enormous. And actually she's not wrong there because partially life and Jane Austen is both a sentimental it's you know it's a comedy in the Shakespearean sense ends in marriages Everyone sort has a happy ending but she's not that sentimental because these girls they're going to lose their house because it's entail it's the most famous piece of legal conveyancing in all of literature their house would go to this awful vicar is horrible. Really despicable snuffly your I hate of a of a man to go to so they have to get married and I once read a piece by Martin Amos about projects which is really because he said and I think he's exactly right Mrs Bennett is a laughable thinskinned stupid character her husband is very cynically Mox and he fell in love with the when they were young full of passion and then they grew cold so we're not meant to like Mrs Bennett we're meant to look at her and laugh and yet Jane Austen makes Mrs Bennett's of all of us because your friend reading back book the 1st time once these girls to get a economically satisfactory marriage at the end of it and if you if you pause to think that that is real genius that is both satirical of a system which commodifies marriage. But also fills you with the heart and the wolf I read again at the end of last year when I wasn't feeling well I think the good book for that and that's the whole scene when Lizzie visits Pemberley and you realize that Darcy loves she loves him. You know you get a surge of emotion and you shouldn't because it is as you say at some level this is just about convenience but it's more than that because because you've been brought into the warmth of these of these courage it is it is also fair a very funny isn't it this book it is I mean it is very funny and I think actually going back to the economics of marriage I think the thing that we forget now is that at that time that is what it was all about and Jane Austen actually brings warmth into the whole system I think with all the retractions that we've had with Bridget Jones all Bride and Prejudice exactly exactly that system is alive and well we just do it in different ways now so now we have friends making introductions but I have to say you know in the Asian culture that system is Mary much alive and well I recently read a book called unmarriageable which is Jane Austen setting the class level and it works perfectly and that's Vic crumb sets a suitable boy which is exactly the same thing yes it was university to I think I think so very hard book to not like either because I like least in the book Lydia who's the young girl who with with an officer is so thoughtless about the damage she's done and of course you have to buy into the fact that you know a lot about time is social death and it's morally wrong if you accept that as an argument she's so thoughtless and she keeps and she comes back and she says I'm married now and and she sort of rubs everyone's noses in it she really is a terribly shallow figure did you dislike their dicks I'm rather fond of a I remind my daughter loves Lydia. Absolutely adores her and I think with Libya when you're I think if you are passionately in love with Lizzie and really sympathetic to all the aspirations that are going on and all of that happens you just you want to kill her you know oh my God You wrecked everything I think a little bit of reflection of Mrs Bennett because Mrs Bennett smear reckless recovery and then she's absolutely delighted that my daughter is married. But when when we did those. Comeback marriage having actually lived in sin with me comes to somebody's son in law in London but I just I just at 1st started here is totally impervious to her father's sarcasm all the other girls are the go along with it or a frightened of it doesn't notice it and she arrives back with Wycombe into Wycombe who is clearly going to do her wrong some point and says Where was it that she was Lydia was Lydia still untamed unabashed wild noisy and fearless you've got a kind of wall too and go Oh I think she's stupid that's you on the air yes or Tina Yeah but if you look at the family have they got the dad and Lizzie a clever. And Jane is clever the older sister sort of a placid in the north she's as Jane is a parent now Jane's a noisy so why she because she wants to she won't think ill of anyone motion I think you know to shakers I've often got to say you just put it all together if you really want to bet and get him well here's a question and the only it's an interesting book is such a lovable book but there's only really one character in it Lizzie Yes who is kind of. Really open over those you see when I 1st read this book aged 1415 I have to say despite now saying it's not romantic I was totally in love with Darcy very much I mean I don't see it was asked Hashanah my own level paper. Called in those days I thought one question which said Please describe the car please they never said Please describe the character of Mr Darcy and I thought oh boy I rushed through all the other questions and then settled down and wrote until the bell rang I just wrote and wrote and wrote I did I think Darcy is an extremely attractive girl that's according to join us to move us called Fur thing. The real thing is it was way before I know I know I know it was even before I knew about Laurence Olivier playing days. Is just he just has that magnetic pull and I think that I think is really yeah I got out early I did but I did a level all over the credits so I can give to Jane Austen the fact that it survived my schooling it is. The biggest we've been talking about Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen I'm Harriet Gilbert You're listening to a good read where my guests today are steak able and Simon. Simon your good read is having Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Excellent yes so I have a passionate passionate love affair with Harry Potter I love Potter serious I'm just a bit in my mid to late twenty's when I came to it and of course it's meant to be I think particular the 1st book is very much meant for children but I absolutely adored it and it was this magical new were old and I couldn't wait for the rest of them to come out and I have read it and re read it and re read it and I had this really great pleasure when every time a new book came out I would sit down and read all the ones that came for it and I would just really really enjoy it some of a somebody who hasn't read any Harry Potter books there are a few who just mental a couple of weeks got there you are so one day when you just give a brief idea of what the the basic story is so the basic story is that time old classic off good and evil and you have this world of muggles who are non-magical people and then the wizarding world and the 2 exist side by side and Harry Potter. Was a premiere he has through no agency of his own I don't actually spoil it for anybody who hasn't read it as a baby managed to defeat one of the darkest visits of all time but is in the muggle world and then he is returned to the Wizarding world and then all the adventures and see you and the beautiful thing about the Sirius is that I suppose really you'd be reading the 1st book at around the age of 9 and 10 but the books grow we do so they get deeper and more complex as they go grows up he was very grows up absolutely so so you see him going from a young child basically through to being a young man and all the exciting emotions that go alongside that as well as all the exciting exciting magical adventures Stig Abel you you saw you hadn't read any Harry Potter not also how did it strike you. I liked it the thing I found most striking about it was I thought it was good but not great and I know it was rejected by 12 publishing houses when she submitted it j.k. Ron and I couldn't see what had been rejected on the other hand I couldn't see why it is it's now brand worth 15000000000 and it's colonized the angle of our world and beyond so I can see that it's good and I was trying to work out what was the perfect storm that took this this this children's fiction this magical world which I was an awful lot to other magical worlds and I'm familiar with you know if you've read the west which I grew up on a horse which seems to require a lot about there's the sort of hope boarding school tradition which I read a lot of you know Blige and Woodhouse and all sorts of other things as a boarding school sort of you know to the nth degree so I like to know that great dark wizard and you have all the Lord Of The Rings exactly exactly I think I think you can see so you know I think it was the way through this book out of nowhere it felt to me to end up in a wood and the Centaurs pop pop and they sort of sort of run and that felt almost lifted directly out of some sort of what do you think it does if it if it does echo a lot of other fictions a lot of all that fantasy and children's fictions What is it about how repotted you think the few anyway makes it so special I think it does echo but then I think we have we have the fantasy world and the fence the world is populated by creatures and those creatures appear and reappear in so many books. But I think I do find Harry Potter completely unique and yes I can see the echoes but I still find it completely unique I think the the fantastic thing with high Potteries that the inspiration is out there. That magical tradition is there it's sort of put together in a very different way but that will that is it feels really unique yet really relatable and you don't get really lost in it I thought that was clever actually was it for a fantasy fiction sustained itself in the real world as well so I thought that the amount of matter to the. She took was to say there is the real world still the muggle world yet with with King's Cross station and life I can absolutely agree with you because I read this book as an adult and if I had flu and my soon to be husband said I've got you a book that I think you'll be able to cope with the. 20 or the other and not only could I cope with it I was totally sucked into it and I think one of the reasons is just what you're saying stick that where in this sort of doll grey Tuesday in the suburbs where Harry Potter not yet knowing that he is a wizard as a child is living and you suddenly realize that magic things are going on there of wizards there is a cat perched on the wall who turns out to be Professor McGonagall from the school this wizardry school in temporary feline disguise and it is exactly that feeling that you're very much in a world that any of us might know but there are cracks in it and magic can come in through the cracks or you can slip out and then when you end up in this magical Hogwarts Sophia I was thinking that the Quidditch you think is a very good invention the death of the sport that they play is a classic p.g. Woodhouse cricket match where you know in all boarding school fiction has tends to be cricket on across all across where they basically say oh the hero may not win and then the hero wins in the end that is an absolute standard of boarding school fiction but it has been completely reimagined in a way so I want to close the book I thought one of the things I remember from and this is why I think it didn't rise to the level of greatness for me I could remember Quidditch and I can remember house points for Griffin door both of which appeal to me like they could be from a traditional boarding school novel and so I just thought to myself This is good I just couldn't quite see how it got from that 1st book to something that in effect really conquered the entire world I think is the witness of the imagination so I was having a conversation with my creativity struck the best when we were talking about imaginary worlds and I said to her actually when I think about recent function the ones that come to mind the destinies 12 Greenwald place halts they really believe it and really alive and I think yes it is the. I think it's the writing there is a there is a richness and of a witness and despite the fact that actually you know the 1st book actually that there's the language is quite simple and then it gets complex as it goes on I think it's actually a really clever serious the With that being you can progress with the serious the the different layers each book is complete in itself that you read the very last one and it all just comes together beautifully and I also wonder whether the problem stick is that you come to it knowing that it is a trillion 1000000000 pound industry and you're expecting young thing really weird out it I read it as did Simon was just something you know if it didn't start out like that it started out as playground word of mouth yes and it took Bloomsbury which published it by total shock this maze old shoes and you're absolutely right the weight of expectation that I've brought to bear on it which maybe it is and I was I was told about it I was. I was working for at the time I think and one of the girls over it would set to me Have you thought about this book this because you knew I was really into this Harry Potter book my boyfriend's been reading it this it all and I haven't and then I happened to be in Tesco at 1 o'clock in the morning and their shelf was Harry Potter and I thought oh that's that book and I picked it up and took her me by the late late night from Tesco. I did I did I don't run home at 1 o'clock in the morning and I sat there and at 3 o'clock in the morning I fell 4 o'clock whatever it was I finished it and I went up the next day twice and I bought the next 2 I read those and then I was kind of Ok when you think it was your marriage then the question of did you feel it's this is children's book I knew the children did you feel like as a church would you feel that this is something that I shouldn't that you're reading who was on vacation because you're not it's not aimed at you know no idea if you're going to have so I hasten to add that I never feel like that which will in the books I really enjoy both children and why a literature I just think books are books and I should enjoy the ones that you enjoy I read. This quote from order in which he said there is some books that are adult books because children were able to understand the but there's no such a thing as a children's book yeah I said oh I don't think I understand everything I grew that complete and I read books that are in inverted commas for sure is not snobbish is a touch I think you're absolutely right I came to be probably too high expectation and it was very good and I enjoyed I read it in 2 days and I read it with great pleasure next to my daughter who was reading one of them for the 11th time she's a real reader I brought her up properly and she's utterly addicted to all of them and every time she feels down you'll find cold upon a safer rereading the 4th Harry Potter great yes and yes we've been talking about the 1st Harry Potter volume Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by j.k. Rowling and to my choice of a good read now which is a novel by Virginia Woolf called Orlando published in 1928 and in fact I was rereading this a few months ago for my own pleasure which is a thing I don't often get to do and then this b.b.c. List of 100 novels that shaped our world came out and I saw Orlando's on it and I thought. Obviously this is the book to choose for this edition of a good read so this is the book I'm going with I 1st read it in my twenty's and I can say absolutely both me overnight and it shaped my world but certainly Mo did my ideas about sex so it's just a wild carnivalesque novel I think you could say it opens somewhere in the mid 16th century our hero Orlando is a kind of moody teenager he's mooching around his vast family estate thinking about writing poetry and. We follow him we follow Orlando through various love affairs tree various adventures and we end up oddly enough in 1928 by which time he should be about 350 or 400 years old but not only is he actually only just bit older a bit older than 60 he's a young person but he is not a young man because he has in the interim changed sex and I think what I love about this book is that it's actually saying some quite radical things about sexual identity about time about space from Orlando's family castle in Kent he can see all the way up to Scotland and out into the middle of the channel and so on it's got some very funny things and also some quite profound things to say about writing what writing is about and I just find it funny wise and enjoyable and it's probably the best place to start Virginia Woolf if you've never read Virginia Woolf this is done very straight to me the genius of this book is that while crazy things happen to Orlando it's near rated completely dead straight if these are not crazy at all and so you double take the whole time because she's annoying as I can. Become a become a become a woman and I was there and you can see that and all of that thing happens in a matter of fact it's so matter of fact I think she does that brilliantly do you sing stick that you enjoyed it so I'ma did it I did enjoy it and I have to confess so before the $100.00 I hadn't read all of it so I do repeat to up and I found it. I think it's a beautiful flowing greet the language is beautiful it reminded me a little bit off but Bolt has candied say in the way that all these things happen and some of them are quite momentous and some of them are quite you know I'm old and I'm young and you know the fortunes change and it all under reminded me a little bit that it's all a matter of fact yeah and the whole prose just keeps flowing along and so taking you with it this is more love it's a more of a loving gracious me this is a book that you find out if you read the introduction before you read it is it's about the love of Virginia Woolf's life it's on the site for West who was all under She wrote in a diary Orlanda Rizvi to but the sex changed and v 2 was this. Fabulous Lea clever more successful as a writer than Virginia Woolf in her lifetime but they were they were friends and they were and they were lovers and they were constantly preoccupied with the idea of what is the role of women in society what is the role of women in Sex and in sexual desire because they had homosexual and heterosexual as ships they were married to men but they also they also were and love with women and so the background to this book is it seems to me an overt exploration of what it is to be desired and to desire and it's also a love letter to her to a great woman with whom she was close and given I mean this is written in 1028 I think what she has to say about sexual identity is really interesting because at the point when Orlando wakes up in Constantinople is it so happens and realizes that he is no longer he but she. Has Changed he has changed physically she is a woman and that's that but she doesn't feel remotely changed inside what she realizes what the book is showing really is that so much of what is considered womanliness or manliness also Szell constructs and this is written about 20 years before seem on the Beauvoir he said in a rather academic tone much the same thing there is a lot of sexual and gender fluidity which feels hugely modern doesn't I mean I feel so valid and I mean we're in the decade of the last decade in the next decade is a decade of fluidity and gender questions not always helpfully posed strikes me about this is the transgender issue if you want to call it anything in today's society so often toxified in the terms of its debate is polarising people feel unable to claim to know well that's an angel to think about human feelings and and I think the joy of this is the matter of fact nature which this is happened yes it's not even seem to be the most momentous thing that could have happened and it just allows all I know to look at things in a different way that itself I think is a hugely relevant I imagine quite reassuring message and I think that is the thing that I've really really enjoyed about it was just. The matter of that nature it was you know you're reading a speech will be full prose which is carried on flowing and all these things are happening and I think you know I think you're absolutely right it's become so difficult have these conversations now that you 2 recently like that's really refreshing I mean it's worth being what this is a sort of inside joke with the woman she loved it's for Victor to read and go this is you and I love that you know when I 1st met my wife I wrote her a detective story starring 2 people are. Basically and me and her you know and I don't believe anything I've. Said I love her that's what she was doing as she was basically saying to Victor I love you and here is a book about you that is going to go into the world and perform all sorts of other things but it's about you well we've been talking about Orlando by the junior Wolf published by vintage before that we were talking about Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice published by Penguin and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by j.k. Rowling published by Bloomsbury and if you've read a book we talk about here tell us 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. But for now thank you to my guest Stig Abel And Saima and to you as ever thanks for listening. The good read was presented by Harriet Gilbert's and produced in Bristol by Beth a-D. . And the Korean film parasite is in the running for best picture director and international feature of the Oscars on Sunday and in front row the saving the critic Markel Stern reviews this tragic comedy which follows the collision of 2 very different Korean families is just one of the items under discussion for Samir Ahmed and guess some 15 and that's straight after the arches. pm is next but 1st a look ahead to Saturday evening here on Radio 4 the child of the Windrush generation of a somebody who was once. So shy they couldn't speak at all who sought expression in writing it was like just I found a voice you know and she was sort of funny and clever play and really talk to candidly about her life as a writer and her breakthrough novel small island this story that I had 1st tried to suppress and tried to deny was now a national story a year after her death and really in her own way b.b.c. Radio 4 on Saturday evening at 8 o'clock. This is b.b.c. Radio 4 it's 5 o'clock time for pm with Evan Davis. Hello 15 years is not very long but the government says in 15 years' time you won't be allowed to buy a petrol diesel hybrid car are we getting serious about climate change one man is hoping so the present government has declared this year the year of action and it's a huge encouragement to those of us who've been worrying about this problem sort of been on time well we'll delve into the consumer practicality.