Alice and Dreaming

Arts & Ideas

BBC

Society & Culture

4.2 • 599 Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2021

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

"Before there were books there were stories". Salman Rushdie's opening words in his collected Essays from 2003-2020. In one of them he reveals that Alice in Wonderland made such an impression on him as a child that he can still recite Jabberwocky. So Free Thinking brought him together with the literary historian Lucy Powell and with Mark Blacklock, who has studied literature about the fourth dimension, for a conversation about the power of dreams, the place of logic and irrationality and the truth of maths - inspired by the new exhibition about Alice in Wonderland on at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Matthew Sweet hosts the discussion.

Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser runs at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London from 22nd May 2021 Salman Rushdie's Essay Collection is called Languages of Truth. You can find him discussing Uncertainty and his novel The Golden House in a previous Free Thinking. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09784ld Lucy Powell is a New Generation Thinker whose research has included looking at birds in fiction. You can find her discussing birds with Helen MacDonald and Professor Tim Birkhead in a Proms Plus discussion https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06fw7db Mark Blacklock is the author of a novel called Hinton which explores the thinking of Charles Hinton about the fourth dimension. You can find him discussing that in a Free Thinking episode called Alternative Realities https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000hftd He also shares his knowledge about HG Wells in a programme called Wells' Women https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04b4r1x

Late Junction on BBC Radio 3 has been asking people to send in their dreams to the artist Sam Potter. He's created an AI programme dream machine which morphs these into texts which composers have then worked on. If you tune into Late Junction on Friday nights BBC Radio 3 11pm throughout June you can hear the dreamlike results https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006tp52

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps
0:21.2	it. It's a long time ago, right? It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream
0:26.1	van plays music when it's out of ice cream. Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds,
0:34.5	music, radio, Radio, Podcasts.
0:40.9	My name's Matthew Sweet and this is the Arts and Ideas podcast.
0:44.5	On this edition, we're going down the rabbit hole, through the looking glass,
0:48.4	and to anywhere else we can persuade our guest Salman Rushdie to wander.
0:50.6	So join us after this caucus race.
0:54.7	Hello, I'm Catherine Tickel, and I'm here to tell you about Music Planet,
1:00.5	Radio 3's weekly show covering Roots Music from around the world. Now, I know that's a pretty big category, but it gives us the opportunity to bring you an eclectic and varied range of music,
1:06.3	live sessions from some of the biggest international names, along with the latest emerging talent.
1:11.8	We've got classic artists and new releases, and of course our road trip feature, sampling
1:16.6	the music and culture of different locations from around the world, from the deepest of
1:20.6	traditional styles to the latest contemporary sounds, with local experts on the ground as
1:25.5	your guide. Whether it's Marleyan blues, Indian classical or Colombian champetta, you'll hear it on
1:31.6	Music Planet. Find us on BBC Sounds or on Radio 3 Saturdays at 4.
1:37.8	Let's talk about the truth. Let's talk about a place where we might find it. Let's go down
1:43.1	the rabbit hole. It's not just about
1:45.2	the hole, though the hole is interesting with its cupboard set in the earth walls and the way
1:50.5	it makes you doubt your identity. It's about what happens when you stop falling and all the
1:55.7	people, animals and objects with whom you can have conversations about what's real and what's not,
2:01.8	why a raven is like a writing desk, and whether in the words of literature's most famous,
	...

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