Summary
Philip Dodd is in conversation with the American author James Ellroy, whose books include LA Confidential and his latest, This Storm, part of his ongoing project to write a novelistic history of the USA from 1941 to 1972.
As he tells Philip Dodd, in a conversation that ranges from Calvinism to Chandler, Count Basie to late Beethoven: "As my literary sensibility becomes more patriotic, more conservatism, more religious, more sentimental, more fraternal, I find an era to write about where I can look back and live it and so This Storm is very much about alliance and friendship and belief and ideology in the early days of World War II and my good guys - who are always the cops ... and these folks are always going to one of two places, to carouse, to booze, to plot, to talk of sandbagging unfriendly politicians and to flirt and conduct their adulterous love affairs."
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
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 that it's a long time ago, right? |
| 0:23.3 | It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music |
| 0:27.0 | when it's out of ice cream. |
| 0:28.8 | Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:33.1 | BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:37.4 | Hello, I'm Philip Dodd, and this is the Arts and Ideas podcast from BBC Radio 3. |
| 0:43.2 | The kind of guests we have on writers, artists, philosophers, historians and filmmakers, |
| 0:49.5 | and we challenge and cajole them, we even laugh with them, |
| 0:52.8 | and we talk about contemporary life, promiscuously, |
| 0:56.0 | how we got here and where we're going. In a moment or two, we'll be meeting some of them. |
| 1:01.0 | But before we do, please take a moment to listen to this. |
| 1:05.7 | Hello, I'm Jess Gillum. I play the saxophone and I really think you should subscribe to my new |
| 1:10.2 | podcast, This Classical Life. |
| 1:12.2 | If you're like me and always listening to music, this is a great new way of discovering sounds for your playlists. |
| 1:17.4 | It's when I want something really groovy and really funky. |
| 1:22.8 | Every week I'm joined by a special guest and we share the latest tracks we just can't stop playing. |
| 1:27.4 | I also have this playlist of my phone |
| 1:28.8 | called 5am and it's full of classical music. |
| 1:31.9 | Just head to BBC Sounds |
| 1:33.1 | and subscribe to this classical life. |
| 1:37.2 | A fellow writer describes this novelist |
| 1:40.8 | as an American Dostoevsky |
... |
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