Literary Friction - Grandparents with Anuk Arudpragasam

Literary Friction

Arts

4.9 • 593 Ratings

🗓️ 15 July 2021

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Many of us have significant relationships with our grandparents, but is this reflected in literature? From Grandpa Joe in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to Olive Kitteridge, which fictional grandparents have stayed with you? This month, we’re really excited to welcome the author Anuk Arudpragasam to talk about his second novel, A Passage North. It's a beautiful, meditative book about a young man named Krishan, who must take a train from Colombo to Northern Sri Lanka to attend a funeral. His relationship with his grandmother is a central part of the story, so we're dedicating this show to the elders of literature. We'll be asking what grandparents symbolise in family dynamics, and wondering why there seem to be so few grandparents in contemporary literature, so put the kettle on, get comfy, and imagine we're offering you a Werther's original for the next hour of Literary Friction. Recommendations on the theme, Grandparents: Octavia: The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende Carrie: Olive Kitteridge and Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout General Recommendations: Octavia: Milk Fed by Melissa Broder Anuk: A Book of Memories by Peter Nadas Carrie: Standard Deviation by Katherine Heiny Find lists of all recommended books at: http://uk.bookshop.org/shop/litfriction. Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/litfriction Email us: litfriction@gmail.com Tweet us & find us on Instagram: @litfriction This episode is sponsored by Picador: https://www.panmacmillan.com/picador

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Literary Friction. I'm Carrie Plitt here as always with my co-host Octavia Bright. Hello, Octavia. How are you?
0:24.9	Hi, Carrie. You sounded so excited to see me. It was really nice. I am excited to see you,
0:30.9	hear you maybe. Yeah. I actually see you right now. I can't see you with my eyes, but I can see you with my
0:36.2	mind. Yes. Whereas I can't see you with my mind, but I can see you with my mind. Yes, whereas I can't see you with my mind, as we know.
0:40.3	As you know, but I am rendered just in text.
0:47.0	I'm good, I'm good.
0:48.6	I am planning a little trip away to the Y Valley in a couple of weeks. And so every spare minute is
0:55.3	taken up with reading about the magical mysticism of that place and also really just looking
1:00.0	into where I can go swimming. And there is a place. There's a river. So yeah, that's kind of what's
1:06.3	what's going on for me right now. What about you? Actually, similarly, I'm about to go camping for a week
1:12.2	in what will probably be a very rainy but hopefully atmospheric Scotland. We're going to the highlands
1:18.4	and I am not reading about it in the way that you seem to be, which I'm very impressed by,
1:24.8	but I could not be more excited to have a break. I just can't wait.
1:29.0	Great. It's going to be misty, full of heather. Also, I'm kind of only reading about it because I want
1:34.2	to get in touch with the mystical spirits that I know are around in that part of the world. I want
1:38.6	to know about them so I can encounter them. Nice. I respect that, as I say. I feel like there are probably some mystical spirits
1:46.1	in Scotland as well. Oh, you bet there are. I'll never know. They'll find you. Don't worry in your
1:51.7	tent. They'll come a knock in. Oh, that's scary. I hope not. But anyway, on to the show.
1:57.4	Today, we are really excited to welcome the author, An Aurod Pragasm to talk about his second
2:03.3	novel, A Passage North. This is a beautiful, meditative story about Christon, who must take a train
2:10.5	from Colombo to northern Sri Lanka to attend the funeral of his grandmother's caretaker.
2:15.1	The relationship between Christian and his grandmother is a central
	...

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