Literary Friction - Vanity with Deborah Levy

Literary Friction

Arts

4.9 • 593 Ratings

🗓️ 25 September 2019

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Do you consider yourself a vain person? Because this month is all about vanity in literature, dedicated to those characters who are just a little bit too pleased with themselves. It's also our first full show back this Autumn, and we are thrilled to kick things off with none other than the inimitable Deborah Levy, who joined us for a live event at Foyles in London to talk about her latest novel, The Man Who Saw Everything. It features a beautiful, vain, frustrating, intriguing, ultimately very human protagonist, and slips through time with Lynchian abandon. So whether you're a Dorian or a Narcissus, or a paragon of humble virtue, join us for the next hour for all the usual conversation and recommendations on Literary Friction.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to Literary Friction. I'm Carrie Plitt, here as always with my co-host Octavia Bright. Hi, Octavia.
0:16.3	Hi, Carrie. How are you doing? I'm great. How are you? I am great as well. Great to be here with you as always. Same, same, same. I'm very excited for today's show. Today, we are going to be talking about vanity and literature. Among other things, we'll discuss the literary characters who are just a little too pleased with themselves, from Dorian Gray to Patrick Bateman, and ask if writing a book itself can be an act of vanity.
0:38.5	Oh my God, very meta.
0:39.6	Always meta.
0:40.8	Always bringing the act of writing into our discussions.
0:44.4	We're so excited that our author guests today is the inimitable Deborah Levy,
0:48.9	who joined us for a live event at Foils in London to talk about her latest novel, The Man Who Saw Everything,
0:54.8	in addition to being just a great novel that I think we both enjoyed a lot,
0:58.5	it features a beautiful, vain, frustrating, intriguing protagonist named Saul Adler.
1:04.8	Octavia, do you want to tell us a little bit more about Deborah Levy?
1:08.3	I mean, with absolute pleasure.
1:09.8	Deborah Levy is a British playwright novelist and poet. She's the author of seven novels,
1:15.1	including Booker Prize shortlisted Swimming Home and Hot Milk. Deborah is also the author of
1:19.9	an acclaimed collection of short stories, Black Vodka, which was published in 2013, and two
1:24.4	living autobiographies, Things I Don't want to know, and the cost of living,
1:27.7	which has been recommended on the show before.
1:29.7	I'm sure I recommended it because I think it's one of the most extraordinary things I've read recently in nonfiction.
1:36.7	There you go. I want to read it big time.
1:38.9	She's written for the Royal Shakespeare Company and she's a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
1:43.1	The man who saw everything as her latest novel, it was long listed for the book prize and it's very, very good. Yes. So today
1:49.6	we'll hear our live interview with Deborah. We'll talk a little bit more generally about vanity
1:54.4	and literature. Do you consider yourself a vain person by the way? I mean, I'd love to say no,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Literary Friction, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Literary Friction and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.