Sara & Cariad's Weirdos Book Club - Bluets by Maggie Nelson with Katy Wix

Episode Date: January 25, 2024

This week's book guest is Bluets by Maggie Nelson.Sara and Cariad are joined by the brilliant actor and writer Katy Wix to discuss poetry, lapis lazuli, Joni Mitchell, Goethe, pain, love letters and Ricky Gervais. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you!Trigger warning: In this episode we discuss we discuss heartbreak and suicide.Bluets by Maggie Nelson is available to buy here or on Apple Books here.Delicacy by Katy Wix is available to buy here.You can find Katy on Instagram: @really_katywix and Twitter: @wixkatySara’s debut novel Weirdo is published by Faber & Faber and is available to buy here.Cariad’s book You Are Not Alone is published by Bloomsbury and is available to buy here.Follow Sara & Cariad’s Weirdos Book Club on Instagram @saraandcariadsweirdosbookclub and Twitter @weirdosbookclub Recorded and edited by Naomi Parnell for Plosive.Artwork by Welcome Studio.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sarah Pasco. Hello, I'm Carriad Lloyd. And we're weird about books. We love to read. We read too much. We talk too much. About the too much that we've read. Which is why we've created the Weirdo's Book Club.

Join us. A space for the lonely outsider to feel accepted and appreciated. A place for the person who'd love to be in a real book club, but doesn't like wine or nibbles. Or being around other people. Is that you? Join us. Check out our Instagram at Sarah and Carriad's Weirdos Book Club for the upcoming books we're going to be discussing. You can read along and share your opinions.

Or just skulk around in your raincoat like the weirdo you are. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you. This week's book guest is Blue-A. Bluettes by Maggie Nelson. What's it about? It's a collection of short suppositions on the colour blue. What qualifies it for the weirdos book club?

Well, it's a book about blue. In this episode we discuss poetry. Lapis lazuli. Goujong. Inspiration. Joni Mitchell. Gerda. Pain.

Love letters. And Vicki Javais. And joining us this week is Katie Wicks. Katie is an actor and writer, and you'll know her from Stafflets Flats and Ghosts, and the author of the incredible memoir, Delicacy. Trigger Warning, Heartbreak and Suicide. Welcome Katie Wicks and your apple. Some guests, just bring their book.

Just that's a thought yourself. A real apple for teacher. A real power move. If we're making a point that you don't agree with, they're just like, really early on when I, like, did a podcast when they were still quite new, I was eating a carrot. I was really, really hungry.

I was eating a carrot throughout. So many complaints was really tense. It was horrible. I really learnt my lesson. So Katie, we're very excited to have you, and you have chosen this week. We don't always let our guests choose.

It's very rare that our guests choose. It's by Maggie Nelson. And how are we saying it? Blueitz. Well, Lewis. She talks about getting it wrong. That bit towards the end, because I assumed it was Bluitts,

but then I think she says technically it's blue-A. I know, and I'm glad you tells me at the end. Yeah, I go, blue it, blue it, blue it, blue-it, blue-it. Yeah, that's what I got from that. But, I mean, I had to, it was really fun to have to read it again. And even though it's short, I was, yesterday I was like, oh, I've got an hour, I'll read this, forgetting. It's like the most dense thing, and it does, you can't read it an hour, even though it's no seven pages. I have to pause.

Read it. Yeah, how did you discover this book? How did it find you? That's quite, you know, that's quite a fun story. would be cut. Well, not fun, but interesting for me. So when I got my book commissioned, I thought, well, I don't know how to write a book. This is going to be a disaster. So rather than start writing straight away, I spent about six months just reading and sort of trying to learn how to write, because until that point, I didn't really know what it was doing. And I wanted to,

you know, take it seriously and try and see if I could really work on craft and writing something. that had some artistic value rather than just of someone who's been on TV, is you're in a book kind of thing. So I took it very seriously. And I have a really good mentor as well who's so smart and has read everything, who's so literary that would send those drafts to and get incredible notes. So I felt like it was sort of a doubly incredible experience because it forced me to learn how to get better at writing and take it more seriously.

But around about this time, do you know a writer called Matilda Winnett? She's in a double act as well called Beard. Oh, yeah, yeah. I remember speaking to her. And she's one of the smartest people I've ever met. And I was in the Edinburgh courtyard. And I was said, oh, you know, I'm going to write this memoir. And I don't know what I'm doing.

So I'm just reading loads of women's memoir and getting reading inspired. And she said, well, obviously, you've read Meganelson, right? She was like, that's the first thing you do. And I say, I don't know who that is. And so she wrote a memoir, Maggie Nelson called The Argonauts. The Argonauts, which is incredible. So that was the first thing she said. She said, well, obviously read that.

So I read that and it was kind of like a door opened in my head that I didn't even know was there was a door there. It was like, wow, it was a whole other way to write. And to communicate. And actually I do think this is true of your book as well, Katie, which is why it's so interesting right through this process. But it feels like the person invented a way to write to communicate what they had to say, which could only be expressed that way. Yeah. There are techniques in your book. I don't think Megan Nelson is very funny, which you are.

Ledna, she's not what. She's doing it. Where's the jokes, Maggie? Do you know what? I did read one review and they picked up on this one bit and they were talking about how hilarious it was and I was like, come on. It's not funny.

She's my heroine, but she's not hilarious. You're not watching her Edinburgh show. Whereas you have some sort of joke format really in your book that off the top of my head, I think of you texting your personal trainer. Oh yeah. And I love it because I love it when I see a joke format that I've never seen before because the writer has invented it to tell a joke this way. And with Maggie in a slightly more.

I kept, when I was reading it last night, I kept thinking of the word preposterous. It's actually preposterous how she writes. Yeah, yeah. It is. It's audacious. It's outrageous. It's so far off the scale of audacious. I kept going, it's preposterous.

She's written a book, which is little segments. Sort of tiny poem vignettes. And it really is about the colour blue. And then, because it's about the colour blue, it's then about some other things. Yeah. So I've tried with the arguments, this was the one I read next, which was even more helpful. And I stole this format of one of my chapters. And the only, because I've obviously, I don't know if you do this,

but when I love a writer, I go away and I, you know, I'll read every interview with them and try and find out of their life and stuff like that. And I was listening to her on a podcast, and she was talking about this series of propositions that she calls. So the book is like a series of numbered propositions. 1 to 250, I think. It's sort of like an homage to Wittgenstein who writes in this way. So it's got this kind of scientific philosophical argument there as well.

So that's kind of part of the reason. But I guess I see them as like little poems as well. Yeah, they feel like tiny stanzas of poems. And she also said that she rearranged them in lots of different ways. Almost you could read them in any order or you could read them in this order. It really defies sort of. description in a really lush way, in a way that really inspired me as well, because I thought there's no way I can just plod along chronologically, then this happened, then this happened

when I was going to write. I thought I'd be so bored. And I don't have the attention spam and the confidence to do, to think like massive structures. I have to break it down into little fragments. Lydia Davis was another huge inspiration to me. He writes like these micro stories, hundreds of them. So I kind of knew that really appealed to me. But it's that thing about short books which you know we've had episodes about giant books like you said are epic and it's a big yarn and a big story yeah yeah and I think and I think then you get a book like this that you it can be easy to think that's easy to write like that or it's simple but like you said it's not a simple book at all even though pitch elevator pitch

would be like it's some poems about being in love with blue yeah but it's so it's doing a lot Oh yeah. Considering it's 250 standards that are small. And there's a lot of it I don't understand. Yes, definitely, definitely. In case anyone, and I always hope this with our podcast at some goes, oh, I'm going to get that book. It sounds really interesting.

And I'm fine with the fact there's so much I don't understand. I think it requires a read. That's why I could admit it, Katie. I mean, I think that was my third read and I was getting new stuff. It was like, it was a different book actually. It was kind of spooky. I was like, wait, I read that before. Yeah.

And either it would make more sense or less sense. or different... In a way that poems can affect you so differently because my first read and I... Again, the classic, I read it off the back

of reading Wifftum which is about the wife of George Orwell who was kind of written out of history. It's very factual, very raw, very angry but very... The truth is very on the surface. And then I came to this and I was like,

oh, like it, she's not telling me anything. She's requiring a lot from her leader. And the reread... And I am there for this. Yeah, I was like, oh, this is very calm and peaceful. But when I read it before, I felt like I wasn't getting that. Also, it's so sad.

It's incredibly sad. And sadness does need quiet. Yeah, I wasn't ready. It's not adrenaline. Trauma. Yeah. It's not drama. It's not violence.

And the sadness of it is indulgent sadness. It's very indulgent. And you do have to kind of, sometimes I loved her. And other times I was like, oh, fuck off, Maggie. Yeah. I love it when there was occasionally. I go, okay, I mean, I adore you, Magna Nelson. And that's so pretentious.

But you know, I know what, but the same, one of the things I love about her is, even with indulgence, it's like this precision of language and her mind and her learned she is. And the mixture of this sort of this rigour, you know, how intelligent she is, mixed with just bodily, sexual, crass. Yeah, then suddenly she should talk.

talk about a blue vanie cock. Yeah. And you go, oh, this is really, this isn't, it isn't pretentious because this is what your mind is thinking about in exactly the same way. You're not trying to shock me with a description of a penis and you're not trying to show off how clever you are when you, she talks a lot about philosophers like I also know what she knows and I don't. But while in Tweed.

Really high and low. Yeah, because she's also talking about who I'm a massive fan of Joanie Mitchell, who obviously has an album blue and that comes up a lot. and then she's talking about missing fucking this ex-boyfriend and people, the saints who claw out their eyes so that they can, their blue eyes. The references that she throws in, it is high and low, but she does it in a very poetic way.

Totally. That's one of the things I love about it as well is, which she did in the Argonauts, she shows you what she reads and how she got there. And that was really helpful. Like I always try and follow up some of the readers she mentions because I sort of want, I just want access to, you know, like her experience.

And also, that's the only way to sort of know what she's telling you is to go, okay, if you're using two words, if you're saying that and that, and you find out what both of those words mean, so I know what you told me. Yeah, exactly. And even the way she talks about, you know, that she enjoys telling people that she's writing a book about the kind of blue and trying to get funding for it and no one's interested and what a kind of bizarre idea it sounds. I loved it when she described.

the satin-bowar bird for several years. And she's talking about this male satin-bow bird, which actually probably most of us have seen on like a... I want to say Daniel Attenborough, but that's not his name, David. His brother, Dan, it was very funny. On a David Attenborough show. And then she sort of says, maybe I'm a female Saturn Powerbird. And I was like, maybe you are, though.

Yeah. She starts by saying, suppose I fell in love with a colour and it opens. So I like the fact that it's almost like, well, have I? You know, suppose. Yeah. And then so you have this whole, this whole incredibly, like, detailed exploration of the colour, but also like pain and divinity and heartbreak. And it's all about her heartbreak as well.

And at the end, and the bit I think I quoted it in the book, I remember that I stole for my book. Right at the end, she undermines it all by sort of saying, I would rather have had you than any of this blue. Which I really related to, because my book was so much about loss, I stole it at the end sort of say, well, the only reason I could write this book was because all these things happened to me that were kind of rich enough

to write about. But I would rather have the people back and alive and there'd be no book. And that's the truth, even though it took like a year of my life to write. So I really related to that. It really undermined the whole point of the book in a really cool way that was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've written this whole book about this colour,

but actually it's about a distraction from my heartbreak at the end. Yeah. I thought that was really nice. On the re-read, that really stood out to me of that bit of just like the two sweetest experiences are making love to you, basically, and not having that. Prince of Blue. And, yeah, Prince of Blue. And I have written a book about grief.

And I have felt that. More than one. If the rumours to be believed. Yeah, yeah. And I had to write like an end note for the paperback. And that's what I wrote in the end note of like when you've written about a great loss, you feel privileged that you're allowed that chance to do it and then when I'd sort of got it off my chest so to speak

I looked around other people my age and thought oh right that's what I'd do if I didn't have all this shit to deal with like I looked at someone else doing something like I had a break from comedy to go down this grief road and I was like oh man so if it hadn't happened maybe I just stayed there making jokes about stuff but my heart was full of pain I couldn't do that and so I felt that on that note she said

I was like for all her intellectualising and her references and her beauty, she is heartbroken. Yeah. And I was like, oh, yeah. It's interesting you say that

because I had a similar thing that when I was grieving that it was like, I definitely lost my sense of humor for about a year in a really stubborn, just in a way that was like, nope, you can't,

you can't force me out of this. This isn't, I don't find any of this funny. Yeah, it's not like, it's so pointless. I'm going to make, I'm going to smile through it.

It's like, I'm not interested in doing that. I'm interested in like really sitting in this, like, wallowing in it. And it really sounds like, self-indulgent away till I'm ready. I think it's hard when people know you for being funny

or for being flipping about things and then they hit a wall with you and you're like, yeah, but not this. I'm a human. It's like a weird projection, isn't it, that you always will have understandably. Both of you wrote books that had jokes in alongside being bereft. You can't help and be funny.

So what is the relationship? Is that a conscious choice? Do you think it's a personality thing? I mean... For me, it's very much, it's, I'm in control of that humor though. Like, so I'm making the jokes about it. What I find is acceptable, like the limits. And then I'm also able to be achingly sincere about my pain because it's my book.

So, but I was also writing a book that was, a guidebook's not right, but it was like, Dad. I was writing a book that was about helping people get through this experience. So I knew that, I knew I needed to have. humor in it so that it wouldn't be scary because I know that the way I view grief and talking about it is a bit intense for some people. So the jokes for me were like, hey, don't worry. Once you get in here, I'm going to be really intense, but don't worry. I'm going to joke you in the room. That's what it was for me. I know what you're experienced. Yeah, I agree. I felt

really self-conscious about suddenly trying to write very sincerely, really self-conscious about it after years of just trying, of doing the opposite, throwing it always away. And I felt like it was a, it was a joke for someone and the serious bit for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because the bits I love to write the most were the not funny bits. Yeah, that's how I felt. The really heartfelt bits that made me cry type. Yeah, and those bits were creatively invigorating as well to be like, well, can I,

am I any good at actually doing rewriting? Yeah. Like, what would happen if I did that? I think that's very much coming from comedy or when comedy is not easy for you, but it's something that comes naturally, it's where you began. feel safe. Safe. You always see the other stuff as real.

So I felt like that when I had to write my book of like, well, that's proper writing. Like an Edinburgh is not proper. Standing on stage with bad lipstick and a wig is not proper. Like it's stupid. And so, yeah, it definitely seemed to me like you slightly have to prove yourself. But it is a topic, grief, heartbreak that requires that seriousness. But then your personality, one's personality, you know, if you are a comic or you have done that there's always that a reference to how you see the world slightly.

Yeah, you can't help but think of jokes as well when you can't help it. Along the way, it just does it, doesn't it? It's like, oh, oh, yes, I've just made that little connection. Oh, yeah, I'll put that in because it's funny. That's why car drives with comedians are so unbearable. Because you've got four brains all doing that exact same thing. The Netflix series. Oh, yeah.

It's so bad. They made it into a movie show. I pitched it first. It was just me crashing your car into a wall. With everyone saying, this is not funny. Me stopping at an essay going, get out, get out! Until you could just look out at the window without doing gags. I thought, because the linear nature of this book,

and there is a linear story too. Yeah, loose in there. But I wondered if we could just pick paragraphs and just discuss that. Because something that I thought was wonderful and very cleverly done. Oh, I'm excited to hear. Is this side-by-side of the person you're in love with, does something which makes you think that they're not the person you thought they are, which actually is about finding out who they actually are,

and how that's exactly the same with colour, is that you don't know that anyone sees colour, how you see it. And what does that mean? And how much does it bother you? And so she has this quote about, like, just let the objects be the objects. Yeah. Which I'm paraphrasing,

if he hadn't lied to you, he would have been a different person than he is. She's trying to get me to see that although I thought I love this man, very completely for exactly who he was. I was in fact blind to the man he actually was or is. I found that bit really good. I was like, that's every woman in therapy. I think everyone who's ever loved anyone, actually.

I think there's this, you fall in love, you're building a sense, and then there's this next space, which is letting go of the things you built or not, and then having the difficulty of. And she very carefully, cleverly, links that to blue. So I've got one I marked. She's talking about Gerta, that's he say, isn't it? I think blue is a lively colour. It may be said to disturb rather than enliven.

Is to be in love with blue then, to be in love with the disturbance, or is the love itself the disturbance? And what kind of madness is it anyway to be in love with something constitutionally incapable of loving you back? Yeah, love that. And I was like, obviously that's her relationship, obviously that's the colour. Like to all take that fun.

There's that really funny bit as well when she says. In fact, this is a generally funny bit that made me laugh when he talks about whether blue could keep you company and whether it could love you back. She sees something blue and it's like, oh, here we are again. It's like it winks back at you. Yeah. It just acknowledges your presence, keeping you company.

There's also the bit over the page from that, the quote you read out about falling in love with someone who didn't know, I like the way she kind of collapses therapy language. And I liked all that stuff about therapy and how she and how horrible she's about self-help books. She talks like simplistic, too simplistic language or something like that. Well, she describes picking up the way love is reduced. Yeah.

Realising it's about women in therapy, throwing it back on shelf and then ordering it at six times. She's like, I love this quote that she says, psychology forces everything we call love into the pathological or the delusional or the biologically explicable. If what I was feeling wasn't love, then I'm forced to admit that I don't know what love is, or more simply, that I loved a bad man. I also really love the bit about what the ancient philosophers thought, how our eyes worked.

And that Pythagoras thinks it's that there must be something coming from our eyes that illuminates objects. And then, what's his face? I can't remember the philosopher says, no, well, that doesn't work because it's, because what happens at night then. Yeah, exactly. And then someone else stops existing.

Yeah, and then someone else says, oh, I think it's something in between that there's a fire, in between us and the object that illuminates both. That was really fascinating. When she's talking as well about, like we see a poppy going, a bee flying towards an orange poppy, but to a bee,

it looks like a violet mouth. And again, just being like, then who is, like who is right? What are we observed? Which again, you can just instantly refract back to love

and what one person sees in a relationship, the other person sees. The bit that broke my heart at the end where she just, she writes to the Prince of Blue and she says, you kept my last letter. It didn't open it.

Yeah, didn't open it. as if it was a talisman, but I actually just wanted you to know what I thought. And I was like, oh, that is... I had something to say to you and I needed you to hear. Yeah, I thought that was strange to be okay with that he didn't want to know her thoughts in that moment.

I felt like she wasn't okay. Yeah, I felt like she was like... Oh, interesting. Let's let the listener decide. Yeah. I love her use of Joni Mitchell, I have to say, and there's a paragraph where she talks about how Joni and Billy Holiday as well are...

have lost their talent, you know, because their voices don't tan the same. Ravage. And yeah, she says one reviewer recently wrote, Mitchell's voice is a husky shadow of its former feather-like glory, mirroring how her joyful, playful, attitude has dwindled to bitter dissatisfaction. And I feel like she doesn't even have to say to the reader, that's not fucking true, as if, like, late Joni is not as heart-wrenching and beautiful as blue is, but that someone has lived and changed.

And I thought that's incredible. in one paragraph to quote someone else and leave a gap, but we know exactly what she's saying. How can you criticise a woman for ageing and changing? Yeah. Because she doesn't sound light anymore and therefore you assume she's bitter rather than she's lived. The parallel

with the Gertrta Young Wuther book which she mentions towards the end. Because the parallel is how we romanticise other people's pain. The reason people love Joni Mitchell and Billy Holliday so much is the pain in their voices. They're not poppy bright,

singers. No, no. Those qualities described, even though the language sounds negative. It would be people describing a woman's face. It's interesting because what it requires is that a woman must be shiny and happy because early Joanie isn't shiny and happy, but her voice is she hasn't smoked 20 cigarettes a day. And Joanie famously recorded, I've looked at life from both sides now, as a young woman, which is quite poppy. And then there's a much older version which is like, I've looked at life.

And it's hot and it's a much more poignant song and it's much more beautiful. But again, it's like for a reviewer to say... I thought that review was supposed to be... I thought it was a positive review. No, they're saying it. Again, I read it like they're saying it's a husky shadow. I guess you could say, probably. I think it is positive.

Or nicotine ravaged vocals, I guess, are the once angelic now gasping Joni Mitchell. But it's better. It's like saying Miss Wine is really old. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this whole book about Blue, about sadness and being broken-hearted and young were there, and she doesn't go too much into it,

But it's a really, really sad book about this young man and he falls in love with this woman. And she's betrothed to be married to someone else. And he tries to be richer and he befriends her. But he has no money so she's never going to marry him. But they do become friends. And then she does marry the rich guy and he drowns himself. Cheery book. Well, the thing was that it was published and everyone was like,

he's the most romantic guy ever. And Marvin thinking, what's a sad story. It really spawned a lot of romanticism. Yeah. And they made statues of him and war, cravats and aimed to be like him. And then she says a lot of copycat. Yes. Suicides. Oh yeah. Because it was seen as the most, that's what you do for love. You break yourself. You undo yourself. Being in love with death for romantic gesture. Her last few lines, she does show you another option. I think that's what's beautiful about the ending.

It's that even though the reality is, you know, love, you would sacrifice so much pleasurable things. Do you think she's okay at the end? Yeah. Do you know what? I think with her writing, I sometimes think there's at time, because I wonder how, who the eye is sometimes at the book. Because she sort of talks about, you know, these have been rearranged so many times. They've been so, when I'm reading it, I forget that they've been curated

so that, you know, you do go on a particular journey and you do sort of learn something at the end and the effect it has on the reader. I feel like she's so aware of that and she's so sort of technically amazing. And I sometimes think even if there's a performance, to her pain, it's still pain. Yeah.

It's still real. Because I'm so aware when I was writing my book that there was like a performativity to the pain sometimes. In the way that sometimes when you see someone on Facebook say, oh, I guess I've just had any shitty day guys. And, you know, it's sort of an awful, painful thing where you just know they're trying to get connection and attention. And there's something so awful about witnessing it. Yeah. But really relatable.

Like I wish I had the guts to just say that online. What's the worst thing that would happen? But I never could say that. If you were feeling that much pain, you wouldn't be able to write the Facebook status. Yeah, it's really performative. You do have to sort of get yourself back there. I think it's also someone being openly vulnerable, which I think people in comedy sometimes find hard. Yeah.

Because I think you're right. Like, you see it and you laugh. You're like, oh my God, bloody hell. Like calm down. And then you're saying, I couldn't write. I wouldn't be brave enough to write that. I wouldn't be brave to say I want help. I'd have to hide it.

But also, it's sad that in that moment you couldn't have said that to a real person. Yeah. It feels slightly heartbreaking to me. Yeah. But I get that maybe that's, you know, that's a judgment in itself. And it's a judgment in that if you spot it, you got it thing. Yeah, yeah, that's what I mean. Yeah.

His job requires attention. Absolutely. So I first things go, oh, needed a bit of attention. Do you? Yeah. That's what I mean is like, yeah. One of the things that I also feel like I borrowed a bit when I was writing, there's a really great bit.

Because you know the friend who has the oral. Yes, of course, the paraplegic. Yeah. And it's interesting because I do. did read one review that sort of questioning, I don't know, the sort of ethics of how she'd sort of taken that and then reframed it. Oh yes. And what it says about her, her friend's pain. But she seems in such admiration. Totally, yeah, yeah. And that was all amazing that stuff about. And at one point where she's described as being like a pebble in water, that will stay with me

forever. But she's talking about, and I sort of really referenced it when I was talking about caring for my mum towards the end. And because she was the, paralyzed towards the end. There's a really similar bit where she talks about trying to move her body but then hurting her. And that just really kind of stung when I read it that when caring for someone, you sort of accidentally cause them pain. And the whole thing that, you know, pain is like the way we see colour. It's so private. It doesn't go beyond your body. And when she talks about going to hospital and someone saying, describe the pain in terms of numbers. And there's another incredible book, which I think you both love, you haven't read called The Undying by Anne. And then we're

Boyer, who's an American poet, who's also incredible, who I read a lot before I was writing. And she's invented a new scale of pain based on Emily Dickinson poems that she says instead of a number. That's incredible. You're right, absolutely. We can't feel each other's pain. It's virtually impossible to describe it. It's complete. And then certain people, it's diminished.

We know that women of colour are never believed by pain. And like Maggie Nelson says in this book, men always say 11. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the doctor says, oh, women underestimate. Yeah, so you say it's six, it's going to be eight then. Yeah, yeah, women underestimate their own pain, I'll put you down as an eight. Yeah, and exactly in the fact that you say, like, people of colour,

that doctors were sort of taught until about 20 years ago, that they didn't feel as much pain. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I thought that was into when she was talking about the friend and how her feet start turning blue because she's using them, and they both observe them, because now for the friend can't feel them.

And so they're both at that point able to observe a piece of her friend's body that was once her personal body. And I thought that was very, beautiful's not the right word, but just kind of like true friendship captured of like she's bearing witness with this person. Yeah. In a way that you would normally think that's a response saved for beauty. Yeah. It's a very beautiful book.

It deals with a lot of beauty. And sometimes I found it cold because of that, because it was so, the language was so beautiful and what she's talking about becomes so elevated. It's contained as well. That sometimes I would feel like, oh God, it's, I don't know, like it almost like she's talking about lapis lazuli, isn't it?

It's like a stone she's talking about. Yeah. So precise. And you know what I thought about the man, the Prince of Blue, you don't, at the end, I was like, I only know that she really liked fucking him. You don't know a lot about him. And he has that interesting.

But he's got another girlfriend. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And she really liked fucking him a lot. And that's kind of... Six hours. Yeah, six hours. There's that bit that when she talks about. Six hours.

Yeah. You've only got 250 things about blue. I was thinking that like, does that include like Lou Breaks? Yeah, it must do. It must do. You can't just constantly. It must be a bit of a chat, get a pizza, start again. Yeah, you get angry.

But it's really interesting. I agree with that, that he's so sort of absence. He's so absent in the way. But then she talks, she has that bit as well where she says, that when you write about something, it alters the memory. Or the memory is replaced with the thing you wrote. Like when you see a childhood photo,

that's what you remember. There's a bit where she almost says, I don't want to write, I don't want to describe this too much because it would change it, which I also really get. Yeah, I definitely had that, again, as someone who's written about their own life,

that writing it down becomes the true version of it. Yeah, the time capsule for it. And then that's only your perception of it. You know, your family members read and go, well, I don't remember that. But that does happen to memory anyway, even without writing. But writers have a sort of privilege of being the ones to put it down on paper and go, this is what happened.

And obviously, like, we don't have the Prince of Blues take on this situation. Oh, I do. It's high fidelity, when it's called me? It's good. The follow-up. Katie, I wanted to ask about that review, actually. So you said you read a review of this book. And I would never read reviews of books because I wouldn't want this podcast aside anyone else's opinion.

Oh, I don't. You do? I always quote people from him. Even if reviews are not of me, I still find the act of reviewing so upsetting. Oh, yeah. Oh, no, I find it interesting. Why do they need to criticise everything? So you read a review of this book and what did it say about the relationship with the pain of her? There's a particular paragraph where it's about how the friend still manages to find a way to write

because she was a writer before the accident and that she still found a way to write and that she wants to talk about the reality of the pain. And then the paragraph, so it's a bit, it's a bit quoted from the friend. And then Maggie ends it with something that she's, she sort of reframes it. And I think this review is saying less, more of the writer, less you reframing it. Because she sort of says that she doesn't want to be taken out of context. I think it was something like that. I don't want Maggie to hate me.

I would never say anything. But isn't it not dedicated to her friend? Like it says at the end, First and Forever Princess. of blue right at the end dedication and I was like I feel like that is the friend I thought was her daughter oh I assume that was the friend I thought it wasn't problematic I felt like it was so it was so sort of sensitively done I think also she's very much taking the point of view of my friend has had an accident this is how I feel as a friend she's not taking the view of my friend should feel this or she does it very much like trying like you said as a carer

as someone who sits with someone in pain this is how I feel which I have having read a lot of grief stuff, really appreciated. Because I was like, so often it is about the person who's dealing with the epicenter of pain, whereas actually there are all these other people who are trying to help. Like you said, literally move someone and they're screaming. And they're different experiences. And we're hearing about your one.

Yeah, I felt like she was telling us. There's a great bit where she says that the friend who takes on this sort of Oracle-like status, partly because you have to go to the... Yes, you have to literally go to the same place to see her. But also that the friend doesn't buy into a sort of hierarchy of pain. and suffering. Yes. So she wants to hear about, you know, Maggie rushing in and saying,

Prince of Blues in love with another woman or whatever. And then that incredible bit at the end where she sort of, it's something like she doesn't know if the pain has meaning or if she believes in the soul, but she's seen the bright pith of her soul. Yeah, it's the bright pit of her soul. Yeah. To being so close to someone in unimaginable pain,

it's romanticising in a way, isn't it? Because it's implying there's something sort of almost transcendent and martyrlike about... It's really complicated. And there is a lot of stuff written about, like, yeah. you know, just because something terrible happened to you doesn't mean you are therefore a glorious person. Yeah. But at the same time, everything has a meaning kind of on. There is a meaning to staying present with someone in a hugely traumatic situation.

And that's what I feel like I'm getting from Maggie. It's a really, really unique human experience that most people wouldn't choose to have. Yeah. But you wouldn't choose someone that you care about or love to be in, you know, incredible pain. And she quite clearly has stayed with the friend. And a bit like she says, it's her friend's lover and her who seem to be. helping her deal with this situation. She's obviously in the immediate circle. And I think that, you know, that is a carer's point of view. That's, that's worthwhile. It's interesting. She's not saying,

my friend feels this. She's saying, she's not talking on behalf of someone. No, she's saying, this is how it feels to what someone you love in agony, lose their life, lose everything. And she is slightly comparing it to her own heartbreak, but only in a very artistic way of like, oh, I see loss everywhere. Yeah. And having had only like some experience of being a carer, like to to get a glimpse, you know, to be in that world, however long it was, you know, a couple of months when I was doing different caring for both my parents different times. Like, you realise there's this whole sort of quiet world

of people caring, getting ill, you know, from the stress of it, absorbing it, being there. And I think of it is such a sort of strangey months of my life where I just had a backpack and was walking up and down the hospital corridors constantly, like constantly cry, constantly sort of buying hummus from M&S. And, you know, it's just like a mad blur. and just wearing comfortable shoes and sort of no makeup.

Well, you see, like you become, there's a loss of self. Yeah, and you're just kind of thrown into it suddenly with no warning and cancelling everything. Oh, sorry, my life, and indefinitely will be doing this now. Sorry, you know, I can't really do anything else. And the medicalisation, suddenly you're expected to understand milligrams and when things should be dosed. And, you know, the day before you had no fucking idea. And people will hand you really hardcore medication. and be like, this needs to be done at this time, this will be less.

And you're expected to understand it and not burst into tears and go, no thank you, I don't want this life. And feeling that's such an arse of because suddenly you're in hospital or whatever it may be, you know, around just like constant suffering and thinking, I can't believe, you know, like a few months ago I was just worrying about, you know, should I buy a new skirt? I mean, it's like, insane.

Yeah. When you suddenly like, oh my God, this is real life, this is what's the reality. I'm so embarrassed. Yeah, I think, and I think that's what she gets in this book because it's a very unexpected accident. And I slightly feel like that's what I mean about artistic. The comparison is she's not saying,

oh, my heartbreak is worth us compared to my friend is now a paraplegic, but she is saying, oh, there's all this pain and all this loss that we feel as humans, and isn't it, and I'm just looking at it. She's acknowledging there is a hierarchy and that some people would be hierarchical, but her friend isn't. I think so. I think she actually manages to sidestep and do both things.

Can I raise one thing that absolutely stopped me in my track? Yes. It wasn't the purple will Vaney cock. No, it wasn't. Going into every orifice. No, it was the phrase in England, they say the blue hour is happy hour at the pub. Oh, I know. I did underline that.

Come on now. I've never, have you guys ever heard. It's not a phrase. I thought it, they said in Germany. No, she says in Germany, Blauze. In Germany, Blauzein means to be drunk. So I feel like what's happening is some English person. Yes, has told her.

Maybe someone with like an English parent at the university. I read that. Oh, yes. The blue, like in Germany. Yeah, Blue Hour, Happy Hour, Six to or Seven. Stop me in my tracks. I was like, you know, and you're supposed to vote, but I was like, oh, Maggie, someone's lied to you. We don't call Happy Hour Blue Hour.

I didn't notice that. I can't. It's never been published before in the UK until really recently. Oh, there you go. I have a feeling it was Olivia Lang that championed her to be published in the UK. I think that's right. Olivia should have told her. Oh, yeah.

In England, the Blue Hour. It's Happy Hour at the pub. That's so funny. The other bit that I really liked was, you know, when she talks about that book, is Isabel Eberhard, which I read because of this. She dressed as a man to travel, hung out with some Sufis. Anyway, I read her book, you know, a bit of her life. The oblivion secrets.

She says it's amazing. Oh, look, go to hang out with the blue people, the two legs. Yes, yes. The scraps of her travel diaries were found and published, the oblivion seekers. It's amazing. I really loved it. There's a really nice quote from Julietteamson on the front. Oh, nice.

And then I... He plays Sarah's mom in her sitcom. Oh, yeah, of course. And then I bumped into her. We can pass this on for me. I bumped, I saw her in the toilet and the ward ceremony. And I just listened to her doing the voice of Wuthering Heights. Oh, yeah.

Which she voiced in an old-book. She's known as the audio book queen. She was amazing at it because I listened to it in lockdown. But also I wanted to go up to her and say, oh, you gave a quote for that really obscure book. I thought no one in the world has ever said this to her. Like, I love that book too. And I'd chicken out. Oh, she would have loved it.

Yeah. I wish I'd have loved it. I reckon about 20 people have bought that book in the last 10 years. Sarah can text her. It's just fascinating. I want to read it because it's great. If you have the page, what's the description that makes you want to read it? Because it's almost like the most extraordinary.

Oh, here I've got it. The Oblivion Seekers, a collection one critic has described as one of the strangest human documents that a woman has given to the world. How could you not want to read that? I think there's been strangers since, but I'm sure at the time. I was going to ask you both, actually. Mackinelson. Mackin Nelson has managed to write

250 questions, poems about suppositions, suppositions, black blue. If you were going to do it, what would it be? What would the thing be? Because mine would be

Take that. No, clothes of animals on them. I reckon clothes of animals on them, I could, mostly knitwear, but in the permutations of it, I feel like I could do 250. And it would be sort of, you know, seeing ducklings and little girls tights.

you made me think about tights I haven't thought about since I was eight you know there's white tights and on the ankle there'd be like a dog with one diamond two stud above it uniform was white tights and the boys used to like run and jump in a muddy puddle next to

so that your white tights would get ruined even then ruining just ruining the sad girls would have woolly ones and I don't know which shop but the cool girls would have who'd had sex early would have like really thin

white tight 20 denny 20 day and I was always like where'd you get those fell. I don't get it. I always imagine it would be like you lose your the boys, the boys give them to. You suddenly find the thinner tights, is what I always imagine.

When you start your period, you get a thin tights. When you buy your first packets of condoms. Yeah, they slide you the title of cigarettes. This is for the lady. This is for you. I don't know, do you know, Casey? It's funny you say that because one of the ideas I've had if I was going to write another book would be really inspired by this

because I love, like, my dream is researching something. And hours of rabbit, oh my God, I love it so much. So part of me really, I mean, I couldn't write anything as good as this, but I love the idea of doing that anyway. I've thought about that. I mean, this feels like a really vulnerable thing to say. So my therapist is always telling me that I'm completely body dysmorphic and saying mad things that don't make sense all the time.

And I sort of decided that most women kind of are on this picture. So I would love to, I mean, I feel like maybe it's done as a subject, but I would love to write about beauty and... I'd love to read what you wrote about beauty and this. I just think it's such a huge subject, you know. Yeah. And it's weird. Like, I had conversation with you all back about this.

I saw. I saw that, you. It's brilliant. It was absolutely amazing. I was so terrified. But she said... No, you were brilliant. I think it was before the interview.

She said, oh, it's got worse. It's got worse for women. You know, everyone thinks it's got better. I think it's got worse. And I still do... I still feel kind of... mixed about it because in some ways I I mean this is quite off topic I see

I don't know I suppose I see kind of body politics like I've never that was never around when I was young but then I also sort of see I think both things are true aren't they yeah yeah that yeah when we see women who haven't had work done it's like really weird now on TV and stuff like that

so there's a lot more information and there's also there's lots of people saying positive things while still thinking negative thoughts and making negative decisions yeah the way that women are expected to look a certain way but would still have corrective surgery. Yeah. I feel like a hypocrite.

But also, like, in some ways, I think it's really, it's so radical to meet a woman who likes their body. I want to be that, I want to be that woman all the time. But I also know that that's not completely true. So I also want to be honest about the fact it's not true. But it's incredibly, incredibly rare. And it's another thing. It's real.

I can say one person, I know. Well, one person, a friend who says. And I bet you could, you could drill down and find something. I know what you mean. I feel like I've got one friend and I had one friend and then she had a baby and now she isn't anymore. Well I was going to say my one friend isn't straight which I think might have be something to do with it. Oh yeah, that's interesting.

I think it's hard as child of the 90s, I can understand. I totally understand why Susie your back would say that but as child of 90s when we're starting to unpick what we grew up with that you are like, oh, I think it was a, there was, it was hideous that we were, Bridget Jones was fat. We were told she was fat. Oh my God, yeah, yeah. And that, you know, she put on weight for that role. And at least now the word's body positive positivity.

exist because when we were growing up it didn't exist you were either Kate Moss or you were our mothers would all have been of a similar generation as well and I'm sure we brought far more fucked up yeah but also every single relative was allowed to tell you you're not allowed that you'll be fat or you're not and this is like as very small children it's that thing

rather than the body positivity I hope that children aren't spoken to about food yeah I think the parenting debate about food has massively changed yeah definitely and in terms of what's healthy for a child and how you should get them to eat and eat away your sadness Yeah, oh God.

Haiti, I think you should write 250 standards on that. But I was saying to someone yesterday, I was like, is it possible to do that though and say it's not me? Could you ever have like a character saying all this? I feel like she's doing that. I feel like we're getting the version of the Maggie

that she wants. If Ricketts Javais can go on Netflix and do a show with transphobic jokes and then say it's the character of Ricky Javis and I'm not saying you can't because he has. I always forget to compare our careers and you're absolutely right. to say that because I always forget that as an option.

You're right. I think there is a way of doing it. Oh, Jervais and Wits. I mean, it's hard to tell them apart. Very similar. You know, I don't know. I mean, it's an insult to her really to think you could achieve this because it's not a lot of times of reading and learning.

I think, you know, I think she'd like that. Also, it's short. Oh, my God. Can you imagine? Right. It's like the pages. Yeah. Change my life.

Katie, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Oh, thank you. It was a fascinating conversation. What a delightful morning. I wish we could just carry on. I know. It's so nice. I'm going to say something so sickly, but this is why I love reading.

And reading can sometimes be quite a lonely experience. Or it can be a wonderful experience where it feels like, you know, the writer is talking to you and that's the chat. But if the writer is talking to you and then you get to talk to other people as well, isn't it nice? Especially with the book like this where you can be a bit like, oh, I'm not sure what you meant by that. Yeah. And it's totally. Because it can be more after it from here. You could pick up any page at an hour's discussion. I was sort of thinking out on the way here.

I was thinking, there's all, it's, my, my head feels empty because it's like, it's like, it's like,

when she says, you know, a light's so bright, it's dark. Yeah, this is like the book. It's like, it's so bright.

I go, yeah. As we end, I demand that Joanie Mitch was blue fades up. I want to just read this. Oh,

yes, so Simone, I'm going to produce a name at Ville, Simone Vail. Vile, yeah. Simone Vile warned otherwise.

Love is not consolation, she wrote, it is light. And then her very last line, McGnellson, live, I aimed to be a student not of longing, but of light. And that's so wonderful.

And I do think that's really positive. It's really positive. You're not in love with longing. You're in love with what you were longing for. Thoroughly recommend it. Blue it. Blue it. It's a really unusual book, I think.

Enjoy it in your blue hour at the pub. Have a glass of, what's it, what's it? Caraco, people used to drink. Do you know what I mean? A couple of blue birds. Caruca. What's it called? The blue, all your parents would have left in the couple of code.

KD. That's more modern, yeah. A blue W.KD. And listening to the song, I'm Blue Double D, D, Double D, D. Thank you for listening to Weirdo's Book Club. Next week's book guest is, it's You Are Not Alone by Carriad Lloyd. Live from Files.

Sarah's novel, Weirdo, and my book, You Are Not Alone, are both available now. And I've got a live event coming up myself at the South Bank Center in May. And it's on sale now. for reading with us. We like reading with you.