Sara & Cariad's Weirdos Book Club - Briefly, A Delicious Life by Nell Stevens

Episode Date: March 21, 2024

This week's book guest is Briefly, A Delicious Life by Nell Stevens. In this episode Sara and Cariad discuss creative geniuses, parenting, France, big trousers, travel and beef curtains.  Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you!Trigger warning: In this episode we brielfly discuss eating disorders and baby loss.  Briefly, A Delicious Life by Nell Stevens is available to buy here or on Apple Books here. Tickets for our live shows on 9 April are available to buy here.Sara’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 Aniya Das for Plosive.Artwork by Welcome Studio.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm 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 it doesn't like wine or nibbles. Or being around other people. Is that you? Join us. Check out our Instagram at Sarah and Carriads Weirdo's Book Club for the upcoming book. 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 Briefly A Delicious Life by Nell Stevens. What's it about? It's about a 14-year-old ghost spying on the writer Georgesand and her lover Chopin during winter in Mallorca. What qualifies it for the weirdos book club? Well, the narrator is a sexy ghost. In this episode we discuss creative geniuses. Parenting. France. Big trousers.

Travel. And beef curtains. Trigger warning. In this episode, we very briefly discuss eating disorders and baby loss. Hello, welcome to Weirdo's Book Club. Hello. I was actually reading. What a great thing to be doing.

At a book club. At a book club. I wouldn't want to stop you. Do you want to carry on? Imagine if there were nightclubs where everyone just took a book. There is. It's just started in New York, or was it Paris. Or somewhere we can't go.

It was somewhere like, so it's like for people who don't want to read alone. They have a cafe. And they all range, like, from 7 to 8.30, everyone's going to sit here and read. And everyone brings their own book and just reads. And then afterwards, you can have a drink and talk about it if you want to. But the ideas that you're not, like, just reading. That's wonderful. What I want to make sure for them, maybe I'll be the doorwoman, is that sounds like inviting those creeps to go, what you're reading.

Yeah. I also thought I like reading in a very comfortable, like I want to be comfy and a cafe is not comfy enough. I want sofa or bed, lots of cushions. Oh, I see. Okay. But there's something lovely about sitting up. Also, I wonder, I would worry about the book I was taking, because I'd want other people to go like, oh, she's reading that. Yeah, you would be, the book choice is what I mean.

There's not a single person who hasn't really thought about their book choice, obviously. Yeah. Because it is like, yeah. It's like, you know. If you're rereading Harry Potter, you probably wouldn't take. You probably wouldn't take. No. I've got the audio book, guys, I'm just listening to it.

Yeah. This week, we are talking about briefly a delicious life by Nell Stevens. Briefly is in the title, not like we are talking briefly. So you had already read this book. I read this book a couple of years ago. It was long listed for the Dylan Thomas Prize. Is that why you chose it? No.

Instagram. Oh, so it's another Insta read. It's another Instagram. I follow people who do recommend good books. I can't remember who. Did you know that they've shown that other people recommending a book is really influential, but someone recommending their own book does absolutely nothing. I could have told him that from my own Instagram experience.

But what we want is someone else to go. This is why I enjoyed this. Not an author go. I promise it's good. I promise it's good. So you know when you follow a couple of people who are into reading, And if they recommend a book and you read it and it's good, then you're like, it's like if someone recommend a skin hair product. Anyway, I read it and so this was a reread for me.

But this was your first foray into briefly. Yes, but you've been talking about this one for a while. I have been going on about it. And I started it about six months ago and thought, well, this is a ghost. And I put it down again. So shall we briefly summarize? Yeah, because it is a bit confusing. Because when I said to you, it's a ghost book, you're like, no, no, no, not really.

It's like, well. You really confused me because my memory of it is about Georges St. The writer Georges Sand. George is it? George Sand. Not George? George. George Sand.

George Sand. Okay. Do we call it George? George Sand. I would love to, yes. George Sand and Chopin, the famous musician. And it's based on the true story that they were in a relationship together and they went to, how do you say? Mallorca.

Myorker. One winter with her two children. So this is a true thing that happened. And we've mentioned it before on the podcast, actually, when we were talking about Deborah Levy's. Yes, memoir. Also goes to New Yorker. And is it the same place they're staying? The same place.

I mean, I love that. I reckon that should be an advert on our podcast. This hotel. Yes, hotel. That used to be a monastery. Yeah. George Sand. Sorry, I'm desperately trying not to say Jeanne.

You can't. No, no, it's awful. I can't. I've never heard people say George Sand. I've heard everyone go, Jean-Saint. Oh, no one's ever spoken to me about her. I've only ever seen it written down.

We have very different lives. This is why when I'm at you at university, I was like, oh, I'm nearly middle. class. What did you say once? When we were living together, Radio 4 was on and you turned it off crossly and he said, I'm not having that on, that I've crossed the line if it's on in the kitchen for no reason. And I was like, oh gosh, yeah, that is a bit, oh, okay. You said I'll take hummus, but I'm not having Radio 4 on for no reason. I digress. So one of the reasons I think writers write about this is George wrote about it herself. So she wrote a book called a Winter in

New Yorker, I think, about her experience of being in New Yorker with Chopin. Off season. Off season. She got a cheap deal. It's cheap, guys. And so in my memory, that's what this book is about. But you're right, it's told from the point of view of a ghost. So when you said to me, yeah, this ghost is a bit weird. I was like, oh, yeah, completely forgotten the ghost. So it is.

It's mainly set in Mayorka in that sort of several months. And the narration, which I originally, not disliked, and never dislike anything. Yes. But I thought, oh, why have you chosen a teenage girl to tell me this story? Who haunts the monastery but died 300 years before even George and Chopin are there? And has her own tragic story. But I realised afterwards as a narration technique, this is what I wrote down the way here. As a narration technique, it means that she can read people's thoughts, as in what they're thinking of the time.

She can feel their sensations, which means that she can describe touch and smell. And also she has this ability to see the past through people's memories, even if they're not thinking about those things. And the future. Yeah. So as a narration technique, it's very, very clever. It's great. Yeah. And she was a teenage girl when she died, but she's been conscious as a ghost for 300 years.

So she has matured in that time, which she talks about. She hasn't stayed as a 14-year-old. She's learned and changed and realized that she's possibly queer or bisexual in that process as well. She used to fantasize about the beautiful men in New Yorker and that. And then she falls in love with different women in this process. So she has quite a big storyline going on as well. But I agree with you, I guess if she didn't have the ghost character, then you'd be jumping between George, her children and Chopin.

Which, yeah, could work. The third words narrator often does and would do without feeling the need. But this you only get one person, it's always from one person's perspective. But I did sometimes feel like there was a slight separation from someone going, oh, let me look at their thoughts. Their thoughts are these rather than a right. to just going, they're thinking about this. Yeah.

But I wondered if that distance was supposed to be there. I was supposed to be looking at it all. Yeah. Not deeply inside. Someone's telling me who George Sand is. Yeah. And I wonder if that's because George Sand is so, her work is so well known.

And she's such a figure, iconic figure, that actually, and lots have been written about her. She was more famous in her lifetime than Victor Hugo. Right. So I know nothing about George Sand. Yeah. She was incredibly famous, prolific writer and dressed as a man and sort of left her husband. I mean, it's very difficult to imagine anyone more cool.

She's fucking cool. And do you know what? She's also beautiful. She really is beautiful. The first scene in this, which is her staying up all night. Yes, the writing. Smoking a fucking cigar. Oh, dressed in man's clothes.

Writing by hand and I guess being so consumed with what she's writing. Drinking a cold cup of coffee. You know, it's been cold for three hours and especially as someone with no time to ever be creative or lose myself. I don't allowed to smoke cigars around my baby. And I did and I started Googling big men's trousers. And also what I love is she decides to start wearing the clothes of a man

purely practically because she's like, I can move better. Well, that's it, the description of the description of speeding around Paris in. boots when you've been sort of disabled really by brittle kitten heels. Yeah and frilly skirts. And also she talks about going to men are only allowed in the cheap seats of the theatre. Yeah, so she can't even have a culture. So she can't go and see the plays of Paris.

So she dresses a man and she can get these cheap tickets and you're like, she's fucking cool. She's, George is so biographically, from what you know, everything in this book is pretty based on the biography of George's. Yeah, it's definitely, Nell Stevens has definitely done hardcore research. Yeah. There's a few things that I think she made. have, not embellished, but you know, when a writer wants that to be true, when I was looking, I was like, I'm not quite sure how much evidence there is for that.

But yes, like, her real name was like Aurora or something. And she did change her name to George Sands, based on a relationship she was having with a man. So do you know much about, so Julian Sand, which was the first lover and the name that she took for her first novel. Is that a real writer? Yeah, it's a real writer. He's not, Sand was his pet name. That's where she nicked that from. And the J is taken for that. But yes, he was a real writer and he really did, she really did leave her husband and leave her kids in the countryside and go to Paris

and then shacked up with him and then shacked up with a woman, an actress, and then sculptors, artists, or men just... It's so cool. Like, yeah, sort of doing what she was like. At one point, she's, like, advising the government about something. Of course she is. Who else would you ask? I know.

Give me that lady in trousers. Yeah. She did have this on-off relationship with Chopin for 10 years, which I didn't know anything about until I made this book up. Like I was like, as I said, really, I was like, because I knew the word George Sand and I knew Chopin, but I was like, what? It was like, finding out they date.

It was like, they dated. Yeah. And I feel like this about all modern culture, because I have no idea who anyone is these days. Sure. If I see, you know, when people are like, oh, did you not know, they're like, are they, when did that happen?

Oh, yeah. Like who? Taylor Swift and a footballer. Yeah, well, I know that, but I don't know who he is or anything about it. Yeah. Do you know what I keep thinking about, it's slightly different.

but it's also the same. The ponds in Highgate and it being Harry Stiles. My friend goes to the ponds in the morning. Yeah. And the men's pond. And when he was there the other morning, there was only six men there. Yeah.

Three normal men. And the other three were Benedict Cumberbatch, James Corden and Harry Stiles. So I keep thinking about that. Maybe that's my novel. Were they all in a pond? Let me make, I want, for Benedict's sake, I want to say this.

My friend said it was very clear that James Cawdon and Harry Stiles were there together. Benedict by himself. So that's, and he was trying to make it. very clear that he was not here with James Corden. So that's beginning of my story. Because either, Harry Styles and James Corden are friends or,

oh, you're famous, I'm famous, we're all in a pond. Yeah. And Bendick was like, I'm here for swimming. I came alone. I didn't know you're going to be here. In 20 years, when he was with my novel, they were like, everyone was in high gate puns at the same time? What was the ducks of sort?

Yeah. Yeah, it's one of those things. When I started reading this one, I was like, I had no idea they were together. But they were together a decade. They did fall out towards the end. Very sad. Yeah. She didn't go to his funeral.

And was the detail about her daughter? Which is a bit of a spoiler. Spoiler, spoiler, spoiler. Oh no, it's not a spoiler if it's true biographically. I couldn't find enough details, but yeah, something. It did seem like George Sand's daughter, Solange. Salange as well, because it's Beyonce's sister that was throwing me the whole way through. That's not really Beyonce sister, by the way.

Oh, okay. Salange definitely perhaps when she became 17, perhaps something was happening with her in Chopin because George took her away from Chopin at that point in reality. But I feel like Nell Stevens has made a story that's something. Perhaps a presumption. She's written Solange's thoughts of like, yeah, I did want something to happen. But from what I was looking in reality, I'm not sure how much evidence.

She didn't marry him, for example. But I think there probably was something going on between Chopin and the daughter. And the daughter, Georgia Sand's daughter, Solange was a writer. Yeah. And Maurice was also a writer, became a writer and it illustrated. The whole family seem, yeah, amazing, basically. And George Sand's grandmother, who she talks about in the book, this book as well, also was like a women's rights activist.

Yeah, like incredible, amazing, bohemian family. Yeah. Do you think knowing a bit of the biography helps with the reading? So obviously I had none, and I just keep wondering, you know, like with Julia, I was like, oh, I would hate to read this if I hadn't read 1984. I've not read any George Sand novels. And so several of them are talked about. Well, I haven't either.

What really makes me want to read them. And then I wonder if I wish I'd done it the other way around. Yeah. When I first read it, I didn't know anything. Right, okay. So then I went and started digging around to be like, actually, what is true here? So I think you can still enjoy this book. Being as both of us knew nothing, but probably you can probably enjoy it more.

And even if every character was made up, like, I don't know what Chappan's music sounds like. Oh, I went and listened to it after you. Did you not want to? No, no. It's just for such dweeds. We're taking him to. I'm dancing and you're going off to listen to a little bit of Chopin because the book was so inspiring. What is embarrassing as I was like, didn't you? Didn't you go and listen to it, Tara?

Didn't you want to take the MDMA? I've never taken MDMA. Oh, really? You were once cool. You were once cool. I wasn't. You're cooler than I was. I've always had radio full in the background.

So you listen to some Chopin? Because she names some of the chapters specific. Yes, yes. And again, so I can't even think what the word is saying. So this is trouble when you're really. Prelude number nine in E major. When you read something that you don't understand, because I don't understand music, especially don't understand classical music.

I go, no, like my brain just goes, not relevant. Oh, it was really nice to listen to it. Was it? Because it was amazing. Really? Yeah. It's funny when you don't know how lame you are. No, no, no, no.

No, and you're like, this is one of those things that happened to me in my entire life. And I'm like, why are people laughing? Like, doesn't everyone do this? This is my life experience of like, you don't realize something is super not cool. Until sometimes it's perfect. It's not about not cool. I actually think It's so sincere

The earnestness It's gorgeous It's gorgeous and it's wonderful And it's probably what's lacking From a lot of our lives That's what I've always said I don't need to take MDMA Because I'm listening to Chopin and reading books

I'm pretty happy There's a really beautiful description Of Chopin playing the piano And at this point He's playing a piano That's awful and out of tune I've got these mute It doesn't work properly

But the cascading sound So Chopin He's very sickly He's sort of got Everyone thinks he's got consumption and he's not well and he's coughing and the reason they go to miyorka is to try and get him better yeah now this is incredible because she takes into me yorka in the winter and when they arrive there our ghost is like blanka her name is is like but it's about to be freezing here like

they don't even know that it's not a place it's not winter sun place like it gets these storms and it's cold and it's damp yeah she takes him to this monastery which is between two mountains so it gets no sunshine do you know why they chose miyoka i feel like george just did what the fuck she wanted and often did things wrong. Like, I think she just got it wrong. And then that is, she should have gone to the South of France. Creative people do find that sort of planning. Yeah, it feels like she just gets a being hub on it.

Like, oh yeah, Mallorca, that's where we should go. And she just finds this monastery and drags a very sick man, Chopin, who's deeply sick, her two children. With them trying to get her children away from their dad, who had attempted to kidnap them and done things like that, maybe that was the other reason to be somewhere where he wasn't going to be able to easily find them. Although, no, I don't think so

because about this point she has custody. And he, when, I mean, you say kid, that, he took Salange for two weeks and then she screamed and then she was taken back. I don't think he actually wants his kids, the dad. He wants to hurt her. And also the implication, which is also based on truth, is that Salange is not his.

That her husband definitely, Maurice is his son, but the Salang is fathered by someone else because she was having, they were both having so many affairs at that time. When you write about a character like this, I guess being so independent. Yeah, so independent, so impulsive. It's very hard to imagine how annoying they might be. Oh, I think she does.

Yeah, and I think now Stephen does that quite well because Blanca loves George. So this 14-year-old ghost who has become more mature is in love with George, wants to have sex with George, wants to be her. But I think you get across from Blanca's irritation at how much stuff she gets wrong. Like that great scene when she goes down to try and buy food,

but she's dressed as a man and she's smoking, she brings her kids and her daughter's also dressing as a man and she's rude and they don't turn up to mass like you can see that George has no consideration for any rules which of course is like oh that's cool but equally when you drop into society

which is deeply Catholic and you know and also they speak Spanish they speak Spanish they make no attempt to speak Spanish or they do it's in this terrible accent and yeah it I feel like she captures the madness of George's character in that she doesn't seem to...

The frenetic energy of her. This energy that she has is amazing, but there seems to be no ability to think what other people might look like. There's a couple of times where she sort of disregards what's going on with her children. Oh, yeah. And I wouldn't say it's anywhere near neglect.

I would say it's distraction. It's on the edge of neglect. Do you think so? Yeah, when Solange comes back from being attacked, and she's like, oh, you're fine. Well, she doesn't even really absorb what she looks like. like what's happened to her.

I think George sees what she wants to see. And I do think Nell Stevens has got that across. I feel like you really get a sense of this woman, George, and how unusual she is. And Chopin, and I think she's kind of, it's a bit of a study in art, isn't it? Because they're both these great artists who clearly, when they are doing the thing they're meant to do,

are amazing. With both of them, she describes these, like, sort of like twitchy fingers when they're doing stuff that isn't composing or writing. And that as a symbol is enough to go. They don't want to be there. They don't want to be there. Real life is not their consideration. They're trying to remember that thing they were just doing

that they want to get back to. And it's interesting, isn't it? Because we're so used to, like, male artist figures, you know, being these geniuses and having a wife that does everything. And I think it's interesting that Chopin chose and was attracted to a woman like George who was his equal, who wasn't going to like, I'll take care of you, I'll do everything. She tries to take care of him, but she sort of has her sunset.

He's ill when you take care of them. He's ill when you don't. Like you don't fix the problems. You're not so caring and nurturing that you make his life easy. Oh, I understood that as him to be saying, so it doesn't matter. Yeah. As in you mustn't think you need to be there for him because you can't stop him being ill. But it's interesting that a more traditional why figure would have made his life better.

But also I feel so defensive of her on that behalf because it's like you've already got two kids. Oh yeah. Totally. I mean, this is so annoying about being a straight woman. taken on a child. That's interesting, isn't it? Because that is a very, a mindset that makes sense in 2024. But that is the mindset that George has.

So I definitely wouldn't be an attacker for it. It's just interesting that at that time, you would expect Chopin to choose a woman who is going to be submissive. That's it. Or usually what they would have is a wife and then lovers. You would have a lover who would your equal and your, you know, stimulating company. He's obviously in love with George.

And she is this fascinating, like you said, iconic. And yeah, I looked at some pictures of it. she absolutely stunning. Like she is absolutely beautiful. So I can see why there was this like thing about her. But yeah, it's like two artists trying to survive in normality. There's a wonderful detail in the book where it says that both of them, you know, finished their work and sold it and got paid.

And I love that practicality of it because I don't want artists to be, for them, I don't want them to be languishing in poverty. I do want them to be able to do a bitter business as well. Well, that's what I found interesting, which I didn't know, is that she was so successful in her lifetime. So she was, yeah, more successful than Balzac. Yeah. She's more successful than him and Victor Hugo.

She was so well-known that Dostoevsky was reading her, mentioning her. Elizabeth Barrett Browning writes two poems about her. Like, she was phenomenally successful in her time. Is it just because we didn't do her at uni? Or is she not that widely read anymore? I think she's huge in France. And I think she's just slightly, I wonder as well, because she's prolific. in that way that like Victor Hugo

he did write Le Miz, didn't he? Yeah, so like he has one that has been transferred to a musical or a film. George doesn't seem to have a book that everyone knows. We should write a musical about it. So she has a book where the narrator is a ghost, a teenage girl ghost. George?

Yeah. Oh, yes, there is a bit I was rereading. Sorry, yes, yes, she does. I don't know what book that's referring to do. Yeah, and that's the kind of thing I would love to know. Yes. Because I felt like the author was telling me

something quite significant, which is this conceit is something from George's out. That's fair. Yeah, yeah. I also thought that. She does have a book. Actually, I think it's the Winter in Miorca book has been adapted five times for Polish television.

And I was like, that must be like in Poland, like a really well-known, like Pride and Prejudice. Like, oh God, another version of George Sand to Winter in Miorca. Yeah. I was like how funny that we don't have anything like that at all. We have Gerald Daryl's, my family and other animals, which is summer in Crete. It reminded me of my family and other animals actually.

It's very, like, I mean, very different tone. But like that same thing of foreigners abroad and the madness that comes with trying to live in a country that before internet or communications or phones like, how do you get a piano from Paris to Miorga? Yeah. And that horrible storm they go through when they go to Parma to try and get the piano back and like. And essentially they're climbing a mountain in a donkey and cart and then after a river breaks its banks just crawling. Crawling through mud. Yeah. And like that, that decision, everybody is saying the ghost is trying to say to George.

like just stay in this town for the night. All the drivers are like, just stay in this town. But George's like, no, we have to go back. And that's when you feel like not negligent mother, but somebody who is not able to put aside the thing that she wants to happen. Yeah. And so you as a reader... It's the definition of single-mindedness, isn't it?

It's like, I've made... It's this, so it's only that. No other information can be absorbed. And you as the reader and Blanker the Ghost are screaming at her a lot of, like, what are you doing? You're about to nearly kill yourself and your son because you won't just stay in a... Just stay in a town for a night before the storm passes over.

That to me was like, why wouldn't you just... Like, oh, okay, well, we'll go in the morning because it's pissing it down. No, like, I need to go back to this monastery. I mean, she's a fascinating character. Well, there was such an undercurrent of sex. Yes. And not even an undercurrent.

It's just such a current of sex running through it. So Blanca story is so important as a representation of teenage sex. sexuality, female sexuality, which then means that it's not so heavy. She doesn't have to talk so much about Georges and Salanges because we've already heard about some sort of active female desire, passion. Oh, and periods as well. Oh, so much stuff about periods.

And it's really great to have the presence not only of menstruation, but menstruation when there is no proper pain relief. Like drink a cup of hot water. I know. Blanker sister says have hot water, the cramps get too bad. And I was like, I've never heard. Well, there's a story. in it.

I know one of the very many stories of a girl who doesn't want to menstruate and doesn't know how to stop it. And so essentially starves herself. Yeah, it becomes anorexic and dies because she doesn't want these periods. It's a descendant of Blankers because Blanker stay, obviously stays in New Yorker and watches her family. So occasionally the chapters flick between Blanker watching George and Chopin and then Blanket. There's always these chapters called I Remember where Blanker goes back to what happened

to her and her family. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff, isn't there, about menstruation? And the female body. body, this isn't a particular wheeler, I don't think, but Blanca as a teenager becomes pregnant completely unknowingly. The two things you know about Blanca, number one is that she's

dead and she died at 14 and then she has descendants. So what you do know right from the beginning is she must have had a child. A child, yeah, yeah, who survives. But she gets pregnant without understanding at all what's happening to her or that she can get pregnant until

someone says, you're massive, your belly's massive. Yeah, she has the innocence of, so she has these sexual desires for this novice monk. Yeah. And he tells her about sort of washing sperm away, but he doesn't really know either. He is so clueless. Yeah.

I hated him. Did you? Yeah, I did. Especially on the reread. Because I kind of knew where, like, what he was doing. And I was like, oh, yeah, such a, yeah, like I felt like I wanted to shout when Blanker starts running after him. You're like, don't go.

Blanker's sister is like much more traditional. and she's marrying the like man in the next village and she's kissed him but she says to blank obviously I won't do anything until we're married but she's like I'll tell you about it if you want and then blank is like I'm already having sex with this monk yeah there's a lot of stuff about that I mean yeah I liked all that I thought it was really I suppose especially in comparison to George yeah you've got this this woman who is choosing not to be a woman really like she's not you know she's a mother but she's not mothering like mothers at that time she's not being a wife like a wife would be at that time.

She is sort of completely lost in the middle. She behaves like a man. She's untraditional. Yeah. And what could be considered manly just because really it's free. Yeah. Which is so sad, isn't it? It's amazing.

When Blanca first sees her kissing Chopin, she thinks it's two men kissing. And she describes how many monks she's seen kissing. I really like that bit. Like all these monks throughout the years that she's seen having affairs, which also made me go, oh yeah, of course they did. Of course monks did that Back in the 18th century Probably did have affairs

And she sees George and Chopin She's like oh There's these two men And then she gets closer It's like oh that's a woman And I was like Yeah You've got this comparison of

Her sexuality Solangha's sexuality The other women of the Yorkan village You're a very traditional You know Very traditional Catholic country And then George

Who just breaks every rule going The description of George Sand and Chopin's sex as being like how women do it. Yeah. It's really just like a fingering. Yeah, I thought that was interesting. It was interesting. I think it was a really great dimension to it.

Yeah. And I felt like as a writer, that's what she was trying to, if she was asking herself a question in scenes, it was, and what was really happening to the body? What was happening in terms of menstruation? Yeah. Which would be happening to the female characters with uteruses, whether they liked it or not.

Yeah. And then what are the characters doing for each other in terms of arousal and then getting each other off? And I felt like she kept saying, she kept going slightly further than I expected her to do. Not in a coconut dildo way, coconut oil dildo way, but in a very like, this is what people have done for hundreds of years. Yeah. Well, also I think she was trying to say something about Chopin and George's love, which is, I don't know, isn't it? It's like, well, they do it like two women do.

So he's not like. So is equality? Yeah. And also it's like their relationship isn't traditional, I suppose. who's like, you know, she is the one making decisions. She seems to have more money in control than he does. And then their lovemaking is also not like... And he wants to pleasure her.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because I'm making it sound like, and he did not do it the man way. Because she describes her husband having an affair, doesn't he, George? And that's much more graphic and upsetting. Yeah. And really like, you know, she's like his trousers were down and the maid skirts are up and...

She can smell her vulva. Oh, yeah, I thought that was... That's what I mean. kept going slightly further. Yeah, yeah, that's true, actually. I hadn't thought, yeah. Because I think you said that to me as well, didn't you? You said, oh, like, isn't that the really sexy one?

And I was like, yeah. I just remember George Sand and Chopin. The minute I saw Sarah Waters is the first blurb on the cover, I thought, there's going to be some kind of loggis in this book. Not enough for my liking, actually. Well, she was just, she was just subtle, but there was actually loads of it. Yeah, I think I was so surprised that George Sand had a relationship with Chopin. I just couldn't believe it.

It was like. It is really interesting, even when reading slowly, how much your brain can grip onto certain things and disregard. Madonna and John Grishol. Yeah, it's like really a book being like, I didn't know Madonna and John Grisham were together for 10 years. Madonna, obviously the model equivalent of Chopin, everybody. And John Grishol from the modern day, George Sand.

It's literally all I could think of. Yeah, and the cover they've done that. I think they tend to do this with books with sex that are also about women. A bit of orange peel, fruit. Forbidden fruit. It's because of Stephanie. Sali, did you ever follow her on Instagram? No. It's awful because it got stolen

in so many ways, but she used to put a bit of oil on fruit and then finger it. And then it got stolen by so many companies and adverts and it was really and that's all she would do is she'd just like rub her finger around a mango and then put it in. Oh yeah, tangerines and she'd just find all different fruits and just and it was so suggestive. Yeah.

But it's just fruit. It's just like beautifully lit. And they do use that constantly enough for women. Pomegranates. Yeah. Yeah. It's always like this is full. This is lady sex. Yeah. This is not your man sex. It's because they can't put smell of the vulva on the front.

Great smell of vulva, Sarah Waters. Yeah. That's not the quote she wanted to put on there. They can't put some beef curtains. Oh, Sarah! I wish I was in publishing. You thought, now Stevens went too far. No, I was going too far on purpose to say what they can't do.

I read the phrase beef curtains in so long. It's because you're not a school. Yes, I guess what I was like. You know, secondary school on the bus. Why be? I should say. That's not the tone she takes in the book, but it's not far off at times.

Yeah. Because there's an earthiness to it, and it's very, very conscious. Earthiness is the middle class way of saying beef curtains. Now you've matured. Yeah. There's an earthiness to this text. She mentions your beef curtains a lot.

I've picked up on it a lot because... It's in there, though, you're right. I'm always very aware an author decides not to. It's much easier not to. She definitely goes there. But there are so many absences of the wheel, body in literature. Yes, that when an author, especially a female author in a feminist way, says, boom.

Yeah. She's bleeding. Yeah. And I love the description of when Solange gets her period. Yes, I love that. Well, that's why. It's great. To have characters being, I guess, naive about it and troubled by the bleeding at the

beginning to then right near the end have a character not be thrown, literally curious about what the blood feels like on their fingers. Yeah. and thumb until it's like, yeah, and that's so effective because you've had periods the whole way through. You can't just suddenly go, and guess what? I guess what? Actually, you're right, aren't you?

Because it's so interesting because you don't, it's so rare you get that in literature. So it's so rare we understand what a female character thought of her period was actually, that's fucking telling what a character thought of getting their first period. What they know is their relationship with their body, their relationship with shame, their mother, sex. Yeah, that's really interesting.

And it should be applauded when it happens. It's like one of the really exciting things about Fleabag and girls was having sort of television representations of... Oh, Broad City. Do you remember Broad City? When that came up as well, you were just like, oh, they're talking like how women do talk when they're having these conversations.

I've never seen that before. Yeah, because it adds a whole other dimension to it. Well, you also realise how fake everything's been. And when you see a real one, you're like, oh, yeah, that every female conversation I've seen in films has sort of been not how women really speak. I've been watching Shadow versions. It's a man who hasn't listened to any women.

Imagining. And that's why it's like pillow fights in our pants. Oh, God. Did you like it? I did like it. It made me want to read George Sand first. So George Sand is the original, as in from her own. Original French.

You'd like to read the original French. Yeah, maybe I want to go back to the source. It may we want to know about so many other things. Yeah. I didn't love the narration. Yeah, yeah. But that's not, didn't like it. And that's not a criticism of it.

It felt a bit teenager because it was narrated by a teenager. And then there would be occasional passages where I think, oh, that's such a lovely passage, or I guess it's me sort of coming out of it a bit. I felt I didn't know some books the second you read when you're inside them. I didn't have that. I felt like I was reading a book. It's funny because I loved it the first time.

But I think, again, because I didn't know, like, George or Chopin. And so I felt like every chapter you were like, and then what happened, then what happened? Like, what are they going to do? And the reread, I found it a bit trickier because I was like, it felt like there was lots of stories because there is, Blanca has a massive own story about her family and what happened to her and how she died. I really, I did, I have to say, I didn't love the reread,

but who rereads books unless you have a book podcast? I've never reread so many books. Also, I love the first read. I'd recommend it. I've got no criticisms of it. It's more, I guess we're reading so much at the moment. And some books, the second, the second you start and the center of, the sort of enveloping, you're like, oh my God, I'm so glad I'm reading this.

This was a very, very enjoyable read. And I'm sure it's a read that I will look in my life, which is hopefully very long, and I'll have many lovers. I was occasionally push on someone and go, oh, you go to New Yorker. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've got a book you could read or, oh, you're listening to Chopin. And I mean, this is nice. It's quite a good holiday read.

It really makes you want to go on holiday and wear big trousers. And also because it's not too, like, there's a scene in it where they dance in the rain. Yeah, that's so nice. Even if you're on holiday and it suddenly rains, I think you'll feel better about it. Because your book must reflect your holiday. I meant like, I don't think it's asking too much of your brain, but it's a good story. And I think especially if you don't know those characters, you're like, wow, what amazing people who lived like all those time ago. Like this is amazing.

And actually that's the thing about the narrator is that she does give it a lightness even where there's lots of children with child death. Yes, there is a lot of stuff in that. And because she is, you know, from the past looking into her. the future, that means every character, you know, is dead. Yeah. Spoiler, Chopin is dead. Yeah, and that's why I thought, like, yeah, you know that these people are dead. Yeah.

Yeah, I really enjoyed it. And that's what also having, because a lot of stuff I sometimes read is very heavy, I think I really enjoyed it when I read it two years ago because it was like, it's just someone telling me a story. It's very sensory and it's very evocative. Yeah. I think the people who write that on the back are right. And you know what I'm like about sizing.

It's not so light that you're going to finish. it too quickly. I don't know far off weighing books before you read them. Oh, I'm there. You put that in your bag, you're not going to feel it. Get it out, you're not going to be annoyed to holding it. Normal paperback size. I think it's exactly right what you say.

It's a page turn that you could take on holiday, but also if you wanted to delve more deeply into it, I think it offers you that. Yes, yes. Yeah. And offers you a bibliography afterwards as well. Does it? No, it's in like, you can then go and read George Sand and you can listen to Chopin and you can.

Dear Nell Stevens. I seem to be missing my bibliography from my copy. Don't worry, I YouTube the Chopin, found that. We should do with George Sand. Are you going to read the bit the last time? Some nights she did nothing but write, and others she did nothing but cross out what she had written the night before. Several times she fed pages to her candle,

as carefully as though she was spooning porridge to an infant. Oh, I love that. That's great. It's beautiful. And also, I guess that's the thing about the mothering, being used for writing rather than the actual kids, which I love. Five Weirdo's thumbs up.

That sounds so wrong, doesn't it? Fingered five oranges. Six pomegranates and a bit of oil. Grape up your ass. And close those beef curtains. Thank you for listening to Weirdo's Book Club. And next week's book guest is Send Nudes by Sabah Sam's. Sarah's novel Weirdo and my book, You Are Not Alone, are both available now.

And check out our Instagram at Sarah and Carriead's Weirdo's Book. Club for the upcoming books we're going to be discussing. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you.