Sara & Cariad's Weirdos Book Club - In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan with John Kearns

Episode Date: October 12, 2023

This week's book guest is In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan.Sara and Cariad are joined by comedian, Taskmaster star and double Edinburgh Comedy Award winner John Kearns to discuss hippies, Harry Styles (again), Beat poets and more! Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you!Trigger warning: This book contains reference to suicide. In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan is available to buy here or on Apple Books 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 John on Twitter @johnsfurcoatTickets for John's tour show 'The Varnishing Days' are available 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 Weirdo's 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 In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Broughtigan. What's it about? In Watermelon Sugar is set in the aftermath of a fallen civilization. There's a commune called Eye Death. They're trying to live in peace in the shadow of a violent past.

What qualifies it for the Weirdo's Book Club? Well, the main character has no name. Everything in the commune is made of watermelon sugar. or trout juice, and they talk about carrots a lot. In this episode we discuss hippies, Harry Styles, beat poets, sad childhoods, and having your girlfriend on the front cover. And joining us this week is John Kearns. John is an award-winning comedian, the only person to have won best newcomer and then-best show

at the Edinburgh Fringe in concurrent years. He is also Sarah Pascoe's able assistant on Dave's Guessable. And he was a contestant on the 14th series of Taskmaster, and today he's agreed to read a very weird novel with us. We have a trigger warning. In this episode, there are references to suicide. John Kearns! Thanks for having me. Hello. Thank you so much for being here to discuss in Waterman and Sugar by Richard Bortigand. Yeah. If we are even really here, maybe we're actually in a place called I. Podcast

Studio. Yeah. I player death podcast studio. Yeah, there's a lot of that. I, John Kearns. John Kearns. Yeah. I Kearns. I'm going to put it. I Kearns and I Pascoe. Yeah. Before we book, you. Yeah. When we were trying to find a date, there was some trepidation that you didn't want a long book. So we chose a really short one.

A light is light. Look at it. You could pop that in a top pocket of a suit jacket. Yeah, you wouldn't even crease your shirt up, would you? Yeah. Which I have done. Yeah. Okay.

So it's pretty, I mean, I say 140 pages. Some of them are just half, halves or thirds. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I like that. Not even full. Absolutely brilliant. So we chose you the shortest, but we could.

Yep. How'd you get on? Percy, we should start with a little bit about what it's about. Okay, sorry. Let's be kind to do, before we... Okay. So... In water, manor sugar.

In water, man and sugar. I know. Have you had that in your head the whole time? The whole time, the Harry Star's tune, which was inspired by his book. Well, the title of the book. Yes, here's the thing. I know what you're going to say. Yeah.

All right. I'm with you. Just... So... I just want you to know. The song is not inspired by it. No. He's sort of...

it on the side. He saw it. Yeah. Yes. And stole the title. And hadn't read the book. Despite its lightness, styles couldn't even be asked to do 140 pages. Even on a lunch break, recording his album. What's he reading on his phone? Also, surely you'd have to read it. Because imagine if someone was like, oh, that book is really offensive, Harry. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Maybe one of his people read it. That's a book about slavery. Why have you called your song, watermelon and sugar over again? Marlamelea sugar. It was a great phrase. So it's written by Richard Bortem. Very excited dads who've written articles about the fact that Richard Broughtigan has been brought back into fashion by Harry Stiles. But he hasn't and he wasn't and it's nothing to do with the book.

Well, those are excited dads. They're just hoping their youth comes back, aren't they? But it's not. It's not. It's about a man who lives in a place called IDEF, which is made of watermelon, sugar, and trout juice. Trout oil. And pine. Something's a pine.

And it's sort of a commune. I would say it's a very, it was published in 1968, and it's very, very summer of love, end of 60s, slightly trippy, you don't quite know what's real. Perhaps we could all live in a commune together, and maybe that would be fine. Dream like surrealism. Short chapters, just for John.

Not too long, nice and quick. A abrupt ending. So yeah, if you haven't heard of Waterman and Sugar, that's roughly the story. It's about a man living on a sort of commune. inner shed and the people who live there. That's basically, yeah, what is about. How did you get on?

How did you get on? First off, I'm a slow reader. Yeah. I think it's because you absorb it properly. Yeah. The first time, we went to Melbourne and you were reading John Gray, so I know you read heavy books, meaningful books. I do.

And you think about what you've read. I do think about what I've read. But I buy books thinking that's definitely what I need in my brain. those are the thoughts I need, that will challenge me. And then I crack it open and by the end of page one, I'm like, hmm. Don't want to be challenged. I'm not who I am. The problem was, so when I went, yeah, give me something short if that's all right.

The short of the book, the more meaning there is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a poem, right? The shortest book of all. Yeah. Yeah, no, they're not. It was true. But like, so I thought, you know, I thought, if you give me like something 600 pages, I'm like, that is a lot of rope for me to, you know, do some damage to myself.

So I thought, if it's short, I can get my head around it. Yeah. But we sent you a short psychedelic novel. Wait, no, you've set me a psychedelic novel. Yeah. That is a parable. Yeah. Yeah.

So, you know, I read a New York Times review of it from the time. Yeah. Oh, yes, yes. I read that. They said it cannot be summarized. Well, I disagree. I just did it. Well, you did it actually. I'm looking at you going, yeah, that is what it was about. But that ignores any meaning. I'm just telling you literally what I would argue that that is true of all books.

Yeah. Because if they could be summarized, you could tweet it. You wouldn't need to write an entire book. Exactly. That's very true. What, you could tweet the book? If any book could be summarized, fairly, it's not fair to summarize any book. I feel like there's too big a question for John. I'm going to get stuck on that and I need to get back to the book. That question itself was made from watermelon sugar. Because we haven't actually gotten... Well, that's the thing with this book.

I mean, you know, Jesus Christ, you're reading it. You think you're onto something. You're like, finally, I get what's going? And then he goes, and I put my mug down on the table that was made of watermelon sugar. You're like, what the fuck is he talking about? But it tells you right at the beginning. Oh, so everything is made of water. Everything is made of water.

For the listener. For the listener. Yeah. But the reason is because everything that they have is made out of watermelon sugar and everything they have is life. Yeah. Easy. He says that right at the beginning. Yes.

He says it at the beginning. Imagine my joy when I read that. Right, what's this book? I'll be giving it. Page one, everything's made out watermelon sugar. We make a great many things are watermelon sugar here. I'll tell you about it, including this book being written near I-death. All this will be gone into, travelled in watermelon sugar.

There are people listening now going, Jesus. Christ. 1968, mate. 1968. Yep. Well. He was a beat poet. the last of the beat poets is known as.

So he was at a time where you could write everything's made of watermelon chalet and people wouldn't go, what? They went, yeah. Well, you say that because this is a heavy influence to the Mighty Bush, which is a much more modern incarnation of everything's made of watermelon sugar. There's only one scene I find annoying.

Oh yeah. Because I really like this book. You really like this book. Do you tell you why? It reminds me of CBD. I think you're going to say CBBs, when it went off for to CBD. But it's like, what, a watermelon theme for the week? The oil? Yeah, have you taken CBD oil before bed?

I know, I know if it's effects. You know, you know if it's effects. So, you know, your brain's not switched off. Yeah, but it's sort of like melliser. You're not high. No. But you're a slightly lazier. That's soporific feeling is how I feel about this book.

Well, look, I may have given the wrong impression. I didn't not like this book. All right. Yeah, yeah, it's hard not to, like, to actively dislike it, I think. But you can be frustrated by it. Like all good beatniks. You like them, but get a job. Come on, shave your beard.

What's going on? There was a segment I found annoying. Oh, yes. Because it reminded me of a sort of a kind of man in a nightclub who won't say he was real name. Oh, God. Yeah, this fear. This bit. So it's like, if you're thinking about something that happened a long time ago, somebody asked you a question, you did not know the answer.

That is my name. Perhaps it was raining very hard. That is my name. But that's directly, there's a mighty bush scene. where a character does that whole thing. I've forgotten that. Yeah. Your name's Richard.

That's your name. I first heard of this author on a podcast, Robin and St. Josie's bookshambles, and it's Noel Fielding saying this is his favourite author. That explains a lot, doesn't it? Yes. I can see why that. While it's not the 60s, people do still make...

Oh, yes. Yeah, it's still like that. Play with meaning. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In a comedic way. Yes, I can completely answer that. Did you think it was funny, John? I did.

I did find it funny. It reminds... It's right. Where do I begin with this thing? Okay, the one thing I liked about it, surrealism could put people off maybe. Yeah, yeah. Massively.

Oh, yeah. I wouldn't, I wouldn't have read this book if I hadn't. Had to. I was going to say be made or had to. Too awkward to get out of it the night before. Oh, God. And it's not something you can bluff. This podcast, you can't bluff it.

You have to read it. You've got to do your homework. Crucially. For anyone listening to this, maybe a, future guest or something? Yeah. Read the book. You've got to read it.

So what I liked about it, and I think I don't want to make this navel gazing into maybe what a stand-up comedian does, but if you are surreal in your stand-up, you've got to root it somehow. Yes. And all the dialogue is funny. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's quite flat. Yeah, childlike. It's very childlike.

Naive, yeah. Well, it's funny to say that because it reminded me of. it's almost deadpans so it reminded me of like John Classen books like I want my hat back and all that just this kind of I love him it reminded me of children playing

at being grownups that would you like some pie I've made some pie pie is better than carrots no the amazing bit when it's like Twin Peaks yeah yes it's very Twin Peaks when it says about Al

always cooks carrots and then Pauline makes a stew and there's a bit where like somebody says at least it wasn't carrots and everyone goes And Al goes what? And they are like, the stew is nice. Like it's like, don't tell Al that we don't like his carrots.

But then when Al does cook the carrots in his defence, delicious. Yeah, they just sounded spiced. Yeah, that's what, I think also the use of food in it. There's loads of food in it. Again, roots it. Because you read it going like, when they describe breakfast, I don't know, maybe I was hungry when I read the book. Yeah, they met some hot cakes and hash brands.

And I was like, that sounds fantastic. And also, do you want another one? Yeah, he want another one. Pauline's going to make you another hotcake. Oh yeah, she's a great cook, apparently. So, like, the dialogue that they have and what they eat is just very grounding. Yeah, it's almost like English as a second language, isn't it? Like you'd read in a textbook of like, that was nice, thank you.

Or so thank you. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. Oh, yeah, I like that. Yeah, a language textbook. But that's funny, you know, that's like, you know, you're reading that kind of, you know, I was chuckling away. Never said that in my life. But there is a, and I presume anyone reading this won't mind spoilers or anything.

Oh, no, no, no, we're spoiling it. About three quarters of the way through, a character called Margaret. Oh, Margaret's hilarious. She is hilarious. The first mention of Margaret had me chuckling away. Oh, yeah, that's very funny. When he's describing someone basically coming to knock on his door, doesn't open it. And she particularly stands on the same board of a bridge.

Creaky board. I can walk across the bridge hundreds of times without stepping on that board but Margaret always steps on it you just go I feel I've got a vibe

of Margaret from that one sentence so yeah that really mate I loved that so you're going to talk about the trauma of Margaret's ending

is that what you're going to talk about she commits suicide she hangs herself the way it's described in there by the narrator who doesn't have a name name we don't know. Is childlike?

But so is the death of his parents. Yes, who are eaten by tigers. Yes, who are eaten by tigers. Who then do maths with him. Yeah, help him with his arithmetic. They play trumpets. They've got good voices. They've got good voices.

Well, someone said it's like, are they tigers or is this, they use the word tigers, but it's humans in a different form, but that's the word they use, but we're humans that use tigers as meaning an animal. So again, nothing is grounded in that way. Like, you're never quite sure what he means. So how do you read it? Because I, there is obviously, as soon as you read that there's these tigers that eat his parents and then help him with his maths homework. Obviously, your first thought is, oh, what is this an allegory of and all that stuff?

Yeah. But I actually found it much easier. Yeah, I didn't think allegory straight away. I am after tigers. Yeah. I was like tigers. Now, we've got, we have children. We all probably have a copy of the Tiger who came to tea.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's my son's favourite book. Brilliant. That's all I'm picturing. I'm picturing that guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But... D drank all of Dad's beer.

Time to eat your parents. Yeah, I have to tell him not. He says that on the bus a lot. Yeah. It's from the book. From the book. Fine says it as well. It's quite sexist that book.

It is. It's very old. It was written a long time. Yeah. It's a beautiful book. Yeah. Okay. Caron's always defending sexism.

I'll defend it to love. the women come home, as they should. I'll defend it till the women come home. I'll march on that. I will march on that. I've written, horror is described with exaggerated civility. Oh, that's a very good sentence.

Thank you. You should be writer. Can I tell you why I don't think it's allegory? Because I death, which obviously is before Apple. Yes, before I player. It is talked about, and I'm probably going to misremember, I think it might be Carl Jung, but as ego death.

So if you take ego out of everything, you have a life quite similar to this one in watermelon sugar. Yeah, yeah. With the Inboil gang. So we should say there's a person called Inboil, who is the brother of Charlie. He's sort of a baddie. He is a definite baddie.

He goes and makes whiskey and hangs out with the forgotten works, which you take to be. And the whiskey's made it even more stinky. It was really real and disgusting, wasn't it? Yeah, they seemed gross, those guys. They seem to be insolid. And there's threatening, they're threatening behaviour from them, which is completely self-directed when it does finally happen.

Yes, that there is a horrific scene where they kind of march on the camp of ID death to shout and say that this is a lie, this is fake. That's why I thought it was about ego death, because they're saying, you don't know ID-death, this is all a joke, you're not even doing I-death, this is I-death, and they start chopping off their own ears and noses and thumbs. Faces, and they basically, yes, chop themselves up. This is ego death, like literally the death of the cell. I

it's really I mean God you it's one of those books you could put anything onto it because it is so

allegorical and simple but this is a question for everybody I don't know if he knows I don't feel like Richard Borgicant knows

the writer is in control I don't think so I think he's just putting down this stuff that's coming out of his head yeah

and because you know in 1968 and he also he does tell you at the end how quickly he wrote it pretty deadly quickly

three months yeah and he apparently he did this and all of his books, he would write how much, and it was a kind of a brag. And he would also, on the cover of all of his books, have a picture of himself and his current girlfriend.

Yeah, the muses. I read an article, or started to read an article by a man saying how nice it was that at least the women who inspired it were actually sort of photographed? No, it was whoever he was with at the time. They weren't inspired. And the first book that he's very famous for, trout fishing in America. Yes, I've read that one as well. The woman on that, that became very well known.

So the girlfriend at the time, watermelon and sugar, like, went to quite an. effort for her picture because she knew this was about to become one of those 1960s pictures where people go, oh, you're so-and-so from that book cover. So there's that going on as well. And he was accused very much of not being particularly great with his female relationships. And he also came from a very, lots of trauma in his background as well. But my feeling, yeah, do you agree, I don't think he's, I don't think he knows what he means by watermel. So it doesn't matter. Well, doesn't matter. He can matter to you. He's put in the, he's put in the, he's put in the, the tracks down.

Yeah. You know, like when grommets on the train. I think he's doing that. Yeah, but he's not expecting to know where he's going. So the other word I wrote down, and I hate that I wrote this down, is jazz. I've never wrote down that word. I hate it. My dad's a jazz musician.

I've got a jazz dad. I love jazz. Okay, so this is jazz improvisation, which is that you set in place. I agree with you. And the people who do it, I consider themselves geniuses. Whether it is or not. Look, but the thing is, the amazing thing about watching it happen is laying down some notes and motifs and sounds and then strengthening them.

And that's what this book does. Margaret, it is Margaret's story and you don't see that coming. It sets up really small details about the watermelon sugar, about the watermelons. Oh, the watermelons are different colours every day. It's the same colour as the sun. The sun changes colour, yeah. There's such coherence in the way that those things are built up. Yeah, I agree with it.

It's not done latitudes. So there's a statue of a parsnip over there. Later on, finding out about the obsession with vegetables. There's a Beach Boys album called Smile, and there's a track called Vegetables. And I've always been baffled by it. It's like the way Brian Wilson phrases it, he goes vegetables, and then it goes into furniture, and it's just absolutely bonkers. But I was reminded of that reading this book, like that Beach Boys album specifically,

which is, again, late 60s. And I mean, I don't know, you obviously don't want to, well, you can't help it, but it is very much a book of its time. Very much of its time. Yeah, definitely. You know, the book is basically going, why can't we all live where everyone just gets on and lives a nice kind of tranquil? But it is saying that, but it isn't saying that. That's why I think it's interesting because they then all chop themselves up and it's not a safe comment. Because even if there's, even if the tigers have all been burned and there's just a trout hatchery, still you break someone's heart.

And that description of Margaret Sort of standing on nothing in the air Sort of the end of Margaret And her heartbreak And the point is And he replaces her like that With no feelings And he keeps saying it doesn't matter

And even like when her brother finds out she's dead It's like Ah, what was to be done? She was heartbroken Yeah Yeah, the brother's reaction is cold Which is why I think Because all of the death

Whether it's your parents Being eaten by tigers Or it's your sister Or it's the in boil gang They don't have emotional reactions Yeah, there's not There's not consequences. I read another thing saying,

or like it predicts the end of the 60s and the kind of, you know, the horribleness that started coming into. But I don't know if it, yeah, I don't know if that's again, people projecting things. But the reading on it,

if you were alive in the 60s and someone said, he's really summing up here and now, you'd go, what the what? Yeah. This is not, I go to work.

Yeah. I can clean the car. Yeah. What does this I do? What's got to do with me? So I read, again, something I thought was quite helpful.

This is Ryan Britt. genre in the mainstream, Richard Bortikins in Water and Sugar. He said, like many of Borticans work, he asserts his absurd premises with almost aggressive casualness. Sounds like a paradox, but it's completely true. And I thought that was a really good way of summing up of like there is such a casualness to this absurdity, to people dying, your tigers eating your parents and living on a commune.

But it doesn't feel like he is knowingly saying, oh, there's something wrong with the world and I'm allegorically telling you about it. It didn't feel like that he had a message he knew. needed to give you. It reminded me of. So you know in Edinburgh, and I know we'd bring back to much to the Edinburgh Festival,

but when someone gets a review of being like a gentle comedian, like a wonderful hour, lovely storyteller, nice gentle show, because there were times where I thought he could have like really banged in a joke. Yeah, yeah, he doesn't.

Makes a conscious decision not to. The phrases I loved where he would slightly use the wrong word. So the tigers were in bloom. I really loved. Or how his father raised watermelons. They're almost the exact right word and we know exactly what you mean, but there's this

lovely, her smile was the colour of her nipples. It's so nice because, you know, he knows exactly what he's doing. He's a good writer. He's not pushing it too far. There's a, that's what I mean about the cohesiveness of it. He's restrained. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, he was a poet as well.

And I think you can, like you said, we're joking it short. But maybe his poems were too funny and that's why he had to go write a bit and write some silly books now. He became... Imagine if you were reading her out, her smile was the colour of her nipples and everyone's laughing. Her smile.

It was the colour of her nibbles. He became massively unpopular in the 70s and 80s. And as we should, I'm sure most people, he's quite famous for having killed himself in the 80s. Like Hemingway did. Yeah, but he really fell out of favour because it's so of its time,

because it's so psychedelic. And so then as novel writing obviously became about gritty and witty and realism and like what's happening and then obviously this oh it's watermelon sugar is like so popular was that active unpopular because i think people could be so sensitive richard no it lost in america like his book didn't sell as well and he was massive in japan so he used to go to japan and his second wife was um japanese american and he was still popular in europe um but america he didn't quite he was called the last of the beat and i think it was thought he was

going to be, you know, as high and famous as the others. And he didn't. He didn't quite reach. He's famous for those books, but he didn't quite reach the levels and then his book stopped selling. I'm so interested in like the money, because he sold four million copies of trout fishing in America. That was his biggest one. So what did you just spend it on Richard? Well, drunk's, I think. Just keep your money. And the beginning of the book, I mean, I'm asking you here, though, your teachers. We've all read this book and I'm going, help me. So at the beginning, he doesn't like Margaret at all. Well, he was with Margaret, but the beginning is after the event within Boyle.

Yeah. Yes, so at the beginning, so it split to three points. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we find out his emotions towards Margaret, then the backstory of being to loving Margaret. They were clearly together. They were sort of coupled up. Yeah. But he rejects her after she hang out with.

Coupled up. We made it sound like Love Island. There was a recoupling. A recoupled before me. I've only seen one episode. I meant it like in a 50s way. Like they were coupled up. Oh, God.

He got a text. It was made out of watermen and sugar. Oh, gosh. What's the other place they go to in Love Island? Oh, Casa Amor. Is that, is that, what, that's it? That's it. Next Ida.

You go to shacks outside of I death. Past Ida is Casar Amor. Margaret always walks across the bridge to knock for you. Yeah. The walk, imagine my job. Margaret and Pauline are having a meeting in Casaramo. Imagine my general just that walk she does going into the house, but she steps on a squeaky floor. Creaky floor.

And they're like, oh, no, she's here. Every time. She's here. a hundred bridges that were a million miles long. Mark and nuts. You cannot miss that floorboard. That was something that I latched on to. You know when you're reading, you're like, I don't know.

You have to have a confidence, I think, to read. Not in, to literally read, but to understand it. Yeah. You have to read, and you have to have this little voice in your head going, I understand this, understand what's going on. Doubt, doubt is very off-putting. Yeah. Yeah, and I kind of, I struggle with that a lot,

especially with novels, because I just, you know, I'll kind of doubt myself constantly going, do you know what's going on here? Yeah. Can you remember who that is? Yeah. Okay, just skip the page. No one knows, but you don't know it.

Do you know what? I'm constantly like that. Oh, I do that, yeah. So with this book, there was a couple of things at the beginning where I'm like, like, distances, and he's always talking about the measurements of certain things. Yes. Or like the width of a river can be like a centimetre. Yes, it's a really small river, yeah.

And again, that's where I'm dying myself going, well, I don't know why he's telling me that. Is this a thing? Yeah. Oh, God. Yeah. But as the book goes on, it's a world where, and again, for somebody listening who's never read this book, space and time, it exists in that he kind of, you know, the sun is different colour every day and all that, but it doesn't matter.

Yeah. It doesn't matter how far away something is, although there is one point where he has to walk down to Pauline Shack, and it's longer than he's told it is. That really winds him up. Yeah. It's only half a mile away. Charlie has to walk quite far, and he's old, and that it's his. He struggles with it.

That's what I, that stuck out to me. It's like, well, why is he struggling? There is no time or space. It does exist. There is a geography. The outside and inside exists at the same time. So you've got a living room that you have to cross under a river to get to. So he's quite insistent.

I think it's intentional with this form, like with a surrealist painter, who is going, the things you normally grip onto that make you feel safe because you're being told a story, I will not give you. How big is that? A million miles deal with it. Yeah, the river is... The forgotten works is a million miles and half a million miles. Exactly.

And that's quite kid-like, you know. Yes, that's true. You know, how big, how big was that fish? A kid would stretch out their arms. It was that big. And when he says that thing about the very small river, he goes, we call everything rivers. Yeah.

So it's not a river you're describing them to me. You can't put your... You can't put your feet down, ironically, on this novel. Like, you can't, every time you think you know, I found that reading it every time I was like okay got it got it Margaret's here he's there and then the next thing I'd be like oh hang on no they're not there and the forgotten works is near but not near and then when they reveal that imboil is Charlie's brother because I sort of imagine this sort of creature with in boy it doesn't even seem almost human and then Charlie seems like

this lovely old man and you're like oh so one of them has turned really badly back to the past and seems to be obsessed with the part like you'll never it breaks rules yeah really constantly so there's there's a description of a statue and it doesn't doesn't know who it's off. Yes. And you would never have a writer tell you that. Here's a detail. I don't know who it is.

There's a lot of that. Like at the end of the book. It's a really, really abrupt ending. I turned, I looked for the rest. I was like, that can't be anything. Come on, there must be another bit. What? When he rocks up and he goes, right, we're going to go down there now.

I'm going to show you what I death is. And they're like, what you're going to do? He's like, oh, you'll find out. And he keeps saying no one knows what's going to happen. So you're reading it. going, well, don't ask me. I don't know what's going. And then they go down there and they cut off their noses and thumbs and kill themselves.

And you're like, but they all look at each other going, don't know what happened there. Yeah, I love that bit. One of them so drunk, he keeps poking himself in the wrong places. Oh, they're all pissed again. Yeah, pissed on whiskey. People listening go, what is this? Look, they're all, eye-boil and all of his gang are all lashed on homemade whiskey.

But then that's such a strange. moment because it seems really important and they die in front of them. But again, the people who live in ID death's reaction is like, Oh, Pauline's fuming. She just goes to get her mop. Oh, that's really, that's a, I love that. Yeah, yeah. The last thing I boil sees before he dies is Pauline with a mop, mop in his blood.

Yeah, but annoyedly, annoyed, oh, you've made a mess. Yeah, no, that's a fantastic image. Yeah. But again, like, that makes me laugh because amongst, the shape-shifting, everything made out of watermelon sugar, what tickles you is then this image of a woman just sighing, mopping up blood. Yeah, very domestic, isn't it? Real.

Bloated, bogey man just kind of just dies off to cut his head off, basically. When there are little moments which do feel to be reflective of the real world or real human behaviour, Pauline in that moment, the disaffected unhappy men wanting to. go and live in the past, which is the forgotten works and drink whiskey, that feels authentic. Yeah, that's authentic. That decision, the fact that certain men at a certain point got unhappy with what's going on. So I'm going to go and drink within boil instead and go through the old stuff.

Yeah, that's very much what helps when you're reading like, oh, is he like the beat Nick? And they're the generation that, you know, went through World War II and all that. Drinking whiskey going, oh, you don't know what I guess is really like. Yeah. But he doesn't I don't think I'd be You know If I was someone who

I don't know I was born in the 20s And gone through World War II And I hate beatniks This isn't helping This isn't convincing me Not I'm wrong I'm reading it like

And now I feel very strong Like post COVID Like kids in 20 years Are like oh God Like so what Who cares you guys And now I really feel for those people Those like 19th

We were grown up like being like, oh, those 50s parents were so uptight. And the 60s kids were just trying to grow their hair and be cool. Now you're like, I'm on the side of the 50s parents. They didn't fucking know what real life was, yeah? They haven't lived. If my son in 15 years goes, I've written a book. I'm like, yeah, he goes, yeah, everything's made out of Chinese Five Spice.

And, you know, you old, you old get so like moaning about how you had it tough. Whereas we just get on, yeah, I'll be like, I'm going to cut my nose off in my ears. I'm going to drink a bottle of whiskey and you're going to watch me die, okay? That will show you. That's a bit of life for you. There's a horrible bit, well, not horrible. This is not a bit, I found really tricky, where Pauline is friends of Margaret,

and she says, after Margaret is dead, she says this is horrible. So Pauline said, I feel so bad. Why did she kill herself? Was it my fault for loving you? So there's an emotional reaction. He says, no, it was nobody's fault, just one of those things. But we were such good friends.

We were like sisters, I'd hate to think it was my fault. Don't, I said. And I found that really, and that's the end of that piece, that chapter, if you can call it a chapter. It was like, there's this, people are feeling emotions,

but nobody encourages them, elaborates on them, which actually isn't very 19698, because that was all about like, you feel what you feel, and we can, you know, like we need to get this out there and birth of psychology,

you know what I mean? So I found that really strange that people do feel in the book, but nobody ever allows them anything further. It's devoid of noise. To a point where, and it's actually, it's a beautiful part of the book

and it's it sums up grief because grief obviously can be very violent but again to explain when Margaret dies they start building her a tomb and they use forgive me if I'm not getting this completely right but like blocks of watermelon sugar but they're soundless as well there's no sound there's for about five pages

are black and soundless, yeah. So for five pages of the book, nothing makes a sound. Yeah. Oh, yes, that bit, yeah. Like, you put something on a table. It doesn't make a noise, yeah. And it had weird effect on me in that,

I'd never, to be honest, I've never read a book before where I heard that silence. Yes. As much as here. Yes. He's saying, he's just describing how nothing made a sound, the sound of your feet on the floor, or the procession, the funeral procession,

is in complete silence. Now usually you read that and you can almost hear still, I don't know, maybe. Yeah, you can't believe it. Yeah, but I completely believe the silence here and it was just quite, I thought, a beautiful way of writing about grief in that there is that detachment of when you're grieving,

you're sat there, life is still happening around you, the wake, there's many people around you, still drinking and chatting, but you feel detached from it and silent. So behind that wall, and I'm sure in this book, that wall would be made of water, a metal bucket sugar. That trout oil.

That silence really, really hit me. But oddly, because it's not a very loud book. It's a very gentle point. You know, the burbling of the river and the lanterns. And, you know, it doesn't surprise me that it was big in Japan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I absolutely was picturing for a lot of this, a beautiful

Japanese garden there's a tranquility to it and the simplest of it. Also they're obsessed with watermelons

because they invented the square ones that you can stack neatly. Clip it up that's the ad that's the ad.

I thought going back to grief obviously I'm trying I'm going to try something I like with you I like to do

I really liked like you said that bit about grief but I really like this description of this land they're living in

that the dead are buried, not really buried, they're in the river, in glass tombs and you can see them and they're lit by lanterns. I struggled, I struggled picturing this. Oh, I could really, well, I think I was very Lord of the Rings picturing, like... I was getting Lord of the Rings.

Yeah, I was getting full Lord of the Rings. Richard Broadcombe, I'd love to have written Lord of the Rings. He would have. They'd still be around. He would, that's too long for him. That's too much. It completely reminded me of that. Maybe if he'd kept going more than three months.

I'll be honest, though. When I read it, it took him three months, there was a tiny part of my brain. that went, maybe I can write it before three months. I've got a parable. No one needs to know that. I don't know what's happening.

I could be an American classic last of the beats. Three months. Three months. Fuck it. Get it down. Let's go. Vintage, hello? Yeah, I think there is a bit in Lord the Rings

where someone is, it is, isn't it? They're placing the boat on the river. It's Boromir. And that's what it reminded me if they put Boromir in the canoe and they sail him down, don't they, in fellowship. Yeah. So I think that's what it's talking about. I like the first one.

I like the first one for the same reason I like this book. It's a fantastical land. But there's nice scenes where they're like eating. Yeah, they're jolly and they're getting on as lads having a good time on a little adventure. I can hook on to that. Clarit, can we tell our listeners that you're a real dweeb about Lord of the Rings? They know. They know I'm a dweeb and I would describe it as a genuine interested fan, Sarah, and not a dweeb of a classic book.

And one day I was here when the, I was here when the friendship broke down. He was living in San Francisco, who's part of the counterculture movement. He was like, that was the birth of a movement that we in England, like, are aware of, picked up on it and, you know, inspired the beat. You know, obviously it's a huge, huge movement. He was at the centre of it.

How do you deal with being at the centre of a movement, writing a book that is like part of that movement and then the world moving on, that must be hard to go, oh, nobody cares about your psychedelic watermel and sugar moment now. So it would be like women in comedy. It's a moment. moment and then in five years back we're not on panel shows anymore well i can believe that could

like so and then and then you're just saying hey remember what you said about richard broads a good you just got to be fine with this yeah yeah well like but even bigger than that obviously because the psychedelic moment was it changed everything changed film books like culture you know the drugs we take like it's but they're but in all creative fields there are trends and then there are people who they're young they're at the cutting edge they're speaking on behalf of everyone they're reflecting back to society, and then they stay stuck in that. Yeah, true. And newer, younger, different people.

I mean, we should say, like, he was diagnosed as schizophrenic in 195 and treated with which is well before he wrote this book. Yeah. And had, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. So, like, he, that's what I mean. That's what I mean.

Like, it wasn't just that he wasn't popular anymore. Like, he was a quite, there was a lot of mental health issues and his childhood, like, yeah, a lot of stuff going on. Was it? Yes. Really awful. I was thinking, what if I read the? this book when I was 15.

I would have loved this book as a teenager. Yeah. And I think, I'm not saying that that's who he wrote it for. But at that age, reading a book like this, you can see how it would maybe shape you or how you would think about, I guess that's what the beat poets. Yeah, yeah. That's what Beak culture was. And I guess, like you were saying, Sarah, it moved on because those young people

weren't young anymore. grow up and realise the realities of it all really. So it's of its moment, this book, certainly, but I'm not surprised it quickly, you know, because every young group of people react to the past. Yeah, yeah. Whatever young thing was. But there are some stories.

So what's hard with this is you're not given a real story to grip onto for reasons that we've already examined in terms of you don't have human reactions and that is what we click onto in stories. Yes, yes, that's true. So this book can't compete with Catcher in the, the Rye, which will be rediscovered by every generation. Although I still enjoyed this book. Yes.

And I still, I'm like, I had never read it. When I picked it up, I was a bit like, oh my God. But we've stopped pressing it into disenfranchised teenage boys' hands. Yeah. Whereas the Catcher in the Rye is still going. But I think it's interesting that this is still being published by vintage as a classic and still being discovered by people. And despite us saying the world moves on, because it isn't of a specific time, because

it is kind of fantasy. you can still read it in 2023 and still find things you relate to. Like I still think it stands up to a read and it's a short read so you've got no excuse not to. And now because it has the theme tune by Harry Stiles. I should say the abortion. Yes, he wrote another book called Abortion, A Historical Romance.

Which is very much a story and is the best book I've read about abortion. About a couple travelling to Mexico for a termination. Wow. And it's really, really real. Is it? Real world, yeah. Can I tell you that in March 1994,

A teenager named Peter Eastman Jr. from California legally changed his name to trout fishing in America. And now he teaches English at Waseda University in Japan. Oh. Eating square watermelons. Yeah, he's square watermelons. His name's trout fishing in America. His name is trapfish in America.

Which, to be fair, in Japanese, might be easier because you'd have like four candies for that, wouldn't you? So you think that's why he moved? It might be. I imagine saying, sorry, Mr. Troutfishing in America. I'm just not going to get that essay back to you Well if his first name is trout His surname is first

No his name is trout fishing in America Considering what he's wrote about before Yeah And the biography That you just gave Carrie out of what he's gone through Yeah Like I found this book quite cleansing Yeah

I know it means It's very delicate Delicut Delic is the description on the back one from Malcolm Bradford Oh, John. Did you think it was delicate, fantastic and very funny? John read the back. Was it also charming and original, the Times?

There we go. Again, if someone's listening to this and they're like, you know, there might be a future guest. Don't use the quote on the back. They will, Sarah, specifically, I think Karen will let me go there. Sarah, I've never seen a move so quick. flip the book round and went, oh, that's interesting you say that, because the back of the book says it as well.

I actually meant it, like, that's correct. That's correct, John. You had a correct reaction because you agree with Malcolm Bradbury. All I said was were delicate. We're coming to the end. We all enjoyed this book very, very much. Do we have a last life? Let it end on a high.

No, he says. Well, he said it was delicate. I was trying to. I was trying to. I was going to say how cleansing it was. Yes, it is. And how beautiful it was. He had such a tough life.

And he obviously through writing, escaped into this dreamlike world. It's escapism, yes. It's like a babbling book. A teenager, you can imagine, you know, teenage years are the toughest years you'll go through. So you open this book and you can just almost float away in what is a kind of... Like Boromere on a lake. Yeah, like Lord of Riggs. I mean, yeah, it takes a turn at the end of this book.

Yeah, yeah, it does take a turn. That doesn't happen, Lord of Riggs. Gandalf doesn't chuff his nose off. He doesn't. Maybe Chalkin could have learnt a few things. It is funny though that moment. What would Gandalf? No, that moment when they all killed,

yeah, it is, it is. It's horrifically absurd and in that absurdity is a kind of gross humour, definitely. Yeah, it's kind of almost, I can't remember who wrote it now, there's a play called Uber. Richard Bortgan.

Yes, for a problem. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. But it's just that kind of, very, it's, you can imagine that being staged, This very theatrical, absolutely bizarre, maybe theatre of the absurd kind of moment where, like we've said, they kill themselves the way they do. And what is absurd about it is that they keep on saying, we're doing this for a point, we're showing you. It's just so desperate and sad and weird.

And for something that doesn't have a lot of emotion in it, the characters, you feel a lot of emotion seeing what these people are doing. And like you said, like it's horrific, it's grotesque, it's funny, it's sad, it's awful. But the characters aren't emoting. They're getting them up and bucket and cleaning it up. Do we have a last line for in Waterford and Sugar to say goodbye to us? Well, I think this line is so exceptionally beautiful, but it is the last line of Margaret. Oh, yeah. But I just thought this was so beautiful.

She took the loose end of the scarf and tied it to a branch covered with young apples. She stepped off the branch and then she was standing by herself on the air. Yeah, that reminded me of the Seamus Heaney quote that he has on his gravestone. Walk on air against your better nature. I completely agree with you. That line hit me. You know, risk. Live life.

Doing something you don't want to do maybe. Just try it. And yet she's maybe, and maybe she's found that piece in death. We got very, like that became full Radio 4 book after we were giggling the whole way that we actually had, I think you did read this book. I think you did. Come that line though. Come back next season and read all of Lord of the Rings.

Oh, we'll do a full. That's going to be three episodes. You can do fellowship and then we'll find someone else for two towers. I'll tell you what's nice though is you, obviously, you read a book usually and then you put it down and, well, unless you're part of a book club or something, you're like, well, there we go. Then maybe two weeks later you taught a mate, have you ever read this? Always no.

I love that you've just picked that line out because obviously reading is a very private thing and it does hit you and you go well that was great but you wonder if anyone else has noticed so genuinely thank you for inviting me on. Thank you so much John. Thank you for being here. It was lovely.

Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Weirdo's Book Club. John is on tour with his show Varnishing Days throughout October and November and you can find him on Twitter at John's fur coat. Next week's book guest is Love Nina by Nina Stivvy. And we will be joined by comedian and actor Rachel Paris. My novel Weirdo

is available to buy in the shops, as is Carriad's book. You are not alone. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you.