In Their Own Words

In Their Own Words, British novelists

Series looking at the story of the British novel in the 20th century, told by those who know it best, the authors themselves.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00tjqh0

Episode 2: The Age of Anxiety 1945-1969

J. R. R. Tolkien - Lord of the Rings

Kingsley Amis - Lucky Jim

William Golding - Lord of the Files

Iris Murdoch - Under the net

The Angry Young Men

John Braine - Room at the top

Alan Sillitoe - Saturday night, Sunday morning

Kenneth Tynan

The Windrush Generation

George Lamming - The Emigrants

Sam Selvon - The lonely Londoner

Colin MacInnes - Absolute beginners

John Wyndham - Day of the Triffids

Anthony Burgess - A clockwork orange

JG Ballard - The Drowned World

Doris Lessing - The Golden Notebook

Margaret Drabble - The Millstone

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Richard Brautigan

Richard Brautigan (1935 – 1984) Poet

http://www.brautigan.net/

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/richard-brautigan

Two poems from The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster (1968)

A Boat

O beautiful

was the werewolf   

in his evil forest.   

We took him

to the carnival   

and he started   

   crying

when he saw

the Ferris wheel.   

Electric

green and red tears   

flowed down

his furry cheeks.   

He looked

like a boat

out on the dark   

water.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

I like to think (and

the sooner the better!)

of a cybernetic meadow

where mammals and computers

live together in mutually

programming harmony

like pure water

touching clear sky. 

I like to think

     (right now please!)

of a cybernetic forest

filled with pines and electronics

where deer stroll peacefully

past computers

as if they were flowers

with spinning blossoms. 

I like to think

     (it has to be!)

of a cybernetic ecology

where we are free of our labors

and joined back to nature,

returned to our mammal

brothers and sisters,

and all watched over

by machines of loving grace.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Boyamba Belgique

Boyamba Belgique

The day before the Congo gained independence, the saber of the Belgian king Baudouin was stolen by a young Congolese. Half a century later we embark on a quest for the sword and the thief and discover the deeper meaning of the symbolic act.

http://icarusfilms.com/new2011/bb.html

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1839422/

----------------------------------------