YouSaid · the spoken record

James Ellroy

lines on the record: 40
first: 2010-01-17
most recent: 2010-01-17
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Okay, well that's your book then. What about a luxury? You can have something that will least make life alone on the earth.”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That was the beginning of Beethoven's ninth symphony played by the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Herbert von Carrigan. So James Elroy, we come to the point where you're about to be marooned on the island, and I'm going to give you a copy of the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and you can choose a book of your own to take what would you like to take?”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That seems a good point at which to introduce your final piece of music then. Tell me about your eighth disc, James Elroy.”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“How do you get along with them? You be alone on the island, then I was thinking originally, because you say you don't have a cell phone and you don't use a computer, you don't have a television, that you'd be absolutely fine. Of course you won't because you'll be without Erica. without her daughters how will you what will it be an internal dialogue again”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I touched on the fact that certainly I have found in reading your work the honesty almost sometimes unbearable. I'm wondering what part of yourself you keep to yourself. Are there many, many things that we don't understand and know about James Elroy from his writing? Are there all sorts of things that you choose not to reveal?”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But I mean quite genuinely do you feel that that will be a moment when you will reach the piece that you've always sought? You talk to your mother?”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Tell me a little bit about your faith then you say you're a Christian. Do you think then that your mother will be waiting there for you to at last embrace? I think she may be.”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This moment that you've reached a moment of well probably as close to perfection as any of us get, you feel you've met the woman that you will be with until your dying day. I mean you could have a good thirty years yet, but it's quite late in your life to meet the person you always want to be with. Do you fear death?”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That was the opening of the first movement of Beethoven's string quartet in E flat performed by Quarteto Italiano. You were describing then at the I use sixty sixty one now sixty one?”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's an intriguing phrase has conjured you. Can you explain it to me unpack it a little bit and tell me what you mean by that?”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“How compromised do the women that you fall in love with and have relationships feel in the by the thought that your relationship with any woman is being defined by this unfulfilled relationship with your murdered mother.”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so your mother defining all the relationships you ever have with women seems that's not an overstatement, is it, you would say.”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There can be a great danger and certainly disappointment in having a view of women as elevated creatures on a pedestal. Are you one of those men?”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Beginning of the first movement of Rubner's fourth symphony, the romantic played by the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Eugen Jochem. When we were talking earlier, James Elroy, you said that your work, maybe your life, I'm not sure if you said your life were defined by heroics and redemption, by men in love with strong women”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“James Elroy and his women coming up in just a second after this piece of music then tell me about your next piece of music what have you chosen?”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So you sold millions upon millions of books. You've been translated into thirty languages you were described in the New York Times as the author of some of the most powerful crime novels ever written. Is that enough for you the obsessive character who has superhuman qualities?”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What did you think about writing while you were walking around the courses? Is that what you write? So that was your time.”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“How extraordinary how did that life feel to live on the one hand creating what you felt to be these important pieces of work and what were clearly selling and on the other hand having to somebody's clubs on your back and do I”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Your first book then came when you were thirty Brown's Requiem. Do you remember holding the proof copy in your hand for the first time? Do you remember what that felt? Yeah.”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right, so it was marshalling those innate characteristics into a force that was much more positive rather than the Benzadrex inhalers. Right.”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The Quarteto Italiano playing part of Beethoven's Gross Fuga This is clearly an oversimplification, but I wonder if it was almost sort of transferring the power of your behaviour and the power of the addictions to something else, the power of being addicted to forming a piece of work.”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm thinking about the cleaning up bit, actually. I mean, people struggle with addictions for many, many years, and you were profoundly addicted, and as you say, you've been tripping for twelve, fourteen hours at a time. How did you stop?”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So through all of this you were still thinking about writing were you I imagine you were unable to actually do any writing.”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The opening of the second movement of Brukner's seventh symphony played by the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Ogain Jochem. So you've taken as James L. Roy very neatly, although you're still only you're just sort of nudging twenty to a point in your life when you were out of the armed forces and back again living in LA and this was a time in the, would that be the sort of mid to late sixties when a lot of people your age... We're wearing tie dye and growing their hair and smoking a lot of pot, you were in Ivy League threads, you were, I mean, you didn't look like a typical 20 year old. It doesn't sound like husband.”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so it launched your mother's murder launched you on this I described it as a sort of trajectory, a path that was Riven with seems to me so much unhappiness, certainly a lot of very self destructive behaviour. Tell me about the beginnings of that as a teenager.”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“and they did the thing that every parent who divorces now is told absolutely not to do, which was to attempt to denigrate the other parent in front of you. They both said very mean things about each other.”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“playing part of the third movement of Beethoven's piano sonata number twenty nine in B flat major. So James Elroy, were you six when your parents divorced?”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Do you like feeling that different? I mean most of these things are the things that are the sort of tent pegs that sort of support most people's lives these days doing all those things.”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When you were eight or nine then, I have a picture of somebody who who was living quite a solitary life, a life in his head where there was an unhappy home and you were sort of did you was it where you retreated to inside your head in the thought of writing books?”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And were you aware of the rumbling unhappiness between your parents? Was it something that was lived out in front of you? Profoundly.”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So much of what you've written about in terms of your background in your home life is clearly, profoundly unhappy, but as a little boy, did you have a lot of friends? Did you have people over to play? Did you go and play in other people's yards?”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You say that your parents are good looking cheap couple which is a wonderfully descriptive and beautifully turned phrase, but it seems they were so much more than that too. I mean these were people they were both educated people, they were people who between them spoke a number of languages.”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That will prevail in the end. We might talk a little more about the women and indeed The love that you found later, but first of all let's understand a little bit about where you came from nineteen forty eight Los Angeles that's where and when you were born. Tell me a little bit about the early days of home life when your mother and father were still together.”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The opening of Beethoven's third symphony the Euroca played by the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Herbert von Carrihan. I carry my thoughts about with me for a long time before writing them down. I turn my ideas into tones that resound, roar and rage until at last they stand before me in the form of notes. Now I'm sure that you recognise that as Beethoven, I think that seems to chime with the character. Creative life that you have led.”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“as we will find out there's a definite theme here as people will realise by the end of the eight tracks that tell me a little about the first piece of music that we're going to hear today and why you've chosen it.”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And many would say a damn good writer, do you think you have to be obsessive to write the sort of books that you write? I mean, they're low down and dirty. Do you shine the light where most people don't even want to know life exists?”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Does that make you somebody? I mean, workaholic's a glib little phrase, but does that make you a difficult person to live with, do you think your obsession was work?”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Do you think you're right? Do you think your mother would feel honoured by what you've done? Do you think she would be proud of your writing career?”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I cast away this week is the writer James Elroy, a colossus of crime fiction his best sellers include white jazz, LA Confidential, the Black Dahlia and American tabloid, yet the crime that's obsessed and defined him remains unsolved. His mother was murdered when he was ten. After her death his life veered onto a new trajectory, he said I lived to read, brood, peep, stalk, skulk, and fantasize. There was always a voracious appetite for literature even throughout the years of drug abuse and prison. He nursed private thoughts of becoming a great author. He says his mother's murder absolutely defined my life. I wouldn't be what I am today without that murder, and I hope that in mercilessly exploiting it with pit bull tenacity I have honored my mother's memory. You tell us so much in that, quote James Elroy.”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio four. For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast. For more information about the program, please visit BBC. co. uk slash radio four.”
2010-01-17 · Desert Island Discs · James Ellroy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source