YouSaid · the spoken record

Paula Byrne

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66
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2024-12-11
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2024-12-11
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1
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  1. “I probably, I'm not sure I'm going to write because there's no, honestly, I can't afford to. There's no money in it. Nobody reads anymore. I'm really depressed about it. I'm probably going to practice. Yay! I'm probably going to practice therapy for a while. And maybe I always say this, Ota. I'm like, this is it, last book, no money. Can't do it. Nobody's buying books. And then I always like, oh my God, I've got this really good idea. So actually I am writing an awful about Mary of Robinson. You mentioned her earlier. So I think the historical novel thing is just so much fun. I really like it and I don't have to worry about footnotes all the time. It's quite freeing to be a creative fiction writer rather than non-fiction. So although I say this is the last one, I have been saying that for like 20 years.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Oh, I've just finished literally today before I spoke to you. I press send on another novel. It's my third novel. It's an historical novel and it's about Jane Austen's Lost Secret Seaside Romance.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Is the coolest place. It's a mining town. So you feel like you're in sort of the Alps of Switzerland and it's full of music and bands and it's cool and it's the best place in the world and there's all these inns that are built on the mountainside where the mining used to take place. It's really, really cool Bisbee and I'm a big, big fan.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Four or five months of the year, and you can't sit outside, and that's the kind of obvious one, but it is incredibly beautiful. Northern Arizona, which I really loved and spend a lot of time, is so completely gorgeous and beautiful. And the landscape is so different to Phoenix. I did a lot of, I really tried to explore the area when I was living there and I take the kids and we'd go to all these Pacing and all these like really weird places and just press it and just really get to know. And Bisbee, have you been to Bisby? No, what?”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Yeah, it's sort of Scottsdale. I love the landscape. It's incredibly beautiful. What's the weirdest thing? Do you know what I think it is? I know this makes me sound so incredibly shallow. It's that the restaurants are in malls, shopping malls. I'm like, why are the restaurants? Like, where are there cafes? Where if people sitting outside, like people watching, but you have to go to a mall to get a meal”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “It's just incredible the melancholy and the harmonies, and I love this boy. I love all, I think the harmonies of just those early harmonies are so beautiful. But I really love the B sides. And yes, it is, yeah. Yes, it is. It's so gorgeous.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Politics because I'm so out of touch, Tyler. I'm really out of touch and I'm so disillusioned. I'm disillusioned with Keir Starmer. I'm disillusioned with Labour. I'm disappointed. I'm saddened. You know, I think Britain's become, well, like America, a very divisive place. Families arguing over politics has become really vicious, you know, within, you know, within families, people not speaking to someone because you voted for Donald Trump or you, I'm like, wow, how did it get to this? Who cares who somebody who votes differently to you? You still can love them. But it just becomes, it's become so divisive. I think the pandemics and the pandemic going back to mental health, huge, huge impact on adolescents. They really had a hard, many of them had a very hard time during the pandemic. So I think this lots of complementary and complex issues around that really.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “No, but I've been down Penny Lane many a times. I love the people that people are really warm. My children love going back because I always taught them home because my parents and my family mainly are still there and my kids who were brought up in Oxford just said they just thought the north of England was the best places. They think the people are friendly and warm and kind and funny. And they found people in Oxford very snobby. So they've always really, I love seeing Liverpool through their eyes as well because they're like, they're so nice everyone's so kind. And people say hello on the streets. I just, I really don't know really so much about.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “About the emasculation of men, when women could get jobs, and it was the men sort of pushing the prams. And I can remember seeing that in the north, like the shipbuilding industry, Camelades closing, and you suddenly see more men pushing babies in the prams. It really did make me think of the Full Monto and you said that. But then I think tourism has since Liverpool was Capital culture, it became really more prosperous again and that people were getting jobs and the garden festivals. And so I've seen such big changes, but I've been away from it for so long, Tyler. I've been away from the north. I haven't really been back for a long time. My sense when I've gone back to Liverpool is it seems so thriving. It feels prosperous in a way it didn't in the 80s. Oh, it's great. When I was growing, it just, it wasn't.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Again, it's complicated, isn't it? Definitely, I was just thinking of the Fulmonty when you said that, that brilliant film.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Again, people will blame social media, and to some extent it's that I think a lot of children are really lonely, both parents work, and they often go home to an empty house. I mean, I've just had such horrific stories about there's no community. Like America's great for community, but I'm like, we don't really have that sense of community anymore, which I think is so important. I don't know, churches or whatever, like having a sense of community is really important and we just don't have that anymore. And I think that's a problem. I think there's all sorts of things that I do think social media plays a part. I mean, honestly, it's fascinating. I think about it all the time. I'm like, why have we got this bad? Like what's happened? Why are we in this state that we're in? And I think it is lack of connection, a real meaningful connection.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “And important for all families in order to connect. That's the ENF Forster thing, isn't it? Only connect. But I've been really scared by the mental health crisis amongst young people, and particularly in America. I've seen some pretty shocking stuff, I can tell you.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Teenagers are seriously depressed. Like, I'm seeing 11 year olds with depression, 12 year olds with depression, 13-year-olds with depression. And that's something that I think is new. And just the sense in which, and I'm not going to blame social media for this, I think social media is fantastic, but the pressure young women, particularly I noticed in therapy, are under to that sort of cult of perfection. And also when you're bullied, there's no escape. I can remember being bullied. And I was like, Lisa, you should go home. And then your parents would be nice to you and it'd be fine. Your siblings would just laugh it off, but there's no escape. There is no escape at all. I love that population. And I think there is a huge amount of health prices, no matter however where you cut it, there really, really is. And the sad thing is that I'm a family therapist, so I really love families. I love getting families in a room because you can't just take one person's perspective. Everyone has a different perspective. And making families stronger, I think therapy is just so brilliant.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Do agree. And my favourite group apostle are teenagers. They're the population I always wanted to work with in therapy. And I'm fascinated by teenagers. I love them, they're hilarious. And they are just great. And I'm sure.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “I really think American couples are incredibly, I know this makes me sound a bit of a tosser, but they're so sweet. I feel like, well, I lived in Arizona for so long and I was just like, oh, the relationships are so lovely. They're so kind to each other. They're so warm. And I was like, British people are just so horrible to each other. I feel like we're always in an Ivy Compton. Burnett novel where everyone's like whispering horrible things under their breath to their husbands and their wives. I feel like the family values in America is huge for me, but it may be the West Coast thing as well. I was like, wow, so much American and support. And of course, not everybody, but just generalizing, I'm like, wow, there's a real support within the family that I don't haven't seen quite so much in England. I think it seems a little bit more fraught. And so many people who marry their college sweethearts, I'm like, how does that even work? Like, how can you still be married to someone you knew when you were 14? It's like, seriously.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “Completely, and you have to with couples. I love couples. I do all therapy, I do family therapy, but I love couples because you have to call it out like you've got to call people's bullshit out. And of course, you only do that when you've created that bond and, you know, but I absolutely will because I will not waste people's time or money and I will say you are wasting your time. You're wasting your money. You don't want this enough. I will absolutely call it out because I can't bear people just going to therapy for therapy's sake and waste their money and their time. And in America, it's expensive. It's a lot of money to speak to me. I've got to be worth it. I've got to be worth it. I want them to feel good about this. So I am outspoken, but I'm gentle too. And I think I've always been a good listener. So I've not had any complaints.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Absolutely true. The first letter came a week after the knighthood was announced. So I think that was the trigger. I was like, ah, somebody's seen this in the papers and this is the trigger. So whether there was, I don't know, I can't say whether there was some sort of not even envy, but just I who think she is.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “100%. I think they think I'm Lady Docker from Liverpool and I think they think who the hell does she think she is. And those things don't matter anything to me that was Jonathan's accolade and he deserved it. So anything that I, you know, getting a title from that is not my title. It's lovely for him and I support him and I think he deserved it. I think he's the only second person to be knighted for services to literature. I was so proud of him. But it wasn't mine. But I definitely think there were some people, particularly in Oxford and Cambridge, who were really, really angry about shit and really thought who. Because I am outspoken, Tyler. I do say it as it is. It is the sort of scouser in me. And I don't really put up with bullshit. And I don't think people like that. They thought that I should just shut up and put up. And so I think there was a lot of viciousness that came as a result of the title. And really interestingly, I don't think you can't know this, but it's absolutely...”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “And it's hard enough in an Oxford College to trust anybody because they're all such backstabbers. So I was like, oh my God, what if it's somebody who sees me every day? So you do become a little bit paranoid. But so I think writing the novel was cathartic and it did enable me to sort of step back from it and say, come on, this is actually quite funny. But I didn't get any people saying good. A couple of people went, good on you, good on you for doing that, but not many.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “I don't think I was a heroine at all. I was absolute vilified. I think so many people were just really not happy that I went public. And when I wrote the novel, I was a little bit critical of Oxford as an institution. And that really didn't do me any favours. So, no, I did not get many admirer. That was the greatest, it wasn't my greatest career move. However, I wanted a flush hair out and I wanted her to stop. So I was absolutely determined that something positive would come out of this horrible, because it is distressing. And I know I make light of it, but it is really, really horrible. It was so nasty and vicious and cruel. And then you just think, who is it? And then you start thinking, is it my friend? Or is it so-and-so? And you do become quite paranoid. I really feel sorry for famous people because I'm like, they must get this all the time. And then who do you trust?”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “And then don't even do anything. And then I was like, you're writing me these 30 page letters. Why don't you write a book love? Like, just do something with your life. I knew it was a female academic and it was. And it was just like, so it was just, it took, it just took so much of her time. She later said alcohol had played a part. So I think she would just get completely smashed and then decide to take me down and write these letters. But honestly, they were hilarious. They were so funny that I was like, I have to use these letters in a book. This is a waste. This is so, so funny. Like this stalking of me. I was like, it's hilarious. It was just so bonkers. It was like baby reindeer before baby reindeer.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “And they were very long. That's how I knew it was a boring academic because they were so long and convoluted and I was like, oh, for God's sake, academic, like typical academics never write any books and whinge and take all their long holidays. Sorry, everyone's going to absolutely kill me for this.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “Little bit of vicious, a lot of mental illness. I think it was someone whose life hadn't really Really turned out the way she'd expected, and I think she sort of there was a little bit of envy. I don't know. And that was the case as it happened. So little link there with our Twitter experiences, Tyler.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “No, I flushed this person out via Twitter. So she eventually made a mistake. She hosted a letter where there was a camera. And it was by registered posters. She made a mistake. So I pretended that I had camera footage, which I didn't. And I tweeted it and said, sorry, you've been caught. I know who you are. We've got CCTV camera. You better fess up. And she fessed up. And there was, I mean, I sued her as well. I didn't want it to go to court because she was clearly on well and I didn't want to do that. But it got very far. And, you know, it did get very far and full apology.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “It was superb. And I knew straight away it was an academic because it was so clever. And I knew it was a woman because it was so clever and bitchy.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “He said, Darling, you know, there's one question I have to ask you. And he said, did they send a first class? It's so British this response, by the way, a first-class stamper or a second class stamp. And I said, well, it actually was a second-class stamp. And he said, oh yes, cheap as well is vicious.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “Again, I really like this line of questioning. And I think there's something powerful about somebody who takes the trouble to go and buy a nice sheet of paper and a first class stamp. Or in this, I'll tell you a really funny story about that in a minute and write this beautiful letter that care and precision have been thought about. And then you go and you take it to the postbox and you post it. And that's not like, come on, Tally. That is not like writing, Tally. You suck on a tweet. Like it's really not the same thing. You know, and I'm like, and then I remember when it first happened, this same thing had happened to my best friend who's a clergyman in London. And I called him up and I was like, oh my God, I've got a poison pen letter. And we were talking about the power of this, the question you just made. And he said,”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “Oh, 100%. See, the thing is, I just think he sounds so scoused to this day. I think, and it's softened because a bit like me, I haven't lived in Merseyside since I was 18, really. I came back for a bit and then moved away again. I really hear his accent. But I know what you're saying, like those early, like the accents really thick. And it's very guttural. It's right back from the throat. And it's softened. But to me, I so hear that accent. I'm like, oh my God, he's so scouse.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “Talk and speak, and I think Hardy was really fascinated by working class women and their strength of character and their stories and all those things. So I think you're completely right. I don't think the single book I've written where I feel cold, where I feel like I don't know this world or I don't share something of myself. And I think it's just a fallacy to say, oh, I'm really objective. I wrote that book and I'm so objective. I just don't think it works like that. I think you see things that you think are Okay, that's really fascinating. As somebody else might say something completely different and not see it. So I think, yeah, for me, it's all with there's always my own autobiography. And I hope it doesn't distort it too much.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “100% and I've said it many, many times that all biographies are writing autobiographies that you, even the fact that you choose to write about these certain people, I mean, it's something that appeals to you or you may have been shaped by. So I was really fascinated. Going back to the Hardy book for a moment, I was really interested in working class women's stories because I come from that background. And the background I come from, it's very matriarchal, it's Catholic, it's women had a lot of power. I could never understand with middle class women saying women have no power because I was like, oh my God, you'd never been in my family because they were always the storytellers. They were really, the men were like really not as strong as the women. So I was really fascinated by female law in Thomas Hoddy. What are these stories that go through the generations? Do we believe them, these illegitimate children? I was always interested in giving people a voice. I wouldn't be a drawn to that if I hadn't had that background because I know that's how women...”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “I think we're both interested in social class, but I think if you live in England, you are because it permeates everything. Another thing I really love about America is, and I know there is American class system, I know that, but I've always felt very free in America because people don't judge me by my accent, whereas in England you're instantly, you were instantly judged by, oh, you're a northerner. That means that you steal things or you're a northern and that means that you're stupid. And I've never got that in America. So I think my husband and I have always been really fascinated and we come from different class, different backgrounds. But the great unifying thing for us always was books and literature and art and music and all the things that we have in common. So I think it's, yeah, I mean, it does shape. It does shape the writing because I'm interested in people who write about social class, Jane Austen, even more. Sure. Now, obviously, after those writers.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “I completely think it's put on, and I argued this really strongly in my book that everything was a joke. Everything was up for a joke. And he played the part of the sort of grumpy colonel, which he talked about himself. Deep down, he was incredibly kind to his friends. He was deeply sensitive. He wasn't a snob. And again, he makes fun of the aristocracy and bride said, even though people don't always see that. I don't think he was any of those things. I think he was a snob about cleverness. I think he was a bit of an intellectual snob. I think if you were really stupid, he wouldn't have much time for you. And maybe that's a British thing too. But he really valued wit and good conversation. But it didn't matter. He played that part, and for me, he certainly was not a snob.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “Does not have value. As a therapist, family secrets are the worst thing that you can ever do. I see both sides of it, if that makes sense. But in terms of the novel and in terms of the great writers, I think you're right about that. There is a sort of deep pessimism that runs a strain that runs through it. However, as with Evelyn Wau and Jane Austen, you always get that leavened with satire, with humour, with don't take yourself too seriously. I think that's the great British sin. Don't take yourself too seriously. If you take yourself too serious, you're doomed.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “Yeah, I mean, I think it's slightly tall poppy syndrome that you don't want to big someone up too much because it makes you feel small and it takes your light away from you if you're at all poppy. But I think it is tied in with something that I've really come to value the older I've got, which is English reticence and English diffidence. And I actually, the older I get, the more I'm like, I really like that because it does feel very intrinsic to who I am as a British person, which is, it may not be, you might say negative, I might say realistic. You might say pessimistic. I might say honest. You know, it just sort of depends how we define these things. But I think when someone gives you a compliment or to me, they mean it in England. They mean it because they very rarely give you one. And I'm like, oh, you must really mean that. And that comes, that has value. And I think that stiff upper lip has value. And as a therapist, it all...”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “I would. And I would agree. And I think one of the things I've always loved about America was that I know it's such a cliche about, you know, Americans have this sense of positivity and you can do anything, but it's true. And, you know, and I do find in England there is a sort of real ee-aw sort of dour sort of putting you down or putting you in your place, but I kind of like that as well. So like with scouse humour, it's very much keep you in your place Don't get too big for your boots. And I kind of like it because I think the corollary, you know, the opposite of that is the phoniness of Americans, like, you know, when you go to LA and everyone's like, oh my God, you're so beautiful. It's amazing. And like, oh my God, like, you know, and you just think you don't mean a word what's coming out your lips. So I think like the balance New York feels like the balance is pretty right.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “Yeah, I think Evelyn War would be appalled with the way England has gone. Natural festivity. Yeah, I think, yes, it's different to reticent, isn't it? It is hard to please, it means, doesn't it, fastidi, naturally hard to please. I kind of think that's quite true if it even was generated. And certainly if even war, because he was naturally fastidious, that literally sums him up in a phrase.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “Adaptation Because it's so funny. Like, she just gets the funniness, and that's the really important thing. Clueless is so great. And that has never lost its charm for me.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “Park right, but there was something very new and fresh and vivid about the way that she filmed it as well. Filmically, it's really interesting. And I really liked her depiction of Tom Bertram, the Wayward Son and his engagement with the slave troat. And I really liked the way Harold, because Harold Pinter played Sir Thomas. And he was really a bully, which I've always felt that Sir Thomas is a bully. So she took lots of risks. I mean, ultimately, she doesn't get Fanny right, but I just felt at the time, yeah, keep it fresh, keep it relevant. We don't have to be so faithful and we don't have to be like all frocks and smocks and big houses. Like every general adaptation, the house is way bigger than what it would have been. She's not interested in aristocrats. She's interested in gentility. So she's, they've always kind of got it wrong. And the ones that films I like, I love clueless. Clueless is the best.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “I think at the time it was quite a while ago I saw it and it did feel very refreshing because it was it really engaged with the politics, it engaged with the slave trade. I think it revealed Fanny as more spirited. It's not a faithful adaptation, put it that way. And I know it really did divide people, but I thought at the time I was like, it's really fun. It's really risque and it's fresh. But then I saw it again recently and I was a little disappointed. I was like, oh, it's not. You know how you go back to a film that you love and you think, oh, that's so great. And you go back and you're like, I don't think anybody's really got Mansfield.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “Absolutely. She was obsessed with this really interesting man called Thomas Clarkson, who wrote the first history of the slave trade, also from Liverpool. Or he went around Liverpool. I know he, he might have been for Liverpool, I can't remember, but she was obsessed with Thomas Clarkson, who was the first person to argue that instead of slave and human traffic, if you want to trade with Africa, you could do this with goods, with beads, with clothes, with all sorts of different things. And she really, really, so she absolutely, I think abored the slave trade and everything it stood for.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “His role in the abolition of the slave trade. So that's about the nearest. I think she does come to politics. She stays away from it, a bit like me, but it's there.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “Yeah. Very clearly, and she says so, and Sir Thomas, the house is built. It's a new house, Mansfogg. It's built on the spoils of the slave trade. And he goes out because this unrest. And we don't know what that is, but there were enslaved riots happening at that time, especially in Antigua. And he takes his wild son with him in the hope to get him away from wild company, which doesn't work. But I think you always get that sense of the spoils of the slave trade. And then, of course, Fanny's the only one brave enough to ask Sir Thomas when he comes back and she asks the question about the slave trade. And nobody else is really interested, so they don't want to talk more about it, but she does. So it's a very important moment in the novel that this shy, timid, diffident little girl is the one who says, tell me more about what's happening with the slave trade. And again, the Lord Mansfield connection. Anybody reading Mansfield Park is going to think of Lord Mansfield and his...”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “She's a war novelist because many of her novels are written in the background of the French wars and the Napoleonic Wars. Mansfield Park, I think, is particularly, 1814 is a really interesting year. There's some very interesting books being written in that year. It happens to be my favorite Jane Austen novel, Mansfield Park, and I know everybody hates, but I really love it. I find it so different to others and so much more serious and so much more interesting. So although she doesn't set out to deal with She's not a war novelist, but it infiltrates you know it's so turbulent, you know there's something is always happening in the shadow hinterlands you know you get that feeling with Mansur Pargreat great unease I think that the house itself's corrupt I've always felt that the Crawford's coming in and corrupting the house isn't what's really going on it's the house that's corrupt and the house is built on the spores of the slave trade So I think it's much more interesting”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “Been such a good comic writer if she hadn't watched all those falses, if they hadn't performed them at home, if she hadn't read them. Because her sense of comic timing is derived from 18th century theatre, pride and prejudice, so much dialogue. So it's like being a play. And then she used to read her novels aloud. And that is like being at a play as well. So for me, that was such a big and undervalued influence.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “Was she la farce? You know, she, in her letters, she talks about going to see Don Dewin. And it's a farce. And she's like, a compound of cruelty and lust, she calls it. And there's other farces that a woman keeps a secret, Chris, not very feminist, by Susan Santle. And she's laughing. She says, oh, the farce really pleased me. And I think she had quite low taste. I think she was hard to please. So she really liked the farce. And also she used to take the children of the family so they'd like a good farce. So I think she was quite eclectic in her taste. But, you know, these clowns were really funny. They were really good. And I think I say she wasn't a snob. She wasn't an intellectual snob. She didn't just, she did want to see Mr. Siddens in the great Shakespearean roles, but she also loved comedy. And she is a comic writer, which we all forget about, which is the most important thing to remember about Jane Austen is how funny she is. And I would, I argued in my very first book that she could never.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  46. “So I think it's really fascinating as a sort of social space where you might mistake a prostitute with a fine lady because she's wearing the clothes of a fine lady because she's bought them secondhand. You've got all these interesting things going on. But I think it would be really good fun.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  47. “But what I do know is it wasn't like declamation and throwing your hands and being like over the top. It was tempered down. I think when Journal Austin calls it real hardened acting, good acting is real hardened acting. So I think there was definitely you could see some of that. But a lot of people just sometimes went for the farce. And the farces, I think, were great. Like she stoops to conquer. It's hilarious. So there were rivals, Sheridan. People would just go and, you know, spend, they'd go halfway in and see the last bit of the main play and then they'd see some great farce. And I think often people went to see each other. You know, they went to look at each other. So there was a lot of gazing around the room and who's there. What are they wearing? What are they doing? And also it's very noisy. So people didn't sit there in deference like they do now. They'll be chatting and jostling and talking and it was much more sociable. And it's a place where the classes intermingle and there aren't many places like that in Georgian society because it's so stratified.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  48. “I think they did it quite interestingly because they would do a five act serious play and then there would be like a farce and then there would be or at a dance. And so there was a little bit of something for everybody. So you could go and see your Shakespeare. And I think particularly in the Georgian area, this is the time when those really great actors, Sarah Siddens and obviously Garrick coming to the end of Gary, but Keane, Edmund Keane, George Cook, Dora Jordan, these absolutely brilliant actors. And it's so hard because we don't know why they were so great. I mean, Jane Austen talks about Edmund Keenan in her letters and says he's so natural. But we don't know what that means. To us, it's like, we think of method acting, don't we? We might go to Sean Penn or we might go to the great method actors. So when they say, oh, he's so natural, what does that actually mean? It can't mean the same thing that it can mean to us.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  49. “Yeah, no, they do, they do. But I've been living in America for far too long. I've been in America for six years, so I'm like, I'm really not sort of aware of interesting women much to my shame.”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  50. “I just, my mind just goes like I instantly go to people like Sally Rooney, but I don't really like her. It's like, I just, I'm so”

    2024-12-11 · Conversations with Tyler · Paula Byrne on Thomas Hardy's Women, Jane Austen's Humor, and Evelyn Waugh's Warmth · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source