Two Brown Podcast 2 part 1 .mp4-mp3

Two Brown Owls discuss their favorite books and how reading impacts their writing and opinions. The first book, "The Science of Storytelling," explores the causes of violence and cruelty, highlighting high self-esteem and moral idealism as the main drivers. The second book, "Hags," discusses the demonization of middle-aged women and the societal pressure to maintain beauty and attractiveness. The authors question the origins of these narratives and explore the challenges faced by women in their 40s. Hiya! It's the Two Brown Owls! Today we're going to be discussing four each of our favorite books, or at this moment anyway, and we're going to look at the where's, the why for's, of why we read and how it impacts our writing practice and just how it informs our opinions on things in the world. And so we might as well get started I think. Okay. Right, are you going to start first or shall I start first? You can start first. She always says that! Right, okay, well I might, let me just put my glasses on because the writing has got smaller or my eyes can't cope anymore. One of the two. The first one I'm going to start with is a nonfiction by Will Storr and it's called The Science of Storytelling and the reason I came across this book was during my MA in creative writing and I was looking for ways to make my characters have more depth and this guy really knows a thing or two about it. I'll just get into reading the exact point before I discuss it any further and we're on page 96 and it starts. Researchers have found that violence and cruelty have four general causes. Greed and ambition, sadism, high self-esteem and moral idealism. Popular belief and cliche stories tend to habit that greed and sadism are dominant. In fact, they're vanishingly small. It's actually high self-esteem and moral idealism, convictions of personal and moral superiority that drives most acts of evil. Discuss. I think he's saying that virtual signalling, the sort of people that sit on the moral high ground and say well people shouldn't do this, you shouldn't do that or I'm more important because tend to be the ones that are likely to be their killer. Not necessarily that the butler did it. What's it called that one? The Science of Storytelling. Okay. Yeah, so that's why I chose it because I think his study of the brain, the human brain and who we are and what makes us who we are and how we develop from childhood onward. Not childhood, from birth that we immediately focus on the face of our mothers, of friends and families and we learn to pick up nuances and expressions almost immediately and that we don't lose that and then part of our language of communicating. But he stripped it down and said that for every movement, so for instance, if I've got a habit of scratching my chin or biting this lip, which is a real thing that I do, biting this bottom lip on the right hand side, it's something you develop early on and you've kept it going. If you were to study it properly, you might notice that I started doing it when I was insecure about something and it was an actual moment when I started it that I was insecure about and then you continue it into adulthood. So every move, everything we do has a cause and effect in our personalities. I read an article which I actually believe in that things start when you're in the mother's womb. Yeah, that's true. Because it can actually start from there, like if you're in an abusive relationship or the mother's very sad or she's got, something's not working for the mother, that can reflect the child. Yeah. I've always realised that when the baby's in the mother's womb and the mother has problems, is having problems on the outside, maybe she suffers from depression, or if she's had three or four children prior, all the nutrients actually don't get to that child and then that child can have diabetes or maybe can have mental health issues. That's if you're going back. Yeah. And they can pick up from the sounds, everything. Exactly. But as we've left the womb, all the environment that we're in is impacting who we are and developing us as characters, if you like. On the Belinda, true Belinda, if the mother's happy and the father's happy and everything's happy, the baby will be born and it will be born happy. Anyhow that the mother's got any problems, is upset or she's, you know, she's traumatised or being traumatised, then the baby will come out. And that impacts the baby and the character and their environment, whatever it might be, wherever it might be, as well as cosy hospitals or houses. But it doesn't matter what the environment is, it impacts on character and becoming a human being. He goes into it in far more depth than I can do, just verbalising it. And so that when I write a character, you know I was saying this last time about books being character driven, think about other little nuances like what might have gone on in their subconscious, what caused them to be who they are and why they would answer the question the way they answer it. I don't now, I can't just now write a character that's just like that. I do think of their subconscious, because the two things are running. What they say on the outside and what they're thinking on the inside are two different things. And I think if you can get that on the page, then you're doing really good storytelling, according to Will Orne. So that's that book. A non-fiction one. Sorry, can I go on to my one now? Yes, sure. I think I'm going to go on to Hags, which is a book that I've bought and it's by Victoria Smith. It's a brand new book, I waited for at least six months so that it could go into paperback rather than into hardback, because the hardback was too expensive and I wasn't actually going to do that. It's called Hags and it's the demonisation of middle-aged women. It's very interesting. So the part I'm going to read is called Some Sort of Bad Spell. Okay. In The Stranger in the Mirror, Jane Shilling describes herself as a teenager, comparing pictures of her mother at the same age with the 40-something woman she sees before her. The tender cultishness of the early photographs has vanished. It looks as though some sort of bad spell was cast over the golden-haired teenager, with the kitten and terrier and pretty French pen friend in the album pictures, as though a spiteful magician had come along and shut her up in a carapace of thickened limbs and mottled skin, from which only her heavy-lidded Betty Davis eyes peer out, myopic but still recognisable behind the big lenses of her spectacles. Whatever the songs say, whatever the photographic evidence, I am quite certain that the same spell is not going to be cast over me. Right. Someone's going to try and beat time. Yeah. The pest of time. Being a middle-aged woman. Losing your beauty, losing your looks. Is that why you chose it? I looked at Hags. I actually saw the front page and I loved the fact that it had a butchy-poo brew. Because in the occult, the hag is the older woman. The woman that becomes ugly and old and then doesn't like the young women because young women are beautiful and they're virile and older men want them. But the hags now, they lose that. They lose a lot. And then they become kind of like the witch and bitter. Whose narrative is that? The narrative actually comes from esoterics. Yeah. Because you have the hag and that is why I hagged. And that is why I bought the book because I know a little bit about esotericism. And the hag is the lady who has done everything but has become old. But not wise. Surely a wise old lady. She can be wise but no man's going to look at a hag, an old hag. It's over. It's like the witch. The witchy-poo with the big hat. That is what it's kind of trying to express because of the... I understand that but I'm saying who decides? With everything, I would ask that question. Whose idea was that? And who decided that women were going to turn into witches? Where did that all start? But apart from that, I'm actually thinking women are meant to be wise old women. Aren't they? Not witches. But if you look at society, there are a few men that like older women. That's for sure. But that's all about attraction. But what I'm saying to you is you have grandchildren and then you're old. And you're not expected to be going out and having a good time. Yes, occasionally, but you've had your life. This is what hags are about. Is hags in the 21st century as opposed to hags in the 10th century or Middle Ages or whatever? You're saying one thing, but it belongs in the Middle Ages. And then today, why was she writing this? I don't know. I find it uncomfortable. The reason why she's writing it is because she's feeling that she's invisible. Oh, she's written about her own personal account. Yes, because she's saying that she feels invisible. Women over 40 or 45, they lose the plumpness in their skin. That's why so many women are having Botox. They're trying to keep themselves young, but at the same time, we are still beautiful. What I want to say to you is that we are still beautiful. But we are a cause. Is that an instinct to try and feel beautiful where you are trying to attract a mate? We're not meant to be trying to attract a mate in Middle Age. We've already done that. So it feels weird that we've got a hangover still of trying to attract a mate by putting red lipstick and doing our eyebrows and pulling our hair back. Why do we still do it? Because this is a very new thing that older women take care of themselves in the way that we do. Is it social media? I think it's to do with change. I think it's to do with finances. I think that many, many moons ago, once a woman was retired or her husband passed away or that she was still with her husband, it wasn't any more about her being beautiful. She was accepted the way she is. But now, we have more money to buy the makeup, to have your face Botoxed if you want to, or have a facial, or no spa days. There's so many things for women now. So that's what I'm saying. I think that the Hags is a good name and it's a good book to read. But I wanted to see someone else's perspective of a 40-something now in the year 2020. And a lot of women are suffering. A lot of women are feeling, what is that word? When their kids have flown the nest, the empty nesters, and they feel like they haven't got a use or you've got no purpose. Yes, that's correct. Especially after a woman's had her menopause, she can't have any more children. She's going to find herself very unattractive for the first few years after menopause. Not all of them. No, no. Skin starts sagging. Life becomes stronger. And the men too, though. Yes, but we're talking about women. I know. Men like youth. Yes, they do. They like youth. You know that men like youth because men have to procreate. Yes, continually. Yes, they procreate. They need the young, the fertile women to procreate. Yes, but when your time is done and your womb is now empty and it's not the time to be trying to look attractive, because you're not trying to reproduce now, I just think psychologically it's not matching the physiology. Physiology. Yes, they're not matching. What your body can do and what you're trying to imagine haven't met in the middle. I think when that happens, that's when you're wise old hag. I think also that if you're in the public eye, like if you're a writer or an actress or whatever you do in front of television or things like that, you have to keep yourself looking good. And that's the only reason why I think a lot of women actually kind of try and keep themselves beautiful. And they're in front of the camera. If you're just a normal woman who goes to work 9 to 5 and you might go for a drink at the pub with your friends on a weekday or Friday or once a month, whatever, you might go and buy yourself a nice little dress or a little bit of makeup. But you're not going to be obsessed with trying to look beautiful because you're not going to be in front of the camera. You're not going to be in the public eye. Yeah, so it's an existence of two worlds. Women that are in areas where they have to present and women who are not in those areas and just have to get on with their day. And then it's over the sweatshirts and the loungewear and even pyjamas to the shops. Yeah. It's a tale of two worlds for women, isn't it? I think that it's quite sad if you look in the mirror and you can see, like what Victoria said, that you can see etchings of your mother. And you know that you don't want to look like her because you wanted that young teenage-fresh look. That's when I think that some women can actually get upset. But it's all part and parcel of life and we do have to move on. Yeah, we do. And in saying moving on, let's go on to the next subject. Go on then. I think we've tore that one to pieces. Right. So I'm going to do another fiction. I'm sorry, non-fiction that I've chosen. It's by a caller called Natives, Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire. My book, Dutty Think Drama, covered a lot of my perspective on race and class and the Windrush. And I read his book. This is the second time I've read it. I read it again for this. And I've met him. I've seen him do his work. A caller is such a great, articulate man when it comes to social commentary. I just love his work. I found him like a fangirl. And he lives down the road. I don't know if you're used to that, but I always see him roaming around the area, just so nonchalant. But he's got the greatest mind. And I've chosen a passage. And it was difficult to find a passage because it's sort of controversial language. And I didn't want to have to spend all day editing out what might create some problems, which is part of the problem in the first place, isn't it? But here we go. It is page 25. And he's put some euphemisms up. And this particular one is, why can't you just get over it? It's all in the past. Obviously to do with racism. These two statements often run together. Apparently, history is not there to be learned from. Rather, it's a large boulder to be gotten over. It's fascinating because in the hundreds of workshops I've taught on Shakespeare, no one has ever told me to get over his writing. Because it's, you know, from the past. I'm still waiting for people to get over Plato or da Vinci or Bertrand Russell or indeed the entirety of recorded history. But it seems they just won't. It is especially odd in a nation where much of the population is apparently proud of Britain's empire, that critics of one of its most obvious legacies should be asked to get over it. The very same thing from the past that they are proud of. But anyway, let's imagine for a second that humanity did indeed get over, which in this case means forget the past. Well, we have to learn to walk and talk and cook and hunt and plant crops all over again. We have to undo all of human invention and start from when? What period exactly is it we are allowed to start our memory from? Those that tell us to get over the past never seem to specify that I'm eager to learn. In reality, of course, they just don't want to have any conversations that they find uncomfortable. So I've chosen that because I feel that it actually sums up the book. I mean, I'm sure everyone's got a different perspective when they read the book, but I think that there is a kind of past apartheid or history apartheid. It's like these people aren't allowed to think about the past, ruminate about the past, talk about a particular area of the past. And then all of these people are allowed to talk about the past and celebrate with flags and statues and oil paintings and museums and artifacts that this lot of people got past. And that is really what Empire is about, sort of picking the cherry picking bits that we celebrate and bits that we're going to try and forget conveniently. And I think anyone should read this. Every child should read this. And every child should read this every 10 years. And I mean, every child everywhere to get a grip on the social economics, history. But he backs up everything, supports everything he says with a statement, with the history, with the research he's done. So you can trust it. Have you read history? No, I haven't. But what you were saying was very interesting. I mean, some people have to forget. Nobody can forget history. It doesn't matter what race you are or where you come from. History is part of why we're here today. People do say that. People do say that. Forget the past. Forget the past. That's ignorance. Get over it. Well, good luck to them. That's what I say.