Human Voices by Penelope Fitzgerald - rerun
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What is the significance of Penelope Fitzgerald's 'Human Voices'?
Hello and welcome to one of our Backlisted reruns. The episode you're about to listen to was recorded seven years ago and it's on the novel Human Voices by Penelope Fitzgerald, a writer who has become central to Backlisted over the years. The guests are the publisher George Morley, who was taught by Penelope Fitzgerald. Spoiler! Yeah, true, spoiler. And Lucy Scholes, who is now also a publisher of the most amazing collection of books being brought back into print at McNally Editions. One of the things that you'll discover is, to me at least, the most horrific revelation about any author's practice in the whole of the 10 years of Backlisted. Listen out for the gasp of everybody in the room.
Well, hi, it's Andy.
I remember this episode with great fondness for the simple reason that it's about Penelope Fitzgerald, who I hadn't read before we started work on Backlisted and has become one of my favourite authors, bar none. Absolutely.
How does 'The Good Immigrant' relate to current publishing trends?
I've now read everything she wrote, pretty much, at least a couple of times. And the marvellous biography. And the marvellous biography. Human Voices is, I think... It's a funny thing to say, isn't it? It's one of the lighter ones, and yet at the same time it isn't very light. But it perhaps lacks the depth of field that she reached by the time she got to her last novel, The Blue Flower.
Those last three magnificent historical novels are incredible, aren't they?
Yes. Nevertheless, Human Voices was a wonderful book when it was published, a wonderful book seven years ago, and I'm certain remains a wonderful book in 2026.
Yeah, and if you're a big fan of Penelope Fitzgerald, you can hear a special bonus episode that we recorded this week on another one of her books, Offshore. In fact, it's the Booker Prize winning book as part of our special season of Booker Prize winning shows. Posh Bingo is what we... We're calling it Posh Bingo, where each month we are reviewing or we're discussing one Booker Prize winning book. And this month it happens to be Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald. So if you want to have a listen to that, go to patreon.com forward slash backlisted.
Now... Let's hear some human voices from the past. See you, everyone. Enjoy. Bye.
Bye.
Yeah, so last Saturday at the Hot Tin in Falishan, which is a new arts venue in Kent down the road from me, they asked me to host an event with the filmmaker sarah wood and the novelist ali smith and at this event which was really really good ali read from spring and so it's appropriate in the because we're doing penelope fitzgerald i can say with accuracy that ali smith read the beginning of spring You've been working on that all week. That's all I've got. That's all I've got for this episode. I've got nothing. I've got nothing else. So Ali read the opening chapter and she said to the audience before she started, how do you all feel about me reading something with quite a lot of invective? I'm trying to capture the feeling of what it's like to be alive in Britain just before Brexit.
That's what I'm trying to get in this chapter. Of course, the audience were up for it. And she did. a, I don't know, maybe 10-minute reading of this torrent of abuse and anxiety and discontent, which on the page would have been one thing and will be one thing, and we're going to get to read that in about a month's time. But the performance that she did of it was just... Out of this world good. I've never seen Ali Smith read before. And she really finds the internal rhythm of the prose and pushes that forward.
What themes are explored in 'Human Voices' during WWII?
So it was really like a performance piece. It sounded amazing.
Some writers, you know, some can read their own work well and others can't. But I've seen her read a couple of times. She's amazing. Sometimes I think it makes sense of the work in a way that you wouldn't imagine reading aloud would, but it just does. A bit like the old Elizabeth Smart routine last podcast.
Andy and I are going to have words about Elizabeth Smart. Don't worry.
Hey, come on. Don't worry. I said, you know, Rachel was brilliant. It was much better to let somebody who loves it talk about it.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the significance of Penelope Fitzgerald's 'Human Voices'?
0:00–1:07
2
How does 'The Good Immigrant' relate to current publishing trends?
1:07–4:32
3
What themes are explored in 'Human Voices' during WWII?
4:32–6:24
4
What insights do the guests share about Fitzgerald's writing process?
6:24–9:40
5
How does the setting of Broadcasting House influence the narrative?
9:40–13:26
6
What makes Fitzgerald's humor unique in her novels?
13:26–17:11
7
What are the differences between Fitzgerald's early and later works?
17:11–24:09
8
Which Penelope Fitzgerald novel should readers explore next?
24:09–1:07:32