Q & As

A Man of Understanding is your third novel, what drew you to writing fiction?

From a young age, it was clear that I had a talent for writing. I have enjoyed writing fiction since I was a child, when my parents bought me a paperback book as a birthday present in which to write my own novel, with a space on the front cover to write the title and my name. At about the same time, I had poems published in the school magazine. The idea of combining poetry with fiction in novels appeals to me – I hadn’t seen it done before. It has proved very popular with readers of my novels. I find fiction writing an ideal means of expressing interesting, thought-provoking themes through strong characters, with moving plots.

There’s a wealth of philosophical thought and poetry in A Man of Understanding, which books and authors, poets and thinkers have inspired you?

Some of my philosophical heroes are Aristotle, Kant and Hume, whose philosophical thoughts appear in A Man of Understanding. Like the heroine in my previous novel The Infinite Wisdom of Harriet Rose, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius inspired me. Dickens is a favourite author. I admire his way of combining social comment, moral reflection, character portrayal, and humour. Hermann Hesse is an author who inspires reflection in an interesting way (particularly The Glass Bead Game and Siddharta). A favourite novel has always been An Imaginary Life by the novelist and poet David Malouf. It’s an original and lyrical novel that imagines the Roman poet Ovid’s life in exile and his encounter with a wild boy brought up by wolves. I admire many poets, including Rupert Brooke, Robert Browning, and Christina Rossetti. As a child, I was entranced by Rudyard Kipling and Walter de la Mare. I enjoyed the poems of Catullus that I studied for Latin A level – I was given a book of his poems in Latin and English translation as a school prize. I admire the odes of Horace – I wrote my own translation of one in A Man of Understanding. I find many Psalms beautiful.

Horatio, Blue’s grandfather, is an enigmatic poet and philosopher, is he based on someone in your own life?

There are elements of both my own grandfathers in Horatio. My father’s father, like my father, was a clergyman, as Horatio had been before he questioned his faith, but my grandfather sadly died before I was born. However, I learnt a lot about him from my late father and I’m sure we would have got on. He wrote poetry, like Horatio does, but usually in the form of hymns. He had a grasp of Classics, like Horatio, from studying Theology. He had a joie de vivre, a great sense of humour, a varied career in that he joined the Navy as a young man and then decided he was a pacifist and trained instead to be a clergyman. My mother’s father had been an army man and, like Horatio, was madly in love with his wife. Also like Horatio, he had a great sense of humour, and he played the mouth organ. There is also something of myself about Horatio – his love of philosophy, poetry, Mallorca, his sense of humour, his admiration of Aristotle and Greek philosophy. I studied the Pre-Socratics as part of my postgraduate degree, and of course Greek philosophy as part of my undergraduate degree. Like Horatio too, I am fascinated by Aesthetics – my postgraduate thesis was on Kant and Hume and the Standard of Taste. Having said all that, Horatio is a unique character, not really like anyone I’ve known. As I created him, he became real to me and I longed to meet him – I miss him!

A Man of Understanding features several poems, have you always written poetry? Is there something in particular that you love about the form?

I’ve written poetry since I was a child. My mother loved to read poetry to me, and I loved it when she did – she read poems so well that the words left a strong impression. The first poems I wrote were published in the school magazine, which felt like a great honour. I admire good poetry for the immediacy of ideas it conveys through minimal words. It demands close attention. It ignites the imagination. It can contain a multitude of ideas capable of a multitude of interpretations. The wonderful response to my poetry in both A Man of Understanding and my previous novel, The Infinite Wisdom of Harriet Rose, encourages me to think that there are many readers who would appreciate poetry and putting it in the context of a novel makes it more accessible.

You write about how an appreciation of food and taste, can be the start of an aesthetic journey of discovery in the arts, and about the ‘aftertaste’ that follows the end of a good book, poem or piece of music etc. Tell us more about taste and the arts.

Horatio introduces Blue to experiencing the beauty of good food – the aromas, the variety of flavours, the subtlety of the tastes, such that, once the food has been devoured, a beautiful aftertaste lingers, not just in the mouth but in the memory (as Proust describes so beautifully in Swann’s Way). It is why Horatio takes Blue from Mallorca to Morocco to savour his first tagine, in its right environment, regional food created and improved over generations, each one adding new flavours to the experience, served in clay pots that locals have crafted with their own hands, like a beautifully-created oil painting with layers of colour and the right balance of light and shade.

Horatio believes in experiences such as this to broaden the aesthetic repertoire, to help Blue ascertain a delicacy of taste and gain experience in picking out ingredients. He takes him from Morocco to the South of France where he educates him in savouring yet more subtle flavours. He explains to his grandson that the philosopher David Hume had also recognised the importance of a good palate, which he compared to an ability to perceive beauty. He explains to Blue that good poetry possesses the same subtlety of flavours as the flavours in the food he has savoured – delicate herbs, sharp contrasts, intense reductions that need to be held in the mouth to savour fully. Similarly, the words of poetry or a good book must be held in the mind longer, savoured in order to enjoy them. And they leave an aftertaste once they’ve been digested.

He teaches Blue that when he recalls a piece of music, such as Max Bruch’s violin concerto, it is not just an analysis of the notes that remains in the memory. Rather, it is feeling the music , loving it in the heart, even if you don’t understand it all, it makes you want to cry, like when you lose someone special. It moves the soul. It remains even when the actual music is no longer playing. That is the aftertaste.

Each work of art, whether a story, a painting, a poem, a piece of music, must have an ending, a final word, a final brushstroke, a final note, when a work of art concludes, just like a life will have a final day, a final breath. But what matters most of all, Horatio believes in A Man of Understanding, is the aftertaste that follows these experiences, in the Arts and perhaps after life itself – therein lies the true reality.

What’s next for you?

I am writing a novel about a musician. As in A Man of Understanding, the Arts and their influence on our thinking as a way of developing the soul and growing as individuals is a big theme in the book. The characters are all strong, interesting individuals.

The Infinite Wisdom of Harriet Rose has been compared to Sophie’s World and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. What do you see as the similarities?

The Infinite Wisdom of Harriet Rose is a philosophical novel, as is Sophie’s World, however I didn’t want it to be a novel which discussed in detail the views of prominent philosophers, although it is clear just how much Harriet is influenced by philosophers such as Kant, Descartes, Heraclitus and of course her hero Marcus Aurelius. But what also makes my novel philosophical is the way in which Harriet responds to the world around her and the thoughts she creates. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is considered an original novel, with a strong narrative voice, as is The Infinite Wisdom of Harriet Rose, but the subject matter of the two novels is very different.

The Infinite Wisdom of Harriet Rose is on sale in many countries worldwide and is translated into different languages. What is your favourite country/language?

I’ve always lived in England, both in the country and in Central London. The English countryside at its best is magnificent and London as a city is hard to beat. From childhood, I have travelled regularly to the south of France, which I love. My husband and I always choose the mountains of Mallorca when we want a relaxing break. Spanish is my favourite language after English (I speak Spanish, French and German). I stayed in Madrid for the launch of the Spanish translation of The Infinite Wisdom of Harriet Rose (El Mundo de Harriet). I fell in love with it and can’t wait to go back.

Harriet Rose, the eponymous heroine of The Infinite Wisdom of Harriet Rose, is fascinated by Philosophy. As a teenager were you interested in Philosophy?

Certainly, yes. While I was at school I studied Latin as one of my ‘A’ levels and developed an interest in the philosophy of Cicero and others, which obviously grew during my time as an undergraduate and postgraduate in Philosophy at University College London. In fact, my first novel, The Choice, is also a philosophical novel. It explores the concepts of free will and determinism and moral responsibility, concepts which I studied in depth for my degrees. The story involves a twenty-first century barrister, Lily, who is asked to represent Eve, First Created Woman, at a trial. Eve continues to blame herself for her actions which she believes led to the downfall of mankind, but God believes Eve’s soul deserves another chance.

Is there a phrase you use too often?

Isn’t it time for lunch yet?

When you were a child, what did you want to be?

That happy forever.