Time for reflection

As I plough on through the editing (two more days?), I am reminded how much more of a chore it would be without BBC R4. This afternoon, the station devoted two hours as a tribute to the late Anthony Minghella. With Great Pleasure was originally broadcast in 1998; I didn't hear it then, so today I stopped pounding the keys to listen. And it was an exceptional pleasure. If you're not familiar with the programme, it consists of a selection of the studio guest's (in this case, Minghella's) favourite pieces of poetry and prose and included Tennyson, Beckett, Carver, and Larkin. The last piece was a short poem by Pablo Neruda, read in English and the original Spanish; a woman speaks of her fear of losing her love. Impossible to hear this now without experiencing a very large lump in the throat.

Comments

[Juliet Doyle]

Wasn't it moving? I listened to it while baking. Unfortunately I caught only the last third of the preceding Minghella play, which sounded fascinating - hope to catch up with it on 'listen again' this evening.

[Janet]

Thanks for the reminder. When 'Truly, Madly, Deeply' first came out we watched it several times and even made a visiting friend - a nuclear physicist - sit through it.

Shortly afterwards Alan Rickman and Juliet Stevenson came to the Brighton Dome to give poetry readings and were greeted with much enthusiasm - those were the days!

[Milla]

Oh, I used to work on WGP and what a treat AM was. So very sorry he has died.
Am about to read Gilead for bookgroup but hated Unless and loved A Fine Balance so not sure what your taste tells me about it...

[60 Going on 16]

Hello Milla - and welcome!

Hope you enjoy Gilead - it's not to everyone's taste but I loved it. And A Fine Balance was brilliant. However, despite the heading, I'm not sure I loved Unless; it was OK but not one of her best (but, for some reason, I would have felt a bit mean if I hadn't added it to my list. Having said that, I don't add everything I read so a sort of selection process is going on.)