Melvyn Bragg talks candidly to Paula Byrne about his experience of depression and the role that great literature, such as the poems of William Wordsworth, has played in helping him to deal with it.
I listen to BBC 4 In Our Time while I cook here in the halfway house in Western NC. I have been an avid reader since I was a small boy, since, in fact, given Danny and the Dinosaur by my paternal grandma for my fourth or fifth birthday. The first things I remember reading, apart from Danny, are nursery rhymes, Bible stories, and Lewis Carroll. Half my lifetime ago I took a degree in English. I write, something that I must do. I listen to BBC 4 for Melvyn's pertinacity and humble charm.
personally when i see someone else who has gone through really similar things that i have, fictional or real, i noticed i form this sort of attachment to them. it can be really hard to help other people understand that attachment, because really only you can feel it. only you and that other person would only be truly able to understand each other.
I’ve read a scientific study that actually states that reading aloud opens up neural pathways in your brain in a similar way to playing the piano, it’s supposed to be much more progressive for brain links than just reading in your head. Makes you wonder anyway :)
Very therapeutic to do it alone. I also find my understanding and memory of what I've read is enhanced. As I get older I find it very easy to let my mind drift. If I read aloud it helps maintain my focus. And to crown it all reading becomes a physical experience.
A very good interview: Two books I started, BUT put aside after some thirty pages each, were "A burnt out case" [Graham Greene] and "Nausea" [Sartre]. I saw a bit too much in them of my own personality I was uncomfortable with. Perhaps I'll return to them. Take care of yourself Melvyn.
@@wallacecleaver4485 Do you mean a 5 Watt energy-efficiet light bulb or an old fashioned incandescent bulb? The former ones, as you may know, give a lot of light with only 5 Watts. (And by the way, her legs are just STUNNING, don't you agree?)
I found the Qur'an is life changing to read and recite and listen. Even if I didn't know all the words in Arabic there is something very uplifting listening to it.
B"H Xmas is past.We thought, we sought ,we planned, we wished and we BOUGHT but still we didn't get what we wanted. We now HOPE for new Year's Eve and hope for the New Year to find a "better life" We all know what we need but who knows what we are needed for We are ALL Equal in that we have the same soul We are all different in tht no one shares the same kind of human body we have All Created beings NEED hope or we can't go on The Grass is greener On The Other Side, its what we HOPE will give us what we want When we get to the other Side we find that we didn't get all that we wanted Once KINGS and Emperoros ruled us as slaves NOW we are all slaves to our desires, we have hope that the next thing we are enslaved to buy and purchase will make us "happy" The new World Order is again King over us, were we ever free of kings? We all know what we NEED but do we know what we are NEEDED for? IF you ask yourself WHAT you are needed for as an Eternal Soul enclothed in a Human Physical Body, you will find the answer. As souls we are all one.
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“This man is evil” do you have a scale as in Hitler was evil, Stalin was evil, where on there does Bragg sit. Many words come to mind about Bragg but evil certainly isn’t one of them.
