Margaret Drabble

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0:10Welcome to This Cultural Life, the series in which leading artistic figures reveal the most important influences and experiences that inspired their own creativity. I'm John Wilson and my guest in this episode is the novelist, biographer and critic Dame Margaret Drabble. Having published her debut, The Summer Birdcage, in 1963, she went on to become a best-selling and critically acclaimed chronicler of the lives of modern women in a series of contemporary realist stories, often based on her own life and experiences. Her 19 novels include The Millstone, The Waterfall, The Ice Age and The Radiant Way.

0:48And her non-fiction includes books on Thomas Hardy, William Wordsworth and Arnold Bennett. She's also edited the Oxford Companion to English Literature. Margaret Drabble, welcome to This Cultural Life. Thank you. You were born in Sheffield in 1939. Your father, John Drabble, was a county court judge, but he also wrote novels. So was it a very literary household growing up? It was a very literary household. All we did was read. We never went to the theatre. We never went to the art gallery. We just read books. My father didn't publish till I'd already published and he was already retired. But they'd always been great readers, both my parents.

1:28Was he writing? I mean, he wasn't published till later, but was he writing? No, no, he waited till he'd retired. I mean, he had a very full career as lawyer and finally county court judge. And when he retired, he thought he'd write a novel and I thought it was rather good. So with my encouragement, on he went. So he was inspired by you? I think he thought he could, yes, yes. He had been in the RAF during the war. I know he'd served abroad. So what are your earliest memories of him? Well, I don't remember him until he came back from the war. I remember his homecoming because we were living in a council house in Pontefract.

2:08And I remember his coming home. And my older sister remembered him and was very excited. But I apparently burst into tears and hid because I didn't know who he was. And then he spent a lot of time getting to know me and teaching me to read. I was three and a half, four. I remember sitting on his knee and his teaching me to read. And what about the creative influence of your mother? She was a great reader and she always used to say I could always have written a novel if only I'd had time, but she never did. So we tended to think that she should have tried a bit harder to find the time. But we were very much the kind of family.

2:44I mean, my parents were both from very ordinary working class backgrounds. And it was the kind of family that stepped up the ladder through reading and getting scholarships and going to university. That's how you did it. And painting and theatre didn't come into that at all. It was just reading, like the kind of Richard Hoggart pattern. You just worked away and you got a scholarship. Your older sister, Antonia Susan, better known later in life as A.S. Bayard, she sadly died late last year. What was your relationship like with her when you were children? We were fine when we were children. I mean, she was a great reader and writer as well.

3:27We used to do little pantomimes at Christmas and we used to write our own pantomimes. And my other sister, my younger sister, Helen, we always took part. So there was quite a creative atmosphere and we were very friendly in those days. I looked up to her and she got annoyed with me tagging along around behind her. But we were friendly. Over the years, the relationship was the source of so much media fascination, wasn't it? And the speculation was that it was a competitive relationship. But thinking back to childhood, were you competitive then? I don't think we were. I mean, no, I just think we all felt we were unattractive little girls because our mother never told us we looked nice.

4:09She only told us how clever we were. So we always felt that we were kind of scruffy looking and she was always criticising us for looking scruffy. And I don't think we were jealous of one another at that stage. but unfortunately I got a better degree than she did and I published before she did and that was the beginning of a very bad relationship. Oh, so that's what started it. You think that she was jealous in a way then? I'm quite sure she was, yes. That's interesting. She was the older sibling, wasn't she? Yes, but I... Often it's the other way around. Is it? I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I did make my mark at Cambridge and I think that did annoy her.

4:55She welcomed me there and then she was annoyed with me for making my mark.

5:04On This Cultural Life, Margaret Drabble, my guest, choose the most important influences and experiences that have inspired their own creativity and your first choice is going to Cambridge University in 1957. So chosen for academic or extracurricular reasons. For both. I loved the curriculum and I was very well taught, not in Newnham. In fact, I wasn't all that well taught, but I could go to lectures and I loved the subjects. Newnham College. I was at Newnham College. It was a women's college, but we were farmed out to various other male lecturers. And I went to the last lecture of Dr Leavis and I remember his lectures very well.

5:46But to me... The last lecture he gave? The last lecture he gave in Cambridge, yes. We all trooped out to watch his farewells. I remember his lectures very clearly. And I remember his lecturing on Wordsworth and debunking A.E. Howesman and speaking very dismissively of Mrs. Wolfe. That was Virginia Wolfe, Mrs. Wolfe. So I do have good memories of Leavis, who actually taught my mother. And that F.R. Leavis valedictory lecture then, what do you remember of that? I think it was about Dickens, who he disapproved of. But I think his very last sentence, I could be disproved on this, was something like as he walked up the steps and out.

6:24He said, but I'm beginning to change my mind about Dickens. And I thought, that's a good cliffhanger. You were studying English at Cambridge. So which authors were you introduced to there that you maybe hadn't read before that had the biggest impact on you? Well, we were studying the great tradition which Leavis laid down. And so we read Conrad, we read Hardy. Actually, I don't think he approved of Hardy. I loved Hardy. George Eliot, Henry James. That was the great tradition. And then newer, more contemporary novelists? Well, I discovered for myself, and this made a huge difference to me, I started reading recommended by friends.

7:03I don't know how I came across them. I read Angus Wilson while I was there. And I read Saul Bellow while I was there. I remember exactly who recommended him. He said, read Henderson, The Rain King. It's a great novel. And there was something about these novels being set in a contemporary world and describing things I knew that meant more to me than George Eliot. Though I greatly revere George Eliot and reread her. But there was something about the idea that you could write about the here and now that was very exciting to me. So that Saul Bellow book, Henderson, The Rain King, that was published in the late 50s, wasn't it?

7:40So that was literally a new book that had just come out when you were studying. Absolutely. And only yesterday, my first husband left all my letters to him in boxes. And I was talking to the archivist and I looked. And there's a record of me in 1958-9 reading the middle age of Mrs Elliot, Angus Wilson's novel, and saying how wonderful it was. I don't know how I knew these books were there because certainly we weren't taught them. Your first husband was Clive Swift. Was Clive Swift. The actor. So you met him at Cambridge as well. I met him at Cambridge. And indeed, he spent all his time acting and I spent a lot of my time acting.

8:18I was very fortunate to be in Cambridge at a time when the theatre was going very strong. My theory is that Dr Leavis put a kind of a dampener on creative writing and all the talent went into the theatre with Peter Hall, Trevor Narnie, Ian McKellen, Derek Jacoby, all those people, my husband Clive Swift. It was a wonderful time. So when you arrived at Cambridge to study literature, did you already have an idea about being a writer then? What did you think you were going to do with this degree? I had no idea. No, I didn't think beyond getting a degree. But I do remember sitting, waiting for the interviews at Newnham, and sitting next to me was Margaret Forster, who actually went to Oxford, and my friend Bernadine Wall, who became Bernadine Bishop.

9:06and we all agreed that we'd quite like to write novels one day. But we were just joking, but all three of us did. But I do remember when I started my first novel, I thought I won't try and write a big, heavy Victorian, omniscient novel. I'll just write a little chatty novel. And my first three novels are very chatty. They're just sort of informal little chatty books about the way we live now. And Saul Bellow may have played a part, but later you actually, I think Saul Bellow had a kind of, or a fictionalised version of Saul Bellow, had a walk-on part in one of your short stories, didn't he? Yes, he certainly did.

9:41Yes, I think he read it, unfortunately, and was very annoyed about it. What had you written about him? I said he was a womaniser, which he was. That's not controversial. End of story. But that was based on your own experience. Yes, but it was not a unique experience. I greatly admired Saul, and one of his later wives became a very good friend of mine. and I was on holiday with him in the south of France with our publisher and so I did spend a bit of time with him which was quite amusing. And he made a pass at you? Yes.

10:20Your next choice for This Culture of Life is your love of theatre and Shakespeare in particular. So when did theatre start? I mean you said earlier it was all about books, you never visited the theatre But when did this kind of love of theatre first become apparent? Of course, Shakespeare is books as well as theatre. But I fell in love with Shakespeare as theatre at school, as I was at school with Judi Dench. And she played while I was there. She was two or three years older than me. I think she was the same age as my older sister. But she played Ariel and Titania at school. And her Ariel, I can hear it now.

10:57I can hear her voice now. I can hear her Titania. but then I did go on to understudy her at the Royal Shakespeare Company. But Judy was just a most wonderful live performer. I don't know where she got it. Her instinct was extraordinary. And that was apparent even at school? Even at school. She would have been 17, I suppose. And I think she went straight from school to the professional theatre. I played a fairy when she played Titania at school and some years later I played a fairy at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford and she was playing Titania. Really? That's amazing. So it was like a sort of weird follow-through.

11:35Therefore the winds piping to us in vain, as in revenge have sucked up from the sea contagious fogs, which falling in the land have every pelting river made so proud. I've always been very impressed by Judy. She's just an extraordinary actress. And then when you got to Cambridge, as you say you met your husband, your future, your first husband, Clive Swift, who was directing there, I think, wasn't he? So this was part of the Drama Society, the Amdram Society at Cambridge? It was the Amateur Dramatic Society and the Marlowe Society. And Clive, the first time I saw Clive, I think he was in an Arthur Miller play.

12:12And I just thought he was brilliant, which he was. And we started going out together. He did direct me in one play. He wasn't a very good director. He was a wonderful actor. So who were the contemporaries that you were sharing the stage with? Well, there was Ian McKellen. There was Derek Jacoby. there was Eleanor Braun there was a guy called Richard Kay who died far too young they were very distinguished people Were you a good actor? I was I was limited I was a tragedian I wasn't very good at comedy that's my vial I was hopeless because I couldn't do the jokes but I was very good at tragedy So you imagined at that time when you started acting on stage even though it was Amdram that this was possibly going to be your life and your career Yes I did and I knew that Clive was going straight into it so I thought that I would do that too.

13:00And then you did turn professional. You joined the RSC in 1960 for I think for what, just for a couple of seasons? Just for a couple of seasons but then I married Clive and I got pregnant and that took over and also I wrote my first novel and that was accepted. So I began to see that writing novels was a much easier thing to combine with bringing up children. The first novel was A Summer Birdcage which was published in 1963 but you were writing it in your spare time when you weren't acting or maybe at the theatre. I wrote it at Stratford and I wrote some of it in the evenings when Clive was on stage and I wasn't and I wrote some of it in the dressing room.

13:38So you had some spare time, you were writing this novel which is set in contemporary times in the early 1960s and you're exploring issues of women's freedom and choice and the restrictions of society. What prompted you to start writing it? I just thought I must fill in the evenings because I was on my own. Clive was on stage every night. And I thought I must find something to do. And I wrote a novel. But the main thing about the main theme of that novel really is sibling rivalry. So had that been your own experience of life with your sister? Had that been one of the reasons you started exploring that story?

14:18I think it probably was. I think writing about two sisters. I mean, she did it too later. far more disagreeably than I did. Because in my novel, the younger sister looks up to the older sister and describes her as very beautiful and talented and all the rest of it. I was trying to think that maybe my sister and I could be better friends. But of course, the actual publication of my novel didn't go down very well with her because she hadn't published a novel yet. With everybody else being in such a bad temper about one thing and another, I managed to hit the right note of irritation by getting really annoyed about my bridesmaid's dress.

14:51It was very smart and it fitted perfectly, but I thought it was rather tarty and was surprised at Louise until I remembered that she wasn't wearing it herself. Her dress was quite lovely, or seemed to be through its plastic bag in the cupboard. It was made of wild silk and was simple and floating. I knew she would look so extraordinary that I wished I could be generous and admire her just for a couple of days without grudging it. But she was so ungenerous herself that I couldn't. Until I went up to Oxford, I always believed that the defensive, almost whining position that she invariably pushed me into was entirely the fault of my own miserable nature, as I admired her fanatically.

15:34It was only at university that I realised that it was she that forced me into grudgingness. I know in that book you're not talking about you and your sister, A.S. Byatt, but how did she take it? Did she give you any notes about when she, or did she read it? I don't know if she read it or not. She never talked to you about it? No. The only novel she ever mentioned to me was a novel called The Waterfall, and she said it was structurally interesting. But she wrote a novel which I read, which I didn't like at all, and she did finally say, I think I owe you an apology for that novel, which was about two sisters.

16:08That was her second novel, I think, wasn't it? I can't remember where it came. It was called The Game. Yes, The Game. Did you read that when it came out? I was very shocked. She gave me a copy, inscribed with her love, which I thought was quite ironic. And I read it and I didn't like it at all. Did you let her know? I don't think I ever talked about it, no. Really? And you didn't like it because of the portrayal of the younger sister? Yeah, I think one of the sisters drives the other to suicide and that's not a very nice thing to fantasise about. But as a novelist you know that she's not necessarily writing about real people.

16:43She's not necessarily thinking of you when she's talking about a younger sister. She did say to me, I think I owe you an apology for that book. That can only mean one thing. Over the last 30 years, A.S. Byatt has published short stories, essays and novellas, and six full-length novels. There was a wonderful moment when my sister did an audition, my sister Margaret, did an audition for the Royal Shakespeare Company and actually got into it, and I thought, this is great, she will go and be an actress and I can be a writer and everything will be wonderful. and then she had a baby and wrote a novel and it wasn't wonderful again because you do feel that there isn't space.

17:24I think you find in most families that if one does something very well, the other will turn away and try to do something else. And the truth is that both of us wanted to write novels, but then both of us have. And now it is perfectly clear that we both write novels and that the novels are, in my view anyway, extremely different from each other. And about this relationship with your sister, because you got your debut novel out there first, that was a kind of a source of resentment for her as well, do you think? Yes, it was. Did you know that she already had ambitions to write? I don't know. I didn't care.

18:00I mean, I was doing my own thing. I really didn't care what she thought about anything at that stage. I was just leading my own life with Clive and a baby and finding my way as a writer. And that really was the kind of the end of the relationship? Well, no, no. We had rapprochements as time went on. There were times when she sought my help and advice, rather to my surprise. But we never were close again. No, I'm quite close to my younger sister. But with Antonia, there was always this sense of difficulty. I mean, my father used to warn me. He felt she was very jealous, my father felt. And he said, I'm going to give you this drawing, beautiful drawing, for something I did for my mother.

18:50He said, I'd like you to have this, but don't tell your sister. And I thought that was quite interesting, that he was warning me off, letting her know that he'd given me a present. So do you think it was just a personality clash then? You just didn't get on as people? No, no, I think it was to do with professional jealousy. Oh, really? Oh, yes, I think that's what it was. Did that make you sad? Did you try and... It made me very, very sad, then it made me very angry, and now I never think about it at all, except when you ask me questions about it. I never think about her now. It's gone. You had your first child around this time, so what impact did motherhood have on this burgeoning career as a young author?

19:31Well, it stimulated me tremendously, because one of the things that young mothers have is quite a lot of housebound time. I gave up trying to run on and off the stage. I mean, it really... I only did that for two seasons. And then I realised... And also, my first novel was published, so my career was going somewhere. And I realised that actually writing about motherhood was an important thing to do, and there wasn't much of it. I mean, women didn't write that kind of book. They write them all the time now. But in those days, there was no kind of, no sort of extent of people to turn to who I felt were writing the kind of book I wanted to read.

20:13As I continued with my career, a lot of them became my friends and they were writing, but they were quite isolated. I mean, people like Nell Dunn and Faye Weldon, they were all doing their own thing and they didn't know that anyone else was doing it. It became a movement later in the 60s. In the early 60s, nobody knew what anyone was doing. It was quite interesting now to look back at that. Margaret Drabble is 28. She's also married and the mother of three children. She's written four novels and a book about Wordsworth and is now completing her fifth novel. I imagine most married women make a choice between a career of some sort and their home.

20:54Why have you done both? Why are you both the mother of three children, a wife, and a very busy professional novelist? I don't know, because in a sense I can't do without any of them. I didn't think when I was younger that I would want to have children, but having had one, I knew that I wanted them very much. And yet I couldn't, because I'd got children, spend my life wheeling pushchairs around the park. I had to do something else as well. So in a sense, I've always felt that there was no choice for me, that I simply had to do both. And I've never decided between them. My life is a continual and absolutely exhausting compromise I'm always rushing from one to the other and never knowing knowing where I ought to be and feeling totally guilty about every part of my life And so really it's a question of me worrying about what hours I spend doing what in other words You try and do both exceedingly well I try and do everything well, and I'm always failing There's nothing I dislike more than failing for sort of silly practical reasons like being unpunctual because a child was crying or leaving a child crying because I've got to get to a place on time.

21:58And this kind of thing is always happening to me. I feel terrible about it, but there's nothing I can do about it. I ought to be able to give up, I suppose, my professional life, but I can't do it. And I know I'm not going to. You were exploring quite difficult subject matter as well at the time, weren't you, in these books about motherhood. As you say, now it's well-trodden territory, but was there a sense that you shouldn't really be that candid, even in a fictional story, about some of the travails of motherhood and the difficulties. I mean, there's a scene in The Millstone, I think, when the young baby accidentally eats the novelist's book.

22:36She rips up her flatmate's book. It's not her own book. I think it's the novel that her flatmate is writing. And I think that was just a sort of joke, really, about how you can't let babies into your study but you do because there's nowhere else for them to go. It was a kind of joke. It wasn't a profound image of the destructiveness of a baby. And anyway, I think she says at the end of that, you can always stick a book together again.

23:06Your next choice for this cultural life, Margaret Trouble, is the Nobel Prize winning novelist Doris Lessing. So when did you first read her work? I read The Golden Notebook when I'd already published four novels I published The Jerusalem, The Golden, and I can't remember when that was published, the late 60s, I think. But I sent her a copy, which was a creepy thing to do, really. I sent her a copy and I said I would like to meet her. And I think she did invite me to lunch. And we had quite an interesting conversation or two. And then we drifted apart and then we became really quite good friends.

23:46I mean, she used to come and stay with us quite a lot in later years. How had her book, The Golden Notebook, had such an impact on your creative imagination then? Well, I think because I was writing, I wasn't really a kind of fully developed feminist in those days. I was trying to reconcile everything with everything. And Doris's book, which people have told me has ended many a marriage, and my marriage was breaking up at that point. So I found reading Doris and feeling that there was a world elsewhere, there was a world where you could live and be an independent woman. And I didn't want to lead the kind of life that Doris had led because I was very committed to looking after my children.

24:34And Doris, in order to find freedom, had left two of hers in South Africa. So I knew that what Doris did was not for me, but talking about it, reading Doris, and seeing that there were huge possibilities of independence that I hadn't thought about really. Living alone, being a single mother, living alone, having relationships outside of marriage. So her lifestyle was empowering then? Her lifestyle was certainly empowering. What about her literature? What was she doing thematically and stylistically in the Golden Notebook that had such an impact on you, do you think? Well, to tell you the truth, it wasn't really the style or the kind of structure.

25:15It was just that she was talking about things that nobody ever talked about, about women's experiences. It was the content of that book that knocked me over. So do you not think it had an influence on your work? Yes, it's had an enormous influence on my life and therefore on my work, but it wasn't stylistic. I mean, Doris, when she went into her science fiction, her space fiction phase. She used to say, oh Maggie, you really ought to look ahead and set something in 100, 200, 1 ,000 years. I just don't work like that. And I said, no, that's not how I write at all. I write about the here and now or about next week or next year, but I don't write about space.