In Praise of Flatness
'I'm feeling flat,' we say. But New Generation Thinker Noreen Masud's Essay praises flat landscapes, the vast skies of Norfolk and the novels of Kazuo Ishiguro and Graham Swift.
Why are mountains linked with uplifting feelings? Noreen Masud's Essay conjures the vast skies of Norfolk and the fantasy of hope felt by Kazuo Ishiguro's characters in his novel Never Let Me Go, the idea of openness described by Graham Swift in his fenland novel Waterland and the feeling of freedom felt by poet Stevie Smith who declared: "I like … flatness. It lifts the weight from the nerves and the mind."
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Dr Noreen Masud teaches literature at Durham University. You can hear her exploring aphorisms in this Sunday Feature /programmes/m000rtxb and debating Dada in this Free Thinking discussion /programmes/m000k9ws
She is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who turn their research into radio.
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- Fri 30 Apr 2021 22:45Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 3
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Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.
