Paula Byrne: evaluation

Transcript context

…Let’s say if one goes to Cornwall or Northumbria, you do feel traces of the past. Liverpool, for that matter. Why not Wessex? What went wrong there? [laughs] It’s a really good question. I don’t know. Maybe Liverpool, it’s a port, and I think that’s really important that the thing about a port — I’m in Manhattan now, and I’m by the river, and it really feels like Liverpool. I feel like I’m back in Liverpool. I think there’s something about a port because it’s always changing, people are coming and going, there’s musical influences. You’d almost think that somewhere like Wessex, it would be easier to retain some of that, and yet I felt it looks very run-down. I’m thinking really here with Dorchester, but obviously, places like the seaside, Lulworth Cove, and all these beautiful places are still incredibly gorgeous. I think that’s where you do really get a feel. To some extent, Dorchester, where the prison was, and you look in Winchester where Tess was hanged — there are places in England where I think you can get a feel for that. If you live in the life of the imagination, like I do, I can really see it. I took my son with me, and he was like, “This is a dump. This is horrible. There’s no Hardy here.” I think from the young guys, he was just like, “This world has gone. This world has evaporated. It can never come back.” If we ponder, say, Jude the Obscure, what’s your implicit model of why it is, for Hardy, first marriages are so hard to break from?…

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