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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

The Essay Podcast

The Essay

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: The Life Cycle of a Fictional Character - An Alternative History of the Novel

The Essay: The Life Cycle of a Fictional Character - An Alternative History of the Novel: Episode 1: The World

The Life Cycle of a Fictional Character - An Alternative History of the Novel

Episode 1

Episode 1: The World

The World

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, The Life Cycle of a Fictional Character - An Alternative History of the Novel, The WorldClose menu

James Wood on the novelistic technique of having characters walking along city streets.

Critic James Wood explores the novelistic technique of having characters walking along modern city streets.

Critic James Wood explores aspects of novelistic technique through a fictional character.

A young man or woman walks along the street of a modern city. There are all kinds of sensations, apprehensions, and calculations. Buildings, cars, people - the entirety of modern life, at speed - rush at us, and rush past us. Exactly what does this person hear and see and feel, and how is this represented in the modern novel?

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Critic James Wood explores aspects of novelistic technique through a fictional character

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Episode 1: The World

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