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BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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Something Understood

Religion & Ethics

Ethical and religious discussion that examines some of the larger questions of life

Ethical and religious discussion that examines some of the larger questions of life, taking a spiritual theme and exploring it through music, prose and poetry

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Something Understood: The Suspension of Disbelief

The Suspension of Disbelief

17/04/2016

BBC Radio 4 - Something Understood, The Suspension of Disbelief

Award-winning novelist Rachel Cusk reflects on the importance of suspending our disbelief.

Award-winning novelist Rachel Cusk uses Samuel Coleridge's phrase 'the suspension of our disbelief' as her inspiration to reflect on faith, reality and the narrative of our lives.

Described by The New York Times as "one of the smartest writers alive", award winning novelist Rachel Cusk makes her debut as a presenter on Radio 4 with a reflection on the "suspension of disbelief", inspired by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

"It was given to us as an explanation of how stories work," she explains, " the suspension of our disbelief is what allows the unreal to become, momentarily, real." 

Using the poetry of T S Eliot, Wordsworth, Herbert and Coleridge himself, Rachel takes the listener on a journey through reality and belief, which ultimately affects our understanding of ourselves. 

"We want to be transported by stories out of our own lives, much as we want to be lifted by faith out of doubt. Yet the drama of our own experience is so much closer and more real to us - the problem is that it lacks the coherence and order of narrative. To bear reality, we need to believe that our lives constitute some kind of story. We want the writer to write it for us, to arrange things into a meaningful pattern, to help us suspend our disbelief." 

Music from Beethoven, Radiohead, Britten and Karl Jenkins help Rachel reveal the "value of disbelief" and "the possibilities for freedom it offers".

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