Radio listener by Jim Gilchrist

“That is no country for old men,” declared WB Yeats in the first line of Sailing to Byzantium, coining a quote that has taken on a life of its own.

Cormac McCarthy used it to title his 2005 novel which was in turn adapted into an Academy Award-winning film by the Coen brothers; Julia O’Faolain turned it on its head for her Booker-nominated novel about 20th century Ireland, No Country for Young Men. But what exactly did Yeats mean by it?

He later claimed that he was writing about the state of his own soul, but in OFF THE PAGE, three writers, Tibor Fischer, Guy Browning and Katharine Whitehorn, discuss their own interpretations of these words and how they impact on their particular views on age and experience.

Plenty of room for doubt there, just as there is in more fundamental issues, and in a new, 20-part series, HONEST DOUBT: THE HISTORY OF AN EPIC STRUGGLE, former Episcopalian Bishop of Edinburgh Richard Holloway embarks on an exploration of the tensions between doubt and religious faith over the past 3,000 years. Not one to do things by halves, he starts by tackling the most fundamental questions, as posed by Paul Gauguin’s famous painting, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? Later in the week he deals with the concepts of idolatry, revelation and mystery, and as well as referring to historic thinkers, he discusses these issues with writer Karen Armstrong, American poet Jennifer Hecht and Harvey Cox, emeritus professor of divinity at Harvard University.

Phew. After all that, mere reasons to be cheerful seem a little trite: in Scotland last year, however, sales of self-improvement volumes rose by 15 per cent while the rest of the book market declined. In THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS, Neil MacKay investigates whether such books are effective at all, and interviews self-help author Ali Campbell, whose current book title is unlikely to be confused with a Yeats poem, being Just Get On With It!: A Caring, Compassionate Kick Up the Ass!

OFF THE PAGE

Tuesday, Radio 4, 3:30pm

HONEST DOUBT: THE HISTORY OF AN EPIC STRUGGLE

Mon-Fri, Radio 4, 1:45pm

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

Thursday, Radio Scotland, 2:05pm