Rate this book

The Paris Review Interviews: V. 4 (2009)

by The Paris Review(Favorite Author)

4.32 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

1847674496 (ISBN13: 9781847674494)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Canongate Books

review 1: I was in Binghamton the other day with time for lunch, and nothing to read. It turns out that there is a pretty good little bookstore about three blocks from the courthouse, and after a bit of browsing I settled on this.The Paris Review Interview series were originally issued in more-or-less chronological order, and I read the first four volumes in the series that way. They are long out-of-print, and this reissue series blends newer interviews with older ones in a pattern I haven't been able to discern. This one, for example, has Marianne Moore and Ezra Pound, which I'd read years ago, and also P. G. Wodehouse, Stephen Sondheim, and Haruki Murakami.I'd forgotten how oblique the Pound interview (conducted by Donald Hall) was. I think I thought I understood it back then,... more but I don't any more. Interestingly they ask Wodehouse about his wartime, uh, indiscretion, but Hall doesn't go near it with Pound.I've been meaning to start reading fiction again, and mostly this was a book I picked up to push me in that direction. I suspect that what will happen instead is that I will go back and read more of these sets of interviews.
review 2: Wow! Another Firstreads win! This is great!What a delight—to be exposed to such a variety of opinions about the craft of writing from authors of such varied backgrounds and ethnicities. I agree with Salmon Rushdie when he states in his introduction that the interviews sometimes reveal “more of the author than even the author knows.” Marianne Moore seems rather arrogant, Kerouac is cocky (but I do love what he has to say about haiku poetry), Philip Roth seems to have a chip on his shoulder, while Wodehouse and Murkami are warm and approachable.I was shocked about E. B. White not being a reader, saying “I would rather sail a boat than crack a book.” p.136. Conversely, Paul Auster can’t imagine anyone becoming a writer who wasn’t a voracious reader as an adolescent. Both Maya Angelou and Marilynne Robinson speak about their faith with Angelou saying she’s trying to be a Christian (how true, it’s the most any of us can do); she reads the Bible for its language. And Robinson states, “The first obligation of religion is to maintain the sense of the value of human beings. If you had to summarize the Old Testament, the summary would be: stop doing this to yourselves.” p.450. Orphan Pamuk plots a novel by knowing the whole story line in advance, dividing it into chapters and thinking up the details of what he’d like to happen in each. Most of the writers however, like William Styron, don’t do a lot of preplanning. Murakami says, “I don’t choose what kind of story it is or what is going to happen. I just wait.” p.341. And Robinson doesn’t plot her novels. She feels action is generated out of character. Grossman says when he gets stuck while writing, he sometimes writes a letter to his protagonist to get ‘unstuck.’ John Ashbury gives us insight into the abstract or ambiguous quality of his poetry, saying he likes giving the reader the raw material to create their own poem. I discovered why in Pamuk’s book “Snow,” his character Ka’s manuscript of poetry is lost so there is no poetry in the book. Pamuk admits in the interview that poetry is not his forté. All-in-all, the interviews are packed with information and stimulating insight. I want to re-read Wodehouse, search out Paul Auster, who I’ve never read, and dig out my old copies of John Ashbury so I can participate in his poetry. less

Download links for: The Paris Review Interviews: V. 4

Advertising