Scan barcode
buddhafish's review against another edition
44th book of 2021. No artist for this review, but portraits of the interviewees.
I've been addicted to reading The Paris Review interviews for a long time now, but you're only allowed to read the first part of the interviews online before having to pay. I've read a lot of beginnings. The Paris Review have published a number of interviews across four volumes, which I intend to finally read in full. The sixteen writers in vol. 1 are: Dorothy Parker, Truman Capote, Ernest Hemingway, T.S. Eliot, Saul Bellow, Jorge Luis Borges, Kurt Vonnegut, James M. Cain, Rebecca West, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Stone, Robert Gottlieb (whose interview is comprised of many writers and G. himself), Richard Price, Billy Wilder, Jack Gilbert and Joan Didion.
On the whole, it is a fantastic selection. I have no interest whatsoever in movies so the screenwriting elements, and essentially the whole of Wilder's interview, were boring for me. There are some crossovers between writing prose and writing for the screen, no doubt, and so I read them. In fact, one of the best on-writing talks I ever saw was at my university by a J. Yorke, a screenwriter, who had incredible writing advice that was very transferable to the page. Of course, the stand out interviews were by writers I have read and enjoy such as Capote, Hemingway, Eliot, Vonnegut, Borges, Didion, etc. I have never read any Jack Gilbert but loved his interview and will definitely look to read some now. Likewise with Stone, who was partly in the Beat Generation's orbit. Just some highlights and bits I underlined below.
Dorothy Parker says, on discussing her own generation of writers and influences, "But as for living novelists, I suppose, E.M. Forster is the best, not knowing what that is, but at least he's a semifinalist, wouldn't you think?" She claims to read Vanity Fair a "dozen times a year". She thinks Mailer's The Naked and the Dead is a "great book" and that Styron's Lie Down in Darkness is "an extraordinary thing."
Capote's interview is brilliant and I underlined a great, great deal. "Henry James is the maestro of the semi-colon. Hemingway is a first-rate paragrapher. From the point of view of ear, Virginia Woolf never wrote a bad sentence." He says one of the most fascinating things I've heard about knowing when a story is finished: "The test of whether or not a writer has divined the natural shape of his story is just this: After reading it, can you imagine it differently, or does it silence your imagination and seem to you absolute and final?" I adore that idea of silencing the imagination. I've read about Capote's claims before, about his memory being 96% accurate or whatever he said and here, his famous reading quote, "I average about five books a week—the normal-length novel takes me about two hours." He mentions a number of his influences but says the "enthusiams that remain constant: Flaubert, Turgenev, Chekhov, Jane Austen, James, E.M. Forster, Maupassant, Rilke, Proust, Shaw, Willa Cather—oh the list is too long, so I'll end with James Agee", what a list! And finally, his "personal quirks" are wildly interesting (and amusing):
Truman Capote
Hemingway is a sour interviewee who answers some questions with things like, "I see I am getting away from the question, but the question was not very interesting." Or after answering one also says, This is one of the dustiest clichés there is and I apologise for it. But when you ask someone old, tired questions you are apt to receive old, tired answers." Oh, Hem.
Eliot, on the other hand, comes across as affably as ever. Most interestingly, he replies to the question about Pound and if he cut whole sections from The Waste Land:
Bellow is also interesting, and says "I like Hemingway, Faulkner, and Fitzgerald." Another great list there. I've already quoted this in multiple reviews since reading this, but I'll quote it again, Bellow's response to someone talking about Henderson the Rain King, "He [a professor of Bellow's] said the subject was much too serious for fooling. I felt that my fooling was fairly serious." What a beautiful thought: the serious fooling of literature."
I'm going to have to transcribe the beginning of Borges' interview as it's delightful to read.
Borges later says, "I began to fear for my mental integrity—I said, Maybe I can't write anymore. Then my life would have been practically over because literature is very important to me. Not because I think my own stuff particularly good, but because I know that I can't get along without writing. If I don't write, I feel, well, a kind of remorse, no?" And you must excuse me, I must transcribe the end of the interview too:
Jorge Luis Borges
Vonnegut's is another great interview that I could quote plenty, but I'll stick with this one poignant line he says. "The raid didn't shorten the war by half a second, didn't weaken a German defence or attack anywhere, didn't free a single person from a death camp. Only one person benefitted—not two or five or ten. Just one."
The interviewer asks, Who?
"Me. I got three dollars for each person killed. Imagine that."
James M. Cain says, "Actually, the strange thing is that novels aren't written by young guys. I was saying that before. You have to wait for your mind to catch up with whatever it is it's working on then you can write a novel." And also, mentions the fact that Alice in Wonderland is "the greatest novel in the English Language."
West talks poorly of almost everyone, even says Maugham "can't write for toffee", but how untrue is that? Of course, she is asked about her affair with H.G. Wells but she deflects it well, seems like a very intelligent woman.
Bishop is asked, As a young woman, did you have a sense of yourself as a writer? And she replies, I'm imagining, wistfully, "No, it all just happens without your thinking about it. I never meant to go to Brazil. I never meant doing any of these things. I'm afraid in my life everything has just happened."
Never read Stone, as I said, but I think I will now. Too much to quote again. As a big Kerouac fan, I only want to quote this:
There's way too much in the Gottlieb section, writers like Heller, Morrison, Caro, etc., all talking about him and their work and G. talking about them and their work in return. Price and Wilder talked a lot about screenwriting, the latter almost entirely, so I have no interest there, really. Gilbert was a joy to hear too so I'll be reading some of his poetry, so honest and full of love and peace. His interview ends as—
And Didion speaks well, firmly, despite the loss she's suffered throughout her life. I'm looking forward to reading more of her this year.
Joan Didion
Vol. 2 awaits me at some point.
I've been addicted to reading The Paris Review interviews for a long time now, but you're only allowed to read the first part of the interviews online before having to pay. I've read a lot of beginnings. The Paris Review have published a number of interviews across four volumes, which I intend to finally read in full. The sixteen writers in vol. 1 are: Dorothy Parker, Truman Capote, Ernest Hemingway, T.S. Eliot, Saul Bellow, Jorge Luis Borges, Kurt Vonnegut, James M. Cain, Rebecca West, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Stone, Robert Gottlieb (whose interview is comprised of many writers and G. himself), Richard Price, Billy Wilder, Jack Gilbert and Joan Didion.
On the whole, it is a fantastic selection. I have no interest whatsoever in movies so the screenwriting elements, and essentially the whole of Wilder's interview, were boring for me. There are some crossovers between writing prose and writing for the screen, no doubt, and so I read them. In fact, one of the best on-writing talks I ever saw was at my university by a J. Yorke, a screenwriter, who had incredible writing advice that was very transferable to the page. Of course, the stand out interviews were by writers I have read and enjoy such as Capote, Hemingway, Eliot, Vonnegut, Borges, Didion, etc. I have never read any Jack Gilbert but loved his interview and will definitely look to read some now. Likewise with Stone, who was partly in the Beat Generation's orbit. Just some highlights and bits I underlined below.
Dorothy Parker says, on discussing her own generation of writers and influences, "But as for living novelists, I suppose, E.M. Forster is the best, not knowing what that is, but at least he's a semifinalist, wouldn't you think?" She claims to read Vanity Fair a "dozen times a year". She thinks Mailer's The Naked and the Dead is a "great book" and that Styron's Lie Down in Darkness is "an extraordinary thing."
Capote's interview is brilliant and I underlined a great, great deal. "Henry James is the maestro of the semi-colon. Hemingway is a first-rate paragrapher. From the point of view of ear, Virginia Woolf never wrote a bad sentence." He says one of the most fascinating things I've heard about knowing when a story is finished: "The test of whether or not a writer has divined the natural shape of his story is just this: After reading it, can you imagine it differently, or does it silence your imagination and seem to you absolute and final?" I adore that idea of silencing the imagination. I've read about Capote's claims before, about his memory being 96% accurate or whatever he said and here, his famous reading quote, "I average about five books a week—the normal-length novel takes me about two hours." He mentions a number of his influences but says the "enthusiams that remain constant: Flaubert, Turgenev, Chekhov, Jane Austen, James, E.M. Forster, Maupassant, Rilke, Proust, Shaw, Willa Cather—oh the list is too long, so I'll end with James Agee", what a list! And finally, his "personal quirks" are wildly interesting (and amusing):
"I have to add up all numbers: there are some people I never telephone becayse their number adds up to an unlucky figure. Or I won't accept a hotel room for the same reason. I will not tolerate the presence of yellow roses—which is sad because they're my favourite flower. I can't allow three cigarette butts in the same ashtray. Won't travel on a plane with two nuns. Won't begin or end anything on a Friday. It's endless, the things I can't and won't."
Truman Capote
Hemingway is a sour interviewee who answers some questions with things like, "I see I am getting away from the question, but the question was not very interesting." Or after answering one also says, This is one of the dustiest clichés there is and I apologise for it. But when you ask someone old, tired questions you are apt to receive old, tired answers." Oh, Hem.
Eliot, on the other hand, comes across as affably as ever. Most interestingly, he replies to the question about Pound and if he cut whole sections from The Waste Land:
"Whole sections, yes. There was a long section about a shipwreck. I don't know what that had to do with anything else, but it was rather inspired by the Ulysses canto in The Inferno, I think. Then there was another section that was an imitation of Rape of the Lock. Pound said, It's no use trying to do something that somebody else has done as well as it can be done. Try something different."
Bellow is also interesting, and says "I like Hemingway, Faulkner, and Fitzgerald." Another great list there. I've already quoted this in multiple reviews since reading this, but I'll quote it again, Bellow's response to someone talking about Henderson the Rain King, "He [a professor of Bellow's] said the subject was much too serious for fooling. I felt that my fooling was fairly serious." What a beautiful thought: the serious fooling of literature."
I'm going to have to transcribe the beginning of Borges' interview as it's delightful to read.
INTERVIEWER
You don't object to my recording our conversation?
BORGES
No, no. You fix the gadgets. They are a hindrance, but I will try to talk as if they're not there. Now where are you from?
INTERVIEWER
From New York.
BORGES
Ah, New York. I was there, and I liked it very much—I said to myself, Well, I have made this; this is my work.
INTERVIEWER
You mean the walls of the high buildings, the maze of streets?
BORGES
Yes. I rambled about the streets—Fifth Avenue—and got lost, but the people were always kind. I remember answering many questions about my work from tall, shy young men. In Texas they had told me to be afraid of New York, but I liked it. Well, are you ready?
INTERVIEWER
Yes, the machine is already working.
BORGES
Now, before we start, what kind of questions are they?
Borges later says, "I began to fear for my mental integrity—I said, Maybe I can't write anymore. Then my life would have been practically over because literature is very important to me. Not because I think my own stuff particularly good, but because I know that I can't get along without writing. If I don't write, I feel, well, a kind of remorse, no?" And you must excuse me, I must transcribe the end of the interview too:
INTERVIEWER
Before I go, would you mind signing my copy of Labyrinths?
BORGES
I'll be glad to. Ah yes, I know this book. There's my picture—but do I really look like this? I don't like that picture. I'm not so gloomy? So beaten down?
INTERVIEWER
Don't you think it looks pensive?
BORGES
Perhaps. But so dark? So heavy? The brow... Oh well.
Jorge Luis Borges
Vonnegut's is another great interview that I could quote plenty, but I'll stick with this one poignant line he says. "The raid didn't shorten the war by half a second, didn't weaken a German defence or attack anywhere, didn't free a single person from a death camp. Only one person benefitted—not two or five or ten. Just one."
The interviewer asks, Who?
"Me. I got three dollars for each person killed. Imagine that."
James M. Cain says, "Actually, the strange thing is that novels aren't written by young guys. I was saying that before. You have to wait for your mind to catch up with whatever it is it's working on then you can write a novel." And also, mentions the fact that Alice in Wonderland is "the greatest novel in the English Language."
West talks poorly of almost everyone, even says Maugham "can't write for toffee", but how untrue is that? Of course, she is asked about her affair with H.G. Wells but she deflects it well, seems like a very intelligent woman.
Bishop is asked, As a young woman, did you have a sense of yourself as a writer? And she replies, I'm imagining, wistfully, "No, it all just happens without your thinking about it. I never meant to go to Brazil. I never meant doing any of these things. I'm afraid in my life everything has just happened."
Never read Stone, as I said, but I think I will now. Too much to quote again. As a big Kerouac fan, I only want to quote this:
"I didn't know him well [Kesey]. And I didn't travel on the bus. I saw the bus off and greeted the bus when it arrived on Riverside Drive. We went to a party where Kerouac and Ginsburg and Orlovsky and those guys were, and Kerouac was at his drunken worst. He was also very jealous of Neal, who had shifted his allegiance to Kesey. But Neal was pretty exhausted too. I saw some films taken on the bus—Neal looked like he was tired from trying to keep up with the limitless energy of all those kids. Anyway... Kerouac at that party was drunk and pissed off, a situation I understand very well. The first thing I ever said to him was, Hey, Jack, have you got a cigarette? And he said, I ain't gonna give you no fucking cigarette, man, there's a drugstore on the corner, you can go down there and buy a fucking pack of cigarettes, don't ask me for cigarettes. That's my Kerouac story."
There's way too much in the Gottlieb section, writers like Heller, Morrison, Caro, etc., all talking about him and their work and G. talking about them and their work in return. Price and Wilder talked a lot about screenwriting, the latter almost entirely, so I have no interest there, really. Gilbert was a joy to hear too so I'll be reading some of his poetry, so honest and full of love and peace. His interview ends as—
INTERVIEWER
Do you think poetry is relevant in our society anymore? Do you think it has a place?
GILBERT
Someone once asked Gandhi what he thought of Western civilisation. And he's supposed to have said, "I think it would be a very good idea." That's the way I feel.
INTERVIEWER
Do you still wake up happy but aware of your mortality?
GILBERT
Yes, though sometimes I have to have a cup of tea first.
And Didion speaks well, firmly, despite the loss she's suffered throughout her life. I'm looking forward to reading more of her this year.
Joan Didion
Vol. 2 awaits me at some point.
bennse2's review against another edition
A little disappointed in myself for being unable to finish this one. It's just the wrong time of year (or of my life?) to concentrate on writers' craft.
booksteps_'s review against another edition
5.0
The Paris Reviews Interviews is a marvelous book. This reading experience revolves around the process of writing any type of literature but it has a lot of good and amusing conversations with well known authors as well.
I couldn't recommend it enough if you're into writing or even if you just appreciate a snug little exchange of views and opinions between bright adults.
I couldn't recommend it enough if you're into writing or even if you just appreciate a snug little exchange of views and opinions between bright adults.
rickyblue's review against another edition
5.0
I don't know when I've been so moved by a book. This book of interviews is so rich and I learned so much about my own texture and the texture of those in my life, and of course the creative process. I was amazed as I closed the cover to have the same kind of feeling I have had after reading an exceptionally moving novel or watching a mind-blowing film. It's like every page in this book is golden. It's really a beautiful book.
jadzia's review
5.0
"The Paris Review Interviews" is a collection of interviews with the best of the best - you find there Hemingway, Didion, Rebecca West, Bellow... And I must admit, it was a book almost as exciting as a good novel. I just loved it. I always find extremely interesting how the masters of writing work, what they think about the literature, and how they perceive the world and everything around them. There is not much to say about this one, apart from - just read it, especially if you admire those authors, their work but also their lives.
oldpondnewfrog's review against another edition
3.0
Some good ones, some not-so-good. I really like the Borges interview—he was far and away my favorite. I also liked learning about Jack Gilbert's life. The poets seem to have cool lives.
pivic's review
5.0
Who could ever have thought a book where authors, poets, an editor and a director who have no special item to promote could ever be something precious?
Well, considering these people are, in order, Dorothy Parker, Truman Capote, Ernest Hemingway, T.S. Eliot, Saul Bellow, Jorge Luis Borges, Kurt Vonnegut, James M. Cain, Rebecca West, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Stone, Robert Gottlieb, Richard Price, Billy Wilder, Jack Gilbert and Joan Didion, the die is kinda cast.
The subjects vary. And so do the tones of the people involved. While Parker and Capote kick off the book by being very funny and obliging, Hemingway and Eliot are much more serious, yet still cast a wholly different shadow on things, at least considering how Hemingway divulges no intimacies in his books while Capote could seemingly stab into any aspect of his writing.
I've posted a few screen-shots from the book here to give you examples of some of the interviewers' and interviewees' quotes: http://issuu.com/pivic/docs/paris_book_reviews_1
I've never before come across such a great collection of inspiration and depth into the art of creating books, apart from sheer writing and living.
My faves: Parker, Capote, Hemingway, Borges, Vonnegut, Gottlieb, Wilder and Gilbert. Those are many, right? Says a lot.
Can't wait to get into the second volume!
Well, considering these people are, in order, Dorothy Parker, Truman Capote, Ernest Hemingway, T.S. Eliot, Saul Bellow, Jorge Luis Borges, Kurt Vonnegut, James M. Cain, Rebecca West, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Stone, Robert Gottlieb, Richard Price, Billy Wilder, Jack Gilbert and Joan Didion, the die is kinda cast.
The subjects vary. And so do the tones of the people involved. While Parker and Capote kick off the book by being very funny and obliging, Hemingway and Eliot are much more serious, yet still cast a wholly different shadow on things, at least considering how Hemingway divulges no intimacies in his books while Capote could seemingly stab into any aspect of his writing.
I've posted a few screen-shots from the book here to give you examples of some of the interviewers' and interviewees' quotes: http://issuu.com/pivic/docs/paris_book_reviews_1
I've never before come across such a great collection of inspiration and depth into the art of creating books, apart from sheer writing and living.
My faves: Parker, Capote, Hemingway, Borges, Vonnegut, Gottlieb, Wilder and Gilbert. Those are many, right? Says a lot.
Can't wait to get into the second volume!
More...