The Paris Review

This anthology is the first selection of interviews from Paris Review. The quality varies, as does the focus of each interview. Some of them are very much “writers on writing” — the interview with venerable old E. M. Forster, for example, provides some interesting insights into structure and character development. An interview with Georges Simenon, who seems bent on demystifying the work of the writer in the best Trollope tradition, was an illuminating juxtaposition. The interview with Boris Pasternak, on the other hand, is more like a fan letter. I grew bored as well with Ginsberg’s logorrhea. I am open to the possibility of mystical experience, but the Blake experience Ginsberg loved to talk at length about (the account given here appears nearly word for word in at least two other portraits) sounds more to me like an episode of mental illness. I enjoyed most of the interviews, though, particular those with Pound, Eliot, and Frost. Each of the fifteen writers (unfortunately all male) has a persona on display. In that context, it seemed normal for Hemingway to play Hemingway. In fact, he didn’t even seem as much a poseur as did Faulkner (an interview I enjoyed nevertheless). Most writers refrained from passing judgment on contemporaries. All the more striking, then, how many mentioned Faulkner, and how widely divergent the opinions were. It’s been a long time since I read The Sound and the Fury and a couple of his stories. I’m going to have another go at him and make up my own mind.… (meer)

The Paris Review es hoy, tras más de medio siglo de historia, una revista legendaria por haber convertido las entrevistas a creadores del amplio ámbito de las letras—narradores, poetas, dramaturgos y guionistas de cine—en un notabilísimo género de indudable valor literario y humano. La presente selección, la más exhaustiva jamás publicada en nuestra lengua, reúne cien retratos literarios realizados a lo largo de sesenta años que abarcan la época dorada de la literatura universal del pasado siglo: Forster, Hemingway, Faulkner, Eliot, Pound, Auden, Lowell, Dinesen, Welty, Bishop, Pasternak, Frost, Céline, Simenon, Borges, Kerouac, Wilder, Carver, Cortázar, Kundera, Walcott, Yourcenar, Márquez, Murdoch, Atwood, Gordimer, DeLillo, Sontag, McEwan, Auster, Murakami, Rushdie, Eco o Marías, entre muchísimos otros. Además de un volumen inigualable de clases magistrales de literatura, el lector tiene en las manos lecciones de vida de los más grandes maestros de nuestro tiempo.… (meer)

Even though the interview with Graham Greene was slightly disappointing and the one with William Faulkner showed him as quite arrogant - despite his writing being hailed by virtually every other author interviewed from the 1950s to the 1980s - there were quite a few eye-openers here.

Isaac Bashevis Singer's very subtle and very welcoming manners definitely lured me to examine his writing, and his view on forthcoming technology was definitely enough to have me drawn in.

Gabriel García Márquez was also quite humble, and made me wish to delve into his writing.

Speaking of which, a bunch of the authors in this volume refer to his "magical realism", a term I haven't come to grips with; other writers are also mentioned to adhere to this type of writing.

Philip Larkin, refusing to be interviewed in person, is here in print for one of the very few times he's been interviewed at all. He's witty, funny and very staunch. I love the way he views things, apart from how he dislikes modernism and thinks one jazz-musician killed jazz for all future. Still, Larkin didn't want to be named Poet Laureate for which I will always revere him, not to mention his style of writing and poems.

Harold Bloom and Toni Morrison both added inspiration and insight, but William Gaddis infused me with nothing. Alice Munro seems frank and easy-going, and Stephen King is...slighted by Stanley Kubrick, as always.

All in all: a very recommendable volume. Can't wait to get into the others!

I've screen-shot a bunch of pages from this volume, and they're viewable for your pleasure here. http://issuu.com/pivic/docs/parisreviewinterviewsvol2… (meer)