What books are now on
your night stand?
Vladimir
Nabokov’s Letters to Véra (Penguin
Classics, 2014), documenting one of literature’s great love stories; Swift: Poetical Works (Oxford Standard
Authors Series, 1967); Adam Kirsch’s Rocket
and Lightship: Essays on Literature and Ideas (W. W. Norton & Company,
2014).
And what’s the last
truly great book you read?
Giuseppe
Tomasi di Lampedusa’s The Leopard (1958).
Who is your favorite
novelist ever? And your favorite who’s writing today?
Neither
question elicits a reflexive answer, partly because “novelist” (like “novel”) is
so elusive a category. Is Swift a novelist? Dr. Johnson? Pushed, I would say
Henry James to the first and “I don’t know” to the second (though, like Terry,
I like the author of A House for Mr.
Biswas).
What are your reading
habits–do you prefer electronic or print? Do you write in your books? Keep them
or give away?
Strictly
print. Only occasionally do I vandalize books. Instead, I insert notes to mark
noteworthy passages. I keep most of the good stuff, especially the books I
might reread or at least consult. The rest I give away or sell.
What’s your favorite
genre to read?
Is
“well-written” a genre? It’s the only one worth paying attention to. “Genre” is
usually a polite way to say crap. Like Terry, I’m a happy rereader of Wodehouse and
Stark.
What’s your favorite
book about the newspaper business?
Again,
I like Terry’s choice, but let me add The
Press, A.J. Liebling’s collected press criticism. And let me qualify that by
noting it’s probably the Liebling title I read least often. When I do, it’s for
lines like this: “Inconsiderate to the last, Josef Stalin, a man who never had
to meet a deadline, had the bad taste to die in installments.”
What do you consider to
be the best book about American politics ever written?
Witness (1952) by Whittaker
Chambers.
And what’s your favorite
book by a political columnist?
I
don’t have one.
What kind of reader were
you as a child? Your favorite book? Most beloved character?
Greedy.
I favored field guides and biographies. A little later, Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Among his characters, David Innes and Abner Perry.
If
you had to name one book that made you who you are today, what would it be?
The Geography of the
Imagination
(North Point Press, 1981) by Guy Davenport.
If you could meet any
author, dead or living, who would be it be, and why?
Dr.
Johnson. The only other writer I can think of whose life and work vie for
dominance in formulating my esteem would be Charles Lamb. I love Proust but I doubt
we would have much to say to each other (though his English, fortunately, was
better than my French).
You’re hosting a
literary dinner party. Which three writers are invited?
Johnson,
Lamb, Italo Svevo. The last because he was a great writer, mordantly funny, had
learned English from James Joyce and knew something about the real world (business,
marriage, children).
Disappointing,
overrated, just not good: what book did you feel as if you were supposed to
like, and didn’t? Do you remember the last book you put down without finishing?
I’ve
never felt that I was “supposed to like” any book. All of them are available OTC, no
prescription required. About the time I reached draft age, I started permitting
myself the luxury of not finishing lousy books, except when I was being paid to
do so. Their number probably exceeds those I’ve read all the way through, which only makes sense. The mediocre in any art form always exceeds the excellent or even
the passably good.
What’s the one book you
wish someone else would write?
A
fat, sympathetic biography of Yvor Winters.
Who would you want to
write your life story?
I’m
laughing.
What books are you
embarrassed not to have read yet?
Murasaki
Shikibu’s The Tale of Genji.
What do you plan to read
next?
Joseph
Epstein’s Masters of the Games: Essays
and Stories on Sport (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015). And I know nothing about
sports.
No comments:
Post a Comment