No naps this week but the heat has kept me down at the beach and away from the books for the most part. (This is just turning into a diary of excuses, is it not?) Last weekend Grumpy and I were at the Cottesloe Dome - he sipping delicately on a cup of chino, me getting a massive caffeine hit from the Honeycomb Goldrush iced coffee concoction I favour at that establishment.
Afterwards we wandered into the Collins bookshop next door, which is always a treat. For years I'd heard about The Paris Review and its interviews with writers of all persuasions, but I'd never seen it. There in the Collins they had volumes one and two of what will apparently be a three-volume set of the best interviews since its inception. I hesistated only briefly before buying Volume 1 - I couldn't go past a collection that includes Rebecca West, Dorothy Parker, James M Cain and, of course, The Hem.
Reading:
What an absolute rip-snorter of a collection this is. What I love about interviews that are well done, that really let the subject talk, are the way I can be won over to differing points of view. So when Dorothy Parker says, "I can't talk about Hollywood. It was a horror to me when I was there and it's a horror to look back on." I find myself nodding with sympathy. But a few pages later I'm enjoying Truman Capote's warm, happy recollections of working on the flicks. And both are true and mean something. I like that.
The interview with Hemingway was done in 1959 and it was difficult for me to read. He was only a couple of years away from a pretty ugly death and I think he must have already been really ill. What comes through in this interview is what a jerk he really could be; how he seemed to have fallen into the trap so many critics and readers of the man do - confusing the writings with the writer. But as he himself says, in reference to Ezra Pound, creators of great work should not have to bear the expectation of being great people:
I believe Ezra should be released and allowed to write poetry in Italy on an understanding by him to abstain from any politics. I would be happy to see Kaspar jailed as soon as possible. Great poets are not necessarily Girl Guides nor scoutmasters nor splendid influences on youth. To name a few: Verlaine, Rimbaud, Shelley, Byron, Baudelaire, Proust, Gide should not have been confined to prevent them from being aped in their thinking, their manners or their morals by local Kaspers.It's all terrific stuff and I still have Rebecca West and Joan Didion to get to. What a treat.
Top 5 Songs:
Bottom of the Sea - George Thorogood (Live)
(Don't You Mess Around with) My Little Sister - Michelle Shocked
Dead Eyes Opened - Severed Heads
Little Birdie - Wynton Marsalis
Hip Hop Lyrical Robot - UB40
3 comments:
oh! I *heart* you indeed for Dead Eyes Opened!
You should totally locate Disco Stu: "An Englishman in Ibiza".
"Creators of great work should not have to bear the expectation of being great people."
I wonder how Michael Jackson would do as a Scoutmaster?
As for Hemingway, I much prefer the work of writers who try to write the way he does, to anything I have read that Hemingway wrote himself. (Then again, I haven't read much, because...well...I didn't like it, did I?)
Isn't it great that we're all created that little bit different?
I'm not sure that Michael Jackson would have been much of a scoutmaster. But then, I wouldn't have been expecting great things from him to begin with.
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