Writers at work : the Paris Review interwiews

Writers At Work: The Paris Review Interviews #1

by Malcolm Cowley (Editor), Wilfrid Sheed (Contributor)

Paris Review First Series is the first of collection literary interviews published by The Paris Review (1959), edited by Malcolm Cowley (and includes his introduction, "How Writers Write").

Interviews: Francois Mauriac, E.M. Forster, Joyce Cary, Dorothy Parker, James Thurber, Thorton Wilder, William Faulkner, Georges Simenon, Frank O'Connor, Robert Penn Warren, Alberto Moravia, Nelson Algren, Angus Wilson, William Styron, Truman Capote, Francoise Fagan.

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction, Biography, Essays, Literature, Art, Reference

Paperback

First published January 1, 1959

About the author

Malcolm Cowley was an American novelist, poet, literary critic, and journalist. Cowley is also recognized as one of the major literary historians of the twentieth century, and his Exile's Return, is one of the most definitive and widely read chronicles of the 1920s.

Cowley was one of the dozens of creative literary and artistic figures who migrated during the 1920s to Paris and congregated in Montparnasse. He lived in France for three years, where he worked with notables such as Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, E. E. Cummings and others. He is usually regarded as representative of America's Lost Generation.

As a consulting editor for Viking Press, Cowley notably championed the work and advanced the careers of the post-World War I writers who sundered tradition and fostered a new era in American literature. He was the one who rescued writers such as William Faulkner and F. Scott Fitzgerald from possible early oblivion and who discovered John Cheever and goaded him to write. Later Cowley championed such uncommon writers as Jack Kerouac and Ken Kesey

His extraordinarily creative and prolific writing career spanned nearly 70 years, and he continued to produce essays, reviews and books well into his 80's.

Reviews

[Nina-Marie Gardner · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great bedside table book - read an interview an evening. The Paris Review has a series of these, but this is my favorite for the Dorothy Parker interview alone. Nelson Algren discussing The Man with the Golden Arm was not what I expected (and kind of disappointing - in terms of my perception of Algren both the man & the writer... ah well.) There's Faulkner & Truman Capote too, both fantastic, fascinating interviews. And Styron, this one stayed with me and will be the one I go back to - Lie Down in Darkness easily one of my favorite books of all time. (Apparently RICHARD YATES wrote a screenplay for Lie Down in Darkness - can you imagine?!!! Holy crap it boggles the mind - what I would give to read that!!! I found it once on Amazon - the screenplay - but it cost about $250 and was way out of my budget. Now who knows where it might be?) Anyway, the Styron interview is epic - once you get past the racism at the beginning. Actually, I found it online - you can read it here:
http://www.theparisreview.org/intervi...

[Sharon Barrow Wilfong · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Paris Review interviewed many authors for the last sixty-eighty years. This is the second edition which was published in the fifties. It includes E.M. Forster (the oldest author interviewed), Dorothy Parker, James Thurber, William Faulkner, Georges Simenon, Truman Capote as well as many others.

I found the interviews to be especially enlightening since I enjoy writing. Each has his own philosophy, reason for writing, what defines good writing and so on.

Thanks to this book I got read about some of my favorite authors opinions and what makes them so good and also discovered a few authors whose works I now want to read.

[Michael Reilly · Rating 4 out of 5]

These are the best interviews of writers. The success comes from several factors.

First, the interviewers are writers or critics who know and appreciate the work of their interviewees.

Second, the interviews are focused on the authors work, not their politics, family, religion or scandals. The series is accurately titled "Writers At Work"

Third, these are not extemporaneous transcripts. They are edited and polished pieces. The subject gets the chance to review, comment and clarify the responses. These are not "gotcha" interviews. they are honest attempts to get some insight into how writers work.

For all of those reasons, The Paris Review has done in depth interviews with almost all of the great Post-WW2 writers. This first collection is from the 1950s.

One way the authors break down is between the practical and the theoretical. I am partial to the practical. Faulkner is asked "Some people say they can't understand your writing even after they read it two or three times. What approach would you suggest for them?" He answered, " Read it four times.".

At the other extreme, the French author, Francois Mauriac, explains "the crisis of the novel, in my opinion, is of a metaphysical nature and is connected with a certain conception of man". That means less than it sounds like.

What I enjoy the most is listening to smart and often witty people talk about things they know.

Dorothy Parker; "There's a hell of difference between a wisecracking and wit. Wit has truth in it. Wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words."

William Faulkner; "If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the " Ode on a Grecian Urn" is worth any number of old ladies."

Frank O'Conner describing James Joyce; "He had this queer, ax-like face with this enormous jaw, the biggest jaw I have ever seen on a human being."

Robert Penn Warner, on a thing I never noticed; "There's no time in Hemingway, there are only moments in themselves, moments of action. There are no parents and no children...you never see a small child in Hemingway. You get death in childbirth, but you never see a child"

[Ron Peters · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was fun to read, even if it wasn’t especially earth-shaking. It contains a series of Paris Review interviews, often conducted by well-known writers of the era (the magazine was established by people like Peter Matthiessen and George Plimpton), with writers such as E. M. Forster, Dorothy Parker, William Faulkner, Thornton Wilder, Truman Capote, Alberto Moravia, and so on.

The authors talk about why they write, about their lives, how they go about writing, their views on technique, their influences, what they think about other writers and “schools”, and so on. Some of them are humble and shy, some are pompous egomaniacs, some are snarky, others are generous and pleasant, and so on. It made me want to read works by some of these older-day writers.

Practically none of them agree with any of the others on anything to do with the practice of writing. The interviews are entertaining, occasionally scurrilous, and fun to read, even if you can’t be said to learn anything very useful about the craft and meaning of fiction.

[Glen Engel-Cox · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the 1950s, with nearly the start of the Paris Review, the editors engaged successful authors in discussions of their work, not only the particular stories they had created, but their working methods and lives, in an effort, it seems to me today, of attempting to pull back the current of the creative process and provide some kind of look behind the scenes. The result, as to be expected, is a bit of hit and miss. Authors are, I’m afraid, not keen to be introspective about the hows and whys of their writing, pleading the work should stand for itself. While I’m not immune to the desire to distance oneself from one’s work, an author should be able to provide some kind of post-mortem for the person who crafted that particular book.

The interviewees in this book (the first in a series of around ten volumes, I believe) include E. M. Forster, François Mauriac, Joyce Cary, Dorothy Parker, James Thurber, Thornton Wilder, William Faulkner, Georges Simenon, Frank O'Connor, Robert Penn Warren, Alberto Moravia, Nelson Algren, Angus Wilson, William Styron, Truman Capote, and François Sagan. I was familiar with over half of these and had read books or stories by four; a batting average not much to be proud of, I confess. Reading over the course of a month—a necessity, I think, otherwise they would tend to blend together—I enjoyed learning a little from each, although I think I was most amused and entertained (unsurprisingly) by Dorothy Parker and Truman Capote, two of the great wits of the mid-20th century.

I look forward to continuing the series and discovering more about new and different writers with whom I’ve never become acquainted.

[. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Este es un libro perfecto para tenerlo en la cocina y recurrir a él en los ratos muertos: durante el desayuno o mientras termina de hacerse el arroz. Me gusta tener siempre en la cocina un libro de ensayos ligeros o de entrevistas y leerlo así, diez minutos aquí, veinte allá, sin tomármelo muy en serio y sin miedo a interrumpir la lectura cuando el arroz esté listo. Este libro ha cumplido la tarea a la perfección. Algunas entrevistas, o para ser más preciso, algunos entrevistados, son más brillantes que otros. Las de Simenon, Faulkner o Anatole France, por ejemplo, son brillantísimas, mientras que Alberto Moravia, que parece estar a la defensiva todo el rato, no hace más que soltar obviedades sin gracia ni estilo. Las entrevistas anodinas, con todo, son minoría, y uno puede simplemente saltárselas y pasar a la siguiente sin remordimientos: no se está perdiendo gran cosa, es solo una entrevista. En cualquier cosa, en casi todas hay pasajes memorables, y en conjunto componen un libro estupendo. Además, son una buena puerta de acceso a algunos autores. A mí, por ejemplo, la entrevista de Simenon me ha animado a leerlo, y no me arrepiento en absoluto.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have no idea how interviews with writers were conducted before The Paris Review debuted in 1953, but the interviews in this volume set the standard for how to talk to writers about their ideas, their creative process, and their work.

Some of more successful than others, but I believe this has more to do with a particular author's reticence than with the interviewers' methods. Even so, I gleaned something from each of these interviews, even the ones with authors whose work I have not read--and there are lot of those in this volume. I hadn't even heard of a few of them (Joyce Cary and Françoise Sagan), which is either because they are not as widely read now as they were sixty years ago, or because I just haven't discovered them yet.

In any case, an enjoyable collection.

[wyclif · Rating 4 out of 5]

Skipped around in this a lot because some interviews are more compelling than others. On the whole, though, it's an outstanding series of interviews that reveal many insights into the craft of writing.

[Jennifer Royan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can imagine why this was a favorite of Mr. Jones' given that most of these authors were his generation. Only about half of the interviews hit home to me which was more than anticipated. Other authors felt closed off and not worth the time to learn about.

[João Barros · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uma aula sobre como realizar entrevistas com elegância, inteligência e perspicácia.

[Artavazdah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Half of interviews wasn't even about writting, :(

[Molebatsi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great author interviews.

[Michael Vawser]

Mercury edition 1962

[Paul H. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hit or miss, especially given that most of the authors are, let's say, not exactly first-rate (or even third-rate), but the Capote interview is pretty good, and the Faulkner interview is AMAZING. Where to even begin:

Watching a bird makes me feel good. You know that if I were reincarnated, I'd want to come back as a buzzard.

You should approach Joyce's Ulysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament: with faith.

Everyone talked about Freud when I lived in New Orleans, but I have never read him. Neither did Shakespeare. I doubt if Melville did either.

The writer's only responsibility is to his art . . . Everything goes by the board: honor, pride, decency, security, happiness, all to get the book written. If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate: the "Ode to a Grecian Urn" is worth any number of old ladies.

The best job that was ever offered to me was to become a landlord in a brothel. In my opinion it's the perfect milieu for an artist to work in.

People really are afraid to find out just how much hardship and poverty they can stand. They are afraid to find out how tough they are. Nothing can destroy the good writer. The only thing that can alter the good writer is death. Good ones don't have time to bother with success or getting rich. Success is feminine and like a woman; if you cringe before her, she will override you. So the way to treat her is to show her the back of your hand. Then maybe she will do the crawling.

I would like to write a screenplay for Orwell's 1984. I have an idea for an ending which would prove the thesis I'm always hammering at: that man is indestructible because of his simple will to freedom.

I'm a failed poet. Maybe every novelist wants to write poetry first, finds he can't, and then tries the short story, which is the most demanding form after poetry. And, failing at that, only then does he take up novel writing.

[Is there any possible formula to follow in order to be a good novelist?] Faulkner: 99% talent, 99% discipline, and 99% work.

[Some people say they can't understand your writing, even after they read it two or three times. What approach would you suggest for them?] Faulkner: Read it four times.

[Karen]

David Bowie’s Formative Reading List of 75 Favorite Books
#35

Satisfying Quick Reads for Short Attention Spans

A collection of fifty years of interviews with famous authors from The Paris Review, famous for these golden interviews. The writing is conversational because these were actually conversations, and the question and answer format makes it easy to come to a stopping place.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having read a number of interviews from authors I enjoy the most: Forster, Capote, Faulkner, etc.; I can say that this collection certainly provides insight into the personalities of these writers just as much as it makes suggestions about their craft.

[Printable Tire · Rating 5 out of 5]

All these books are awesome. 99% of what you hear about famous authors comes from the interviews in these books. You've got to pick them up.

[Annette · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are more of these and I intend to look for them...I like reading about artists, finding out about their thought processes or at the very least a little about their personalities.

[C · Rating 5 out of 5]

Would give it six stars if I could.

[Todd N · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read only the authors I have a passing knowledge of: James Thurber (the one I’ve read the most and a major comedy influence), Dorothy Parker, William Styron, Truman Capote. Then I read William Faulkner’s interview despite not having read anything by him. All great interviews with funny quotes I can steal from for years.