Interviews Books

This was the first of what turned out to be six of the "conversation" books between Robert Craft and Igor Stravinsky. They were quite popular for many reasons and deservedly so. When this book came out in 1958, Stravinsky was the great living master of Music. His "Canticum Sacrum" had been premiered at the St. Mark's cathedral in Venice with Stravinsky on the podium to both acclaim and opprobrium in 1956. Time magazine's review was entitled "Murder in the Cathedral" (a title borrowed from T.S. Eliot which caused the poet some embarrassment when he and Stravinsky met some time later). No one knew how much more the 76 year old composer had in him, but he was still considered a revolutionary.

This book clarifies a great deal about his attitudes toward music and many of his compositions. Some of his more doctrinaire statements in the autobiography and the poetics about performance, performers (executants), and interpretation versus execution are given more nuance and a better context. Several fine pictures of the composer with his friends and other notables are also included.

He also discusses his thoughts about Debussy, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Ravel, and others. Several letters from notable composers are provided, as well.

While it is true these books were constructed conversations rather than transcripts of an interview between Craft and Stravinsky, they are most informative and most interesting. Think of the conversation as a compositional device and all will be well.

Most strongly recommended for any lover of Stravinsky's music and / or interested in the music of the 20th century. There is also a great deal of information on the artistic culture of Europe before, during, and after the world wars.

This book is wonderful. It really allows one to get into the head of a musical genius, Igor Stravinsky. Through question and answer format between Robert Craft and Stravinsky, one learns how a man of Stravinsky's caliber survives all the pressure and attention. This book is perfect for anyone wanting to understand the mind of a musician.

Well, he's not God I guess, but the wisdom he espouses over the course of these interviews (and in his fiction and poetry) will serve anyone well who has questions on how to live in this world or the more Natural one.
I've highlighted and underlined my "Bible" as any student would.

I'm glad I found this book. You know a writer has finally made it when "they" start publishing books ABOUT him, eh?

Jim is a great writer, poetic in a totally accessible way. Don't like poetry? Read his and you'll be a convert.

Jim is a GREAT conversationalist. This book lets you into that world for the first time. This is a compilation of all his major interviews along with some rare ones. As the preface says, there is some repetition in them, but it wears well and shows what is important to Jim.

(I bought the "True Bones" book as well: the bio-pics of the longhair 70's days is great, the cover art is great, but the academic writing style is unreadable. It's a PhD paper in hardcover. Caution flag unless you're fluent in artspeak.)

In "Conversations" we get great insights into the guy and the game. How many top writers today hammer at MFA's like he does? He's pretty honest about Hollywood as well. Hey, his pals there helped him when others wouldn't. He's up front about that and about the banality of the place as well. At the same time, he gets high on the power, the talent and the $1000 dinners. Who wouldn't? He keeps the books as open as anyone.

We have to admit in this country that if someone wrote the actual literature that would keep our culture alive THEY WOULD STARVE TO DEATH. I think Jim is very clear about this. I'm not sure how many other writers who 'made it' are as candid. But he's a 'flyover' and values candor like so many here do.

American literature isn't dead. There are writers out there who have picked up the ball and have been moving it further all these years since Jim was in his prime. They just haven't seen print yet due to the MFA stranglehold. But not for long! "Flyover" spirit lives in the Underground Literary Alliance...The ULA is the first group to do something about the racket and tragedy that Jim laments about in his interviews.

For such a huge talent, I hate to say anything at all detracting, but we fans have our rights. I have one complaint: Harrison lets some of the obligatory Hollywood vibes into his books. It's the "old geezer gets the hot babes" thing. But Jim has always been up front about his need to pay the bills and play the ONLY game that writers are allowed to play if they don't want to teach or starve: the game with Hollywood. It's either feast or famine. (The ULA is changing this!)

Another thing is the jet-set stuff. His characters and even his memoirs tend to be about idle rich guys causing trouble in fancy and rustic places. His rich writer friends from the 70's often used the same plot. It's fine enough, but runs a little short on relevance. The rich aren't like you and me. They aren't even like themselves much of the time, if you consider the theme of confusion in their work. Yeah, I know it's silly: take out the cross-generation sex and jet-setting and what's left? (The Michigan woods all alone?) Where's the tension? Well, that's for the writer to worry about. : ) Jim's dualism of cabin/mansion, stew/caviar is of course like catnip even while a part of it bugs me. He's marvelously joyous about his fancy dinners and famous friends so I'm happy to call it art and not fret about it. He sure is more candid than others about this kind of thing. What else is he supposed to do really. Well, on a different vein: use that bully pulpit more. He's always railed against the MFAs but with his clout now it would stick.

If you wade into the book,"Conversations with Joseph Brodsky," by Solomon Volkov (Free Press, 1998,) more or less by accident, as I did, prepare for immersion in deep waters. I was only peripherally aware of Brodsky's work, his background as a major Russian Jewish writer, emigree, and later Nobel Prize winner and American Poet Laureate based on reading his short poetic volume,"Watermark," (Farrar, Strauss, & Giroux, 1992.) Based on this work alone I should have been prepared for the depths of thinking, the force of personality, and the scholarly mind that earned him his esteemed position and global reputation as the,"Lone Wolf of Poetry." Brodsky is, if nothing else,like one of those rare gems we find originally mined from and cut to shape on Russian soil, but later ending up here in the United States, much to our cultural enrichment. Once here, in this setting of freedom, they seem to shine even more brilliantly than they ever could in their homeland. Clearly, poetry is Brodsky's realm, and yet in Volkov's meticulous rendering,(the book represents a compiliation of more than fifteen years of purposeful dialogues with Brodsky,) it is evident that Volkov uncovers the man, his life experiences, and his force of personality in a manner that perhaps Brodksy, with his grand sense of irony would appreciate, perhaps even take perverse pleasure from reading. Hearing Brodsky literally thinking out loud, as this book allows us to do, adds a deeper dimension to an understanding of his life's work, and passion. Tragically, Brodsky suffered an untimely death by heart attack Jan. 28,1996 at the age of fifty-five. The reason I say perverse appreciation, is that Brodsky, in his conversations, claims that a poet's work alone should speak for him, that one needs no further digging into the poet's personal life in order to grasp the significance of his writing. Among the many topics Brodsky thinks out loud about are some perhaps unexpected ones. For example, his love for the poetry of Robert Frost, W.H.Auden, and Robert Lowell, as well as his love for the great Russian Poets, Anna Akhmatova, Pushkin, and Marina Tsvetaeva. I found myself scrambling for my long buried volume,"The Poetry of Robert Frost, (Holt Rinehart and Winston,1969) to find the poems Brodsky discusses," Servant to Servants," and " The Wood-Pile." Even as I am reading his commentary, I have to remind myself that Brodsky is quoting these American poems from memory, improvising freely like a brilliant jazz soloist, a John Coltrane taking off in counterpoint to the questions Volkov poses to him. It's a brilliant duet in dialogue form. As such, if you love literature, and poetry, and know of Brodsky's work, or even if you have never heard of Brodksy, but would like to know more about Russian writers, this book is a treasure chest filled with literary gems. Also, it needs to be emphasized that in great measure, it is Solomon Volkov's remarkable ability to stimulate and challenge Brodsky on issues that makes the dialectic so vital. Clearly, Volkov's depth of knowledge, common Russian upbringing, and his own aesthetic sensibilities serve to bring out the best in Brodsky. Towards the end of the book they get into an intense dialogue about their homeland, in particualr, St.Petersburg, a city that looms very large in the background, much like the Chorus in Greek drama. Here the discourse becomes deeply personal, going far beyond the academic realm of literary works, and anecdotes about other writer's lives. St. Petersburg is an area that Volkov knows something about, as evidenced by his recent book,"St. Petersburg: A Cultural History." In the heat of their discussion Brodsky suddenly takes off on an inspired solo: "...in as much as Petersburg is a city by the sea, so the notion of freedom-perhaps phantasmagorical, but very powerful-inevitably arises in the consciousness of anyone living there. In this city, the individual is always going to strive to reach beyond because the space in front of him is not limited or delimited by land. Hence, the dream of unlimited freedom. This is why I think that in this city it is more natural to reject the whole existing world order..." It strikes me as particularly painful that this volume is the last, unless Volkov compiles a 2nd companion volume based on his records. No more chances to raise the hand to ask the master to explain what he meant when he said such and such. As was his wish, we now have to read his poems to figure it out for ourselves.

Solomon Volkov had a very good idea in putting together this book. Over a period of many years, he sat down with Brodsky and interviewed him about poetry, metaphysics and world events (with a little gossip thrown in for good measure). The result is a thorough and fascinating look at Brodsky's opinions at many different points in time. And the conversations are not just
one-sided: Volkov keeps up with Brodsky just fine, so it's like listening in on a tete-a-tete between two brilliant minds. If you like Brodsky you will love this book.

Though some of the topics in these interviews are repeated, overall they provide entertaining reading about Bowles, Tangier and his world. If you are not familiar with Bowles, I'd read Michelle Green's "The Dream at the End of the World" first, as it gives a fascinating and very well-written account of the expatriote community in Tangier, of which Bowles seems to have been the unelected president, or should we say sultan.

I don't regard Bowles as much of a fiction writer. (Apparently, he never got de-kiffed enough to see how sophomoric much of it is.) However, he is a very good conversationalist, as well as travel, or adventure, writer. (See "Without Stopping" and "Their Heads are Green and Their Hands are Blue.")

Edith Wharton's "In Morocco" is a great primer for the cultural backdrop in which Bowles lived and thrived and, like Bowles, she documents people, places and things very well. (If you like Bowles, you'll love her.)

Especially considering the current crisis between Islam and the West, it is important to read about the other guys without having to demonize them all the time. Bowles has an affinity for "the other guys" that is very refreshing. Yes, the North Africans are somewhat unreasonable, but then who isn't? And, is there a connection between Spain having the lowest confidence in President Bush's abilities (7%) and its proximity to, and long, troubled relations with, North Africa? Did you know that 90% of Morocco's Moslems were, at the time of Bowles' writing, not really Arabs, but Berbers, with a very different (and, from other Islamic pov's, unacceptable) approach to the religion? No?! Then read the book. (I had no idea.) If you want schisms, you got schisms. So the subjects discussed with Bowles are often more interesting than the man himself, who is a bit of a pervert and stuffed-shirt. But, he is also a sorcerer and magician, especially if you're stoned out of your mind on kif or majoun. He cultivated a following that was all too open to suggestion.

O.K., now, if you can put up with a lot of name-dropping and self-aggrandisement, then you'll enjoy this book, as much of the interesting "dialogue" between Islam and the West has occurred in Morocco. From Tangier, Bowles could actually see the coast of Spain, and, with his cigarette holder fully extended, flick an ash or two toward Europe. But he could also venture south into the mysterious countryside, with its Atlas Mountains, unnerving desert, oases and towns.

While the man himself might have been a sometimes irritating exercise in stoned-out tweed, many of his observations regarding the onslaught of civilization reflect this bizarre combination of aristocratic teahead, ethnologist, and sadistic dandy.

Caponi's collection of interviews, spanning several decades up to the early 1990's is a must for all real fans of Paul Bowles work, and an intriguing introduction to his life, work and influences for those who know little about him. As with any such collection of interviews, there is bound to be much repetition - different interviewers ask often essentially the same questions, while Bowles gives (more or less) the same answers. However, even for someone like myself, who thinks they know quite a bit about the man and his work (and maintains one of the Paul Bowles pages on the Web -

Many of the interviews touch on many of the other literary figures Bowles has known - Tennessee Williams is a frequent topic of conversation, as are William Burroughs and the other beat writers, and their time spent in Tangiers. It becomes very evident from the few interviews that dwell on the subject that Bowles is not going to talk much about his late wife, Jane. His hatred for the biography 'An invisible spectator' comes through clearly in several places, but I found it intriguing that his preferred biographer (if he had to make a reluctant choice) would be Millicent Dillon, author of the biography of Jane Bowles.

Altogether a very worthwhile read for anyone with any interest in Paul Bowles.

Why do I regard the publisher's remarks about this text being unabridged (read: sanitized to corporate "standards") with such lingering skepticism? Is is a question of having no faith in corporate ethics, or one of needing, however subconsciusly, to deny Sontag's virtuosity of intellect? If the transcribed interviews are reliably authentic, here is a mind quite literally capable of extemporizing sophisticated philosophical discourse. No wonder Camille Paglia attempted to make a cottage industry of ridiculing, belittling, and otherwise attacking this author, who not only anticipated many of Paglia's themes by decades, but who has also shown herself capable of stating in a few laconic phrases what takes Paglia (for all her verbal music) hypomanically-digressive chapters. This is a refreshingly intimate encounter with what "Hurricane Camille" herself has dubbed "one of the great minds of the Twentieth Century", in addition to being far more engaging reading than I had anticipated. Read Paglia's more serious endeavors to exercize your right brain; but read Sontag (this compilation included) to exercise your left. My only regret is noting that certain of the interviews included here were translated back into English from other languages: The smoothness of translation, for good or for ill, gave no clue.

These essays of Sontag's deal in a small part with questions of taste in the fields of art and literature. Also with the encroachments of post modernism onto the Enlightenment education Sontag received in the nineteen fifties. Also, they provide a little context to some of the books Sontag wrote during her lifetime. Sontag always took her subjects and her work seriously, in a culture that frequently asks that we ridicule ourselves and our work.

My cousin Craig is 45 years old this year and he has spent many of his years as a huge fan. I still have the books to give to him, but I know he will enjoy them.

This is probably the single best book I've ever read about the Dead. It's so much more immediate and satisfying to hear how things went down from the Dead themselves than from a faceless biographer. David Gans asks the questions *I* would have asked Jerry & Bob & Phil & Mickey & Billy. You'll feel like you're there hanging out in their living room with them. A wonderful insight into what made that magical machine run for over 30 years... --Mike Dobbs

Although Percy's output was prodigious compared to some literary greats, his six novels and two major non-fiction works leave his still-growing network of fans looking for more. "Conversations with Walker Percy" meets that need. While the biographies of Percy are helpful, there's nothing quite like hearing it straight from the author in this series of interviews. I finished the volume feeling ready to tackle his novels again prepared to look for gems I'd missed the last time around.

This volume (and its companion, More Conversations With Walker Percy) offers a fascinating and compelling glimpse into the mind of Walker Percy and a valuable study of the development of his literary and philosophical convictions as his career progressed. Though Percy's funny satirical piece "Questions They Never Asked Me" would seem to indicate that he found interviews dull and repetitive, the best pieces here clearly demonstrate the pleasure he took in discussing his ideas with an interested, engaged interviewer.

i consider this book to be the most valuable resource, in terms of art (art being all artistic medium) theory, that one can find. richard kostelanetz is a superb editor, and the book is organized to the infinitessimal of degrees. the book consists of a compendium of interviews with cage, conducted by various peoples, spanning about forty years. this book is a precise method through which to understand the means that led to cage's understanding of art and life. in that regard it serves as a fundamental piece of learning material because he divulges what he knows and how he came to know it, rather than how he feels.

This book is a collection of interviews with John Cage, the late avant garde composer who was one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. The interviews span nearly a half century and give a cogent idea of Cage's thought on music, art, education, politics, and social revision.

If you are curious about why a composer would write music that is "silent", why he would use chance, nonintention, and denounce music as communication, this is a good book to begin an overview of Cage's philosophy of art.

It also shows that Cage's musical thought was not monolithic, but changed several times in the course of his life, as did his music.

A great read. If you ever wondered why some couples stick together happly for 60 years and some couples only last two weeks, this is where you will find the answers. Cline has interviewed a great variety of couples, from the infamous/famous/artistic/scientific, from those who met in the Bronx 70 years ago to those who met in a London bar three months ago. Single readers will find out what to look for, couples may find out ways to make a good thing last. Cline's refreshingly unintrusive style lets us gain real insight into the lives of contemporary couples.

A great read. Cline has collected the stories of hundreds of very different couples in this fascinating collection. If you ever wondered why and how some people stick together for 60 years, and others only last a few months, this is the place to find the answers. These wide-ranging interviews will give you an insider's view of couples, including for example, some who met in the Bronx 65 years ago to those who met in a London bar two weeks ago. Includes the stories of famous/infamous/artistic/scientific couples and every variety between. Insights gained from the experiences of these couples will entertain and at the same time help single readers work out what they are looking for, and those in couples may work out how to get the most out of their time together. Cline's style is uninstrusive, allowing the reader to sit back and enjoy their time with these very interesting couples.

I do a business podcast called The Invisible Hand, in which I interview authors and managers about 21st century business topics. They have all been quite complementary about my interviewing skills. Those skills would be extremely less developed without this amazing book.

Barker lays it all out like a good journalist should. It is no joke to say your interviews will improve markedly just by reading the first page. How to put your guest at ease, when to challenge, different types of interviews, it's all here.

I'm a huge fan of this book.

Dennis, pls e-mail (awolfe@cmp.com). I've been trying to get in touch w/ you. We met in 93 in boston.