The Paris Review Interviews, I: 16 Celebrated Interviews

If you've ever tried to write or even wondered about the creative writing process these interviews will have you riveted. I expected some ego and posturing and there is a bit but most of the authors are amazingly honest....even Hemingway as he picks and chooses what he wants to discuss. Most delicious is when these writers give their take on fellow writers. Here's an example from Joan Didion, "There's a passage by Christopher Isherwood in a book of his called `The Condor and the Crows', in which he describes arriving in Venezuela and being astonished to think that it had been down there every day of his life." Dorothy Parker says, "And I thought William Styron's `Lie Down in Darkness' an extraordinary thing. The start of it took your heart and flung it over there." Best of all are their observations: "The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof, xxxx detector. This is the writer's radar and all great writers have had it." Ernest Hemingway "But novel writing is something else. It has to be learned, but it can't be taught. This bunkum and stinkum of college creative-writing courses! The academics don't know that the only thing you can do for someone who wants to write is to buy him a typewriter." James M. Cain "I had begun to lose patience with the conventions of writing. Descriptions went first; in both fiction and nonfiction, I just got impatient with those long paragraphs of description. By which I do not mean--obviously--the single detail that gives you the scene. I'm talking about description as a substitute for thinking." Joan Didion

The flow of that Borges interview is fascinating. It seems done really in one sitting... honest, and unedited--unlike the most of the others, where, even in the introduction it is admitted that the interviewee had intervened so much in the final draft, the interviewee sometimes become one more interviewer... the writer/subject is interviewing himself/herself. (in any case, thats why many writers are willing to sit down for a Paris Review interview... because they are promised to have the final say on the output, if they so wish. even if deadlines are disregarded). Then next best is Hemingway's. Bristling machismo in some of the answers. You see irritation, willingness to participate, then irritation again. Then Billy Wilder's. It's amazing to discover that while he has been retired for so long when interviewed, he still has the wit and can recall personal events like it's yesterday. Im wondering now why he hadnt made a film for decades, but was still very involved in Holywood. (I gather from the interview that he still has an office he gets to everyday until he died). The rest are of equal good quality. While not remarkable in total, there is always a question that is answered uniquely and interestingly by the subject writer. I have to admit though that Im not familiar with a number of them, and I still have 7 more to read though as of this writing. Yes, the interviews are available online, but for 10 USD, you also get a good quality paper (used in the book), designed to last long. Nothing beats reading, leafing through the pages, and smelling a brilliant book. :-)

I've learned more about writing from this collection than I have from twenty textbooks on writing. A must-read for anyone interested in learning more about the craft of literature, whether as a writer or a reader.

If you love words and how they come together and how the best writers make that happen, this is for you.

Perhaps this might be an obvious statement, for as the title indicates this collection of works from the Paris Review is a collection of interviews, but one that I feel need be made nevertheless. In reading over this wonderful work that contains interviews with Borges, Parker, Hemingway, Capote, Eliot, as well as many other legends of literature and 20th century intellectual thought, the reader is able to discover a truer sense of voice behind these renowned authors. We are given an amazing portal into the minds of these artists that ranges from how they approach their work and their diverse influences, to simply how they might view their lives and world around them. I would recommend this text to any person with even the most casual interest in literature, and for those who wish to immerse themselves with such authors and thought, I think this collection would be a perfect companion.