by George Plimpton
This volume is the seventh in a series of interviews from the Paris Review, and it certainly lives up to the series' high standards. The subjects of these interviews, an impressive lot, include: Malcolm Cowley, Arthur Koestler, May Sarton, Eugene lonesco, Philip Larkin, Milan Kundera, John Barth, Edna O'Brien, Philip Roth and Raymond Carver. These writers had an opportunity to read and revise their answers before publication, so nobody blurts out anything scandalous (or scandalously illiterate). The book is full of considered opinions, observations and insight. The late, esteemed poet Larkin denounces "modernism" with the comment: "You have to distinguish between things that seemed odd when they were new but are now quite familiar, such as Ibsen and Wagner, and things that seemed crazy when they were new and seem crazy now, like Finnegans Wake and Picasso." O'Brien, who gives one of the best, most revealing interviews in the book, says, "I don't like too much social life anyway. It is gossip and bad white wine. It's a waste. Writing is like carrying a fetus. I get up in the morning, have a cup of tea, and come into this room to work." Roth does a clever tap dance to explain how his novels are not autobiographical. Carver discusses why he has produced so little: "Isak Dinesen said that she wrote a little every day, without hope and without despair. I like that." Long may this splendid series thrive. (Viking, $22.95)
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