by Edward Champion

The Bat Segundo Show: Paul Auster

Paul Auster appeared on The Bat Segundo Show #231. Auster is most recently the author of Man in the Dark.

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Opening himself up to explanation.

Author: Paul Auster

Subjects Discussed: Starting a novel from a title, the advance titles contained within The Book of Illusions, the working title of The Music of Chance, Mr. Blank, the relationship between Travels in the Scriptorium and Man in the Dark, shorter baroque novels vs. longer naturalistic novels, the use and non-use of quotation marks within speech, the writing history of The Brooklyn Follies, the political nature of ending novels, the 2000 presidential election, parallel worlds, the death of Uri Grossman, didactic novels, the comfort of books, the Auster eye-popping moment, the party scene in The Book of Illusions, violence, reminding the reader that he is in a novel, emotional states revealed through imaginary material, Vermont’s frequent appearance in Auster’s novel, Virginia Blaine as the shared element between Brill and Brick in Man in the Dark, magic, The Invention of Solitude, memorializing memory, Rose Hawthorne, website archives, Auster’s relationship with the Internet, having an email surrogate, Auster’s concern for specific dollar amounts in Man in the Dark and Oracle Night, Hand to Mouth, Auster’s reading habits, the 8-10 contemporary novelists Auster follows closely, being distracted, the intrusive nature of the telephone, diner moments in Auster’s most recent novels, perception and stock situations, summaries of books and films within Auster’s books, and intimate moments in great movies.

EXCERPT FROM SHOW:

Correspondent: I wanted to ask you about something that I’ve long been interested in your books, and that is your concern for specific dollar amounts. Again, it plays up here in the Pulaski Diner, where everything is five dollars. And I also think about the scenario with M.R. Chang in Oracle Night, in which there’s the whole situation between the ten dollar notebook and the ten thousand dollar notebook.

Auster: Right.

Correspondent: And again it becomes completely, ridiculously violent. But there is something about the propinquity of the dollar amount that you keep coming back to in your work. What is it about money? And what is it about a specific figure like this?

Auster: It’s funny. I never, never thought about that. Wow. Well, listen, money’s important. Everyone cares about money. And when you don’t have money, money becomes the overriding obsession of your life. I wrote a whole book about that.

Correspondent: Yeah.

Auster: Hand to Mouth. And the only good thing about making money is that you don’t have to think about money. It’s the only value. Because if you don’t have it, you’re crushed. And for a long period in my life, I was crushed. And so maybe this is a reflection of those tough years. I don’t know. I don’t know.

Correspondent: Or maybe there is something absurd about a specific dollar amount or something. I mean, certainly, when I go to a store and I see that something is set at a particular dollar amount or it fluctuates, it becomes a rather ridiculous scenario. Because all you want to do is get that particular object.

Auster: Yes, yes, yes. But often in my books, people don’t have a lot of money in their pockets. So they have to budget themselves carefully.

Correspondent: Well, not always. You tend to have characters like, for example in The Brooklyn Follies, people who have a good windfall to fall back on and who also offer frequently to help pay for things, and their efforts are often rejected out of pride by your supporting characters. And so again, money is this interesting concern. But I’m wondering why you’ve held on to this notion. It’s now thirty years since the events depicted in Hand to Mouth. I mean, is this something you just haven’t forgotten about?

Auster: I guess I haven’t forgotten about it. (laughs)

Correspondent: Do you still pinch pennies to this day?

Auster: No, no, no. Not at all. No, I’m not a tightwad at all.

Correspondent: (laughs)

Auster: I’m generous. I give good tips. It’s just — the way I live my life, ironically enough, is: I don’t want anything. I’m not a consumer. I don’t crave objects. I don’t have a car. We don’t have a country house. We don’t have a boat. We don’t have anything that lots of people have. And I’m not interested. I barely can go shopping for clothes. I find it difficult to walk into stores. The whole thing bores me so much. I guess the only thing that I spend money on is cigars and food and alcohol. Those are the main expenses.

Correspondent: Not books?

Auster: No. Because our library in the house is so bursting, we have no more room. We have things on the floor. And books come into the house at the rate of — you see, three came today for example. I’m pointing to them on the table. So we’re just inundated with books.

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by Edward Champion

Roundup, Sleep When?

  • Since the sleeping schedule has gone all to hell, it seems as good a time as any to point to numerous things. (I forgot what happens when my mind remains active without a break for seventeen hours. Must remember to do stupid things so that I can sleep in the future.)
  • The Los Angeles Times checks in with Howard Junker and Zyzzyva, as Junker has just retired. There doesn’t appear to be a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon in Mr. Junker’s hand, but perhaps some unknown moment of spare time involving Photoshop and, well, let’s face it, PBR might remedy this. [UPDATE: To be clear on this, Junker is retiring at the end of next year.]
  • Dan Green offers many thoughts on Steven Millhauser.
  • And speaking of Millhauser, I’m wondering if there’s a specific name for that optical illusion in which two lower-case ells appear to converge into one when you’re looking at them in a small font. I’m convinced this is why I can never trust myself when I type “Philip Roth.” I always think there might be another ell, when there isn’t. Because if you stare long enough at two ells, they merge into one!
  • If Obama wishes to preach hope, I certainly hope he has a solution for this retail bloodletting. Chelsea Green has managed to anger Barnes & Noble and independent booksellers because it intends to distribute Robert Kuttner’s Obama’s Challenge at the Democratic National Convention. There’s just one problem. With the book comes coupons that can be redeemed at Amazon’s BookSurge, which is their POD offering. Independent booksellers revolted and canceled orders, feeling that Chelsea Green’s move was a slap in the face. Chelsea Green president Margo Baldwin responded, blaming this favoritism on the importance of the election season. (Gee, I wonder if I can tell my landlord that I can’t pay the rent next month because I believe that this year’s Mets season is particularly important. Think he’d be sympathetic?) Anyway, instead of offering an alternative that might assist these indie bookstores, Baldwin writes that Chelsea Green “could not have survived and thrived without the innovations that Amazon brought to the book marketplace.” Amazon may be important for a small press to survive, but the people who run indie bookstores are often passionate readers. It’s the people behind the counter who have some say in where your book is positioned. There’s little doubt in my mind that POD will become a retail reality at some point. But with so many POD options out there and the atmosphere uncertain, it seems to me extremely foolish to alienate the support you have operating in the present like this.
  • Am I the only person who really doesn’t give two shits about Michael Phelps? You know, world events, economy in the shitter, U.S. presidential election, Georgia, rising gas and food prices, et al.
  • Leave it to the EFF to nail down some of the Kindle’s problems. (via Booksquare)
  • Newspaper online traffic is jumping. It’s going online. Get on the wagon while you can.
  • Is Tom Shales out of line? You make the call.
  • Esquire fiction editor L. Rust Hills has died. Daniel Murphy is believed to be in some way responsible.
  • The reading tastes of the homeless.
  • George Orwell considers cement.
  • Wired interviews Neal Stephenson.
by Edward Champion

Responding to Orwell: August 18

George! You’re back. Was getting a little worried. Had figured that the weather, which you were dutifully recording over the days, had at long last taken the wind out of you. But here you are with not one, but two diary entries. I don’t know if your thoughts on barley represent some insight into Animal Farm. Was reading Daniel Levitin’s The World in Six Songs the other day, and I was struck by his observation about Paul McCartney (we don’t have newspaper cuttings here on the Internet, George, so I hope this blockquote is semi-tantamount to your prudent applique):

Similarly, Paul McCartney seemed to be trying to capture both the sound and the aesthetic essence of a forties dance-hall tune in a string of songs beginning with “When I’m Sixty-Four” (written in 1958, recorded in 1967), “Your Mother Should Know” (1967), and “Honey Pie” (1968). With each one, he got a little closer, until 1976, when he released “You Gave Me the Answer,” with production and orchestration sounding almost exactly like a Fred Astaire record. McCartney never attempted a dance hall-style song after this, and so I assume that he finally met his artistic goal and moved on to other experiments and other challenges.

I’m wondering how your current concerns about wood and barley fit in with this observation. Maybe you’ll be pursuing this question in your diary in the years to come, but to what degree, George, does your diary represent continued efforts to pinpoint the precise book you have to write? And since you expired so young, I’m hoping that your eyes didn’t close with too many regrets along these lines.

I’m sorry to report that greenheart wood (aka Chlorocardium rodiei) is now redlisted by the IUCN as a threatened species. The folks at the Orwell Estate don’t wish to point this out, but I think it’s important to place your enthusiasm in some context. I may be experiencing certain joys and pleasures that, sixty years from now, will be unthinkable. It is for this reason that I consider almost every day blessed in some sense.

I’m glad to hear that some of the blackberries have ripened and that the elder-berries have begun to grow purple! This may seem the kind of routine observation to be mocked, but I suspect those who have ridiculed your efforts fail to understand the pleasure of flora and fauna unfurling and adapting at a slow and leisurely clip.

When I get around to trying out my own efforts with lumber (sometime this year), maybe the two of us will swap some notes. Obviously, it won’t be greenheart. But I do plan to build a few bookcases. Just need to take some measurements of the apartment and draw up plans.

And thank you for referencing the Sardinian mouflon sheep on August 16. It’s a bit embarrassing, but I love the way that phrase rolls off the tip of my tongue and have uttered it a few times to ensure that it is indeed a mellifluous marvel.

Lots of work here, George, but let’s check in with each other.