Nam Le (BSS #222)
Nam Le is the author of The Boat.
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 1:00:54 — 55.8MB)
Condition of the Show: Attempting to find classification within the media industrial complex.
Author: Nam Le
Subjects Discussed: On writing about panna cotta before experiencing it, plausibility and aesthetics, subjectivity, the dangers of autobiographical connections and personal experience perceived by readers and critics, why fiction needs to be influenced by strangeness, place and topography, “Meeting Elise” as an inverted New Yorker story, when the bludgeon of language falls apart, Nam Le’s comic impulses, on not being published in the New Yorker, the relationship between artistic frustrations and the short story infrastructure, making stories succeed on their own terms, bouncing around the globe and using different tones, being perceived, writing without being restrained, political discourse and infantile reductionism, Nam Le’s concern for plant and tree life, getting things wrong, prioritizing descriptive details, the risks of not providing all geographic details, readers who don’t look things up, spelling things out vs. not holding a reader’s hand, elemental meaning within place names, fixed location vs. transitory location, the surrender of identity in relation to how people attach themselves to community, the natural topical limitations of a writer, smooth description, not trusting the veneer of the self, the many references to the body within the stories, the body as an epidermal buffer between the soul and the environment, authentic dialogue and ground rules established for vernacular, the decision to capitalize “Child,” the ethics of writing, and looking in sentences and paragraphs with a sense of aesthetics and ethics.
EXCERPT FROM SHOW:
Le: First of all, I think that place names are — I mean, you’d be a fool not to use them in many regards. Because they’re such charged and resonant words. Because they carry the connotation of all of the expectations and assumptions, and all of the misconceptions, as well as all of the history and culture of the place. So a word like Cartagena has such layers and meaning, and also has references to — for example, to be wanky again, Carthage. But there are elements that are simply embedded into a name like that. And with Hiroshima, for example, I mean, geez, can you think of a word or a place name that is more loaded?
Correspondent: Auschwitz maybe.
Le: Exactly.
Correspondent: I’m waiting for that story from you.
Le: (laughs) You know what I mean? I mean, that was a particularly calculated title.
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[...] Nam Le is the author of The Boat. He appeared on The Bat Segundo Show #222. [...]
[...] The National Book Foundation has released its latest 5 Under 35 list and, aside from one regrettable selection made by an overrated, near humorless, and out-of-touch novelist who hasn’t produced any fiction in seven years, it’s a very fine list. And if you’re interested in plunging further, you can listen to Segundo conversations with Fiona Maazel and Nam Le. [...]
[...] Nam Le, The Boat: I’ve long been unnerved by the continued lionization of writers who desperately cling to their MFA toolboxes like organization men who fancy themselves longshoremen because they have seen the sea. These types often mistrust their innate voices and fear their idiosyncrasies, and we are all the lesser for it. But early in the year, this book arrived in my mailbox out of the blue. I knew very little about it, but I began reading and found myself captivated by a rare talent who thankfully can’t be pigeonholed. Nam Le writes in multiple tones and multiple locations. This astonishing debut short story collection features heartbreaking portraits of transition (”Halflead Bay”), some playful postmodernism (the opening story features a character named Nam Le), and what I interpreted (I seem to have been the only one) as a muted and juicy satire of the New York artistic life (”Meeting Elise”). (See also Bat Segundo interview.) [...]
[...] recommend these installments: David Mitchell (interview #1, #2 Pt. 1 and #2 Pt. 2), Nam Le, David Lynch, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Michio Kaku, Paul Schrader, Thomas M. Disch, Chimamanda Adichie and [...]