{"id":351,"date":"2008-05-19T13:37:04","date_gmt":"2008-05-19T18:37:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/?p=351"},"modified":"2012-02-25T19:19:18","modified_gmt":"2012-02-26T00:19:18","slug":"cynthia-ozick-bss-210","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/cynthia-ozick-bss-210\/","title":{"rendered":"Cynthia Ozick (BSS #210)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Cynthia Ozick is most recently the author of <i>Dictation<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/ozick1.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"ozick\" align=\"center\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_6213\"><!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('audio');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-351-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo210.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo210.mp3\">http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo210.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\">Listen: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo210.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/?powerpress_pinw=351-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo210.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"segundo210.mp3\">Download<\/a> (Running Time: 48:21 &#8212; 44.3MB)<\/p>\n<p><b>Condition of the Show:<\/b> Overtaken by a tyrannical dictator.<\/p>\n<p><b>Author:<\/b> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.complete-review.com\/authors\/ozickc.htm\">Cynthia Ozick<\/a><\/p>\n<p><b>Subjects Discussed:<\/b> Balancing two authors, two secretaries and other stylistic repetitions that evoke typewriters in &#8220;Dictation,&#8221; purloining language from Henry James and Joseph Conrad&#8217;s letters, Henry James&#8217;s &#8220;forgotten umbrella,&#8221; <a href=\"http:\/\/harpers.org\/archive\/2007\/04\/0081479\">&#8220;Literary Entrails,&#8221;<\/a> parallels between the last two turns of the century, feeling like Queen Victoria, the language GNU within &#8220;What Happened to the Baby?&#8221; and open source GNU, crosswords in &#8220;Actors,&#8221; agonizing over every particular sentence, the slowness of sentences, auctorial fingerprints, John Updike, not wanting to be a writer of drafts, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tnr.com\/story.html?id=b12db0e0-c81d-417d-b138-c7c633dbbbc1&#038;p=1\">a lost manuscript by Lionel Trilling<\/a>, whether postwar critics are being suitably remembered, those who mock Trilling for his moral seriousness, the origin of names, fiction as a pack of lies, being a stickler for the details vs. sustaining ambiguity, contradicting yourself in essays, when essays are unduly compared with fiction, John Barth&#8217;s &#8220;The Literature of Exhaustion,&#8221; the current literary critical environment, E.M. Forster, descriptive references to necks, on not leaving the house, not writing stories set in the present day, getting lost in one&#8217;s head, re-rereading <i>Sense and Sensibility<\/i>, how much Ozick has to think about a book before writing it, the reputation of America over the past fifty years, defining a &#8220;contemporary&#8221; novel, the dangers of writing in the present moment, clinging to brand names, books that rethink a particular epoch, religious identity in &#8220;At Fumicaro,&#8221; pretending about pretending, literary impersonation and multiple personalities, and anchoring fiction with reality.<\/p>\n<p><b>EXCERPT FROM SHOW:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>Correspondent:<\/b> I wanted to ask you about &#8220;Dictation,&#8221; the title story.  This was very interesting to me for a number of reasons.  Because here you have two writers, Henry James and Joseph Conrad, two secretaries of Henry James and Joseph Conrad, and then on top of that, you have a number of repetitions throughout the story, as if to echo or beckon the typewriter.  Like in the very beginning, when you have Henry James describing <i>Almayer&#8217;s Folly<\/i>, you kept saying, &#8220;He saw.  He saw.&#8221; And there&#8217;s a number of interesting things you are doing in the syntax of the story that almost echoes the typewriter.  So I wanted to ask how this particular stylistic device came about.  I know you spend a lot of time on your sentences. So you had to have been at least somewhat aware of this.<\/p>\n<p><b>Ozick:<\/b> Well not so much of the repetition in consonance with the typewriter, no.  I wasn&#8217;t aware of that at all.  And I&#8217;m rather taken aback by hearing you say, &#8220;Have you actually seen this or heard this?&#8221;  I have not.  (<i>laughs<\/i>)  I have not.  I&#8217;m sorry to disappoint.  That is not what I had in mind.  What I had in mind really was the joy of the mischief when it occurred to me.  And the stylistic aspect had to do more not with the sounds &#8212; if that&#8217;s what you&#8217;re getting at &#8212; but with the tones and styles of speech of these people in that era.  Particularly with the formality of the young ladies, who must call each other &#8220;Miss.&#8221;  To venture into a first name is really quite forward and not to be countenanced by polite society at first.  And also the great pleasure of, I suppose, my parodying of James and Conrad.  Though, here&#8217;s a confession, and having very much to do with style.  I purloined certain phrases directly from the letters of James and Conrad.  So there are sentences buried in there which are absolutely authentic.  Because they&#8217;re stolen directly.  Not full sentences, but phrases here and there.  So that gave me a lot of joy too.  Because it was a kind of imitation, mimicry, reflection of what these two amanuenses were up to in their mischievous plan.<\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_6214\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-351-2\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo210.mp3?_=2\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo210.mp3\">http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo210.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\">Listen: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo210.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/?powerpress_pinw=351-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo210.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"segundo210.mp3\">Download<\/a> (Running Time: 48:21 &#8212; 44.3MB)<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cynthia Ozick is most recently the author of Dictation. Condition of the Show: Overtaken by a tyrannical dictator. Author: Cynthia Ozick Subjects Discussed: Balancing two authors, two secretaries and other stylistic repetitions that evoke typewriters in &#8220;Dictation,&#8221; purloining language from Henry James and Joseph Conrad&#8217;s letters, Henry James&#8217;s &#8220;forgotten umbrella,&#8221; &#8220;Literary Entrails,&#8221; parallels between the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_6215\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-351-3\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo210.mp3?_=3\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo210.mp3\">http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo210.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\">Listen: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo210.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/?powerpress_pinw=351-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo210.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"segundo210.mp3\">Download<\/a> (Running Time: 48:21 &#8212; 44.3MB)<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1084],"tags":[16,350,351,352,353,9,355,354],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2313,"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351\/revisions\/2313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}