{"id":497,"date":"2008-08-07T13:09:18","date_gmt":"2008-08-07T18:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/?p=497"},"modified":"2012-02-25T18:55:36","modified_gmt":"2012-02-25T23:55:36","slug":"ethan-canin-bss-228","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/ethan-canin-bss-228\/","title":{"rendered":"Ethan Canin (BSS #228)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ethan Canin is most recently the author of <i>America America<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/08\/canin1.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"canin1\" align=\"center\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_7250\"><!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('audio');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-497-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo228.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo228.mp3\">http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo228.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\">Listen: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo228.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/?powerpress_pinw=497-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo228.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"segundo228.mp3\">Download<\/a> (Running Time: 42:52 &#8212; 39.3MB)<\/p>\n<p><b>Condition of Mr. Segundo:<\/b> Examining his miserable relationship with America.<\/p>\n<p><b>Author:<\/b> <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ethan_Canin\">Ethan Canin<\/a><\/p>\n<p><b>Subjects Discussed:<\/b> Neil Diamond&#8217;s &#8220;America,&#8221; the stuttering titular impulse, the Corvair, journalists as heroes, intentional vs. unintentional symbols, the reporter&#8217;s instinct, &#8220;the ingenuity of the working man,&#8221; ideology, the politics of generosity, didacticism in fiction, writing a novel from the point of view from Karl Rove, the four things it takes to be a writer, the declivity of politics during the past thirty years, economic opportunities, philosophy and fiction, print vs. blogs, journalists exploited by big money, Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick, Mike Gravel, Lyndon Johnson&#8217;s body language, Robert Caro, Ed Muskie, Corey Sifter&#8217;s possible alternative history, the <i>Washington Post<\/i> revisiting <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2008\/07\/21\/AR2008072103066.html\">the Condit-Levy affair<\/a>, playing with the public record, the first draft of <i>America America<\/i>, the risk of reading books while writing, speeches and autopsy reports embedded in the text, playing with names, David Duke, names serving as placeholders, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/arts\/critics\/books\/2008\/06\/23\/080623crbo_books_updike\">John Updike&#8217;s review<\/a>, subconscious references to the exchange of information, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2008\/07\/06\/books\/review\/Wolff-t.html\">Geoffrey Wolff&#8217;s spoiler review in the <i>NYTBR<\/i><\/a>, Ed Muskie&#8217;s tears vs. Hillary Clinton&#8217;s tears, the emotional connection of narrative, drawing from reality vs. drawing from objective data, authenticity, and writing short stories vs. novels.<\/p>\n<p><b>EXCERPT FROM SHOW:<\/B><\/p>\n<p><b>Canin:<\/b> I wish I could act as if there was something more intentional.  I&#8217;m a little tired here.<\/p>\n<p><b>Correspondent:<\/b> Oh, that&#8217;s okay.<\/p>\n<p><b>Canin:<\/b> Perhaps there was a little more intentionality on my part, but there really wasn&#8217;t.  But that was just one of those things.<\/p>\n<p><b>Correspondent:<\/b> I hope this conversation is intentional.  Or unintentional.<\/p>\n<p><b>Canin:<\/b> Yeah, it will start to get intentional.<\/p>\n<p><b>Correspondent:<\/b> Okay, let&#8217;s go into greater ambiguities.  This is quite a pasture that you have in this book.  The protagonist, Corey Sifter, he writes repeatedly about operating on a reporter&#8217;s instinct.  Likewise, you have Liam Metarey and the Senator frequently invoking the ingenuity of the working man.  <\/p>\n<p><b>Canin:<\/b>  Right.<\/p>\n<p><b>Correspondent:<\/b> And yet, it seems to me that all parties &#8212; both these two parties &#8212; don&#8217;t understand these ideologies that they inhabit, or that they endorse in some sense.  And so it seems to me that this particular book is almost this interesting glimpse into ideology.  I wanted to ask how much ideology was encroaching upon you during the act of writing or&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><b>Canin:<\/b> Could I go back?  Just stop a sec.  <\/p>\n<p><b>Correspondent:<\/b> Oh yeah.<\/p>\n<p><b>Canin:<\/b> Because that&#8217;s too many ideas for me to hold at once.<\/p>\n<p><b>Correspondent:<\/b> Oh sure.<\/p>\n<p><b>Canin:<\/b> But the first thing you said was probably the thing that motivated me to write this book.  And then when I get through that, I&#8217;ll be able to grasp the other question.<\/p>\n<p><b>Correspondent:<\/b> Sure.<\/p>\n<p><b>Canin:<\/b> I think writing a book is asking a question. It&#8217;s not answering a question.  At least for me.  And one of the questions that evolved as I wrote this was this history of public-minded, empathetic &#8212; what are supposed to be called liberal-minded politicians.  And my own term, that I&#8217;ve been using during the past few days, is the politics of generosity.  And there&#8217;s a history of them.  From Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Ted Kennedy.  Great liberal public-minded people who are also unquestionably from the land of gentry.  And the central question &#8212; there was a reviewer in the <i>Washington Post<\/i> who said something very interesting, I thought.  Which was that the book boils down to the narrator wondering whether he&#8217;s been helped or used. <\/p>\n<p>And that&#8217;s right.  That&#8217;s what it felt like to me.  That&#8217;s what I was writing about.  A narrator wondering whether he&#8217;s been helped or used.  Whether these great public-minded political figures are, in fact, public-minded or self-serving.  Or whether that even matters, as long as they&#8217;re public-minded.  And how far that public-mindedness goes.  I&#8217;m enough of a realist to think that everybody is self-interested.  And we have to just use politicians who are at least generous in their interpretation of self-interest.<\/p>\n<p><b>Correspondent:<\/b> Yeah.  But there is this notion of ideology that all the characters seem to cling to.   Particularly the antipodean ends that we&#8217;re talking about.  Of the working-class journalist-to-be vs. the Senator and this monied family in this particular town.  And this makes me want to ask you about the idea of didacticism in fiction.  It&#8217;s almost as if you&#8217;re skirting around that by exploring these questions in this particular book in a manner that leaves a sliver ask these broader questions without necessarily being didactic.  And I&#8217;m curious about the element of didacticism in this particular book.  It&#8217;s not overtly didactic. But the irony, such as Glen driving the Corvair and the like, certainly cause one to think that this is essentially a dialectic involving ideology in this particular book.  And I want to ask you about this.<\/p>\n<p><b>Canin:<\/b> I was reading last night at the Upper West Side.  And somebody asked me if I could write a novel from the point of view of Karl Rove.<\/p>\n<p><b>Correspondent:<\/b> (<i>laughs<\/i>) It would be interesting.<\/p>\n<p><b>Canin:<\/b> (<i>laughs<\/i>)  Well, I actually think I could. I don&#8217;t think I could do anything.  But I think I would be interested in doing that.  You know, I don&#8217;t know what succeeded and what didn&#8217;t in this book.  And I never will.  But I do know that I certainly intended every character to be a mix.  I certainly intended every character to be part good, part bad.  From the heroes to the obvious villains.  Those are the books that I like.  I don&#8217;t like movies with heroes and villains.  I don&#8217;t like books with heroes and villains, which is even worse.  I think empathy is <i>the<\/i> thing.  <\/p>\n<p>It takes four or five things to be a writer.  Decent prose style.<\/p>\n<p><b>Correspondent:<\/b> That&#8217;s one.  What are the other four?  (<i>laughs<\/i>) I want a list here, man.<\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_7251\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-497-2\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo228.mp3?_=2\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo228.mp3\">http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo228.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\">Listen: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo228.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/?powerpress_pinw=497-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo228.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"segundo228.mp3\">Download<\/a> (Running Time: 42:52 &#8212; 39.3MB)<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ethan Canin is most recently the author of America America. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Examining his miserable relationship with America. Author: Ethan Canin Subjects Discussed: Neil Diamond&#8217;s &#8220;America,&#8221; the stuttering titular impulse, the Corvair, journalists as heroes, intentional vs. unintentional symbols, the reporter&#8217;s instinct, &#8220;the ingenuity of the working man,&#8221; ideology, the politics of generosity, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_7252\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-497-3\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo228.mp3?_=3\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo228.mp3\">http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo228.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\">Listen: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo228.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/?powerpress_pinw=497-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/_mp3\/segundo228.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"segundo228.mp3\">Download<\/a> (Running Time: 42:52 &#8212; 39.3MB)<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1084],"tags":[446,16,445,9,10,67,257,447],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497"}],"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=497"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2283,"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497\/revisions\/2283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.edrants.com\/segundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}