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22h51m
This is a fantastic interview with Padgett Powell (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padgett_Powell), a writer of the Southern tradition. IMO, the two things that make it great ar how candid and fluid Powell's answers are and the hilariously Newspeak of the interviewer's questions.
Powell was Don Barthelme's student, his analysis of Barthelme's main thrust here is worth the read alone. If you want to dig deeper on this point, here's another interview with him: https://www.vice.com/en/article/vdxyd8/padgett-powell-is-ame...
Flann O'Brian, mentioned briefly by Powell is an interesting character, too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flann_O'Brien.
It's not really "Newspeak" at all; if anything, it's the opposite. Newspeak had limited vocabulary. The interviewer is using a bunch of ten-dollar words. Still, interesting interview! I might read some Padgett Powell at some point because of this.
It's an interesting contrast, because Ah-Sen is an experimental formalist, and his questions progress from that point of view, whereas Powell is (hilariously) ... not. (As this feels like a Q&A-by-email with all the questions submitted en bloc, Ah-Sen probably didn't get a chance to adapt his questions, and their theoretical foundation, to Powell's responses, lending to the surrealistic air.)
It also might be worth noting that both pull quotes are things that Ah-Sen said in the questions, instead of things that Powell said in response.
Some interviewers aim to help to tell their subjects’ stories, but others are looking for a reason to hear themselves speak. This feels like the latter case.
One is from Powell, the other from Ah-Sen.
Also, shouldn't it be "berthed" not birthed?
Unless you’re going for some meta-joke, no.
Why not? If we’re starting with this nautical analogy (unmoored), immediately flipping to a biological one is odd. I strongly suspect this was a transcription error and/or intentional pun - the two are pronounced identically.
It almost works, but "berthed" doesn't imply "created", since it means something more like "parked".
So that doesn't read right with:
"The destiny of all books is to become unmoored from the time which birthed them. - Ah-Sen"
It could have used both maybe? "...and then berthed in the present"
You’re reading “created” into it to justify that interpretation. If you assume he meant created then sure go with birthed, but that doesn’t prove anything beyond your initial assumption.
A “berthed”-friendly interpretation would be “all books start off tied to a particular point in time, it is their destiny to become free of their temporal bounds, to drift through eternity”
You're assigning some notion that berthed means berthed in a home port. Ships are berthed in many different places and times. So the "time which berthed them" just doesn't work.
It does. They were tied to a point in time. They are destined not to be. It’s really very simple. I’m sorry you can’t understand it.
Mixing metaphors and claiming a now-unmoored vessel is more likely to be contrasted with one in a state of being “born” than “berthed” is what “doesn’t work”.
Especially considering “unmoored” is a nearly exact antonym of “berthed”, whereas a ship is never described as being “born”. Christened, perhaps. But certainly not born.
It's an action though, "the time that XXX'ed them". Birthed fits there well, berthed does not. Had it said "the time they were berthed to" I would understand your point better.
Perhaps you're right and it was remembered or quoted wrong, and the word really is "berthed", but it wouldn't have been just the one word remembered incorrectly.
There is no categorical semantic difference between "berthed" and "birthed". They are both past participle tense verbs and fit equally well with no changes needed to the rest of the sentence. Perhaps you simply have more experience hearing birthed in that context and perceive it to fit better? But in reality they really are grammatically identical.
It's very hard to not see creation in the quote when time is the actor at the moment of a book's "b*rthing".
If the arrow of time isn't berthing a book at its creation, when else would it?
The ambiguity is delightful.
If it were birthed it might be smarter to say orphaned or alienated or something that follows the parentage metaphor instead of unmoored.
If it were berthed it would make more sense to be something like "The destiny of all books is to become unmoored from the time where they were originally berthed".
But it is more common in English to use birthed as created than this kind of extended nautical metaphor.
And it is more common for people to mix their metaphors, especially when they are trying to sound clever.
Therefore I think they mixed their metaphors a bit.
The question isn't whether birthed is more common than extended nautical metaphors in general, the question is given that a nautical metaphor is already in place, what is the likelihood that metaphor is being extended, versus trampled and replaced with another?
Only if the author is assuming the ship has been berthed many times. It might just as easily have been berthed once and adrift ever since. Being berthed in no way implies repetition.
I guess your assumption about repetition is due to originally, because otherwise I don't see anything that could lead to that assumption, but that assumption is also rather tenuous, because originally berthed would still be a relevant phrasing to use if the boat becomes unmoored.
That is to say originally berthed also works for having been berthed once and adrift ever since, at least in English which tends to be forgiving about this kind of thing.
Er why would that be the case. To be unmoored is to be detached from something. So the quote is saying that the destiny of every book is to be detached and read outside the context in which it was written (birthed).
To be berthed is to be attached to your home, as a boat. It makes way more sense to keep the nautical analogy going than to switch it over to biology. This was likely a transcription error and/or pun.
It's just a mixed metaphor. They are very common in bad writing, which isn't to say they themselves are always bad. The surrounding words make it clear it's not a typo. "which _____ them" does not make sense and would be very rare usage for "berthed".
We are born into a time and moored to it. Books are not. Books are distinct from people in this way. That's the point.
Since part of the interview is making fun of the way the questions are worded, it also fits in that respect.
"which berthed them" makes perfect sense, and fits just as well as any other past participle would in that context. Just because a usage of a word is rare does not mean an experienced author cannot choose to invoke it. In fact, the opposite. Again though, I think the author knew damn well what they were doing and intended for it to be a pun (which would still be arguably berthed-forward).
To be clear, the usage you're describing is so rare as to be practically nonexistent. You would never use it this way if you were familiar with the word and its usage, only if you knew the word from dictionaries. Look at the rarity even for saying something like "the crew berthed the ship." You just don't say it like that.
Yes, someone "could" do it and we'd understand what they meant. But there's no reason to believe that's what happened here. Maybe "moored" did trigger an association with "birth"/"berth", but "birth" is not a mistake.
"Berthing" is also not a singular, one-time event, any ship has a multitude of berthings over time, in this context it makes no sense for there to be a "time that berthed it" as if it was some singular meaningful event, and it changes "time" into something that "berths" books...what would that mean in this metaphor that a time "berths" a book? Wouldn't other times also berth books in their ports? A time does not "berth" a book, it births a book.
I really don't care to discuss this further, but all your points are addressed somewhere in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40150716
Good day.
Slow clap
Mea culpa; I should know better than to comment when half asleep. Thanks for the correction.
In the TV series Julia there's a character who's an academic in literature and hosts a public access TV show interviewing authors; I thought it was a bit of a caricature, but it may as well be accurately modelled on Ah-Sen, underplaying it even.
Well, there is the bit where the interviewee responds to a question that utilizes SAT words by saying he does not recognize one of them. That tends to imply it's real-time, unless the interviewee is too lazy to look up the meaning before responding to an email or wants to underscore the pretentious use of language by the interviewer, who nevertheless keeps at it.
What does "experimental formalist" mean in this case and what is the associated point of view you're referring to?
The little info box about the interviewer at the end of the article tells you all you need to know.
"The little info box about the interviewer at the end of the article tells you all you need to know."
That is a very round-about way of saying something negative about this article. Why not say straight out what you think is wrong with it? Why not? Maybe because it is easier for some people to agree with you when you don't present any actual facts.
What does that little info-box say? And why do you think that is ALL we need to know?
I think the implication is that this interview is more about the interviewer than about the interviewee. Not sure I agree. Infoboxes about the author of an article are a common practice. I see them even on recipe websites
You got something against Canadians?
No one has more issues with Toronto writers who claim to be part of the "Canadian literary underground" than other Canadians.
Hmm, what is it that I needed to know? And what does the info box tell me? As another simpleton in this world, I did not understand this comment.
Your comment tells me all I need to know about you.
Obtuse commentary is worthless for discussion.
I think they're both trying to show how smart they are - the interviewer in a big-brain intellectual fashion, and the author in an arch way to show what a rebel he is.
Despite Powell's almost cringe worthy rage against "liberal racism", at least his responses had force of personality behind them. The interviewer's questions show a distinct lack of awareness. An interview only works if you're setting the stage for the interviewee, not for yourself.
Yeah, unless the interviewer is a big name in their own right (so not in this case), your aim is to let the subject shine and fade into the background. The quality of your questions is only judged by what answers they elicit.
Unless it's investigative in nature, even the best interviewers still don't take the spotlight.
Larry King, on his interview technique, said "The key of interviewing is listening. I hate interviewers who come with a long list of prepared questions, because they're going to depend on going from the fourth question to the fifth question without listening to the answer"
Though I can't say I blame the interviewer. If I spent that much time flipping through a thesaurus crafting my questions, I wouldn't want to divert from them either.
Yeah, but I assumed that the interview was done via email. I could be wrong.
I think the questions were scripted and intentionally specific. What do you think they were unaware of? It seems like the interviewer had a deep understanding of the works. Nothing wrong with asking a deep and detailed question,to which Powell can engage or glide past.
As an aside, I think a huge number of people think the liberal racism bit is spot on. As translated elsewhere in this thread, "erasing representation to avoid the discomfort of confronting racism" is a real phenomenon.
Flann O'Brian's novel about a novel "At swim two birds" has been one of my favorite yearly re-reads, I must take it down off the shelf again this weekend!
For me it's the third policeman, which is wonderfully dreamlike.
Teeth, it's all about the teeth, you'd be surprised
mar ná beidh ár leithéidí arís ann
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_B%C3%A9al_Bocht
Tell me this, do you ever open a book at all?
I found this interview almost unreadable, but I'm also quite sure I'm not the target audience for it despite being a pretty avid reader.
I find the author almost unlikeable!
He acts like an actual author - under-acknowledged, cloyingly clever, desperate for attention
instead of an author fantasy - cool, knowledgeable, enmeshed in the subject to the point of unselfconsciousness
I found the interviewer comes across as incredibly pretentious. I can’t stand this style of writing, he is trying way too hard.
I really like the short story Typical. It is one of my favorite short stories.
So do I! In fact I searched for Powell this morning, after lazily taking down my 1990 Best American Short Stories collection, which was where I first encountered “Typical” and his unique voice.
It all kind of reaches an apotheosis when the interviewer makes the second big red pull quote one from their questions, instead of one from the author's answers. I couldn't believe it, I had to double check!
Wow that’s incredible. What a sentence too. Slides right through your brain without any meaning getting caught on it.
I absolutely love this! As you have noted, both the ability and the courage to speak plainly have made it a lost art.
Since it's a central to the interview and not well explained, here's a link to Barthelme's short story "Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby":
https://web.mit.edu/jemorris/humor/gone.too.far
It's very short, and very worth reading.