THE INTERVIEW

							                          THE INTERVIEW
                        By Charistopher Silvester
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Christopher silvester was a reporter for private Eye and has written features
for Vanity Fair. This excerpt has been taken from his introduction to the
Penguin Book of Interviews, An Anthology from 1859 to the Present Day.
SUMMARY
Part I
The interview has become a common tool of journalism. We get clear
impressions of celebrities through interviews. The interviewers hold a
position of power. However opi9nions differ and many celebrities hate being
interviewed.
Part II
Mukund Padmanabham from The Hindi interviews Umberto Eco a professor
at the University of Boloyna. Eco, a scholar and writer, has written 40
scholarly works of non-fiction and five novels. The huge success of his
novel The Name of the Rose in a mystery. Two to three million copies were
sold in the US alone. Eco believes that he wrote the novel at the right time.
I       Answer the following questions in about 30-40 words each.
        a. What are some of the positive news on interviews?
               An interview, in its highest form, is a source of true facts and in
        its practice, it is an art. It is a supremely serviceable medium of
        communication. It furnishes vivid impressions of contemporary
        personalities. The interviewer holds a position of power as well as
        influence.
        b. Why do most celebrated writers despise being interviewed?
               Most celebrated writers feel that they are victimized while
        giving interviews. They take an interview as an unwarranted intrusion
        into their affairs of life that makes them feel small. Sir V.S. Naipaul
        opines that some people feel as good as wounded and they feel as
good as wounded and they feel as if they were without a part of
themselves after an interview. Lewis Carroll considered an interview
to be forrible as it lionzes the interviewee, i.e. treats him/her as a
celebrity and people get on his/her nerves for autographs etc. Rudyard
Kipling describes an interview to be vile, cowardly and an immoral
act that deserves punishment as a serious crime.
c. What is the belief in some primitive cultures about being
photographed?
It is believed that photographing a person is no less than stealing
his/her soul out of the body and rendering him incomplete and
slighted.
d. What do you understand by the expression “thumbprints on his
windpipe”?
The expression means having been strangulated. The interview is an
assault on a person as it makes him/her so tense that he/she feels as
good as being choked.
e. Who, in today’s world, is our chief source of information on
personalities?
In modern times, the chief source of information on personalities is
the interviewer who, through his power and influence, gathers
information and provides us with the best possible information on the
interviewees. He extracts everything significant through his questions
for us.
f. Who is Umbereto Eco and whom is he being interviewed by?
        Mukund Padmanabhan from The Hindu is interviewing
Umberto Eco, a professor at the University of Bologna in Italy. He is
a reputed scholar in semiotics, literary interpretation and mediaeval
aesthetics. He then turned to writing fiction, academic texts, essay and
children’s books. The publication of his novel The Name of Rose
earned for him the status of an Intellectual Superstar in 1980.
      g. What did Eco mean when he said “ in the end I am convinced I am
      always doing the same thing?”
      He has a common ground of ethical and philosophical interests which
      he pursues through all his works-academic, novels, children’s books,
      etc. All his works reflect non-violence and peace.
      h. What is Eco’s secret?
      His secret lies in his belief that just as the universe has many empty
      spaces so have our lives. He used these empty spaces to produce his
      works.
      i. What is unique about Eco’s approach to writing?
      Each of his scholarly works has playful and personal quality unlike a
      regular academic style which is dry and boring. His approach is also
      informal.
      j. How did The Name of the Rose become a huge success?
             In spite of being a serious novel, it enjoyed huge readership.
      Journalists often believe that people like fresh materials and topics.
      But there are readers who don’t want easy and commonplace
      experience. This novel dealt with a period of medieval history. It
      success is a mystery.
II.   Answer the following questions in about 100-125 words each:
      a. Do you think Umberto Eco liked being interviewed ? Give reasons
      for hour opinion.
      It seems that Umberto Eco, unlike most other celebrities, liked being
      interviewed. He felt just at ease with the interviewer and answered all
      the questions fully and patiently without showing any hurry. He stated
      his achievement in a very modest manner and explained his
      philosophical views and interest clearly. He let the interviewer enter
      the secret about his craft with a loud laugh. Also, he elaborated his
      approach which was unique. He was mannerly, warm and properly
      responsive as well.
      b. How did Eco find time to write so much?
        There are two factors that explain how Eco was able to write so
much. In his own words, the life of every person has exply spaces-
periods with no important jobs. He says that he did most of his writing
during these free intervals. Second, he explains that people wondered
that he (Eco) had written so much on various subjects. But the fact is
that he was writing on the same lines and same interests-peace, non-
violence, etc. All his works were linked with the thread of common
interests. It saves his time and he could write a lot in a short period of
time. That was the secret behind Eco’s prolific pen.
c. What was distinctive about Eco’s academic writing style?
The distinctive features of Eco’s writing style was that:
(a) His non-fictional writing had a certain playful personal touch and
    an informal approach. He avoided depersonalized, dry and boring
    style.
(b) His doctoral thesis stated the story of his research detailing his
    trials and errors.
(c) His essays possessed a narrative quality.
(d) His Novels too conformed to his narrative style.
(e) He wrote over 40 non-fiction scholarly works.
d. Did Umberto Eco consider himself a novelist first or an academic
scholar?
Eco is a scholar of non-fiction writing, first of all. As for his novels,
he took to writing novels by accident only. Buyt later on, he found
that they satisfied his taste for narrative writing. Still against 40 works
of non-fiction, he wrote only five novels. He wrote a sensual piece of
work on semiotics. Eco never forgets that he is a perfessor and prefers
to participate in academic conferences rather than meetings of Pen
Clubs or of writers. He used only his Sunday’s for writing novels. In
short, his personality identifies with academic community,
e. What is the reason for the huge success of the novel The Name of
the Rose?
This novel is a very serious novel that has a detective yarn. But at the
same time it delves into biology, metaphysics and mediaeval history.
So, it enjoyed a very huge readership-far larger than its Americal
Publisher had expected. She expected to sell hardly 3000 copies but
the sales-figure reached 2-3 million copies in the US alone. Its overall
sale was 10-15 millions copies. One of the reasons of the novel’s
success was that it dealt with a period of mediaeval history. Truly
speaking , the novel’s success is a mystery. It may have been due to
its timely publication or that some people like difficult reading
experiences.