I am not an Oates fan. In fact, it’s not too strong to say that some of her stuff, I absolutely detest. I did quite like her book “On Boxing” however, so there you go. Anyway, despite my dislike of her style, topics, language, choices, etc., her place in the pantheon of American authors remains quite secure. And I felt I should probably limit myself to podcasts about authors who I know, because what happens when I listen to the ones of authors I don’t know? It just adds to the fucking “go buy this” list doesn’t it. I need a “hey stupid go home and read one of the books in the to-be-read pile” podcast!
Anyway, despite all of the above, this was an enjoyable podcast to listen to although her voice combined with Silverblatt’s was a dangerous recipe for a bus ride, I’m pretty sure I dozed off a few times. Mid-doze, however, I did hear something weird — they seemed to be talking about one of her stories that’s about a boy who’s being brought up as an organ donor. Can that be right? Or did I sleep through the beginning of the sentence where they said “Speaking of ‘Never Let Me Go’ by Kazuo Ishiguro…” Is it possible that both of those have the same plot setup?
One story that sounded interesting is about HItchcock, what a truly despicable person he was, written as if by a similar person to say Tippi Hedrin (but not her). Grew out of Oates being asked to write a short bio of Hancock, sitting around watching all his films and reading interviews and realizing that he was such a jerk that she just couldn’t do it. And out of her hundreds of pages of notes came this story. Fascinating. Although I probably wouldn’t like the story were I to read it…
Also a very funny bit when she was talking about how much she likes epistolary novels (as do I). And they talked about Gogol’s story “Diary of a Madman” which at one point features two dogs writing letters to each other (but of course turns out to be the madman’s imagination). Sounds hilarious!