Writers at Work: Volume 4

Writers At Work: The Paris Review Interviews #4

by George Plimpton (Editor), Wilfrid Sheed (Contributor)

Conversations with such authors as Robert Graves, John Dos Passos, Anthony Burgess, and Jack Kerouac reveal their personalities and views on literature

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction

459 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1976

About the author

George Ames Plimpton was an American journalist, writer, editor, actor, and gamesman. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review.

He was the grandson of George A. Plimpton.

Reviews

[Molebatsi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am storming through the Writers at Work Series at a blistering pace, to go through all of them as soon as possible and restart them at a more measured pace taking one interview at a time. The second bout of readings may just take me a lifetime of delight in the interviews.

For now, I pick the interviews that meet my fancy and am done with them. The rest, I will engage in the next round of reading when I read every interview.

The interviews that meet my fancy in the 4th Series, and its string of them - Vladimir Nabakov, John Steinbeck, W.H Auden, Anthony Burgess, Jack Kerouac, and John Updike. I hovered over these over time and took copious notes in the process.

[Michael Reilly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection was first published in 1976. Like each volume in the series, it is mostly interviews of literary stars like W. H. Auden, Jack Kerouac, Eudora Welty, John Updike etc. The only interviewee among the 16 in this volume who I knew nothing about was George Seferis, which I guess is a tribute to my ignorance since he was a Greek poet who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1963.

The format is designed to produce informative and revealing profiles. The subjects are given the opportunity to review and edit their answers. The questions are primarily about their work, experience, influences and theories of writing.

Many writers are born pontificators and their interviews drag, John Berryman and the aforementioned George Seferis for example. Most of them can talk entertainingly about their job. Vladimir Nabokov and Jack Kerouac, to take two opposites, are both fascinating.

W. H Auden has a poet's way with a one liner, "Writing nasty reviews can be fun, but I don't think the practice is very good for the character." or "I think that the first prerequisite to civilization is the ability to make polite conversation." Anthony Burgess is a fan of the outrageous comment. "I honestly believe that America should become monarchist."

I enjoy these volumes.

[James Dempsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Auden, Graves, Borges, Kerouac

[Cooper Renner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read half the interviews. The ones that appealed to me.