Interviews

by Djuna Barnes, Douglas Messerli

Presents interviews with Vernon and Irene Castle, Lillian Russell, Diamond Jim Brady, Flo Ziegfeld, Billy Sunday, Alfred Stieglitz, James Joyce, and Coco Chanel

396 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Djuna Barnes was an artist, illustrator, journalist, playwright, and poet associated with the early 20th-century Greenwich Village bohemians and the Modernist literary movement.

Barnes has been cited as an influence by writers as diverse as Truman Capote, William Goyen, Isak Dinesen, John Hawkes, and Anaïs Nin. Bertha Harris described her work as "practically the only available expression of lesbian culture we have in the modern western world" since Sappho.

Barnes played an important part in the development of 20th century English language modernist writing and was one of the key figures in 1920s and 30s bohemian Paris after filling a similar role in the Greenwich Village of the teens. Her novel Nightwood became a cult work of modern fiction, helped by an introduction by T. S. Eliot. It stands out today for its portrayal of lesbian themes and its distinctive writing style. Since Barnes's death, interest in her work has grown and many of her books are back in print.

Reviews

[Sketchbook · Rating 5 out of 5]

Long before Tom Wolfe 'heralded' what was quickly labeled
New Journalism in the Herald-Tribune of the mid-60s, Djuna Barnes had done it - to great effect - in newspaper-zines, starting in 1914. (Wolfe had a creative editor named Clay Felker. NYT didn't approve of seeing the "I"-form; it finally changed in 2018). These famous people-celeb Interviews should be read by all 'ink' scribes: they're smart, incisive and often hilarious.

The interviews, made between 1914 & 1931, appeared in the NY Press, Vanity Fair, NY Sun, NY Telegraph, etc., never had a "news peg," and never promoted anything (required of every zit who appears today on Late Night TV). They all represent Djuna's wit and voice. She didn't try to insult and never gossiped; each encounter is a little work of art.

Barnes goes backstage, into dressing-rooms, homes, offices to catch Ziegfeld, Chanel, the Lunts, Belasco, Billy Sunday, Jack Dempsey, Wilson Mizner, Stieglitz, Frank Harris, among others, and produces, as the intro says, "a form of art which does not depend entirely for its immediacy upon the actual words of the person interviewed." Are her quotes direct or fantastical? She captures 'the Personality' as she believes 'facts' are of secondary importance.

Diamond Jim Brady tells her, when questioned about salvation: "I need no salvation. I'll go where I'm going with smooth edges." Chanel reflects, "Nothing amuses me after midnight." Evangelist Billy Sunday on W1, "War has been the best thing for religion in the last century; it has filled the churches." (Yes, I bet he did say that, but who would print it today?) James Joyce, on conversation: "All great talkers have spoken in the language of Sterne, Swift, or the Restoration. Wilde studied the Restoration through a microscope in the morning and repeated it through a telescope in the evening." Did Joyce really say that? Do we care? On Ziegfeld, Barnes opens with: "Between the devil and the deep blue sea there is an alternative -- Flo Ziegfeld." Mr. Flo hisself explains that he must pick out all the shoes and stockings for his chorus girls. "--And I'm tired to death of hosiery," he says. Rich stuff here.

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a bizarre trip into the pop culture of the 1910s and 20s, through offbeat interviews between Djuna and the era's biggest icons including James Joyce, Jack Dempsey, Lillian Russell, Coco Chanel, and other big time movie stars, baseball players, wealthy industrialists, dada artists, theater actors, musicians, writers, fashion trend-setters and others. It is hard to parse the reality from the fiction in these interviews, and the style of language humor is dated. With patience, an affinity of the strangeness of these "counterculture" figures is revealed. . . sometimes pages of "quirk" description go by before the real interview actually begins, which often is one-sided while the writer keenly observes the character quirks and idiosyncrasies in worldview and speech, either real or imagined. . . it is a bit difficult to access but revelatory in how these decades of American history might not be that different from the culture of celebrity and art of the 2010s and 2020s. With illustrations!

[Dvora Treisman · Rating 3 out of 5]

It says in the foreward that the interviews tell as much about Barnes as they do about those being interviewed. I would say that the interviews tell more about Barnes than they do about those being interviewed, and for that reason I didn't like the book as much as I might have. But ego aside, Barnes interviewed some very interesting people, most of whom I had never heard of, and it was the introduction to each interview that explained who the person was that I found the most interesting.
Still, having read a lot about the American writers living in France between the wars, and Barnes being one of them -- one whose photograph I've seen several times and whose name keeps creeping up -- it was good to experience a little of her writing style and personality.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

didn't finish this bc it's v old/dated and idk half the people she's interviewing but the bits I did read had a good style/ humour etc