What do you think?
Rate this book
Conversations with Shelby Foote
Shelby Foote once said that he did not know of anything he had learned about the writing of novels that couldn't also be applied to the writing of history. In his development, the merging of these special talents has made Foote almost unique in the history of American literature, for few other great modern authors have proved to be master storytellers in both fiction and historical narrative.In Conversations with Shelby Foote, this novelist-historian expresses penetrating and often humorous remarks about major modern writers as well as about the classical writers of fiction, plays, poetry, and historical narrative. In one interview Foote explains how Homer's Iliad and Proust's Remembrance of Things Past were his chief models for writing his history of the Civil War.
Foote recounts also what it was like to grow up in a small Mississippi town in the first half of the twentieth century and tells how his observations of African Americans and whites of all classes influenced his fiction and history writing.
These eighteen interviews spanning thirty-seven years not only detail Shelby Foote's exploration of southern history, race relations, and the role of literature in the formation and preservation of a culture but also reveal his evolution into a great narrative artist.
Foote recounts also what it was like to grow up in a small Mississippi town in the first half of the twentieth century and tells how his observations of African Americans and whites of all classes influenced his fiction and history writing.
These eighteen interviews spanning thirty-seven years not only detail Shelby Foote's exploration of southern history, race relations, and the role of literature in the formation and preservation of a culture but also reveal his evolution into a great narrative artist.
300 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1989
2 people are currently reading
148 people want to read
About the author
Shelby Foote
118 books675 followersShelby Dade Foote, Jr. was an American novelist and a noted historian of the American Civil War, writing a massive, three-volume history of the war entitled The Civil War: A Narrative. With geographic and cultural roots in the Mississippi Delta, Foote's life and writing paralleled the radical shift from the agrarian planter system of the Old South to the Civil Rights era of the New South. Foote was relatively unknown to the general public for most of his career until his appearance in Ken Burns's PBS documentary The Civil War in 1990, where he introduced a generation of Americans to a war that he believed was "central to all our lives."
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 9, 2014
A pleasant man; a great conversationist
I wasn't interested at all in his fiction, and very little in his history; what made me purchase and read this book was the man only: I had seen him interviewed for the Civil War series by Ken Burns and Mr Foote seemed to me an absolutely charming and delightful man, so much that I felt I could listen to him speak for hours and not get bored, just like a little boy would to his grandfather telling him about the ways the world used to be when your parents had you and so forth. And there is very little about the man that comes forth, at least directly; but indirectly you get a hint of a few things. I am not sure if I'll ever read any of his fiction; I got interested in his Shiloh and his 3 volume Civil War though, but the time I spent listening and reading Mr Foote paid off. Mr Foote builds on the characters to make the story, to tell the facts: the individual first. I guess I took the same approach with him. Little I care about literature, art, or racial relations in a particular time and space (as compared to many other issues more immediate). The man comes first; the man that is telling it, I mean. The man that speaks to you comes first; his story comes secondary and indirectly.
The subjects that are dwelt in through most of the conversations and over the years are the same, with little variation, but thankfully Mr Foote adds information or a twist to the answer given previously. Spontaneity and pleasantness; directness and vividness of memory are always present.
Yes, one gets a little tired of hearing this or that about Faulkner and Hemingway, or Proust and anything that delves into the realm of what they call art. Mr Foote comes out better, more authentic when dealing with his own time and place: with the Delta, with the South, with the Percys, and with history. He won't point the finger at any one, though, and he won't reveal any intimacies or deal any sharp criticism at any one he knows. So you won't get practically anything of his private life here, if that's what you're looking for. That would have to be looked for in the book that collects the correspondence between him and Walker Percy, perhaps. But I am afraid I wouldn't like him as much if I got to know him better. Perhaps he knows that and that's why he keeps himself so backstage and consumes so much of his energy and dedicates so much of his time to his one god: art. Which, as I said before, I couldn't care less for. At least Mr Foote is honest when he admits that all writers -including him- write for fame or recognition, and that they do have that ego to feed.
Mr Foote is passionate about writing, about books and art. So much so that they became Mr Foote. Ironically this is just the opposite of what he claims to do when he writes: he focuses on the man, and builds on his characters by the use of facts along the story. And when he writes he looks for answers, he doesn't try to teach an audience. Very laudable indeed. Now, what about the man Shelby Foote, without the “art” stuff?
I wasn't interested at all in his fiction, and very little in his history; what made me purchase and read this book was the man only: I had seen him interviewed for the Civil War series by Ken Burns and Mr Foote seemed to me an absolutely charming and delightful man, so much that I felt I could listen to him speak for hours and not get bored, just like a little boy would to his grandfather telling him about the ways the world used to be when your parents had you and so forth. And there is very little about the man that comes forth, at least directly; but indirectly you get a hint of a few things. I am not sure if I'll ever read any of his fiction; I got interested in his Shiloh and his 3 volume Civil War though, but the time I spent listening and reading Mr Foote paid off. Mr Foote builds on the characters to make the story, to tell the facts: the individual first. I guess I took the same approach with him. Little I care about literature, art, or racial relations in a particular time and space (as compared to many other issues more immediate). The man comes first; the man that is telling it, I mean. The man that speaks to you comes first; his story comes secondary and indirectly.
The subjects that are dwelt in through most of the conversations and over the years are the same, with little variation, but thankfully Mr Foote adds information or a twist to the answer given previously. Spontaneity and pleasantness; directness and vividness of memory are always present.
Yes, one gets a little tired of hearing this or that about Faulkner and Hemingway, or Proust and anything that delves into the realm of what they call art. Mr Foote comes out better, more authentic when dealing with his own time and place: with the Delta, with the South, with the Percys, and with history. He won't point the finger at any one, though, and he won't reveal any intimacies or deal any sharp criticism at any one he knows. So you won't get practically anything of his private life here, if that's what you're looking for. That would have to be looked for in the book that collects the correspondence between him and Walker Percy, perhaps. But I am afraid I wouldn't like him as much if I got to know him better. Perhaps he knows that and that's why he keeps himself so backstage and consumes so much of his energy and dedicates so much of his time to his one god: art. Which, as I said before, I couldn't care less for. At least Mr Foote is honest when he admits that all writers -including him- write for fame or recognition, and that they do have that ego to feed.
Mr Foote is passionate about writing, about books and art. So much so that they became Mr Foote. Ironically this is just the opposite of what he claims to do when he writes: he focuses on the man, and builds on his characters by the use of facts along the story. And when he writes he looks for answers, he doesn't try to teach an audience. Very laudable indeed. Now, what about the man Shelby Foote, without the “art” stuff?
March 15, 2024
Ever since Ken Burns' Civil War, I have been crazy about Shelby Foote. This book was very interesting and informative.
May 13, 2016
read some time in 1991
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews