The Paris Review Interviews: Wisdom from the World's Literary Masters: Vol 2

This collection contains 16 interviews ranging from Ralph Ellison and Georges Simenon in 1955 to Norman Mailer in 2005.Six of the writers are American, five English, if you include Salman Rushdie, and one Welsh (Jan Morris). No Scots (unless you include Jean Reese who was of Scots and Welsh parentage and born in the West Indies), Irish, Canadians, Australians or other native English speakers. Reese from Dominica, a Nigerian (Chinua Achebe) and a Dane (Isak Dinesen) complete the nationalities.A mixed bag indeed but overall rather flat and insipid with questions ranging from critical – “There's a sense of terror and threat of violence in most of your play. Do you see the world as an essentially violent place?” to the banal - “Do you write with a pen, typewriter or have you been seduced by computers?”The oddest is probably with Evelyn Waugh from 1963 who conducted the interview in his pajamas tucked up in a hotel bedroom smoking a cigar.On the other hand, William Carlos Williams was so infirm in 1964 that he could barely speak and so the reader must accept that what appears is a genuine interview.Maybe writers should let their books speak for themselves.