06-08-13 UPDATE:Podcast Update:Time to Read Episode 100: Karen Joy Fowler 'We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves'
Here's the one-hundredth episode of my new series of podcasts, which I'm calling Time to Read. The podcasts/radio broadcasts will be of books worth your valuable reading time. I'll try to keep the reports under four minutes, for a radio-friendly format. If you want to run them on your show or podcast, let me know.
My hope is that in under four minutes I can offer readers a concise review and an opportunity to hear the author read from or speak about the work. I'm hoping to offer a new one every week.
06-08-13: A 2013 Preview Interview With Karen Joy Fowler
Click image for audio link.
"My father was a psychologist."
—Karen Joy Fowler
Before I talked to Karen Joy Fowler about 'We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves,' in-depth, I talked to her, well, in haste. It was the end of a long day that began with a drive out to Oakland at 5:00 AM, followed by a trip to Berkeley at 9 AM for my first interview, then to San Francisco over the Bay Bridge at 10:30 in gridlocked traffic (where they mistakenly snapped a ticket-photo of my car as a scofflaw) to my second interview, then finally, back to Santa Cruz for my final interview of the day with Karen Joy Fowler.
Fowler was remarkably accommodating, given the circumstances; she was heading out on a big trip at 4 AM the next morning, but kind enough to talk to me about her book. We got a good reading, and then settled down to try to figure out how to talk about the book, not as it happened, an easy feat.
Kate Atkinson told me that she was "still in the war zone" after writing 'Life After Life,' that the characters in the novel were still very much with her. It won't surprise readers, as they'll be with you after you finish reading the book.
Atkinson is every bit as polished as you would expect in person. Her speaking voice is so much like her prose voice, that I'd definitely suggest listening to the interview before reading the book. That way, when you read the book, you'll be quite likely to have the pleasure of hearing her "read" it to you.
For me, what was interesting was the way that the revisions of the life mirror revisions of prose, revisions of the novel. The interplay between these ideas seemed inevitable. Atkinson's prose is a marvel on many levels. It is both richly evocative and yet it has a very sparse, easy-to-read feel. This match-up might seem counter-intuitive, but reading the book makes all that disappear.
This is also, given the premise of the novel, a book about the import of time in our lives, something that becomes increasingly important to those who have less and less of it in front of them. I wanted to explore this concept, because to my mind, more and more of us are seeing the value of time as opposed to other forms of wealth. Here in the US, we have made some very real and ultimately, to my mind, rather poor decisions about trading time for wages. It's a very US-centric view and Atkinson's novel and the fantastic premise at the heart of it nicely sidestep this perspective and offer a different vision.
I was also very curious to discuss the Blitz with Atkinson, since I had just read 'Bitter Seeds' by Ian Tregillis and was set to talk to Connie Willis about 'Blackout/All Clear,' both novels where the Blitz gets viewed through the lens of the fantastic. The resonance of these times cannot be overstated. The only difference now is that we wait for the bombs to detonate beneath our feet instead of waiting for them to drop from the sky.
08-21-15: Agony Column Podcast News Report : Senator Claire McCaskill is 'Plenty Ladylike' : Internalizing Determination to Overcome Sexism [Incudes Time to Read EP 211: Claire McCaskill, Plenty Ladylike, plus A 2015 Interview with Senator Claire McCaskill]
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Emily Schultz Unleashes 'The Blondes' : A Cure by Color [Incudes Time to Read EP 210: Emily Schultz, The Blondes, plus A 2015 Interview with Emily Schultz]
07-05-15: Commentary : Dr. Michael Gazzaniga Tells Tales from Both Sides of the Brain : A Life in Neuroscience Reveals the Life of Science
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Michael Gazzaniga : "We made the first observation and BAM there was the disconnection effect..."
04-21-15: Commentary : Kazuo Ishiguro Unearths 'The Buried Giant' : The Mist of Myth and Memory
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Kazuo Ishiguro : ".... by the time I was writing this novel, the lines between what was fantasy and what was real had blurred for me..."
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Marc Goodman : "...every physical object around us is being transformed, one way or another, into an information technology..."
Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 199: Marc Goodman : Future Crimes: Everything Is Connected, Everyone Is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It
