Malone 902, 909, & 905; Amy Tan, Stanley Crouch, & Czeslaw Milosz

The. Fiction is a realm of writing about the particular kind of people get a universal out of it. It has more to do with the human condition that it does that have to do with any particular race or you know about gender or anything else. People seem to forget that when it's when it's done by somebody who's not from the Anglo male culture of America. Tonight I'm a lone novelist Amy Tan. Major funding from alone is provided by Applied Materials world supplier of wafer fabrication systems to the global semiconductor industry. I dish well funding is provided by Cypress Semiconductor developing high performance chips for computers and data communications. With the Joy Luck Club San Francisco Amy Tan burst onto the literary scene with that rare

combination of the critical and commercial success. This has been followed by a string of bestsellers including the kitchen God's Wife and most recently the one hundred secret senses. Somehow in between tan makes time for her family and even a rock n roll band the remainders. My mother doesn't read my books. She can't read my books. Since you say that with the Kitchen God's wife that she didn't need to read it because she told Rhi you know I kept asking her I'd give her a copy. You know if you go on vacation I'd say maybe you'll have time now to finally read this story. And she. Said you know why should I read that story I already know what happened. Because she thinks it's completely her lie. It is based on her life that it's. It's fictionalized and I can't explain to her what that means. My mother is not a literary person. She is not someone who sits down and reads fiction. She did read portions of The Joy Luck Club and I think it was easier because they were

discrete units of stories and she could follow those. But it's sad to me that you know she can't. Read what I've written. And she hasn't even attempted to read. The hundred secret senses except she just wants to know the ending what she thinks is the ending she wants me to confess that I have you know eyes that I can see ghosts. You can call her sort of saying you can. I don't know if I see. I don't really see ghosts I can't conjure them up. I have experiences that I can't explain and at times I've thought that they were simply coincidences. And when they happen so frequently when they happen every day or several times a day it becomes difficult for me to say this is just a fluke. At the same time I mean if the girl wanted to continue

to school yet I can't I can't you know turn this into a seance table and say Michael you know you have a friend standing here elderly woman or whatever you know I can't conjure that up. These things happen in voluntarily and I'm lost when I the one I'm expecting at least the least. I'll give you an example. I had a friend who died 20 years ago was murdered and. When I found out that he had been killed we were mourning that night and the names of who had killed him popped in my head. I don't know how I would know those names it was just people random robbery and add he was killed ten days after he was killed they caught the people who killed him. They are committing another robbery fingerprints matched items taken and the names were the names that I

had mentioned out loud that night when we were holding our our weight. Later on I had nine months of very unusual dreams. Now dreams of course when people have died can be wishful thinking but I had advice given to me for example that I worried too much about things I had no control of. Money debts. A cat who had broken her leg of that bill of three hundred eighty six dollars and twenty three cents. And I was told these things would take care of themselves and I should worry about more important things in life. And right when that was said to me I was in an auto accident. A man hit me. Jumped out said I'm terribly sorry I've never done this you know I just don't know what happened. I could barely see a scratch. We ended up going to an auto shop. Three hundred eighty six dollars and twenty three cents. And he said I'm the president of vice president. I'll pay you directly you don't even have to go through your

insurance. How do you explain things like that. When these things happen to you frequently and when you get you're an unknown person and you get published by a major New York house and your book becomes a bestseller and all kinds of things happen and things are just given to you. What do you say that is. Incredible luck. Yeah incredible. So I don't know. But I know some of the reviews of the book say they look at the two key characters quoted in the livery and they say that in Koran you create an critics to ordinary character that leaps out of the page partly because she lives in and out of this world with ghosts and myths and that sort of thing well. Well Livia of the modern world is she suffers a lot of the the the the failings of people in America in the 20th century. She can be really irritating and annoying and selfish and self-centered.

Is that a critical flaw in our society that we have lost touch with with this other reality whatever it is if it's myth or whether it's real ghosts talking to us. I think what we've lost in this last generation is the willingness to hope big you know I think many of us are seen that. That opportunities are getting smaller and smaller and harder to obtain that you do so huge opportunities out there. I'm an unusual case. You know I don't. But yes that these things can happen. But I think also people who have been wounded in love for example and not wanting to hope too much in those areas you know areas that have nothing to do with monetary success or jobs. People don't want to be disappointed. And they've learned there's something in our culture that says don't expect too much don't wish to high and you won't be disappointed.

If somebody is let's be practical you know if you have a friend if you had come down and you're diagnosed with a terrible illness you're diagnosed with cancer there's no cure you say let's be practical. If. People are afraid of appearing foolish. And so much of the underlying theme of your books that. We have we have lost a generation of people past generations went through a horrifying terrifying things some of them others enjoy. And yet plunge on you know keep the dreams enough for themselves and for their for their progeny. I think because they've gone through terrible trials and tribulations wars and the loss of family members that they grew up on hope they survived on hope they realize that hope is never hopeless.

So we have had the tribulations of our generation. We've certainly had different kinds of tribulations that we haven't gone through those dramatic things as a culture together in the generation that I grew up for example and I think those who are of my age you know where we are a little more cautious or realistic where we know how to measure progress and expectations and goals as goals you know objectives we've got a business oriented way to achieve what we need to do in life. Yeah. Now I have to tell you that down there is the Silicon Valley is filled with people who dream of having your career I mean you were when you were technical writer I was a business writer got a masters in what was six when you became a business writer right. And all of a sudden you write the novel that goes right to the top of the charts wins

awards and the world is filled with people with manuscripts in their closets. Yeah what was that. Besides talent what was the difference. It was a no no I know it's I'm going to write a script to this day. The same people who started with me 10 years ago there are wonderful writers they're all equal if you're looking at talent you can't really compare talent because it's such an individual thing. But if there was. A way to compare they're just as talented designers. Why aren't they published. Why aren't they having the success that I'm having. I don't know you know I people asked me this and it's impossible to answer you know because I'd have to poll every single reader and find out you know why suddenly did you choose to buy this book at this time. That's really where I think the answer is not that I wrote it but why did these people by of course know so much because you literally have a ghost

writer. Yes right that I have a ghost writer and I have all these people who have friends and of friends and friends in the world and they're all telling their friends you know get your granddaughter spoke to her. Side got a big marketing department at the world. That generation is just getting older. Generation of the mothers and The Joy Luck Club. What legacy do they leave with their children their grandchildren. I think it is one of hope and well the resilience that has to do with hoping in spite of what's happening in the face of any kind of adversity that help is necessary help is never futile. I think of so many of the mothers mothers my age who are 80 and and they've become cautious as

well but they still have these. What we would call grandiose hopes that that other son or daughter they too can be on the bestseller list and write you know the American novel. You know they didn't grow up to be to lawyers. Yeah it's not your mother's or even if they are lawyers it is something that is objectionable to them a lawyer. No she wanted me to become a doctor or a doctor or a doctor. Yes but your did she decide you're OK. OK. Despite that she decided that it was OK when I was a business writer actually that I was making it on my own. I actually did get a doctorate an honorary doctorate something I never would have taken except I just thought this would be the perfect Mother's Day gift. And I gave her the diploma. I gave for the vestments you know and I said here's the doctorate. So that that day she called me Dr. Tatar And that was the last the first and the last day that I was Dr. tan do you feel do you feel with all the celebrity You mean all the touring you have to do.

The various events are getting harder to make the time to write. Yeah the time is a problem. But I found I think finally some waited to get some balance now and that I can't make it go away entirely. You construct a whole new discipline because obviously the discipline required to write your first book when you have a job on the side is one thing right. Different in what you're doing now. The self-consciousness is a problem. You know it's not just time when you when people are expecting a book then they have the ideas of when and what it will be like and how much it should sell on. And this and that and that makes it very difficult to be. A rider and honest rider one who simply does the story for its own sake. Or writing about questions for their own sake. Why don't you stay for you with the next book's going to be about me so much

just talk the brains out about what the next novels write you don't ride. I've done that enough times that I've killed books that way. They're like secrets and once you talk about them they feel you've been unfaithful and they go away. I did that I have. I haven't even published interviews in anthologies that describe the next book that I'm writing. And it's when I look at and I want to laugh because I have all these books documented you know an anthology is this the next book you know that before your books comes out become a huge one comes out you sort of predict it's going to be creamed by the by the critics and just sort of natural defense or do you honestly believe that. I honestly believe that they're going to. Not that everyone will will trash the books but that there will be a certain percentage larger you know maybe with one book or another and.

Maybe that's the American side of me not to expect too much you know to to set my expectations realistically and then. You know gauge myself. The best thing for me is that I have to be very clear about what I wrote and why. The why is extremely important then I know to what level I succeeded in writing the book. What I learned out of it what I got out of that story and what I discovered. And then it even though I may be stung by remarks that are not very complimentary I'm not devastated. I don't measure myself according to the reviews or where I am on the list. And it also goes for for the good reviews. I don't read the good reviews. I don't want to think that I'm a better writer than I am. I know that throughout my lifetime I'm going to learn something about being a writer.

I hope that I will become a better writer with each book you know going through I don't see I don't see a whole lot of bad reviews going through history. Chris was your worst if I saw one harsh piece of criticism. There was that the feeling that it was written by the Asian woman called the newspaper that you were awful hard on Asian. You know that they're consistently portrayed as failures. Have you ever heard of you. I've heard a lot of that. And actually there was a review I haven't read somebody was saying to me that there was a review in The New York Times about this latest book saying that I didn't write about anything important politically or anything important about cultural models or something like that and I can write exactly and I thought this is where that all stems from this idea that literature is supposed to do something other than be literature and fiction especially if it's written

by a minority is supposed to right certain wrongs in society. It's supposed to provide positive role models of men and women of mothers suddenly you have mothers who don't speak in broken English but it perfect well articulated English. That's what people want. You know certain a certain faction of the literary community that's what they want. Yeah yeah. What's been the reaction among your fellow writers. Well I think that. And I the writers that I know who are you know with different voices they're very glad that I've spoken out on this because they've also been criticised. I received a letter from a woman who said you know I paid $5 to go to this lecture just to hear you gripe. You have everything why should you be griping about being called an

Asian-American writer. And she missed the point entirely because I'm the one who does not have anything to gripe about. I'm on the required reading lists. I my books are the ones that are you know touted as representing the Asian-American culture and that's what bothers me because it locks out a lot of other new writers. It also limits how we look at literature and literature in as genre and sort of literature being more Demick Demick Craddick in its inclusion of many different voices. When you first wrote The Joy Luck Club didn't you encounter some resistance from i could dm academicians as well saying it was impossible for you to write a book. On this experience yeah. You know it's funny that you know that people think that you either have to write the quintessential Chinese tale if you're Chinese American or you have to you know go to some other extreme and try to explain things about culture you

can't simply write a story within the context that your life has been. I mean I exist metaphysically you know I have to you know confess that there there's a certain amount of. Of my existence in the book. And for people to say that's not a valid representation. Yeah. And I want to say it's not a representation. Fiction is a realm of writing about the particular. And if people get a universal out of it it has more to do with the human condition than it does to have have to do with any particular race or you know about gender or anything else. And people seem to forget that when it's when it's done by somebody who's not. From the Anglo male culture of America the soul as a tool for criticism. Literature or news.

I don't think everybody thinks that way but I think there's that there is a subset that's very vocal out in the educational fields and the next generation. Right right right. The next generation of reviewers the next generation of agents and editors. I had a literary agent say to me what will your next book teach us. And I said I don't know if that will teach you anything I don't set out to make my books educational. And she said really don't you think you have a responsibility to create positive role models for your culture. And I said now why I think I have an obligation to tell a good story. Speaking of other writers who do you look to who do you read. Who provide you with inspiration. So many. When I first started writing it was Eudora Welty and Clara O'Connor. Louise Edric. At. Her book Love Medicine. That was the book that made me want to become a writer because of the power of those voices in the stories.

Kay Gibbons I used to read aloud her sentences because the voice is so distinctive and that made me realize that what I love about stories were distinctive voices for that same reason I love Jamaican Kate. I read everything that she writes. I'm trying to think. Yeah I just rearranged my entire bookshelf my book shelves in my hall and it was like I've I've got rid of about 300 books to make room for all the new books that I get all the time. And one of the new books that I got the other day Linda Hogan was a Native American writer I haven't read it yet but when I asked people for recommendations I always say you tell me have a distinctive voice that you've read recently that I might not have read. Do you know some of these ladies. I know there are commonalities between them and the person I was in with you.

I now know. Louise Erdrich somewhat and Kay Gibbon skate Givens now with the same editor I have. You know I have a passing acquaintance ship with Jamaican cad Isabel Allende is another one that made me think. There was a blurb that compared her work to Garcia Marquez which made me think maybe Garcia Marquez was worth reading. And now I am friends with Isabel. I think there's the commonality is we come from different backgrounds. We really have it be and periods of our lives displaced people. We've had difficult childhoods adversity in our lives and certainly in our parents lives. We've had very strong mothers. And maybe some of them have had had bad experiences with men. But. I'm. I haven't actually.

And with the same guy I've been with for the last 26 years a marriage where six years now to get living together 26 married twenty two on the subject of destructions moving us where he's writing movies being involved in movies you coauthored the screenplay didn't you. Yes we're doing a class. How does that influence your writing to get to where you're getting writing as a major writing Morse cinema graphic. Do you think I've always seen things very visually when I write so that it was more natural for me to get into doing scripts because I naturally see my stories before I write them. And in my imagination my mind works very much like a camera. I would change the scenes in my mind by er or my point of view by looking down and then looking up and noticing in my imagination what is to my left and what is to my right. I think what

working on the screenplay and working on the movie production actually did was sharpen my sense of getting into and out of scenes and knowing that there's a an emotional moment in drama that you can capitalize on. But fiction works very differently. However from movies and that is that it's very internal. And so. A book has time to dwell on things emotionally there's a there's a certain amount of residue that's there that's very important to the novel. You can't you cannot have that in a movie. Movies have a hundred twenty minute time frame in which you have to tell a complete story and you can't slow down and say audience I want you to think about this. Books you have the leisure of going off in different directions than Tiny's up at the end and doing things a lot more discreetly and counting on

the intelligence of your reader to to be there and go back and read something that they didn't quite get it. So it's it's I recognise I've learned the differences and as a consequence it's made me not so much more interested in. Writing my novels you know in a cinematic form but it makes me interested in going to see movies and seeing how they were put together as stories. The last I read when Wayne was doing kitchen store we had a dinner when technically it was a year ago there was no anything so we have a deal. But I just decided that I could not go back to a book I had completed about five years ago and that if we were to do any movie at all it would be a hundred secret senses because that was fresh in my mind that I could just go with it and they both agreed and so if we do a movie that will be the next one. But I wait until things feel right and

you know the right people involved the right interest. And until that happens you know I I'm just happy to let things coast along with your young people your ghost tell you to do next. He says I think we need to get another dog to get another not a puppy but my husband said OK. You know if it's only two pounds and together they don't they weigh five like still bring them around. People just say actually it has a lot to do with just being amazed with light. You know they're they're not predicting anything. They just. Tell me to continue to be amazed with life. People. Are. Going to have stories to come. Yeah. Oh absolutely. Let me tell you what Thanks for being on the show. Thank you Michel. Well thank you for supporting

public television. See you next week. You know it. I said your comments and suggestions to Malone. Katie E.H. channel 54 one hundred sky port drive San Jose California 9 5 1 1 0 0. Major funding from a loan is provided by Applied Materials world supplier of wafer fabrication systems to the global semiconductor industry. Additional funding is provided by Cypress Semiconductor developing high performance chips for computers and

data communications. I have got a chance to see Indians I mean like real you know showing off American

Indians in Seattle who got Vail way of being at Americans you know in Chinese and Japanese and Koreans and all kinds of different black people all kinds of different white people and Hispanics and this and that and they all have a certain thing that's American as individual as their various lists that you know is as you know something extraordinarily exciting about that to me. Tonight I'm a lone author and essayist Stanley Crouch. Major funding from alone is provided by Applied Materials world supplier of wafer fabrication systems to the global semiconductor industry. I dish well funding is provided by Cypress Semiconductor developing high performance chips for computers and data communications. Why go that way.

Pug nation is combative and always insightful Stanley Crouch is one of our finest essays whether writing about Chad's race literature or politics he always brings an unexpected and often controversial point of view to his work. And of course he has a fine time doing it. What is it's called now one of the things you're especially famous for is the one liner and the devastating single phrase in the essay that nobody ever forgets like gangsta rap is the birth of a nation with a backbeat. Black Nationalism is a nappy headed version of workers of the world unite. My grandfather was a wildly by the way. You call bill hooks a terrier with attitude Malcolm X the Elvis Presley of race politics. Now when you write this stuff do you do you. I know you obviously you try to produce the concise best written phrase but do you always have a sense is going to have the kind of impact it has. Well you know you never see them in the right he has a very he has a

great mystery to it because it's kind of. It's almost like a form of dreaming and that it's kind of like a form of dreaming because it seems to exist only with you. That is even though you know if you publish a book or you write a newspaper article etc. unless you happen to be in the company of people who are reading the newspaper at that time or reading the book it kind of just disappears out into the world. So you don't so you don't necessarily have an immediate response it's not like standing on it on the stage as an actor and people like you. Yeah you know you're writing if you're lighting a fuse every once in a while. You've got to say when you finish a phrase you go oh that's so good this is going to cause I'm going to stir it up in a big way. But I don't but I never really think about it that way. So when I'm writing something what I'm trying to do is make something that I'd like to read. You know I mean I mean in other words if I write if I write.

If I write Malcolm X is the obvious Presley of race politics that's a phrase I'd like to read. So if I were reading it and said Oh yeah that seems true to me. He's so so rarely have. Rarely do I write something where do I know this will put a put a few tags really cushion of their chair etc. that's not really what I think although sometimes when I mean serious combat in a battle with somebody I will come away sometimes saying I know that those arrowheads that we shot into his or her ability. Yeah. He or she will feel that for years to call every day and every time they look at that cigar there every time you will know he has been here. Well let's talk about being in combat. There's such a thing as combat fatigue too. And to be to be continuously controversial year after year I mean has to be moments when he gets

tired. Well you know but I have been controversy and you have to you know I mean you know if I turn on the television and you're talking about the Nation of Islam and I mean among the various organizations in the United States that most people really don't want to mess with. That's pretty high up there on the list. You got to know that that puts you at some risk. Yeah but you know but the thing about you know of course it puts you at risk would be not necessarily because of some I like Farah Khan himself but because he runs and that organization is a cult. So you never know if some cult member or even fringe associated with the cult could say this guy's messing with the minister he needs to be taken care of. You've got to know that I mean he's a number 14. Yes you know what I would what I felt about the book the Million Man March and people asked me about that I said well you know if you

in fact kind of stay stuck with that no morality for just 15 more minutes we'd be done with you know. Yeah but but but but see this is the way it goes to me. You can't. Admire people like say Frederick Douglass or Harriet Tubman and Fannie Lou Hamer Oh. My Luther King or you know or Wild Bill Hickock whom I just found out recently was involved in the abolition you know used to help spirit slaves up to Canada. You can admire these people and then when it comes your time to show some kind of integrity or some kind of courage or take some kind of risk then you had of the band or or put a sign on the doors as out to lunch. So you can't do that. I don't think. And there's a you know there's a risk to it but there may not be any risk. You know just you know you I mean you can't say well maybe this is risky.

The biggest the most important thing to me is to try to get to the human truth of the matter is that we find influencing our lives in Maine and crossing the paths that we're on you know our time in America. And. What I'm trying to do in the books that I write all the essays that I write is I'm always trying to get to something that I think is actually true and I'm trying to create the experience for the reader that I have when I read something that I like you know it's like if you know I you know it's like if you want to become a singer right. If you go here if you had you know if you have heard say Billy stand when he was like really at the height of his power as a singer right that feeling that you got when you heard him when you want to Bandstand being you you hope to be able to give that experience to somebody else. And that's what I try to do. Now for somebody who spent his entire life fighting categorisation and speaking about the individual does it bother you that every time there's some sort of racial event occurs the United States it's like we need to get the black essayist to comment on it.

As for the OJ thing you are us right essay in Esquire with the Million Man March here on Charlie Rose Show. It is a sense you're being categorized as you know the black essayist who can speak on these matters. Well you see the reason it doesn't bother me that much now is because when I come with it's always going to be different than what they called me for. Yeah because I'm always going to try to put these issues in in terms of Americana. It's like in my new book every one of those sections in the book which is organized kind of like a musical symphony or symphony if you will. Each section is set up to. Discuss things that tell us something about our humanity whether we began talking in terms of race or not. The issue is that is the fundamental humanity of all of us as people

and how that is the thing that that provides the noble American tradition. See America like most countries has an ignoble tradition but I think that today the ignoble tradition has overtaken any recognition of the noble tradition. Various people would rather would like to talk about slavery right to the exclusion of talking about the abolition movement you know or they would like to say they like to talk about difficult sexism but I'm talking about the fact the two women on the Supreme Court you know what I would like to talk about the powerlessness of black people without talking about the fact in almost every major city has a black mayor. And as often as not the people who elected this black mayor are not black. You know so that so that we've got all of these things that are going on. And if you bring them up people go Yeah but what about. That's like if you say I know a great restaurant and somebody says yeah but you know there are a lot of places that

sell garbage. You think I didn't know that. That doesn't make this great restaurant any less great even if the restaurant directly across the street since people to the hospital. That doesn't change that the the greatness and I have such a deep love for American life and Americans and what Americans are which is everybody you know I mean like honest on his book tour that I've been on and I've got a chance to see Indians I mean like real you know showing off American Indians in Seattle who got very a way of being Americans you know in Chinese and Japanese and Koreans and all kinds of different black people all kinds of different wife people and Hispanics and this and that and they all have a certain thing. It's American as individual as their various miss the you know is as you know something extraordinarily exciting about that to me. And when I'm in a place whether it's a restaurant or airport or going on a street or this

and I see this kind of thing at work it's really it for me has it's totally symbolic of what's possible for humanity the world over. And I think that's why so many people are attracted to the United States. And what I'm trying to do what I'm writing is to give you something that doesn't duck the difficulties but also let you know that you're part of what the pope calls the great human epic that is the United States of America. That's what I'm after. It was you were an asthmatic kid. Yeah you sort of had I mean this is this is one of those examples where you know this childhood illness turns out to be create the platform for the strength of your adult career. Right. Yeah well so yeah it was yeah I was home a lot when I was very small and I read a lot of books plus my mother was a real She was a real. Person she was she was truly involved in getting the kids to

read books go to the library the world's explore things about them. She would. Borrow books from the people she cleaned the books they had that they were getting from the Book of the month. She would look at the bestseller list and stuff and there would be something interesting she would try to get her hands on that she took us to the library often. In science parades anything that would put us further out into the world. And she was very involved in getting you to see any kind of racial distinction role. She wasn't somebody who was suffering from a so-called self-hatred. She just was somebody who felt like you know you should know a lot of different people that a lot of different people in the world. And one of the many different

people in the world you can. It took us a lot of different places. So I was always fascinated by the world and the books help me understand better how people felt and how the human quality largely maintains itself it doesn't change that much. I mean. You know the questions and embarrassment of adolescence a corruption of heroism cowardice etc.. Those kinds of things they just play themselves out over and over. And when you read a lot of books you get to see you become the people you're reading about. At least during the period that you read it and so you know you're you're you're you're you're personality I think begins to become elated both with your little experiences and they experience you

you have to give you a certain set of other kinds of emotional responses. So what I mean is like say if you had 150 great poems about love then you would have fallen in love 150 times right. In terms of you would have felt that emotion right. And so I think that that was the thing that got charged with intellectually and emotionally from that period of time of staying at home a lot. So here 40 years later it's a National Book Awards here at the MacArthur Genius prize annual celebrations. And you're with some of those people. Who are your heroes. First of all by the recounting I read you were sort of the bad boy of the MacArthur prize party. Well you know. One can always not be. And but what I don't like the guy who wears a tie with his shirt tail hanging out in The New Yorker. Yeah I was sabotaged because she

was supposed to. But you see that that's what you got to watch those photographers. Yeah. They'll probably promise you one thing the way they want to. And of course they'll definitely hang you the way they will. But when I met Saul Bellow for instance that was at the National Book Awards it was really interesting because that particular night that I came in I was ready for it. I got this beautiful black and gray chair. Boiled shirt. Black haired Jack in these great shaking hands. Yeah I was the sharpest one there for the doubt about that. There are the bell I had to walk over there until Bello saw me. He was the sharpest and he was clean you know. I mean he was doing some

people got up on that but there he had to come over here. Feels as good as it looks. You know that was our first exchange. What a boy he was. But I see but with the uvula you want to give him every now and then you know because Saul Bellow's has extraordinary days and go. Get it again. No no no no you know what. First how long overdue now. Well you know I've been working on it for a while but you see I just a couple of nights ago I finally figured out structure a lot of times I've written about 600 and the structure has just become clear. I mean you go back to rework the whole. My my my my. I mean you know you. Seeing that in the arts you have to the one thing you have to be prepared for is absolute

failure. If you're not prepared for that you should be in the area or so you have to actually be able to look at your stuff and say especially critics like Stanley Crouch. But you know what I'm talking about your old personal experience with your own stuff you have to actually look at it you did say this on Monday. You know sometimes you finish something you say this is it and you go to the bar and drink some champagne and take it away. About yourself. And then you come back and read that the next day you said histories like dogs and you know this needs to be nice to have the same thing happen to the dogs much that you have the dogs about which is this paper should be bald and thrown in the trash. See if you're not

ready to deal with that which is so if you can never get anything right. Didn't use some sort of illumination on that when you were you know when you were involved with the poetry groups and and you saw some terrible poet. All Yes yes that was that was that was that was when this guy was working with her and it was actually a play and one of these people got out of it you know and said in the middle of the play with this guy written this line it was hideous but I have never forgotten it it was a chain a distant land a whip a way demands and I saw this guy standing at the bar and what was known as the what's happening Coffee House hearing which had formerly been a furniture store over there thrown a bar in there and had a little stage and understand they're trying to talk this guy like.

Like there was something you could actually do with that. Yeah well maybe you know maybe expanded images are very good. When I remember I was there and I was looking at your boring into what was giving what I was looking at him because he could tell that I knew what the deal was which was that he was kind of. Pulling this Gallo and if this guy was just there was nothing could be done with it. You know but that was when I saw the professor was at the right thing to do with that guy the right thing to do with him was to tell him that he couldn't write. Yeah and he would have to he should be it would be a book it would be going up on him to learn how to write or give him a list of people to read and study who were very good at what he what he thought he was doing. During that period when I worked in the studio Watts Cortez who was then a director and has since

become a poet exclusively. He was so committed to what she was doing that that was really very startling because I had never really met anybody like her before. You know in other words I had never met anybody who just said OK I'm in art. This is it you know sink or swim I'm going this way and I'm not doing anything to make anybody like me. You know I'm doing this. I'm trying to get to something that I really believe is true. And whatever the cost is well this is what it is. And you know because when you're kids you know everybody walks around Hell I don't care what anybody says. I don't do what I want to do and all that. But you know your kids are living in a cell so you know you go and I don't care what anybody no matter what happens you get your right a goal you don't have that icebox somebody is making sure that there's a minute. You know so you go home when you open the refrigerator and there lo and behold food that you had nothing to do with living that

day you know and so for you to say that is one thing but when somebody else who's an adult is I mean you know so I was very impressed that I said Oh that can be done so that was very important. In your writings you've expanded upon what James Baldwin suggested that black Americans in many ways are the critical factor in American life that they are the hope that they're there that they will if anyone is going to say that America is black America. Well that's not exactly what I think. See what I think is that America's going to be saved by Americans and that America will be saved. That is if it's in danger of falling apart which I don't really see either I mean we're just going through a difficult period. See America is a strange country see America as a country goes through its its its rebellious irrational bitchy adolescence periodically.

See I don't know other countries if us were convinced things are going to fall apart pretty soon you know yeah because see because there are a lot of people have the excuse of not having to do anything. You know it's what I call paralytic cynicism. You know it's like well why don't you fatties. Why should I. You know see that kind of see behind it paralytic cynicism is a spoiled little boy a little girl who's actually looks at the world like a cub scout or Campfire Girl who found out. When Mom and Dad go behind those doors. But all things come out of their bodies just like they do out of mine and I didn't and I hate him for that. And so that's kind of what that you know that's what we get we get. We sink down into that rather. And so what I'm after you see is is is to get us to recognize that the American as Constance rock points out in the roots of American culture is pride. Part Indian part

may grow apart from tears and that that is what has created out of the fundamental American sensibility where the Negro comes in and most importantly it seems to me is that you have a group of people who came straight out of slavery illiteracy absolute unfair oppression. Hughes is talking working animals often for their entire lives. Generation after generation coming from that we produce extraordinary lawyers extraordinary orders. Aviators teachers writers architects for generations. Yeah all of these kinds of people who prove out absolutely the American ideal which is the greatness can come from anywhere in the social system that you know I or anyone else is automatically limited by our color

or our class or our point of social origin and so if anybody wants to if anybody has any doubt that that's true if they look at Afro Americans they can quite clearly see that the democratic ideal was my pitch is something nice that some guys got together and wrote down. But it is really brilliant has absolute truth. But you also you've added to that equality also means sometimes the rich guys get off in murder trials and things like that. Oh yeah. Yeah well see that's what I you know that's what I use in one of the essays in the new book. I talk about the what I called tragic optimism that is tragic optimism means that you do not avoid the lowdown dirty thing that life can be at all which can never be countered with a bunch of sentimental platitudes you have to face that like people face the

deprivations the horrors the disappointed with life who have to go into combat. Yeah but it also includes you combat the condition of the through the through and through some way so that you have so that's what I mean by tragic optimism that you're not avoiding the bad but you're also affirming the possibility of good. You work with Marcellas you've done an awful lot to bring back jazz in the public's favor after it has sort of fallen into the avant garde. There's a lot of people have written there some fear that classicism time sometimes turns into academic music. It's too much a. Recapitulation of the music of the past note for note as opposed to being creative. Well you know people write about yeah but but what we've been trying to do is a number of things one of them is to provide situations in which younger musicians are able to play with living masters commission new works from jazz as writers composers we've attempted to make

it possible for people to hear great jazz music that otherwise will only exist on recordings. We have worked out a jazz jazz for young people concerts in which parents and children actually come on Saturdays it's usually like a lot to 2000 people at least come out on Saturdays are given you know take you through a certain side of the music because Marcellus is a real go for that and we're camping to create an archive of scores of music that people will be able to play across the country. And that's always going to be any art form some garbage. I mean you know the best you know the best laid plans you know hold the mice and the mice and men you know. But. You have to do what has to be done and we climbed the great great wall situation where new things go right and the timelessly here when things go bad you will remain.

There will also be before so we don't well people like Stanley Crouch or I thank for being on the show and I thank you all for watching Maloney for supporting public television. We'll see you next week. Good night. Send your comments and suggestions to belong to each channel 54 100 sky point drive San Jose California 9 5 1 1 0. Major funding from alone is provided by Applied Materials world supplier of wafer fabrication systems to the global semiconductor industry. Additional funding is

provided by Cypress Semiconductor developing high performance chips for computers and data communications. I.

Don't know to analyze. The extent to which we have shaped by already much a nation shaped by the tree not through work to be learned in the schools but to every detail you know for a life whose shape but it took hold of you tonight on Malone. Nobel Prize winning poet such a law. Major funding from alone is provided by Applied Materials world supplier of

wafer fabrication systems to the global semiconductor industry. I distill funding is provided by Cypress Semiconductor developing high performance chips for computers and data communications. Such has been a resistance fighter against the Nazis. A dissident against the Soviet occupation of Poland an exile professor at Cal-Berkeley and winner of the Nobel Prize for literature for such poems as my faithful mother tongue. Faithful mother tongue. I have been serving you every night. I used to

set before you little bowls of colors so that you could have your Birch your cricket your fish has preserved in my memory. This lasted many years. You were my native land. I lacked any other. I believe that you could also be a messenger between me and some good people. Even if they were few. Twenty Ten are not born as yet. Now I confess my doubt there are moments when it seems to me I have squandered my life. For you are a TON of the debased. Of the unreasonable hating themselves. Even more than they hate other nations. A ton of informers a ton of the confused. Ill with their own innocence. But without you who am I. Only a scholar in a distant country a success without fears and humiliations. Yes who am I without you. Just a philosopher like everyone else. I understand this. This is meant as my education. The glory of individuality is taken away.

Fortune spreads a red carpet before the sinner in a morality play while on the linen backdrop a magic lantern throws images of human and divine torture. Faithfull mother tongue. Perhaps after all. I must try to save you. So I will continue to set before you little bowls of colors bright in pure if possible. For what is needed in this fortune is a little order. And beauty. I have my my audience they have children and I received a very nice letter from a girl of eighteen eighty years old. I like your lake my cats. Which is a very nice investor of you've ever gotten. Yes. You wrote that and immigrant America faces two choices. You either leave behind the memories of the past.

Yes or you try to bring back that past. Yes but doesn't. But you've also written and it would seem to suggest that there's a. But that the second is impossible. Simply because literature is too frail a vessel to truly caption us. I can tell you when I was confronted with that mediately when they found myself in France you know and I decided that I shouldn't pretend to be somebody else. My copy was my observations my experiences from my pipe to a few. And so I should have. But it about the debt. And I should say that to some extent in bringing my little according to a few it up to

literature. And according to you if Europe is not necessarily born and because I was born in India and so there's a bit of very little known quote of the South so let us say you're from Finland. Yeah Baltic states and but of that line of illness has always been kind of a Polish city as. It was for several centuries. To put it more correctly it was two languages. Do you feel that in writing about. This illness in the past year keeping it alive as long as you hold it in your memory as long as you write about it that world continues to exist. Yeah. Yes. Does it disappear with you. Well you see I visit

long ago. And walked through just streets. There was nobody among those people when they were because they were great. So it was like walking through a. Very strange and the experience of being. Walking through ghosts spirits. So how do you capture the past you quote Paul Engle talking about his grandfather was a Civil War veteran and he asked him what was the Civil War the Civil War battle like and the man said There are no words to describe it and he never did describe it. Is it possible to describe the past. In meaningful way. But you know this is a problem of writing a story. It is never objective. It's always caught

up by our perception of us and there. In a way. I am old and to bend I remember events of my youth and then I read about those events. Now you see how distorted. By necessity even to the best wheel of those who write about. When you were introduced not too long ago a few years back it sounds a state council to ask you there said you were literature's greatest witness to the twentieth century. You certainly see many of the great events of this century. Yes yes I did. Between Hitler and Stalin you see most people of the 20th Century Beginning with my recollection of the direction that evolution is. Thank you 17. When they were six

but I remember certain scenes of that or do you suggest that your homeland. You could sit in the same place. For 75 years and be part of five or six different nations. Yes even though you mention City of you know Venus when I went to school and so university it's changed hands 13 times. Well is it possible you said you say you Nobel speech she said there's always the nihilistic temptation but full of despair. You seen. As many horrors as just about anyone alive. How do you resist to nihilism. The trouble is with dreams. You know it's not so easy. And besides I have a touch of fear afterwards. You know recollection. Yeah.

And sometimes I wonder how it was possible to sort of buy. Those moments because that fear is already present and at this same time maybe I am in my dream did this is a dream. You said in a dark age you've expressed a longing for the kingdom of peace and justice. Do you feel any closer. To the peace and justice. What do you mean in. The world first. Well I think you hope. That the situation. Which were mostly because of the 20th century namely dictatorships

deuce deuce spick is over for long. Because my hope. In 89. Was more evident today. Because in 89 we didn't expect such things as Bush. BUSH As you know the 20th century seems to now begin in Syria a violent end in Syria. And just imagine you can expect to be 80 years old and signing an open letter to the present United States calling for airstrikes and signing it with Margaret Thatcher George Shultz Susan Sontag Joseph Brodsky it's a very interesting unusual collection of individuals coming together on this. Does. That how do you feel how do you fight despairing that if it doesn't seem to as if anything has been

gained. I have written a poem entitled So do you. Which is a point of indignation. Of despair and define has been translated into separate language us and she would let their friends. Do you want us to fight for said I. And again like our grandfather to defend us for the war for the US in the second. Well. This is you know new case. The boy said I you have a voice of my indignation against behavior to Western Europe. I want to explore a little bit more about writing about the past and writing about the

past you run the risk of the present saying that the present isn't as important but that it's worse parts of less interest. How do you how do you keep from doing that. Well you know in our century we have of might of said Proust Ricci's did UK to try to do a construction of the pass. And all of this one can be a queue of stuff in a steady turning to do pasta and forgetting about the present. I don't think so because this is it like the work of Proust. Just a question of distance. Beautifying distance. Some think the best spec the fourth time.

Which has been done now lies by a few Those of us. Schopenhauer. Among the sins which allows us to have a. Lot of Jet-A perspective and putative perspective because a Better not engaged. Day directly in the. Passions of the moment. So do great advantage of writing about the past. I mean you could argue that Proust was in his own internal exile as a cork line around you but when I was asked about him I think about the past. I am nostalgic often do after lead to an yes you do if you know. No I said it is a question of of artistic distance and with that I would be

dead or abroad has no such great importance. I must tell you that my own mouse with you is very peculiar. Last summer I received the highest distinction of duty to a new state. From the hands of the president. But as I was going to. Get the meanness to get a hold of them for my to do for my writings where I mention it to him and they try to remember any mind to do. That. The Baltic states exist and they once they were independent and they should be at a store. Dependence you suggest that we sort of have a Germanic attitude about history in Europe which is and you said it to the pope as well that everything

to the east in Germany is perceived as being beyond the edge of the world. Yeah yeah sure. It's a sort of a habit. Why why do you spread there. Logically it explains death of Nazis. Tradition and to do it so I say said I have a certain little mouse we see today you know just the cunto of my bath. Moreover to your seat you know you should understand the whole area over the. British court on a zation long co-habitation of course between us your cranial sins and you should take her to church today. It's not looted by people from there. So. When you teach your students at Berkeley Slavic literature. Do they know

there's a slight English when they arrived. They had any sense of the importance of. The letter C the S. It literally came out of Poland. When you usually do you know some think about it I shot they do not know much about other countries over the area. But. I remember my first class here one thousand sixty in the back. And I remember one especially a student who was a dishevelled Proctor he people. And. I had very latest paper from which they criticize very bitterly but gave you a good grade. I don't and have been friends since that time. His name is that each of you used translator of most

of my books. And he is you know as much about that part of you became a translator from Bush and from now on right now we just had an election over there. Yeah like once they're defeated out of office and the next communist is now running the country. Yeah it's an interesting phenomenon. My guess is that it was too much of a violent. And they're very considered a brute. US was so so uneasy. He simply to know better than to be why he should be president should be so so big. We are going to cut him down. What about that claim that he was a great man but a bad bureaucrat.

He made a lot of blood and he did take to ensure you did so many people and it's a fact. Are you in touch with him. Are you in touch with him. Yeah you know him yeah sure. What about the man who replaces him. Do you worry. That it was a very unwise decision to elect him not to because of his faults or merits but. That he is bound by his party. Do you worry that will look back and see the years 1995 as a little flicker of light before the darkness came rushing back in again in Eastern Europe. No no. No. No because that isa completely different situation and fortunately did use a corrupt your

power of money. You know I have a team in the problem and the fat cats now very fat. Let me ask you something. He said that the essence of the 20th century is the triumph of science. Can religious efforts to escape from the clutches of science have not yet been successful. Is that a good legacy of the 20th century. You know you're SHE DO problem. I do but I should. Science and Technology upon your human imagination is immense. We don't know to advice the extent to which we are shaped by already much a nation shaped by a science and the commander in chief

not through work to be learned in school but to every detail of life you should shape but it took none. So deuces voted to amend the literacy magination and it's very hard to maintain. But I did orientation as you know. Up and Down was very important in that religion. Give you an exam about science. And moving forward. In some domains very fast physics modern physics I should say. They're an ally of religious imagination and biology to know biology is on the level of it in one thousand centuries science.

Theory of evolution for instance NS. But modern physics. And most important for instance utility of a big bang. Ees that time and space began. To give in one. At that I knew it's not going to photograph in the back infinity. But an absence of. Space and time is gone and there's a purity to do just notion just because quantum theory become poetry at a certain point. That what if it does quantum theory become poetry at a certain point. Certainly if you need to meet men you may need to potations. Unfortunately modern physics cannot be translated into images but if. The student. Bought quantum theory of why not today he's a professor. At Tulane

University who wrote to Big Book. About his erection making use of quantum theory. And yet the United States at the level of religiosity is higher. Perhaps than any time since the Great Awakening in the 1850s. It's going to America is a religious country but Western Europe is not what you think it so. Interesting but interesting phenomena. Which means that too. Maybe Jefferson was right. Now you see the Nobel Prize for literature and you think you've made the most extraordinary remark that when the Nobel introduced enormous indescribable turmoil all the pieces of my life were destroyed for a long time to be a celebrity is a very

hard thing to understand. Well of course I didn't realize that it is such a change and such a tad more. Has it changed your life. I had men you. Don't notice it before because I must tell you that they said that America was very good. To me. I received a nice touch to international crises just before. And right or soon some degrees. But I didn't expect such such a mess. Well that's the prize of prizes in our civilization. Yeah yeah. No. One think they can say you know my defense. Saul Bellow said that

the Nobel Prize is it may be a case of this too right. And said no way RICE Well actually get one. And I put. Those years seen seders. The price has been have been very fair up for you. In this fight is it ating to schools. What now what are you working on now. It continued I. Guess. You'll see centuries in a few years here. As as you've been told you know literature's greatest witness of the 20th century one of the lessons of the 20th century. Or is it like that civil war soldier that is beyond words. Well it seems to me that let us wait a few years.

First 95 don't count. You know I am not. Maybe I wouldn't give to. I do not hope to leave to the year 2000. I'm led to believe it's just to put off the thought was to make a gentle assessment of our soap in which I was yeah. Are these your messages to them. You suggest that nothing ever really nothing ever really disappears if they existed if. If the view of the Mediterranean 15 12 13 happened yeah then it always happens. Forever. Yes you know I am I happen to believe I poke at the sties just a notion which exists.

In Indigo us in the New Testament and maintained by some a few lows of your origins. Among them one of the fathers sort of the church but Slate You had a ticket already. Woman Jane the. And. That would be a story a book at the start is it a station of all things. And that even today if you would be saved and on that day will you be walking through the streets one hundred twenty six and only or in Berkeley. This is a very mysterious thing resizing but mysterious but moments at a station of moments. It's a great notion.

Send your comments and suggestions to the loan channel 50 for 100 sky port drive San Jose California 9 5 1 1 0. Major funding from a loan is provided by Applied Materials world supplier of wafer fabrication systems to the global semiconductor industry. Additional funding is provided by Cypress Semiconductor developing high performance chips for computers and data communications.