08-15-13 UPDATE:Podcast Update:Time to Read Episode 115: Ivy Pochoda
Click image for audio link.
Here's the one-hundred and fifteenth 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 by painting your hair bright purple and uploading the video to YouTube.
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.
The one-hundred and fifteenth episode is a look at Ivy Pochoda, 'Visitation Street'.
"...the folks who moved out there knew they were moving to a combat zone..."
—Phillip Meyer
Phillip Meyer is a serious guy. As we sit down and talk about his pitch-perfect take on the Great American Western Novel, 'The Son,' I can tell that he has pondered not just what he wrote but how it came to be with a fierce intensity.
'The Son' is a big, big, novel, with lots of moving parts. It feels raw and natural, as if he just carved it out of a stack of diaries, dictionaries and encyclopedias, cutting out the bad words until only the good ones remained. But as we speak, it's clear this was not the case. The book we have before us is V2 maybe V30. At some point, the original concept for the book gave way to the character of Eli McCullough.
Meyer likes the idea of world building, and in doing so for this novel about Texas, he spent a great deal of time in Texas, camping, living off the land, learning to make his own rope, start his own fires and make his own bows and arrows. This is why the novel has that feel of dirt beneath its fingernails. That's not something you can fake.
Meyer and I talked quite a bit about the process of putting this novel together. It reads very quickly and seamlessly, so it's tough to get how it did not come together that way. The feat of art, he says is to remove the traces of the effort is requires to make it.
Meyer and I also addressed some of the more controversial portrayals in the novel, his version of the Texas frontier, which he describes as a combat zone. No character or side in the novel comes off as all-good or all-bad, or even predominantly one or the other. Meyer sees one civilization as pretty much like the other. Once you have the advantage, you use it, and take as much as you can to defend it.
Meyer is every bit as eloquent as his novel. To be honest, I might not have thought I'd ever read or like this book, but having read it and even better spoken with the author, I'm on board for anything he has to offer. My take is that readers should order up the book before they listen. That way you'll know it's on the way before you listen to our conversation by following this link to the MP3 audio file.
New to the Agony Column
09-18-15: Commentary : William T. Vollman Amidst 'The Dying Grass' : An Epic Exploration of Simultaneity
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with William T. Vollman : "...a lot of long words that in our language are sentences..."
09-05-15: Commentary : Susan Casey Listens to 'Voices in the Ocean' : Science, Empathy and Self
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Susan Casey : "...the reporting for this book was emotionally difficult at times..."
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
