Writer/critic Greg Gerke joins us to talk about his recent interview with William Gass, the literary legend behind Omensetter's Luck, The Tunnel, a wide range of essays, and the new novel Middle C.
The Virtual Memories Show
Season 3, Episode 5 - Sound Before Story
I could have loved you good like a plan is. Welcome to the Virtual Memories Show. I'm your host, Gil Roth, and you are listening to a podcast about books and life, not necessarily in that order. Now, this is going to be one of the more book-centric episodes of the show. I, back before I started doing interviews for the show, I kind of did these Proof of Concept smaller podcasts, and it's a subject I'll get back to at the end of the episode. In one of those pre-interview episodes, I talked about William Gas's essay, "Pruced at 100," and how the absolutely beautiful prose and it kind of rejuvenated my love of good writing at a time that I was kind of in the doldrums. So I'm kind of happy that William Gas, who's 88 years old this year, actually has a new novel coming out, "The Middle Sea." I say I'm glad, but when you get down to it, I rarely finish anything Mr. Gas writes except some of the essays. I haven't finished his short stories or his novels, and I actually gave away a copy of the tunnel, his masterpiece, to a friend of mine who I figured was much more likely to read it. So my guest this episode is not William Gas, it's a gentleman named Greg Gurk, who interviewed William Gas for the Winter 2012 edition of Tin House Magazine, a literary book. They had a great conversation about aesthetics and gases history and his influences and more, and Greg and I had a great conversation about their conversation and other stuff too, because I tend to meander, as you know. You can find Greg's writing at his website, gregurk.com, and Gurk is G-E-R-K-E. He also writes at bigother.com. Oh, and he wrote a book, "There's Something Wrong with Sven," it's called. I haven't read it, so I can't vouch for it either way. And now, enjoy the conversation. My guest is Greg Gurk, who recently interviewed the author, William Gas, for the Winter 2012 edition of Tin House, a literary magazine, since Mr. Gas is publishing a new novel, Middle Sea, in March. I thought I'd talk to Greg about his experience with him. It's great. Thanks for coming on the show. Sure. Thank you. What was the most surprising thing you learned from Gas during the time you spent, or the most surprising thing about him during the time you spent in St. Louis for the interview? That would be the level of activism in his life early on, which I mean, I'd gone through most everything he'd ever written and a lot of the interviews, and because at the time I interviewed him, the Occupy Wall Street and movement was going on. It was October of 2011. So that was in full swing, and we were talking about his time in the '60s. He was against Israel, the state of Israel, and civil rights. He was arguing for civil rights and against the war. I assume Vietnam was a good component. Sure. So I guess he became very unpopular for this, and I think it led to him leaving Purdue. He was teaching at Purdue at the time. The level of that, I mean, mostly I've heard about gas just fiction and the aestheticitian, but this was something that I had no idea of. But he had such a connection to the political, to the day to day. Right. I mean, I know he's written many political tracks. Rage is a huge angle of his writing. Yeah, and the tunnel is full of historian raging about history and Hitler. But yeah, this was very surprising that came up at that time. Does he seem to have a continuing interest in this, or is again an 88 years old? Is it sort of a stepping back of the next third generation from now? I think so. I mean, he's well-apprised of what's going on, but I think his interests are more along the lines of Baroque prose as he's writing a book about that, or I think he's finished it. It might be coming out soon. The Baroque prose of the 17th century English. Within the interview, or one of the sections of the interview, there's a wonderful piece on the size of the library and everything that he's compiled at home. Is there a sense of intimidation or hero worship when you walked in the door when you first met him? Oh, sure. I mean, it's a wonderful house, a big house, near the university where he taught Washington University. It's just, there's aesthetic objects all over the place, art, paintings, vases, books. Yeah, I mean, I think the second half the interview was done in the English fiction library. So yeah, there were books surrounding us and many of his favourites and the people he's talked about and his friends, Hawks and Elkin and Gaddis and Wallace Stevens. All those books were around so I'd be looking at them while interviewing him and it was a great time. They seemed particularly lively, again, for someone who's 88 years old, but has spent his life surrounded by words and books. Did you get that? Ooh, that's the impression I get from reading the transcript, how vivacious did you find him, how active or animated? Oh, very. I mean, certainly, I mean, he's 88 now, so things have changed. But he was on the mark about everything, everything we talked about. And he was anticipating, I think in his answers, he was anticipating many questions I had, which I would then cross out. But his answers just covered so many subjects and topics and ways to think about something. And ideas that, you know, I just kind of sat back and listened. That was the best approach for me and it's what I usually do anyway. Now, when you talk about all the preparation you did, reading everything you could find that he'd written or been interviewed in, my confession is that I've never actually finished something by William Gass except for a few of his essays. If you were directing a newbie towards Gass' work, where would you advise him to start? Well, I mean, there's two, you know, there's the fiction and then there's the non-fiction. So I think the fiction and most people bear this out anyway, they start within the heart of the heart of the country, which are the two novellas and really three short stories within one volume and those are the most anthologized stories, the Pedersen kid and in the heart of the heart of the country, the two novellas being the most known of his fiction. That's a perfect place to start. But I mean, of course, there's Amund Setters Luck, which is Omen Setters Luck, which is the first novel and there's only been two to this point. There's a third one coming out in a few months. But I think, you know, these are the first two things he's written in fiction and that's the best place to start. Do you feel them either being simpler, more accessible than some of his later stuff or just as a good jumping on point in terms of this is what his fictional project was? Well, both. I think, Omen Setters is a little, it's a little different. It begins very easy and you think you know, you know, what this style is or where it's going and then it's broken up into, I think, three or four sections of one person's kind of monologue and the monologues they get more difficult after the first section which is I think 50 pages. And so you're thrown for a loop, but I've lost my train of thought. I tend to do that to people. What was your first experience with gas? Well years ago it was in the heart of the heart of the country, the novella, which a writing teacher foisted on me and I mean I was very taken with it but it didn't impel me to read more like other things. He told me to read James Salter and I think I glommed on to more of Salter at that time. But you know, so there was a good gap of almost ten years of no gas and a friend of mine was very into gas and he was reading everything that he wrote and kept talking about him so I figured okay, I have to get back to this guy and read the nonfiction for the first time which I hadn't read the first go around. So because I was also getting into more essays at that time anyway and reading more nonfiction and this was a few years ago so that's where that started and I think I was working up to reading the tunnel and I think after a few books I just stepped right into that. But fiction and the figures of life is the first nonfiction book where he kind of sets his main essays on what he believes fiction should do and sentences. How would you characterize that and what do you think his fictional or his goal with fiction is? Well I think it's, I think it's sound before story and he alluded to things that don't worry about the morals of your characters or something, your fiction. The story will take care of itself and that essentially it's about the sentence and making the sentence and you know he's written essays called the aesthetic structure of the sentence and breaking down the sentence and just having the sound of the words do something for the reader to kind of make them pay attention and not these simple constructions where what's happening is on the surface you know you're talking about oh here's this interesting person in World War II but if you say it in a very bland prose sentence I mean it's not as interesting as a gas sentence or Henry James sentence where you know or Shakespeare you know going down the line you have this this verve and this vivacious prose which is taking you over in a way and you know you're hearing all these things at once and it's more of the sound impelling you to keep reading and not the plot but there is there is plot there certainly. Do you find that at all with well with the postmodernists in general as the the post-war authors kind of moved into that more experimental prose that the willingness to eschew plot in favor of either intellectual gamesmanship or you know insanely baroque prose isn't as much fun to read or at least it becomes you know its own purpose without you know really is fulfilling what in there right does right but I'm getting off of gas and on to literary topics but but I always think it's there it's it's there in in Gaddis or or Elkin I mean the story the story the characters they are there I mean they're even there in Beckett to go back you know to the across the ocean I mean I've never I can see how readers would you know not being accustomed to this this type of the the metafictional writing or the the black humor they might just be kind of lost you know if they're they're used to a more argument driven New Yorker story short story type of type of fiction where it's kind of laid out in front of you but I mean we're essentially talking about poetry in in prose like the pages of gas and Gaddis and Elkin are our poetry but I mean there is a story there there is there is stuff going on but I think what it comes down to is they're working at these two different levels there is the story but there is this a major amazing poetry as well like like in you know the dialogue of Shakespeare's the the plays of Shakespeare where people are speaking their feelings in in a poetic way and so gas Gaddis Elkin Hawks Coover they all have you know they're they're they're working in in two different two ways two things are going on at the same time and there's just more to to grab on to catch if we feel among contemporary writers sort of holds up as a next generation or generation inspired by those guys that are that would have been born after them yeah basically what writers do you feel we're gonna look back at gas and Gaddis and the like a strong precursors I noticed the corrections up on your shelf which well it's a very conscious way of Gaddis references in it well this is my roommate's shelf I'll have to admit oh thank God myself I appreciate the Richard Price but I was going to make judgments about you with some of the other stuff this is not that you know Diaz is not an ad that is that is not I do not read Juno Diaz anymore his one novel okay which mm-hmm was alright except had a very very strong precursor in the Levin Rockets comic books which it didn't seem to admit to I guess it's a way to put it I don't know I'm hoping to get Diaz on the podcast or may have to edit this part sure sure we'll see if he any lessons yeah well I mean someone that he spoke about would be Alexander Thiru which is you know he's not as well known and not grouped with those people he's Paul Thiru's brother but he definitely has that poetic prose and vocabulary going for him and the newer writers that there would be one would be Joshua Cohen who's written many things I think he's thirty thirty thirty two years old he wrote vits it's a Dalki archive a huge book and he just had a book of short stories come out with gray wolf called four new messages also there's Joanna Rooko who she's less well known she's written a few books and is in her early 30s as well I think she studied under Cooper at Brown I know I'm leaving out many years of writers I'm putting you on the spot from from one to the other if I you know if I look over the library I'm trying to look at the library and well I mean I don't Gary Lutz I think I would I would put him in there he is a writer who studied under lish with many of the lishites but his his love of the sentence and his ways of putting things in these incredibly dramatic constructions and using verbs and like they've never been used or adjectives verbally or verbs adjectivi it is amazing so I would I would I would put Gary Lutz in that camp to and he's very very dark dark humor did gas talk at all about the well the difficulties in publishing nowadays besides his own there's a funny passage you have where he talks about his own work getting rejected from the New Yorker did he talk at all about well as we know at the state of publishing or the state of fiction in his vein and then how difficult it is to reach an audience these days not so much I mean he he has all these relationship relationship with harpers and conjunctions I mean I think he's contributing editor to both those magazines but as you think in terms of other authors younger authors coming up now and where they're going to find an audience in the same as we have to admit difficult right you know work I think he's I think he's taken aback somewhat at the self publishing that's going on I don't know to what degree but I think he's you know he's always believed in forging these relationships with publishers we he's connected with Dalki as well yeah and Knop Knop publishes all of his books fiction or nonfiction right now I know I'm going away from the soul of your question I guess it's the question of is he of a generation that still believes in big publishing houses and if so you know most of the writers you mentioned I don't keep a much contemporary writers anymore because surely I have enough of the ancients to spend my time with but you know how difficult is it for difficult writers to to find an audience to find publishing you know to find distribution given the number of bookstores vanishing under our right I mean he is he has written a famous essay in defense of the book that was in harpers and it's in the temple of texts book but I think you know he's he's taken a step back now he's kind of out of the game and we did have an iBook over and now he has embraced that's true he just embraced an essay on the iBook or i can only and i book only available right so I mean I think when you're 88 you know your relationships the world is is much different and you know he has enough worries you know with of his own with aging you know instead of getting roiled up about the publishing now what books or authors as he turned you on to over the years what did you come across from reading his essays or his fiction that oh I got to read this guy next well definitely Henry James yeah I mean at first in that same book a temple of texts there's the 50 literary pillars which he he wrote this a few years before these 50 titles and some are philosophy some are fiction some are poetry and Henry James was on this list and Rilka and he's written many things about Rilka including reading Rilka an entire book devoted to the subject Rilka I had read but mainly it was James Kertrude Stein and he has a number of essays about her amongst his nonfiction books Paul Valerie another one he's on the temple of text as well for his play it's a Greek title it's I won't even try to pronounce it but it's the Greek title or the architect that it's called got you Wallace Stevens in a way as well he's he's made passing reference to him but that was a main conjunction I think with with coming into gas again because I was coming into Stevens at the same time and to see how much gas respected Stevens and in the interview he said he was America's best poet and I believe he finds James to be the greatest American novelist so I mean I had to associate myself with with these two people who are in a way like connected as things respect for because they've written about each other in letters Wallace Stevens wrote about Henry James quoting him Stevens wrote a letter to this this young man this young his Latino man who was many years his junior and he quoted James about the role of reading books and and the role of work in one's life so you know Stevens had read James and probably not the other way around because you know he's a good overlap in that chronology yeah James I think James died just before harmonium Stevens's first book so I'm sure he probably you know unless he was reading poetry magazine and 1915 he probably wouldn't have heard of keeping up with the Americans there but there are so many others that I'm forgetting at the moment but mainly James and Stein and and also his his nods to Gaddis and Hawks and Elkin and he's even though he knew those people to varying degrees he also wrote introductions to their works and you know very compelling essays what Elkin book would you recommend and don't say the living end if you have one other Elkin book that you would foist off on someone well I think the the bail bondsmen which is a group of three novellas which gas blurbed and I think he wrote something like this is the three greatest novellas in the English language to go for those superlatives the same thing with under the volcano which I won't forgive him for oh yes yes that's another though I'd come to Lowry before I mean he's written a lot about Lowry and Nietzsche and you know Lowry's when I have to revisit because I didn't get I don't believe what gas got out of the volcano but on the other hand his recommendations for Daniel Oakish the check writer I guess a tumor for Boris Davidovich it was the name of the book gas had been in one of the few essays that I finished really really praised that and that did in fact hold up when I got to read it back in my twenties yeah yeah with Elkin there's many there's many novels but there are the short fictions which I think these novellas would fall under and they're very they're very funny and Baroque in their own way gas doesn't think writing has a moral moral purpose but what do you think gas has to teach us in a sense I mean you mentioned in one part of the interview how some of his best prose makes you not only want to be a better writer but also a better reader what do you think he really non pedagogically you know tries to evoke in the reader I think it's it's really a celebration of the beautiful which I think he's called from Rilke a lot of Rilke's the do you know allergies are the celebrating life and talking about you know what can be created there's a line chart the French the French castle the French church you know didn't we make chart isn't wasn't that great you know creating these these objects and in you know in book form we the sentences become you know books as they're the sentences are pulled together to make books and so we have these objects called books and you know they're objects of beauty like paintings or films or architecture and that he wants gas wants to to celebrate words and what words can do you know the power of words and and and how they can you know not morally of course but more the beauty the soul you know one of his essays is the soul inside the sentence and you know the soul inside of poetry Shakespeare anything just you know the beauty of the of these lines whether apart or taken together they I think they you know they level us and you know in some strange way they maybe do make us into better human beings by being exposed to that beauty that it's interesting because it's the subject matter itself can be so grotesque and ugly for gas I saw him speak or do a reading at the 92nd Street Y in 2003 actually 10 years ago where he was unveiling the atrocity museum section of his his new novel I assume it's still in there because it seemed like he devoted a lot of work to that section and it's it's just a section of utter grotesqueery and horror about the world as this narrator was seeing it maybe a little before 2003 and yet the prose itself was so absolutely beautiful and and gorgeous I really wonder right about how you tackle that that tension of of displaying the grotesque and yet you know creating this beauty within the soul of of what the prose is well he talked about hot John Hawks who wrote in the lime twig this famous scene about a woman being beaten with a wet newspaper and gases describe has gone back to that scene many times and talking about how it's the sentences describing it are so beautiful it's a monument to horror so it's it's I think he's you know he doesn't shy away from anything and that's why I love him and artists in that vein so much there's no political correctness I mean they're just looking at the world and presenting it you know in their view but I don't know how you know people can can read the headlines and not think that you know there something something awful is happening in the world they do it by not reading the headlines that's that's the biggest thing they just look for the the Kardashian you know sure news and you know follow whatever's people magazine anything with bread and circus sure it's in an earlier conversation I had for the show with with Michael Derta he'd mentioned the the beauty but just unremitting darkness of Harold Brodke and the the runaway soul and we contrasted that with the tunnel which has a very very dark vision is also very very funny at least in the hundred or so pages I read a very very funny piece of writing and yet is also of such hideous subject matter of of this German literature professor and his experience in the yes in Germany during the war yes it's not for everyone I mean I read a portion of the tunnel to my girlfriend and she just said stop I but I mean this was the the scene the pit at Dubno with the bodies and the you know the people being shot on top of one another they're going into this death pit I mean it is gruesome and it's it is not for everyone and but I mean that that's one scene in the tunnel there's other parts of gas which I would recommend the essays then which cover a variety of topics but I think you know for people who who are ready for it and want it I think it's really instructive and he's carrying on the tradition from Shakespeare to Henry James of you know by looking at the tragedies of life and and how people lie to one another and deceive one another you know for their own gain to get powerful to to get their way in life and he's carrying on that tradition and it's I mean it's a wonderful tradition to me in the interview gas sites the ending of invisible cities by Talio Calvino which I think I read in one of the early pre-interview podcasts that I did it's one of my favorite passages actually he says seek and learn to recognize who and what in the midst of the inferno are not inferno then make them endure and give them space now I like to think that's sort of what I'm doing with with this show yes how do you feel you either gas you know does that for you or how do you feel you sort of practice that in your own literary pursuits oh can you say that can you say that line again seek and learn to recognize who and what in the midst of the inferno are not inferno then make them endure give them space and basically we're all in hell but you know how do you find the things that aren't and how do you how do you try and help how do you try and make things yeah not quite as much the inferno yeah I well for me it is bathing myself in art I mean whatever it be books music film showing me a way to live and to work out my own demons and by writing writing I write as well so that it's another way of working out the demons but but kind of exercising you know I think we have to be keeping reminded of why we are here and how we treat each other again and again and to keep seeing the tragedies you know repeated whether in Shakespeare or the films of Kubrick or Robert brasson and seeing people come to such a point that they're you know they're impaled to kill their family in the shining or to kill themselves in a number of brasson films you know why do we keep coming to these points I you know I think everyone has a different answer I've taken some political action being involved with the occupy movement when it when it occurred and you know being happy that I was there and and trying to stand up for what's happening to people in the world and the poor poor people not having a voice you know and unfortunately that kind of fizzled out in you know it might come back I don't think anything's ever done for sure but I think it's just it's finding the right avenue and and finding the right medium for one but but really being conscious and I think that's the key word being the consciousness and and gas again again writes about consciousness and Henry James again again writes about consciousness we need to be conscious of what we're doing and you know have an idea of what we're doing because sometimes we're hurting people and we don't even know it you know in just in how we behave in little slips of the tongue Freudian or otherwise you know are we paying attention to people are we giving you know giving some people not enough attention or you know someone comes to us with their artistic effort are we just kind of like it going bad that's all right I've seen better right and you know they've spent hours or weeks on this and you know we just I think we have to be more constructive and conscious and I think a lot of literature and film forward that that viewpoint and it's the humanities and you know if we if we keep falling back on the humanities as we have for so many years but now they're being cut and English programs being cut I mean you can't go wrong with these are the cornerstones of Western civilization can't argue with that Greg Gurk thank you for your time and we'll thank you for the march for the new the new William gas book and that was Greg Gurk talking about William gas and panoply of other subjects you can find Greg's writing in his website Greg Gurk dot com and at big other dot com and the gas interview is up on ten houses website William gas's new book middle C comes out March 12th from Knopf you really ought to read gas's work if you care about beautiful thoughtful prose and if you got this far in the podcast chances are you fall into that subset and that was a virtual memories show you can check out past episodes on iTunes or on our website chimera obscura dot com also I launched virtual memories podcast at tumblr and if you check that out it's got repose of these episodes but it also has something I call two minutes great a mini podcast two minutes long about things that I think are awesome the idea behind it was basically just to get me more experience talking behind the mic with no script since I tend to script these things out and they do sound kind of well stiff I guess so anyway check out virtual memories podcast at tumblr and let me know how you like the two minutes great and I am Gil Roth and you are awesome keep it that way. 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