Bigthink - User Ideas Feed

Nathaniel Rich Reads from The Mayor's Tongue

Bigthink — Thu, 08 May 2008 18:40:21 +0100

"Living in this apartment, working in this job, he really believed he was free."

Transcript:

“It was June when Eugene Brantani took the job at Erinson & Son Moving Company, and subleased an apartment in Innwood from a man on his crew named Alvaro [ph?]. Like many of the men who worked at Erinson U& Son, Alvaro had recently emigrated from the Dominican Republic. Unlike the others, however, Alvaro was from the Cibao Valley, a small rural region in the northern part of the country. Separated from the rest of the island by the Cordillera Septentrional Mountain Range, the isolated farming communities of the Cibao Valley had developed their own dialect. This dialect, Cibaeño, was virtually incomprehensible to natives of the other-speaking countries in the Caribbean. Cubans thought that it sounded excessively affricative like Catalan, Puerto Ricans found it soft and melodious like Portuguese. Even the other Dominicans on the moving crew were baffled by Alvaro’s speech. To Eugene, it sounded like Alvaro was speaking with a mouth full of porridge. Alvaro’s attempts to learn English were, despite his most strenuous efforts, pitiful; but he was able to make himself understood in other ways. Since words failed him, he communicated through vivid intonation, forceful hand gestures, and dynamic facial expressions made with contortions of his rubbery face, the muscles of which were flexible to an uncanny degree. An arched lip or a wiggled ear was a disposition in itself conveying meaning far more articulate than, say, one of Eugene’s father’s monosyllabic lectures. After several weeks it no longer mattered that Alvaro couldn’t speak a word of English. Eugene believed that he could understand him just fine. Alvaro’s flexibility was not limited to his facial muscles. Like Eugene, he looked too small to be a mover. He was lithe, almost boney, but his suppleness compensated for the lack of bulk in his back and upper arms. During a furniture-moving job his body would arch, twist, and buckle out double-jointed engaging each muscle to its greatest capacity. He could support a loveseat on the straining tendons of his neck, an ottoman on his bulging rib cage, even an armchair on his flexing toes if he walked on his heels. He was blessed with a jigsaw anatomy. Although Eugene often feared that his friend’s spine might rupture or his fingers snap back in compound fractures, Alvaro never suffered any serious injuries. After an especially arduous job, however, his whole body, and not just his arms or his back, throbbed madly. Each vertebra, rib and abdominal muscle, his pelvis, his quadriceps, his collar bone, even his jaw rallied together a ragged band of crippled assassing raising hammers, gouges and pliers to his frayed nerve-endings. Using a wild array of gestures, Alvaro explained to Eugene how he spent entire nights limping between a bath filled with ice cubes and a bed insulated by a carefully-choreographed patchwork of electric heating pads. He also mimed tears for the sadness he felt about this sorry state of affairs. But he was good at the work, and he needed the salary. He had to feed his family. When Alvaro showed his apartment to Eugene he apologized for his meager furnishings. He had scavenged everything he owned from moving jobs. The front door opened into a long living room occupied only by a broad player piano, an orange floor lamp; and stuffed into the space on the parquet floor behind the piano, a king-size mattress. A rough kitchen nook had been built into one corner delineated by a wooden counter and two stools. A doorway, minus door, led to the sole bedroom which ran parallel to the living room, and it was almost as long. This, Eugene realized, would be his room. It contained a second mattress, a single. A crumpled sheet was balled up on the floor next to it. Blushing Alvaro shook it open and laid it over the mattress. ‘I can make my own bed,’ said Eugene, ‘it’s really no problem.’ The sheet was spotted with discolorations like diseased flowers. Alvaro smoothed it apologetically. Eugene was about to repeat himself to make certain his friend understood when Alvaro let out a loud embarrassed chortle. Eugene took that to mean that they had reached an accord. As it turned out, Alvaro was rarely in the apartment. That was because he had another home down in Washington Heights, which is shared with his wife and their two young sons. He was there for most of the connubial hours-- breakfast, supper, and bedtime-- but would visit the Innwood apartment on off shifts during the day and on the weekend. He usually brought with him a nurse, a secretary, sometimes a physician’s aid, women from Saint Valentino, the hospital that regularly employed Erinson & Son to move machinery. On Sunday nights he brought home prostitutes. Eugene had never have seen one before, at least not up close, not within his own living space. They were less exotic at close range in the apartment’s murky orange light. They dressed cheaply but not as ornately as he might have guessed, though perhaps that was a reflection of Alvaro’s tastes. They looked a lot like the secretaries. Eugene usually knew when to expect Alvaro, so he was able to avoid any real unpleasantness. Even though there was no door to his room and the walls were dangerously thin, the king-size mattress was on the opposite side of the living room so the sounds never rose beyond muffled grunts and creaks. Eugene put on his headphones. It was only to block out any of the noises the girl might accidentally let escape. Eugene didn’t actually mind listening. In particularly moments he sometimes removed his headphones, but for the most part his modesty and his respect for Alvaro kept him from spying on his friend, at least until one bright full-moon night several months into Eugene’s stay. Alvaro had brought home Betty, a Filipino nurse, whom Eugene new from Saint Valentino. During the night shift in October when Eugene and Alvaro’s crew had been hauling in three new CAT scan machines, she had brought Eugene a paper cup full of instant hot chocolate. When the other movers protested, Betty told them to shut up. Then she cupped Eugene’s face in her soft latexed hands and winked at him. When the men had cat-called and cackled, Eugene was elated. Part of the goal of this period of self-imposed exile was to meet a girl, and this was the closest he had come yet. But he’d barely seen Betty since then. His habitual timidity prevented him from going out of his way to seek her out, and soon she seemed less desirable to him. In recent weeks, the other guys on his moving team told him that she had been hanging out in the hospital stairwells with Alvaro off shift. They arrived late that night whispering and giggling. Eugene stepped quietly to his doorway just as the couple fell to the mattress. He could see only the edge of a determinant body part-- a back or a shoulder and maybe knees-- protruding just slightly over the top of the piano. But the slanting moonlight projected a vivid silhouette on to the wall. It was horrible. It looked like a shadow puppet show of a chrysalis tearing through its cocoon, its wings trembling and straining to separate from its body. Eugene soon realized that he was watching Alvaro bound up in some kind of inhuman contortion. Betty’s round fleshy body was on the bottom, this was clear. She lay on her back, her hips raised slightly off the mattress. Alvaro, taut and spinally, was on top face-to-face with Betty, but he had arched his spine so dramatically that with his knees fully bent, the tip of his toes rested on the back of his head. He had curved himself backward into a loop. His forearms, planted on the mattress on either side of Betty’s head, bore his entire weight. Betty’s hips rose to accommodate him. The chrysalis quivered, almost lost balance and tightened once again. It looked painful. It looked like meditation. Betty started screaming. In ecstasy or terror, it wasn’t clear. Eugene tip-toed quickly back to his room. Sliding into his bed, he found the sheets still warm with his own body heat. He shivered and laughed with relief. Living in this apartment, working in this job, he really believed he was free.”

Recorded On: 3/17/08

Nathaniel Rich on Internalizing Criticism

Bigthink — Thu, 08 May 2008 18:39:27 +0100

The reason for writing the book in secret.

Transcript:

Well, I didn’t talk about the book when I was writing it for five or six years, so when I- when I, you know, read any of the reviews that have come out so far, my first response is- is kind of- is still surprise and excitement of someone read my book, that I didn’t- it- it-- the idea that other people are reading what I wrote and was sort of thinking about it for five years is still astonishing to me on some level. Maybe I’ll get past that soon, but whether they have good things to say or bad things to say, I’m- I kind of just wanna thank them for reading my book. I feel like it’s really exciting. So I’m still at that phase. Maybe there’ll be a time when I’m really bitter and angry, or- or my mood-- I’ll have to go to bed if I read a negative review or something. But at this point, I’m- I’m-- it’s just exciting to me that people are reading things that I wrote, and it’s a very strange idea to me.

Recorded On: 3/17/08

Nathaniel Rich on Being Young and Working at Old Publications

Bigthink — Thu, 08 May 2008 18:39:23 +0100

Before the Paris Review, Rich worked at The New York Review of Books. Here he discusses what he learned from NYRB's editor, Bob Silvers.

Transcript:

I wouldn’t describe myself that way, but I would say working at The New York Review of Books was a lot of fun because I was with other- you know, there are four assistants for the editor and I was one of them, and it was a really exciting place to be. I learned a lot. I was working under Robert Silvers who I think is the best-living editor and just being around him and seeing how he worked was tremendously valuable and- and fascinating to me. And it- it-- he really taught me by example how to be an editor- how to edit, and- and the editing also helped the way I- I write. And, you know, things like clarity of thought and directness, being sort of the most prized qualities; that was really impressed upon me deeply. And then I left to- to write these books and I came back to work at The Paris Review and it’s also- it’s-- The Paris Review has always been a place for young people. You know, most of the staff was under 30 for most of the magazine’s history except for George Plimpton, but it was founded by a bunch of 22, 23-year-olds. And over time, even as Plimpton was in his 60s and 70s, the staff- the, you know, most senior editors were usually 28 or 29. So it’s exciting for me to be part of that tradition, and also, there- there- there’s a long tradition of- of editors who were writers and- or went on to write and did both at the same time. So it’s been exciting and it’s- it’s been humbling to work with such great writers, as I’m- I’m fortunate enough to do. So it’s been a extremely valuable experience.Bob is a- I feel like he knows more about every subject, basically, than anybody else in a room except for maybe someone who’s an expert on the specific subject in question. He is- remarkable breadth of intelligence and is able to read a piece and understand his flaws and strengths almost, you know, in- instantly, and he has a wonderful sense of- of language and the way sentences work, the way words work. And generally, I mean, the- the basic editorial premise behind The New York Review and what makes it so great is that it’s- it’s to take any subject matter, no matter how erudite or complex or difficult, and- and make it available- make it understandable to a lay reader who is an intelligent reader but doesn’t necessarily know anything about particle physics or about the history of the Middle Ages, or something like that. And that doesn’t mean dumb it down, but it means to put it in a-- express ideas in a clear, concise, straightforward way, and- and that’s something that The New York Review does better than any other publication, I think. And it’s really-- it’s- it’s completely Bob doing that and- and the writers. So seeing the way that he would transform pieces, some of which would come in totally filled with jarg-- I can- jargon or sort of fluffy writing. He could- he would see right through that and just nail down the ideas and lay everything out in a straightforward manner. And it’s something that really is a skill that, as I said, helps with editing- any kind of anything, whether-- even if it’s fiction. So it was- it was a really exciting place to be. It felt very much like getting a- a Masters or some kind of graduate degree, or it was a kind of apprenticeship maybe. I don’t know if Bob thinks of it that way, but I- I felt it- I felt like that.

Recorded On: 3/17/08

Re: How do you edit?

Bigthink — Thu, 08 May 2008 18:39:21 +0100

Rich's editorial process looks like stacks and stacks of paper.

Transcript:

It looks like stacks of- of pages on my desk and spread around, and we get something like 1,000 stories sent a month to The Paris Review. And- and that’s not even counting things sent by agents and- and writers that we’re in touch with. So I- most of my job is reading stories and reading novels and trying to find excerpts occasionally that we can shape into short stories. And when we find something that we’re really excited ab- about and- and wanna publish it, then we’ll do editorial work if we feel like there’s a way to improve it beyond what we have on the page. And sometimes we don’t.

They- they feel very different to me. I mean, I feel like I’m using different sides of my brain, and- and I- I feel that way even when I’m editing my own writing. It feels like a very different activity. There’s a kind of hyper logical side that you- of your brain I think you use when you’re editing, and that’s whether it’s editing fiction or non-fiction. I mean, I learned early on in the job that editing fiction is- you basically apply many of the same principles that you would use editing non-fiction-- you know, issues like continuity, consistency. It takes different forms when you’re talking about characters and stories as opposed to a, you know, linear argument of an essay- a critical essay. But it’s the same kind of issues. And with writing, I feel like it’s more of a- it’s- it’s a more creative process and it- it’s-- I try to quiet my editing side as much as possible and write a lot of nonsense on the page and then later try to edit it into something that makes sense.

Recorded On: 3/17/08

Re: How do you write?

Bigthink — Thu, 08 May 2008 18:38:26 +0100

Description: Rich wrote his novel in secret.

Transcription:

I wrote a big part of- of The Mayor’s Tongue before I started working at The Paris Review. I did a lot of the editing while I was there, but basically I write at night if I don’t go out and get too drunk, or I write- and I write on the weekends a lot. And, you know, with The Mayor’s Tongue it was not an ideal situation because it was written over five or six years and there were a lot of stops and starts. There was a- a year-- you know, at one point there was a- a year that I just took off early in the process. And when I was writing- when I was-- for a year and a half I lived in San Francisco between jobs when I was writing a book on Film Noir called San Francisco Noir, and I was writing that book in the morning, and in the afternoon I’d write the novel, but I wouldn’t tell anybody about that. But that was when I did-- I was- I felt like I was wasting my- I was sort of screwing around, but I- I- actually that was definitely the most productive year in my life, or year and a half. And I wrote, you know, most of- I wrote one book- a short book on Film Noir and most of the novel in that period, and it’s something I miss, but it’s- my job is such that, you know, we’re a literary quarterly so it’s not- it doesn’t have the same demand that a- a newspaper would have or even a monthly magazine. So I do have some time to myself to- to write as well.

Recorded On: 3/17/08

Nathaniel Rich on Language

Bigthink — Thu, 08 May 2008 18:38:23 +0100

The crucial role of miscommunication.

Transcript:

When I was living, that summer, in Italy-- before going to Trieste I was living in Milan for six weeks, and I moved- I moved in a-- I was working at a publishing house as an intern in- in Milan, and I moved in with a colleague at the office who invited me. I really didn’t have a place to stay, and he said I could stay at his house. And I didn’t really know what the terms would be, but I needed a place to stay. So I ended up sleeping on his fold-out chair in his living room, but he - he didn’t- he didn’t want anything from me; he was being a very generous guy, and we became friends, and we had a lot of shared interests. He was an editor at this pub- a young editor at this publishing house, and he couldn’t speak English very well but always wanted to practice his English. And I couldn’t speak Italian that well, but I always wanted to practice my Italian. So we would have conversations in which he would try to speak English and then I would try to speak Italian or I would try to speak back in a king of Pidgin English- dumbed-down English so that I- I was not really speaking either language, and he was neither speaking- speaking either language. And we didn’t really know what each other way saying at all, but we felt like we really sort of got it in some way, and- and we would, you know, tell jokes and- and tell stories, and- and we felt like we got along really well. And- but we were never really sure probably on a deeper level if we- what we were saying made any sense. And that- that kind of- that informed a lot of the book and that- that’s- that for me was a- dramatized what is in the- kind- thing I encounter a lot in my life, which is just inarticulacy and trying to speak to other people and trying to- people trying to relate to each other and communicate and- and the ways in which they’re constantly thwarted by language and- and sentences and words and how language, you know, complicates and distorts real sentiment and real feelings. And yet, there’s the deep human desire to nevertheless reach out to other people and communicate, and the tension between those things was fascinating to me and that’s a motif or idea that I- I think is- is there in every page of the book. For me, that’s a big part of what the book is about.

Recorded On: 3/17/08

Nathaniel Rich on the Fantastical

Bigthink — Thu, 08 May 2008 18:38:21 +0100

Description: It's not magical realism, Rich says. It's closer to Bulgakov's style.

Transcript:

I don’t really think of it as magical realism, and I think magical realism I associate with Gabriel Garcia Marquez and a specific sort of literally movement or genre. I think there are fantastical elements of the book, but the idea- my idea was to- to-- unlike magical realism where you have fantastical things happening and from the first page we have snow falling in the tropics, I wanted it to be a real gradual shift so that it starts off in a pretty realistic setting and- and background, but then it gradually goes into something different and-- I was, you know-- that my models were not really- were not magical realism. In fact I hadn’t really read Marquez before I- I wrote most of it. But- I don’t know- certain films and- and-- I don’t really know, but it’s not something- I didn’t- I never thought about it in that- in that term- in that way, and so I wasn’t aware of doing a certain type of- using a certain type of device. I- I was more interested in telling a story and- and dealing with characters who were, for me, very real even if they ended up in some scenarios that were sort of outside of the realm of real ex- lived experience.What role is- does the fantastical play with the charac-- I think- I think the characters themselves-- I mean, I- I think it’s- it’s kind of a metaphor-- I mean, this is what fiction does in general, is I think you can get at- at a certain level of reality through fiction that you can’t get at through non-fiction or even memoir, and so it didn’t feel like the fantastical elements of it, which don’t really involve the characters themselves but involved the landscape more. And sort of situations they find themselves in, I felt like the- the dramas- the personal dramas were very real, and the relationships between the characters were very real. And, if anything, the reality of that- of the relationships and of the characters’ identities was heightened by the contrast with the more fantastical elements going on outside of them.

Recorded On: 3/17/08

Nathaniel Rich on The Mayor's Tongue

Bigthink — Thu, 08 May 2008 18:37:27 +0100

A summer in Trieste inspired Rich's first novel.

Transcript:

Basically, I- I don’t know what inspired me. Basically, I wanted to write-- I mean I could start again now and say basically I had a lot of ideas in my mind that I wanted- a lot of ideas I wanted to write about and- and ideas for stories and characters, and it was something that took form over five or six years; and I didn’t really know what it was. I didn’t tell anybody about it. I didn’t talk about it. I didn’t know what it was for, you know, the first three or four years, if it would- made any sense, if it was totally insane or unreadable. And so it was a long process and I- it went through a lot of work and I- I finally came to the conclusion at one point that it was a novel and- and I- I shaped it, and it took- it took form. But it- it was about five or six years. There wasn’t really a single moment that inspired me, but it was something that was in my mind that I was working on while I was doing other things for- for, you know, five or six years.

Yeah, that’s a better way to do it. Triast is a very strange place. There was a poll- there was a survey done a few years ago where they asked Italians whether Triast was part of Italy or not. And 60% thought it was not part of Italy. It only was- it’s only been- been part of Italy- Italy since after World War II. It was an independent zone for awhile; and over- over centuries it’s been ruled by a number of different empires-- from the Romans to Byzantines-- and the Habsburg Dynasty is part of- is a port- is a main port for the Austria-Hungarian Empire and it later became part of Italy after the war. And it’s a crazy mishmash of different cultures and languages, and it used to be a major Mediterranean port. But after- it was eclipsed by Venice and- and it’s- it has this aura of faded glory, and it feels like a land stuck in time. It’s on the border of Italy and Slovenia. So many people consider it the gateway to the East or the gateway to the West, depending on which direction you’re going. And- and it’s- it’s a- it’s a strange place. It’s where James Joyce lived for much of his writing life. It’s where Italo Svevo lived, who’s a writer who wrote one of the- the great masterpieces in Italian literature called Zeno’s Conscience. And it was- I went to write a thesis about Svevo and I- I got a-- I went to Triast on a research grant from my college. And when I was there I became fascinated with the city and with the region. And it- it had this-- really, I was- I was already obsessed with Italy and- and all things Italian, and it- it really-- it would-- it fascinated because it was outside of what we think of as tourist Italy. It’s a part of Italy that nobody really knows much about, including the Italians themselves. And I liked the idea of a place stuck out of time and with a mute- mutable, cultural identity, a place where people spoke a dialect that was completely incomprehensible to other Italians and was informed by these other languages, and- and it- it seemed the perfect place to set my novel, which- which, from a very early stage, was, for me, about languages and people trying to communicate with each other and failing and embarrassing ways, kind of like this interview. And it- it-- when I was- I was there it really spoke to me, and I felt like I had to set the book there. And so the- the second two-thirds of the novel are set there.

Recorded On: 3/7/08

Nathaniel Rich's Literary Canon

Bigthink — Thu, 08 May 2008 18:37:24 +0100

The five books Rich can't live without.

Transcript:

Probably I would say The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov is maybe my favorite book, and I tried to imitate it as m- or rip it off as much-- not rip it off. I’m saying I tried-- it was a big inspiration writing The Mayor’s Tongue. I- I-- there were a lot of things that- that Bulgakov does in that book that I tried to- to assimilate into my book. Flann O’Brien, At Swim-Two-Birds is the funniest book I know. I would include also a Dickens book, but I don’t- maybe Bleak House-- that’s three. Two more books? It, by Stephen King, which I haven’t read since I was- in about 17 years or 15 years, but I loved that book a lot when I read it. And, I don’t know, In Cold Blood maybe? I was just re-reading part of it so it’s fresh in my mind. But that was-- I remember reading that at a young age and it- it’s really sticking with me.

Recorded On: 3/17/08

Nathaniel Rich on Contemporary Fiction

Bigthink — Thu, 08 May 2008 18:37:21 +0100

Benjamin Percy, Jesse Ball to start.

Transcript:

Well, I- I think a lot of new young writers I’ve been really excited about, some of whom we’ve published in The Paris Review. Benjamin Percy is a great writer from Oregon who published a first- he’s published a couple books now- published a collection called Refresh, Refresh, which is moving kind of- in the kind of tradition of- of masculine American fiction but also very funny and- and tender and interesting. Jesse Ball is another writer who I think is- who’s- who’s roughly my age, who’s incredibly profound and- and funny, and wei- really weird style that- that- that to me is- is I think the most appealing writing done- being done now by a young writer that I know of. And who else did I mention? I don’t know. I have to think about it some more. I read a lot of really bad short stories. A lot of my day is taken up by reading a lot of really average short stories or- or r- or really bad short stories, and when I find something that’s really good, I- I get really excited. Danielle Evans is another young writer who-- I’m excited about a short story collection she has coming out soon. Dinaw Mengestu had her first novel this year called The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, I believe. That was excellent. And these are all writers who are 30 or under, thereabouts, and I think are- are doing really exciting things and- and things that I really admire.

Recorded On: 3/17/08

Nathaniel Rich's Influences

Bigthink — Thu, 08 May 2008 18:36:30 +0100

It started with an early obsession with Stephen King.

Transcript:

When I was growing up from the ages of 9 to 14 I only read Stephen King books outside of school. I remember when I was in third grade- or fourth grade I- we all had to write down what our- the books we read over the summer. And I remember the expression on Ms. Sobol’s [ph?] face, my teacher, when I read The Dead Zone and The Tommyknockers. She was really horrified and upset, and that- that’s when I think I knew I was doing the right- right thing. So Stephen King was always actually a big influence growing up. I went through a phase late- later in my adolescence when I was reading a lot of British writers of- Martin Amos generation, early Ian MacEwan, Julian Barnes, especially those three I’d suppose; read a lot of Dickens and I really love Dickens. Then in college I studied literature and I- I studied 20th Century European Literature. So that- those are the things I’ve- I’ve read the most, and ever since I started working at The Paris Review I’ve been reading a lot of contemporary American and fiction to try to catch up a little bit.

Recorded On: 3/17/08

Nathaniel Rich and Writers in the Family

Bigthink — Thu, 08 May 2008 18:36:25 +0100

Is Nathaniel just Frank Rich's son?

Transcript:

My father was a writer, and what was it like? Most of my childhood had- my memories of childhood were mostly about watching Mets games on television and playing sports games with my brother. And I guess there were a lot of books around and probably conversations about writing going on, but I was- I was usually watching TV or in my room reading or- or doing other games, which I won’t go into I guess. And I don’t- I don’t know. It felt- I did- it never occurred to me that it was- growing up it didn’t seem very strange or unique, and it’s probably informed a lot of decisions I’ve made or at least interests I’ve had. And I love literature and film, and- and that- that came to me from my parents. But beyond that, it’s hard- it’s hard for me to tell really. I guess the other thing is that I- I feel fortunate in that writing- unlike a lot of writers who- when they tell their parents that they wanna write, the parents don’t understand what they’re talking about and are really upset. And I didn’t get that- and what them to get jobs that will pay you a lot money- more money. I didn’t really get that from my parents at all, although my mother continues to send me news articles about how much money the hedge fund guys are making, so maybe there’s a subliminal- I think there’s a subliminal message there. But they can’t really get upset at me because they’ve set- they’ve set the bad example.I don’t know. I mean, I- I don’t feel-- I guess never thought- I guess I wasn’t that rebel- I guess-- hmmm, let me start again. I feel like what the kind of writing that I do and the kind of writing that my brother does and the kind of writing that my father does are all very different from each other. I- I would rebel against if someone asked me to write political commentary for a newspaper. I would probably not want to do that- I know I would not want to do that and feel uncomfortable and entrapped, but I- I feel like writing-- and my brother writes comedy and writes for a television show now, and- which is great and- that not something that I’m able to do really, and I feel like writing fiction and writing, you know, a story about a fantastical mayor in an Italian town is- is very different to me than writing about Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and sort of major issues of the day. So I- I don’t feel that it’s- I don’t, you know-- as much as we’re both sitting down and writing, you know, we’re all sitting down and writing at some point in our days, it- it seems, in my mind, it’s very- we’re doing very different things.

I guess it’s- it’s nice that every- that people value his work so much and- and that I get people in New York, I suppose, are much more aware of him than, you know, maybe people in other parts of the country or in other parts of the world. But I don’t- I think his- his columns are really good, so I’m happy to be associated with him.

I- I think it’s interesting the way that- I think it’s definitely a-- I don’t know what else I have to add about it. I guess I’m- I’m often surprise-- not really anymore, but I have been surprised the degree to which people- that he- the d- degree to which he’s part of many people’s lives. And so that always interests me and- and fascinates me, but is not- wasn’t-- it-it still surprises me a little bit because he’s my father. But I think it- when you’re in a very micro world of New York publishing, it might be a different- it might-- he might cast a different shadow than in the real world and- and outside of- of New York.I don’t feel like I need to respond to it. People refer to me as- by a lot worse ways. I’m- I’m happy to be, you know- happy that I have a father whose work I’m really proud of and believe in. So I don’t feel sort of- I’m- you know, I’m proud of that, and I don’t feel like I need to combat that in any way. But it’s- it’s usually not people I- I know. I mean, people I know and meet don’t tend to speak to me that way . It’s sort of just when I guess people outside of- of my circle, so it doesn’t- it doesn’t actually-- it’s not something I deal with very-- it’s not something I think about very much.

Recorded On: 3/1/7/08

Re: Who is Nathaniel Rich?

Bigthink — Thu, 08 May 2008 18:36:21 +0100

A city kid.

Transcript:

I’m from New York City, Manhattan, mid-town. I grew up near the United Nations. And how has it shaped me? I think it’s given me an urban sensibility, if you can say such a thing, which means that I feel really disoriented and uncomfortable in the countryside and much more comfortable in cities. And I would rather go to a second or third-tier New York City than wander out in the wilderness for a long time because then I would get scared.I’m one of those city people that is comforted by the sounds of the city, like ambulances and car alarms, people screaming- crazy people screaming in the middle of the night; and I- I do love- I- I actually do love going-- I spent a-- I went to sleep-away camp in Maine and I- that was really an idyllic time for me. So- but I tend to go back and forth between both extremes. Right now I’m in a city mode for the time being.Well, I think it makes me pretty scattered often when I’m in the city- when I- in- in New York, and when I- when I’m- I’m constantly moving around and- and doing things it’s a lot more difficult to find time to think and concentrate and have any kind of sustained thought. So ideally I guess I’d like to go live back in- live between the city and country, but I- I never have really done that. I- I sometimes went to friends’ country houses, but when I was growing up- but I never had one. But I guess it makes me pretty scared and have a bad memory and prone to speaking inarticulately- be the main contributions, I think- the city life.I love living in Brooklyn and most of my friends are there, and it- there’s a sense of neighborhood. I live in Cobble Hill and you see people on the street that you recognize and don’t talk to ‘cause that would be weird, but- that you recognize them. And it’s- it has a- I- I really like feeling- being part of a neighborhood with some history. And- and the part of New York where I’m from in mid-town has been totally torn up and- and- and mixed ab- around, and- and the people who live there are people who weren’t there when I was there-- when I grew up there, and the buildings have totally changed the level of magnitude. I- where- when I grew up there was a lot of buildings like- in the neighborhood I live in now- three, four-story buildings- and now there are 90-story residential apartment buildings. And it’s- it’s not a friendly place, and I feel like- much more comfortable in- in Brooklyn.

Recorded On: 3/17/08