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Steve Garbarino: Not so long ago, you riled up those old
literary goats Norman Mailer, John Updike, and weirdly, John Irving,
over some of your viewpoints about the future of the novel. That it's
only means of survival is detailed realism. What do you think they'll
say about "Charlotte Simmons"?
Tom Wolfe:
I would be surprised if Mailer or Updike took any notice.
Irving, though, for some reason, now seems to have a disease...
As an experiment, you should call him up and tell him that I
think that he wasted most of his career by not going into the country
and using his talents to really see American people, and come back and
interpret all the details of American life. I have tried to tell him
that. He's not so old that he can't function. Get off the farm, I say.
The response you will get is thirty seconds of sputtering. Then
blurting out the naughtiest words he can summon up his brain stem.
There will be 180 seconds of gibberish. Then finally, rational
invectives. I was so surprised when I saw him go beserk about me on
Canadian television. He was saying, "This fucking guy! You can't teach
that fucking shit to a freshman English class!" It was a fit. Why, I
don't know. I don't have a history with him, I have never met him, I
have never written about him. |
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