A.S. Byatt: I loves me some A.S. Byatt. And by "some" A.S. Byatt, I mean, "one novel by" A.S. Byatt, namely, Possession, which is, absurdly, the only book of hers that I've read. As I admitted in a comment over at Stalkers Not Allowed, it was a tough book to read in public, what with the words "A Romance" slapped there on the cover. And my Burne-Jones cover image, well, let's just say it didn't exactly scream "I'm a young, virile male who likes to get women naked so as to facilitate sweaty sexual intercourse, possibly after consuming massive quantities of beer". None of which facts prevented me from enjoying the book while remaining somewhat comfortable in my liberal pansy masculinity. My comfort being supported, no doubt, by at least one female friend of mine's admittal that she, too, found the book a little tough to display without feeling a need to explain to everyone in sight that it's not actually a romance, like a romance novel, see. So.
Okay. Anyway. So A.S. Byatt was in town recently to do a reading and a talk and I missed her because I didn't know she was here because I am a huge drooling moron who isn't fit to tie the shoes of even the lowliest litbloggers. (I really did swear at my screen, when I found out. There may have even been a little gnashing of teeth. Let it be said that I am taking measures to ensure that such connections shall not be left missed again.) That said, someone recently linked to a Michael Silverblatt interview with Byatt that I've been meaning to download and add to my ever-growing virtual stack of yet-unreviewed iPod author audio. Looks like there's 90 minutes worth of literary goodness there, and, well, it's Michael Silverblatt, who, let's face it, the guy is doing the Lord's work. Which doesn't explain why Byatt is doing the black magicks on him in this photo. Huh. Weird. I guess this means your drinking game for the duration of the audio will involve doing a shot every time Silverblatt whines, and shotgunning a beer every time Byatt tells him to let the hate flow through him.
(A thousand fake dollars to the first person to photoshop that picture into what I'm thinking of. Bonus fake points for animation. Ready...go!)
2 comments:
I finally listened to the podcast. The interviewer's laugh creeped me out but the readings were sooo excellent it convinced me to convince someone else to buy two of her fairy tale books for moi. Interview was rather informative.
Eeeenteresting. I'll have to remember to listen at some point. Eventually. Sometime.
Post a Comment