Gore Vidal on Italo Calvino 2011
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 ต.ค. 2011
- Earlier this year, Gore Vidal sat down with Riz Khan to discuss Italo Calvino, an author whose work Vidal greatly admires. We're publishing the interview now in commemoration of Calvino's birthday on October 15, 2011. He would have been 88 years old.
"They should be selling automobiles at the corner!"
Gore Vidal was one of the very, very rare breed of people who embodied high intellect and a great sense of humor. And, he was one of the most brilliant truth tellers ever.
Gore Vidal makes me laugh. The contrast between these two guys is hilarious. Vidal is so intense. This interviewer is bombarding him with questions as if to get every piece of wisdom out of him before he croaks any minute.
I think about this comment a lot
"In those mortal words my father was spending the last breath of his mortal agony, and I, knowing his tendency to digress, to lard his talk with divagations, glosses, parentheses and flashbacks, was afraid he would never arrive at communicating the essential thing to me. 'Hurry, father, tell me the name of the person I am...!'"
from Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler
Aside from being born in Cuba, his family moved back to Italy in the 20s while Calvino was still an infant. He taught sometimes at the Sorbonne, but lived in Liguria and all his works so far as I know, including "La formica argentina," Le città invisibili, Le Cosmicomiche, etc were written and published in Italian.
So typical of Vidal -- always anxious to seem superior intellectually and always ignorant. (Probably drunk here too.)
The amount of ignorance in both is almost funny, like saying cortazar is a brucellas writer, a guy from an italian family that writed in italian, an lived in italia the fundamental years of his work, student from Turin, and florencia U. is some how a cuban writer that lived in france. Even if his famous work is not political in La speculazione edilizia, published in early 60s you can see the young man that went into the communist party, none of the latino writers did that.
Gore Vidal had a very straight forward way to express what he thinks that it is very fascinating to listen to everything he said. Do you really recognize when you are listen to someone special, with a cunning understanding and knowledge? A visionary. It is what we miss these days. Men like Gore Vidal, Italo Calvino e many others that they passed away. It feels lonely. I do not want to adapt myself to mediocrity in order to fit in this society, but i know one day i will find what i desire
Did you find it?
Vidal had a lot of problems at this stage. I imagine the interview never was intentionally constructed as a commentary on Italo Calvino, but that this was the only salvageable part of the discussion. I have a lot of sympathy for Vidal and admiration for his work. His life went into a tailspin after his partner of 50 years died.
Yes, after Howard died he reaIIy sort of gave up. It was onIy his hatred of Bush and Cheney that kept him going for a few more years. And then after they'd Ieft the scene he reaIIy didn't have much more to say that he hadn't aIready said. His finaI days were fiIIed with drinking whiskey, which he seemed to enjoy.
Nice to find Gore being interviewed about his craft for a change. It's time I grabbed myself a copy of Italo Calvino. Thanks for the upload.
thank you I love this video
Hey I'm not an italian nationalist but, damn, Calvino was absolutely an italian writer. Yes, he was born in Cuba but by italian parents and he come back to Italy at the age of 2. He spent most of his life in Italy, wrote all of his books in italian and worked for Einaudi, the gratest italian publisher all of his life, even when he was living in Paris.
yes but he has "south american roots"... and thats as far as this interviewer got in his research. and by roots he meant, he was born there and lived there for a short while. Before, of course, embarking upon his wondrous career in french literature.... oh dear
@@kierannee528ridiculous. Cuba is not South America. He was born to Italian parents and grew up in Italy.
"Hitchens identified himself for many years as the heir to me ... unfortunately, for him, I didn't die." Gore Vidal , October 2009
John Totleben The irony is that Hitchens died before Vidal lmao.
Ive read every single book he ever wrote (Hitchens) and seen everything he has on YT.. ive never seen him say anything of the sort.
@@sebastianjacobsen727th-cam.com/video/T1gEfl6WDTk/w-d-xo.htmlsi=tIazImdrXndfA5lk seems like gore lied about that
Sadly, the reality is: Gore Vidal had phoned Christopher telling him quite early on that he had found a successor in him and so designated him, Delfino. Vidal named Christopher his heir. It wasn't the other way around lol.
After the Iraq war, they stopped associating with one another completely. Hitchens made some very critical and actually quite childish attacks on Gore calling him a crackpot while Vidal essentially changed his history with Christopher. Rewriting it if you will.
At 5.40, such emotion. I have not seen this from GV before.
calvino is italian, wrote all his books in italian and spent 99% of his life in italy.
th-cam.com/video/BiZ89OieiaU/w-d-xo.html
Pisses me off when people say Cuban born, he's got nothing to do with Cuba. He was just fucking born there.
So what if he shits on other writers? It's one writers opinion - and he earned his "soap box." He's interesting and he had great ideas.
The story Vidal talks about is 'Argentine Ants'.
The English Department where I got my degree mostly taught Victorian and Edwardian authors--stiflingly so. Hemingway was not only a breath of fresh air, but his voice was such a breath of fresh air. You can definitely appreciate his influence by spending some time reading what came before.
This was painful. Riz Khan did no research for this interview. Italo Calvino was Italian and wrote mainly in Italian! Yes, he was born in Cuba, to an Italian family, and he was less than 2 years old when his family returned to Italy.
The interviewer and Vidal should probably have looked up Italo Calvino's biography before engaging in an interview about him.
Calvino is one of my favourite writers of all time. Hence, I was really glad to see there's a video where Vidal praises him.
Now.
Having said that: Gore Vidal or the interviewer know almost nothing about the writer.
FRENCH-WRITING WRITER? CUBAN? WHAT THE HELL?
Calvino wrote all his oeuvre in Italian, was raised in Italy and lived for quite a while in Argentina. Basic stuff.
If you know anything about a writer, go learn what the language they wrote in was.
Poor old Gore : he's only firing on one cylinder.
The interviewer does well.
All that's left are the mannerisms.
I don't know it's appropriate to compare writers between different GENRES,
and that's why we (like it or not) formulate genres and categorize works into the boxes,
in order that each of them will shine, and can be fairly judged.
You can't compare Calvino to Faulkner or etc., it's like saying tiger is better than shark, - they're from different species, both good, potential, fantastic in their own way.
So Calvino, yes, he is the best, but ONE of the 'bests' out there,
(and Borges too)
I identify as a heir of Gore Vidal.
Many thanks. I thought he'd made his peace with Mailer - apparently not.
italo calvino was AWESOME, but vidal is mostly just flexing his attitude rather than teaching anything of use....
Calvino left Cuba at the age of 2 (though he later romanticized Che Guevera) and spent some time in Paris, but most of his life in Italy. He was a communist until the Soviet crushing of the Hungarian rebellion in 1956 (presumably before Vidal knew him).
Gore Vidal has an engaging MANNER of speaking. Unfortunately, there is a difference between manner and matter.
crazy but true and fine with me.
I like what I've read of Italo Calvino, which isn't that much, but I actually think that Ray Bradbury was more imaginative and evocative. Is Gore Vidal just another Eurosnob?
I've always greatly admired Vidal for his essays, his historical novels, and his memoirs but near the end, he became very bitter, even deranged, bitterly denouncing writers who deserved better, Updike and Hemingway, among them. This interview sadly shows this. Vidal suffered at the end from "wet brain," having essentially drunk himself to death. A tragic end for an otherwise remarkable man.
Vidal was fairly insane for the last decade of his life. He was so paranoid that on his final trip to Europe he believed he'd been kidnapped and was being held for ransom; it was sort of a dark comic Nabokovian novel that instead of writing, he lived out. Even Capote couldn't outdo him in the crazy department, and that's saying something.
I wonder if Gore Vidal ever talked with Calvino about Hemingway, who Calvino admired a lot. Same could likely be said of Faulkner. Gore trashes and discards both of them but doesn't seem to consider how they've influenced one of his idols.
Sadly, Gore Vidal lost his lucid and witty repartee of quotes and knowledge in later years. All that was left in his later years was the residues of this wonderful and electrifying mind. His best writings are contained in his essays. Of course, Calvino was indeed Italian and wrote in Italian. He was also far more well-known than made out to be in this interview. (Quite probably the most famed Italian writer from the late 20th century.) Finally, I whole-heartedly disagree with him on Faulkner (one of my favourites) but I do agree that Hemingway was overrated.
Agree! And I think that he knew Calvino was Italian, but in this interview he just didn't make it explicit enough.
"...I do agree that Hemingway was overrated." go ahead and explain yourself
Very lucid, he is totally right about Heminguay, I never understood why people like such a nulity, maybe corresponds to the american values of individualism etc. But Calvino is wonderful, genial, uncomparably better. Under these americans nanicos only Bukowski can be compared with Calvino
Claudio Costa Bukowsky is heavenly caviar disguised as a hotdog...
"Only great writer of my time". Bullshit. I'd like to hear his criticisms of Bulkagov, Rulfo, Kafka, Lawrence, and Gunter Grass. Literary critics as a rule are self-involved to the point of psychosis, but this Vidal seems to be on another level. In neither his praise of Calvino or "criticisms" of other writers did he diverge from blind fan-boy love or ad-hominem attacks.
Only Grass was a contemporary of Vidal mate
the guys like 90 here, you sound like such a freak mate
To be fair Kafka, Lawrence and Bulgakov weren't really contemporaries.
Clive James please don't die you once described Rilke as a prick . ( Just before I found out he was dead )
5:20 9:32 that's the first time I've seen him come close to crying😔. LOLLL 6:24 8:14
Funny
Calvino was born in Cuba and was married there as well. And he did spend a great deal of time living in France during his later years. And all Vidal said was that he wrote in French when he wanted to, which is of course true.
"Italo was bigger than France""
Macron's Every Bed time Prayer!!
Tell me what you REALLY think.
Vidal. A shabby drunk.
Calvino was not a "Cuban writer", as both the interviewer and Vidal seem to suggest. Although born in Cuba his parents (Italian) returned to Italy when he was still an infant. Nor was he apolitical, as Vidal maintains, having been active in the Italian resistance during WW2 and then in the Communist Party until 1957, when he became disillusioned.
Everything Vidal said is true.
th-cam.com/video/BiZ89OieiaU/w-d-xo.html
literally qfwfq
Listen: Italo Calvino was ITALIAN and wrote essentially in Italian. He was born in Cuba accidentally. He lived between Turin, Rome, and Paris. Sorry.
Accidentally?
@@BostonRedSoxForever His parents, both botanists, returned to Italy in 1925, when Italo was two years old.
@@andreamalaguti9370 Got it. It's just because you used the word "accidentally" in that context. It wasn't accidental that Calvino was born in Cuba, it just happened.
@@BostonRedSoxForever "Accidental" can mean also "occurring unexpectedly or by chance." Or so I read in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. I mean that Calvino's Cuban birth did not have a specific purpose.
@@andreamalaguti9370 I know what "accidentally" means. But now it's making even less sense, since you keep trying hard to justify the completely superfluous use of the word "accidentally" in that very context.
Interviewer is terrible. Pronounces his name wrong from the start & makes other errors. Cuba is not South America. He was born to Italian parents and grew up in Italy.
Sorry Gore, I appreciate your praise of Calvino and yes, he does deserve a belated reappraisal. Yet, your assertions of Faulkner and Hemingway as being dum-dums is patent nonsense.
Well Nabokov would agree with him.
Ha ha Gore's summary on Hemingway and Mailer. Spot on.Huge literary snob but justified here, as those mentioned, are hugely overrated as writers.
So bad writers (in his opinion) would be more comfortable as women. Hmmm not sexist at all, is he?
+Feline Firebrand Perhaps he's attempting to say that, as women, they wouldn't have to try and be so macho all the time?
He is clearly "changing" them to girls using the gender in a pejorative sense. "They would be happier that way", as in, he is emasculating them because they are bad writers.
Because women are 2nd class .
@@felinefirebrand4590 I dont know about the latter, but I know that Vidal constantly clashed with Mailer over his writings on women, thus I assume he meant to turn that on him as an insult, here.
Interesting ...but what the fuck !! Nonsense!!
Vidal's fiction is abominable comparative any of the writers he trashed. Calvino was good. Hemingway was better. And as for Faulkner, only Joyce compares as the greatest writer of the century.
You must be kiddy. James wrote aboslute gibberish. Faulkner is some the dullest writing of the age's. Hemingway's early works were very good till he lost his mind.
@@stephencook4914 Your inability to read Faulkner says more about your reading than it does about Faulkner.
Always remember his mockery of Nixon as US forces crossed into Cambodia quotes Nixon : This is not an invasion.... It was like something out of Doestyevsky 😂