On April 6, I mentioned an interview with Peter Matthiessen. Since then, I’ve traded notes with a friend about a mutual interest in interviews. I confess that on most days I’d be more inclined to read an interview, a diary or a memoir than a novel.
There’s something about getting at it directly: events, great and small, as told by those who actually experienced them. I like those first-person accounts. Historians call them primary sources.
In the Matthiessen interview, I learned that he kept notes in a notebook, as opposed to index cards or loose-leaf sheets, for his nonfiction books. The right-hand (or recto) pages were for data. The left-hand (or verso) pages were for the remarks that came later, on reflection. He crossed out material as he put it into a draft.
Though known for his nonfiction, Matthiessen said he covered some of the same topics in fiction to convey his own feelings. Stephen Crane made similar remarks about his use of fiction.
All that was interesting. But what I really recall from the interview is that Kurt Vonnegut, who was a neighbor, came down the street one day and put a bumper sticker on Matthiessen’s truck.
It said: “Your planet’s immune system is trying to get rid of you.”
• Source: Jonathan Meiburg, “An Interview with Peter Matthiessen”; Believer, June 1, 2014; Issue 108.
https://believermag.com/an-interview-with-peter-matthiessen/
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