You can understand how Lawrence Wright gets the sort of inside stories he tells in 'Thirteen Days in September: Carter, Begin, and Sadat at Camp David' when you sit down to talk with him. He carries a masterful knowledge of his subject with a disarming ease. And he's willing to explore not just the histories he's learned, but his own writing experience.
Wright is a natural storyteller, and it's hard not to just let him unravel the complicated set of facts he's able to make almost absurdly clear. It was fun to ask about the origins of the book, of course, but just as fun to hear him talk with such authority about what he found out. The mark of a great storyteller is that you forget he is present; only the story is there. Wright has the ability to put his stories front and center.
Of course, there are a lot of fun bits that don't make it into the book, and Wright shared some of these with me in the interview. But hearing him tell some of hearing the history he has discovered told aloud brings a very different feel to the proceedings.
I have to admit, I was really enjoying the sense of humor that Wright brings to his world history. It's very low-key, but to my mind very funny. These are stories that, when told aloud, take on new meanings. You discover new implications that you might not have found had you just read the book.
There are also those questions that are entirely outside the book, that you as a reader ask, and in person, I took the time to ask some, mostly about how all this history is still so much with us. At the time when we spoke, there was a bit of a foofaraw, just winding down. Another will return, one must presume, sooner rather than later.
But the primary fact remains, one that Wright took pains to point out. Impossible things have happened in our lifetimes. I am of an age such that I was certain that in this year and day, the US and the USSR would still be poised with nukes waiting, unless the world had become a post-nuclear wasteland (always possible). The nukes are still there, but the threat is very different. The unimaginable becomes the ordinary faster than we can possibly realize.
10-01-14 UPDATE:Podcast Update: Time to Read Episode 176: Lawrence Wright, 'Thirteen Days in September: Carter, Begin, and Sadat at Camp David'
Click image for audio link.
Here's the one-hundred seventy-sixth episode of my series of podcasts, which I'm calling Time to Read. Hitting the two(three[?])-year mark, I'm going to make an effort to stay ahead, so that podcast listeners can get the same sort of "sneak preview" effect that radio listeners get each Friday morning. This week, I'm way behind, but who knows what the hell might happen. I am hoping to get back up and stumbling. I have lots of great books in the hopper to review and lots of great interviews to podcast.
My hope is that in under four minutes I can offer readers a concise review and an opportunity to hear the author read from or speak about the work. I'm hoping to offer a new one every week.
"... like your hands are, and their arms are, engaged in this poetic dance..."
— Rebecca Alexander
Rebecca Alexander is dressed for the radio when I meet her in the lobby at KQED. She's wearing a great shirt (Lettuce Turnip the Beet), and looks like she's ready to teach spin to a class of bicyclists who can't possibly be in as good shape as she is. With her are her aunt, who drove, and her 97 year-old grandmother from Capitola. With a crew like this, it's clear that 'Not Fade Away' will live up to its title.
"Presence on the page" might seem like a shopworn phrase, until you read 'Not Fade Away' and then hear Rebecca Alexander. First read the book; but when you hear her, expect her to burst into your life once again, full of the raw energy and verve that drives 'Not Fade Away.' Walking with her, her aunt and her grandmother to the studio it was clear where that energy came from. Still Rebecca has her own unique voice shaped by an utterly unique experience.
Alexander spoke passionately to me about the powers she has discovered within her new life. "Sign language is such a beautiful and robust language and the deaf community is a very strong community..."
At the Helen Keller Center, she saw, and then decided to learn, tactile sign language, a means of communication for the deaf and blind. "It's so beautiful to watch because it almost looks as though people are sort of embracing — like your hands are, and their arms are, engaged in this poetic dance of some sort. It's tremendous to be able to communicate with someone without having to use your ears or your eyes. To have an entire conversation and use only your hands is really remarkable."
Alexander knows when to play it straight and when to simply play. "One of the ways that I deal with my condition is through humor," she told me. "There have been a lot of ironic and funny experiences that have come out of this, and things I couldn't possibly make up if I tried."
08-21-15: Agony Column Podcast News Report : Senator Claire McCaskill is 'Plenty Ladylike' : Internalizing Determination to Overcome Sexism [Incudes Time to Read EP 211: Claire McCaskill, Plenty Ladylike, plus A 2015 Interview with Senator Claire McCaskill]
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Emily Schultz Unleashes 'The Blondes' : A Cure by Color [Incudes Time to Read EP 210: Emily Schultz, The Blondes, plus A 2015 Interview with Emily Schultz]
07-05-15: Commentary : Dr. Michael Gazzaniga Tells Tales from Both Sides of the Brain : A Life in Neuroscience Reveals the Life of Science
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Michael Gazzaniga : "We made the first observation and BAM there was the disconnection effect..."
04-21-15: Commentary : Kazuo Ishiguro Unearths 'The Buried Giant' : The Mist of Myth and Memory
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Kazuo Ishiguro : ".... by the time I was writing this novel, the lines between what was fantasy and what was real had blurred for me..."
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Marc Goodman : "...every physical object around us is being transformed, one way or another, into an information technology..."
Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 199: Marc Goodman : Future Crimes: Everything Is Connected, Everyone Is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It
