Stephen Vizinczey, whose 1960 classic In Praise of Older Women was re-released last year as a Penguin Classic, is next in the hotseat.
1) What are you reading at the moment?
Ian McEwan’s Amsterdam
2) As a child, what did you read under the covers?
I was lucky that I never had to read under the cover. From the age of 5 my mother was glad to see me reading. She didn’t care what I read, as long as it was a book.
3) Has a book ever made you cry, and if so which one?
The Diary of A Madman
4) You are about to be put into solitary confinement for a year and allowed to take three books. What would you choose?
The complete works of Shakespeare, Attila József and Auden. I found that the best way to cope with solitude is to learn by heart poems which speak to you – blank verse, rhyming
couplets or whatever. It keeps your mind and spirit alive.
5) Which literary character would you most like to sleep with?
Gina Sanseverina “whose beauty was the least of her charms” and who combined intelligence with passion.
6) If you could write a self-help book, what would you call it?
‘You can’t be happy if you’re vain.’
7) Michael Gove has asked you to rewrite the GCSE English Literature syllabus. Which book, which play, and which poem would you make compulsory reading?
Gulliver’s Travels, Hamlet and Elegy written in a Country Churchyard,
by Thomas Gray
8) Which party from literature would you most like to have attended?
Any of the parties in The
Idiot
9) What would you title your memoirs?
‘Wise after the fact’
10) If you were an actor, which literary character do you dream of playing?
I did play Ferdinand in an abridged version of Schiller’s Deceit and Love when a student at Hungary’s theatre and film school, and would love to play Lucio in Measure for
Measure.
11) What book would you give to a lover?
In Praise of Older
Women
12) Spying Mein Kampf or Dan Brown on someone’s bookshelf can spell havoc for a friendship. What’s your literary deal breaker?
Both these are representative examples of countless books inspired by hate and stupidity, and any of them would be a dealbreaker – provided the owner actually loved the book. Even more of a dealbreaker would be the lack of bookshelves.
Fleur Macdonald is editor of The Omnivore.
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