Great to be back and a special honor to be invited to introduce tom wolfe and a huge burden because how does one introduce tom wolfe . One read the economist, of course. Two weeks ago was a wonderful article on literary realism and i will quote as a way of introduction. For use tom wolfe has been lambasting the establishment for ignoring the best story around, their own country. America positively titillate with fantastic stories and get its writers ensconced in their manhattan lofts and residentss cant be bothered to look further than the ends of their noses. This week, a moment in American Literature, he wrote in one of his manifestoes on behalf of literary realism we need a battalion, a brigade of zolofts to head into the wild bizarre, heart stopping country of ours, reclaim it as literary property. The trouble turning yourself into an american is you expose yourself to being trump by reality, better sort of critics are forever lambasting tom wolfe for going over the top, using cartoon characters to exaggerate the evils of modern society but the truth is the opposite. Tom wolfes satire pales to insignificance compared with the hog stomping reality that he tries to capture. Tom wolfe was born and raised in richmond, virginia, educated at washington and lee and Yale University and started his journalistic career at springfield, Massachusetts Union newspaper. As latin american correspondent for the Washington Post he earned the newspaper guilds for a news prize for his coverage of the cuban revolution. In 1962 he moved to the New York Herald tribune where he and energy near breslin were the two Staff Writers assigned to the someday supplement which became new york magazine. The newspaper strike of 196263 afford him the opportunity to travel to Southern California to write an article on hot rod and custom car culture for esquire. Stumped for nagel for the article he sent his nose to his editor who published verbatim, described as, quote, a long spontaneous letter dispensing with traditional journalistic conventions and describing the whole scene and thus was born the new journalism. The rest they say is history, this and other essays were collected in the book, the candy colored tangerine, making the best talked about journalist in america. Numbering his dailies days as a daily newspaper correspondent. Two books published the same day in 1968, the electric koolaid acid test solidified his reputation as the observer and document are of contemporary American Experience was 1970s the flak catchers 1975, the painted world 1976, mad men clutter, the me generation was coined. Other tom wolfe contributions to the american mexican include radical chic, trophy wife and the right stuff. Turning his attention to the American Space program the right stuff was published in 1979, modern architecture from car house the car house to 1981, required reading architectural and Cultural Studies programs around the world. Taking a page from the serial list of the nineteenth century, the bonfire of the vanities portraying new york money culture of the 1980s made its appearance in Rolling Stone during 19841985 as tom wolfe ventured into satirical fiction, published in book form in 1987 and remained on the bestseller list for over a year. The man in full published in 1998, tom wolfe uses an atlanta Real Estate Developer and 23yearold manual labor to paint a panorama of American Life in the 21st century. In his period in tom wolfes life a serious connection with Duke University began. His sister helen is in the audience with us, graduated from the Balance Program some years before, 1998 tom and sheilas daughter alexandra entered the freshman class at Duke University and tom wolfe participated in the very first mom and dad read program in october of 1998. It was a stunning freshman class with the daughters of robert kreis and tom wolfe. Alexander introduced her father at the event and let the crowd know that tom wolfe had started a man in school when she was 7 years old and how pleased she was it was finally completed. [laughter] tom wolfe was a gracious dad speaking at the Library Dinner posing for a plastic duke reads poster and serving as Commencement Speaker and all the while doing research for a new book at an institution of Higher Education which assured me on several occasions is not duke. I took him with me to a faculty meeting, spent time learning and observing duke basketball and all the time like a train reporter observing and to throw us off guard he spent a semester in residence at Stanford University to complete the research on his novel i am charlotte simmons. It is my pleasure to introduce tom wolfe who is going to talk about whats sourthern today . Tom wolfe. [applause] thank you, ladies and gentlemen. It is great to be back at duke. My topic is david mentioned is whats new in the south, great material in the south. First of all, i am not advertising spring. I will put that down. Although i like it. First of all, i have not seen the new sounds of the south recorded anywhere or described in print. For example many of you had the same experience i have, you check into a hotel in mississippi, early in the morning you are awakened by a whack whack whack whack whack, this is the kitchen help breaking open tubes of frozen biscuits for the kids. I kind of like that. The other is the end of june, the end of may or summer you go to the airport and rent a car and turn on the ignition and you are blown back about four feet because whoever left the air conditioner on high, that is another sound of the south. Another one i particularly like, some beautiful place like Thomas Jefferson at the university of virginia which is so steeped in the memories of this nation, means so much to the educational course of this nation and is a priceless piece of architecture as if it was designed by leonardo or michelangelo and as your whole soul is engaged with a beautiful vista. That is the least. And i never understood, those are all sound of the south. And in the audience, in southern literature, good stuff. It is time after all these years to knock it off, it has all been done to death and you realize we have only just begun uncle zeke. I just heard from a witness, this afternoon the following took place in the 1940s in scotland county. There was an attempt by the Cattlemen Association in North Carolina, in the general stores, to be reliable source waiting for the cattlemen to come around or reminiscing on the subject of world war ii which was going strong, 1943, the war was raging and it seems to me we are going about the whole thing the wrong way. There is this one man, hitler causing all the trouble. If hitler was gone, didnt have to send over expeditionary forces. How are you going to do that, get in a boat and get me over there and i will take care of it and how do you want to do it . Go around his house probably. I will wait until it is nightfall. I will hide behind hide there all night, comes in the morning in then im going to let him have it. Now. I just love that story, the slight lack of knowledge of modern security waves. And leave these 2 common sense, and let someone with common sense. That is real 7, and i was in last august, i dont know if you have been there, a nascar race around a half a mile half a mile is very short distance for cars going over 200 miles and out. The stand at the bristol 500 are pitched at a very steep angle so that they can see as they do twice a year, 165,000 people, the biggest sporting event in america, not sure how many southerners in that particular event. Would have died and gone to heaven if he had seen the bristol 500. For a start, 165,000 i dont want to be a good old boy or good old girl, 165,000, they all arrive on a wednesday. This is something from the medieval tournament of the tenth or eleventh century, so far mock battles killed as many as a real battle and people would arise a week before hell raising celebrations. At the bristol 500 i saw all these lines up for a mile, rvs, people having the time of their lives. At the airport here came the vips. The vips went out to a huge Landing Strip most passengers never see, where helicopters are parked and imagine mussolini losing now, the good old boys and good old girls, but here comes the neckties and suits, i have nothing against neckties and suits, they are all mostly people who have never been to a nascar event before, probably expect to see Something Like the indianapolis 500. They are dressed up to the throat which i think men should be. Mail flesh i think every male over the age of 35 should cover up as much of himself as he can is possible to have a sizable build after the age of 35 but nothing you can do about your skin. My children make fun of me, but i think i am doing not the country, the neighborhood of favor when i wear a tank top to the beach. I would like to urge all men who are here to wear a tank top to the beach. Have pity on people, they dont want to see the flesh. I am getting a little bit off the subject. That doesnt count against my time, does it . All the vips get into the helicopters and start taking off like a gigantic sleek grasshopper, they all look like praying mantises, tearing through the airport all around and then they come down over the track. The track is built like a megaphone and you are sitting on the inside of the megaphone on a steep pitch so you can see without a more gentle slope. You can see it. In the stands, you feel as if you stood up and land on the track, it is that steep. You can imagine the noise with 25 racing cars in the crowd that comes up out of that megaphone and there is a terrible moment in the helicopter when you realize the overpowering sound of the helicopter has just been nullified by the sound coming up from the megaphone of the stand and people coming in by helicopter wrote to skyboxes. I love the skybox. It successfully removes you from the event. There are no sounds. The people in the skyboxes really just want to see each other anyway. It is so elaborate and there are so many drinks it is a world unto itself. Meantime the real fans are there in the stands and this incredible noise goes right through your rib cage, your ribs actually rattled, it moves the head on your hair, something i never experienced before but what i really wanted to mention is the people who spoke prior to the race. This will show you something about the south today. What is the south today . When i tell you the head of the National Rifle association, no longer charleston heston, he is not a celebrity, just president of the National Rifle association, he spoke for a long long time, not an inflammatory remark, rousing remark, to applaud him. That was a show of support. Then and invocation was given. Dont hold me to that. To look with favor on these drivers, who risk their lives for our edification and these fans make it possible. Do what they do to show us what can be done. Lord, we ask this of thee in the name of your only son, christ jesus. That may seem like nothing to you but that invocation in San Francisco, where i live, arrested for i hate crime and it sounded so strange. I was nonchalant about the term little boys, it is not completely accurate but does touch upon something material for writers whether they live in the south or they dont. Can do with the role of the scotch irish of American Life, and i take my page from james webb, author of the book a born fighter. The secretary of the navy under ronald reagan, had been the most decorated marine in vietnam. He then wrote four novels the first of which was the best novel about the war in vietnam, james webb, and annapolis graduate, going to be a leader and fighter and his scotch irish. He explained things i never knew, the scotch irish had been the backbone of American Fighting forces ever since the revolution. In the civil war, both sides, both armies, the union army of the north and the Confederate Army had in the core of their ranks scotch irish. The scotch irish are people from scotland who then went to ireland, protestants, left ireland and many came to the united states. Many were poor and but inexpensive land in the appalachians and all these years, they have remained those who were born fighting and they have fought anybody who has been in the armed services, southerners everywhere in the armed forces, that is scotch irish. The scotch irishs original source of country music. The scotch irish who also, usually when people are talking about rednecks. Redneck is a term, and anachronistic term about which people forget the origins sort of like barking up the wrong tree. I cant tell you how many people have no idea that comes from raccoon hunting, barking up the wrong tree or a tough road, one gods earth ever hold a rope in the last 25 years . These metaphors, these metaphors will hold on, will hold on tight. Excuse me. Now that you know it is there i will put it up here. And the scotch irish had a crucial influence not only on armed forces but also on the 2004 president ial election and i dont think this has ever been brought out before. It got down to the crucial state like the 2000 election, the crucial state was florida. In 2004 it was the state of ohio. The early returns were coming in from the big cities, cleveland and toledo. It was a runaway for john kerry in cleveland and toledo and the Industrial Town along the great lakes. A little bit later, in came the tally from southern ohio and it was as if an irresistible tornado had rushed through the entire lower part of ohio including the city of cincinnati. If the city of cincinnati had been somehow removed from the tally where george bush had a plurality of 150,000 votes the election would have gone to john kerry. That happens to be the swath of ohio that was settled by the scotch irish. Not only that, one of the main reasons according to surveys after the election. One of the main reasons the scotch irish voted against john kerry was that he was for gun control. You would think gun control is one issue, but the scotch irish are not alone in this. That one issue if you were scotch irish was an attack not on guns, but on your self, your people, your way of life because you were born fighting the constitution guarantees you your rifles and you are going to have them, not going to take that lying down. Another example of to me the new south or rather an old part of the new south, modern technology and the leadingedge of technology in the world is summed up in a single figure, chuck yeager. Chuck yeager was from the hollows of West Virginia in the mountains and he told me once so far up in the hollows they had to pipe in daylight. His father worked in the gas field as a driller. His older brother worked in a gas fields as a driller and chuck yeager worked in the gas field as a driller except the Second World War came along. It was a program called the flying sergeants because the air force did not have enough trained pilots because the standard requirements were College Education and so forth. Yeager became part of the flying sergeants program. On his first story, he shot down two german fighter planes. On his third he was shot down, was smuggled out of Southern France and into spain by the french underground, was told that having gone through this experience he was not to fly in combat again. Went to Dwight Eisenhower and said i will fly in combat and youve got that much spirit about it go fly. He did. He shot down, the total tally was 13 and a half killed including two german jet fighters he shot down. After the war, he was sent to edgars Edwards Air Force base as a test pilot and people there couldnt really understand him. He was a wily looked very much like sam shepard who played him in the movie, dark hair, strange locutions a lot of people in the air force didnt understand. He would say help like anybody else. It was hoped. I disagree with something, he would say i dont hold with that. Were actually elizabethan phrases from up in the mountains, up in the hollows. He also took umbrage at anything he did or said he had a way of looking at you that communicated, i got this from many people who were with him, communicated this message, look at me one more time and you will have four more holes in your nose people did not trifle with chuck yeager. Finally, because the civilian test pilots were going to fly the x one experimental rocket plane faster than the speed of sound, asks for too much money. They asked yeager to take the crucial flight in the x one to break the sound barrier. They asked him how much he would require to do that. He says i get 283 a month as a captain, thats good enough for me. He went out and broke the sound barrier in october of 1947, the first person to fly faster than the speed of sound and many of yeagers exploits were not in flight test but in rescuing pilots who had their windshields covered with ice which is a common problem. I talked with one of those pilots and he said he had flown a rocket flight and came down, windshield covered with ice, couldnt see a thing. You are out of power once you reach apogee, no power. He says yeager came up beside of his wing and started telling them how to move the plane. Just like you are an old fishing buddy, tell me what kind of floor to put out for that route. He was socalled so calm, he couldnt believe there was anything really wrong. He just did what yeager told him and landed safely. Yeager would to one of his patented signature maneuvers, fly over at 100 feet over rogers dry lake and do a complete rollover and cross down in the desert. Yeager became such a legend within the flying fraternity that pretty soon you would hear all the pilots at Edwards Air Force base talking like chuck yeager and because at that time most Airline Pilots were trained in the military you started hearing the Airline Pilots talking like chuck yeager. Finally, i mean none of this. At Edwards Air Force base researching the book the right stuff, they let me up into the control tower, hearing ordinary message and suddenly there is a message which says edwards tower, edwards tower, this is air force 9 or 9 or 5, altitude 290 feet, cruising speed 295 knots, got a little smoke here in the cabin kind of ruining that view of mount polly, request permission to put her down on rogers dry lake. You could see the control tower tends up because they knew it was actually 5000 at edwards you are up above sea level so far that if he was 200 feet off the deck, you slow down to 295 knots that means in just a moment, your ex 15 rocket plane will have the flying characteristics of a set of car keys. They were tens in the control tower. Air force jet 995, are you declaring an emergency . The same voice says edwards tower, this is air force 995, negative, i am not requesting not declaring an emergency. Im just asking permission to put her down on rogers dry lake, you part doctor. Who is that . A guy named fahey. I said where is he from . Boston. I said with that accent . He said yeah. All you have to do is let them up in the air over Edwards Air Force base and they all talk like chuck yeager. That was the first time i was aware of yeager. I realized this one mans exploits had spread through the entire world of flying. That became my introduction to it became the theme of my entire book which is the fraternity of the right stuff, the brotherhood of the right stuff, military flyers particularly, whose rank in the brotherhood becomes their own flying courage and coolness, two words they would never use out loud, they talk about acceptable and unacceptable risks. Going to all that, by way of stressing the importance to me of going out of your ordinary boundaries as a writer, going outside the domestic arena which is concentrated on by so many writers, talented writers, and somehow, someway seeing what is outside your own experience, my theory is everybodys personal psychology is two things or the intersection of two things. One is horizontal, the setting in which you are living, the air force, could be hippies. The setting is a crucial effect on your life, you have your own personality, your own psychology intersected with the setting, your life and your real personality is created, similar to the theory from almost 200 years ago, the theory of the zeitgeist meaning the spirit of the age. Every historical epic has its own moral tone. You can try all you want to escape that zeitgeist and it is not going to do any good. It will impinge upon your life and there is no way on earth that you can escape it. I believe that is substantially true. I think that is why it is so crucial for writers to do what writers did routinely in the nineteenth century, namely look for material outside of their own life and the mfa programs in creative writing, students tend to hear the following maximum over and over again, write what you know. That is absolutely great advice. But what do you know . Most of us know only our own lives and that is why you end up with this phenomenon of a brilliant young writer cannibalize is all the material of his first 25 years on this earth, comes up with a brilliant novel, it gets great reviews, then the second novel is about a young writer who has gotten great reviews on his first novel, nevertheless what little income he got from this highly praised but not widely bought novel is gone and he is trudging we are really up to the fifth floor, decrepit walk up in the Hells Kitchen area of new york thinking about the fact that he has nothing, no beautiful lovers, no power, this is not a very interesting novel. That is because all that is left is what happened the preceding two years. Dickens never let anything like that happen. When dickens wanted to write Nicholas Nickleby about notorious schools in the west of england where parents would park their children they didnt want around, he went out there as a parent, pretending to be a parent, in such a place and spent today and soaked up the atmosphere, the beginning scene of Nicholas Nickleby. Lets come forward in time to john steinbeck, the fifth Nobel Prize Winner in literature. He does one for the novel the grapes of wrath, is the family was trapped in one of these labor camps in california and went through hell. And joined the staff of San Francisco news, a valued reason to go around these labor camps, so much farmland wiped out by the tremendous drought known as the dust bowl, he bought an old truck, put in some clothes or food and would go from one camp to another. Many were from oklahoma, some of them working for 0. 12 a day. He came upon a family of four living under a carpet, a lean to out of hubcaps and grass, a gigantic birds nest. Had two miscarriages, lateterm miscarriages in the preceding 18 months. As soon as he saw them he got the idea from our joe, her daughter and tom joe, america will never forget the joad family in the grapes of wrath. The important thing is not not that by going out and looking at life outside your own life you can get colorful details, realistic things you would never have thought of but gives you a sense of symbolism, a sense the entire experience can be concentrated in the lives of one family without having never had a notion of what this experience meant to these poor people. Emerson once said that every person on earth has a great autobiography to write if that person can only understand what is unique about experience. And find the imagination to know that it is his experience. He can write a great autobiography that would be remembered forever but he didnt say 2 autobiographies. That is the problem. If you want to write one book, write what you know, write about your life, perfectly valid material and all the details, i recommend keeping a journal, memory dk is so rapid as many of you probably know. I make sure i write down if i dont take notes on the scene or tape record on the scene before i go to bed i write down everything that seems worth recording before i go to sleep because once you go to sleep, maybe in just my mind there is not that much left in the morning. So whether it is going up to do stories about the new latin American Population in the south, what a rich topic that is. When i went to North Carolina on the recommendation of my sister helen to find a proper birthplace, growing up place for the novel i am charlotte simmons, to my amazement, i found working on the Christmas Tree phones in the mountains around sparta, entirely mexican in the blue Ridge Mountains and on one farm there were 5000 Christmas Trees growing, 500,000, has to be shaped, and stuffing coming out of the mattress. They use delicatessen roast beef knives and machetes prove that kind of work and you see delicatessens, roast beef knives, shaping hundreds of thousands of Christmas Trees. To me, they have something that opens the imagination. It doesnt simply give you interesting tidbits to write about, i leave you with that piece of advice. Do not underestimate your power to know something else. If you saturate your self in the experience of other people it can be done. There is no technique to reporting. There is no technique whatsoever, nothing you can learn that is going to help you. All that is needed is an attitude and that attitude is you have information and i need it and i deserve it. Armed with that you can find anything in the world, expand your powers of literature a thousandfold. Thank you very much. [applause] thanks so much. Im not lingering to hear more applause which i was asked if i would answer some questions if you have any and i would be delighted to do that if i can. What is the origin of the word redneck . I never got around to it, did i . Farm workers used to walk behind plows or behind manual tools that they used, in the back, i meant to many summers in virginia. The lobster left on, the big meaty left arms, they are deep red. Leaving an arm out of the pickup truck. I keep dropping stitches. Hi, mister wolf. 20 years ago you spoke in miami at Florida International university. The remember that . I do. I was there. I had a question for you for a while. To remember after this long. You mentioned prior to the civil war, the wealthy plantation owners have a painting in their homes. And a friend of mine, she remembered. You said at the time by the year 2000 nobody would know kafkas name. Do you remember saying that and by the year 2020. By 2020 . [applause] wasnt that it would be forgotten but picasso would be known as of the 21st century, give me a little time. All totally forgotten, and so i predict picassos fate. If i see another thing with two eyes, im cashing in. [laughter] were you going to tell us the origin of red neck . I was coming downstairs to ask you that. If i had known it was a sensitive topic, it would have expanded. Oh. [laughter] if anybody missed what i was just saying, you didnt miss much. It was mostly about red necks. Im a student and its been a few years since i read but i would like to say that i believed not having much, i believe its one of the pieces of the 20th century literature genre, i just wonder if you you would maybe comment on as much as you feel comfortable on piece compared to what is going on in current scandal. Looks like theres a lot there. If i was telling you, i just missed a couple of words. If you would comment on some of the commonalities between the that piece and whats going on today . Yes, i would be happy to. Aye written a novel in which about a college in which there are a group of rough, crude and in a way sexually aggressive players and ive written a novel where theres a white District Attorney running for election and the directly in which he badly needs black votes and he is pleased, oh, so pleased to find that mythical character that any District Attorneys in such a situation yearn for. Known as the great white defender. Ive written a novel about the young woman who lied before a grand jury and let me tell you, none of those people in the fiction are in real life, lived within 6020 miles of durham, North Carolina. [laughter] i have two questions. One is given what you just said about looking outside of yourself, how do you feel about recent memoirs, do you read a lot of memoirs . I assume youre talking about james frey scandal which it has become. Autobiography has been the only consistently strong form of prose, consistently in the sense that it never goes out of fashion. As far back as ben in 1960, the autobiography remains a powerful form. Memoir is usually a shorter or a discreet part of a whole autobiography. George orwell once said that autobiography is outrageous form of fiction. [laughter] and yet some of his most powerful work was autobiography such as homage to catalonia or short pieces like shooting an elephant. Nevertheless, the form is extremely powerful and we tend to assume that if someone is writing about his own life, then he knows the details and and everything you read is truthful. The antecedent of james frey, was the book robinson, people in england assume that the real story of a man on tropical island, first called the first novel in english by richardson would believe to be actual letters, actual letters that a young woman employed of a title of englishman was described her attempts of staying out of clutches of her employer and on the day that the letter arrived, in a magazine, which has been finally forced to ask her to marry him in order to achieve his aim, in the town slou, greater london, people came to the town square ringing the church bells in celebration of pamelas victory over this man. Now, frey, i dont know the particular but seems pretty apparent that he just helped himself massaging the facts, shall we say, quite a bit. But now he ended up on oprahs show, went on show and praised him and after the facts came out she issued a statement praising him. She then invited him and editor on to the show and then had a real inquisition in which poor mr. Frey was reduced to a trembling stalk of numbness. Now, i would like im only going on about this to give you only advice. If you ever have a situation where youre being attacked and the odds are all against you, particularly if youre being attacked by someone as important as oprah winfrey, here is what you have to do, immediately attack. [laughter] he should have said, oprah, i do not believe what im hearing after your support for me twice and the same program and throughout the public media. For you then to buckle under to Public Opinion and make turn yourself into disforming, i do not believe what is happening. It would have been great. [laughter] it would have been great. But those things are easier afterwards to think of, but always, remember, if they got you dead, attack. [laughter] can i ask a second question . Yeah. Okay, i havent read any of your work to tell you the truth. [laughter] think of the hours and hours of pleasure you have ahead of yourself. [laughter] so i dont know much about your work but i heard barbara kings father and she was speaking about border issues and you mentioned latin American Population in the south and she was writing very much from the standpoint of an advocate for border issues and what not and i was wondering if you see yourself as an advocate of the south or if you more of a kind of lover and cherisher of what you observed . I am just a social secretary. I simply record what has happened that day. I to me the greatest enjoyment in writing is discovery and introducing what i have discovered to readers. I do believe theres such a thing as objectivity despite what you will hear from deconstructionists and others. But its an objectivity of the ego. If you believe as a writer that what you are doing as a writer is more important than any cause, any issue, any political party, more important than anything other than the wolf being at your door, you can be objective because you dont care about the Democratic Party or the republican party. You care about your craft, you care about your ability to to discover and to impart this to other people. And i would think that every writer would have at least that much egotism and the idea of a writer, you see this all of the time, in effect, becoming a Public Relations person to advance the cause of some party or some cause, to me its a form of degradation. How can you degrade yourself like that . Or maybe thats just me. [applause] yeah. Thank you. Hi, i wanted to ask what you thought of the film adaptations of your books and were you involved at all in the productions . I was not involved in any part of any of the films. The first one probably very few people would ever have remembered. It was based on nonfiction piece i wrote about Junior Johnson from ingle hollow and near north wilksborough and it was made into a very good movie starting jeff bridges. Did terribly at the box office but jeff bridges is the greatest actor in hollywood. Theres no such thing as a bad jeff bridges movie. It may be mediocre, terrible script but if jeff bridges is in it, youre not going to be having a bad experience in that theater. Then came the right stuff. I think the producers did a really very sincere job of of sticking to the book. Thats what all the writers care about, and the bonfire of the vanities, i didnt say anything at the time because i had cashed the check. [laughter] and i didnt think i would care what the movie was like because nobody ever blames the author anyway. But i came away humbled and after seeing piece butchery. It was pretty bad stuff but i had sympathy for the director and told him he had to make the movie in two hours or less and it so happens that movies like dances with wolves that are 3 hours and 20 minutes do great, critically great financially. I dont think you can run the movie business that way but i dont care to begin the movie business. Yes. I want you to know that if youre working on any book and if you are, if you would share with us what the topic is or perhaps a few thoughts on that topic . Im working on saw book on immigration. Now last year, if somebody asked me what i was doing and i would say im working on a book on immigration, this was the reaction. Oh, thats so interesting. And [laughter] they would be standing up like a horse. [laughter] this year it seems to have a little more interest. Thats what im doing. I shouldnt be giving that suggestion about somebody else may do that. I told you about all of the latin workers and so on. Yeah. It was pretty ground breaking, what led you to use such an experimental tone, if you will . The techniques i used in that book were derived in no small part from a group of early soviet writers. Were talking about 1920, 1921 when it was still possible to believe that the soviet revolution was also going to be a revolution in the arts and all sorts of things. And these were the group called the brothers saropian and probably the only writer that most people would know of is eugene who wrote the book we and George Orwell god bless him, nevertheless stole a plot and they were much influenced by french symbolism and which tried to present mainly poetry in something of the senses with which people digested words and so much of it would be to indicate workings of mental processes. I believe i seem to believe that people do not think in whole sentences. They think in exclamations and they break off thoughts. And so thats why i began to use so many exclamation points and so many dashes and then multiple colons. If you line up 18 colonses in a row thats very striking topography. But it was in the brother saropian of experimentation. Believe me, by 1930s a whole bunch of them were either dead or in jail. Thats so much for the soviet literature. Hi, you talked about how as an observer part of the way you define character in certain time, they intersect with their environment and not help define them, how would you define yourself in terms of where your home where you sort of intersect and informs who you are . I try to stay off the subject as much as i have been able to. I assume that my life is very boreing and i am certainly fascinating by other peoples lives but i can see right now that i am im much influenced by the whole journalism and literature in new york even if i wanted to ignore it i wouldnt be able to. At the same time, there are other things in my life that also that just below the surface and what im about to describe i call championism. Im still very conscious of the fact that im from the south, that i grew up in virginia. In fact, i used to go to bed at night with a prayer in which i thanked the lord for having me born in not only the greatest country in the world, but also in the greatest state in the greatest country because virginia had 8 president s, nobody else came close. And in the greatest city in the greatest state of the greatest country, richmond, the capital of virginia and not only that in the best neighborhood and the best city in the best, in the best state in the best country in the world because from my bedroom window, you could see the fireworks at the state fair. [laughter] what was better than that . And, you know, state fair half mile away and i still because of championism, i still feel very, very close to the south although i havent lived here in a long time. I will give you an example and i think many people are affected by what i call championism in this way. After the after 9 11, immediately afterwards, two clergymen, jerry and robertson announced that this was gods punishment because of indulgence and homosexuality, well, now, to me thats nonsense but when people started attacking them as these rightwing lunatics and piles, something on n me said, wait a minute, pat robinson went to my pilot. [laughter] jerry was from virginia, i grew up with people like him even though they were sounding gibberish, but that part of me that part of me was summoned up. So much of life is like that. Ill just give you one quick example in the immigration area, it was always at first it was assumed when things got very hot early this year that those immigrants who had come to this country, well, particularly from latin america legally, gone to all the steps, would resent the fact that illegal aliens could pour in. Not at all because of champion ism those who are here legally are all for those who now find themselves under attack, more or less, as illegal aliens and it is because they consider, as far as i can tell, they consider the entire controversy to be aspersions being cast on latin america. What else would americans argue so heatedly over this over this subject . Right after the Truman Harry Truman defeated thomas dewy, president ial election, against all the odds, all the predictions, a man name Samuel Lubell went to find out what happened in the election. It came to a town in minnesota that had been founded by germans and practically the whole town was still german, 1948 and it turned out that they had all voted republican for dewy because in 1917, a democrat, Woodrow Wilson had declared war on germany which made them look like bad people. Thats the way the world works. Thats championism. When you vote in 1948 on the basis of something thats irrelevant from 1917, just think about how much of your lives is determined that way. Well, i want to thank you all wait a minute. I have a late entry. [laughter] thank you for coming, two questions. Number one, what are you reading right now and number 2, for young writers out here who are aspiring to write, what are things one just has to read . Has to read in your opinion . Well, right now im reading a book, human beast. Ive tended to be ive tepidded to read tended to read over the last 10, 11 years ever since my wife introduced me to novel by zolo, a lot of zolo, dickens, 19th century realist hence my my hectoring about getting out and writing real getting material in writing realistically. In terms generally, theres certain american writers in anyone interesting writing a novel should should read. They are all from the same period, 1893 to 1939 which was the great period of American Literature in a novel. After that, somehow american novelists became obedient colonials of the french. Oh, the french only like psychological novels and they dont like to get their hands dirty. And so certainly stein beck, certainly the red badge of courage by steven crane who was a newspaper man, the day he died tragically young, 28 of tuberculosis. He died of tuberculosis i believe from having slept, in order to get materials, slept in the houses to find out what it was really like. Theodore, sister carrie, First American novel to try to capture the big city as an american phenomenon. Both chicago and new york. I dont think anything he ever did later was up to the credible standards of that particular work. Sinclair lewis, his attempt to portray the protestant clergy which at the time was very strong and he was so thorough as a reporter that he even gave sermons during the summer from the pulpits of ministers who were away on vacation because he was well known by them because of main street and went down all right and he hung around and he hung around seminaries, great, great reporter and because he was first nobelpeace prize winner in literature, either senara by thank you, thank you. Ohara. My brain is so full. Something is dropping out. [laughter] by john ohara, magnificent book in terms of technique which he in turn had learned from some of the writers the american writers in the early part. I dont find that really interesting and readable but he was a great great experimenter and i would also do, finally, just to see how lyrical literature can be. The moral tone in literary journalistic world is cynical, but thomas wolf, my name sake from North Carolina wrote lyrically and so well and that would include angels on that particular list. Well, listen, youve been a wonderful audience and i cant thank you enough. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] youre watching book tv, on cspan2, every weekend with latest nonfiction books and authors. C span 2, created by americas Cable Television company and brought today by your provider. Weeknights we are featuring book tv programs as preview of whats available on c span 2. Tonight starting at 8 00 p. M. Eastern, former defense secretary robert gates and james mattis take a look at power around the world since the end of world war ii. 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