He goes people come out in droves richard fords books have won him millions of fans around the globe maybe hes right and we all do have the same dream but what exactly is that dream. That. Richard ford is one of the Great American storytellers a master at observing the world around him is novels are populated by characters that have become part of the World Literature and when it comes to his homeland for that likes to tell it like it is dispelling the myths and legends. This is the place he calls home making in the north east of the u. S. 40 lives here with christina his wife of more than 15 years their house is located far from the big cities which have never been a draw for them in maine ford is surrounded by lakes and forests where he can go hunting. But most of all here he finds the peace and quiet to write always by hand he stores his notebooks in the freezer in case the house catches fire. Makes me laugh its so. Pretty chaotic well myself well enough for the chaos that all the different color thinks of it all these tiny little every this is exactly what i want out of that. I wrote this which is which really. All of his books are dedicated to his wife christina his most important reader. I remember i said to christina one time before we were married. Or. Worked out i said i think im going to try to be a writer which is 60. 60. Or thats a good. Maybe ill get a job and used. Books and thats exactly what weve. During that time hes written 7 novels 5 short story collections and a memoir and become world famous his best known character is named Frank Bascombe he 1st turned up in the sportswriter in 1986 back then bascom was a divorced failed writer in his late thirtys he became the hero actually the antihero of 3 further books bascom changed careers battled cancer and fought about life and the state of the nation his observations were ironic conic and grand. We catch up with richard ford in hamburg hes come here to accept a literary award for his lifes work. Its a thrill to interview this renowned author but nerve wracking too as ford has a reputation for getting unpleasant when hes annoyed. With course our next question. For instance when fellow writer Alice Huffman wrote a negative review of his novel the sportswriter for it got a copy of one of her books picked up his gun and so he says shot it. Then he mailed her what was left of it. So lets focus on Frank Bascombe instead hes seen as a typical american every man a character in which everyone can recognize some aspect of themselves but ford says not true there is no such thing thats just something some cockamamie critic dreams up. Hes a very specific man he sees hes a divorced me hes a hes a father of 3 children he takes a job he lives in new jersey he could hardly be any more specific than he is the notion of every man is a. Far as im concerned a misguided idea. Asks us to generalize about people in ways that blurs the individual and the literature invites us to see people in particular you know. We can only do good in particular we can only do bad in particular so thats what im interested in im not interested in seeing the world from outer space subspace see it turn it out as the want to see people that way. The melancholy character Frank Bascombe travels throughout his country observing thinking about and commenting on the disasters that befall him to build the public and private but he doesnt take anything or anyone too seriously nor does he let things get him down but the america hes described for over a quarter of a century has changed quite a bit since 2014 when the last bascom novel was published. What would best comes place be and todays america in transamerica well thats a question i think an answer i can tell you about richard feels about all these things but what Frank Bascombe who cares because my best im just a made up creature you know he would think whatever i made him think and i might make him think Something Like what i fake which is that trump is a disaster and not even funny and a threat to the world but if i were going to write about what frank thought about him. I would probably write a more nuanced view of President Trump just to make it interesting you know on the i have a kind of a working theory about not only my own life but yours and Frank Bascombe stew which is to which is what i call oppositional thinking so i would try to if i were writing about frank and trump i would try to find something provocative for him to say. Richard ford has never made any secret of his dislike for the current u. S. President but he says the reasons that his country and perhaps the entire world is so divided go far beyond donald trump. Was there too many people. A lot of those people dont have anything and theyre living in places where they dont have enough food and the they dont have any education and but theyve all got cell phones and theyve all got t. V. s and they can very easily see that you notice right up here the other side of the ocean there are a lot of people who have been a lot better than we are why is that that doesnt seem fair it isnt fair and so what why are we divided were divided about what we should do about those people those people who dont live in our country but who have a right to succeed and who have a right to thrive and who have a right to humanitarian. Resources and its there is nothing any of us is going to be able to do to deny these people the equality that they seek because there are more of them there are of us those who are privileged there are more of them and they have a more compelling reason to advance their interests so what we have to figure out how to do is the problem of a van and accommodate ourselves to them. The land of the free home of the brave the American Dream. Lets. Generations of people have dreamed of enjoying freedom prosperity and success in the u. S. But theres a dark side to this picture too wars violence and protest. That the us is the land of supposedly attempts here everythings a bit larger than life. Even the landscape with its wide open spaces and seemingly endless horizons but is america still the land of our dreams so stop with the american day the American Dream its the german during the American Dream is those zambian dream. The American Dream is the icelandic dream which is to try to provide for your children to have at least as good if not a better life than you do and to do little harm in the world thats what the American Dream years. Yet the america that richard ford describes in his novels seems a little anacreon istic its in america dominated by white people white men in particular its an image thats been communicated to us for decades mostly by men. Including great writers like john updike. Philip roth. And john irving. As well as younger authors like paul auster and Jonathan Franzen there is the world of americas white middle class one thats predominantly male. Philip ross john updike you why on earth where are the so few successful female writers in america i think if you look closely you would find if there were not few that there were really quite a few quite a quite many in fact in other words i think you have your statistics wrong you may be talking about mid century but again. If there was a time and i dont think its true now but if there was a time when there was a disproportionate number of white male writers disproportionate number of fewer women writers its because men were running publishing houses there wasnt because there were readers more than women and men were only publishing houses or taking advantage of specific universities women werent allowed to go to Ivy League Schools until the sixtys all of these things these are not mysteries these are these are not partners that. Are corrected as fast as they possibly can. Today americas diversity is being reflected in literature as an all of the arts like never before black writers like to call have Won International acclaim nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi adichie told the world how she only became black after coming to america and authors Jennifer Egan and donna tartt regularly feature on the bestseller lists so richard fords right when he says there are more women theres more diversity though the Book Business is still largely in the hands of men and many critics still prefer to review the works of their favorite male authors nevertheless the literary world is changing. Richard fords latest work is a trip into the past published in 2017 between them remembering my parents is a memoir of 2 people who are gone and a way of life which is disappearing america as the land of opportunity where people could find prosperity and happiness your latest book between them is a memoir of your parents. Mind too to lead. My view as i wrote it i read it his large malleable fleshy face was given to smile on his 1st face was always the smiling one the long irish lip the transparent blue eyes my eyes my mother must have noticed this when she met him wherever she did in hot springs or little rock some time before 1928 noticed this and liked what she saw a man who liked to be happy she had never been exactly happy only in exactly with the nuns who taught her salience and for smith where her mother had put her to keep her out of the way. Richard ford was born in 1904 he was the long awaited only child and parker ford who were no longer young by the time he was born. Parker was a traveling salesman and became a housewife after the birth of her son. But when richard was just 16 years old his father died of a heart attack his parents and their hopes and dreams are the focus affords latest book. 2 you write that your father was a man who liked to be happy yes this is a life goal you share yes there certainly is i mean who wouldnt want to be happy i mean i dont know anybody even the unhappiest people in the world who would rather be happy theres a line of Philip Larkin being was a poet he said about himself he says of all the unhappy people in the world i am the happiest. I wouldnt say that about myself because im not one of the unhappy people in the world but if you thought he was and he thought that thats what his basic human nature was was not happy and he was still the happiest day of the happy. For your father who died in 1960 when you were 16 his American Dream was to live in the suburbs and and have a car it would seem so and but you already said what was you know maybe what was not your American Dream but what was it we know from life when you were young and when he died stealing and breaking into houses and doing all that kind of foolishness i wanted to do that that seem to be adventurous to me. I point out to you if you look terrible society it was a race to be divided Apartheid Society we only lived in a part of it and that little part that we lived in was made absurd by being separate from the rest of the population. We knew that we knew how absurd our life was and if you know that youre leading an absurd life i think we need you or can lead you to do absurd things so i did a lot of certain things yes and that made my goal was to get away with it and their goal was to see that i did not get or. You said in interviews that you pounds were sort of like. Characters you wouldnt know what to some if you meet them in the real world does that also apply to your fictional characters that you want to get them out of the shadows possibly possibly. It isnt that i think that everybody is interesting if you look closely at them i dont know if you would find my parrots to be interesting if you look closely at them but when i write about them i am not just looking at them i am dedicating a language to them and in the process of dedicating a language to them to my close notice then i then i can. Emphasize i can notice i can make important things that perhaps would not seem important in other words. With characters in fiction very much just as with characters a memoir the role of the notice or significant. In fiction you have to notice or notice anything. Nonfiction in a memoir you could only notice 40 years you can only you can only draw upon sacked whereas you can make everything up you want to have sex at work which is why i think some finally for me is a more fruitful more rich way of noticing the world in the service of the. C many successful novels are adapted into films so its surprising that only one of richard fords books has made it onto the Silver Screen the drama wild life released in 2018 is based on his novel of the same title set in montana in the 1960 s. Its the story of how a 16 year old joes life goes off the rails 1st his father loses his job. And then his mother falls in love with another man and consequently leaves her family. You see and you could see it as a melancholy farewell to the American Dream and its ideals like so many of richard fords books you. Love so why is it that only one of his best selling novels has been made into a film. I mean by and large american movies are terrible. And so. Maybe my books are terrible enough. So i mean paul dana just made wild life and. Ive seen it its really quite good. But you know novels. That i write generally are all taken up with language and with the new with the nuances of Human Behavior and with discovering motives and consequences if Human Behavior that were not known before i dont know if American Films specialize in those kinds of nuanced approaches to life i think that that that they paint with a wider brush and thats because if i could be so bold as to say that in the United States making movies is about one thing and one thing only scratch doe money and theyre not going to spend any money if theyre not going to get any money back and so it becomes very hard to make good movies. With a small amount of money i mean the whole independent movement in feature film making in america scrambles after nothing but money and eventually that just takes over so. Theyre looking for someplace. Where it didnt cost as much to shoot the film theyre looking for actors who wont get their usual fee there you know people come to me all the time and they say look wed like to make a movie out of your book which happens to me fairly often and then they say unfortunately we dont have a lot of money and what i say is well good bye. Because what i want from you is money here ford makes no distinction between big hollywood productions and art house cinema after all why should he give away his hard work and im not an idiot. I have to buy eggs and bacon you know just like everybody else and so on that i just know the 1st im silly well we love your book wed love to make a movie out of it unfortunately this is the phrase that hollywood people who say you know were. Were using our own money for this and i say well thats funny i use my own money when i buy a car. Doesnt seem exceptional i dont care if you steal it from your grandmother you know give it to me. So i play myself here pretty tough talk but richard ford is someone whos always kept his feet firmly on the ground and as with all of his many accolades he views is the lens prize for his lifes work as being about more than just himself. There are a lot of good writers in the world and whenever you get an award basically youre getting an award for your colleagues before the ones who dont happen to be here today i dont know if all of my colleagues believe that maybe they think that awards are always for their greater glory but ive been doing this long enough that i think that were all writing books in the service of the same ends which is to say to induce people to read and to induce readers to undergo the experience of a mass of the literature which is to reaffirm life which is to renew language which is to say theres always something war in the world and what we may be a captive of on any given day. On the evening ahead of the Award Ceremony hundreds of people came to hear richard ford give a reading in hamburg he was greeted like a superstar. Books by american authors are extremely popular in germany. But its largely a case of unrequited love as few german books are translated into english for the American Market so its a little surprising that richard ford names thomas mine as one of his literary role models anyone else. Is there any german writer you always wanted to read and didnt so far yeah progress ive never really succeeded in reading good progress. Good talk last was one of germanys best known writers a Nobel Laureate and an intellectual who often courted controversy he died in 2015 ford even knew him. Though not terribly well ive tried to read the 1020 times but i was old enough you know sometimes you really you dont read books not because the book is defective because youre not old enough for it is the same within regexps i havent read all of her james i just havent been old enough you have to be you have to somehow be at the maturity. To to succumb to what the book deems to be important and so. I havent tried the 10 in a while. The tin drum is going to cost this seminal novel from 1959 later it was made into an Academy Award winning film covering the history of the 20th century as told by the dwarfish character oscar matts arrests. Are not new country so im embarrassed to say i knew him and his books but here but did he read your books of course not going to ask you know he didnt read my book. I read. What a laughable things. And i dont hold it against him i mean some Young American writer that he doesnt know you know stealing away the audience from that might be his books i dont blame him i wouldnt read me. Is richard ford really that selfdeprecating or just trying to be funny. Is there any literary wish one burning desire that you have not fulfilled well i never had any to begin with so. All i ever wanted to do was my best. And ive done that ive written some good books ive stayed married to the girl i loved all these years i this. I have in my brain and then my notebook all kinds of things that interest me i have another Frank Bascombe book not written but more or less ready to be written so if the book that im writing now doesnt succeed in my own terms i have Something Else to do. I try to make it be. Life. Thanking us the for very few very much for pleasure yeah for the pleasure to meet your great country of joy to. Richard ford an American Writer who was living out his own dream. About a. Little. With them during wartime. And revisit them now that this. To talk about the future of the autonomy suites in. Situations of the hell are they doing. No. Return. In 15 minutes on details. Of. The mens world cup. American gold cup and the africa cup of nations this is a big. Stomach for some event like the look on the german bundesliga. And as always we are there to keep you up to date with the latest on. The misleader sun shining obvious exchange. Today dont miss our highlights. Programme on line d. W. Dot com highlights. Slowly. Carefully. Sift through this to be a good. Match. Discover who. Subscribe to the documentary on to. The finest berlin globe trotters guide for germanys booming i love for lent. 15 issues 50 stories and 50 very personal tips from berlins very best feature. Book now planted firmly our hero max series every week on d. W. Bushs veto of the news live from Berlin Police in hong kong fired tear gas a prodemocracy protesters as they defy warnings to cancel a march and blocking intersections in several parts of the city these fresh demonstrations come after the citys leader not to grant any concessions to the protesters well go live to hong kong also coming up. A russian opposition politician is arrested as protests flare up again in moscow thousands have been taking to the streets in the past 5
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