Full Transcript for "Brahms Comes to Dinner": Interview with Author Boman Desai

going to get you 00:04:15.080 --> 00:04:18.699 to tell people about it in your own words thank 00:04:18.699 --> 00:04:22.019 you Okay. Yeah, well, as you said, it started 00:04:22.019 --> 00:04:25.800 out as a much larger book. The original, which 00:04:25.800 --> 00:04:30.620 was called Trio, was, well, the very first draft 00:04:30.620 --> 00:04:35.360 was 1 ,800 pages. And I had about 80 floppy disks 00:04:35.360 --> 00:04:39.199 keeping all the information together. And when 00:04:39.199 --> 00:04:43.360 I tried marketing it to various publishers, agents, 00:04:43.439 --> 00:04:47.180 editors in the U .S., I was told there's no market 00:04:47.180 --> 00:04:50.480 for so very large books. a book about classical 00:04:50.480 --> 00:04:54.879 music in the US. Now, they're wrong about this. 00:04:54.939 --> 00:04:58.740 I'm quite convinced about that. But they suggested 00:04:58.740 --> 00:05:02.220 I bring it down to 300 pages or so before they 00:05:02.220 --> 00:05:05.079 would even take a look at it. And I didn't want 00:05:05.079 --> 00:05:07.680 to do that. And so I published the original myself. 00:05:08.279 --> 00:05:12.579 And then it started getting good feedback. It 00:05:12.579 --> 00:05:15.980 got good responses. And at that point, I thought, 00:05:16.040 --> 00:05:18.259 well, now I'm comfortable enough to publish a 00:05:18.259 --> 00:05:21.399 smaller version if I can use that as a stepping 00:05:21.399 --> 00:05:24.879 stone to the larger version again. And so I published 00:05:24.879 --> 00:05:27.779 The Brahms Comes to Dinner. Initially, too, I 00:05:27.779 --> 00:05:29.699 wasn't entirely sure how I would go about it 00:05:29.699 --> 00:05:33.540 because you can't compress 1 ,800 pages into 00:05:33.540 --> 00:05:37.220 300 pages. And the 1 ,800 -page book obviously 00:05:37.220 --> 00:05:41.899 has a number of other novels in there as well. 00:05:42.670 --> 00:05:45.689 And I chose just to focus on Brahms's relationship 00:05:45.689 --> 00:05:50.149 with Clara and put that into this smaller book. 00:05:50.410 --> 00:05:54.550 And once I hit upon the notion of using that 00:05:54.550 --> 00:05:58.170 dinner as a thread, the scene, as a thread through 00:05:58.170 --> 00:06:01.740 the entire book, I couldn't resist. writing it. 00:06:01.959 --> 00:06:05.160 And that was how it came about. I used that particular 00:06:05.160 --> 00:06:08.339 scene, which goes all the way to the end. And 00:06:08.339 --> 00:06:14.480 it is all pretty much factual, except I encompassed 00:06:14.480 --> 00:06:17.959 a number of his bon mots, Brahmses, into a single 00:06:17.959 --> 00:06:20.439 scene. Things he had said in different times, 00:06:20.579 --> 00:06:23.699 different places, I put them into that one dinner 00:06:23.699 --> 00:06:26.980 scene. Because, well, there was one dinner at 00:06:26.980 --> 00:06:31.790 which he was very obnoxious. In fact, The biographers 00:06:31.790 --> 00:06:34.670 that I had read, they all said, no, he said

something 00:06:34.670 --> 00:06:37.509 so terrible we can't even write about it. So 00:06:37.509 --> 00:06:41.370 I made it up, as you probably guessed what part 00:06:41.370 --> 00:06:44.209 I'm talking. See, the trouble with being a novelist 00:06:44.209 --> 00:06:46.550 is you can't say we don't know what happened. 00:06:46.750 --> 00:06:49.009 You have to put it in there. You have to imagine 00:06:49.009 --> 00:06:51.990 it. And I made up for that with the afterword 00:06:51.990 --> 00:06:56.149 in which I mentioned what I had fabricated and 00:06:56.149 --> 00:07:00.589 what was real. hoped that would take care of 00:07:00.589 --> 00:07:04.189 that problem. Now, Bowman, most people who are 00:07:04.189 --> 00:07:07.790 tuning in, I assume they know who Brahms was 00:07:07.790 --> 00:07:10.209 and who Clara Schumann was, but it's possible 00:07:10.209 --> 00:07:12.089 some people listening won't know. So if you could 00:07:12.089 --> 00:07:16.870 just briefly... Clara Schumann, easiest way is 00:07:16.870 --> 00:07:20.110 to say she was the greatest woman pianist of 00:07:20.110 --> 00:07:24.389 the 19th century, and she married Robert Schumann. 00:07:24.839 --> 00:07:27.500 who at that time was the greatest living composer. 00:07:27.980 --> 00:07:31.379 And they seemed to have a perfect union because 00:07:31.379 --> 00:07:34.779 he would compose and she would popularize his 00:07:34.779 --> 00:07:38.899 works by performing them. And in fact, the first 00:07:38.899 --> 00:07:43.360 20 or so opuses by Schumann were all works for 00:07:43.360 --> 00:07:46.100 solo piano. That was all he wrote at that point 00:07:46.100 --> 00:07:50.579 before he got into larger chamber pieces and 00:07:50.579 --> 00:07:55.490 symphonic pieces also, of course. And Brahms 00:07:55.490 --> 00:07:58.410 was 20 years old when he came knocking on their 00:07:58.410 --> 00:08:03.009 door. He was, well, he always wanted to compose. 00:08:03.110 --> 00:08:06.629 He'd been composing since he was sick. He actually 00:08:06.629 --> 00:08:12.529 started, he made up a form of writing music, 00:08:12.610 --> 00:08:15.430 his own notes and his own way to write it out. 00:08:16.139 --> 00:08:18.959 At a very young age. And when his father, who 00:08:18.959 --> 00:08:23.180 was a hornist and a bassist, saw this, he decided 00:08:23.180 --> 00:08:25.939 to get him lessons. But Brahms wanted lessons 00:08:25.939 --> 00:08:28.720 on the piano. He didn't want to learn the horn 00:08:28.720 --> 00:08:31.480 or the bass, although he did take violin lessons 00:08:31.480 --> 00:08:36.480 and cello lessons too at one point. And Brahms, 00:08:36.500 --> 00:08:39.320 of course, he took lessons with a guy named Otto 00:08:39.320 --> 00:08:43.909 Cossel to begin. And then with... Edvard Marksen, 00:08:44.070 --> 00:08:46.970 to whom he dedicated his second piano concerto. 00:08:47.289 --> 00:08:52.210 And at that point, he also met this gentleman 00:08:52.210 --> 00:08:56.169 named Josef Joachim, who was the greatest violinist 00:08:56.169 --> 00:08:58.809 of the 19th century, certainly of the late 19th 00:08:58.809 --> 00:09:03.519 century. And there was a guy named Edward Reményi 00:09:03.519 --> 00:09:06.360 who was a violinist himself. He was a Hungarian 00:09:06.360 --> 00:09:09.879 refugee in 1848. They had all these revolutions 00:09:09.879 --> 00:09:13.480 all over Europe. And he was a violinist refugee 00:09:13.480 --> 00:09:16.179 who was making his way around Europe, making 00:09:16.179 --> 00:09:20.740 his living as a violinist, giving recitals. And 00:09:20.740 --> 00:09:23.720 when he was in Hamburg, he needed an accompanist. 00:09:23.840 --> 00:09:27.590 And somebody just... got Brahms for him, and 00:09:27.590 --> 00:09:30.690 he was very impressed with Brahms, his musicianship 00:09:30.690 --> 00:09:35.429 at least. And he also wanted, he wanted, I'm 00:09:35.429 --> 00:09:37.730 trying to say six things at the same time, but 00:09:37.730 --> 00:09:43.210 Brahms was given an introduction to Joachim through 00:09:43.210 --> 00:09:46.389 Reményi, and Reményi wanted an introduction to 00:09:46.389 --> 00:09:49.909 Liszt through Joachim, who knew Liszt. And so 00:09:49.909 --> 00:09:58.139 Brahms and Joachim got to see Liszt. But Liszt's 00:09:58.139 --> 00:10:03.000 home, he lived in a huge, almost a mansion, and 00:10:03.000 --> 00:10:06.799 he had paintings on the wall, and he had these 00:10:06.799 --> 00:10:11.039 sabers, Turkish sabers, and gifts from all kinds 00:10:11.039 --> 00:10:14.059 of royalty. He had Beethoven's piano, he had 00:10:14.059 --> 00:10:17.440 Mozart's spinet, and he had all these people 00:10:17.440 --> 00:10:21.610 who just... who kowtowed to him like you would 00:10:21.610 --> 00:10:24.129 not believe. He was like a god as far as they 00:10:24.129 --> 00:10:26.269 were concerned. And Brahms, on the one hand, 00:10:26.269 --> 00:10:28.950 he didn't go with all this hero worshipping. 00:10:29.029 --> 00:10:32.149 And on the other hand, he was very intimidated 00:10:32.149 --> 00:10:34.490 by this atmosphere. He really wasn't comfortable 00:10:34.490 --> 00:10:36.850 with it. And there were all these people who 00:10:36.850 --> 00:10:40.220 gathered for this afternoon's performance. And 00:10:40.220 --> 00:10:42.379 a performance, meaning Liszt would come out, 00:10:42.419 --> 00:10:44.059 he would talk to them, he would play some of 00:10:44.059 --> 00:10:48.519 their music, and they would play if he actually 00:10:48.519 --> 00:10:51.720 saw Brahms' music on the piano. And he asked 00:10:51.720 --> 00:10:54.200 Brahms if he would like to come up and play. 00:10:54.399 --> 00:10:56.639 Brahms didn't even talk. He just sort of shook 00:10:56.639 --> 00:10:59.620 his head and sat there because he just wanted 00:10:59.620 --> 00:11:03.899 out of this at that point. So Liszt, to his credit, 00:11:03.960 --> 00:11:08.419 said, well, I will play this myself. And he played. 00:11:08.970 -->

00:11:11.929 Two pieces. He played the scherzo, the opus four, 00:11:12.090 --> 00:11:15.090 which I think it's an E flat or E minor, I forget. 00:11:15.789 --> 00:11:19.289 It's the opus four and the very first movement 00:11:19.289 --> 00:11:22.870 of his first piano sonata. And he did this through 00:11:22.870 --> 00:11:27.769 Brahms's handwriting. His music writing was atrocious. 00:11:27.769 --> 00:11:30.629 It was impossible to read. But Liszt not only 00:11:30.629 --> 00:11:33.590 was able to read it, he performed it flawlessly, 00:11:33.629 --> 00:11:37.110 even making comments while he was... doing this. 00:11:37.190 --> 00:11:38.929 And Brahms was very impressed with all this. 00:11:39.350 --> 00:11:43.570 But then everyone started saying, now let's hear 00:11:43.570 --> 00:11:46.370 something of your own. And Liszt performed his 00:11:46.370 --> 00:11:51.509 sonata in B minor. And this story might be apocryphal, 00:11:51.570 --> 00:11:55.269 but it did create, Brahms apparently fell asleep 00:11:55.269 --> 00:11:59.029 while Liszt was performing the B minor sonata. 00:11:59.409 --> 00:12:02.549 And Liszt completed the sonata. He got up and 00:12:02.549 --> 00:12:05.840 he just left the room. And Reményi, at this point, 00:12:05.960 --> 00:12:09.039 he was outraged. How could you go to sleep while 00:12:09.039 --> 00:12:12.039 Liszt was performing? What are we doing here? 00:12:12.299 --> 00:12:14.879 He decided he didn't want to have anything to 00:12:14.879 --> 00:12:18.539 do with Brahms anymore. And Brahms said, I didn't 00:12:18.539 --> 00:12:21.399 like the music. I can't help it. And he said, 00:12:21.440 --> 00:12:24.639 you didn't like Liszt's music? So anyway, there 00:12:24.639 --> 00:12:27.340 was a big rift. There was always a rift between 00:12:27.340 --> 00:12:31.039 Brahms and Liszt all the way to the end. But 00:12:31.039 --> 00:12:34.570 Liszt did. come back on stage, not at that time, 00:12:34.590 --> 00:12:39.230 but at a later date in Leipzig, actually, when 00:12:39.230 --> 00:12:42.850 Brahms was doing his first recitals in Leipzig. 00:12:42.950 --> 00:12:45.389 And he congratulated him and he welcomed him 00:12:45.389 --> 00:12:50.110 into the new German group of musicians. Brahms 00:12:50.110 --> 00:12:54.269 wasn't that interested, but Liszt was very much 00:12:54.269 --> 00:12:57.570 the gentleman at this point. But Brahms left 00:12:57.570 --> 00:13:01.450 the Liszt, the Altar. I forget exactly what it 00:13:01.450 --> 00:13:05.009 was called, the Altheim, Althaus, which was Liszt's 00:13:05.009 --> 00:13:08.649 home. But he didn't want to go back home to Hamburg 00:13:08.649 --> 00:13:11.730 to his parents with nothing to show, and certainly 00:13:11.730 --> 00:13:15.009 not after leaving Liszt. So he went back to Joachim, 00:13:15.129 --> 00:13:17.769 and Joachim, who was in Göttingen at that time, 00:13:17.850 --> 00:13:21.710 said, well, you must go and see Schumann. Schumann 00:13:21.710 --> 00:13:24.429

will want to see you. He will, he knows your, 00:13:24.570 --> 00:13:26.090 I mean, he doesn't know your work, but he will 00:13:26.090 --> 00:13:30.440 be willing to listen. And so... Brahms went to 00:13:30.440 --> 00:13:33.940 Schumann with something of a heavy heart, but 00:13:33.940 --> 00:13:38.340 also not with great hopes. And when he knocked 00:13:38.340 --> 00:13:41.480 on the door initially, this was the 30th of September, 00:13:41.700 --> 00:13:47.200 1853, it was around 11 o 'clock, and the Schumanns, 00:13:47.200 --> 00:13:49.340 they had seven children at this point, and Clara 00:13:49.340 --> 00:13:52.980 was pregnant with their eighth. Marie, the oldest 00:13:52.980 --> 00:13:55.279 of the children, said Schumann had just left 00:13:55.279 --> 00:13:59.440 for his daily walk and would he come back tomorrow, 00:13:59.639 --> 00:14:04.620 an hour later. So Brahms left and he came back 00:14:04.620 --> 00:14:07.259 on the next day, on the 1st of October, that 00:14:07.259 --> 00:14:11.840 would be, and Schumann opened the door and Brahms 00:14:11.840 --> 00:14:13.960 introduced himself and he says, oh yes, Joachim 00:14:13.960 --> 00:14:16.779 has told me about you and come in. So he came 00:14:16.779 --> 00:14:19.500 in and he says, so you can sit down and play 00:14:19.500 --> 00:14:23.159 for us. Brahms got down and he started performing. 00:14:23.600 --> 00:14:26.879 And almost at once Schumann said, no, hold on 00:14:26.879 --> 00:14:30.000 a moment. And he called Clara. And Clara came 00:14:30.000 --> 00:14:33.960 running down. And she was a little shocked. She 00:14:33.960 --> 00:14:38.059 was also a little scared because Robert was bipolar 00:14:38.059 --> 00:14:41.960 and was beginning to show symptoms. He had already 00:14:41.960 --> 00:14:44.620 shown symptoms. And when he shouted for Clara, 00:14:44.700 --> 00:14:47.419 he shouted so loudly that she was afraid he was 00:14:47.419 --> 00:14:49.700 going into a manic stage at that point also. 00:14:50.600 --> 00:14:53.639 And she came down and she saw Brahms and Schumann 00:14:53.639 --> 00:14:57.960 just said, you have to listen to this. And Brahms 00:14:57.960 --> 00:15:01.659 started playing. And they were both so entranced 00:15:01.659 --> 00:15:04.279 with what he was doing that they invited him 00:15:04.279 --> 00:15:07.200 to stay with them. And he stayed for a whole 00:15:07.200 --> 00:15:10.639 month at that point and was able to get his first 00:15:10.639 --> 00:15:14.299 six opuses published within six weeks of their 00:15:14.299 --> 00:15:17.820 meeting. Clara, at this point, she was learning 00:15:17.820 --> 00:15:21.639 his music at the same time while he was staying 00:15:21.639 --> 00:15:23.700 there. And he played them a number of pieces 00:15:23.700 --> 00:15:27.399 that he had composed. And at one point he went 00:15:27.399 --> 00:15:30.399 back to Joachim and he was with him again in 00:15:30.399 --> 00:15:35.519 Göttingen when they received a letter from Schumann 00:15:35.519 --> 00:15:41.360 saying he actually had a list of all the pieces 00:15:41.360 --> 00:15:46.059 that he thought Brahms should get. a list of 00:15:46.059 --> 00:15:48.639 all the pieces he thought Brahms should get published. 00:15:49.480 --> 00:15:54.600 And Brahms was very taken aback because he thought, 00:15:54.679 --> 00:15:57.580 no, I don't even like all these pieces. And I 00:15:57.580 --> 00:16:00.519 thought I'd get one of my pieces published, two 00:16:00.519 --> 00:16:03.480 at the most. And Joachim said, no, you're much 00:16:03.480 --> 00:16:08.700 too shy. You have to put yourself forward. You 00:16:08.700 --> 00:16:11.809 have to show what you can do. And at that point, 00:16:11.850 --> 00:16:15.230 Brahms said, OK. And he just wiped out a number 00:16:15.230 --> 00:16:18.350 of those pieces. And God knows what they were 00:16:18.350 --> 00:16:20.690 that he had apparently written, a violin sonata, 00:16:20.850 --> 00:16:23.710 a quartet. All of these were simply wiped out. 00:16:23.789 --> 00:16:25.669 We'll never get to hear them now, of course. 00:16:26.090 --> 00:16:30.470 But that was how it got started. But then Brahms 00:16:30.470 --> 00:16:33.529 stayed with them, and Robert went into the asylum 00:16:33.529 --> 00:16:37.159 because of his problem. And Brahms... Clara was 00:16:37.159 --> 00:16:41.399 not allowed to visit him in the asylum, and Brahms 00:16:41.399 --> 00:16:43.519 became a kind of a go -between. He would take 00:16:43.519 --> 00:16:46.259 messages from Robert, bring them to Clara, and 00:16:46.259 --> 00:16:50.419 back and forth. And so, at this point also, Clara 00:16:50.419 --> 00:16:54.039 was incredibly depressed, and there was nothing 00:16:54.039 --> 00:16:56.559 that could really bring her out of her depression, 00:16:56.799 --> 00:17:00.120 except she would play Schumann's music. And she 00:17:00.120 --> 00:17:01.960 wasn't even performing at this time, because 00:17:01.960 --> 00:17:07.410 the bills were mounting. Robert's His asylum 00:17:07.410 --> 00:17:11.609 bills were adding to the regular bills, and she 00:17:11.609 --> 00:17:14.410 needed to get out there and perform again, but 00:17:14.410 --> 00:17:19.269 she just wasn't in the right state. And at that 00:17:19.269 --> 00:17:21.750 point, Brahms was writing his first piano trio, 00:17:22.009 --> 00:17:25.869 the Opus 8, which he later revised into when 00:17:25.869 --> 00:17:30.059 he was doing his opuses in the 90s. And we have 00:17:30.059 --> 00:17:32.099 both versions, so it's interesting to compare 00:17:32.099 --> 00:17:35.500 them also. But this was the piece that sort of 00:17:35.500 --> 00:17:38.880 brought Clara back a little bit to normalcy. 00:17:39.099 --> 00:17:42.359 It was the first new piece that she had, she 00:17:42.359 --> 00:17:45.819 was practicing, learning, that made her interested 00:17:45.819 --> 00:17:50.240 in performing again. And so after that, she performed... 00:17:50.750 -->

00:17:54.970 She premiered many of Brahms's works with Joachim, 00:17:55.029 --> 00:17:57.250 many of them too. And of course, she continued 00:17:57.250 --> 00:18:00.190 performing Schumann's works. So Clara was really 00:18:00.190 --> 00:18:06.170 responsible for making the Europeans aware of 00:18:06.170 --> 00:18:10.049 both Robert and Brahms at that point. Without 00:18:10.049 --> 00:18:13.009 her, I don't know how either of them would have 00:18:13.009 --> 00:18:17.089 really progressed much farther. But that's why 00:18:17.089 --> 00:18:20.710 I got the three of them into Trio. They wouldn't 00:18:20.710 --> 00:18:24.430 have survived without one another. So Bowman, 00:18:24.529 --> 00:18:27.210 now might be a lovely time to read an excerpt. 00:18:27.869 --> 00:18:31.809 Oh, yes. This is actually at the very end of 00:18:31.809 --> 00:18:35.970 the book, the very last performance that Brahms 00:18:35.970 --> 00:18:39.950 attended of his own work, the Fourth Symphony 00:18:39.950 --> 00:18:43.329 was being performed. And this was on the 7th 00:18:43.329 --> 00:18:50.009 of March in 1897. He died on April the 3rd. not 00:18:50.009 --> 00:18:55.190 even a month later, and here it is. On March 00:18:55.190 --> 00:19:00.789 7, 1897, a shrunken Johannes Brahms, suffering 00:19:00.789 --> 00:19:04.410 from cancer of the liver, attended a performance 00:19:04.410 --> 00:19:08.890 in Vienna of his Fourth Symphony. The symphony 00:19:08.890 --> 00:19:12.750 glides so smoothly into its first theme that 00:19:12.750 --> 00:19:16.210 the listener finds himself deep in its wake before 00:19:16.210 --> 00:19:21.019 he realizes it has even begun. The second movement 00:19:21.019 --> 00:19:24.880 showcases a plaintive melody hovering around 00:19:24.880 --> 00:19:29.200 a single note like a hopeless lover. A friend 00:19:29.200 --> 00:19:32.039 had said that only Brahms could have written 00:19:32.039 --> 00:19:36.259 that symphony, and even Brahms had had access 00:19:36.259 --> 00:19:40.059 to certain locked chambers of his soul for the 00:19:40.059 --> 00:19:44.400 first time. But he had finally run out of locked 00:19:44.400 --> 00:19:49.720 chambers. At the end of each movement, the conductor 00:19:49.720 --> 00:19:53.200 turned to Brahms's box to acknowledge the composer. 00:19:53.640 --> 00:19:57.819 The audience stood, and the composer stood to 00:19:57.819 --> 00:20:01.099 acknowledge the downpour of applause, knowing 00:20:01.099 --> 00:20:03.880 the symphony would not otherwise recommence. 00:20:04.900 --> 00:20:08.359 With the conclusion of the symphony, the downpour 00:20:08.359 --> 00:20:12.779 swelled to a monsoon. All eyes turned to the 00:20:12.779 --> 00:20:16.839 tiny man. hollows in the back of his neck skin 00:20:16.839 --> 00:20:21.559 discoloured to bronze trembling with tears the 00:20:21.559 --> 00:20:25.200 auditorium awash with light and colour in his 00:20:25.200 --> 00:20:31.599 blurry eyes twenty minutes later the emaciated 00:20:31.599 --> 00:20:36.619 old composer still stood the audience still applauded 00:20:36.619 --> 00:20:41.240 he was tired but remained standing clinging to 00:20:41.240 --> 00:20:45.089 the rail buoyed by the love in the hall, wishing 00:20:45.089 --> 00:20:49.269 no more to sit or to leave than they, his lovely 00:20:49.269 --> 00:20:53.289 Viennese, wished to let him go. Their eyes no 00:20:53.289 --> 00:20:56.890 less damp than his own, cheeks no less bright, 00:20:57.250 --> 00:21:01.789 manly beards, a glitter with tears like diamonds, 00:21:01.950 --> 00:21:05.750 all of them knowing it was the last time they 00:21:05.750 --> 00:21:11.220 would be seeing one another. he died less than 00:21:11.220 --> 00:21:15.299 a month later but what remained the residue the 00:21:15.299 --> 00:21:19.140 essence distillate of his life gold from straw 00:21:19.140 --> 00:21:24.180 remains impervious to fang and claw at once the 00:21:24.180 --> 00:21:28.640 heart of the riddle of life and medicine for 00:21:28.640 --> 00:21:32.960 the heart now i have condensed that a little 00:21:32.960 --> 00:21:38.869 bit in order to fit our colloquy here But it's 00:21:38.869 --> 00:21:42.730 expanded into a chapter, four pages in the book 00:21:42.730 --> 00:21:45.730 itself. But we don't have time to read the whole 00:21:45.730 --> 00:21:49.470 thing right now. So, yeah. Thank you so much 00:21:49.470 --> 00:21:52.170 for that. It was so beautiful. Oh, you're welcome. 00:21:52.289 --> 00:21:55.910 Thank you. I understand, of course, you read 00:21:55.910 --> 00:21:59.490 many biographies of these composers. I was curious 00:21:59.490 --> 00:22:01.769 if you went to source material at all in terms 00:22:01.769 --> 00:22:06.569 of letters. Oh, yes. Brahms and Clara, the correspondence 00:22:06.569 --> 00:22:09.549 is almost a thousand pages. And in those days, 00:22:09.710 --> 00:22:14.250 yeah, so in those days before telephones and 00:22:14.250 --> 00:22:17.430 telegraphs and emails and all the rest of it, 00:22:17.490 --> 00:22:21.390 everything went into their letters. So the correspondence, 00:22:21.750 --> 00:22:24.650 I mean, the material was phenomenal. The difficulty, 00:22:24.670 --> 00:22:28.069 if anything, was making sense out of the whole 00:22:28.069 --> 00:22:30.490 thing, you know, putting them all together chronologically. 00:22:30.650 --> 00:22:35.579 And also her diaries. Her father. Friedrich, 00:22:35.619 --> 00:22:39.839 Friedrich Wieck, W -I -E -C -K, Wieck. They used 00:22:39.839 --> 00:22:43.859 to, he initially started her diary, writing in 00:22:43.859 --> 00:22:47.319 her diary himself for her at the age of four, 00:22:47.420 --> 00:22:49.920 because he thought she wasn't a very bright child. 00:22:50.220 --> 00:22:53.480 She didn't learn to speak very quickly, but she 00:22:53.480 --> 00:22:56.059 learned how to play the piano before she learned 00:22:56.059 --> 00:22:59.180 how to speak. And then he realized he had a prodigy

00:22:59.180 --> 00:23:02.200 on his hands. And that was when everything changed. 00:23:02.220 --> 00:23:05.940 She became his. primary child. She had two older 00:23:05.940 --> 00:23:10.140 brothers, two younger brothers, but they unfortunately 00:23:10.140 --> 00:23:12.880 did not come to very good ends, in large part 00:23:12.880 --> 00:23:15.920 because the father concentrated all his energies 00:23:15.920 --> 00:23:20.680 on Clara. And the diaries that he started way 00:23:20.680 --> 00:23:25.339 back in 1824 or whatever went on until Clara 00:23:25.339 --> 00:23:28.640 died. She continued the diary on her own in 1896. 00:23:28.960 --> 00:23:32.400 So those are another set of thousand pages that 00:23:33.279 --> 00:23:37.900 I went through. And also Robert and Clara, when 00:23:37.900 --> 00:23:40.599 they were living together, they used to write 00:23:40.599 --> 00:23:44.180 in a common diary. Robert would write and then 00:23:44.180 --> 00:23:47.000 Clara would write. It wasn't a daily thing, but 00:23:47.000 --> 00:23:50.339 every now and then whoever's turn it was would 00:23:50.339 --> 00:23:55.420 fill in. And Robert didn't write as much as Clara 00:23:55.420 --> 00:23:59.049 did. But when they were in Moscow, when they 00:23:59.049 --> 00:24:02.430 were touring Moscow, he actually did a drawing 00:24:02.430 --> 00:24:06.730 of the onion domes, and it's kind of fun to look 00:24:06.730 --> 00:24:09.470 at those too. But what's even more interesting 00:24:09.470 --> 00:24:13.990 is they were so open. Well, it was their private 00:24:13.990 --> 00:24:17.009 diary, of course, but he used to put an F in 00:24:17.009 --> 00:24:20.289 the margin for the nights on which they had sexual 00:24:20.289 --> 00:24:23.869 relations. So all of this was in the diaries 00:24:23.869 --> 00:24:28.140 as well. And there really wasn't anything held 00:24:28.140 --> 00:24:32.519 back. The story's all there. So I didn't, in 00:24:32.519 --> 00:24:35.259 fact, I usually mention when I'm doing a reading 00:24:35.259 --> 00:24:38.019 from the book that I didn't want to write something 00:24:38.019 --> 00:24:43.400 like Amadeus because the way that guy, I think 00:24:43.400 --> 00:24:47.210 Peter Schaeffer, treated... Salieri was just 00:24:47.210 --> 00:24:50.710 shameful because Salieri was respected, admired 00:24:50.710 --> 00:24:54.549 by Beethoven, Schubert, Mozart, Liszt, all of 00:24:54.549 --> 00:24:58.230 these people. But Schaeffer wanted an antagonist 00:24:58.230 --> 00:25:02.490 to Mozart and Salieri became his victim, essentially. 00:25:02.829 --> 00:25:05.990 I didn't want to do that and I didn't need to 00:25:05.990 --> 00:25:10.589 do that. So I had all this information. I understand 00:25:10.589 --> 00:25:14.009 also like Robert Schumann's medical records were 00:25:14.009 --> 00:25:18.109 released. in the not too distant past? Yes, to 00:25:18.109 --> 00:25:23.140 the end when he was in the asylum. Many, actually, 00:25:23.279 --> 00:25:26.119 there was no cure for Robert. All they did was 00:25:26.119 --> 00:25:28.839 pacify him on occasion with drugs. That was what 00:25:28.839 --> 00:25:32.940 they did. And apparently a lot of inmates of 00:25:32.940 --> 00:25:36.880 insane asylums in those days died of starvation 00:25:36.880 --> 00:25:40.599 or dehydration because they simply refused to 00:25:40.599 --> 00:25:43.500 eat. That was the only way that they had any 00:25:43.500 --> 00:25:46.839 kind of control over their lives. And Robert 00:25:46.839 --> 00:25:50.579 had stopped eating. To the end, he was, I mean... 00:25:51.230 --> 00:25:54.769 almost literally a skeleton. Clara had not seen 00:25:54.769 --> 00:25:56.970 him in two and a half years because they said 00:25:56.970 --> 00:25:59.849 she would excite him too much for his own good. 00:26:00.329 --> 00:26:02.670 And finally they said, well, he's dying, you 00:26:02.670 --> 00:26:05.750 better come now. And when she saw him, you know, 00:26:05.750 --> 00:26:09.509 I mean, she was bereft, of course, but she didn't 00:26:09.509 --> 00:26:12.849 recognize him at first. And then when she came 00:26:12.849 --> 00:26:16.579 up to him, closer to him, And she actually fed 00:26:16.579 --> 00:26:19.019 him some jelly. She had jelly on her fingers 00:26:19.019 --> 00:26:24.420 and he ate it. And he tried to smile. It was 00:26:24.420 --> 00:26:27.440 a grimace, of course, but she knew that he knew 00:26:27.440 --> 00:26:33.240 who she was. And so there was that last bit of 00:26:33.240 --> 00:26:35.460 recognition, which meant a great deal to her. 00:26:35.500 --> 00:26:37.839 And it meant a great deal to Brahms. And Joachim 00:26:37.839 --> 00:26:43.599 wasn't there. He came later. But Brahms said 00:26:43.599 --> 00:26:48.420 later that image of her holding him, he likened 00:26:48.420 --> 00:26:52.420 it to a pieta by Michelangelo. And he said that 00:26:52.420 --> 00:26:57.059 was the most sublime image he had ever envisioned. 00:26:57.539 --> 00:27:00.819 So there was a great deal of love between the 00:27:00.819 --> 00:27:03.740 three of them. It was just, they were regular 00:27:03.740 --> 00:27:07.500 people. And so, you know, they were never entirely 00:27:07.500 --> 00:27:14.119 sure what... He died of. I mean, there are theories 00:27:14.119 --> 00:27:18.480 that say he was syphilitic, but none of their 00:27:18.480 --> 00:27:22.019 children were syphilitic. Claron was never syphilitic. 00:27:22.019 --> 00:27:27.140 And their relationships, I mean, they had sex 00:27:27.140 --> 00:27:29.630 about... two or three times a week, if not more, 00:27:29.769 --> 00:27:32.490 and they have all these children. They had eight 00:27:32.490 --> 00:27:35.410 children of their own, and there were two miscarriages 00:27:35.410 --> 00:27:39.509 as well. And the last child, Felix, was born 00:27:39.509 --> 00:27:45.130 after Robert had incarcerated himself, essentially. 00:27:45.630 --> 00:27:50.250 And one of Clara's

grandchildren, who was very 00:27:50.250 --> 00:27:53.220 upset... because he wasn't included in the will, 00:27:53.400 --> 00:27:56.599 actually came out with a pamphlet in which he 00:27:56.599 --> 00:27:59.880 accused Brahms of being the father of their last 00:27:59.880 --> 00:28:02.799 child. And I actually sat down and, you know... 00:28:03.750 --> 00:28:07.269 tabulated the times, and it's simply not possible. 00:28:07.670 --> 00:28:09.950 I mean, that's eight months and something from 00:28:09.950 --> 00:28:13.009 the time Clara and... They met on the 1st of 00:28:13.009 --> 00:28:18.109 October, and Felix was born in June of next year, 00:28:18.170 --> 00:28:20.650 just a day before Robert's birthday thereabouts. 00:28:20.849 --> 00:28:24.190 So that would have been about eight months. But 00:28:24.190 --> 00:28:27.029 it's just the kind of people they were, the characters 00:28:27.029 --> 00:28:29.730 they had. No way that would have happened. That 00:28:29.730 --> 00:28:33.019 simply would not have happened. And afterwards, 00:28:33.279 --> 00:28:35.680 you know, when it was possible for the two of 00:28:35.680 --> 00:28:39.000 them finally to be together, everything changed. 00:28:39.160 --> 00:28:44.619 It was Robert's incarceration, in a sense, that 00:28:44.619 --> 00:28:47.079 made it possible for their friendship to flourish 00:28:47.079 --> 00:28:50.480 as it did, and even their romance, because in 00:28:50.480 --> 00:28:52.759 those days they actually did write love letters 00:28:52.759 --> 00:28:57.059 to each other. They never consummated the romance. 00:28:58.920 --> 00:29:01.319 It was there, very much so, and it's available 00:29:01.319 --> 00:29:03.759 in the letters. And these are the letters that 00:29:03.759 --> 00:29:07.539 survive. To the end, Brahms wanted to destroy 00:29:07.539 --> 00:29:10.019 his letters, and Clara was actually throwing 00:29:10.019 --> 00:29:13.279 his letters into the fire when Marie, the oldest 00:29:13.279 --> 00:29:15.339 daughter, came around and said, no, no, no, no, 00:29:15.359 --> 00:29:18.660 we have to save these if we can. So the ones 00:29:18.660 --> 00:29:22.559 that are saved tell us without any doubt that 00:29:22.559 --> 00:29:25.880 there was a great affection between them, if 00:29:25.880 --> 00:29:31.599 not an actual romance. And in Eugenie's diary, 00:29:31.680 --> 00:29:34.700 Eugenie was the youngest of Clara's children 00:29:34.700 --> 00:29:37.599 to survive. Felix was younger than her, but he 00:29:37.599 --> 00:29:40.819 died before Clara died. And in her diary, in 00:29:40.819 --> 00:29:44.019 her memoirs, Eugenie even says that Clara had 00:29:44.019 --> 00:29:45.859 told her, if he had proposed, I would have said 00:29:45.859 --> 00:29:49.900 yes, but he never proposed. So she said she never 00:29:49.900 --> 00:29:52.140 understood Brahms. She had known him all her 00:29:52.140 --> 00:29:56.539 life. since he was 20. And he was such a different 00:29:56.539 --> 00:29:59.500 person from the time he was 20 to the time he 00:29:59.500 --> 00:30:03.059 was 62, which was when she died. She died less 00:30:03.059 --> 00:30:06.480 than a year before he died. And actually her 00:30:06.480 --> 00:30:12.490 death was almost the key that set his. death 00:30:12.490 --> 00:30:15.789 in motion because first of all he was on holiday 00:30:15.789 --> 00:30:18.809 in Switzerland when he learned about her death 00:30:18.809 --> 00:30:21.529 and it was sent to him the letter was sent to 00:30:21.529 --> 00:30:25.369 him a letter from Marie the daughter to Brahms 00:30:25.369 --> 00:30:31.430 in Vienna saying our mother passed or she closed 00:30:31.430 --> 00:30:34.579 her eyes for the last time And Brahms dashed 00:30:34.579 --> 00:30:36.420 to Frankfurt, which is where he thought she was 00:30:36.420 --> 00:30:39.599 living at the time. He missed the stop and the 00:30:39.599 --> 00:30:42.900 conductor, you know, failed to wake him up at 00:30:42.900 --> 00:30:45.920 the right time. So he had to take the train back. 00:30:46.160 --> 00:30:48.859 And then he found out there had just been a memorial 00:30:48.859 --> 00:30:52.140 in Frankfurt and she was to be buried in Bonn. 00:30:52.259 --> 00:30:55.279 So then he took the train to Bonn and he arrived 00:30:55.279 --> 00:30:59.299 just in time to throw a few clods of earth onto 00:30:59.299 --> 00:31:03.680 her casket. And he was exhausted. And then on 00:31:03.680 --> 00:31:07.480 the way out, he lost his way. He walked eight 00:31:07.480 --> 00:31:11.519 miles in this tired state. And that was the beginning 00:31:11.519 --> 00:31:14.660 of his end. He was never well again after that. 00:31:15.019 --> 00:31:19.240 So, yeah. Was there an excerpt from Trio that 00:31:19.240 --> 00:31:22.880 you wanted to share with us? This is a very short 00:31:22.880 --> 00:31:28.319 episode. And I should mention that Robert... 00:31:28.839 --> 00:31:31.440 Robert and Clara were very much in love, but 00:31:31.440 --> 00:31:35.700 Clara's father did not want, he did not want 00:31:35.700 --> 00:31:39.140 Robert marrying Clara because he felt he had 00:31:39.140 --> 00:31:42.440 groomed Clara to marry an earl or a lord or a 00:31:42.440 --> 00:31:45.220 very rich man at the very least, certainly not 00:31:45.220 --> 00:31:49.259 an impoverished composer, who had in effect also 00:31:49.259 --> 00:31:51.339 damaged his fourth finger so he couldn't even 00:31:51.339 --> 00:31:54.700 play the piano anymore. And he didn't think his 00:31:54.700 --> 00:31:58.519 daughter's business was publicizing. Robert's 00:31:58.519 --> 00:32:00.700 work, even though Robert was a student of his 00:32:00.700 --> 00:32:03.700 for a while and lived with them in the same apartment 00:32:03.700 --> 00:32:07.559 as well. So there was a huge conflict between 00:32:07.559 --> 00:32:11.519 Clara's father and Robert for the longest time. 00:32:11.720 --> 00:32:16.000 And Clara's father spat on him on occasion. He

00:32:16.000 --> 00:32:20.000 threatened to kill him with a gun. And nevertheless, 00:32:20.440 --> 00:32:23.480 they did get married. But this passage I'm going 00:32:23.480 --> 00:32:30.029 to read was And Robert has just been visited 00:32:30.029 --> 00:32:34.089 by Clara's father, who has told him in no uncertain 00:32:34.089 --> 00:32:36.369 terms that he is never going to marry Clara. 00:32:36.470 --> 00:32:40.029 No matter what he does, he will use every way 00:32:40.029 --> 00:32:43.990 he can to get him out of the picture. And so 00:32:43.990 --> 00:32:46.309 he is very depressed, and he's wondering how 00:32:46.309 --> 00:32:49.150 to... But Robert, at the same time, he was having 00:32:49.150 --> 00:32:52.690 other affairs, too. He was having an affair with 00:32:52.690 --> 00:32:55.849 an English pianist who was... touring at that 00:32:55.849 --> 00:32:59.990 point he had an affair with one of Clara's servants 00:32:59.990 --> 00:33:05.109 who became an inspiration for one of the parts 00:33:05.109 --> 00:33:11.549 of his carnival Christine Chris was her name 00:33:11.549 --> 00:33:13.849 anyway but at this point he's very depressed 00:33:13.849 --> 00:33:17.890 because he's just been blown down by Clara's 00:33:17.890 --> 00:33:24.109 father and this is how it came about Robert sighed 00:33:24.349 --> 00:33:28.250 sitting again at the piano. Willie, who was his 00:33:28.250 --> 00:33:30.930 roommate at that time, wouldn't be back until 00:33:30.930 --> 00:33:34.049 late in the evening and he was faced with the 00:33:34.049 --> 00:33:37.509 prospect of the long day ahead. Additionally, 00:33:37.730 --> 00:33:40.230 it's raining outside too, thunder and lightning 00:33:40.230 --> 00:33:44.349 and whatnot, very dramatic actually. He had work 00:33:44.349 --> 00:33:47.289 to do on the Zeitschrift, which was a music paper 00:33:47.289 --> 00:33:51.329 that he also published. And the fantasy stook 00:33:51.329 --> 00:33:54.690 he was writing for Robena. Robena was the English 00:33:54.690 --> 00:33:57.369 touring pianist with whom he was having the affair, 00:33:57.430 --> 00:33:59.869 and he was writing the fantasy stook, which I 00:33:59.869 --> 00:34:04.369 think was his opus 12, for her. For Robena, but 00:34:04.369 --> 00:34:07.809 he sat at the piano instead doing nothing, or 00:34:07.809 --> 00:34:11.090 so it appeared, but something was spinning in 00:34:11.090 --> 00:34:15.130 his head that he needed to let out, and he could 00:34:15.130 --> 00:34:19.780 let it out only on the piano. he couldn't explain 00:34:19.780 --> 00:34:24.400 how it worked had he not pined for clara there 00:34:24.400 --> 00:34:27.159 would have been nothing to release had he not 00:34:27.159 --> 00:34:30.659 sat motionless at the piano there would have 00:34:30.659 --> 00:34:34.159 been no conduit for release he couldn't have 00:34:34.159 --> 00:34:37.599 said how long he sat but something congealed 00:34:37.599 --> 00:34:42.840 in the time the red blood

the hard bone of the 00:34:42.840 --> 00:34:47.699 new composition a strident melody roiling harmony 00:34:47.699 --> 00:34:51.579 interspersed with tender interludes pulled from 00:34:51.579 --> 00:34:54.920 the collision of the thunder outside the purr 00:34:54.920 --> 00:34:59.139 of the rain and the noise in his head he held 00:34:59.139 --> 00:35:03.860 his hands over the keys and under them the landscape 00:35:03.860 --> 00:35:08.320 of his nerves blood and bones sprang to life 00:35:08.320 --> 00:35:14.050 little kingdoms growing under his fingers This 00:35:14.050 --> 00:35:17.030 was his Opus 11, which he dedicated to Clara, 00:35:17.170 --> 00:35:21.889 finally. His first piano sonata, yeah. Such powerful 00:35:21.889 --> 00:35:24.610 writing, and it's great to hear you read your 00:35:24.610 --> 00:35:28.170 work. I was curious in terms of your own, like, 00:35:28.269 --> 00:35:31.210 when you grew up, Bowman, your mother was a pianist? 00:35:31.570 --> 00:35:34.329 My mother was a piano teacher, actually. So we 00:35:34.329 --> 00:35:38.289 did have a piano in the house. Ironically, I 00:35:38.289 --> 00:35:41.800 was born in Mumbai. And I came to Chicago when 00:35:41.800 --> 00:35:44.760 I was 19. And that piano was made in Chicago, 00:35:44.880 --> 00:35:47.820 and it was brought to Mumbai. So we used to joke 00:35:47.820 --> 00:35:50.480 about they exchanged me for the piano, essentially. 00:35:51.079 --> 00:35:54.639 But yes, my mother was a piano teacher. My father 00:35:54.639 --> 00:35:58.059 was a civil engineer. And I grew up in Mumbai. 00:35:58.099 --> 00:36:01.280 And when I was about four or five, I was playing 00:36:01.280 --> 00:36:03.880 with soldiers, like Brahms used to play with 00:36:03.880 --> 00:36:07.670 soldiers, actually, under the bed. covers. It 00:36:07.670 --> 00:36:10.789 was a small enclosed space. When my mother came 00:36:10.789 --> 00:36:12.510 and asked me if I would like to learn how to 00:36:12.510 --> 00:36:14.690 play the piano. And I said, yeah, sure. I thought 00:36:14.690 --> 00:36:16.469 I would be playing Mozart in a couple of weeks. 00:36:16.969 --> 00:36:20.050 But I was too short even to reach the pedals. 00:36:20.110 --> 00:36:23.030 So I had a box for my feet. And we were going 00:36:23.030 --> 00:36:25.530 through those John Thompson books at the time. 00:36:25.929 --> 00:36:29.030 And I got very impatient. I said, no, I just 00:36:29.030 --> 00:36:32.010 want to play what I hear. I don't want to. I 00:36:32.010 --> 00:36:34.309 don't need to learn how to read in order to play 00:36:34.309 --> 00:36:38.190 what I hear. And this amazed me. My mother, who 00:36:38.190 --> 00:36:41.190 had been performing, playing, since she was a 00:36:41.190 --> 00:36:44.849 teenager, even before that, I don't know exactly 00:36:44.849 --> 00:36:48.710 when, had never composed in her life, never thought 00:36:48.710 --> 00:36:51.730 of it even. And I said, how could this be? And 00:36:51.730 --> 00:36:53.849 she said, well, some people perform, some people 00:36:53.849 --> 00:36:56.329 compose, you know. And thank God we've got both 00:36:56.329 --> 00:37:00.090 of them. But she got me another teacher. He used 00:37:00.090 --> 00:37:02.050 to play nightclubs, and he used to play a lot 00:37:02.050 --> 00:37:05.739 of jazz. And he taught me basic chords. But I'm 00:37:05.739 --> 00:37:08.639 no pianist by any stretch of the imagination. 00:37:09.000 --> 00:37:11.539 But it was good enough for me to get my ideas, 00:37:11.820 --> 00:37:15.139 my composing ideas, onto the paper. And then 00:37:15.139 --> 00:37:17.920 I learned the guitar. My brother actually got 00:37:17.920 --> 00:37:20.920 onto the guitar before I did. But it was a revelation 00:37:20.920 --> 00:37:23.760 that, oh, C major on the piano is C major on 00:37:23.760 --> 00:37:26.360 the guitar. And, you know, just to see how the 00:37:26.360 --> 00:37:30.940 music coalesced. And my brother also did a composition. 00:37:31.099 --> 00:37:33.360 He's a songwriter more than anything. And he 00:37:33.360 --> 00:37:36.590 did... produced a couple of cassettes of his 00:37:36.590 --> 00:37:39.909 own work at one time. So he was fairly well known 00:37:39.909 --> 00:37:41.989 in Mumbai and he still is well known in Mumbai, 00:37:42.250 --> 00:37:45.789 but he's not performing anymore. We're both old 00:37:45.789 --> 00:37:50.400 now, so yeah. My parents listened to a lot. Mozart 00:37:50.400 --> 00:37:53.099 was my mother's favorite. Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven, 00:37:53.260 --> 00:37:56.199 you know, the usual. And my father was very fond 00:37:56.199 --> 00:37:59.539 of Johann Strauss also. Even if he had the same, 00:37:59.539 --> 00:38:01.980 he would buy the Blue Danube by God knows how 00:38:01.980 --> 00:38:04.559 many different orchestras. He just loved that 00:38:04.559 --> 00:38:08.500 piece. And I used to listen to, oh, Rossini was 00:38:08.500 --> 00:38:10.559 another big favorite also. The Overtures, of 00:38:10.559 --> 00:38:13.260 course. My father was also very interested in 00:38:13.260 --> 00:38:16.239 tape recording music, so we had a lot of music 00:38:16.239 --> 00:38:19.559 in the house. And when there were concerts in 00:38:19.559 --> 00:38:22.340 Mumbai, my parents would take me too. And when 00:38:22.340 --> 00:38:26.340 I was younger, you know, the Moonlight Sonata, 00:38:26.500 --> 00:38:29.579 the Beethoven Pastoral, these were very attractive 00:38:29.579 --> 00:38:33.960 pieces for a child. And then for a long while, 00:38:34.119 --> 00:38:36.719 I simply got out of it. I got more interested. 00:38:36.900 --> 00:38:38.980 I mean, most of my peers were not interested 00:38:38.980 --> 00:38:41.980 in classical music. And I wanted to keep up with 00:38:41.980 --> 00:38:44.739 them. So Elvis and the Beatles and the Rolling 00:38:44.739 --> 00:38:48.400 Stones all came in. I was going out with a friend 00:38:48.400 --> 00:38:53.059 of mine and I was waiting for

her in her living 00:38:53.059 --> 00:38:55.619 room before we left. And she was getting ready 00:38:55.619 --> 00:39:01.159 in the bedroom. And she had a cat who was rather 00:39:01.159 --> 00:39:04.199 spastic under the dining table and kept sort 00:39:04.199 --> 00:39:06.880 of... And I thought, what is wrong with this 00:39:06.880 --> 00:39:09.840 cat? And I got down under the table with the 00:39:09.840 --> 00:39:12.760 cat to see what he was doing down there. And 00:39:12.760 --> 00:39:15.760 he was playing with a dead cockroach, actually. 00:39:16.059 --> 00:39:20.260 But while I was under the table, the Mozart piano 00:39:20.260 --> 00:39:23.960 sonata in A, the 10th sonata, came on. And it 00:39:23.960 --> 00:39:26.059 took me back to the time when I was under my 00:39:26.059 --> 00:39:28.579 bed with the covers and my mother used to play. 00:39:29.260 --> 00:39:31.960 So I thought, oh, let me get, so I bought that 00:39:31.960 --> 00:39:35.239 piano sonata initially. And at first I just bought 00:39:35.239 --> 00:39:38.780 the pieces that my parents used to listen to. 00:39:38.900 --> 00:39:42.019 There wasn't very much Brahms there at all, really. 00:39:42.099 --> 00:39:44.440 They weren't very fond of Brahms. They liked, 00:39:44.480 --> 00:39:49.639 as I mentioned, the regulars. And initially I 00:39:49.639 --> 00:39:52.280 just purchased pieces that they listened to, 00:39:52.320 --> 00:39:54.679 that I was familiar with. The Hungarian Rhapsodies 00:39:54.679 --> 00:39:59.039 were another big favorite. And then the jewel, 00:39:59.179 --> 00:40:02.619 the grocery store, every week they would have 00:40:02.619 --> 00:40:06.260 a new Funk and Wagner album, a record classical 00:40:06.260 --> 00:40:09.579 music album with a booklet. And if you collected 00:40:09.579 --> 00:40:12.860 all 16 booklets or all 16 albums, you would have 00:40:12.860 --> 00:40:16.000 a complete encyclopedia of music and all these 00:40:16.000 --> 00:40:20.239 albums. And number 16 was Brahms's Fourth Symphony. 00:40:21.190 --> 00:40:25.469 And when I first listened to it, it was by Hans 00:40:25.469 --> 00:40:31.010 von Isherstedt. He was a Swiss conductor. And 00:40:31.010 --> 00:40:33.769 I was just blown away. I used to listen to music 00:40:33.769 --> 00:40:36.010 before I went to work every day. I would get 00:40:36.010 --> 00:40:38.590 up early and listen to the music with headphones, 00:40:38.750 --> 00:40:41.829 nothing to interfere with that. And it was a 00:40:41.829 --> 00:40:44.570 form of meditation as well. And when I first 00:40:44.570 --> 00:40:46.590 heard that Fourth Symphony, which I was just 00:40:46.590 --> 00:40:49.659 talking about, I was just entranced. I thought 00:40:49.659 --> 00:40:53.119 it was just beautiful. And that was the beginning 00:40:53.119 --> 00:40:56.719 of my interest in Brahms. Then I started getting 00:40:56.719 --> 00:40:59.320 his other symphonies and reading about them. 00:40:59.599 --> 00:41:04.639 And you might

be familiar with a reviewer critic 00:41:04.639 --> 00:41:08.980 by the name of Tovey, Donald Francis Tovey. Well, 00:41:09.039 --> 00:41:11.659 he wrote a number of critiques. He was a contemporary 00:41:11.659 --> 00:41:13.639 of Brahms too, though he was much younger, so 00:41:13.639 --> 00:41:17.260 he lived much longer. But I got collections of 00:41:17.260 --> 00:41:21.340 all his works. And for the Brahms Piano Concerto 00:41:21.340 --> 00:41:26.679 No. 2, he had a description in there of the sense 00:41:26.679 --> 00:41:30.760 was mighty wings flapping. And I thought, oh, 00:41:30.780 --> 00:41:34.079 that's an interesting analogy, you know. But 00:41:34.079 --> 00:41:36.400 I hadn't heard those wings flapping when I listened. 00:41:36.639 --> 00:41:38.989 But then when he, after I had heard... i had 00:41:38.989 --> 00:41:41.730 read that i went back to the symphony this was 00:41:41.730 --> 00:41:44.610 during the scherzo the second movement and i 00:41:44.610 --> 00:41:47.250 thought oh that's what he was talking about those 00:41:47.250 --> 00:41:50.110 are the wings he was talking about and he actually 00:41:50.110 --> 00:41:52.690 said there are three ways to talk about music 00:41:52.690 --> 00:41:55.349 first you can just talk about the number of movements 00:41:55.349 --> 00:41:57.730 the length of each movement things like that 00:41:57.730 --> 00:42:00.969 in the second you can talk about where the modulations 00:42:00.969 --> 00:42:03.489 come in how they are where the repetitions come 00:42:03.489 --> 00:42:06.170 in how they are changed where they are varied 00:42:06.170 --> 00:42:12.400 and the third is this visual effect that music 00:42:12.400 --> 00:42:17.000 has. So I tried to get some of that into my writing 00:42:17.000 --> 00:42:20.320 when I was talking about Brahms's works as well. 00:42:20.460 --> 00:42:22.619 These are, of course, my own visualizations, 00:42:22.659 --> 00:42:28.420 but it came from reading Tovi. I was actually 00:42:28.420 --> 00:42:31.719 curious, growing up in India, that you weren't 00:42:31.719 --> 00:42:34.300 listening to more classical Indian music as opposed 00:42:34.300 --> 00:42:38.400 to Western European music. No, I'm afraid... 00:42:38.400 --> 00:42:42.440 See, I'm a Parsi, which is a very small group 00:42:42.440 --> 00:42:47.960 of... It's a minuscule part of the Indian population. 00:42:48.219 --> 00:42:54.179 It's like 0 .006%. And it's a dying race simply 00:42:54.179 --> 00:42:59.559 because religion disallows them to mingle with... 00:43:00.340 --> 00:43:03.679 foreigners. And they don't allow converts. You 00:43:03.679 --> 00:43:06.320 have to have a Parsi father and a Parsi mother 00:43:06.320 --> 00:43:09.639 in order to have a Parsi son. And people keep 00:43:09.639 --> 00:43:13.539 marrying out of the religion. And so it is becoming... 00:43:13.539 --> 00:43:18.619 So the Parsis, they came to India in the 7th 00:43:18.619 --> 00:43:23.039 century. They were running from

the Arab explosion. 00:43:23.440 --> 00:43:25.840 The Arabs were conquering everything in those 00:43:25.840 --> 00:43:29.219 days. And if you wanted to maintain your religion 00:43:29.219 --> 00:43:31.539 and if you wanted to maintain your life, you 00:43:31.539 --> 00:43:34.059 had to leave the country, essentially. And they 00:43:34.059 --> 00:43:37.420 left. They followed the old trading routes. They 00:43:37.420 --> 00:43:41.300 landed on the west coast of India. And many of 00:43:41.300 --> 00:43:44.039 them are now still... The largest concentration 00:43:44.039 --> 00:43:47.340 of Parsis in the world is in Bombay. But there's 00:43:47.340 --> 00:43:49.659 also a large group of them now in Chicago, in 00:43:49.659 --> 00:43:52.980 Toronto, near... where you are, and Houston. 00:43:53.099 --> 00:43:55.440 The largest group of Parsis outside of Bombay 00:43:55.440 --> 00:43:59.880 is in Toronto, interestingly enough. And so what 00:43:59.880 --> 00:44:03.699 they did to survive in part, initially they acclimatized 00:44:03.699 --> 00:44:05.699 themselves to the Hindus, who were the dominant 00:44:05.699 --> 00:44:09.460 religion at that time. Then when the Mughals 00:44:09.460 --> 00:44:13.099 came in, the Muslims, they acclimatized themselves 00:44:13.099 --> 00:44:17.360 to the Mughals. This was their mode of survival. 00:44:17.760 --> 00:44:20.179 And then when the British came, they were, of 00:44:20.179 --> 00:44:23.119 course, very British. And the British, of course, 00:44:23.159 --> 00:44:25.780 brought Western classical music with them. And 00:44:25.780 --> 00:44:29.139 in order for the Parsis to maintain this, they 00:44:29.139 --> 00:44:32.079 aped the British in many ways because they wanted 00:44:32.079 --> 00:44:34.300 to be... And they were also lighter -skinned 00:44:34.300 --> 00:44:39.320 because they were from Iran originally. And so 00:44:39.320 --> 00:44:42.480 they didn't really pay much attention to Indian 00:44:42.480 --> 00:44:45.199 classical music at all. If anything, they denigrated 00:44:45.199 --> 00:44:49.019 it. To their discredit, as far as I'm concerned, 00:44:49.099 --> 00:44:51.719 because there is a great deal. I did learn about 00:44:51.719 --> 00:44:54.440 Indian classical music through Yehudi Manueno 00:44:54.440 --> 00:44:59.219 people. But so anyway, there was no Indian classical 00:44:59.219 --> 00:45:02.800 music in my growth when I was growing up. I learned 00:45:02.800 --> 00:45:06.820 about that as an adult. Interesting. I'd like 00:45:06.820 --> 00:45:09.860 to ask you about Diana Attil. I was fascinated 00:45:09.860 --> 00:45:12.699 to learn about her. And she published your first... 00:45:12.889 --> 00:45:15.050 Well, the first published novel was The Memory 00:45:15.050 --> 00:45:19.909 of Elephants. Yes. Yes. Do you want me to mention 00:45:19.909 --> 00:45:24.969 how that came about? Yes, please do. Oh. Hi, 00:45:25.090 --> 00:45:27.730 just a quick break from the episode. Please note 00:45:27.730 --> 00:45:30.989 I've linked a few suggested episodes in the show 00:45:30.989 --> 00:45:34.590 notes for you with Martha Antole, Heather Tabes, 00:45:34.610 --> 00:45:38.409 Michael Stephen Brown, Thomas Cabaniss, Gail 00:45:38.409 --> 00:45:42.599 Strom, Gabriel Kahane, and Scott Nygaard. among 00:45:42.599 --> 00:45:47.300 so many episodes since 2021. Sign up for my newsletter 00:45:47.300 --> 00:45:49.980 where you'll get exclusive information about 00:45:49.980 --> 00:45:52.739 upcoming guests. Consider buying me a coffee 00:45:52.739 --> 00:45:55.559 on my Ko -fi page or buying some unique podcast 00:45:55.559 --> 00:45:59.320 merch. You can also review this podcast, share 00:45:59.320 --> 00:46:02.219 it with your friends, and follow on your podcast 00:46:02.219 --> 00:46:06.400 app, YouTube, and social media. All this helps 00:46:06.400 --> 00:46:10.059 spread the word. Thanks. Now, back to my conversation 00:46:10.059 --> 00:46:18.230 with Bowman. I was working full -time at Sears 00:46:18.230 --> 00:46:22.409 Roebuck as a market analyst trainee, meaning 00:46:22.409 --> 00:46:25.829 I was waiting for an analyst to die so I could 00:46:25.829 --> 00:46:28.710 take their place, pretty much like Brahms' father 00:46:28.710 --> 00:46:31.289 was waiting for a bass player to die so he could 00:46:31.289 --> 00:46:37.349 take his place. I had written a 200 -page novel 00:46:37.349 --> 00:46:40.590 at that point, and it had been declined by five 00:46:40.590 --> 00:46:43.849 publishers. Just five. That's nothing. But I 00:46:43.849 --> 00:46:46.349 saw friends of mine shooting ahead with their 00:46:46.349 --> 00:46:48.750 lives, you know, married and children and so 00:46:48.750 --> 00:46:52.869 on and so forth. And I figured I better get on 00:46:52.869 --> 00:46:56.550 the stick and do something for myself. So I... 00:46:56.969 --> 00:46:58.909 Went back to my office manager. I was working 00:46:58.909 --> 00:47:00.630 part -time while I was writing this book. And 00:47:00.630 --> 00:47:02.690 I said, I want to go back to working full -time. 00:47:03.130 --> 00:47:06.409 And she said, okay, but you have to dress the 00:47:06.409 --> 00:47:08.130 part. In those days, I was wearing headbands 00:47:08.130 --> 00:47:11.630 to work, sandals, which was absolutely a no -no. 00:47:11.809 --> 00:47:14.949 She said, dress the part. And when there is room, 00:47:15.050 --> 00:47:17.489 we know your work. We know you. So when there 00:47:17.489 --> 00:47:19.809 is room, when we need somebody, you would be 00:47:19.809 --> 00:47:22.289 the first person that we would come across. So 00:47:22.289 --> 00:47:24.349 I was going through the paces at that point. 00:47:25.050 --> 00:47:29.889 But what happened was Sir Edmund Hillary, the 00:47:29.889 --> 00:47:34.130 first gentleman to climb Mount Everest, had an 00:47:34.130 --> 00:47:37.769 office in the Sears Tower. I was on the 35th 00:47:37.769 --> 00:47:40.849 floor, he was on the 37th floor.

And Sears had 00:47:40.849 --> 00:47:44.309 hired him to lead an expedition of a boat that 00:47:44.309 --> 00:47:48.389 they were selling from the mouth of the River 00:47:48.389 --> 00:47:54.130 Ganges in the Bay of Bengal. to its source in 00:47:54.130 --> 00:47:57.849 the Himalayas. He headed this expedition of four 00:47:57.849 --> 00:48:00.809 boats. They made a movie of it, calling it From 00:48:00.809 --> 00:48:07.909 the Ocean to the Sky, and they showed it on PBS 00:48:07.909 --> 00:48:12.429 in 1978 or so, but they had a preview in the 00:48:12.429 --> 00:48:16.889 tower, and I saw the preview. And on the way 00:48:16.889 --> 00:48:20.389 down from the 37th to the 35th floor, I was in 00:48:20.389 --> 00:48:22.750 the elevator with just one other, he was a senior 00:48:22.750 --> 00:48:26.349 market analyst. And these are huge floors and 00:48:26.349 --> 00:48:30.389 we hardly know one another, but we know one another 00:48:30.389 --> 00:48:33.570 by our faces, by the nameplates. And he looked 00:48:33.570 --> 00:48:38.420 very thoughtful and just... curiosity I said 00:48:38.420 --> 00:48:43.380 something on your mind and he said no but just 00:48:43.380 --> 00:48:45.800 you know that I saw this we've seen this movie 00:48:45.800 --> 00:48:49.840 and I can't help comparing myself with Sir Edmund 00:48:49.840 --> 00:48:54.300 for him every day is an adventure and he's 10 00:48:54.300 --> 00:48:57.760 years older than I am whereas for me it's the 00:48:57.760 --> 00:49:02.059 same routine every day and I was just sort of 00:49:02.059 --> 00:49:04.780 laughing and I He said, well, what did you want 00:49:04.780 --> 00:49:07.239 to do? Did you want to climb mountains? And he 00:49:07.239 --> 00:49:09.559 said, no, I'm not that adventurous. But I do 00:49:09.559 --> 00:49:12.880 wish I had written one good book. And by that 00:49:12.880 --> 00:49:15.440 time, we reached our floor. And I said, well, 00:49:15.579 --> 00:49:17.860 when you retire. And he said, of course, everyone 00:49:17.860 --> 00:49:20.960 writes books when they retire. And then six months 00:49:20.960 --> 00:49:24.739 later, he died of a heart attack. And my first 00:49:24.739 --> 00:49:26.920 thought, he was only his mid -50s at that point. 00:49:27.039 --> 00:49:29.340 And my first thought was, he's never going to 00:49:29.340 --> 00:49:32.039 write his book. My second thought was, I'm never 00:49:32.039 --> 00:49:35.300 going to write my book if I stay with this job, 00:49:35.400 --> 00:49:39.119 this position. And I went back to the office 00:49:39.119 --> 00:49:41.619 manager and I said, I'm sorry, I would like a 00:49:41.619 --> 00:49:44.880 part -time job again and I have to write my book. 00:49:45.420 --> 00:49:47.760 And she said, well, you know, you're going to 00:49:47.760 --> 00:49:52.260 be demoted, which means lower pay. You're going 00:49:52.260 --> 00:49:54.079 to be part -time again, which again means lesser 00:49:54.079 --> 00:49:57.000 pay. And as a part -timer, I would lose my benefits, 00:49:57.219 --> 00:50:01.039 which again... It was something to think about, 00:50:01.139 --> 00:50:03.420 but I told myself it was only going to get more 00:50:03.420 --> 00:50:08.139 difficult as I went on. And I took the part -time. 00:50:08.280 --> 00:50:10.860 I started working. I was a secretary for the 00:50:10.860 --> 00:50:13.780 chief economist at Sears at the time. We became 00:50:13.780 --> 00:50:16.079 good friends. He even came to Mumbai with me 00:50:16.079 --> 00:50:20.699 once, which I was very happy about too. But for 00:50:20.699 --> 00:50:26.099 10 years, I... I wrote my book. It was 800, well, 00:50:26.159 --> 00:50:28.639 it was 400 pages. But in those days with electric 00:50:28.639 --> 00:50:31.780 typewriters, I typed the whole thing from beginning 00:50:31.780 --> 00:50:35.500 to end twice to get a clean copy. And then it 00:50:35.500 --> 00:50:38.460 was declined by about 40 publishers in the space 00:50:38.460 --> 00:50:41.760 of four months. And this just knocked me out. 00:50:41.820 --> 00:50:44.440 I had a syncope. I just passed out at work. I 00:50:44.440 --> 00:50:47.619 was taken to the hospital. And I was given two 00:50:47.619 --> 00:50:52.360 weeks off from work to recover. And I had read 00:50:52.360 --> 00:50:55.280 an article, I forget where, either the Wall Street 00:50:55.280 --> 00:50:58.599 Journal or Time magazine or maybe the New York 00:50:58.599 --> 00:51:02.400 Times, about this woman, Diana Attil, who had 00:51:02.400 --> 00:51:07.059 edited and published and discovered V .S. Naipaul, 00:51:07.179 --> 00:51:10.199 who went on to win the Nobel at a much later 00:51:10.199 --> 00:51:13.460 date. But at that point, my thinking was, she 00:51:13.460 --> 00:51:15.800 published one Indian, maybe she'll publish another. 00:51:16.099 --> 00:51:19.659 And also, she was based in the UK, and I thought 00:51:19.659 --> 00:51:22.880 maybe the old colonial ties would stand me in 00:51:22.880 --> 00:51:27.420 better stead in the UK than in the US. So during 00:51:27.420 --> 00:51:30.559 these two weeks that I was on my back, essentially, 00:51:30.780 --> 00:51:34.340 I wrote to her. And I sent her the prologue, 00:51:34.340 --> 00:51:38.019 and she wrote back almost immediately to say 00:51:38.019 --> 00:51:39.820 she'd like to read the rest of the manuscript. 00:51:40.480 --> 00:51:43.239 And I sent her the rest of the manuscript, and 00:51:43.239 --> 00:51:47.019 she again was very... Those were letters. We 00:51:47.019 --> 00:51:49.679 weren't talking about emails in those days. And 00:51:49.679 --> 00:51:51.420 she wrote back to say they wanted to publish 00:51:51.420 --> 00:51:54.460 the manuscript, and it was getting a second reading, 00:51:54.539 --> 00:51:57.409 but if she approved... that was all that was 00:51:57.409 --> 00:52:00.090 really necessary and i would be hearing from 00:52:00.090 --> 00:52:04.389 the chairman of the firm sooner or later i thought

00:52:04.389 --> 00:52:06.630 he was going to call to talk about time lines 00:52:06.630 --> 00:52:08.650 and when it would be published and the cover 00:52:08.650 --> 00:52:11.429 and things like that Instead, he offered me an 00:52:11.429 --> 00:52:14.670 advance, which was half a year's salary. And 00:52:14.670 --> 00:52:17.489 I was struck dumb. I couldn't even, I couldn't 00:52:17.489 --> 00:52:20.349 speak literally. I was at my desk at work and 00:52:20.349 --> 00:52:23.050 he was calling from London. And I wrote the figure 00:52:23.050 --> 00:52:26.289 down on my calendar. I still have that page because 00:52:26.289 --> 00:52:28.929 I thought, I'm not going to believe this later 00:52:28.929 --> 00:52:31.510 on. And he said, isn't that enough? This very 00:52:31.510 --> 00:52:34.989 deep English voice. And I said, oh, yes, yes. 00:52:35.190 --> 00:52:38.250 I was about to say, I would have paid you to 00:52:38.250 --> 00:52:41.139 publish the book. I didn't say that. And I said, 00:52:41.159 --> 00:52:43.099 thank you. And he said, no, thank you. And I 00:52:43.099 --> 00:52:44.940 said, no, thank you. And this went back and forth 00:52:44.940 --> 00:52:48.019 for a while. And then things got a whole lot 00:52:48.019 --> 00:52:52.000 better. I mean, it wasn't easy sailing by a long 00:52:52.000 --> 00:52:55.099 shot even after that. It was 13 years before 00:52:55.099 --> 00:52:58.920 the book was published finally in the US by the 00:52:58.920 --> 00:53:01.900 University of Chicago Press. But even so, things 00:53:01.900 --> 00:53:05.699 were never quite that bad again. And then the 00:53:05.699 --> 00:53:09.730 rest of the work came about too. So that book 00:53:09.730 --> 00:53:11.750 is The Memory of Elephants that you're speaking 00:53:11.750 --> 00:53:15.170 about. Yes, and the title is really a metaphor 00:53:15.170 --> 00:53:18.570 for the memory of the Parsis, the Zoroastrians, 00:53:18.630 --> 00:53:21.429 whom I just spoke about. That prologue is the 00:53:21.429 --> 00:53:25.110 story of how they fled Persia, which is Iran 00:53:25.110 --> 00:53:29.730 today, to come to India. And the rest of the 00:53:29.730 --> 00:53:32.550 book is three generations based on my family, 00:53:32.690 --> 00:53:37.219 of my grandmother at one point, she was in her 00:53:37.219 --> 00:53:40.440 90s at this point, had sent me a care package. 00:53:40.500 --> 00:53:44.519 This was in the 1970s. She sent me tins of Indian 00:53:44.519 --> 00:53:47.280 food because she thought I would miss it. Initially, 00:53:47.340 --> 00:53:49.880 there wasn't that much Indian food in Chicago, 00:53:50.119 --> 00:53:52.860 but gradually, I mean, now we have Indian food 00:53:52.860 --> 00:53:55.139 to match anything in Bombay or Mumbai, as it's 00:53:55.139 --> 00:53:58.010 called now. And I told her, you don't need to 00:53:58.010 --> 00:53:59.949 send this anymore. You know, we can get this 00:53:59.949 --> 00:54:02.369 food here. And she said, so what else should 00:54:02.369 --> 00:54:05.250 I send you? And I said, I'd like a new photograph 00:54:05.250 --> 00:54:09.030 of yourself. So my mother told me she got up 00:54:09.030 --> 00:54:11.369 at five in the morning and dolled herself up 00:54:11.369 --> 00:54:13.829 for this photograph. And I still have the photograph, 00:54:14.050 --> 00:54:15.849 of course. And then she said, now what do you 00:54:15.849 --> 00:54:18.940 want? and i remembered that when she was younger 00:54:18.940 --> 00:54:22.099 she had written a number of plays in which she 00:54:22.099 --> 00:54:25.500 had acted herself these were all in gujarati 00:54:25.500 --> 00:54:28.579 which is not a language i speak fluently or hardly 00:54:28.579 --> 00:54:33.099 at all any more But I asked her to write down 00:54:33.099 --> 00:54:36.139 the story of her life as much as she could remember. 00:54:36.719 --> 00:54:41.119 And she had also traveled to the UK, again, speaking 00:54:41.119 --> 00:54:44.840 no English, and to the Far East. Her son, my 00:54:44.840 --> 00:54:47.260 father, was in the UK at this point, so he was 00:54:47.260 --> 00:54:50.380 able to help her once she was there. And she 00:54:50.380 --> 00:54:53.920 traveled all over Europe with him, too. But on 00:54:53.920 --> 00:54:56.099 the ship, there was nobody that she could really... 00:54:56.409 --> 00:54:58.349 talked to. There might have some other Parsis, 00:54:58.349 --> 00:55:00.750 but that was about it. And the Far East, she 00:55:00.750 --> 00:55:02.710 had spent time, and she wrote about all of these 00:55:02.710 --> 00:55:04.969 things. And they were all, they're still in the 00:55:04.969 --> 00:55:08.550 library of the town in which she grew up. And 00:55:08.550 --> 00:55:11.309 I asked her to write the story of her life. She 00:55:11.309 --> 00:55:14.670 was born in 1884, which was the year before Brahms 00:55:14.670 --> 00:55:16.630 wrote his Fourth Symphony, which is how I remember 00:55:16.630 --> 00:55:20.949 it. Brahms and my grandmother were on the same 00:55:20.949 --> 00:55:25.659 planet at the same time. But she was in her 90s. 00:55:26.039 --> 00:55:31.400 She died in 1984. And I visited in 1985 from 00:55:31.400 --> 00:55:35.739 Chicago. And my mother had translated all this 00:55:35.739 --> 00:55:39.099 Gujarati into English at this point. So I was 00:55:39.099 --> 00:55:42.019 praying that this was worth something, that I 00:55:42.019 --> 00:55:45.139 could use it. Because she was in her 90s. But 00:55:45.139 --> 00:55:47.900 it was beautiful. It was perfect. And that really 00:55:47.900 --> 00:55:51.340 provided me with the first... part of the book, 00:55:51.480 --> 00:55:54.059 The Memory of Elephants. And then I thought, 00:55:54.099 --> 00:55:55.940 well, now I have to fill it out with the rest 00:55:55.940 --> 00:55:59.340 of the family. And I sat my mother down and I 00:55:59.340 --> 00:56:02.139 recorded everything she could remember of her 00:56:02.139 --> 00:56:05.800 childhood,

her courtship with my father. And 00:56:05.800 --> 00:56:10.320 that was how the book... But she said, you can't 00:56:10.320 --> 00:56:13.019 say this because this really happened and we 00:56:13.019 --> 00:56:15.059 don't want people to... So I said, no, that's 00:56:15.059 --> 00:56:17.880 all right. I'll make it up. So I made up things 00:56:17.880 --> 00:56:21.159 to compensate for that. And then she said, now 00:56:21.159 --> 00:56:23.800 everybody will think this is true. So I said, 00:56:23.820 --> 00:56:26.960 but you can't have it both ways. You can't tell 00:56:26.960 --> 00:56:29.900 me to make up stories and then tell me not to 00:56:29.900 --> 00:56:32.199 write the real story. It has to be one or the 00:56:32.199 --> 00:56:34.320 other, you know. So, I mean, that was just a 00:56:34.320 --> 00:56:37.500 little fun along the way. But even my cousins, 00:56:37.780 --> 00:56:40.980 many people in the family didn't want to read 00:56:40.980 --> 00:56:44.940 the book because they thought, well. They just 00:56:44.940 --> 00:56:47.000 don't understand why people write books or music. 00:56:47.059 --> 00:56:49.940 They attend the concerts and they'll read the 00:56:49.940 --> 00:56:54.719 bestsellers, but they're not readers or musicians 00:56:54.719 --> 00:56:57.460 in their own right, aside from my brother now. 00:56:57.940 --> 00:57:00.619 And my cousin in London was very sympathetic, 00:57:00.800 --> 00:57:05.059 nevertheless, you know. And so that was how the 00:57:05.059 --> 00:57:08.239 memory, oh, so Memory of Elephants, it's a metaphor 00:57:08.239 --> 00:57:12.500 for the long -term memory of the narrator of 00:57:12.500 --> 00:57:18.099 this. story yeah yeah so you've written quite 00:57:18.099 --> 00:57:20.679 a number of historical novels some are early 00:57:20.679 --> 00:57:24.119 20th century mid 20th century there was one I 00:57:24.119 --> 00:57:26.420 was curious oh yeah about a circus troupe the 00:57:26.420 --> 00:57:32.099 elephant graveyard how did that come about oh 00:57:32.099 --> 00:57:37.500 it was very actually by this time I had written 00:57:37.500 --> 00:57:39.699 two other novels that I was very happy with too 00:57:39.699 --> 00:57:42.619 and I was wondering what to write next And I 00:57:42.619 --> 00:57:45.960 call this the elephant grave. The elephant, he's 00:57:45.960 --> 00:57:49.599 always the, well, not the real live animal, of 00:57:49.599 --> 00:57:54.539 course, but the, I had elephant bookends. I had 00:57:54.539 --> 00:57:57.179 elephant paper cutter, you know, made of ivory, 00:57:57.300 --> 00:58:03.380 no less. I used to draw pictures. My uncle and 00:58:03.380 --> 00:58:07.320 aunt lived in Hong Kong, and I visited them when 00:58:07.320 --> 00:58:10.440 I was five years old. And my uncle said apparently 00:58:10.440 --> 00:58:13.820 one evening, one afternoon, I had secreted myself 00:58:13.820 --> 00:58:16.719 again under the bed and drawn pictures of elephants, 00:58:16.840 --> 00:58:20.119 one after the other. So elephants were sort of 00:58:20.119 --> 00:58:22.699 always part. And when I had my naujot, which 00:58:22.699 --> 00:58:25.659 is the equivalent of a bar mitzvah or a confirmation, 00:58:26.139 --> 00:58:29.849 I was asked by this friend of my parents, what 00:58:29.849 --> 00:58:33.130 I wanted for a present. And I said, I'd like 00:58:33.130 --> 00:58:34.889 an elephant. She said, we can't get you an elephant. 00:58:35.070 --> 00:58:37.869 I said, no, a small elephant, meaning about that 00:58:37.869 --> 00:58:42.019 large. I had seen a jade elephant in her. apartment. 00:58:42.019 --> 00:58:44.199 And she said, oh, you can have these. My mother 00:58:44.199 --> 00:58:45.840 said, no, no, no, you can't take other people's 00:58:45.840 --> 00:58:48.179 things. And so she got me a wooden elephant, 00:58:48.260 --> 00:58:50.320 which was pretty, we still have those actually. 00:58:50.719 --> 00:58:52.840 So elephants, and so when I was thinking about 00:58:52.840 --> 00:58:54.920 what shall I write about, I thought, well, let 00:58:54.920 --> 00:58:57.019 me write a book centered around the elephant. 00:58:57.360 --> 00:58:59.980 So as with Brahms, where I read everything written 00:58:59.980 --> 00:59:02.679 about Brahms, I read everything I could find 00:59:02.679 --> 00:59:05.820 out about elephants. And I reread Moby Dick. 00:59:06.300 --> 00:59:09.820 twice, because I wanted to see how he used the 00:59:09.820 --> 00:59:12.199 whale and I was using the elephant in similar 00:59:12.199 --> 00:59:15.860 terms. Initially, I was going to set it in a 00:59:15.860 --> 00:59:19.400 zoo. And then I thought, no, a circus is far 00:59:19.400 --> 00:59:23.760 more interesting, far more exhilarating. And 00:59:23.760 --> 00:59:25.960 then I started reading everything I could find 00:59:25.960 --> 00:59:30.500 about circuses. And my boss at that time, again, 00:59:30.599 --> 00:59:34.039 this was when I was at Sears. I was working part 00:59:34.039 --> 00:59:37.039 -time again at Sears at this point. He used to 00:59:37.039 --> 00:59:39.940 holiday in Florida, and that's where the circuses 00:59:39.940 --> 00:59:43.460 used to have their bases when they went. And 00:59:43.460 --> 00:59:45.440 so he brought me a couple of books that were 00:59:45.440 --> 00:59:48.000 filled with circus lingo and circus stories and 00:59:48.000 --> 00:59:51.260 things. So I became something of an expert on 00:59:51.260 --> 00:59:55.239 circuses, but I wanted to have a one -on -one 00:59:55.239 --> 00:59:59.880 relationship, if not a relationship, an encounter, 01:00:00.000 --> 01:00:03.719 let's say, with an elephant. So I went to the 01:00:03.719 --> 01:00:07.739 Brookfield Zoo. in chicago and i went to the 01:00:07.739 --> 01:00:10.300 person who minded the elephants her name was 01:00:10.300 --> 01:00:13.980 amy or amy something it's in the book anyway 01:00:13.980 --> 01:00:16.340 in the aftermath in the afterword to the book

01:00:16.340 --> 01:00:19.139 and i i told her the whole story and she said 01:00:19.139 --> 01:00:22.090 i said i'd like to meet The elephant, one -on 01:00:22.090 --> 01:00:25.170 -one. And she said, sure. She said, the elephants 01:00:25.170 --> 01:00:27.110 were out on the paddock at this point. And she 01:00:27.110 --> 01:00:29.469 said, why don't you go inside where the cages 01:00:29.469 --> 01:00:31.889 were, you know, for the night and wait for me 01:00:31.889 --> 01:00:35.250 there. And there's the cage, the elephant's cage. 01:00:35.409 --> 01:00:37.929 Then there's a narrow, well, it's narrow, but 01:00:37.929 --> 01:00:40.510 it's large enough for an elephant to walk sideways. 01:00:41.250 --> 01:00:44.190 And beyond that was the door that led to the 01:00:44.190 --> 01:00:47.739 paddock. And she said, wait for me, I'll join 01:00:47.739 --> 01:00:50.980 you in a minute. So I went inside and I was waiting 01:00:50.980 --> 01:00:55.599 in the cage, right at the door of the cage, for 01:00:55.599 --> 01:00:58.280 the elephant to come in. And he started coming. 01:00:58.500 --> 01:01:00.920 And I thought, where is the owner? I was getting 01:01:00.920 --> 01:01:02.639 a little scared because he was getting larger 01:01:02.639 --> 01:01:06.099 and larger as he came closer and closer. And 01:01:06.099 --> 01:01:08.420 finally he had reached the second door, so we 01:01:08.420 --> 01:01:11.119 were maybe about a couple of yards when she showed 01:01:11.119 --> 01:01:14.150 up. And, I mean, it was fine. She'd brought some 01:01:14.150 --> 01:01:17.909 baguettes with her and rolls, and I fed the elephant, 01:01:18.010 --> 01:01:24.349 and I touched his trunk. And that was my encounter 01:01:24.349 --> 01:01:26.590 with the elephant. I mean, it didn't really find 01:01:26.590 --> 01:01:30.559 a place in the novel. But that was as much as 01:01:30.559 --> 01:01:32.719 I wanted to do. There's also an encounter with 01:01:32.719 --> 01:01:36.500 a cobra in the same novel. And I went to another 01:01:36.500 --> 01:01:40.880 one of our zoos. And cobras are really slimy. 01:01:41.199 --> 01:01:45.400 And the owner even told me, she said, don't be 01:01:45.400 --> 01:01:47.440 careful because it can be poisonous. I said, 01:01:47.460 --> 01:01:49.380 what, the skin can? She said, yes, the slime 01:01:49.380 --> 01:01:51.119 can be. I said, well, why didn't you tell me 01:01:51.119 --> 01:01:54.079 before? And she gave me some kind of special 01:01:54.079 --> 01:01:57.480 soap to wash my hands with. So that took care 01:01:57.480 --> 01:02:00.179 of that. But I'm not really an animal person. 01:02:00.280 --> 01:02:02.960 And I just did it for the books, essentially. 01:02:04.099 --> 01:02:10.380 Do you find, is it the most rewarding thing when 01:02:10.380 --> 01:02:12.019 you finally start to write when you've been doing 01:02:12.019 --> 01:02:17.719 so much research? No, finishing, finishing the 01:02:17.719 --> 01:02:20.599 book. And then it's never really finished. I 01:02:20.599 --> 01:02:24.809 keep going back. But that first complete draft 01:02:24.809 --> 01:02:28.750 is when I can breathe a sigh of relief finally. 01:02:29.630 --> 01:02:31.849 While I'm writing, you know, there are passages 01:02:31.849 --> 01:02:35.289 which I'm very excited about. And I will read 01:02:35.289 --> 01:02:37.510 those passages over and over. I mean, even now 01:02:37.510 --> 01:02:40.389 I will read passages over and over again. So 01:02:40.389 --> 01:02:46.510 I do go back to them. And it does a great, you 01:02:46.510 --> 01:02:50.340 know, I don't know how to put this, but... I 01:02:50.340 --> 01:02:52.760 really write in many ways for myself. I mean, 01:02:52.780 --> 01:02:54.900 I'm very glad to have people read them and enjoy 01:02:54.900 --> 01:02:58.300 them, but it's really a question of, I think 01:02:58.300 --> 01:03:01.139 each of us needs to find something in our lives 01:03:01.139 --> 01:03:06.000 that gives us faith in ourselves, boosts our 01:03:06.000 --> 01:03:08.860 own egos, in a sense. Now, if all my books had 01:03:08.860 --> 01:03:11.900 never been published, It would make no difference 01:03:11.900 --> 01:03:14.280 to the world, you know, but it would make a difference 01:03:14.280 --> 01:03:17.440 to me as a person. I wouldn't be the person I 01:03:17.440 --> 01:03:20.300 am if I hadn't written the books. I would be, 01:03:20.340 --> 01:03:23.539 in many ways, I think, a lesser person. So in 01:03:23.539 --> 01:03:26.239 that respect, I did it for myself more than anyone 01:03:26.239 --> 01:03:31.500 else. Now, I'm talking about, well, even someone 01:03:31.500 --> 01:03:35.489 like Tolstoy. Tolstoy is my favorite novelist, 01:03:35.489 --> 01:03:37.389 I have to say. Although I don't have favorite 01:03:37.389 --> 01:03:40.289 novelists as much as favorite books. And there 01:03:40.289 --> 01:03:43.630 are many books I like, but not necessarily all 01:03:43.630 --> 01:03:49.849 the books by that author. I believe that your 01:03:49.849 --> 01:03:52.889 book Trio we were speaking of earlier was compared 01:03:52.889 --> 01:03:57.170 to Tolstoy. Yes. I don't know how much I told 01:03:57.170 --> 01:04:01.000 you about that, but there was a... A philosopher 01:04:01.000 --> 01:04:07.019 professor at Harvard who emailed me to say, well, 01:04:07.059 --> 01:04:09.579 he enjoyed the book, and he was actually a singer 01:04:09.579 --> 01:04:12.539 in his own right as well, but he said this was 01:04:12.539 --> 01:04:16.860 the book Tolstoy would have written had he chosen 01:04:16.860 --> 01:04:20.099 my subject. And, of course, I was thrilled. But 01:04:20.099 --> 01:04:22.300 even, I don't know if I told you about, you know, 01:04:22.320 --> 01:04:26.190 in order to use that, At that point, Trio had 01:04:26.190 --> 01:04:28.590 been published in two separate volumes because 01:04:28.590 --> 01:04:30.530 they couldn't publish it in a single volume. 01:04:30.909 -->

01:04:33.769 And when I went ahead, when they were able to 01:04:33.769 --> 01:04:36.250 publish it in a single volume, I wanted permission 01:04:36.250 --> 01:04:41.250 to use that quote. But he had died in 2011, and 01:04:41.250 --> 01:04:44.909 this was 2015. So I got in touch with his publishers, 01:04:44.989 --> 01:04:48.010 and they said, well, he never married, he didn't 01:04:48.010 --> 01:04:50.869 have any descendants, so we're very sorry, but 01:04:50.869 --> 01:04:53.900 we can't help you with that. And I got in touch 01:04:53.900 --> 01:04:56.039 with the Harvard faculty, and they pretty much 01:04:56.039 --> 01:05:00.960 had the same story. And then somehow I got in 01:05:00.960 --> 01:05:04.320 touch with a hospital in Canada where he had 01:05:04.320 --> 01:05:08.099 died, and the nurse who had taken care of him 01:05:08.099 --> 01:05:11.539 when he died. And all of this was done with my 01:05:11.539 --> 01:05:13.780 computer on the telephone. This was armchair 01:05:13.780 --> 01:05:17.469 detective work, if you wish. And I said, would 01:05:17.469 --> 01:05:20.610 you please ask her to give me her information? 01:05:20.809 --> 01:05:24.409 She said, no. Well, no, what she said was there 01:05:24.409 --> 01:05:29.530 were two names in the register from people who 01:05:29.530 --> 01:05:32.869 had visited him. Their information was in there. 01:05:32.949 --> 01:05:34.730 So I said, would you please give it to me? And 01:05:34.730 --> 01:05:36.969 she said, no, I can't do that. That's personal, 01:05:37.070 --> 01:05:39.349 private. And I said, please get in touch with 01:05:39.349 --> 01:05:41.889 them and tell them the story and see if they 01:05:41.889 --> 01:05:45.739 would get in touch with me. And I had sort of 01:05:45.739 --> 01:05:48.159 given up hope at this point. But then I got an 01:05:48.159 --> 01:05:52.599 email from someone who called herself Star Nacht, 01:05:53.000 --> 01:05:56.940 Starry Night in German. And I thought this is 01:05:56.940 --> 01:06:01.460 some scam or spam or whatever. And I was about 01:06:01.460 --> 01:06:04.760 to delete it when I saw in the subject matter, 01:06:05.059 --> 01:06:09.300 Trio. And it turns out to be his executrix, who 01:06:09.300 --> 01:06:13.539 was a friend of his. And she said, yes, I know 01:06:13.539 --> 01:06:16.099 he was very fond of classical music and he had 01:06:16.099 --> 01:06:19.019 told me about your book. And yes, I'm sure he 01:06:19.019 --> 01:06:21.400 would be happy if you were to use it. So that 01:06:21.400 --> 01:06:23.980 was how that came about. I'm so thrilled with 01:06:23.980 --> 01:06:26.599 that. I mean, I literally got up and started 01:06:26.599 --> 01:06:30.789 dancing around the apartment. I really, I'm so 01:06:30.789 --> 01:06:33.010 curious to read so many of your novels, and I 01:06:33.010 --> 01:06:34.650 thought it would also be interesting for people 01:06:34.650 --> 01:06:37.750 to talk about a couple of the other ones. So, 01:06:37.750 --> 01:06:41.750 A Googly in the Compound, set in the early 20th 01:06:41.750 --> 01:06:47.889 century. Yes, how did that come about? Okay, 01:06:48.010 --> 01:06:53.170 to set the scene, the family, the Sanjana family 01:06:53.170 --> 01:06:58.090 is a Parsi family. living on the outskirts of 01:06:58.090 --> 01:07:01.809 Nausari, which is where many Parsis wound up 01:07:01.809 --> 01:07:07.590 after coming to India, have a tiger cub. In those 01:07:07.590 --> 01:07:11.170 days, well, a friend of theirs was a tiger hunter 01:07:11.170 --> 01:07:15.690 and he had killed a man -eater and brought the 01:07:15.690 --> 01:07:21.070 cubs back with him. And the family decides they'd 01:07:21.070 --> 01:07:26.179 like to keep the cubs until they grow to... adulthood 01:07:26.179 --> 01:07:30.420 and then they would give them to a zoo but they 01:07:30.420 --> 01:07:33.719 were fine enough to keep as cubs but they grew 01:07:33.719 --> 01:07:36.880 even in a year and a half to two years a tiger 01:07:36.880 --> 01:07:39.099 can get pretty dangerous without even knowing 01:07:39.099 --> 01:07:42.900 how dangerous he is and the Sanjanas lived in 01:07:42.900 --> 01:07:45.820 Mumbai but they visited Nausari which is where 01:07:45.820 --> 01:07:49.940 these cubs were being kept by the person who 01:07:49.940 --> 01:07:54.599 looked after their housekeeper And when they 01:07:54.599 --> 01:07:57.139 showed up this time, they were at a breakfast 01:07:57.139 --> 01:08:00.980 and they were letting the cub loose. And by the 01:08:00.980 --> 01:08:05.199 time he's growling and he has his own intentions 01:08:05.199 --> 01:08:10.440 of what he wants to do with his life, there's 01:08:10.440 --> 01:08:13.059 a great deal more involved. But each of the characters 01:08:13.059 --> 01:08:17.079 in this story, there is Dolly, who was based 01:08:17.079 --> 01:08:21.000 on my grandmother again, her husband. who was 01:08:21.000 --> 01:08:23.520 the brother of her first husband. So she married 01:08:23.520 --> 01:08:26.939 two husbands in turn. She married the second 01:08:26.939 --> 01:08:30.979 after the first one died. And she had two sons. 01:08:31.220 --> 01:08:34.460 And these two sons are also with her in this 01:08:34.460 --> 01:08:37.439 compound. There are five of them. And the older 01:08:37.439 --> 01:08:40.399 son is married to an English woman. And she has 01:08:40.399 --> 01:08:44.560 been stranded. She was stranded in India by the 01:08:44.560 --> 01:08:47.140 Second World War. She had come looking for a 01:08:47.140 --> 01:08:51.199 lost lover to Mumbai. And she found that her 01:08:51.199 --> 01:08:54.779 lover had already married somebody else. And 01:08:54.779 --> 01:08:57.720 she was left in Mumbai without any means because 01:08:57.720 --> 01:09:02.020 the war had closed the seaways behind her. And 01:09:02.020 --> 01:09:08.159 this guy, Saurabh, the son of Dali, Sanjana, 01:09:08.300 --> 01:09:11.859 sees her and he wants to marry

her. He has this, 01:09:11.920 --> 01:09:14.199 you know, the thing I was mentioning earlier 01:09:14.199 --> 01:09:17.949 about the... British and the Parsis, and one 01:09:17.949 --> 01:09:20.109 way of being British is, well, marrying a British 01:09:20.109 --> 01:09:23.050 woman. And she was in a difficult enough state 01:09:23.050 --> 01:09:26.970 being stranded in India without any means. And 01:09:26.970 --> 01:09:31.189 so that was how the marriage came about. There's 01:09:31.189 --> 01:09:33.729 a whole other story involved where she had an 01:09:33.729 --> 01:09:37.329 affair with the steward on board the ship when 01:09:37.329 --> 01:09:40.619 she was coming. And she was pregnant with him, 01:09:40.699 --> 01:09:44.060 with this second child, her first child, when 01:09:44.060 --> 01:09:46.819 she married. And her husband doesn't know about 01:09:46.819 --> 01:09:51.279 this, but this is a different story. It came 01:09:51.279 --> 01:09:54.220 about because I have, I can't find this photograph 01:09:54.220 --> 01:09:57.880 anymore, but my grandmother and my father, they 01:09:57.880 --> 01:10:00.319 had a picture of themselves taken with two tiger 01:10:00.319 --> 01:10:04.199 cubs in their hands. And I thought, well, what 01:10:04.199 --> 01:10:07.699 happened to those tiger cubs? And where was this? 01:10:07.930 --> 01:10:10.390 picture taken? And where is this picture now? 01:10:10.710 --> 01:10:13.350 And that was sort of what got me thinking about 01:10:13.350 --> 01:10:18.529 this particular story. And each of my characters 01:10:19.350 --> 01:10:22.729 has a story to tell. So again, as in Brahms Comes 01:10:22.729 --> 01:10:25.170 to Dinner, in Brahms Comes to Dinner, it's the 01:10:25.170 --> 01:10:28.569 dinner scene that threads the entire novel. And 01:10:28.569 --> 01:10:31.430 in this novel, which is called A Googly in the 01:10:31.430 --> 01:10:34.689 Compound, this breakfast scene threads the whole 01:10:34.689 --> 01:10:37.890 novel. And in between are the flashbacks which 01:10:37.890 --> 01:10:40.649 tell you about how each of those individual, 01:10:40.869 --> 01:10:43.850 five individual characters got to that particular 01:10:43.850 --> 01:10:48.909 place at that particular time. So... The structure 01:10:48.909 --> 01:10:52.109 is similar. And the scene progresses initially 01:10:52.109 --> 01:10:56.829 that Tiger is just being, you know, a pet. But 01:10:56.829 --> 01:11:03.310 something happens to inflame him in a very difficult 01:11:03.310 --> 01:11:05.850 and different direction. And I won't tell you 01:11:05.850 --> 01:11:07.609 more about that. In fact, one of my favorite 01:11:07.609 --> 01:11:09.970 readings from that is to read everything until 01:11:09.970 --> 01:11:12.489 the tiger gets enraged and then to stop at that 01:11:12.489 --> 01:11:16.989 point. Oh, and I should mention a googly. Do 01:11:16.989 --> 01:11:19.750 you know what a googly is? I looked it up. Okay. 01:11:19.890 --> 01:11:24.989 Well, I use it as an epigraph in the book itself, 01:11:25.170 --> 01:11:27.310 but of course Americans aren't familiar with 01:11:27.310 --> 01:11:30.529 it either. And a googly is a cricket term. It 01:11:30.529 --> 01:11:33.590 does for the ball, when it's been bowled, pretty 01:11:33.590 --> 01:11:38.609 much what a spin ball does for a ball in baseball. 01:11:39.100 --> 01:11:41.560 and so you expect the ball to go in a certain 01:11:41.560 --> 01:11:43.960 direction and then it turns in the other direction 01:11:43.960 --> 01:11:47.340 and a googly in the compound here of course is 01:11:47.340 --> 01:11:50.560 the metaphor for the tiger whom you expect to 01:11:50.560 --> 01:11:52.880 go one way and then he goes the other way so 01:11:52.880 --> 01:11:57.699 that was how that came about I'm curious do these 01:11:57.699 --> 01:12:01.319 big structures are they in your mind before you 01:12:01.319 --> 01:12:05.340 start to write these books? An overall structure 01:12:05.340 --> 01:12:07.579 is, but the individual... In fact, you know, 01:12:07.640 --> 01:12:12.000 each of these novels, it's currently the revised 01:12:12.000 --> 01:12:14.819 edition that's been published. The Memory of 01:12:14.819 --> 01:12:18.319 Elephants, I mentioned, was republished 13 years 01:12:18.319 --> 01:12:22.500 later by the University of Chicago. And it's 01:12:22.500 --> 01:12:27.079 a revised version of the original. And similarly, 01:12:27.399 --> 01:12:30.680 these two, not the Elephant Gravia, that was... 01:12:31.079 --> 01:12:34.520 That's the only publication. But Trio was initially 01:12:34.520 --> 01:12:37.039 published as two volumes, and then when I did 01:12:37.039 --> 01:12:40.479 the single volume, again, I revised a great deal, 01:12:40.539 --> 01:12:43.619 and so I'm very happy with the final single volume. 01:12:44.039 --> 01:12:47.140 And two other novels, this one, A Googly in the 01:12:47.140 --> 01:12:49.979 Compound, and another one called Portrait of 01:12:49.979 --> 01:12:53.199 a Woman Madly in Love, I published initially... 01:12:53.600 --> 01:12:56.840 for release only in India. And these were never 01:12:56.840 --> 01:13:00.500 published at that point in the US. And when I 01:13:00.500 --> 01:13:03.039 finally tried to publish them in the US, they 01:13:03.039 --> 01:13:06.359 said, well, these are old novels. We can't publish 01:13:06.359 --> 01:13:08.939 them anymore because everybody already knows 01:13:08.939 --> 01:13:10.260 them. And I said, no, they're only available 01:13:10.260 --> 01:13:13.439 in India. But they said, well, now with Google, 01:13:13.539 --> 01:13:15.500 et cetera, they're available everywhere. And 01:13:15.500 --> 01:13:17.960 I said, yeah, but nobody thinks about it even. 01:13:18.039 --> 01:13:20.000 You know, it's a brand new problem. But anyway, 01:13:20.100 --> 01:13:23.319 I didn't get any further with that. And I published 01:13:23.319 --> 01:13:26.760 them myself at that point. And fortunately

now 01:13:26.760 --> 01:13:30.479 with Amazon, whom I don't like on many accounts, 01:13:30.739 --> 01:13:37.579 but the publication is so easy. It's pretty straightforward 01:13:37.579 --> 01:13:42.079 and it's inexpensive. But the problem again is 01:13:42.079 --> 01:13:46.119 publicizing the work. Publicizing a work is very 01:13:46.119 --> 01:13:48.619 expensive. And something like what you're doing 01:13:48.619 --> 01:13:53.199 is invaluable as far as I'm concerned. So thank 01:13:53.199 --> 01:13:56.939 you for that. But these two novels, I republished 01:13:56.939 --> 01:13:59.800 in the States. And when I republished them, I 01:13:59.800 --> 01:14:03.079 revised them quite a bit, especially of Googling 01:14:03.079 --> 01:14:07.199 in the Compound. I added a whole scene there. 01:14:07.279 --> 01:14:10.079 And I added a whole scene in Portrait as well, 01:14:10.140 --> 01:14:14.579 but a smaller scene. So Portrait of a Woman Madly 01:14:14.579 --> 01:14:16.760 in Love is based on this high school teacher. 01:14:16.859 --> 01:14:18.720 I was just reading up a little bit about these 01:14:18.720 --> 01:14:22.479 books. So writing... From the point of view of 01:14:22.479 --> 01:14:25.340 a woman, as a man yourself, how did that work 01:14:25.340 --> 01:14:29.659 for you? You know, I don't have any idea what 01:14:29.659 --> 01:14:31.920 happened between the two of them. Absolutely 01:14:31.920 --> 01:14:37.699 no idea. But I had seen them once. I was 17, 01:14:38.020 --> 01:14:41.659 he was 17, a classmate of mine. I saw them walking 01:14:41.659 --> 01:14:45.159 side by side. And they weren't holding hands, 01:14:45.300 --> 01:14:48.359 they weren't looking at each other, and I remember 01:14:48.359 --> 01:14:52.199 being very impressed with his savoir -faire at 01:14:52.199 --> 01:14:54.699 that point, because I felt if I had been walking 01:14:54.699 --> 01:14:57.739 next to her, I would have been fidgety, I would 01:14:57.739 --> 01:15:00.100 have been bouncing on my feet, I would have been 01:15:00.100 --> 01:15:02.899 looking constantly to make sure she was still 01:15:02.899 --> 01:15:05.119 there, you know, that sort of a thing. So I was 01:15:05.119 --> 01:15:08.859 very impressed with that. Much later, after I 01:15:08.859 --> 01:15:11.420 had published The Memory of Elephants, and after 01:15:11.420 --> 01:15:14.739 my second book had been declined, I was thinking 01:15:14.739 --> 01:15:17.579 of more novels to write, and I remembered that 01:15:17.579 --> 01:15:20.079 one scene. And as I said, I knew nothing about 01:15:20.079 --> 01:15:24.140 what happened between them, but I undertook to 01:15:24.140 --> 01:15:27.399 make everything up. And when I undertook to make 01:15:27.399 --> 01:15:31.760 everything up, I went into my own life, which 01:15:31.760 --> 01:15:36.220 is how... in a sense this is my most autobiographical 01:15:36.220 --> 01:15:40.899 woman although i'm not gay i'm not transsexual 01:15:40.899 --> 01:15:44.359

i never even thought of it in those terms but 01:15:44.359 --> 01:15:47.880 she has a marriage and an affair before she winds 01:15:47.880 --> 01:15:52.520 up with a good happy ending let's say and i had 01:15:52.520 --> 01:15:57.729 a marriage and an affair and I haven't wound 01:15:57.729 --> 01:16:01.010 up with a happy ending yet, but that was the 01:16:01.010 --> 01:16:03.930 state of things. And unconsciously, I suppose, 01:16:03.989 --> 01:16:09.050 I was transmuting my life into hers. I didn't 01:16:09.050 --> 01:16:10.949 really think of it as my life while I was writing 01:16:10.949 --> 01:16:14.989 it, but it was after it was done that I recognized 01:16:14.989 --> 01:16:18.989 all these things. And even so, you know, in the 01:16:18.989 --> 01:16:21.100 first book, the first book was... which was published 01:16:21.100 --> 01:16:24.319 only in India, was called A Woman Madly in Love. 01:16:24.479 --> 01:16:27.039 When I republished it, I called it Portrait of 01:16:27.039 --> 01:16:30.460 a Woman Madly in Love. And I republished it because 01:16:30.460 --> 01:16:34.140 there was a woman on the fifth floor of the building 01:16:34.140 --> 01:16:37.239 in which I lived. I was on the third floor. She 01:16:37.239 --> 01:16:40.460 was in her 90s, and I was writing Trio at that 01:16:40.460 --> 01:16:43.699 time, and I would bump into her in the elevator 01:16:43.699 --> 01:16:47.359 every now and then. And we got talking, and she 01:16:47.359 --> 01:16:50.380 invited me to... I was... in the house. I wasn't 01:16:50.380 --> 01:16:52.279 going anywhere. For those three years that I 01:16:52.279 --> 01:16:56.800 wrote the first 1800 -page draft, I lived entirely 01:16:56.800 --> 01:17:01.439 off my savings. I was saving money on food, so 01:17:01.439 --> 01:17:04.380 I lost 20 pounds. I was saving money on haircuts, 01:17:04.460 --> 01:17:08.899 which is how my ponytail got started. And so 01:17:08.899 --> 01:17:11.100 I saw quite a bit of her. And she said at one 01:17:11.100 --> 01:17:12.779 point, she asked me what I was doing, and I told 01:17:12.779 --> 01:17:15.239 her I was a writer. And she invited me to her 01:17:15.239 --> 01:17:18.399 place. And she was a lovely old woman. She was, 01:17:18.460 --> 01:17:21.220 like I said, in her 90s. And she had eloped when 01:17:21.220 --> 01:17:24.600 she was 18 years old. She had an encounter with, 01:17:24.659 --> 01:17:28.159 of all people, Al Capone way back when. So she 01:17:28.159 --> 01:17:30.020 was telling me all these stories, which I've 01:17:30.020 --> 01:17:33.340 used in A Portrait of a Woman now because she 01:17:33.340 --> 01:17:36.640 became part of my story later. And what happened 01:17:36.640 --> 01:17:40.720 was... And she started having heart attacks. 01:17:41.159 --> 01:17:44.420 And she'd been to the doctor and the doctor had 01:17:44.420 --> 01:17:46.659 said, you know, you have only about three weeks 01:17:46.659 --> 01:17:51.359 to live if you don't have surgery right away. 01:17:51.960 --> 01:17:55.579 and she like i said she was 93 94 at that time 01:17:55.579 --> 01:17:57.739 and she said i've lived long enough i've lived 01:17:57.739 --> 01:18:00.640 a good life i don't you know three weeks is fine 01:18:00.640 --> 01:18:03.859 i but she said she had trouble i mean she had 01:18:03.859 --> 01:18:05.779 trouble just even taking the elevator to the 01:18:05.779 --> 01:18:08.279 ground floor to pick up her newspaper from the 01:18:08.279 --> 01:18:11.979 lobby and her mail and i said no worries i can 01:18:11.979 --> 01:18:15.260 do that for you you know and her groceries i 01:18:15.260 --> 01:18:17.319 got groceries she'd make a list and i would go 01:18:17.319 --> 01:18:21.140 and get them for her and i did this i thought 01:18:21.140 --> 01:18:24.000 three weeks no big deal but she lived for more 01:18:24.000 --> 01:18:27.159 than a year after that and and she was writing 01:18:27.159 --> 01:18:29.600 in her diaries at that point she said if you 01:18:29.600 --> 01:18:31.579 want you can use these diaries use them any way 01:18:31.579 --> 01:18:35.180 you want you know and after she finally did pass 01:18:35.180 --> 01:18:39.000 away i had i had all her diaries and whatnot 01:18:39.000 --> 01:18:42.300 and i remember thinking my character in the novel 01:18:43.070 --> 01:18:45.970 she was still a little too full of herself and 01:18:45.970 --> 01:18:47.930 i think i was a little too full of myself in 01:18:47.930 --> 01:18:51.710 some ways too at that point and this episode 01:18:51.710 --> 01:18:54.590 i was with wilma which was her name in the book 01:18:54.590 --> 01:18:57.390 it's alma but in real life it was wilma and i 01:18:57.390 --> 01:18:59.869 was with wilma once well through many of her 01:18:59.869 --> 01:19:02.729 heart attacks and i would give her ampoules of 01:19:02.729 --> 01:19:05.449 morphine which she would syringe into her mouth 01:19:05.449 --> 01:19:11.020 and there was one point she had She was suffering 01:19:11.020 --> 01:19:14.500 a heart attack for four hours. She just lay in 01:19:14.500 --> 01:19:18.079 her couch on her sofa on her back and she said, 01:19:18.119 --> 01:19:20.840 please let it stop, let it stop, you know. And 01:19:20.840 --> 01:19:23.539 all I could do was hold her hand, give her the 01:19:23.539 --> 01:19:26.439 ampoule. There was nothing I could do really 01:19:26.439 --> 01:19:31.979 to help. And this, you know, I saw her in a sense 01:19:31.979 --> 01:19:35.939 so close to death often enough. And this had 01:19:35.939 --> 01:19:40.479 an effect on the way I saw as well, and in the 01:19:40.479 --> 01:19:44.380 way Farida, my character. So I added this section 01:19:44.380 --> 01:19:48.420 in different parts along the novel of a portrait 01:19:48.420 --> 01:19:52.659 of a woman madly in love. So that was a benefit 01:19:52.659 --> 01:19:56.439 as far as I'm concerned in revising the story, 01:19:56.699 --> 01:20:00.840 the novel at that point. And

with a googly in 01:20:00.840 --> 01:20:03.279 the compound, there was one character who really 01:20:03.279 --> 01:20:05.960 didn't have much of a story. And I thought... 01:20:06.440 --> 01:20:08.800 you know, I need to get more of a story for this 01:20:08.800 --> 01:20:11.239 guy, but I was just out of ideas. And I told 01:20:11.239 --> 01:20:16.739 myself, maybe he's just too apathetic, too effete 01:20:16.739 --> 01:20:19.960 to have much of a life, you know. But then when 01:20:19.960 --> 01:20:21.979 I was in Mumbai at one point, I was visiting 01:20:21.979 --> 01:20:25.039 a friend of my mother's who had been in Burma 01:20:25.039 --> 01:20:28.420 during the Second World War. just before the 01:20:28.420 --> 01:20:32.579 Japanese came across the country. She was 13 01:20:32.579 --> 01:20:35.300 years old at the time. And her family, they were 01:20:35.300 --> 01:20:38.500 fairly well -to -do. And they took a boat from 01:20:38.500 --> 01:20:41.979 Rangoon, which is where they were living, to 01:20:41.979 --> 01:20:46.260 Chittagong, hugging the coastline of Burma until 01:20:46.260 --> 01:20:49.039 they got to Chittagong. And from there, a train 01:20:49.039 --> 01:20:52.880 to Calcutta and then into India. They kept her 01:20:52.880 --> 01:20:55.539 father back because he was a doctor and the British 01:20:55.539 --> 01:20:59.279 needed doctors for outbreaks of malaria or whatever. 01:20:59.979 --> 01:21:03.079 And then it just became impossible. The Japanese 01:21:03.079 --> 01:21:05.380 just broke through and everybody had to leave 01:21:05.380 --> 01:21:09.119 on their own account. And her father got into 01:21:09.119 --> 01:21:12.560 his jeep and he was finding his way as best he 01:21:12.560 --> 01:21:16.500 could. But four British Tommies held him up at 01:21:16.500 --> 01:21:18.420 gunpoint and got him out of the jeep, got into 01:21:18.420 --> 01:21:21.880 the jeep themselves. and drove off and he was 01:21:21.880 --> 01:21:25.659 left to his own devices at that point it's an 01:21:25.659 --> 01:21:28.739 amazing story but somehow he made his way back 01:21:28.739 --> 01:21:31.640 to calcutta and on the way he came across his 01:21:31.640 --> 01:21:35.100 jeep with each of the four british tommies with 01:21:35.100 --> 01:21:39.770 their throats cut in the car itself And I thought, 01:21:39.829 --> 01:21:44.010 this is my character's story. He somehow finds 01:21:44.010 --> 01:21:46.409 himself in Burma. And then I found out there 01:21:46.409 --> 01:21:50.170 was a division of a platoon of Indian soldiers 01:21:50.170 --> 01:21:52.609 who started in Pune, which is very close to Mumbai, 01:21:52.850 --> 01:21:55.649 which is where my character lived. Bombay at 01:21:55.649 --> 01:21:59.069 the time, it wasn't Mumbai then. And so I read 01:21:59.069 --> 01:22:04.819 there was an Ohioan missionary. a missionary 01:22:04.819 --> 01:22:08.500 doctor in Burma at the time, and his name was 01:22:08.500 --> 01:22:12.979 Seagrave. And I

got a hold of his memoirs, so 01:22:12.979 --> 01:22:14.979 I learned a little bit about how that took place. 01:22:15.239 --> 01:22:19.000 And there was an American general, Stilwell, 01:22:19.100 --> 01:22:22.159 General Joe Stilwell. They called him Vinegar 01:22:22.159 --> 01:22:26.899 Joe because of his tartary mouth, I guess. But 01:22:26.899 --> 01:22:31.130 he led an expedition. Burmese, Indians, Chinese, 01:22:31.470 --> 01:22:37.670 British, and Americans safely to life in Calcutta, 01:22:37.729 --> 01:22:42.789 all the way from Burma. And I read his diaries, 01:22:42.789 --> 01:22:46.729 his stories, and I realized my character had 01:22:46.729 --> 01:22:49.149 to somehow join his troop. Because, you know, 01:22:49.210 --> 01:22:52.949 out of all the people, out of all these refugees, 01:22:53.069 --> 01:22:57.699 only about... 10 % survived. Only about 10 % 01:22:57.699 --> 01:23:00.100 made the way. Otherwise, they died of starvation 01:23:00.100 --> 01:23:02.859 or killed by the Japanese along the way. But 01:23:02.859 --> 01:23:07.279 every single one of General Stilwell's contingent 01:23:07.279 --> 01:23:09.899 survived, including a dog by the name of James. 01:23:10.119 --> 01:23:12.260 They brought him along too. And the Chinese were 01:23:12.260 --> 01:23:14.359 very upset about this because they ate dogs and 01:23:14.359 --> 01:23:17.079 they were getting hungry. But they saved James 01:23:17.079 --> 01:23:20.079 as well at that point. So that was how Googly 01:23:20.079 --> 01:23:23.340 got revised. Boma, was that your grandfather, 01:23:23.640 --> 01:23:28.659 the doctor? No, this was my mother's friend's 01:23:28.659 --> 01:23:32.659 father who was the doctor. And she's still alive. 01:23:32.819 --> 01:23:36.180 I still see her in Mumbai. She's in her 90s now, 01:23:36.220 --> 01:23:38.500 too, of course. But I gave her a copy of A Googly 01:23:38.500 --> 01:23:40.640 in the Compound, so she was quite thrilled with 01:23:40.640 --> 01:23:47.000 that, too. Speaking of older women, we went very 01:23:47.000 --> 01:23:50.640 quickly past Diana At -Hill, your first publisher, 01:23:50.939 --> 01:23:54.170 first editor. incredible woman do you want to 01:23:54.170 --> 01:23:56.090 say a couple of words about her for people who 01:23:56.090 --> 01:24:00.050 don't know who she was after she retired she 01:24:00.050 --> 01:24:04.220 was knighted by um Well, he's King Charles now. 01:24:04.699 --> 01:24:09.060 Anyway, she wasn't just my editor. She was an 01:24:09.060 --> 01:24:13.300 editor to people like John Updike, Norman Mailer. 01:24:13.359 --> 01:24:15.760 And she had stories about all these people too, 01:24:15.880 --> 01:24:18.979 which were quite amazing. And Mailer in particular, 01:24:19.060 --> 01:24:20.840 she said at one point they were going to a reading 01:24:20.840 --> 01:24:23.500 somewhere. They needed two cabs for all the people 01:24:23.500 --> 01:24:25.699 they had. And Mailer was in the cab in front 01:24:25.699 --> 01:24:28.680 and she was in the cab behind. And halfway there, 01:24:28.840 --> 01:24:32.380 the cab in front stopped. And they stopped. to 01:24:32.380 --> 01:24:35.359 get out. And it seemed Mela had challenged the 01:24:35.359 --> 01:24:38.659 cab dryer to a fight. And she thought it was 01:24:38.659 --> 01:24:41.640 the most ridiculous thing she ever heard. I don't 01:24:41.640 --> 01:24:43.159 think they actually got into the fight, but they 01:24:43.159 --> 01:24:46.000 got into an argument for sure. And things like 01:24:46.000 --> 01:24:48.699 this, you know. And V .S. Naipaul, she used to 01:24:48.699 --> 01:24:52.579 iron his shirts. Well, I mean, she got him his 01:24:52.579 --> 01:24:55.619 start. The first three novels he published through 01:24:55.619 --> 01:24:59.319 her firm didn't go anywhere. And she said, we 01:24:59.319 --> 01:25:02.279 published novels that we thought were good, even 01:25:02.279 --> 01:25:05.479 though we knew they wouldn't sell, because we 01:25:05.479 --> 01:25:08.000 thought, we knew that further down the line, 01:25:08.060 --> 01:25:11.079 they would sell. And sure enough, his fourth 01:25:11.079 --> 01:25:13.739 book, A House for Mr. Bishwas, won the Booker 01:25:13.739 --> 01:25:16.859 Prize. And after that, he won the Nobel. But 01:25:16.859 --> 01:25:19.899 until that point, and she said, You don't have 01:25:19.899 --> 01:25:22.359 the same luxury, she told me. She says, if this 01:25:22.359 --> 01:25:25.159 book doesn't make it, you know, you have to start 01:25:25.159 --> 01:25:28.600 thinking again. And my second novel was declined, 01:25:28.779 --> 01:25:32.539 as I said. And that was a difficult time, too. 01:25:32.619 --> 01:25:35.840 But I had one novel under my belt. So I had some 01:25:35.840 --> 01:25:41.140 kind of cachet, if you wish. And I mean, it never 01:25:41.140 --> 01:25:43.840 went quite that badly again. But then when she 01:25:43.840 --> 01:25:49.550 was in her 90s, i still feel very indebted to 01:25:49.550 --> 01:25:51.989 her you know without her if i hadn't had that 01:25:51.989 --> 01:25:54.310 book the memory of elephants published when i 01:25:54.310 --> 01:25:57.350 did i really don't know how i would have carried 01:25:57.350 --> 01:26:01.670 on at that point and i visited her three times 01:26:01.670 --> 01:26:06.100 in her nineties This would be during the 2000s. 01:26:06.300 --> 01:26:08.939 And I visited her because I was afraid that every 01:26:08.939 --> 01:26:11.880 time would be the last. And she kept on living, 01:26:12.020 --> 01:26:14.600 you know, until she was 101. I think the last 01:26:14.600 --> 01:26:20.329 time I saw her was in 2012 or 2013. And she died 01:26:20.329 --> 01:26:23.489 maybe two, three years after that. But she also 01:26:23.489 --> 01:26:26.029 told me, and I have copies, she has eight books 01:26:26.029 --> 01:26:28.689 published altogether. One of them is a book of 01:26:28.689 --> 01:26:32.090 short stories. One is

a novel. And the others 01:26:32.090 --> 01:26:37.930 are all memoirs. And interestingly, she said 01:26:37.930 --> 01:26:42.189 she made more money in her 90s through her memoirs 01:26:42.189 --> 01:26:44.630 than she had ever made in her whole life as an 01:26:44.630 --> 01:26:47.779 editor. And she was quite proud of that, and 01:26:47.779 --> 01:26:49.939 I was very happy for her because of that too. 01:26:50.659 --> 01:26:54.079 And the last time I saw her, I do remember, I 01:26:54.079 --> 01:26:56.300 didn't want to leave, but of course I had to 01:26:56.300 --> 01:26:59.140 leave. And I gave her a great big kiss just before, 01:26:59.300 --> 01:27:01.319 and I think she looked at me like, what was that 01:27:01.319 --> 01:27:04.880 all about, you know? I'm sure she knew how I 01:27:04.880 --> 01:27:09.039 felt, but yeah, that was, I surprised myself 01:27:09.039 --> 01:27:12.600 also, but that's how it came about, yeah. And 01:27:12.600 --> 01:27:17.939 she was 95, 96. at that point too, if not older. 01:27:18.779 --> 01:27:21.760 And over your writing life, you've also worked 01:27:21.760 --> 01:27:28.560 as a creative writing teacher. Yes. Yes. Once 01:27:28.560 --> 01:27:33.079 I had published the book and I got my undergrad 01:27:33.079 --> 01:27:36.680 in writing, in creative writing, in English, 01:27:36.779 --> 01:27:39.399 with an emphasis on creative writing. You can 01:27:39.399 --> 01:27:42.039 get an education teaching English or creative 01:27:42.039 --> 01:27:44.670 writing, and I chose creative writing. And once 01:27:44.670 --> 01:27:49.149 you have a master's in English and you've published 01:27:49.149 --> 01:27:52.529 a novel, you're eligible to teach, which is rubbish, 01:27:52.729 --> 01:27:55.029 which is absolute rubbish, but that's how it's 01:27:55.029 --> 01:27:57.630 done. But at that point I was working part -time 01:27:57.630 --> 01:27:59.470 and I never wanted to work full -time again because 01:27:59.470 --> 01:28:02.810 I wanted the time for the novels. And I used 01:28:02.810 --> 01:28:05.949 to sign up for these different temp agencies 01:28:05.949 --> 01:28:09.260 that were... six or seven temp agencies, and 01:28:09.260 --> 01:28:11.220 I would call them every Friday to ask if they 01:28:11.220 --> 01:28:13.539 had any work. Often enough, there wasn't any 01:28:13.539 --> 01:28:16.640 work, but even when there was, it was the lowest 01:28:16.640 --> 01:28:19.699 pay at that point. And I was really depressed 01:28:19.699 --> 01:28:22.119 because I just got back from India at this point, 01:28:22.140 --> 01:28:24.520 and I was at a dinner with a friend, and she 01:28:24.520 --> 01:28:28.300 told me that I should get into what they called 01:28:28.300 --> 01:28:30.779 a low -residence university. Are you familiar 01:28:30.779 --> 01:28:33.819 with low -residence universities? They're for... 01:28:34.539 --> 01:28:37.100 people who are interested only in writing, and 01:28:37.100 --> 01:28:39.619 we get together twice in the year at the university. 01:28:39.800 --> 01:28:42.619 I joined the University of Southern Maine, and 01:28:42.619 --> 01:28:46.199 I would go to Maine in January and in July for 01:28:46.199 --> 01:28:48.520 either five or ten days each time. We had a break 01:28:48.520 --> 01:28:52.359 in between. And the people who came would be 01:28:52.359 --> 01:28:54.229 there for two years, and I would... be going 01:28:54.229 --> 01:28:56.850 back, and during the time in between, we would 01:28:56.850 --> 01:28:59.289 be communicating through email. They would be 01:28:59.289 --> 01:29:01.689 sending me stories, and I would be writing back 01:29:01.689 --> 01:29:04.909 to them with my critiques and how to carry on. 01:29:04.970 --> 01:29:07.510 And it was lovely, because I could pay my bills, 01:29:07.649 --> 01:29:10.810 I had time to write, and I had students reading 01:29:10.810 --> 01:29:13.210 my work and telling me what a wonderful man. 01:29:13.449 --> 01:29:15.590 They would look at, I mean, I was a secretary 01:29:15.590 --> 01:29:18.939 before that, and I had... even worse jobs, and 01:29:18.939 --> 01:29:20.680 they would be looking at me and calling me professor, 01:29:20.859 --> 01:29:23.180 and I would be looking behind me like, who are 01:29:23.180 --> 01:29:26.859 they talking about? But I just loved that job, 01:29:26.920 --> 01:29:29.899 yeah. And I did want to ask you about your Beatles 01:29:29.899 --> 01:29:36.279 book. Oh my goodness. Thank you. That got me 01:29:36.279 --> 01:29:40.520 started with that song of theirs called All My 01:29:40.520 --> 01:29:45.079 Loving. There's a rhythm guitar that John Lennon 01:29:45.650 --> 01:29:50.170 uses. And I liked that particular rhythm a lot. 01:29:50.390 --> 01:29:53.909 And I actually aped it on the piano. I play all 01:29:53.909 --> 01:29:58.069 my loving with that particular rhythm. And there 01:29:58.069 --> 01:29:59.810 was a neighbor of mine who used to come knocking 01:29:59.810 --> 01:30:01.390 on my door. I heard you playing that again. And 01:30:01.390 --> 01:30:03.590 I said, yeah. He says, can I come inside? Yeah, 01:30:03.689 --> 01:30:07.710 sit down. And so anyway, it was something I really 01:30:07.710 --> 01:30:11.729 liked. But I realized that he never played that 01:30:11.729 --> 01:30:14.470 particular rhythm again in any of their songs, 01:30:14.569 --> 01:30:17.189 although he very well could have. And then I 01:30:17.189 --> 01:30:19.710 realized also that many of the other rhythms 01:30:19.710 --> 01:30:23.170 that he had used, they never used again. And 01:30:23.170 --> 01:30:26.470 I started reading a lot of other Beatles' biographies 01:30:26.470 --> 01:30:29.550 and things as well. And he mentioned at one point, 01:30:29.569 --> 01:30:31.789 he said, yes, I made it a point since I was just 01:30:31.789 --> 01:30:33.989 playing a rhythm to try a different rhythm each 01:30:33.989 --> 01:30:37.239 time. I didn't want to... duplicate myself

and 01:30:37.239 --> 01:30:40.279 to the very and it wasn't just the rhythm i started 01:30:40.279 --> 01:30:42.819 thinking not only in terms of what did they do 01:30:42.819 --> 01:30:45.659 in this particular song that they have never 01:30:45.659 --> 01:30:48.560 done before that they never did again and like 01:30:48.560 --> 01:30:51.340 in that song i feel fine they start out with 01:30:51.340 --> 01:30:54.520 that reverb you know which was actually a mistake 01:30:54.520 --> 01:30:57.220 and george martin was going to cut it out and 01:30:57.220 --> 01:30:59.739 lenin said no leave it i like it you know and 01:30:59.739 --> 01:31:02.100 even the backward tapes that they did for a while 01:31:02.100 --> 01:31:04.739 those were all mistakes that they held on to 01:31:04.739 --> 01:31:08.720 because they liked them So that made me go from 01:31:08.720 --> 01:31:11.899 the very first Leonard McCartney song, Love Me 01:31:11.899 --> 01:31:17.039 Do, to The Long and Winding Road. There's 162 01:31:17.039 --> 01:31:19.439 of them. I only focused on the Leonard McCartney 01:31:19.439 --> 01:31:22.060 songs, none of the Harrison songs, and none of 01:31:22.060 --> 01:31:25.539 the songs that they performed by other people. 01:31:26.119 --> 01:31:29.100 And I talked about what... I went through every 01:31:29.100 --> 01:31:32.560 single measure of every single song. to make 01:31:32.560 --> 01:31:36.579 my point. And there's only about six or seven 01:31:36.579 --> 01:31:39.399 songs in which they repeat out of all of those. 01:31:39.579 --> 01:31:42.899 And that is quite astonishing in itself. Yeah. 01:31:43.199 --> 01:31:45.539 And so that was how the book came about. Yeah. 01:31:45.659 --> 01:31:48.520 And the title of the book? The title of the book, 01:31:48.720 --> 01:31:52.720 Dancing About Architecture, came from Elvis Costello, 01:31:52.880 --> 01:31:56.279 whom I admire immensely. In fact, I would say 01:31:56.279 --> 01:31:59.359 today he and Paul McCartney are the... primary 01:31:59.359 --> 01:32:02.399 songwriters of the day although i'm not up to 01:32:02.399 --> 01:32:05.500 date on much of the recent not since the 90s 01:32:05.500 --> 01:32:11.319 anyway and he once said that writing about music 01:32:11.319 --> 01:32:15.640 is the stupidest thing you can do it's like dancing 01:32:15.640 --> 01:32:18.840 about architecture and of course he writes about 01:32:18.840 --> 01:32:22.260 music himself his own notes he writes his own 01:32:22.260 --> 01:32:24.479 notes and they're quite lengthy too you know 01:32:24.479 --> 01:32:27.699 so i know he was speaking tongue in cheek. But 01:32:27.699 --> 01:32:30.100 I started thinking, yes, but you can also dance 01:32:30.100 --> 01:32:32.619 about architecture because you would dance very 01:32:32.619 --> 01:32:35.779 differently about the Sears Tower than you would 01:32:35.779 --> 01:32:38.949 dance about falling water. or about the Taj Mahal, 01:32:39.010 --> 01:32:41.250 it would be a different dance. And in fact, even 01:32:41.250 --> 01:32:44.890 writing about it, I did conduct, this was a talk 01:32:44.890 --> 01:32:48.430 I gave on writing about music. And you know, 01:32:48.470 --> 01:32:50.430 often enough when people write about music or 01:32:50.430 --> 01:32:52.149 talk about music, they say, oh, it was wonderful, 01:32:52.250 --> 01:32:54.850 it was beautiful, I loved it. But all that does, 01:32:54.949 --> 01:32:57.689 it tells you what the person thinks of the music. 01:32:57.770 --> 01:33:00.029 It doesn't tell you anything about the music 01:33:00.029 --> 01:33:03.069 itself, which takes me back to Tovi, when he 01:33:03.069 --> 01:33:05.989 was talking about those giant arms flapping. 01:33:06.130 --> 01:33:08.670 He said, yes, that. That is writing about music. 01:33:08.970 --> 01:33:11.270 And that was a point I was trying to make to 01:33:11.270 --> 01:33:14.829 this particular class. And what I did was I recorded 01:33:14.829 --> 01:33:20.310 the first Brahms scherzo. I recorded the love 01:33:20.310 --> 01:33:24.430 death from Tristan, just the orchestral part 01:33:24.430 --> 01:33:27.010 toward the end. And there was one, oh, Schumann's 01:33:27.010 --> 01:33:29.989 Papillon, his opus two. And I played it for them. 01:33:30.050 --> 01:33:32.390 Most of them, if not all of them, didn't really 01:33:32.390 --> 01:33:35.180 know the composers. And I played it for them 01:33:35.180 --> 01:33:37.739 and I had written descriptions of these three 01:33:37.739 --> 01:33:40.859 pieces. And I said, I want you to put the description 01:33:40.859 --> 01:33:44.180 to the piece itself. And they were able to do 01:33:44.180 --> 01:33:46.220 it. Not only were they able to do it, but they 01:33:46.220 --> 01:33:49.640 began to understand how to write about music 01:33:49.640 --> 01:33:51.859 and not just to talk about, oh, this is beautiful. 01:33:52.000 --> 01:33:55.279 And even now I will read reviews and people say, 01:33:55.399 --> 01:33:59.659 wow, wow, wow, this is wonderful. It's so pointless, 01:33:59.880 --> 01:34:01.739 you know. It just tells you what this person 01:34:01.739 --> 01:34:04.220 feels about the music. Dancing about architecture. 01:34:04.680 --> 01:34:07.760 Yeah. So each of those, I was writing about the 01:34:07.760 --> 01:34:11.140 music as well as just talking about what they 01:34:11.140 --> 01:34:14.420 did differently in each. And also, interestingly, 01:34:14.800 --> 01:34:19.350 Lennon... He did different rhythms, different 01:34:19.350 --> 01:34:22.369 time signatures from the very beginning. Whereas 01:34:22.369 --> 01:34:26.189 McCartney's first triple signature was She's 01:34:26.189 --> 01:34:29.550 Leaving Home, which was their eighth album. Everything 01:34:29.550 --> 01:34:31.909 else was two, four, four, four times before that, 01:34:31.970 --> 01:34:36.229 but not for Lennon. And so you begin to see, 01:34:36.369 --> 01:34:40.430 they also, they sang, you know, many of the songs

01:34:40.430 --> 01:34:42.510 they wrote together, but there were many songs 01:34:42.510 --> 01:34:45.210 they wrote individually. And whoever wrote the 01:34:45.210 --> 01:34:48.460 major part of the song, took the lead vocal on 01:34:48.460 --> 01:34:51.260 that particular song. And then you begin to see 01:34:51.260 --> 01:34:54.239 their individual fingerprints in each of the 01:34:54.239 --> 01:34:57.399 songs also. And Lennon did more of these triple 01:34:57.399 --> 01:35:02.680 numbered songs. He also did songs with mixed 01:35:02.680 --> 01:35:05.399 time signatures. You take a song like Good Morning, 01:35:05.520 --> 01:35:08.079 Good Morning. Try following the beat sometimes. 01:35:08.239 --> 01:35:10.359 It just goes in and out and in and out. There's 01:35:10.359 --> 01:35:13.939 nine crotchets to a measure, seven crotchets, 01:35:13.939 --> 01:35:17.079 five crotchets. And yet it all seems to fit together. 01:35:17.319 --> 01:35:19.600 Even All You Need Is Love, it's three, four, 01:35:19.720 --> 01:35:22.699 three, four, three, four. And it's beautifully 01:35:22.699 --> 01:35:25.500 done, you know. And McCartney didn't do this 01:35:25.500 --> 01:35:28.119 really until almost the very end, Two of Us. 01:35:28.500 --> 01:35:30.560 That's a song that goes into about three or four 01:35:30.560 --> 01:35:34.699 time signatures. And again, it's beautiful. It 01:35:34.699 --> 01:35:37.539 just swims together. You don't feel, oh, he's 01:35:37.539 --> 01:35:41.579 changed the time signature here. And I got into 01:35:41.579 --> 01:35:46.439 other things too. Yeah. So after having lived 01:35:46.439 --> 01:35:49.800 just about your whole adult life in Chicago, 01:35:49.920 --> 01:35:52.489 I believe? Pretty much. I was in Pennsylvania 01:35:52.489 --> 01:35:55.890 for one year when I majored in philosophy for 01:35:55.890 --> 01:35:57.750 a change. I came here to study architecture, 01:35:57.949 --> 01:36:00.989 but I realized it wasn't for me and got into 01:36:00.989 --> 01:36:03.770 different things at that point. But you are planning 01:36:03.770 --> 01:36:08.210 to move back to India? I am this November and 01:36:08.210 --> 01:36:11.449 primarily, well, my brother and I are both old 01:36:11.449 --> 01:36:14.329 and I think we need to be together at this point. 01:36:14.529 --> 01:36:19.569 And I left. Mumbai when I was 19. I'm 76 now, 01:36:19.689 --> 01:36:22.430 so there's a lot I'm going to have to get reaccustomed 01:36:22.430 --> 01:36:25.229 to. And I've been visiting every year, nevertheless, 01:36:25.649 --> 01:36:29.409 but I've been visiting during the winter months 01:36:29.409 --> 01:36:32.109 in Mumbai, February, which is the worst month 01:36:32.109 --> 01:36:35.229 in Chicago. Now it's going to be the heat and 01:36:35.229 --> 01:36:38.109 the monsoon, and I can't say I'm looking forward 01:36:38.109 --> 01:36:39.909 to that, but I am looking forward to staying 01:36:39.909 --> 01:36:42.989 with my brother again. I mean, I have many friends 01:36:42.989 --> 01:36:47.119 here, too, but I have to be with him. Yeah, but 01:36:47.119 --> 01:36:49.920 that's wonderful that you can do that. But I'm 01:36:49.920 --> 01:36:53.220 sure you'll be writing. Oh, yes, I do have two 01:36:53.220 --> 01:36:55.659 unpublished novels I will try to get published. 01:36:55.859 --> 01:36:58.939 And there's a new novel. And I'm also working 01:36:58.939 --> 01:37:02.659 on a cello concerto. I was going through a stress 01:37:02.659 --> 01:37:05.100 test this morning and you're lying on your back 01:37:05.100 --> 01:37:07.260 and the melody was going through my head over 01:37:07.260 --> 01:37:09.659 and over. But I won't get started on that either 01:37:09.659 --> 01:37:12.930 until I'm settled. Mumbai, and I'm not sure in 01:37:12.930 --> 01:37:16.130 what order I'll be doing things, but yeah, there's 01:37:16.130 --> 01:37:21.569 no end of work in my retirement, no less. Well, 01:37:21.649 --> 01:37:24.270 it's been such an honor to meet you and to talk 01:37:24.270 --> 01:37:26.810 about your writing, so I want to thank you very 01:37:26.810 --> 01:37:28.609 much for this. Oh, thank you, Leah, especially 01:37:28.609 --> 01:37:30.949 for asking about all these other books too, so 01:37:30.949 --> 01:37:57.189 many thanks for that. All the links are in the 01:37:57.189 --> 01:37:59.649 show notes. The podcast theme music was written 01:37:59.649 --> 01:38:01.770 by Nick Cold. Have a wonderful week.