The Interview

The chapter suggests several positive views of interviews. Some people consider them a source of truth in their highest form and even an art in practice. They are also seen as a useful and serviceable medium of communication, because through interviews we get vivid impressions of contemporary people and important information about events and personalities.

Most celebrity writers despise being interviewed because they feel it is an unwarranted intrusion into their private lives. They think it disturbs them, wounds them, and sometimes diminishes them. Some even see it as an assault on their person and a violation of their privacy.

In some primitive cultures, it is believed that if a person’s photograph is taken, the person’s soul is stolen. So photographing someone is thought to take away something vital from that person.

The expression “thumbprints on his windpipe” means that interviews feel choking, painful, and oppressive to the interviewee. Saul Bellow uses it to suggest that an interview can feel like pressure on the throat, making a person uncomfortable.

In today’s world, our chief source of information about personalities is interviews. The chapter says that “our most vivid impressions of our contemporaries are through interviews.”

Yes, Eco seems to like being interviewed to some extent. He answers the questions cheerfully, with humour and confidence, and often uses stories and examples. He seems comfortable discussing his work and ideas. However, he also makes it clear that he sees himself mainly as a university professor, not as a novelist, so he likes interviews only insofar as they let him explain his thinking and work.

Eco finds time to write so much because he works in the empty spaces or interstices of life. He says that while waiting for an elevator or during short gaps between activities, he can already write an article. He uses these small unused moments very efficiently.

Eco’s academic writing was distinctive because it was personal, playful, and narrative instead of dry and impersonal. He wrote scholarly work by telling the story of his research, including his trials and errors, rather than presenting only final conclusions in a stiff academic style.