2021-11-02
56 分钟Ben Lerner joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “In the Name of Bobby,” by Julio Cortázar, translated from the Spanish by Gregory Rabassa, which was published in The New Yorker in 1979. Lerner is the author of seven books of fiction and poetry, including the novels “10:04” and “The Topeka School,” which was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction.
This is the New Yorker fiction podcast from the New Yorker magazine.
I'm Deborah Treisman, fiction editor at the New Yorker.
Each month we invite a writer to choose a story from the magazine's archives to read and discuss.
This month, we're going to hear in the name of Bobby by Julio Cortazar, which was translated from the Spanish by Gregory Rabazza and published in the New Yorker in July of 1979.
Finally, he said something like, at night it was all different.
He spoke about some sort of black cloth that he couldn't get his hands.
Or feet out of.
Anyone can have nightmares like that, but it was a shame that Bobby should only have them.
About my sister, who made so many sacrifices for him.
The story was chosen by Ben Lerner, who's the author of seven books of fiction and poetry, including the novels 1004 and the Topeka School, which was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Hi, Ben.
Hi.
How are you?
All right, so the last time we talked on the podcast, it was about a story by John Berger.
And I'm wondering, what made you pick a story by Julio Cortazar today?
Yeah, I mean, I've always liked Cortazar.
I've always really liked how modular his stories are, like the way he plays with how things can happen and different orders.
But I also think I probably chose this story because I have an eight year old and because I talk to my eight year old a lot about what she dreams.
And so I felt a kind of eerie connection to this story and its strange exploration of the unconscious of a child.
Do you think that this story in the name of Bobby is typical of Cortazar's stories?