Michael Cunningham Reads Harold Brodkey

迈克尔·坎宁安(Michael Cunningham)阅读哈罗德·布罗德(Harold Brodkey)

The New Yorker: Fiction

小说

2015-06-02

1 小时 15 分钟
PDF

单集简介 ...

Michael Cunningham joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss Harold Brodkey’s “Dumbness Is Everything,” from a 1996 issue of the magazine.

单集文稿 ...

  • 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 Harold Brodke's story, dumbness is everything, which was published in the New Yorker in 1996.

  • When the car stopped, when the motor vibration and noise stopped and the wheels were still, the drunkenness shufflingly bulged and was dizzying more than before.

  • It pulsed in my head, stung my eyes, and rang.

  • The story was chosen by Michael Cunningham, who is the author of seven novels, including the hours and last years, the Snow Queen.

  • His own fiction first appeared in the New Yorker in 1988.

  • Hi, Michael.

  • Hello, Deborah.

  • So dumbness is everything is one of the last things that Brodke wrote before he died in 1996, and it was published posthumously in the magazine a few months later.

  • Why did you choose this story?

  • For several reasons.

  • I knew Harold.

  • I not only knew Harold, he was a hero of mine when I was in school.

  • Let's just say, was I the kind of kid who would call you at midnight and read you a long passage of Harold Brodke whether you wanted to hear it or not?

  • Yes, I was.

  • And years pass, calendar pages flipped, seasons change, and I met him and got to know him and knew him somewhat through his illness and his demise.

  • It is, as I think everyone will soon understand, a slightly unorthodox choice.

  • It's kind of extreme in many ways, but that is part of what drew me to it.