2014-01-03
45 分钟Paul Theroux reads "The Letter Writers," by Elizabeth Taylor, which appeared in The New Yorker in 1958.
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 a story by Elizabeth Taylor called the letter writers.
She stood before an alarming crisis, the crisis of meeting for the first time the person whom she knew best in the world.
The story was chosen by Paul Thoreau, whose fiction and journalism have been appearing in the magazine since 1979.
His latest book is the last Train to Zona Verde, my ultimate african safari.
Welcome back to the podcast, Paul.
It's lovely to be here, Deborah.
Now, the first time you appeared on this podcast, it was in 2007, and you read a story by Borges.
Oh, yeah, wonderful story.
The gospel according to Mark.
Yeah.
And when we talked about doing another one, you came up with a number of different writers to choose among Peter de Vries, SJ Perelman, Joyce Carey versus Pritchett.
What made you decide on Elizabeth Taylor?
Elizabeth Taylor has an unfortunate name.
People might think that it's the actress, an earlier incarnation.
Elizabeth Taylor is a wonderful novelist and a wonderful short story writer and greatly neglected.
I chose her not only because I feel that she's been neglected, but because the stories read so well.
There's a slightly dated quality to the syntax.