[LISTENED TO: November 21, 2013] “You Must Know Everything” podcast
In the fourth New Yorker fiction podcast, George Saunders reads Isaac Babel. I know Saunders very well, although I knew next to nothing about Isaac Babel.
Saunders sets up this story very briefly before diving in to the read. There’s something fantastic about the way Saunders read the story–full of emotion and affect. He absolutely made the story come to life and his commentary at the end made the story even better.
Babel was 21 when he wrote this story (he was amazingly prolific–his Complete Works is over 1,000 pages), and Saunders is blown away by the amount of depth such a young writer fits into the story. Saunders says that for him Babel is a combination of Hemingway and Kerouac–Hemingway because Babel edited his storied very intensely and Kerouac because he wasn’t afraid to add the occasional poetic touch.
In the story, a young boy is going to visit his grandmother. As the story opens, he explains that he was always very observant. He knew everything about the streets of his city, Odessa. He knew the stores and the anomalies in the buildings. He observed every new window. Until someone teased him for looking in a lingerie store. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 