Allen Ginsberg claimed that his reading voice was an imitation of the voice with which William Blake spoke to him in his visions and dreams. Once you hear Ginsberg read, you are stuck in his dream forever.
Javier Marias, the prolific Spanish author who blends wit and private conspiracies in unparalleled ways, was on KCRW’s Bookworm yesterday. As one would expect from the lengths of the provocateur’s written sentences, the interview went on so long that they had to split it up into two shows; the second one airs in a week. New Directions used my quote from a SFBG review as a blurb for the newly released third volume of Marias’s Your Face Tomorrow trilogy. I say that he is “sexy, contemplative, elusive, and addictive.” But I’ve never heard his voice. I’m about to. I’m kind of afraid.
One response
Thanks for the tip. I”m supposed to be on bookworm’s email list. As for the Voice: I heard Marias read at the 92nd St. Y and his voice is just what you’d imagine: stately, highly refined and a little unnerving, a super-erudite British tone with a Spanish undertone….it reminded me of Nicol Williamson’s Merlin in Excalibur. Afterwards, he signed my copy of the three parts of Your Face…and in a moment of wild exuberence I gave him my one and only advance copy of my own book, which he graciously accepted. I assume it’s on the floor of a taxi somewhere out by JFK.
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