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.
