Part I:
The writer in this piece discusses the merits and demerits of interviews, saying that in today’s world anyone who is literate must have at some point or the other read or heard an interview. People have varying opinions on interviews as to some it appears to be the only and most credible source of truth, while some, especially celebrities, regard it as unnecessary intrusion. They feel that an interview somehow reduces their status and the fact that information concerning their lives becomes public makes them feel that they have lost a little part of themselves.

Lewis Carroll who was the creator of Alice in Wonderland took pride in the fact that he spent time and energy in successfully warding off interviewers. Rudyard Kipling’s wife went to the extent of saying that in her opinion interviewing was immoral. H. G. Wells kept interviewers away but ended up being an active interviewer himself on many an occasion.

Notable among those he interviewed were Joseph Stalin (A Russian revolutionary) and Saul Bellow (novelist and playwright) However, the writer opines that despite all the drawbacks, interviewing is a most valuable resource. He quotes Denis Brian who said that most of our information comes from one man asking questions of another and in this respect, the interviewer is indeed powerful and influential.

Part II

Part two is an extract from an interview of Umberto Eco. Umberto Eco was a professor at the University of Bologna in Italy. He had the reputation of being a scholar and for his expertise and ideas on, semiotics, (the study of signs) literary interpretation, and medieval aesthetics, newspaper articles and also his literary works. His novel, ‘The Name of the Rose’ sold more than 10 million copies.

The interviewer is Mukund Padmanabhan from ‘The Hindu’. In the interview, Mukund remarks that he finds it hard to understand how Umberto can manage to do all the things that he does. Umberto answers that he has mastered the art of working in what he refers to as interstices that is the empty spaces. He means that he is able to make productive use of every minute of his day.

He also tells Mukund that he has perfected the art of writing in a narrative style, something that he learnt when he was doing his doctorate but adopted very late at the age of fifty. In fact, he felt that he had become a novelist quite by accident as he enjoyed writing in a narrative style. Hence from an essayist, he moved on to be a novelist. Mukund asked him how he felt when despite having written so much non-fiction and having produced some valuable work on semiotics. People still talked of him as being a famous novelist.

Umberto replied that perhaps as a novelist he reached a larger readership yet, he did consider himself a serious academician and regarded himself as a university professor who wrote novels on a Sunday. Mukund then asked him whether he was surprised to find that his novel. ‘The Name of the Rose’ had been appreciated by so many people despite being such a serious novel.

The content of the novel was on the surface a detective novel but delved into theology, metaphysics, and medieval history. He replied that he was not surprised as the people who had read his novel were people who were not looking for easy experiences. He also said that the success of any novel was difficult to predict as his novel, ‘The Name of the Rose’ contrary to all predictions made a huge success.

He did not attribute the success of the novel merely to the theme of medieval history and said that it was a mystery, as such things often are. This interview is a perfect example of how information is elicited by an interviewer and how the response of the interviewee is closely linked to the questions put forth. In this way, an interview is a valuable and authentic tool for collecting information.