Adam Begley interviewed Don DeLillo, an American novelist most closely associated with the postmodern movement, for The Paris Review in the early 1990s. The interview is prefaced by a brief compendium of DeLillo's life and work. In it, Begley attempts to paint a picture of DeLillo, beginning with his own observations of DeLillo's rigourosly observant demeanor, which he concludes is commonly mistaken for some form of paranoia, and then backtracking to his chldhood as the son of Italian imigrants, and finally delving into his work in literature. DeLillo's work stretches from the 1970s to present time and consists of full length novels, short stories, and the occasional essay. The interview itself is not anything out of the ordinary. Begley's questions clearly attempt to illustrate the connection between the author and the work.
The first question Begley asks DeLillo is "Do you have any idea what made you a writer?" He follows them up with possible reasons, posed as questions, for why DeLillo became a writer: "Did you read as a child? As a teenager?" It seems he's trying to illusrate that writers are formulated to be writers starting at a young age or that there is something that differentiates writers from other men and women, which DeLillo inadvertently sabotages by confessing to not reading much as a kid and not having much direction. Begley then asks, "Does the fact that you grew up in an Italian-American household translate in some way, does it show up in the novels you’ve published?" The assumption that this question represents is that the author is "an indefinite source of significations that fill a work" (Foucault 252). Begley does this more specifically with a few of DeLillo's major novels. He says of Americana, DeLillo's first novel, "What got you started on Americana? He continues, "How do you begin? What are the raw materials of a story?" About a later book, Begley asks, "We talked a little about Americana. Tell me about your second novel—what was your idea for the shape of End Zone?" All of these questions, firstly, present the author as being both the creator that came before the work and present in the work, an idea that Foucault rips apart and instead claims that the author "performs a certain role with regard to narrative discourse, assuring a classificatory function" (Foucault 243).
DeLillo's rsponse to some of Begley's questions are equally interesting. After Begley asks, "How do you begin? What are the raw materials of a story?" DeLillo says, "The basic work is built around the sentence. This is what I mean when I call myself a writer. I construct sentences. There’s a rhythm I hear that drives me through a sentence. And the words typed on the white page have a sculptural quality. They form odd correspondences. They match up not just through meaning but through sound and look." It's interesting that DeLillo pinpoints a reason for why he is a writer, or better yet a definition for a writer. I would like to mention here that the word writer is used throughout the interview, not the word author. However, I do think that in this context they are talking about DeLillo as an author, and that here the word writer takes on that meaning. But anyway, DeLillo says that he is a writer because he constructs sentences. I think this is diectly related to Foucault's point about only certain discourses being bestowed with the author function. DeLillo thinks he is a writer becaue he constructs sentences. Do not people who write letters, homework assignments, etc constuct sentences? These discourses, however, do not require the author function.
Early on in the interview, Begley poses a question about the drafts of DeLillo's work. He says, "Do your typed drafts just pile up and sit around?" DeLillo's response is, "That’s right. I want those pages nearby because there’s always a chance I’ll have to refer to something that’s scrawled at the bottom of a sheet of paper somewhere. Discarded pages mark the physical dimensions of a writer’s labor... The first draft of Libra sits in ten manuscript boxes. I like knowing it’s in the house. I feel connected to it. It’s the complete book, the full experience containable on paper." I think this question corresponds to Foucault's question of What is a work? In DeLillo's response he seems to ellude to some special significance in the trial and error of a writer. He refers to the complete work of his novel, Libra, as being in ten manuscript boxes, explaining that the full experience lays there in those pages. However, Foucault expresses confusion over what qualifies as a work. Clearly only the finished manuscript of Libra was published, but what about the drafts left behind? What about the scribbles that DeLillo says he often refers back to?
Throughout most of the interview, Begley's questions really attempt to portray DeLillo as a unique individual, and more imporantly a privileged individual. Begley poses many questions and statements that aim to differentiate DeLillo from other writers. For example, he says of DeLillo's writing style, "Your dialogue is different from other people’s dialogue." This attempt at separating DeLillo from other writers, coupled with the fact that the interview is published in the Paris Review, presents DeLillo as having high cultural status.
It's interesting that the interview attempts to draw a very distinct connection between DeLillo and his work, pointing to DeLillo, the author, as the origin of meaning, when in fact Foucault sees the author as a function of discourse that serves to limit meaning.
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