THE INTERVIEW

Important Question- Answers

1. How does Umberto Eco compare himself as an academic and as a novelist?

Answer : Umberto Eco compared himself as an academic and novelist by saying that he was first an academic.

Then he says that he was a university professor who wrote novels on Sundays. He also identified himself with the academic community and not with the novelist community.

2. Do you think Umberto Eco likes being interviewed? Give reasons.
Answer : Yes. I think Umberto very much likes being
interviewed. He answers each of Mukund's questions very patiently.

He seems to be enjoying the interview all the time. He doesn't even show a trace of impatience or irritation.

3. How does Eco find the time to write so much?
Answer : Eco says that each man has lots of vacant spaces in life. He made use of these vacant spaces for writing. He says that he is a university professor who writes novels on Sundays.

4. What was distinctive about Eco's academic writing style?
Answer : Unlike usual academic writings which are impersonal,dull and boring, Eco's academic writing style was playful.

It had a personal quality about it. Even his essays had a narrative aspect and hence made an interesting reading.

5. Write in brief the various views expressed by celebrities about the importance of interview in journalism.

Answer : Opinions related to interview vary considerably. Some consider it as a source of truth, a form of art while some despise it.

Lewis Carroll, the creator of Alice in Wonderland had a horror of the interviewer. Rudyard Kipling had a greater dislike of the interviewer and regarded interviewing as immoral.

H. G. Wells once referred to interview as an ordeal. But forty years later, he himself interviewed Joseph Stalin.
Saul Bellow called interviews thumbprints on his windpipe.

In spite of all such views, the interview is supremely useful medium of communication that brings us the most vivid impressions of our contemporaries.