Is there a connection between good conversation and good literature?
It seems clear to me that books originally grew out of oral storytelling, so, yes, there are of course correspondences between conversation and literature. They are both made out of words, after all. And both, when they’re good, have layers—they linger, and resonate after they’re over. The main differences are that literature is at the beginning entirely one-sided, and conversations are not only plural-sided but verbally looser and less demanding, more recreation than concentration. Still, every now and then we meet people who can tell a story so good and so well that it is in fact oral and aural literature. What was it like to be at the New Yorker in 1969? It was a lunatic asylum. A wonderful magazine, but a cult of personality focused around William Shawn, the editor at the time. I started as a fact-checker and worked in a small room with six other people, and everyone smoked. I knew I was in a truly strange place when about two weeks after I started work I answered my phone and a li
