294
PARTISAN REVIEW
Williams:
For his father, I didn ' t know that. When my grandfather
took me to Europe we visited Stratford-I saw what was said
to
be his
grave and various other reliquary things but I didn 't hear he bought
a knighthood for his father. What was the use of that, was the father
living or what?
Int.:
Yeah, apparently it was a matter of status.
Williams:
Oh, how awful, but he was never called Sir William
Shakespeare. Wasn 't he sort of middle-class as most good writers
are?
Int.:
Bourgeoisie?
Williams:
Bourgeoisie. Very few come out of the upper class, the so–
called upper class.
Int.:
The upper class always looks down on the creative arts because
they change the status quo.
Williams:
I don 't know any upper-class writers. Except I knew the
Sitwells. I guess you'd call them upper-class writers. They were said
to be Plantagenets, hahaha! I'd say that's pretty upper class. I liked
them, they were so upper class they were good! They were appealing,
you know. I remember meeting them. Edith was weighted down
with all these jewels. She did write well, but it was not my kind of
thing.
Int.:
What about Virginia Woolf and by the way, what do you think of
James Joyce?
Williams:
Virginia Woolf, I could never read her. I liked James Joyce. I
loved
Ulysses .
I didn 't like
Finnegans Wake.
I didn 't like it where he
went into a transmutation of words. Went on and on forever! I don' t
like to work over reading, do you? I just like to enjoy. I suppose I
cou ld try to read that again, but the only profit I felt when I first read
it was the Anna Livia Plurabelle passage; wash women exchanging
conversation while they washed clothes.
Int.:
Don 't you think that in
Finnegans Wake
Joyce used rhythm and
cadence to untie meanings?
Williams:
Oh, the Irish can't escape that cadence either, you know.
Lord, how they do love it! William Butler Yeats was a great poet.
Int.:
He would have loved your work because he finally discovered that
conversational rhythm of yours only in his la5t poems and in that
wonderful play,
Purgatory.
Williams:
I never read it.
Int .:
It
is beautiful, beautiful music.
Williams:
Should I read it?
Int.:
Yes, I think that's his best play.
