Anthony Burgess, Jerzy Kosinski, Barbara Howard, Dick Cavett 1974

With Jerzy Kosiński & Barbra Howard

[@moozartney]

Anthony Burgess is like a rockstar writer. His dress style and speech is pretty cool. Probably my favorite personality behind a typewriter.

[@farrahfawcettmajors896]

Anthony brings up why I like the cavett show...he is very serious with his guests...he very polite and respectful but ask very very good questions in a very professional expectancy...mean allow ing the good out.. So it's always tell all situation....bravo

[@deirdre108]

Burgess's masterpiece "Earthly Powers" is one of the great works of fiction in the 20th century.

[@diegoandres2906]

Never heard of it before! I'll search it and read it

[@deirdre108]

@@diegoandres2906 It's one of the few books that immediately after reading, I started again. It's close to 700 pages but never bogs down--completely riveting.

[@46metube]

Burgess is a pure treat.

[@johnw218]

Anthony Burgess us great fun. I'd forgotten about him for years. Glad to accidentally find this and some other youtube interviews with him

[@screeneducation4167]

Jerzy's boots are fantastic.

[@patrickcoleman5251]

Just to repeat an earlier comment: it's Barbara Howar (I just spent 20 minutes searching unsuccessfully online for info on Barbara Howard)

[@chrystallkurts3914]

It's funny when they were talking about the permanence of books and we are watching this 50 years later.

[@geoffreycanie4609]

man knowing the distinction between diachronic and synchronic time - Burgess has a Christopher Hitchens energy

[@nelsonnelson999]

Painted Bird- Kosinksi. Dazzling indeed. And here we are on KZbin in 2023 and as Burgess postulates ...here we are running thru diachronic time....

[@johnbraby9971]

He is a treat. A monster too !

[@exjazzer]

Thank you!

[@benedictdesilva6677]

As noted here, the speakers at the time were unable to anticipate that their talk show output was *far from synchronic,* but that it would be _committed to posterity_ in media such as KZbin. In a manner of speaking even more _diachronic_ than their written output would have been-at will even more easily and instantly accessible for posterity...

[@SamMHayne]

i thought it was funny early in the interview they spoke on how the very medium they are on being disposable and here i am watching in 2018 a dick caveat interview from 1974

[@leesarenee5757]

SamMHayne :')

[@yotamschmidt570]

Yes, poor exaggeration

[@ianbauer4703]

And I'm watching it three years after you watching this. As Mr. Spock would say -- Fascinating!

[@borderbioscope1180]

Fantastic

[@diegoandres2906]

This is like metafiction...gosh! It's like a movie!

[@bensheard]

Such an intelligent conversation. Imagine: this was an _American_ talkshow! 😯

[@Tinyflydeposit]

Little did they know, what they thought was ephemeral is now there forever and a lot more accessible than an out of print book.

[@handyalley2350]

Im here because i remembered its the only place its discussed that cavett likes, really likes henry james writings and everything he ever wrote....

[@benneden2580]

Earthly Powers is so good.

[@terrapinalive8686]

The Malaya Trilogy...( Time for a Tiger..)

[@shannonmaire]

Mr. Burgess's hair piece looks as though it will fly away.

[@Omnicient.]

I don't read fiction but Burgess is wonderful to listen to. The chat re an author's words always being in print and accessible and that interviews e.g. on tv are gone more or less once transmitted is beautifully ironic. In actuality it seems to be, and increasingly will be, the other way around.

[@Omnicient.]

Burgess saying George Orwell had disliked his own book so much he went round buying up all the copies; but wouldn't this mean the shops would order more copies and after some time more and more would needed to be printed which in effect would make the book more popular!

[@kelman727]

Try Burgess’s fiction without delay.

[@jpgrumbach8562]

@@Omnicient., no, that only might happen when people ask their booksellers repeatedly for titles that are not available any more.

[@jpgrumbach8562]

If you do not read fiction: he had finished his autobiography (two vol.) which is easily available (quite cheap) and a pleasure. Childhood, his interesting family, WW2 in gibraltar, teaching in malaysia, moving to malta, italy and finally monaco. He was a composer and it is satisfying to read his praise about the beauty of scores.

[@theesperanzacompromisebyja9044]

Kozinski's book Pinball should have been made into a movie. I still hope it might be.

[@timwright4263]

'Steps' is a brilliant book.

[@tracywilliams7929]

I read Cavett, obsessively 😂 I should say, because of its insightfulness and candor about what it is to be a talk show host. It allows Cavett's not inconsiderable intelligence to shine. However as I remember it the book was written not by Cavett but a journalist who shadowed him during his typical day starting and ending at home with his wife. I'll always remember how the actual writer wrote how the Cavetts marriage," ... is defined as much by its distances as by its closeness..." after Mr. C. asked Mrs. C. if she would watch his show that night. Her response was 'no'. Faux peevishly he asked why not and was told "because there is no one on I want to see". He reminded her that he would be there, her husband. Without missing a beat she said, " That's what I mean." Indeed distance did define their relationship as much as time ❤️ together. Apart from this there are also vignettes portraying celebrities taken for granted back then but are now history. It's like seeing Napoleon or Cleopatra when merely famous (or infamous) before becoming IMMORTAL.

[@Metatron141]

Burgess is a boss.

[@friendofbeaver6636]

Coincidentally, Kosinski later wrote a book titled "Pinball."

[@StephanieJ777]

These people saying they’re surprised by these things they mentioned about Dick must not pay attention to him during interviews. Dick has made it clear on a number of occasions they he enjoys acting and wished to Star as a performer. He obviously takes his job seriously, in every interview he has a list of very personal thought out questions that reveal more about himself if you actually think about it. It just shows that most people only see the surface or what they want to see. Even publicly influential/respected people. I would add also they Dick would probably make a great therapist/psychologist and in a way that is what he is doing with his talk show which is what makes it so unique. He is respectful, patient, empathetic, kind to his guests and genuinely interested in people. He asks psychoanalytic type questions with genuine curiosity making it therapeutic at times for guests to answer and helpful for those listening. He always approaches with gentleness, patience and respect often empathetically offering his own personal answer to explain his asking and encourage the guest to answer. Along with this he has a way with words and intelligence that enables him to ask intelligent questions. The answers he elicits from his guests often help many people because he humanizes the Star. All this is what makes him truly one of the best and most innovative interviewers of all time.

[@jimmcguy5511]

Reads more than whom?

[@redinhodaflauta1269]

I was concerned that Mr. Cavett paid such poor attention to Barbara Howard - almost to the point of ignoring her totally. Otherwise this is a fantastic post: I Can't get enough of the truly great Anthony Burgess. Thank you!

[@nicmart]

Redinho da Flauta Was she worthy of more attention?

[@redinhodaflauta1269]

@@nicmart I admit I don't know her by name, but by the mere fact that she was invited, I think good manners dictates that she should not have been so conspicuously ignored as is the case in this clip. Smacks of sexist chauvinism - and, I should say, the culprit is Cavett rather than his other illustrious guests. But it's not that big a deal - she wasn't insulted, nor humiliated - I felt she was just left out and it made me feel uncomfortable for her.

[@nicmart]

@@redinhodaflauta1269 1. It's impossible to know what arrangements were made for her appearance, 2. She was there to promote a book, and was lucky for the chance, 3. She probably shouldn't have been invited.

[@deirdre108]

She was a lightweight gossip writer in contrast to the these titans, Burgess and Konsinski. Totally out of her depth.

[@randallleonard4344]

It's Howar, not Howard.

[@borderlord]

He looked older than 37!

[@HomeAtLast501]

What a crime that Burgess was paid only $600 for the film rights to "A Clockwork Orange". If Kubrick had been a decent man with a sense of justice, he would have given him a royalty on the film when it was clear it would achieve such success. The story obviously contributed so much to the success of the film.

[@jimmcguy5511]

See kids. We may have one lot's of drugs in the 70's but we were much smarter too.

[@shanetreacy5996]

Nice to see Burgess taking him apart

[@edwin11373]

A lot of armchair psychology in that conversation.

[@garethm3242]

Wow - Jerzy Kozinski should really be mentioned in the title. The Painted Bird changed my world view. Truly illuminating. Also, feel a bit sorry for Dick here, these guys are pretty humourless and intense! (At least the men, it's hard to tell if she is, given that Dick hardly speaks to her).

[@TheKitchenerLeslie]

Gareth M But wasn't it discovered that he plagiarized everything?

[@garethm3242]

Yeah that remained disputed throughout his life I remember reading (prob on Wikipedia). The story was brilliant either way.

[@darekkonferowicz1659]

how could a painted bird change you if this book is actually a crap invented by an ordinary cheater and plagiarist?

[@aallerton]

@@darekkonferowicz1659 Bullshit - I was sure that if I see any negative comment about Kosinski it will be written by a Polish person. So where are all those ghost writers that supposedly wrote for him or whose works did he plagiarise? Nothing has been proven even so long after his death. Polacy to jednak wredny naród.

[@aallerton]

@@TheKitchenerLeslie No, it was never really discovered or proven.

[@thefakenewsnetwork8072]

Long live freedom and democratic communism

[@behemoth5344]

What is freedom? And what is democratic communism? Ain't that what a greek cowboy would call an oxymoron?

[@martenselabs3212]

Barbara Howard was hushed & fought her way back

[@kelman727]

Burgess gets his facts wrong. White didn’t move to the Channel Islands to avoid tax in the 60s - he moved there in the mid 40s because he refused to fight in WW2. The heart attack was due to him being a lifelong heavy smoker. And Burgess himself always made out he never made tuppence from his work, despite the fact he was a multimillionaire who lived in Monaco to avoid paying income tax.

[@Phantomrasberryblowe]

Not sure he was all that wealthy here though. He became rich after writing the script for Jesus of Nazareth and, I think, Earthly Powers.

[@barrymoore4470]

@@Phantomrasberryblowe Burgess was certainly materially comfortable well before 1974. Apart from the income derived from his many publications, he had held a series of distinguished professorships at American universities by this time. He expatriated from the United Kingdom at least in part to avoid the high taxes imposed by the government there.

[@barrymoore4470]

Burgess, while possessed of a brilliant mind and a considerable literary gift, was unfortunately prone to embellishing his personal history and misremembering or revising facts as the mood struck him--he provides a witty instance of this propensity in this very clip. While he had a solid grasp of history, he was not the most reliable of historians.

[@deirdre108]

@@barrymoore4470 An "unreliable narrator" in more ways than one.

[@Claytone-Records]

Everyone is crazy mad for Burgess and rightly so, but what about Kosinski?

[@agiftedlife-WOW]

I watched Dick Cavett quite regularly and thought he was wonderfully intelligent and approachable. That was when I was too young to know how naïve I was and what an awful misogynist he was.

[@markbell5250]

Burgess refers to the thin man and the fat jackal. He is referring to Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon.

[@frankandstern8803]

26:20 Anthony checking his watch as camera pans left. The wheels turning " How much more of this dull explaining must we endure?"

[@walkertongdee]

Hey Anthony, the written word is dead, it isn't the conduit through time you said it is, and the visual medium here is ...

[@handyalley2350]

Letterman was interested in words as well. But ironical language.

[@tomfreemanorourke1519]

If there were such a cultural thing as a 'benign narcissist' it is Dick Cavett.

[@jat2654]

3:10 that argument about television isn’t true. Even in that age didn’t they have reruns of tv shows?

[@day1.1]

Now we have KZbin. Digital library. Closest thing to a time machine

[@deirdre108]

I don't remember that these kind of talk shows had reruns in the summer like the prime time dramas and comedies.

[@StephanieJ777]

Her hair is twice the size of her head. She was calling in the 80s I guess. 😂

[@nicmart]

Burgess didn’t realize public libraries would become pathetic.

[@kelman727]

Nicolas Martin Burgess was a Brit. He was assuming a better standard.

[@nicmart]

@@kelman727 The decline of British intellectual life closely parallels that of the US. Burgess's model for A Clockwork Orange was not the US. Do you have evidence he assumed that?

[@Phantomrasberryblowe]

@@nicmart Burgess’ wife was actually raped by a group of American soldiers which he said was the inspiration for A Clockwork Orange.

[@nicmart]

@@Phantomrasberryblowe Burgess didn't say she was raped in a 1974 interview: "My first wife, who is now dead, was attacked during the war in London, in the blackout, by four American soldiers, who were in fact deserters. It wasn’t a sexual attack, it was an attack for robbery..." He also doesn't exactly say it was the inspiration for the book, though he does say it was an element. www.masterbibangers.net/ABC/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=49:anthony-burgess-interviewed-in-italy-in1974-about-a-clockwork-orange&catid=37:by-ab&Itemid=62

[@jaygrannell858]

Burgess looks like someone Alex and his droogs would have beat the shit out of.

[@thehotyounggrandpas8207]

3:05 Funny she should say that, with that crazy hairdo.

[@frankandstern8803]

Burgess is dropping bombs and taking shots under the radar of the American viewer at the time. OK OK I threw in the last 3 words of that sentence to be generous. It would have to be generosity because it certainly isn't sympathy.